Dance Moms - Chlobird

Chapter 21 : Fever

Chloe returned from her morning run soaking wet. The rain lasted throughout the night, taking Pittsburgh into a proper winter, but it didn't stop her morning routine. She grasped the awareness of her body long ago, and knew exactly how to treat herself under hazardous conditions.

Coming home, she filled her stomach with hot tea, balancing her internal temperature, then put herself under a hot shower, cooking the cold out of her system. After making herself presentable, she put on her glass eye and came out the bathroom, Brooke was still dead asleep.

"Wake up." she gently shook the sleeping girl, Brooke wasn't responding. "Time to go job hunting."

"Charlie..." Brooke muttered.

"You need to get up, and I need to go to work." Chloe shook again.

"Don't leave me..."

"Brooke?"

She touched the girl's forehead and gasped, Brooke was running a fever, and she remembered when she got all soaked coming to her place, adding the alcohol.

Taking protocol, Chloe broke out her medical pack, checked her temperature and pulled out a test kit. After confirming negative for COVID, she placed a cooling patch over the girl's forehead.

"Come on. I need to get you to the hospital."

"No... No hospitals... those places cost an arm..." Brooke shivered.

"Now is not the time. You need medical attention!" Chloe tried to help her up.

"No! Let me sleep it off... It's not like my first hangover."

"This isn't a hangover!"

Ignoring the girl's mumbling, Chloe threw her arm over her shoulder, but Brooke pushed her away.

"Fine... just let me walk it off..."

Dropping Brooke back down the couch, Chloe went back to her medical pack, broke out some cold pills and a glass of warm water.

"Here. It may help you fight the fever, but I have to get you to a doctor."

Brooke swallowed the pills, washed down by a big glass of water.

"What did you do with my clothes?" she looked around, her eyes barely opened.

"They are hanging to dry."

"I need them."

"You need rest."

"No..." Brooke pushed herself to her feet. "Need to get to work, or Tammy is gonna fire me."

It worried Chloe that the girl was so disoriented. Brooke pushed herself up but could barely sit up straight.

"I need to go pee..." the girl got on her feet, but immediately fell to the floor like timber.

"Oh My God!" Chloe gasped.

"Oops... I ran into a wall." the girl spoke to the floor, still laughing silly. "Should have stayed away from that moonshine!"

Chloe quickly helped her to bed, her face got a red bruise from the fall.

"I'm freezing..." whispered the shivering girl.

Chloe quickly pulled the blanket over her, then slipped a hand under Brooke's clothes, they were dampened in sweat. Chloe quickly stripped her naked under the blanket, and dried her skin thoroughly with a towel.

"You know... last time someone bathed me I was three." Brooke still joked in her sickness. "My mom said I'm a survivor, that I'm old enough to do everything myself."

"She must be very proud of you!"

Chloe proceeded with emergency treatment for hypothermia, removed her own clothes and slipped under the blanket, pressing herself against the girl's back. Immediately she was hit by the cold skin, she gasped but kept herself wrapped around Brooke, transferring her body heat to her.

Immediately, Brooke released a deep sigh, like all her pressure had let out, her body stopped trembling and breathing eased.

"No." Brooke answered weakly. "That's the last thing she said to me... when my brother was born."

The words broke Chloe's heart. How could any parent say such a thing to their child?

"Go to sleep. You can tell me all about it when you recover." it was all she could say.

"Would you sleep with me?" the girl muttered, clearly still disoriented.

"I already am."

"Thank you." Brooke answered in the most gentle voice. "Thank you for staying with me. Everyone leaves me. I don't want you to go. Everyone goes away."

She started weeping, not sure awake or in dreams, and it crushed Chloe's heart. She tightened her embrace, keeping this poor girl under her protection.

* * *

She woke up by her biological clock, got out of bed quietly to let Brooke sleep. She got dressed, picked up her things and ready to fill in for a morning class. Then she spotted Brooke's phone.

Looking back at the sleeping girl, Chloe picked up the phone in hope of contacting a friend or family. It has a crack running past the screen, once again Chloe grunted at the girl's clumsiness.

There was no screen lock, the homepage popped up with a wallpaper of the Eiffel Tower, from the default selection, definitely not taken. Chloe thought of all the places she visited, thinking how some people could only dream of seeing the world.

She looked through the phone list, there was the number of the studio, and a few of the staffs.

No Charlie.

She swiped through the photo library, the most recent were taken yesterday, videos of skateboarders doing tricks at the park, before that were snapshots of clothes and shoes taken in shops, most likely things she wishes to have but couldn't afford.

There were pictures taken in the studio, of Chloe and other teachers, material for her choreography no doubt. The rest were random shots of life - what lunch she ate, which places she visited, the Three Sister Bridges were photographed repeatedly, most likely her favorite spot.

No friends. Chloe thought. The poor girl is out here all alone.

She remembered the time when she was in strange lands, that feeling of loneliness, isolation, and desperateness for company. The difference was that she was a foreigner to the locals, but here the people speak the same language, yet keeping the distance.

She put the phone down and wrote a note saying she went to work, left a set of pills and the time to take them, picked up her bag and went to work.