She's got him back on the bed and lies on top of him as she repeats that she loves him, but this is enough to snap him out of her verbal spell, and when he throws her off, she slaps him, spitting, "Why shouldn't I love you? Aren't you Big Brother? Aren't you the Lord my God? Why should I fight your divine plan?" Turns out, however, that Topher also has the ability to throw Claire for a loop: "Because you're better than me!" True though that is, she's shocked to hear it from him, so she stays silent as he gathers himself and then tells her what happened: In the wake of Alpha's, well, awakening, Dr. Saunders was dead and she was out of commission, "at least temporarily" (so maybe the original plan was to fix her scars too), so Adelle charged him with finding a new doctor that was kind, efficient, committed to their cause, and who would look after the Actives. She asks why he didn't stop there, and he replies, "Because I was designing a person, not a Roomba." I see his point, but if Roombas could do all those things I think they'd take over the world. "Rise Of The Roombas" has a certain ring to it, don't you think? He adds that he needed her to disagree with him so she would catch things he might overlook, preventing people from getting hurt, and when she opines that he doesn't care if people get hurt, he snaps that she doesn't know him. She's cowed by this outburst, and the charge drains from the room as he sits and tells her that's in the contract -- she doesn't know him, and he doesn't know her. He stares into space with an almost dreamy despondency: "I made you question. I made you fight for your beliefs. I didn't make you hate me -- you chose to." He's clearly affected by the obvious conclusion that he's eminently worthy of hatred, and she nods as her face breaks and she slides down to the floor, and chokes out, "How do I live? How do I go through my day knowing that everything I think comes from something I can't abide?" I understand you needing to ask the question, honey, but you do realize he may not be the best person to ask for an objective opinion here. But seriously, isn't one of the many revelations here that everything she thinks doesn't come completely from him? That while someone else may have provided the building blocks, as happens to all of us, ultimately it's her decision what she does with them? Not that that shouldn't an earth-shattering epiphany for her, given what she's believed about herself up to this point -- I just want to be sure she's getting her world rocked from the right direction. Topher asks if this means she wasn't going to sleep with him, and she looks like she's going to vomit as she confesses she can't even stand his smell. He pipes up, "I did that!" Heh. She doesn't really seem comforted by that, so he asks her why she didn't find out who she used to be when she had the chance, adding that Adelle might even agree to have her old identity returned to her. Her answer blows his mind in its obvious simplicity, though: She, Claire Saunders, for all her faults and problems and the fact that she's an artificially created entity, does not want to die. "I'm in someone else's body, and I don't want to give it up." She glumly goes on that she's not better than he -- she's just a series of excuses. Of course, so much has happened in this scene that they don't even have time to get into the subject of what happens when the original possessor of her body's contract is up, but it's a question worth asking at some point, yes? For now, though, Topher, with a mix of genuine concern and pride in his own handiwork, marvels, "You're human," and she replies, "Don't flatter yourself." Heh. Let's give it up for Amy Acker, again, some more -- she just brings it every time. And if the A-plot were nearly as interesting as anything that's happened with her character like, ever, we'd have one hell of an episode.