"That was and is my intention, Doctor, and my assessment so far, even without putting together a formal draft, is that there's a lot of low-hanging fruit here.  To be clear, I'm talking about things like turning down the lights in his containment chamber at night, outside the acid tank, just to make him more oriented to time."

"You think something like that will rate, with it, next to acid immersion?"

"682, if your containment were the same as it was before I got here, but you could tell how many days had passed, would that be better?"

It rumbles.

Sharply: "SCP-682?"

"Give him a minute."

"In this hypothetical, you are returning again to speak to me in a week?"

"Yes."

Rumble.  "It would be good to know how much longer I had to wait for you."

She smiles up at a camera, trying to keep the smugness out of it.

"...I will want to review the footage of your conversation so far, first, at the very least."

"That makes sense.  He spent the first half of the allotted time just sleeping, so I think you have time to get through everything we've talked about so far.  Would you be comfortable doing that now, while I talk to him about minor changes like that that would make him more comfortable, and afterwards we could discuss what you'd be willing to implement summarily on your own recognizance?  - he understands that just because I suggest something isn't guaranteeing that you'll do it, you'll see we covered that in the footage too."

"I will review the footage, and I will discuss with you the possibility of expediting some minor same-day containment adjustments, but I won't do so over the intercom and I won't do so while SCP-682 is outside of secure and stable containment.  We need to talk this over privately, Researcher Fiftythree.  If making it more comfortable advantages us, then carrying out your primary directive of profiling it will make that clear.  Understand?"

"Yes, Dr. Hijazi."

"All right.  We'll speak soon."

"All right, she's off the line."

She sighs heavily and slumps a little against 682's face.

"I think I would like to say thank you again."

It would probably be a bad idea to say what she is thinking right now, which is one way or another I am getting you out of that acid bath.  She is pretty sure that one of the things HMCL Hijazi is worried about is the possibility that 682 feels he's being promised things, and will become angry and unstable if he doesn't get them, and - she does not actually want to promise 682 things, right now, and certainly doesn't want to have to tell Hijazi that she has.

But she is getting 682 out of that acid bath.  Sooner or fucking later.

"You're welcome," she says instead.  "Even though it - "

" - I'm sorry you won't know if I've managed to make anything better for you before I have to leave and send you back there.  I'm really sorry."

"I have already been given a great deal more than I would have been able to hope for, before they let me out today.  You are coming back, and I will have to wait for much less time."

Pat pat.

"...You called me him."

" - oh, god, I didn't even notice."  That probably didn't help her image with Hijazi.

"...I do not completely understand pronouns."

"...It's weird that you understand English at all actually."