"How'd you stay hidden all this time being such a reckless idiot?"
Noel groans, pressing the ice pack down more firmly over his eyes. "I got it, already."
"Do you?" Dr. Summers shows her displeasure by snapping the blood pressure cuff around Noel's arm just a little too sharply. "Because it doesn't seem that way."
"He would have died, doctor," Noel entreats. "Him and Beckett."
Dr. Summers huffs. "They're big boys. They would have been fine until Halo sent someone—"
"And then what?" Noel peeks out from under the ice pack, squinting against his pounding headache. The harsh fluorescents of Dr. Summers's lab don't help, but he doesn't have much choice. He can't go to the medical bay like the people injured at the outpost but he's too ill to make it back home on his own, so a cot in the corner of the doctor's lab will have to do. "Jade still melts down because none of Halo's guides can purify him? Or because someone tries to and he rejects it?"
