This isn't happening.
Nigel stood behind a plate of glass, staring in at a person who barely resembled his cocky, self satisfied sibling. Trapped, isolated, and protected by the wall of sanitary glass, Preston Bailey had been moved to a quarentine room, and there he was. Limp and white as cold pasta, except for two red patches of high fever in his cheeks.
Nigel tentatively touhed his fingertips to the glass, and gaining courage, rapped very softly. His brother trembled in the bed beyond, his eye lids fluttered, then opened. He gazed around dumbly a moment, unsure of his surroundings. His head turned slowly and his gaze alit on his younger brother.
Preston beamed.
He called out hoarsely, but the glass swallowed the sound, so the attempt to talk was fultile. Futile. Wasn't that one of the words the Doctor had used?
Nigel swallowed hard.
This isn't happening.
Nigel smiled back hard, showing his teeth even. He smiled so strongly that his cheeks began to twitch with the effort. He turned his back on the glass when he felt his face would crack and splinter.
This isn't-
"Nigel?"
Soft and unobtrusive, that low voice still startled him.
"Sid!"
He quickly clamped the heels of his hands over his swimming eyes, pressing away the emotion as swiftly as it had conquered him.
"Sid, how good to see you! The plane ride wasn't dreadfully long, was it?"
She gave a look, both sympathetic and bemused.
"It was fine. How is he?"
Nigel'a hands fluttered over his misbuttoned shirt, smoothing and fussing. His eyes fell floorward, and muttered,
"Not...not well."
He sighed, planted his feet, and forced himself to glance at his colleague's face.
"Not well, at all in fact."
Sidney moved around Nigel to place herself infront of window that peered into Preston's room. The man had taken unconcious once more, one hand thrown over his brow, his breathing obviously broken even from this distance.
"Have they figured anything out, yet?"
Nigel cleared his throat, thankful for the teaching tone that took over in his voice.
"The doctors told me that Preston has a virus, which seems very similar to some existing diseases, but doesn't match anything they commonly know...he...they..."
His tone hitched and Sidney turned, in time to catch the forlorn look Nigel was casting at his brother.
"He's not responding to any treatment they've given him."
Sidney posed the question that was apparent within the Englishman's sad brown eyes.
"How long does he have?"
He gulped around the ache in his throat,
"At the rate this virus is affecting his lungs, the doctors said...two days....maybe three at the most..."
"We'll figure this out, Nige,"
Sidney said in that no nonsense voice she used on students and superintendents. She reached over and gripped his shoulder so tightly it hurt.
Dimly, he realized that hot tears were coursing down his face, coming in steady streams, unsuppressed.
He hung his head and cried.
Preston heard a muffled tapping, the sound of dog paws on tiles, it pushed and punctured his aching head until he opened his eyes.
It felt like the room was filled with smoke, stinging his vunerable sight, clogging hs vision. A cough built in his chest but he ignored it.
Being awake was better, he decided, better than those silly dreams he had in sleep. Those dreams of flames and towers and the coughing spitting language of the nearly dead...
He shivered.
The persistent tapping began again and he rolled his head carefully to find the source of the noise.
He blinked twice and almost jerked upright in his delight.
It was He.
It was the Healing One, arrived at last, cross kingdom and soil and sands and time to breathe health into him. At last! At last! Gathering his strength, Preston called out to him.
"Sire!"
That croak stole the remainder of his energy and Preston slowly faded back into fitful sleep.
