There was, of course, the urge to do something for him. To draw him a bath instead of just watch him wash his face. To get him a drink, bribe someone to pick up some stupid expensive chocolate bar instead of listen to his soft apologies. To fill the silences with reassurances, with every bit of conviction that things would be okay and they could make it so. To hold him instead of being held. Those things would've been more for her, though, than him. It was enough to simply be there; the thought of him alone with this and her none the wiser took her breath and turned her stomach icy with dread.

But there was this: the novel and rare occasion for Taym to be asleep and her to be the one awake. Always before it'd been drowsing and brief at most, tonight it was something else altogether. It left her feeling protective of the man in the same way she had in a crowded infirmary hallway. The way she had felt a thousand miles too far and weeks too late. When she was standing across from a ragged figure in the desert. When he'd brought her hands up and said please.

So she stayed up, instead, as if her drowsy gaze could hold off further tragedies, at least until morning came and with it, news of his daughter. Lifting his hand to her lips, she kissed the back of his fingers, and wondered if this was why he so often remained awake.