Esmond couldn't answer.
He turned his neck, slow and stiff, to find the source of the voice, and met the eyes looking down at him. Dark blue, deep, going down and down with no bottom to catch on, and for a moment he forgot the room and the straps and his own fear and very nearly fell into them.
Then his mouth moved. He was trying to speak. It took several attempts, his throat dragging on nothing, before anything came, and when it did it came out as the ruin of a voice, cracked and scraping.
"Water. Water, please."
Trafalgar glanced at Caelum, and Caelum was already moving, bringing a cup to the man's lips. Esmond drank like his life hung on it, throat working, water running down his chin, and didn't stop until it was drawn away.
It was no strange thing to do. A man wakes with no idea where he is, or what became of him, or how he came to be strapped to a bed with two people standing over him, and a single mouthful of water becomes the one certain thing in the world.
