Bree winced as he spoke, shaking her head as she sat up painfully. She heard the hitch in his voice, the unexpected defensiveness she couldn't possibly have known her words would elicit, but she had no words for it, no defense. 

"Well don't we all?" she said, as much statement as a question. Bree was confused by his reaction, his words, utterly at a loss for words for some seconds as she watched him. Obviously something in her own speech had hit... A nerve? A wide open raw nerve but for the life of her, she couldn't begin to guess what it was. Sell his soul to the devil? Really!? What in all the world would possibly make him think she'd been insinuating any such thing?

Had someone accused him of that before? Seriously? What in the hell had he done, could he do, that would lead anyone to think... Bree rubbed at her sore eyes with her fingertips, as if she could somehow wrest an answer to this painfully strange enigma from her aching eyelids.

"What I wanted to know Ethan, is what the hell you did to make this happen," she said finally, hands falling from her face, wrapping easily about her knees as she brought them to her chest. "It's not... normal. Not maybe one in a billion - hell, maybe not even one other person on the planet - could have done what you just did."

"I'm not your therapist, and I'm not going to rehash your childhood injuries or your adult traumas, and what 'life choices' brought you here to this riverbank today. I've also got zero interest in burning you at the stake either, for whatever the hell that might be worth. I left my pitchfork and torch in my other change of shorts. Sorry."

Bree shrugged, and then she tried a smile. It was a confused smile, an exhausted smile and, quite likely, a relatively battered smile, but it was still there, and still genuine nonetheless. " Please Ethan. You're here. I'm here. You just saved me from the proverbial watery grave, and I'm not out to poke fingers into whatever tender parts you have. I'm tired. I'm confused. I think I swallowed half the damn river and, I'm pretty sure, you swallowed the other half."

"I'm also a genuinely sarcastic bitch, and it's both a gift and a magnificent defense mechanism. I want to know what just happened, and how you did it - and honestly that is all."