At first when Strange stayed by his bedside, it was pure monitoring: making sure the man didn’t seize again, didn’t choke on his own tongue, didn’t lapse into something worse. Without the steady beep of monitors and alarms to summon him as needed, it’s all horrifyingly manual. He hovers and frets until the breathing settles, until it seems like Barrow isn’t actually going to die.

Through the woods, he thinks, and it should be a relief, but the failure tastes bitter on his tongue.

He dozed, eventually, in a chair drawn up into that cramped little side-room, arms crossed and head tilted back against the wall. It’s a shallow, fitful sleep, and so he eventually stirs at some noise from the templar’s bed. Cracks open his own eyes. Everything in his body aches from sleeping upright, but he’s in no position to complain, comparatively.