Rush exhales in a lengthy hiss of breath, leveling pressure onto the back of his neck as he tries not to feel haunted, besieged, as he did in Gabriel's apartment, surrounded by people who, apparently, cared enough to drag him out from ROMAC's confinement for no other reason besides the fact that to leave him there was unthinkable even when he persisted that they do so, a decision that fell and continues to fall beyond the scope of his understanding.

He does not altogether know how one responds to that level of - whatever unquantifiable emotion Asadi has directed at him. Arista has wound herself around his legs again, vibrating faintly with a purr of sympathy, but his head jerks and he looks at the water and he cannot continue to look at the water and he digs his toes into the loose sand and looks at the sun in a motion that is inadvisably direct and rewards him with a bright spike of pain to his temples reminiscent of a photosensitive headache, and he looks back at the water.

One side of his mouth pulls up, uneven and rueful, as he attempts to project a sense of derision he does not feel.

"I wouldn't make unilateral decisions on my account," he says with about forty percent of his usual level of dry unconcern. "How utterly ill-advised."