"Hailey?" Eva's voice drifted through the darkness as I finally opened my eyes to the light filtering through the room. Last night had gone relatively fine, although the last time I had checked on her she still wasn't feeling great and her fever hadn't gone away yet.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" I noticed her hugging a small blanket in her arms and realized it was one I had bought a long time ago and had stashed away in the closet when I had moved. It was one I had expected to use before I decided to give her up for adoption. So it was ironic she had found it.

"My head still hurts a little. My stomach too. I still haven't thrown up." Her expression lightened a little as she hugged the blanket to her chest.

"That's good." Sitting up, I stretched my arms out in front of me to help further awaken me before reaching over to feel her forehead. "You still feel a little warm but not as much as yesterday. Are you hungry at all?"

"A little."

"Anything that sounds good to you?" I figured she would say pancakes since she had been begging me to make them, but her answer surprised me.

"Eggs?" She said a bit unsurely, but then after a few more seconds, she grew a little more confident with her decision. "Eggs sound good."

"We can do that." Pulling the covers back, I glanced over at the clock to see that it was just barely eight o'clock. I was happy to get up if that meant she was finally eating. The last thing she had was broth and when I came back into the room from talking to Natalie, she drank hardly anything before she was fast asleep again. "Scrambled?"

"Hailey?" Eva's voice drifted through the darkness as I finally opened my eyes to the light filtering through the room. Last night had gone relatively fine, although the last time I had checked on Eva she still wasn't feeling great and her fever hadn't gone away yet.

"Fluffy." She mused with a smile while I finished making the bed. "Sounds good." By the time I looked up from tucking in the sheet underneath the mattress she had already walked out of the room. When I came out, she was sitting at the table drawing a picture with her crayon. She never looked up as I walked past her bathroom to grab the thermometer. I wanted to keep an eye on her temperature, as well as before I gave her anything to eat or drink.

"What are you drawing over here?" I asked curiously, setting the thermometer on the counter while I brushed the hair away from her face so I could easily glide it across her forehead.

"It's you and me."

"It is?" I questioned as my glance flickered from the thermometer which had just flashed 99.6 across the screen before studying her drawing again. Her figures were once again outlined in black crayon. The taller one was wearing a red shirt and black pants, while the shorter figure was wearing a purple shirt and dark blue jeans."You did a good job."

"Thanks." Her words were quiet, but she continued to draw pieces of grass around the feet of the two figures, then a variety of red and yellow flowers. "Do I have to go to school tomorrow?"

"Not if you still have a fever."

"But you still get to stay home with me, right?" Her words were full of apprehension of not knowing what was going to happen next as she set the red crayon down on her paper.

"I might have to. We'll see how you're feeling later on today." Leaving the thermometer next to her, I went around to the sink to wash my hands and dried them off on the towel sitting by the edge of the basin. She continued to color small red hearts around the figures as I grabbed a bowl from the cabinet and cracked three eggs into it before whipping it around with a fork.

"Were you talking to someone yesterday? I got so sleepy waiting for you to come back."

"I was talking to my friend, Natalie."

"Natalie?" She scrunched up her nose at the unfamiliar name as I laughed quietly at her reaction. Little did she know, she was going to hear a lot of names as soon as I introduced her to the team "Who's that?"

"She's a doctor." Pouring the eggs into the pan, I saw her head shoot up from the corner of my eye. "She came over to make sure everything was okay."

"Why?"

"I don't know if you remember when you first came here, I was a little cut up."

"Kind of?" I could tell she was trying to think back to that time, although it felt like it had already been a long time since she came to live with me. "Did someone hurt you?"

"They did."

"Oh. Did you hurt them back?"

"I did a little. He was someone we've been trying to arrest for a very long time."

"What did he do?" I still didn't know how to answer that question if that's what she was alluding to. "If you arrested him that means he did something really bad?"

"Yes, he did a lot of bad things, but now he's in jail so he can't hurt anyone again."

"Good." She went back to drawing, then stopped again mid-stroke with the red crayon in her hand, like she was going to say something else but decided against asking and went back to work on adding a few more details to her drawing while the eggs were cooking.

"Milk or water?" I walked across the room to the cabinet to grab a couple of plates and glasses out of the cabinet.

"Water, please." I filled up the glass from the fridge and put it on the counter next to her and grabbed the other glass and plates from the counter. "You said your friend was a doctor. What kind of doctor?"

"She's a pediatrician."

"A pediatrician?"

"She mostly sees children but she's also an emergency room doctor so she takes care of adults here and there too."

"Like you?"

"Like me. Why don't you put your drawing and crayons in your room? It's almost time to eat."

"Okay." Gathering all her crayons that were scattered around the counter, she put them back in the box and hopped off the stool. By the time she came back, I had her egg dished up and set up right where she had been sitting.