"SHE'S DEAD, ROGUE! Just leave her alone!" Josh shouted, half to her and half to himself. Her words had cut deep into his very soul because she was right. He'd let Lotte die, he was supposed to take care of her and he hadn't. He'd failed so miserably and now Lotte was gone for good. His heart couldn't take it. If a shattered thing could break any more, his did. He had no more heart, it had died with Lotte.
Even though he was in the depths of despair, the part of Josh that was a healer noticed that Rogue was breathing shallowly, her eyes were dilated, her motor functions were shaky and jerky and she had a pallor to her skin that wasn't grief related. Poisoning. Even if Lotte had been wrapped in plastic, if Rogue had one exposed part of her skin, a wrist or something, Lotte's poison could still hurt her if the touch had been a long one.
At that moment Josh didn't hate anyone as much as Rogue (his own self loathing projected onto a convenient target), Josh didn't want to see her dead. Part of him was relieved to use this as a distraction from his own grief but a part of him resented her because of that distraction. Wiping his cheeks and taking a kleenex from the cabinet Rogue was sitting against, Josh blew his nose and pointed to another examination table. "You're sick, go sit," he growled.