He shouldn't let it get to him the way it does - she said, she said he's Agent Washington, and she keeps calling him that with an offhand sort of familiarity that feels right, so he's not Church and she's not Allison, he's not the sort of person that pours every ounce of himself into finding someone at the expense of all else (tell that to the Director) - but it still catches him off guard when the helmet seal hisses and it's not an unfocused memory fuzzy with static that looks back out at him. It's her against-regs haircut, the face that always seemed heart-shaped to him, not as sharp around the edges as South or Carolina.

It catches his breath twice over: the first time when he really, truly sees her again after years, after years, and the second time when he notes her expression: frantic, scared.

It's easy to ride on instinct. Work past it, Agent, snarls one variant. What the fuck am I supposed to do about it? snaps another.

The third moves forward and settles one hand against the plating of her shoulder. The third is already breaking down the situation into its composite parts. The third, right now, feels the most trustworthy because it feels the most sympathetic, and that might not the sort of person he is but it's the sort of person he thinks he would prefer to be, in this moment.

Wash, if he is Wash, can keep his tone steady in a crisis as he says, "all of a sudden, or was it slow?"