Up to the Task

Sybil was frantically pacing around the house, gathering her clothes from various different rooms. "Sybil, calm down," Tom said, trying to soothe his girlfriend. Sybil had spent the morning in pyjamas, wrapped in a blanket and sitting in front of the fire, trying not to throw up. She couldn't pinpoint what was wrong, but she'd tried to fight back dizziness, headaches and tears throughout the course of the day. She was now rushing around trying to gather the various garments that made up her uniform so that she could go into work for her afternoon shift. "Sybil, you cannot go into work! You're not well!"
"I'm fine!" Sybil said, uncharacteristically quietly in a way that showcased that, in fact, she was not fine.
"No you're not, Syb. You shouldn't be working today. It won't do you any good," Tom said softly, trying to stay close to her as she rushed around the house. He didn't want to force her into staying at home, but he really didn't want to let her go into work in the state she was in.
"I can't miss work. They need me there, Tom," she croaked through her illness. "I've already told you, there aren't enough nurses as it is. They need every pair of hands they can get."
"And unfortunately they won't get yours today, Sybil," Tom insisted, knowing that Sybil would take a lot of persuading. He'd known his girlfriend long enough to know that she was stubborn as stubborn could be. As Sybil crossed the room once again, Tom stood in her way and put his hands softly on her waist to make her stop in her tracks. She paused and looked up at him, a strange element of apprehension and worry in her pebble-blue eyes. "Please," he whispered tenderly. "You're too ill. And working will only make you worse. I don't want you to be any more unwell than you need to be."
"But, Tom, I," Sybil started, but was interrupted by the very man to whom she spoke. He brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek, successfully silencing her.
"Come here," he said gently, his Irish accent thick and low. He guided her over to the bed in their room and they sat down next to each other, causing the bed to dip dramatically on one side. Tom positioned Sybil's body so that she was lying down, her head in his lap. He looked down at her and stroked her thick dark curls away from her face. "You need to calm down. You're not thinking rationally about this, love. You're not well; you've spent the entire morning fighting off being sick. If you go into work now you'll get too stressed. You'll just start to feel worse, you won't work properly and they'll just send you home anyway. Ring in sick. Or I'll ring in sick for you, but I'm not letting you go to work until you can stand up for more than ten minutes without feeling nauseated and as if you're about to faint." Sybil stared up at Tom with sleepy, glazed over eyes as she took in his Irish-twinged words. His accent didn't fit the language it was speaking, and yet Sybil could easily have spent a lifetime listening to him. He could be talking gibberish and she would still love to listen to him. When he spoke in Irish, she understood very little of what he said, but that didn't stop his words from being soothing and captivating. He could be talking about traffic lights for all Sybil cared – his voice was just something she couldn't compare to anything else she'd ever heard in her life. Once she focused on what he said, rather than the accent in which he said it, she processed the information.
"It'll look bad, Tom," she whispered, her voice refusing to come out any louder. Tom was convinced that if she was sitting upright, she'd have tears staining her cheeks right about now.
"No it won't," he murmured, matching the softness in which she was speaking. "Shh, shh," he hushed gently, wanting Sybil to stay as relaxed as possible. She needed sleep and probably a hot cup of tea, perhaps with extra added honey. "What will look bad is if you go in and infect all your patients with whatever disease it is that you're harbouring at the moment," he said, making Sybil smile softly. "Promise me you won't go back to work until you're better," Tom said.
"I promise," Sybil said with a small smile and a slight nod of the head.

Tom began to call her sweet names in both English and Irish, some of which he'd called her before and some of which he hadn't. He recited poems and lullabies in Irish in a hushed voice, lulling Sybil into a sleep. When he was sure that she was in a deep sleep, he gently moved off the bed and lifted Sybil to position her more centrally on the bed, her head propped up with pillows and her slender body covered by the duvet. He placed a gentle and heart-felt kiss on her forehead before tiptoeing out of the room as quietly as possible and turning the light out as he walked past the switch. He looked back to her and admired the way in which she slept so peacefully, maintaining all of her wondrous beauty in sleep as well as in consciousness.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Hurt/comfort isn't my forte, so I was playing this safe, but I'm relatively pleased with the result. Please review if you can.