It was too early for anyone to be calling, which instantly put Arthur on edge. His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of Belle's name on the call ID. Nobody called him this early in the morning – Bae wouldn't even be at school yet. Had something happened to his son?
He grabbed for the phone, pushing the talk button and answering as fast as possible.
"Dad?" Bae said on the other end, and Arthur breathed a quick sigh of relief. Bae was okay, at least.
"What's up, son?" Arthur asked. Something was still strange if Bae was calling before eight on a Tuesday morning.
"Something's wrong with Mom," Bae said quietly and Arthur felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up straight. "I think she's really sick."
"What's wrong with her?"
"She's breathing funny," Bae replied. "And she keeps coughing."
"Oh," Arthur said. "Is that all?"
"No," Bae continued. "She can't walk very far. She told me to get ready for school but she's still upstairs because she can't stand up long enough to walk down here to drive me to school. I think something is really wrong."
"Did you call anyone else?"
"She told me she didn't need help," Bae said, and Arthur could hear tears beginning to overwhelm the boy. "She never thinks she needs help when she's sick but this time I don't know — I'm really scared can you please come over?"
"I'll be there in a minute," Arthur promised. "Just keep the phone with you and stay nearby and I'll be right there."
"Okay," Bae replied. "Please hurry."
He didn't need much more incentive than that. He'd just seen Belle yesterday evening and she had seemed alright (although perhaps a little sniffly), but that didn't mean anything if Bae was so scared. She'd mentioned a cold, he remembered. She said she had a bad cold. That was all it was, she just had a worse cold than she'd thought. That's all – that had to be all, because she couldn't really be that sick.
Arthur arrived at Belle's house in record time and saw with some trepidation her car was still outside. She should have left to take Bae to school already and then headed to work. She never didn't do those two things on time.
He let himself into the house, calling out for Bae who ran down the stairs and flung his arms around his father in relief.
"Where's your mother?" Arthur asked as calmly as he could manage.
"She's still in her room," Bae said. "She says she'll be ready in a minute but she's mostly just coughing."
"Alright," Arthur said with a grimace. "Get your stuff ready for school. I'm going to go check on her and let her know I'm taking you, okay?"
Bae nodded and Arthur began the climb up the stairs. He was terrified of what he would see when he arrived. He only rarely came to the second floor of Belle's house. There was nothing there except for bedrooms, so aside from the time Bae had fallen asleep in his car he'd only maybe been up there once. There had simply never been a need for him to go up, and he realized he didn't even know for sure which room was Belle's. Luckily, the sound of coughing coming from the second door to the right narrowed his choices down quite a bit.
He knocked, waiting for her to mumble something that he took as an invitation before opening the door gently (and making sure to keep his eyes averted until she realized who it was).
"Belle?" he called into the room.
"Arthur?" he heard her say, followed by a gasping cough. "What are you doing here?"
"Bae called me," he explained. "Can I come in?"
"I'm fine," she said before another coughing fit claimed her.
"Alright, now I'm definitely coming in."
He paused for a moment anyway, waiting to see if she would protest before he walked into the room. She had turned on a lamp and seemed to have made an effort to get up, but she was curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed still in her nightgown. Her skin was paler than usual, and had a thin sheen of sweat on it. Her eyes were glassy as well, but it was her breathing that was worrying him. She seemed unable to catch her breath, and he could hear a wheezing with each shallow inhale. She was definitely not fine and he could not leave her like this.
He stepped back into the hallway and called for Bae, who ran upstairs with his backpack on.
"Go down the street and see if Mr. Jefferson can drive you to school with Grace," Arthur said, silently thanking the heavens that they had bought Bae a cellphone during the situation with Milah. "Call me as soon as you know the answer. I'm going to take your mom to the doctor."
Bae nodded and Arthur swore he could see the boy relax a little in relief that someone else was in charge now. He didn't wait to watch his son leave, instead he went back into Belle's room.
