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He was, as promised, led to a tech, who informed him that Miller would be notified, a meaningless statement that Taym pretended to understand.

The first shock was walking outside into the balmy Bermuda sunshine where he'd been expecting, for some reason, rain lashing against buildings; the second was the odd journey from the infirmary to the dormitory building with its strange arches, the grounds dotted with young people in white coats who disproportionately seemed scarred or attractive or both. He had a white coat, too, marked with crescents and meaningless. He felt the tug of scar tissue when he moved his neck, but he had nothing for the rest.

He desperately wanted a cigarette. He desperately wanted other things, but those hints had gone unacknowledged and so he'd settle for a cigarette and ransack his own apartment (?) looking for a stash later.

He followed, docile and meek, up the staircase and down a long narrow hallway and finally he was deposited outside a room, yes, to which he had a key, but it was unlocked, and so--the tech departing with barely an acknowledgement--he let himself in, tentative, fearful, as though he'd just been told to let himself into a stranger's unlocked room and was waiting for the hammer to fall.

And it was normal, of course, for an unexpected touch from her even now to sometimes make him tense, and if the moment was delicate enough even cringe. But the sudden stillness wasn't that tension, and when he suddenly uncoiled against her it wasn't right either.

It was exactly the sort of reaction she might have gotten had she ever, on those drunk spring break beach trips, run up to a stranger and startled him with an abrupt press of arms and mouth: I don't know what's happening but I am OK with it and would like to participate as long as you will let me, please. It lasted right up til the moment she said I love you, when it faltered, and then it broke when she burst into tears and he scrambled away from her.

She was crying and he didn't know who she was and she'd said I love you and he didn't know who she was and she was ridiculously good-looking and he didn't know who she was and he watched her from where he sat warily on his a** safely out of reach for the time being, poised to extract himself again if he had to.

And he felt <******** terrible about it.

"I'm sorry--" he said, not in the deep horrible wracking way he normally said that, but cautious and nervous. "I'm really ******** sorry. I thought I had the wrong room," he added helplessly.

He had never looked younger than he did in that instant, bewildered and scared and unable to do anything but dumbly comply after a beat of hesitation.

He held out his hands obediently, the left still blistering around one finger, the right, with the tattoo which he knew the meaning of even if he couldn't remember getting it, wearing the discolored ring. Both of them were steady.

"Do I have cigarettes?" he asked tentatively.

He got up slowly, and he rooted through the bag slowly, pulling out the things he'd left for himself: books he recognized, a couple that he didn't, cigarettes, lighter. A note taped to the inside of the flap said call Miller, so at least that was done, although what it meant he had no idea. Something about the entire arrangement seemed paranoid, as though he'd had something to be afraid of, but he had no idea what that could be. He was checking every little pocket, running his fingers around the lining searchingly.

He didn't answer her while he lit his cigarette, relaxing around it before starting to prowl around his room in exactly the fashion of a newly-adopted cat feeling out its surroundings, touching things gently: the corner of his desk, the end of a plastic deer's antler.

He came around to the strange cage where the cats were housed, and he gazed at them in bewilderment while they, in true cat fashion, disregarded his existence, shunning him for his nine days' absence until such time as they saw fit to bestow their affection once more. He looked at their bizarre conjoined tail, tentatively touched the edge of the cage as he exhaled a drag, and then moved on.

He was looking for something. He kept looking under stacks of books, feeling around on the bottom of shelves, and he was only partly trying to hide it. Mostly, though, he was just gazing at everything with a stupid sort of wonder, apparently unable to comprehend that all of this was his.

"Are we--um. Who are you?" he asked finally instead of answering, and then, immediately and sincerely and desperately: "I'm sorry. I know that--probably isn't real nice."

He stared at her hand blankly even though it was obvious he knew what was expected of him, and then stared at her just as blankly before barking a little incredulous laugh.

"I... did incredibly well for myself. Apparently." A pause, during which he smoked but still did not take her hand. "They said this was temporary," he assayed. A second, more disconcerted pause, and he turned back to slowly and meticulously and cautiously exploring his room, avoiding the bed like it would eat him and gingerly opening the bathroom door, lifting his voice for her. "My name's not really Halibut is it?"

The sound of drawers opening and closing, and then a long, long pause again that was probably Taym examining himself in bafflement in the mirror and considering the weighty fact that he had such a god-awful name (no wonder he'd only remembered Taym), before he lifted his voice once more, nervous.

"Where does--where does she stay? I don't guess they want her to see me like this," he added, guilty again and relieved and guilty that he felt relieved.

He'd wandered back out while she was talking, this time with an ashtray in hand--Taym smoked in the bathtub, it was the first one he'd found--and he received this information without so much as a flicker of emotion.

"Oh," he said finally, and that was it. He snubbed out the cigarette, put the ashtray down on the corner of his desk, and absently and awkwardly surveyed the room that he did not recognize as his.

In a strange way this was the calmest he'd ever seemed. Divorced from his usual anxieties he seemed much more functional, and whereas maybe a friend of Taym's would expect him to be in full panic mode at this point, he was simply docilely submitting to fate, stupid and puzzled and gentle. "Do you live here?" he asked after another pause, the topic of his daughter set aside as casually as if he'd asked her about the cats, or the books he'd packed himself.

He began carefully going through the drawers of his desk, opening every little container used to obsessively organize it.

"Who's Fiona?" And then, abruptly: "They said I'd hear s**t. Am I crazy?" This, finally, was irritated, in the arrogant way Taym sometimes was when he was condescended to. "I'm not crazy. Don't patronize me."