I was the man with the knife.

He's used to unlimited water; almost used to unlimited food. He can handle the amount of space Milliways has to offer. Curtis can even deal with open sky and big windows for a few hours before the back of his neck starts to itch, and can stretch it another two hours before he has to make a break for someplace with a ceiling.

But if he's going to be spending a lot of time outside as they build their cabin, he's got to add a few extra hours to that total.

So he's starting small: just sitting on one of the deep windowsills that frame the windows in their room, shoulder touching the glass, looking out over the expanse of the grounds as he keeps his breath steady and even.

A decade isn't enough time for illnesses to evolve from their pre-freeze state. So many of them start the same way they always have: with a chill. A lot of times, people don't even know they're sick. What's feeling a little colder than usual, needing to curl up a little tighter under your allotted blanket?

So Curtis doesn't know, for a good forty-eight hours, until the shivering doesn't quit even after Gilliam loans him two more blankets. As soon as Tanya feels his forehead, he's whisked away to the very back of the Tail, stumbling a little as the train heaves along the tracks. Everything's tilted just a little too far off-kilter, and weaves just a little too sharply whenever they go over a bump. He's grateful when he finally has a chance to sit down.

...Actually, maybe he'll lie down for a bit. Yeah. Just a couple minutes.

The materials started coming in from the Front last week, a few days after the protein blocks: boards, risers, gym mats, army blankets, rolls of fabric that might have been curtains or carpeting. They've been putting together bunks, stacks of them, under the direction of the armed guards.

By unspoken common consensus, the very end of the last car gets curtained off for Gilliam and the others recovering from their voluntary amputation, and the first makeshift pallets are carried back to them.

The work shift is over for the day, and protein blocks are being distributed. Under a guard's watchful eye, one person -- a different one each day -- is tapped to bring food to those who can't walk out to get it for themselves.

Today it's Curtis.

The cloth pulled tight around his right arm used to be a bandana. The wound beneath it split open again last night; he hasn't been able to stop picking at it. Before, a cut like this might've meant stitches. Now it just means pain biting his arm as he cradles the protein blocks to his chest.

Curtis doesn't look up. Nobody looks at him. They part like the Red Sea when he moves, like the train cleaving through the ice. Even in this small space, they find room to get out of the way.

They still wonder if he's got a knife.

He stops in front of the curtains, exchanging an uneasy glance with the guard.

In all his dreams, he still has two arms.

His left one isn't the metal arm Dejah gave him; it's the flesh-and-blood arm he had for thirty-five years, as healthy as ever, smooth and unscarred. Sometimes it feels too heavy, or falls limp at his side when his subconscious remembers it shouldn't exist anymore. Now, though, Curtis carries an unopened pack of Marlboro Lights in his perfectly working fingers, turning it over between both hands as he settles into a chair on the Milliways grounds.

The night has that glittering, icy clarity of the deepest part of winter, but Curtis doesn't feel cold. Above him, one star gleams a little brighter, a little redder than the others. He keeps his eyes on it as he thumbs open the cigarette pack.

In the distance, he can hear the jingling of metal against leather and the soft, steady footfall of a horse. A rider appears from the west, strolling up the hill to where the picnic tables are. It's a man in a long leather duster. He has a shaggy head of hair and an untrimmed beard. Both horse and man are covered in a fine layer of dust.

The man dismounts and walks the last few feet, looking around like he's a little lost. It's clear he's got a gun belt on under his coat. Finally, his gaze settles on Curtis and a soft look of recognition lights his eyes.

( ''Mind if I join you?'' )

Time passes. Asleep, half-dazed by the Voice of Barsoom, Curtis has even less sense of how long he stays in Dejah's bed.

(In his dreams, everything's warm and bright, even the smallest spaces of the train; nothing aches, and voices ring all around him.)

When he finally wakes up, utter disorientation smacks into him headlong -- where am I? what the fuck am I sleeping on? -- before he feels the warm body next to him and, like a compass swinging north, reorients around the soft sound of Dejah's breath. Sleep took care of the last side effects: he feels completely steady, awake, his calm returning as he looks over at Dejah.

On the short list of Things Curtis Didn't Expect, "talking helped as much as fighting to ditch his bad mood" ranks right near the top.

...okay, yeah, so did the kissing. And the promise of more, even if that "more" isn't happening tonight. And just -- being around Dejah, watching her smile, listening to the warmth of her voice. It's like she thaws the coldest parts of him; melts the ice with a touch; sets the water moving again. She barely has to do anything except be, and all of a sudden he's feeling better than he has all day.

How the hell did this happen so fast?

He's still dressed for the gym -- undershirt, wrapped hand, and all -- as he makes his way out to the stables. If Edgar's not there, maybe he'll try to re-introduce himself to Nitwit before going back to room 1001. That baby thoat's probably had a pretty weird day.

They've been here...he isn't sure how long. A couple days, maybe. Someone took him to the infirmary to bandage his arm and clean up the cuts littering his face and hand; unthinking, the doctor tried to shoo Joanna away, and -- taboo be damned -- they were so furious that she almost sunk her teeth into his arm.

(Joanna wasn't supposed to be here at all after the explosion ripped them apart. Like hell is anyone going to separate them, even if only by a measure of two feet.)

She would've gone for his daemon, but barely anybody here seems to have a daemon. A low-level horror built up around them like radio static when they realized what they were seeing. But all the daemon-less people act like nothing's wrong. It's not intercision -- their daemons don't exist at all, like they're hidden so deep inside them that they'll never be born. To most of Milliways, Curtis and Joanna are the bizarre ones.

It's almost enough for him to stop noticing how relaxed everyone is. How nice the bar is. How it's like someone picked up the entire Front and dropped it into a single room, with everything anyone could ever want, no questions asked, no payment necessary.

Almost.

For now, they're sticking to a couch by the fireplace, Joanna curled tight in Curtis' lap as they watch the bar in silence.

Curtis has started to develop a workout routine. Since his gym visits shifted from "occasional" to "nearly every day," he's taken to quiet observation whenever he's on one of the treadmills, watching the gym's other occupants to see what they're doing, cataloging all the exercises that don't involve two working arms. Some trigger a flash of oh, right, I remember that. Others...not really.

But, one at a time, he works them into his own circuit. Squats. Crunches. Jumps. More time at the heavy bag (his hand always wrapped properly nowadays). All of it's getting easier. He even figures out how to start working his way toward one-armed push-ups: just put his hands higher than his feet, like on a wall or a bench or something.

That's what he's focusing on today -- wall push-ups. It's the last thing on his agenda before he heads out, and damn, it's a strain to make it through the last few reps.