Disclaimer, you know.
The rest of the day and most of the night went on relatively quiet until about two in the morning. Alex had woken up to find Dorothy tossing about in her sleep and moaning. Alex placed a hand on her forehead and found she was completely soaked with sweat. He looked over to the door to find it open. Toto and pockets, he had observed, were both sitting next to the bed worriedly looking up at Dorothy.
"Ah, good, you're awake, can you pick her up, we need to get her into a cold bath again." Mr. Foreman said.
Alex nodded and carefully picked Dorothy up. Immediately he noticed that she had been crying as tears had stained her cheeks slightly. She seemed to be in the middle of a nightmare as she was still trying to stir. As he arrived at the bathroom and slowly placed her into the water she snapped awake and sat up gasping. She looked at Alex and Jon and then wrapped her arms around Alex.
"No need to ask if you were in a nightmare?" Alex asked.
Dorothy shook her head and let go of Alex as she laid back in the water. Jon chuckled and took a handful of water which he pour over Dorothy's head. Immediately Dorothy let out a shocked yelp. Alex chuckled and received a rather hard and wet punch to the arm.
"Okay, okay I won't laugh." Alex said.
"Alex?" Dorothy moaned out.
"Yes?" Alex replied.
"Stay here with me." She said closing her eyes.
"Well, I'll leave you two alone, and get back to my chair." Mr. Foreman said getting up and leaving.
Alex sighed and placed a hand on Dorothy's forehead. She was still quite warm, even though she was in a bath of freezing cold water. Alex sighed and took one of Dorothy's hands in his own. She squeezed his hand tightly and let out a soft moan before turning to look at him.
"I definitely feel worse than last time Alex, and the nightmare didn't really help anything." She groaned.
"You want to talk about it?" Alex asked curiously.
"Not really." Dorothy replied.
Alex smiled and sighed. They both stayed there in silence for several minutes, the silence was broken by lily walking into the bathroom.
"So, it's just a little bit passed two in the morning and you two are awake." Lily said kneeling down next to Alex.
"And so are you." Alex said.
"I felt that something was wrong." Lily said.
"Well nothing is wrong." Dorothy moaned out.
"You're in the bathtub with a fever, I think something is wrong." Rose said walking.
"She'll be fine." Alex said looking at them
"I know that, but still she does need to get a lot of rest we don't know how long he's going to wait for." Rose said.
"I doubt he even knows the current situation." Alex said.
"Well according to Glinda, the jester can see you guys in a crystal ball as long as you are here, so if he did know that would mean he has spies everywhere." Rose said.
"Or he somehow found a way passed the spell." Alex replied
"Or that." rose replied.
Alex said nothing in response he simply sighed and turned back to Dorothy. He didn't like seeing her sick like this, mostly because he felt that when she was in a position where she couldn't do anything that it stressed her out even more than normal. And he wouldn't be wrong in assuming that either because Dorothy was indeed feeling a considerable amount of stress.
Meanwhile elsewhere in Oz.
"Sis, you really should try to get some sleep, worrying about Dorothy will just make you stressed, and what will we do if you get sick like she is?" Ellie asked her sister who was currently pacing around the tent.
"It's not just her that I'm worried about Ellie, I'm also worried about Alex, as well as rose and her kids." Glinda said.
"Sis, they'll be fine, Jon and Cassandra will take care of her." Ellie replied.
Glinda looked at her sister and sighed. She then walked over to the desk she had set up for herself and sat down.
"Ellie, there's a storm coming, and this will be bigger than anything we've dealt with in the past." Glinda said
Ellie looked at Glinda worriedly before leaving the tent to get back to her post. If something worried Glinda, then she knew it was something she needed to worry about as well.
Later at the castle.
After Dorothy had been removed from the bath and brought back to the bedroom. Mr. Foreman helped her change into a fresh nightgown before having Alex help her back into bed. Alex then took his seat next to the bed and went back to what he seemed to do best, keeping an eye on her. After a while he began to wonder why the scepter wasn't taking any of its usual actions to make her better, but because it didn't do that last time she was bedridden he didn't worry about it as much. As the sun eventually began to rise he found that Toto and pockets were no longer standing guard, but had fallen asleep like Dorothy had. Eventually rose came back to the room followed by Cassandra who hobbled over to Dorothy and placed a hand on her forehead.
"Her fever has gone down." She said before turning to Alex.
"That's good, hopefully soon she'll have her strength back before the jester can do anything incredibly bad." Alex said as Mr. Foreman walked into the room.
"Well I'd Dorothy three days at the most before her fever breaks completely, and even then she'll need to take it easy for a few days so that she doesn't end up causing her body more harm." Mr. Foreman said.
"And what if he doesn't something incredibly dangerous in that time?" Dorothy asked in a tired tone
"Well we'll just have to deal with it then." Rose said.
Dorothy let out a sighed and motioned for Alex to help her up. Alex looked at the others, they shook their heads in disagreement. Alex however helped Dorothy up anyway. The actions of this caused Toto to bark rather loudly and angrily at Dorothy.
"Don't worry boy, I'll be alright." Dorothy said grabbing the scepter while keeping a hand on Alex's shoulder for balance.
"Dorothy, I really think that you should continue to get a lot of rest." Rose said pouring her a glass of juice.
"Oz is verging on war, it's only a matter of time before the entire land launches an attack now, and I can feel that something is going to happen." Dorothy said as she collapsed into Alex's arms.
Alex smiled and picked up Dorothy. He then set her back into the bed.
"You, are not doing anything until you are better, the Land of Oz can take care of itself for a few days without you." Alex said placing a hand on her forehead.
"Fine, but I don't want people getting hurt because of me, and being stuck in this bed just increases the risk of more people being harmed." Dorothy said.
No one said anything in response. The silence was only broken by the sound of a giant bell. At the sound of it rose immediately ran over to the window and looked outside.
"Flying monkeys, I don't see why they're ringing the warning bell, they don't seem to be stopping here." Rose said.
"they're probably going after the others, the jester probably knew this would be the first village we would end up in, so he knew this is where you would most likely be, and he still cares about you enough to not do anything to harm you, so he probably sent them to go after Glinda and the others." Alex said.
Everyone looked at Alex and nodded, no one was in disagreement that this was a possibility, not even rose.
Well this was another eventful chapter. Will Dorothy's fever break soon? Will the jester manage to recapture the others? And what is this storm that Glinda felt coming? Find out soon