Another Paradise | T Shelby

TWENTY SEVEN - A FEVER

Blair hadn't said a word for the past three hours. She'd been tucked beneath the covers of Charlie's bed with the child in her arms, both of them as still as subjects of a portrait while he slept soundly in her grasp.

He had a damp flannel pressed against his forehead to cool him down, his skin hot to the touch but his small body shivering like his bed sheets were made of ice.

Charles had been moaning in pain all day, screwing up his eyes as he cried that his head and bones ached, struggling to breathe and sit still for longer than five minutes until he began writhing in pain once more.

Blair hadn't left the boy's side since he first complained about feeling under the weather, sleeping on the floor in his room to keep an eye on him in the night, making sure he took his medicine at the right times and kept him hydrated.

It had rained every day since Charlie had been bed-ridden, totalling four full days of gales blowing against the window, howling through the old bricks and making floorboards creek while Blair read him yet another story, brushing through his dark hair with her fingertips as he cuddled against her.

Tommy had been working away when Charlie fell ill, though returned after Blair telephoned him one evening, explaining what had happened. Three different doctors had been to visit, each of them concluding that the child was fine, simply suffering from the flu, and that there was nothing for anybody to be concerned about.

Though their diagnosis didn't put Blair's mind to rest in the slightest, refusing to leave Charlie by himself for longer than a few minutes.

"Hey."

Thomas gently opened the bedroom door, shuffling into the room quietly with a soft smile, a cup of tea in his hands with stream swirling in the air.

Blair replied with a smile, her eyes tired and dark and her skin dull.

"Please come downstairs, have something to eat. I'll lay with him while you do." He said, perching on the chair beside the bed.

She shook her head, "It's alright, I'm not hungry."

He sighed, handing her the cup of tea and watching as she sipped it, careful not to wake Charlie as she did so.

"Blair," Tommy said, a knowing force in his tone of voice, the look in his eyes mirroring it, "You need to eat something. He'll be fine for an hour while you relax."

She looked down at Charlie, her heart flaring up inside her chest as she heard his soft breathing, his hands clutching a stuffed toy rabbit as he slept. Freckles were scattered across his nose and forehead, just like his fathers. They had the same lips and jaw, the same intense look in their pale blue eyes, too.

"I can't leave him, Tommy."

He watched them for a moment, feeling at peace for the first time in a while at the way Blair cradled their son. He felt blessed to have Blair in his and Charlie's lives, unable to want anything more for the both of them in a partner and a mother.

"Listen to me," he whispered, reaching out and taking the mug from her grasp, holding her hand inside his own, "Come with me for a moment, just for a minute, then you can come right back, I promise."

Thomas saw the reluctancy flash in Blair's eyes, though a gentle squeeze of her hand forced her out of the bed, leaving Charlie still soundly asleep beneath the sheets as they slipped out of the room unnoticed.

He guided her into their bedroom, pushing open the doors to the small balcony that looked out onto the back garden. Rain was still pouring, though fine, light rain that sounded like fingertips on skin as it fell from the sky, a light breeze shaking the leaves on the trees that lined the fields.