"Morning!"

"Hi," Dan smiled up at Tabitha at the break of dawn that day.

It was still early and he hadn't had much sleep that night, but surprisingly, Dan wasn't that tired.

"How did you sleep?" Tabitha asked, nicely, making conversation as she switched the tea machine on.

"Fine," Dan replied, stretching and giving a small yawn before rubbing his eyes and watching the dust float through the air. The sunlight was shining through the window just right so that every single particle was visible, which put a smile on Dan's face.

He looked up to the sofa where he'd managed to slip away from Phil without waking him.

Dan gazed, fondly, at his friend, who was fast asleep and probably quite cold without a blanket, and remembered their conversations at 1AM.

He decided to get up off the floor where he'd wrapped himself in sheets and cushions that he'd taken out of the blanket fort, and instead went over to talk to Tabitha.

"Did you both wake up at midnight?" Tabitha asked.

"You heard that?" Dan swallowed with a quiet laugh.

"I certainly did," Tabitha nodded, "I fell back asleep after a few minutes, but I did hear talking. I don't mean to be nosy, but were you both alright?"

"Ah, everything's fine," Dan assured her, "I was just making sure Phil was OK. He had a bit of a fever but he should get better today."

Tabitha looked a bit concerned and Dan knew he probably shouldn't have spoken, even if he did sugarcoat it a tremendous amount.

"What do you think caused that, then?" Tabitha asked, pouring two cups of tea.

"Probably the heat… maybe stress… perhaps not eating enough… But probably mostly the heat," Dan shrugged.

"Are you going to stay at home today to look after him, then?"

"He might be fine, I don't know. It's only a fever."

"I know… but I think he deserves some affection after he made the effort to come all the way to Granite Falls out of concern for me, don't you?" Tabitha smiled, thoughtfully, and Dan agreed.

"Though I do know Dab said he wanted to spend today with you," Mrs Howlter continued, "He seems to like you a lot. I can always make sure Phil's comfortable."

"You don't have to do that," Dan stuttered, taken-aback by Tabitha's enthusiastic willingness to express her thanks for yesterday.

"What if I want to?"

"Well, I suppose… As I say, though; he might be fine…"

Phil wasn't fine.

That is unless 'fine' was some sort of abbreviation for 'walking a fine line between perception and unconsciousness' because he was definitely that.

Only, being Phil, it wasn't his plan for the day to be trouble for anyone, and diffidently denied any sort of help or care, which was frankly quite daft because it made his condition much worse.

The only person he accepted any sort of affection from was Dan, but Dab insisted on Dan sitting and drawing with him, so Phil spent the morning fading in and out of reality on the sofa, too warm and too self-conscious to ask for anything, though Tabitha routinely filled up a water glass on the table because it was the only thing Phil would let her do.

At least he wasn't dehydrated.

And whilst he was being miserable, Dan was having a perfectly fine time socialising with Dab – something that Phil had never really done since February – sitting on his bedroom carpet with sheets of paper scattered around them, and countless different colours of crayons and pens, too, strewn about.

Dan took pleasure in staring at the kid's drawings and appreciating how much he'd improved since last time. People actually had noses now, which was always good.

Dab seemed very interested in boats and planes and had drawn a good many of them.

In fact, he was currently in the middle of drawing the paddle steamer that sometimes sailed down the river flowing through Willow Creek.

They'd seen it on their way to Chez Llama on Friday, in fact, and they'd stopped for a while to look at it. Dab had appeared completely captivated by it, whereas Dan just really wanted to carry on walking because the faster they got to the restaurant, the faster they could eat. Phil, too, had seemed to agree with him.

Ever since he'd started acting a bit off, Dan found himself over-analysing every action over the course of the week to try and find the source of the problem. It wasn't a good habit, but the drawing and talking to Dab was doing a good job of taking his mind off it.

"I wanted to go to the park today," Dab hummed as he sketched away, steadily, "Do you think you could come, too?"

Dan lifted his line of sight to look to him and chewed his lip in thought. He would have said yes, but at that very moment, he heard a wheeze of 'I'm fine, I don't need anything, honest,' (this statement was most likely false) from the other room and decided that it was probably best if he stayed home to make sure his friend didn't disregard his own well-being too much.

Saying that, what he was already doing was probably too much.

"I think you'd better just go with your dad," Dan replied, "But I could come tomorrow," he added with a smile.

Dab grinned back,

"OK!" He agreed, "I can't wait!"

He really liked Dan and it felt that he'd do almost anything to spend as much time as possible with him.

In fact, the kid didn't seem all that bothered that Phil was laid up having odd mirages and being delusional, as long as he got to hang out with Dan.

Hardly surprising.

Even if he wasn't missing Phil, Dan certainly was.

Even though… he was in the next room… but that wasn't the point.

Dan put his chin on his left palm for a while to think. Drawing like this on its own wasn't quite entertaining enough. Or at least, he felt that he had to do something to make a contribution to make it more fun, and he'd eyed a sharpie on the bedside table, too.

Which, naturally, could only mean one thing.

Cat whiskers.