Week 18 – the normality of illness…
Sing
It was a soft, quiet hum he woke to, when he finally climbed his way back to consciousness. Everything hurt, and his memories were jumbled, and his half-opened eyes could only make out shapes.
The soft hum cut off… "Shh, Charlie. Don't try to move."
"Diana?" It came out as a dry croak.
"Or speak. Everything is fine now. Will be fine. Go back to sleep."
And then she was singing again, in that soft beautiful voice of hers, and Charlie couldn't help but be lulled back to sleep.
Talk
When he woke up again, he wasn't surprised to see her, or hear her singing again. But… "What happened?" His voice was still rough from disuse, but he didn't feel nearly as bad.
She smiled at him. "The flu."
"You're not… see-through."
Diana rolled her eyes at him tolerantly. "You're in VR with me. The chairman convinced the doctor to do this for me, because I couldn't have stayed by your side in your hospital room day and night. It's been three days."
"Oh."
"And Alex… well, it was me by your side in VR, or him here when he's supposed to be having a sleep cycle. I won."
Yell
He could see that she wanted to yell at him about not taking care of himself, but wisely chose instead to ask about what had led to his ending up unconscious for three days.
"You don't remember?"
"No."
As she explained Gadget finding him asleep and feverish at a console in the tech room at Metro South, Charlie started to remember bits and pieces about it. None of it made any sense, of course… especially not Robo and Diana standing over him with worried expressions. When had that been, exactly? And why had his helmet been off?
Whisper
When Charlie woke again, it was to the Chairman and Diana, standing next to his hospital bed, having a whispered conversation he couldn't quite make out. He watched them, confused as to why she'd be translucent in VR until he realized that the door to his room was closed and this wasn't VR. "I thought you couldn't…"
Diana jumped at the sound of his quiet voice, turned to him, smiling. "Ah. You're awake enough for things that make no sense again. I'm glad."
The Chairman nodded to him. "Glad to see you on the mend, son."
Ignore
His first night back at home was spent ignoring any and all calls, by order of his usually translucent wife, who wanted him all to herself. "But I'm fine, you know."
Her expression as she 'sat' on his bed was one he never wanted to see on anyone else's. "This is for me, tonight. We could have lost you. We nearly did lose you… to the Flu."
Charlie stared at her, at once realizing that she had a point. He didn't often think of how it must be for her, to watch the world go by and not be able to do anything about illness and disease.