She starts again. "There's a lot riding on this. A lot of people could die. You could die. This—disease, or whatever it is, it could get into you as easily as any of us. Maybe it already has. Do you understand?"

"...understand..."

She hopes that's an answer and not an echo. "It's not just the sickness, either. Everyone's looking for someone to blame. It's only a matter of time before—"

Boom, she remembers. Blew it up. Way too bright.

"Rama," she says slowly. "If things get out of hand, everything blows up. Do you understand? Boom. Just like at the woodpile. Boom, all the time. Unless you help me. Unless you help us. Understand?"

He hangs against her in the darkness like a boneless cadaver.

"Yeah. Well," he buzzes at last. "Why didn't you just say so?"

The struggle has hobbled him. Bhanderi favors his left leg when he swims; he veers to port with each stroke. Clarke hooks her hand under his armpit to share thrust but he startles and flinches from her touch. She settles for swimming at his side, nudging him back on course when necessary.

Three times he breaks away in a crippled lunge for oblivion. Three times she brings him back to heel, flailing and gibbering. The episodes don't last, though. Once subdued, he calms; once calm, he cooperates. For a while.

She comes to understand that it isn't really his fault.

"Hey," she buzzes, ten minutes out from Atlantis.

"Yeah."

"You with me?"

"Yeah. It comes and goes." An indecipherable ticking. "I come and go."

"Do you remember what I said?"

"You drafted me."

"Do you remember what for?"

"Some kind of disease?"

"Some kind."

"And you...you think the corpses did..."

"I don't know."

"...leg hurts..."

"Sorry..."

And his brainstem rises up and snatches him away again. She grapples and holds on until it lets go. Until he fights his way back from wherever he goes at times like this.

"...still here, I see.."

"Still here," Clarke repeats.

"God, Len. Please don't do this."

"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I'm sorry..."

"I'm not worth shit to you," Bhanderi grates. "I can't remember anything..."

"It'll come back." It has to.

"You don't know. You don't know any...thing about us."

"I know a little."

"No."

"I knew someone. Like you. He came back." Which is almost a lie.

"Let me go. Please."

"After. I promise."