Pretty unedited again. But I'm having too much fun with longwinded!Evey and general OOC-ness to care. :) This should be longer, but I just want to put it up first.

Thanks foryour feedback. :)

Friday, 8: 40 pm.

Dear John,

You know how they say people aren't themselves when they're sick? You-- I remember blearily, as if through ripples-- became withdrawn, shutting out the world with curled fists. The boy in the next ward grew violent—well, they called it violent, anyway; I always thought his desperate clawing was no different from the rest of us, only he was honest enough to express it.

V isn't himself either. In fact, he is a completely different person. Not just more touchy or a twist of whimsy. Different.

Oh, I know how that sounds. It isn't drugs, because he still refuses to take the anything, that exasperating man. It may be delirium. It may be—who knows? Probably I'm being melodramatic again. The dominant tone of his personality is still strong enough for it not to be schizophrenic, of course—he doesn't appear to be that mad yet…

Incredibly, the worse does seem to be over. He has the luck of the devil, honestly. His temperature has gone down enough that it doesn't seem foolhardy to let him have a few thin blankets; watching him shiver makes me rub my arms without thinking, the phantom prickling of goosebumps till I touch his skin and find him burning up again. But today it seems to have stabilized at last, though hardly at a comforting level.

He became coherent in the late afternoon of yesterday. I'd just finished a quick shower, hair still dark around my nape from damp. He was partially sitting up when I came in, an incredible feat by itself.

'Evey,' he greeted me. 'I do apologize for all this trouble.'

Full sentences! The relief was dizzying: I knelt beside the bed, grinning like an idiot. 'Welcome back,' I said. I checked his temperature automatically, back of my hand against his neck. 'Are you feeling better?'

He made a non-committal sound. I noticed one of his shoulders was trembling, almost unnoticeable; his whole posture was slumped against the bed backing, exhaustion in body language. I wondered how much effort it took for him to speak, and something inexplicable caught in my throat.

I offered him a mug of water, straw attached. 'Can I give you the pills with this now?' My voice took on a honeyed tone, persuasion to an unruly child. I showed him the packet of blue capsules, an incentive of convenience. Carrot to donkey, excuse the imagery. 'I'll turn around when you take them...'

V exhaled a shaky laugh. 'Water suffices. Thank you.' I bit back my protests and helped him hold the mug while he drank. I refilled it and he finished the second mug almost without pausing for breath, a traveler's thirst in the desert.

There was a small sigh of satisfaction. 'Thanks,' he said again, almost drawling on the consonants. He seemed half-asleep already, head dipping.

'Why won't you take the medicine?' I thrust the recording sheet at him-- a crumpled sheet with hasty scribbles, really; I'd been preoccupied-- in an attempt to keep him awake. I'd been waiting for him to become conscious for a day, and wasn't about to lose him so fast. 'Look, your fever nearly went away after you took it, and the spasms died off. The instructions say you can take it once every six hours, so if you just took it--'

'I'm not taking it, Evey,' he gently interrupted my ranting. Sleep blurred the edges of his precise enunciation, stole the usual rich depth from his voice. He sounded like a tired man waving his nagging wife away; ordinary. 'Please understand.'

My frustration tightened in a heavy weight on my chest. His temperature had gone up almost exponentially after the medicine's effects wore off, and was teetering precariously between my glaring unprofessional scribble of 'Very warm' and 'Burning!'. No doubt it was some twisted form of masochism or maybe just dumb pride. No, more likely some perverse private experiment on himself too insane to be explainable. It infuriated me. If the fever doesn't finish him off, I just might.

I let it go and tackled another problem. 'How about thermometers? Are you absolutely sure there's none here at all? Even in the storerooms?'

'Not any rooms you'll be going into,' he said, suddenly lucid. It made his words clipped in the wrong way, like an accent being born.

I took a breath. 'I need those thermometers, V. It's the very least you can let me do. Just tell me where it is and I'll go straight to it, I swear. Good grief, just help me--'

I broke off. He was making a strange sound, a cross between a groan and cry, one hand rising halfway to his mask before falling back again. His right shoulder started trembling- no, shaking visibly now, muscle spasms at odds with the stillness of his body, like a separate animal wrenching away. I stopped speaking, stopped breathing, terror lunging straight for bared heart. Like the boy in the other ward-- oh god, John, that boy almost...

I attacked him, unseeing, blood pounding in my ears. Fell on him like I'd seen them do, forcing down his arm to his side: fingerprint bruises, fingernail marking if not for the thick cloth. Minor violence as a preventive to greater one. I don't think I'd appreciated how strong he truly is; even using the black fabric as handholds still made it an effort. A cocktail of fear and memory making me rough, all clumsy elbows and scrambling limbs, rambling a panic-reel of calm down calmdowncalmdown more for my benefit than his.

Then it was over in a matter of a few frantic heartbeats, leaving me foolishly straddled across him, gripping his arm for dear life. I seemed to be more worked up than him, my breathing coming harsh and fast in the static half-light, condensing against his skin. V looked at his arm, then at me. Then he looked down at himself.

'I seem to be undressed.' He sounded faintly puzzled.

I held on stupidly and we both stared down at his chest, which remained brazenly unclothed and exposed for the world to gawk at. I thanked god for small mercies that I'd only unbuttoned his shirt instead of trying to strip the whole thing off.

'You were hot,' I mumbled intelligently, then coloured when I realized its treacherous double-meaning. Curses on this mongrel language.

'I mean,' I squawked on, 'You were heating up. With fever.' The heat radiating from under his arm confirmed that I wasn't hallucinating and, yes, he really was sick. I dropped his arm like a hot potato and succeeded in making myself look more of a fool. We stared at each other.

'The thermometer,' I remembered, grasping at straws.

'Nope,' he slurred without hesitation. 'Not happening.'

'Oh.' Somehow I didn't have the energy- or courage- to argue with him while sitting on his chest. Looking down at the man that rocked our government was a disorientating feeling, like cradling a timed bomb. A very eloquent and charming bomb, but no less deadly.

He hummed a sleepy sound, like a cat rumbling its contentment. I took it as my cue to get off.

'Feel like I'm forgetting something,' he remarked drowsily as I awkwardly slipped off, palms steadying on his chest. The vowels curled around each other, lending him the echo of his usual inflection.

'Like your little life-and-death situation?' I muttered, not expecting him to hear. 'Or me attacking you?'

He shifted further down on the bed, a slight grunt at the effort. 'Oh yeah. Thanks for that.' And so slurred I almost didn't catch it—''s warmer than the blankets.'

-

Now have you realized? Like the story of the frog in boiling water, I didn't either, not yet. Stared at him, felt his temperature tentatively, recorded it under 'Really quite warm'. Then I pottered around listening to his even breathing and feeling restlessly useless. My hands felt empty, impatient for something to do.

Now I realize it wasn't just the usual boredom before the lethargy sets in. Irritation disguised as impatience, unease parading as restlessness. In the back of my mind, something was ringing bells in a silent film: the motion was in black-and-white but I was still waiting for the surround sound to kick in. Like your average Londoner, I glossed over the inconsequential details that make up the underlying transparency of truth. You could say I missed the leaves for the forest.

So I ate and read, recorded and cooled him when necessary. I waited with half a breath drawn in, not quite knowing what I was waiting for. I waited.

- Evey