Another boy had accompanied his parents into the hospital's well-lit interior. Another Human - not the exotic locals who passed through the doors with the passing of every successive day. This other child was barely the height of Julian's shoulders, but with thick, determined legs that negotiated every clumsy step as though to crush a row of mountains. He had wandered to the centre of the waiting room, away from the adjacent chairs, where his parents looked on in mutual silence.

A single yellow-brown curl draped over the centre of the other boy's forehead. His face was paper white, but both cheeks were red like two bright apples. Wide, pale eyes made contact with Julian's, and continued to watch with quiet curiosity.

Julian's hand held tightly to his father's, fingers barely spanning the width of Richard's larger, rougher palm. But he slowed, hesitated, held back his progress to stare at the pale new arrival until Richard found that he too was following his son's determined gaze.

"It's not so bad," he told the other boy, who stood where he was with fidgeting hands. "You'll get used to it eventually."

"Jules. This way." The orderly's voice was summoning them into a long, straight passage, as though Richard and his son had not traced this same path many times before. Richard guided his son along the corridor, with a gentle tug in the right direction, not glancing again at the younger child's large blue eyes. But he could feel the boy's stare as it followed them all the way, until he and Julian were finally out of sight.

Whatever unspoken query was forming behind his son's quiet frown, Julian glanced back only twice, and the words in his head remained as silent as they had been when they first arose.

A restless sleep. Surrounded on every side by a darkened, lonely chamber - and again by the constantly multicoloured pulse of biomonitors. Lights in his eyes were kept him from sleep, but neither could he fully awaken. Day, or night - there was no sign of either beyond the walls.

And who could say where his fellow escapees had found themselves - now that they were free to follow whatever whim should take them? If anyone had seen them, nobody had told him so. A string of increasingly unlikely theories crept into his imagination, dissolving just as instantly with neither comment nor response.

Breathing heavily, he remained as still as his body would allow, and waited for the steady, unwavering ache to recede. What else could he do, unable to move without feeling nauseated, or even to keep his hold on the passage of time? He was far too tired, too sick, and abused. Far too detached from any sense of himself to care about what might be happening in the world beyond this isolated room.

At one point, a hand rested against his forehead, its cool pressure retreating with no accompanying voice - only the memory of a tricorder melody sounding repeatedly in his ears until that, too, slipped away. Waking only briefly, he discovered that he was alone again, and missed the comfort of another's presence at his side. How much time had passed? He could not say.

He was hollow without the pain of further treatments - without those sensations by which he might define himself. What had he been doing here? He struggled to recall, memories remaining barely half-formed. But then, did it really matter?

He allowed himself to sleep, again.

Bashir's head turned heavily - eyes opening part-way. Fuzzy, indistinct colours sharpened only gradually - but enough to reveal a small brown face barely peeking over the level of the bed. The Adigeon child peered over one edge of the mattress - thin, slender digits splayed like the ridges on a scallop across a portion of its upper surface.

He responded with a small, drowsy smile. "Hello again."

The child tensed as if to flee.

"Wait." Bashir struggled to support himself on his elbows, every breath deep and heavy as his muscles trembled from the effort. "It's all right. Don't go. I just… I was wanting to thank you, for what you did before." He fell back, but kept his eyes on those of his small observer.

"I'm Julian," he offered quietly - before slipping back into deliberate silence.

"Q'etu." The young Adigeon straightened to stand a little taller, but never took his huge, watchful eyes away from Bashir.

"You are strange," he noted. "Like Hilary. But not the same."

"That's true," replied Julian, unsure of what else he ought to say. He had never thought to imagine the formidable doctor of his childhood as simply Hilary. "We're not quite the same."

"Are you an alien too?" the boy inquired.

Bashir stopped to consider his answer. "Yes - I suppose I am."

Watching with subdued curiosity, Q'etu blinked several times before he spoke again. "I wasn't to come past these doors," he said finally. "The others said to stay away. You won't tell them I was here, will you?"

Lucky for me, thought Bashir. He knew of no other children who had never been tempted into places where they were not supposed to go, and good fortune was better to remain unquestioned - lest it shatter and break apart, never to be seen again.

His eyes were closing, only intermittently able to resist the pull of half-sleep, as another wave of nausea slithered up towards his throat. "It's all right." He forced a smile. "I'm glad you're here."

"But I'm not," said an unexpected voice. "Q'etu. I warned you of what would happen if I saw you in here again."

The boy jerked suddenly, frozen in place like a hologram on pause. Two semi-transparent membranes flapped twice over the surface of his eyes, and he let forth a series of rapid, uneven clicks. Bashir remembered this sound as clearly as if he had spent several years on this world instead of the weeks that it had taken him to respond to the genetic fabrications of his childhood. The local nurses had produced something distinctly similar as a reaction to sudden, immediate fright.

The rhythm of approaching footsteps was rapid but not harried - so distinctively female that Julian felt no surprise to see who was striding into his field of vision. The dark eyed child sped away with quick, light steps, soundless as he accelerated into the concealment of the passages beyond.

Doctor Larkin. She was older, smaller than she had once appeared to Julian's more childish eyes. Dark lines marred the skin beneath her eyes. Her face had aged, cheeks pinched and hollow, and the hair he remembered as chestnut brown had turned to grey, now threaded with thin silver lines.

"Lift your hands for me," she instructed without ceremony or greeting, and demonstrated by raising her own to the level of her chest, palms open and directed towards the floor.

Sighing, Bashir obeyed.

The woman had still not faced him directly, and he could not ask the questions that had crowded his mind. She gave no outward sign of whether his response was satisfactory, but nodded to herself. One hand held a scanner from the pocket of her coat. A small frown of concentration had settled on her brow as she looked down at the hidden display.

"BP is up by another twenty three percent," she muttered. "Cellular integrity… holding steady. Pulse is strengthening, and the accumulation of toxins in your blood seems to have slowed, for now at least. Good… Understand me, this is not a cure, and whatever has happened here may still eventually kill you. But it will very likely take years, not days."

Bashir turned his hands as he lowered them, glancing at the lines upon his palms. But that was a little easier, he thought. I suppose. So, what happens now?

The middle aged doctor drew her gaze away from the tiny monitor. "I've managed to stabilise your condition for now. I'd say we're making good progress. It might take another day before you're ready to leave, and there's a very good chance that your problems will return. But given continued vigilance, I'm sure you can find a way to slow the rate of cellular breakdown. Are you well enough to speak?"

"I think so." Bashir's voice came hoarsely, and scratched like thorns against the inside of his throat. But, possibly with painkillers to form an effective barrier against all but the most indistinct discomfort, his body felt more tired than sore.

"Good." The doctor sat beside him and looked hard into his eyes. "Because there are certain things we need to discuss, foremost among them being, what were you doing back at my clinic?"