He held it.
"Come inside," she said. "Jessica's going to want to look at you. Don't argue with her about it. You won't win."
"I know," he said.
"And Freda's been asking about you."
He looked at her.
"She's been helping," Lyra said. "Every day. With Cael, with the garrison protocol, with whatever needed doing. She doesn't stop." A pause. "She hasn't asked about the working once. Not once. But every morning she comes to the command post and every evening she's still there, and I think she's been waiting for something that she didn't want to ask for out loud."
He understood what that something was.
They went inside.
===============
Jessica checked him over with the focused efficiency of someone who had been holding concern about this specific person for three weeks and two days and was converting that concern into diagnostic action because that was how she processed things.
She didn't find anything concerning. She hadn't expected to. She checked anyway.
