“Tea, thanks,” Stephen says, and that choice alone marks some of the different tenor to this meeting. It’s not the usual swinging by each others’ spaces for a drink and a gossip (and how odd, to realise somehow that had become a semi-tradition of simply enjoying each others’ company, where the work is an afterthought for once in his life).

But this is official enough, and while it’s not the Head Healer being summoned to the principal’s office for a dressing down —

Still, he’s his own worst critic, and the failures have stung. So he drifts into Cosima’s office, spares a moment to cast a nosy glance at her stacks of paper, but then draws up a seat, rearranging his expression into something more businesslike rather than sardonic, joking.

It isn’t a huge marked difference in his demeanour, but she’ll have noticed: he’s more frayed this spring, more harried by each effort that didn’t go exactly as hoped.