The question was loaded; she could see that. Chase had been doing all he could to gently draw her from her shell since they'd met. A year ago, it might have sent her into a daydream or a fit of inappropriate giggles, her mind's broken way of trying to protect her. That day, though, she felt safer than she had for a long time.

"Sometimes," she allowed, glancing back up to Chase. "The old songs, some of them…" She drifted a moment, her expression going pinched as she marshaled herself. "It isn't that it bothers me being reminded of home, it's that so many of the songs from home are sad."

They weren't simply emotional, but rather upsetting in a way Annie couldn't quite quantify, the remnants of a very real pain.

"There are some songs on here that remind me of home, and some that are sad, but it's not the same," she clarified. "Sometimes I don't mind it when those songs make me cry. It feels like…" She sighed, casting for words. "I don't know. Like letting go of something, but in a good way."