Gaeta huffs out a near-soundless -- and nearly humorless -- laugh, leaning his head against the wall once more. "Wish how I'd lost mine was glamorous enough to turn into a story."

More often, of course, he wishes that he'd never lost it at all. But.

He takes a small breath. "After you go through an amputation, sometimes it feels like the limb's still there." A far more faint and rueful smile twitches his lips. "And most of the time it hurts like a motherfrakker. It's all psychological, though, it's -- just in your head; so when it happens, there isn't any medicine you can take to make the pain stop."

A sidelong glance to Azimar.

"So I'd sing, to get my mind off of it. It made the phantom pains hurt less."