They've always been excellent at compartmentalisation. Shutting down the parts of themselves that weren't convenient for the mission, for the job, for the Monocle's needs: waking up and walking back into the meat grinder and washing off the blood and doing it all again, over and over.

This is just another kind of battle.

The sight of Allison's tears and their strange soundlessness are a knife between Luther's ribs, and he unconsciously tightens his grip on her. Not self-conscious about his own vulnerability and bared arms for once, because that isn't what matters right now. It isn't about him. It's about her, and the comfort she needs. Number Three, who so rarely ever asked for comfort.

His mouth brushes the top of her head; almost a familial kiss grazing her hair, but it's a line and he's not crossing it.

So instead, they just sit there, and she curls into his side and he curls his arm around her, until Allison can feel the rise-and-fall of Luther's breath like a steady metronome, and the record plays and plays until it winds down, until she scrapes herself back together and wipes the tears from her face, reassembling herself just enough for the distance it takes to walk back to her room.