After medical and examinations and Abby practically smothering him to death in hugs – he hasn't seen her emerald in a year, and he's practically bathing in it, God he's missed people – he meets one Philip Burton.

The first thought that really springs to mind is, wow, that's bright.

Philip Burton is poppy red, brighter than scarlet but not quite so dark as cherry, either. It's a very interesting colour, one that he hasn't seen in a very long time, and he's almost not certain just what the hell it is, but one thing is certain. There is something...wrong...with Philip Burton's colours.

He sees it almost instantly – a year without colour, right now he's seeing everything in high-definition. Along the edges of Burton's bright, vivid poppy, the colours sort of...flicker. They jitter and spark and shiver like reality isn't quite solid in those few millimetres of space. Swirls of cool violet and icy blue and bold gold lace their way through the poppy colour, all the colours of a man with power and confidence and self-assuredness, the kind of man that isn't shaken easily and is quite used to getting his way. His colours flare around him like the cloak of a lord or a prince. It's quite a magnificent sight, and Connor's briefly stunned by it, so enthralled that he doesn't notice how tendrils of inquisitive teal inch over his own indigo, searching, testing.

But then something else catches his eye.

Abby's colours, her beautiful, vibrant emerald, shivers and turns six sorts of bristling when the poppy comes near, her edges going jagged and sharp and so ferociously scarlet that its almost painful to look at. She loathes Philip Burton with everything she's got. Lester's violet twists itself into hard, defencive knots, edged with bitter yellow wariness and spiny ochre mistrust. Even Becker of the steel nerves and unshakeable nature doesn't like him, his colours drawing in close to him like a turtle drawing into its shell.

Something about Philip Burton puts them off something fierce. Connor can see it written out in colours a metre high that nobody else can see. And he makes a split decision. Burton practically owns the ARC now. Nobody else trusts him. Burton doesn't trust them, either. There's something wrong with his colours, something unstable. Connor pushes away his own unease and shakes his hand enthusiastically. All that poppy brightens, curls of self-satisfied plum blossoming. He's going to be the inside man, their mole in enemy camp, so to speak.

Connor hasn't forgotten that the poppy flower is a symbol for death.