He loves her for good, honest slime. He loves her for twining their fingers. He especially loves her for wanting to put it on a slide, much as the concept blindsides him: John blinks at her, off-kilter, abruptly chagrined. He hasn't had a lab since Canaan. He hasn't touched a microscope in millennia.

John loops an arm around her, lets her settle the warm curve of her spine against him.

"I have a study full of magic bones," he offers, in his tone of kidding-but-not.