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A quick assessment of the situation--Titan falling, Shiloh retrieving precious R&D material, Nevada bailing with a quickness for which Taym had nothing but sympathy unless it was perhaps envy--left Taym standing on the beach, Peyton in his arms, the adrenaline fading.

Before he'd come to the island it was entirely likely he wouldn't have been able to lift Peyton at all, but things were different here, and he felt the strain of his arms and his back and he was embarrassed by them, but didn't falter. If Nevada--and the memory stung--could carry him, he could carry a girl as small as Peyton.

So he did: setting back out towards the cluster of buildings that were his home, now, uncertain of whether to go for the infirmary or the dorms and glad that he would not have to immediately make the decision. He shifted her slight weight in his arms and disregarded Fiona's uneasy prowling around his head. He wanted a shower--he'd broken a sweat on the Titan, a sweat he hadn't even noticed until the surreal chaos had subsided and had taken the frustration and the adrenaline-fueled rage with it. Another time maybe he'd have grinned at Nevada and wordlessly shaken hands even with Shiloh--he remembered surfacing from his first dive after runestones, shaken and terrified, and lying in the sand laughing with relief--but things had gone pear-shaped in the last few seconds and here he was, cataloging and discarding a complicated, contradictory suite of emotions.

Emotions largely lacking, if he was being honest, in real worry. Day-to-day life on Deus had made him more aware of the sort of abuse they could withstand. Peyton would be fine, and he knew this. What worry he had was primarily over what would happen when she came to, and where he ought to take her.

There was a pause before he answered, and his voice, as usual, was devoid of any inflection that might suggest what he was thinking. There was typically a direct correlation between how flat his voice was and how much he was struggling with some sort of complicated emotional turmoil, and now was no different.

"We got the piece," he assured her. "Or rather, Shiloh did." Another pause.

"Do you need to go get patched up," he asked, "or am I taking you back to your room? Or mine," he said, and before she could get the wrong idea he added: "if you wanted company. I have perimeter in an hour so I can't stick around forever, but I can stick around for a while to make sure you're OK."

No can you walk or oh, you're awake. Just the question, and a touch on her elbow and another shift of her weight that mutely asked her to put her arms around his neck to take some of the strain off his own, which had never, he thought, felt more useless. "I can stick around for a while" sounded like what it was: a self-effacing request to let him be useful, or at least to feel useful.

He let the silence take over, as he often did, until they reached the dorm building and he clumsily managed to fumble his way into the doors, but he was stymied here, in the hallways.

"Can you walk?" he asked, and he wasn't sure why but he almost said it in a whisper, because speaking out loud felt inexplicably wrong. Or not too inexplicably: he was acutely aware of the fact that this, sadly, this, was as much female contact as he'd had in going on half a year, and that what had come before that was stomach-wrenching and not exactly a thing to remember with fondness. He was trying not to think about it, and failing. "Unless you left your door unlocked."

He let her, and awkwardly shifted her again (which brought her hair closer to his face; which made him look away and feel inexplicably guilty and long to undo their past several interactions, to make things easy and uncomplicated again) to take the key from her fingers and open the door, and wondered absently exactly how newlywed men were supposed to accomplish this when the woman was wearing fifteen extra pounds of trailing fabric. No further attempts to make her stand on her own feet were made; she'd answered and she hadn't been sure.

"Sorry for the manhandling," he said drily, falling back, as he always did, on self-deprecation. It stayed quiet, though. "Can't say as I'm in the habit of carrying people bodily out of danger."

There was another awkward hesitation, a pause during which Taym felt certain that it was some heavy strike against his man-license that he wasn't sure what to do with his arms, and a heavier strike that those arms were far more tired than they should have been. And a pause during which he realized that despite his fervent wish that he could roll back time and his own stupid mistakes, he wished almost as much that he didn't have to put her down. Even with all his failings it was easier and more satisfying to feel in some frail way like a guardian; better to cradle her against his skeletal chest and feel in some way protective than to go back to being the awkward, ill-fitting person he was. He allowed himself a second of willful delusion.

Gently, as competently as he could manage, her helped her onto her bed, and he pushed her hair behind her ear without thinking before he withdrew into her desk chair like he was afraid she'd lash out at him for not doing it sooner. He shoved his hands into his pockets and carefully didn't look at her.

"You sure you're all right?" He tried to make it come out at the normal volume. It refused.

"Don't give me too much credit," he said roughly, eyes roaming the wall. Taym always sat in a chair like he was readying himself to bolt out of it, and was no different now: hunched forward, hands in pockets, feet crossed at the ankle and one leg already starting a distracted, anxious bounce. "Nevada was ready to run back in, I'm sure. Shiloh too."

He paused, and then reached into his coat pocket for a toothpick. He was increasingly reliant on them recently, as the supply of cigarettes once again dwindled. "I hear they give you nicotine patches for the... remains. Over in R&D." He grinned at her, sudden as ever. "Maybe I ought to quit."

The grin broadened. "So if the whole Hunter thing didn't work out, were you considering a career as a tobacco lobbyist? Just wondering why you're sparing me the 'disgusting habit' lecture. It would," he added drily, "spare me the trouble of scrubbing down the walls every other day."

Scrubbing down the walls every other day. And yet Taym said he didn't have enough to do.

The grin turned secretive again, eyes drifting away and down. That half-sly, half-embarrassed expression of his that he deployed so often, apparently without realizing it.

"You know why I started smoking?" he asked, after a pause. He said it like he was setting up a joke, or a funny confession, but with Taym it was hard to say.

He laughed a short little laugh, and twisted the hem of his coat sleeves (they'd come to him an inch or two too long, and he hadn't bothered to have them taken up) in his fingers.

"No," he corrected her. "I didn't think they'd make me look cool. They did make me look cool. That works when you're a long-haired thirteen year old with a pool. Not so much any more," he said, "but it's... good to have something to do with your hands." Which was more than he'd meant to say, but ******** it.

And maybe, privately, he still thought they made him look cool. He didn't like to examine that thought too closely.