[Nothing else needs to. Claude goes from relaxed to full alarm so fast that it's almost physically dizzying. Felix's voice has...never sounded like that before. It should never sound like that.

He moves across the room, even as some of the things that don't fit begin to assert themselves. Felix, fully dressed and on top of the covers while Sylvain is under them. Inda in Felix's arms, looking upset. That bleak, distant look in Felix's eyes.

He feels almost a sense of deja vu. It's different in the details, but the overall feel is so eerily similar to finding Dimitri in Dedue's room only a couple days ago. If Sylvain weren't right there, Claude would be feeling downright terror - terror that Sylvain had left them, that all their hearts might be broken beyond repair, Felix's in particular but certainly not forgetting his own.

But he is here, so what...?]

What's wrong? [He touches Felix's shoulder, even as he looks at Sylvain. Instinctively, he feels that if Felix sounds this upset, it must be because something's wrong with Sylvain. He's not sure anything else could cut Felix as deep.]

[Oh.

Oh.

Claude's eyes remain fixed on Sylvain, even as he - in what he knows is a futile gesture - reaches past Felix to shake him a little. The logical part of his mind tells him how stupid this is; Felix wouldn't be this upset if he hadn't tried to get Sylvain to wake up plenty already. And it's not like Felix is particularly gentle; if Sylvain could be roused, Felix would've made it happen.

But the logical part of his mind isn't running things right now. It can't make itself heard over the frightened, aching part of him that's suddenly never wanted to see those beautiful amber eyes of Sylvain's quite so badly. The part of him whispering please wake up, the desperate animal instinct that maybe it's not actually true after all, maybe Felix is just somehow wrong about something he couldn't possibly be wrong about.

The loneliness when Sylvain doesn't respond, doesn't even so much hitch in his breathing, is like a spike to the gut. He hadn't really been able to believe it - or simply resisted believing it - until he'd verified it for himself, but the pain of confirmation is enough to make him wish he'd clung to the uncertainty.

It's like Jane, his logical mind whispers, now trying to do damage control. That's all it is, it's just like Jane, it's only temporary. He's still here. He'll wake up. It'll be fine.

Nothing feels fine.

But...Felix. Felix must be hurting even more than him. He needs to hold it together, needs to find something to say that'll help him through this. And he doesn't know what better comfort there is than what his own mind is trying to soothe itself with, cold as it is.]

This is...like with Jane, right? So...he'll wake up again soon enough. He's just sleeping in for a few days. That's all.

[His voice doesn't sound like his own at all. And whatever he might be saying, the way his hand moves from the shoulder he'd been shaking to gently cup Sylvain's cheek doesn't seem to belong to the same person who said those cavalier words, either.]

[Claude...pulls his hand back from Sylvain's face.]

I wasn't. [His voice is quiet.]

But Jane...went through a lot when she went back home, it sounded like. And as far as what Sylvain might be going through...we know a lot of it already, don't we? He was the furthest back of all of us. If he's going to wake up from a point further along in time, like Jane did...then he'll be having his reunion with all of you at Garreg Mach. He'll be fighting in the battles you've already fought in, which will go the way you already know they'll go. Maybe he'll get as far as the Battle at Gronder, or at Derdriu. But...practically all of the things he could be going through, you already know what they are, and how things will turn out. That part shouldn't be like Jane.

We've talked to a lot of people who've seen this before, and we've never heard of anyone sleeping that long, Felix. Dirk would have mentioned that, at least, if he was worried Jane might be out that long. And he was the one who said he was so familiar with it, so if he wasn't worried it'd be permanent, or even that long, then that's got to be the standard. He said something about it being around a week, didn't he?

[Claude's keeping his voice carefully even, despite the fact that Felix's words are clawing at him. Nothing Felix is saying isn't something Claude is worrying about.]

He's not dying, Felix. With or without you. He's just sleeping.

[Claude's almost had to completely sever his own emotional reactions from the part of himself that's running his actions and his mouth by now. He remembers this feeling. He'd felt this at the battle of Derdriu, when he'd looked across a battlefield at old friends and realized he was going to have to fight them - maybe kill them. When he'd had to give the order to advance...he'd had to shut his heart up somewhere, to the point he could keep moving without it holding him back.

It hadn't been the only time, of course. The spying and surreptitious skirmishes over five years of civil war, which he'd mostly kept the Alliance out of through careful tactical maneuvers and only the subtlest of military actions - there had been horror, and losses. No dear friends, perhaps, but people he'd still known, cared about, people he'd felt responsible for and had ultimately failed.

Almyran warriors, he knows, can have friends and lovers cut down right beside them, and still laugh and celebrate in their memory later that night - in a way, Claude's always found it impressive. To be able to not fear such losses, and to celebrate the lives their loved ones had rather than grieve their deaths. He'd always theorized it came with a lifetime of familiarity with taking such losses.

Maybe that's why he can't find the trick to it. He's never really taken any heavy losses before. (And he still hasn't, he tells himself. Sylvain's not gone. Not yet.) His heart feels like it's crippling him even at the possibility of the fears he has, the ones Felix is losing himself in.

But...Claude can't lose himself. Not like Felix can. He's got people relying on him, not the least of whom is Felix himself.

His heart will have to wait.]

[Claude is silent as Felix's words wash over him. He doesn't move, doesn't react, until Felix is finished.]

...all right. I'm sorry I couldn't help.

[The words are strangely distant to his ears.]

I'll let the others know what's going on, so you can stay here.

[And then he turns and walks out of the room, without looking back.]