The tears are gone almost as quickly as they came, as Stella forces her self-control to reassert itself. The lapse is a bit embarrassing, but she doesn't apologize or otherwise call attention to it; and she doesn't so much brush away Peggy's hands, but she does take one of them in her own, stopping her from touching but at the same time needing that small point of connection right now. She doesn't often, but quite frankly — quite frankly, she's just been through shit and she's a human being, not an automaton. She's allowed to feel a bit shattered about this, and she's allowed to want someone else's touch once in a while, even if it's just something chaste like this.

"I've been trying to stop men from hurting women for more than fifteen years," she points out, sounding suddenly very tired. Normally, Stella would have all the same determination Peggy has, if not more, but she feels scraped raw right now.

"There's always going to be another person like Paul Spector. It's only—" She stops, just to take a deep breath and let it out. "We made too many mistakes. Things happened that shouldn't have. I ought to have been more careful."

At the same time, how the fuck was she supposed to know Spector meant to kill himself? She's played that over and over in her head, trying to work out what she could have done differently, but — there's nothing.