Dax found Otto standing at the glass again.
He had one hand braced against his hip, the other hanging stiffly at his side, shoulders drawn tight beneath a dark shirt. He looked like a man who had been standing there too long and knew it.
Beyond the reinforced window, Arion lay in the isolated room surrounded by monitors and lines and too much white.
Dax stopped beside Otto without speaking for a moment.
He looked through the glass too.
Arion's face had changed over the last week. Not in any dramatic way. That would almost have been easier to bear. But there was a strained fragility to him now, the aftermath of an induced awakening forced through a body far too young to carry it with grace. Even asleep, he looked exhausted.
Otto's voice, when it came, was low and roughened by lack of rest.
"I have to go back."
Dax turned his head slightly.
