Usually, when Annie can speak again after she's slipped like that, it means she's back, that whatever it is that twists away in her mind has righted itself and she can reach out from within her mind. When she crawls over and butts up against him, he reaches out to caress the side of her head for a moment. Her hair's oily and tangled, far longer than it had been the day before -- or the apparent day before -- but that doesn't matter. Annie's what matters.

He tilts his head a little when she speaks. She sits up, and he moves to sit with his arm pressed against hers.

"Star and the peahens haven't grown any more. The others still look the same. If we've been out of here this long," he adds, gesturing to his beard, then Annie's hair, "they'd look different."

He lifts one hand to his other wrist and starts to fiddle with the watch, trying to pull it away from his wrist, but just like when he tried to smash it earlier, he can't make it move.

There's more he want to say to her, but he has to pause. There are things that can't be said out loud in an arena, and he doesn't know what rules, if any, might have changed.

He holds his hand up, silent, and tips his head to the side.

And what about this? says the unasked question.