Not pain — not primarily. The specific, mixed, high-volume output of a body that had been working with a different reference and had just received a substantially revised reference point and was processing the revision at full volume through every available channel.
Her back came off the ground.
The arch — the full, absolute, involuntary arc of a woman whose body had just received something it had not been expecting at the depth it had not been expecting and was expressing the receiving comprehensively.
"—Wait—" she said. "—Wait, it's too—I need—it's too big—"
He pressed further.
Three inches.
'—AAAHNN~!!! HAANN~!!!—'
Her hands flew to his chest.
The flat, pushing position.
The Chief's instinct, arriving at the same time as everything else, the specific, authentic push of someone who had received information about the current size differential and had a genuine structural concern.
He was not moving.
He let her push.
He was not going anywhere.
She pushed.
