For all Strange’s sheer eagerness and enthusiasm to discuss these topics and to dive headfirst into them, there’s a palpable resistance when she reaches for his hand — the doctor almost reflexively jerks backward to prevent it from happening — but it’s a heartbeat, a stutter, before he consciously loosens his stiff posture and holds out his hand and lets her examine it.

The scars aren’t part of the anchor.

“It does, but slowly,” he says. Clipped, professional, as if he’s giving a lecture on a distant topic rather than discussing the thing in his own hand. “We know it grows internally. I take the occasional exterior measurement, but mine’s not much visibly grown on the outside; millimeters, for now. I’ve had mine about two years.”