Watching Gideon gather up an armful of food after ruffling his hair, Paul thinks of reversals and exchanges. He keeps thinking of them as he nods, mutely obedient, and follows her up the stairs when beckoned, a luminous shadow in her wake.

"No one on Caladan eats snacks in bed either," Paul offers, quietly, toeing off his boots by her bedroom door before he sits on the bed next to her. Before he can tell himself not to, he leans against her side, ever so briefly, and takes in the room around them. It reminds him of the way the young soldiers back home would decorate their barracks, all disciplined exuberance.

It's not the grim captive cell he pictured when he understood what was keeping her here, the devotional chain named Harrowhark that wraps around Gideon's heart, tethered in turn to a pair of endless black eyes. He draws his knees up to his chest and comes to bend over them, shifting slightly away to give her back her space, as if he's not already and still imposing on her generosity.

"I could go back for a shirt, if you really want one," he says, in an answer to her joke that comes late and soft, but there is an attempt, in those sibilant voices, to be joking too. "I think I saw a - gift shop? - by the mouth of the abyss. Just before the field of eyes. Hard to miss."