Whumptober Prompt 21: I Don't Feel So Well
Infection

Susan. Susan, wake up. You need to drink.

Waking up would hurt. It meant opening her eyes, with the too-bright world and the sun on the water worse than the claws of a Werewolf.

Susan, please.

But the voice. The voice, and the strong fingers under her neck, lifting her head, she knew them. They belonged to her King.

So she opened her eyes, and the light stabbed in.

But Peter was there, and his smile was enough. Though he had a weary face, hovering right over hers. It was dark under the eyes like bruises, with worry showing in the wrinkles, but he smiled, and she didn't think he'd done that in a while. Not since he'd found the cave.

Her mouth was open, fighting to breathe, and he carefully lifted the wooden bowl he'd carved, flooding her mouth with water.

She choked, and he set it down hastily, pulling her up. Her head bobbed in a funny way, water dribbling out of her mouth, but she could breathe.

Everything hurt.

Her leg, her head, her lungs, screaming their pain to her mind. She should let go.

Try a little more, Susan. Just a little this time.

She opened her mouth and obeyed.

Susan. Susan, wake up. You need to drink.

Ugh, she hated waking. Grey skies, small bedroom, and a sibling everlastingly hovering over her. She'd just stay asleep.

Susan, please.

But she knew this voice, this memory. A cave by the sea, where they'd washed ashore clinging to a bit of the boat that went down in the storm. Her leg had been run through, and during the night fever set in.

He'd had to go for help, in the end. He'd hated leaving her there. He'd run all the way, flown back, and barely made it in time; his tears on her hair and face had woken her. He had cried still more when she opened her eyes that second time.

For the memory of that brotherly love—though she'd denied it existed—she opened her eyes again.

Not to see a King, hovering above her. But she saw him, she had to. Everything she'd wanted to escape, the infuriating honor and patience and wisdom, that unbearable sternness and devastating tenderness-

Speechless before that, she opened her mouth, letting him prop her up on the pillows and hold a glass to her lips.

He remembered the cave, though she said she did not, and gave her little enough she did not choke. She drank, and let her head fall back with a sigh.

"Mum says you're not to be on your feet till the cut on your hand is fully healed," she heard Peter say quietly. She didn't bother opening her eyes, knowing he'd be looking at her bandaged hand. Some boys who'd had too much to drink at the last party had shoved her against the food table on their way for more drinks. None of her family had been happy.

And then the infection had set in, and the fever blurred the lines between reality and...memories. She hated this.

"You need to rest," Peter said, and a cool cloth touched her forehead. She did open her eyes at that, staring tiredly at him.

"I can stay in my bed without you here, Peter. You don't need to stay," but her voice was weary rather than tart.

"I'll stay till Mum gets home." He let the cloth go and picked the cup up again. "You should drink more, Su, you're still burning up."

Su made a face. "My stomach's queasy."

"You need to drink." He held the cup close to her face, and she turned it away. "Please, Su," he added quietly. She looked back at him. Not a King, not anymore, but...her older brother. Peter. Still worth obeying.

She opened her mouth.

Susan was burning up, inside and out. She was sick, sick in her stomach, sick with a headache, and sick in her heart. She'd spent all night crying, she remembered. Crying…

Crying for Peter. For Edmund. For Lucy. For Mum and Dad.

There was no one to call her name now.

Susan. Susan, wake up. Come and join us.

Susan opened her eyes. The blue sky was glorious, the sun as golden as memory, and there, hovering over her, was Peter, face close to hers, and his smile-

Oh, the King of Narnia.

He took her hand and lifted her to her feet.

"Welcome home, Queen of Narnia."