Without her medicine, Venus doesn't dream. Sleep is a blank grey blur, an overcast sky, wet paper stretching through her mind for hours until she wakes. And in many ways, that's a relief, because when she wakes up her world is a ball of twine inside her head, tangled and spiky and awkward.

She wakes up with a bit of a squint, some subconscious attempt to escape the sweat on her brow from her fever. She wipes it away with the towel she's been using to cover her face from the lights like some parrot in a cage, and looks over at Kankri's back as he keeps vigil. She finds a fresh towel under her head.

She reaches up and her cheeks are wet.

There's no time like the present. "Hey," she says to Kankri, and the apology is in her voice if not her words. It's a tentative, shy sound.