It was impossible to do much with the jackhammer of his heart in his throat. He had to calm down. The only question was, how? Solomon remembered being utterly delirious, everything being hazy. If not for the bear he wouldn't have remembered seeing that man at all.

But he did.

He remembered the shine. The overlay. The energy. The way he'd been terrified and fascinated in equal turns. Somehow the memory of that fascination made the terror worse. What would happen if one could reach out and touch that, the source of all, the Creator of all?

He wanted to know. That was the problem. He wanted to know, and it terrified him.

Calm. The man--the Man--wasn't here anymore. At least as far as Solomon knew. Just a teddy-bear. It was just a teddy-bear. And Skulduggery was speaking to him. Solomon forced his brain to unscramble, to backtrack. Alarms meant people coming meant Skulduggery and Valkyrie had to leave now. Very well.

And come back with a new suit. The sound Solomon made wasn't a laugh, wasn't a snort, but it was something approaching humour. "Some sanity would be nice," he said both breathlessly and weakly, "but I realise that may be in short demand at the moment."

He took another breath, and this one was calmer than before, even though the monitor was still pealing wildly. "Go." Something occurred and Solomon opened his eyes again, looking up at Skulduggery with a trace of a smirk and amusement glittering in his dark eyes. "Sitting by my bedside all night. If I didn't know any better, Skulduggery, I'd think you were getting sentimental."

Beneath the glitter, vaguely drugged though it was, was an odd sort of warmth. Something Solomon hadn't felt in a long time, tried to cover with humour, couldn't quite manage to. It was strange, given they were about to leave him, but for the first time in a very long time Solomon didn't feel alone.