Hello all! This will be a two part story and hopefully I will be able to get the second half out by next Sunday, but school starts agin this week (Grrrr) so I will probably be kind of low on time. Thanks to all who read, reviewed, and favourited Gone, if you haven't read it, go check it out! Enjoy!
Kai was waking up, his thoughts slowly coalescing from the random strange ways of dreams to bright clear memories. Engine grease. Cargo pants. And a special pair of deep brown eyes. He tightened his grip on the woman lying next to him and pulled her close. Bringing her back from the places she had visited in sleep. Bringing her from her nightmares of the battle with the old Queen Levana. Bringing her home.
He opened his eyes just in time to see her smile at him, love clear in her gaze, before she leaned further in and pressed her lips to his.
"Good morning." He mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Cinder looked like she was about to respong before her face filled with something like panic and she scrambled out of bed, making a mad dash to the bathroom.
Suddenly the sound of retching replaced the peaceful silence as Kain tried to figure out what was going on, his mind still sluggish from sleep.
"Cinder, you okay?" He questioned her as he hurriedly threw back the covers , rushing to join her in the bathroom. The look she gave him made it obvious that he was asking stupid questions and should probably be doing something else. She glared at him for a moment before her face turned a delicate shade of green and she turned back to the toilet, continuing to empty the contents of her stomach.
Kai's sleepy brain kicked into overdrive and he kneeled next to her as he kneeled next to her and held back her hair for the next round of dry heaving.
After a time period that was only around fifteen minutes, but felt like hours to both of them, Cinder slumped against Kai, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat and her body trembling. He pressed gentle kisses to the top of her head and held her closer.
"What happened?" He wasn't sure he wanted to really know the answer, fearing the worst, but he couldn't stop himself from asking anyway. Cinder's response was even more troubling than he expected. She just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
"Do you want anything to eat, or maybe drink?" Kai was growing more nervous by the second. In the two years they had been married he had never seen Cinder so sick.
"Maybe some tea?" Cinder's voice was timid and weak, portraying little about her true emotions. Kai acknowledged her request before pulling her into a standing position and leading her back to their bed. He tried to get her to lie down but she was adamant about staying upright. Lying down, she explained to a slightly miffed Kai, only made her nauseous, and soon he stopped pushing the matter.
The only time Kai left her side was to call Iko and ask her to bring up some tea. He usually would have used one of the numerous servants, but knew that Cinder would be much more comfortable with a friend. Their conversation was cut short, however, because even standing outside the master bedroom he could hear Cinder's quick return to the bathroom, and her vomiting into the toilet once more. By the time Kai made it back to her, though, Cinder had grabbed her toothbrush and was washing the sick out of her mouth, replacing the sharp acrid smell of barf with the minty fresh taste of her toothpaste.
Upon noticing Kai's panicked reflection in the mirror Cinder came to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, burying her face in his shoulder and pressing her cool metal hand to the small of his back. Her other hand reached up to curl around his neck and pull his face down so that she could press a delicate minty kiss to his cheek.
"I'm okay, Kai. I probably just ate some spoiled food." She reassured him. He nodded against her hair, although he was still nervous. His mind was filled with the images of his parents. Normal then sick, sick then dying, dying then dead. The stages of any epidemic. Vomiting was not a symptom of letumosis, he reminded himself, although his brain had no problem coming up with a list of diseases that it was a symptom of.
"Either way, I'm taking you to the doctor." He knew that it was probably irrational, but everything inside of him was screaming at him to be cautious, and he wasn't about to disagree.
"No way Kai. You have that big meeting today, I have a call with Winter. We both have better things to be doing than spending our day sitting in a doctors office waiting to have them tell us that I drank spoiled milk." He started to protest, but she quickly interrupted him.
"You're the emperor of an entire country, you have more important things to do than take your sick wife to the doctor."
He rolled his eyes.
"You're the empress of an entire country. Nothing is more important than you.
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes.
Suddenly a knock on the bedroom door made the both jump. On her way to greet whoever was calling on them Cinder pulled a very old, frayed, gray hoodie on top of her pajamas. It made Kai smile. The person at the door turned out to be Iko, who had come back carrying the tea Cinder had requested. Kai left them to their conversation and went to go get changed. From his closet he could hear Cinder;s reassuring tone, no doubt trying to calm down Iko.
A minute later Kai heard the door shut and went to go join Cinder on the bed where she was curled into a ball, slowly sipping her tea. Before she could school her features he caught her expression of unease and nervousness, when she saw him, however, she brought her face back into a facade of calm, although she couldn't completely hide the panic festering in her synthetic eyes.
"I'm glad to see that you're dressed. You have to be leaving... as do I, actually." She added as she checked her portscreen. He glared at her for a second, realizing that she was going to be stubborn about getting checked out by a doctor. He also, begrudgingly, realized that she was right.
"Fine. I'll just take you to tonight." A smile crossed his face at his simple and foolproof solution. There was no way she could protest that.
"Really, I'm fine Kai. I don't need to go to the doctor." There was no way he was going to give in that easily.
"What's the harm in checking? If it's nothing then we know for sure that we don't need to worry, if it's is something then you can receive medical attention." She acknowledged the the truth in his words with a small shake of her head and an eye roll, before setting her mug on the bedside table and heading to the closet to change.
Reviews let me know that you liked the story and motivate me to write faster. I love this fandom and would LOVE any possible requests you might have! Thanks for reading!
readingsloth