Daily Writing Prompt: Write about what it feels like to have a fever, but don't use the words: chills, sweat, burn, or hot.
Tom shivers, feeling the icy grips of the illness creep over his shoulders. This is more than just a bug, he is told it's a flu of some kind. He'll recover, but right now he feels like hell. He closes his eyes, trying to stop the convulsing of his limbs and the shuddering. His head feels like his brain is pounding to escape through his forehead.
He is lying on the sofa, staring into empty space. He is floating, high above the scene of his still body. He is back in the Extractor, terrified beyond proportion as his magic is sucked from his body.
And when he opens his eyes again she is there, smiling down at him.
"Lexi," Tom rasps hoarsely. "It's you."
"Shh," soothes the human girl, her voice soft and caring. Lexi has never spoken like that to him, not even on the Neverside. All those years ago.
But she's lost. She's lost on Earth somewhere, because of him. How can she be here?
Her face blurs as she comes to sit next to him. Tom can feel the slight pressure on his arm as Lexi rests a slim hand on his arm. It feels soft and almost featherlike. A moment later Tom feels liquid on his lips. Lexi is holding a cup of water next to his mouth, and Tom weakly sips at it, his tongue like lead in his dry mouth. He no longer cares what Lexi might think of him.
"Lexi..." he murmurs again. She smiles, slowly and sadly. And when she speaks again, her voice is her own, but different somehow. Faint, fading away.
"Tom! You did it!" The voice is shouting, and the voice is full of emotion. Rare emotion, Tom remembers thinking. From when he cast that spell to keep that monster out on the Neverside on the very first day. Not a monster, Varg. Same difference really. Tom jerks out of the memory and focuses blearily on her face. It has been almost six months. Lucy - no Lexi smiles at him, those eyes tender and sad. Still so sad.
"Did you just smile?" Tom hears his own voice now, but he had said nothing. Then Lexi's voice, abrupt as she always was. When they were captured. "No." Her laughter, filling the room. "I'll never understand you," Tom had told her, and it was the truth. He still didn't. She was lost, was she really here now?
"But I'm your enemy!" he hears Lexi' s voice protest. He can no longer focus on her face. It is blurring, much as he attempts to see it. No you're not, he thinks, desperately reaching out to her. But his hand passes through her wrist like a rock through a shadow. You never have been. We called each other that, but we're not.
Lexi' s voice saying lots of things now. Mixed together, scared, angry, happy. In love. Tom shakes his head. He can only hear one voice now.
"She's out there. Somewhere." Tom hears his voice, sounding wistful and sad. And when he looks back at the girl who is next to him, she's gone. He's alone. Like he always has been. Since she left.
Was she just a hallucination? A memory, brought to life by his feverish state? Or was it truly her spirit, come to greet him and give him hope? Tom smiled, despite his fever. Lexi was still here, helping him even when she was far far away. And no fever could change that.
A/N: This is kind of short and really sad but it's just something I felt should happen. I'm writing something a bit happier next, and a little bit more humorous!