More than politeness steadies his gaze on his feet, his hands too clumsy to be left to their own efforts on the laces. He hears her pull free of the scrubs and pad toward the water, hears her body slip into it, then very little over the bubble of the spring itself.

Her own rejection of privacy or propriety gives him permission to do the same, to strip to his briefs and slip into the water--but his fingers slip down his boots, only opening his laces on their own weight. He's hitting a wall, a limit of how long his body will remain conscious, with or without his deciding he should sleep. He'd rather not drown in his underwear with a near stranger.

He doesn't speak yet, conserving the energy for getting his boots off. Sitting is just the dull tip of a crouch to his ass connecting with the mossy earth; his whole body aches, trying to pull the boots from his feet, but the reward of fresh air and new grass underneath is worth it. Painstakingly, he rolls the hems of his greying pants up to the knee, and hardly stands up straight to hobble to the edge. Just his legs, plunged into warm water. Just some of that ache eased away, with the rest of him safely on dry land.

"I think if I get in right now, I'll fall asleep," he admits, an apology for not following her further from the hole's edge, now that they've crested it.