"I don't need to go to the doctor," she said grumpily, somehow looking angry even while she looked so delicate he wasn't sure he should touch her. "I just need some cough syrup and I'll be fine."
"You most certainly do need to go to the doctor," he replied as calmly as he could. "You can't breathe and I think you might have pneumonia."
"I don't have pneumonia," she growled a little bit. "It's just a cold."
The coughing fit that left her winded and panting did absolutely nothing to ease his mind. Who would have thought that Belle was so cranky when she was sick?
Arthur's phone beeped with a message from Bae saying that he had gotten a ride to school, and Arthur tucked the phone back into his pocket turning his full attention to Belle.
"Bae is on his way to school," he told her. "And you are going to the doctor if I have to carry you there."
"You wouldn't," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"I most certainly would," he replied. "And I'd like to see you try to stop me in your state. Now, would you like to change clothes first or should I just carry you as you are?"
"Your leg…" she began, pausing midsentence to catch her breath.
"My leg would definitely appreciate your cooperation," he continued for her. "But you don't weigh that much to begin with and considering you're too weak to brush your hair right now I don't foresee much of a problem hauling you downstairs if I need to."
She was still angry at him, he could see, but she didn't argue when he moved to her closet and pulled out a simple cotton dress he thought shouldn't be too hard for her to put on.
"Do you want me to help you change or do you think you can handle it by yourself?"
He really, really hoped she could handle this by herself. They were definitely not at a point in their relationship where he thought he should be seeing her naked, and if her nightgown had sleeves on it (or if it were warmer outside) he probably would have just taken her in that.
"I'll change," she grumbled angrily. "I'm not an invalid."
"I'm sure," he said wryly. "I'll be just outside if you need me."
She continued glaring at him, and even though he was extremely worried about her it took all his willpower not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. He waited by her door until she called out to him. He wasn't entirely sure whether he expected her to have succeeded in changing all by herself or not, but when he entered she was sitting on the edge of her bed with and angry look on her face and the dress on.
"I'm really fine," she whined. "I don't need to go to the doctor. I need to go to work."
He almost felt guilty for forcing her to seek medical attention, but she took another deep breath and he actually heard her lungs crackling.
"Belle," he replied as patiently as he could possibly manage. "Your lungs are filled with fluid. Listen to yourself. You can barely get through a sentence without gasping for air. You absolutely need to go to the doctor."
She whimpered and curled up into herself.
"I can't leave the shop closed," she explained. "And I can't afford the doctor right now."
"Is that it?" he replied, coming to sit next to her and wrapping arms around her before he could stop himself. "I'll call and get someone to open for you, and I'll pay for the doctor if that's what this is all about."
"No," she whined again, but she didn't make any effort to pull away from him. "I can't let you do that."
"Well, one of us is paying for the doctor," he replied. "Because you are definitely not okay."
She didn't say anything for a minute, her breathing still ragged, and it took him a little while to realize she was crying.
"Hey," he said as soothingly as he could manage, petting her hair a little. "What's wrong?"
"I'm sick," she sobbed.
"I know you are, sweetheart," he replied. "But it's going to be okay."
"But you have to give up your whole day to take care of me," she continued. "And everything has been going so well lately."
He was trying really hard not to laugh, but her moods were shifting so wildly between angry and clingy it was taking all his self-control. He honestly didn't mind taking care of her even if she were angry with him, but given the choice clingy was much better on his ego and easier to deal with.
"I don't mind taking care of you," he replied. "But we need to get you downstairs and to the doctor, okay?"
She nodded and let him help her up and guide her down the stairs. He had been right in that he could probably have carried her if he needed to, which was good because she was leaning against him heavily and swooned a couple times on her way down. He should seriously look into a knee surgery after the holidays, because this was just the last straw for him on that score. He needed to know he could be there when his family needed him. It had been years since the last time he'd tried to have it taken care of, surely some new technology must be available now.
