Author's note: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to do this chapter, but life is messy at the moment. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and please leave a review!
The words on the page before him danced in and out of his vision, mocking him. He read the same paragraph over and over again without retaining any of its meaning. Slamming the book shut in frustration, he started pacing, running his fingers through his hair and avoiding the bottle in the corner. He needed a clear head, for her sake. He was always a better surgeon than a diagnostician, and he never felt the discrepancy more keenly than in this moment. He found himself face-to-face with a small, framed photograph of his father that had been moved to a shelf on the back bookcase some time ago. It was strange to think that he was older now than his father was when the photo was taken. Stranger still, to recognize just how similar certain features like the brow and jaw line were between father and son. What would you do? he thought, send her to the hospital and move on? His conscience immediately balked the thought. The elder Dr. Blake and Jean were, by all accounts, good friends born by mutual respect and Jean had genuinely mourned his father's passing. Lucien had to concede that for all his faults, Dr. Thomas Blake would always do his absolute best for his patients. What do I do? Running his palm through his beard, he seized the telephone.
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Mattie was hardly surprised when she heard Lucien's footfalls on the stairs a mere two hours after she chased him away. She honestly would've been more surprised if he had actually gone away and got some food and rest like she'd asked. And although he still looked exhausted and hollow, she was relieved to see he at least had changed his clothes.
"Any change?" he asked softly, in a tone of voice that told her right away that he didn't expect an answer in the affirmative.
"No, if anything, her temperature is higher than before," she replied.
Jean stirred, and muttered something unintelligible.
"Should we take her to the hospital?" she asked.
"No, Phelps doesn't think there's anything they can do for her there that we're not already doing."
"Well, that's reassuring," she said with a brightness she did not feel.
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"Christopher, please don't go," she pleaded.
Lucien's heart shattered over and over again as Jean's delirium continued mercilessly. For hours, he and Mattie and even Charlie had taken turns simply talking to her, or reading to her, in the hopes that another voice would help. For a time, her restlessness and anxiety had subsided a bit while he read the entirety of yesterday's newspaper or from the slim volume of poetry he found on her bedside table. But as daylight faded once again, there were no words to stop the onslaught of Jean's subconscious. All of her fears and insecurities were laid bare, and the raw emotion cut him to the quick. He had dealt with his fair share of other's misery in Selarang, but in this little bedroom where up until a few days ago he had been in only a handful of times in his life, his eyes pricked with tears as she relived her most painful memories. She alternated between joy and sadness; her sons and her late husband, and someone named Catherine, of whom he had never heard. She cried and pleaded and argued, and at one point had hummed a sweet lullaby that was unfamiliar to him. Through it all, he sat, wiping her brow, and holding her hand, and hoping against hope that the fever would break soon.
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"Lucien?"
He had nodded off, chin on his chest, their hands still entwined. He started, and was instantly awake.
"I'm right here, Jean," he whispered.
She looked at him carefully, her eyelids heavy.
"You look terrible," she said, weakly.
He couldn't hold back a grin.
"You don't look so good yourself, you know,"
She gave him a weak smile, then closed her eyes again.
"I feel awful."
"I know, love." The endearment escaped his lips before he put conscious thought behind it, and once it was out, he found he didn't want to take it back. For her part, she seemed not to have heard it, as she didn't react one way or the other.
"Rest now, Jean. I'm not going anywhere."
"Good," she said, with a little sigh, and she was asleep once more.