Once they were in the car, Belle dialed Anton on her phone and let Arthur speak to him. It only took a minute to let the other man know his overtime would be covered and to please call the store's one part time employee to see if she could handle a few extra shifts before the holidays. He'd known about Belle's 'cold' as well, and didn't seem surprised at all that she had actually been nursing a pretty good case of pneumonia instead. She, meanwhile, was leaning her head against the window of the car and staring out at the horizon forlornly.
"Belle?" Arthur said, getting her attention onto him. "When was the last time someone took care of you when you were sick?"
She seemed confused by the question.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean…" what did he mean? "Do you always just keep going like that when you're sick?"
"I have Bae," she replied as though that solved everything. "And a business to run. What else would I do?"
"Rest?"
He thought she was going to laugh at him, but instead she just started coughing again.
"He's eleven," she replied. "Anyway, I made my choice after my dad died."
"So nobody has taken care of you since you lost your father?"
"Nobody has taken care of me since I lost my mother," she corrected. "Dad had a business to run, too."
Something in her tone made him unbearably sad. Belle never spoke of her mother, and he only knew the vaguest things about her. She had died when Belle was around Bae's age, and he got the feeling it had been sudden, but he didn't know much beyond that. Whatever had happened, it had left a wound in Belle that didn't seem to have fully healed in the intervening two decades.
They were silent the rest of the way to the urgent care, where he parked and helped her out of the car again. With her breathing the way it was and his leg, it took far longer than it should have to walk the parking lot to the office. The nurses, at least, recognized that she was in an awful state, hurrying her into an exam room and away from prying eyes. Arthur took the paperwork for her, dutifully filling out her personal information and medical history. She was forced to let him help her change into the little paper gown, which was an event consisting of him unzipping her dress, realizing he hadn't given her a bra and she hadn't been able to get one, and then raising his eyes to the ceiling while trying not to realize how little she was wearing. Once that was completed, he helped her onto the table and they waited for the doctor.
"Thank you for coming with me," she said after a few minutes. "I don't think I could have done this without you."
"It's no matter," he replied. "You'd have done the same for me."
"Still," she said with a little shrug. "Thank you. I know I'm not the easiest person to deal with."
He was struggling to come up with a reply to that – some way to insist he didn't mind and that he liked dealing with her no matter what – when the knock on the door signaled the doctor's arrival.
They both snapped to attention, watching as an older man with glasses entered. He was perhaps Arthur's height, maybe a little smaller, and had a pleasant smile.
"Good morning, Ms. French," he said. "What brings us in today?"
"I'm sick," she said. "I keep coughing and I'm having trouble breathing."
As if on cue, her body spasmed with another coughing fit that left her struggling for air.
"I don't like the sound of that at all," the doctor said nervously, grabbing his stethoscope and placing it against her bare back. "I don't like the sound of your breathing, either."
After that, it was a flurry of movement as the doctor summoned a nurse and they both began hooking Belle up to a monitor. Her blood oxygen level was in the seventies, which Arthur understood was about thirty points less than what they would have liked, and her blood pressure was very low. He had been right in his suspicion of pneumonia, which didn't really make him feel any better about any of it as the doctor insisted on giving her some medicine to breathe in until her vital signs looked better.
Belle looked so small as she was being poked and prodded, and he wasn't really surprised at all when her hand ended up in his. She needed comfort, and that was why he had come along – to comfort her. By the time the monitors finally said something the doctor liked the look of, Belle was holding a prescription for antibiotics and one for an inhaler and written orders for lots of bed rest.
"You're lucky to have such a patient husband," the nurse said as she unhooked Belle from the monitors and prepared the paperwork that would let her go home. "Mine would have been climbing the walls by now. Is he going to take care of you at home?"
It was on the tip of Arthur's tongue to tell the woman he wasn't her husband, but that of course Belle would be taken care of as soon as he could figure out a way to say that which didn't seem incredibly awkward.
"I am lucky," Belle agreed with a smile and a little cough (which sounded a lot better now that her O2 levels were normal and the color had returned to her cheeks). "Very, very lucky. I don't think he's going anywhere."