Could Have, Should Have, Didn't - A Narnia Fanfiction

Chapter Fourteen: When Darkness Falls

"Get him a glass of water," Mum ordered, her voice heavy with worry, "and make sure it's cold!"

Then her hand met his forehead, oh, so cold, too cold. The cold. So cold it felt hot.

He pulled away. Frantic, not understanding.

"Mum?" He asked, mind feeling grey and mushy. Like a radio on a failing station. Whirring by so fast.

"Shh." Another order, but this one a soft one. "Lie still. If you keep thrashing around like this you'll make your headache all the worse."

Mum was here? But where was here?

It was white, void, nothing but her. Who had she asked for the water? No background noise filled any space. Everything blank.

"Where are we?" He questioned, choking on his own spit.

"Safe."

Safe wasn't blank, wasn't void, wasn't silent; wasn't this. She was safe, but he couldn't feel that way until she explained where they were. They couldn't be nowhere, yet that's what it appeared.

Nowhere didn't exist.

His soul felt empty. He reached out for her hand. Only, when he did, she felt cold again, and when he looked back up, she had disappeared. Void, all alone.

A scream ripped from his lungs, stung them. No. He couldn't be alone. Didn't want to be.

"Mum? Where'd you go?"

"Calm down, you're safe. You're with me."

Rita? His head jerked back. She was here now? But her surroundings were duller, noise trickled into his ears. He clutched her hand and wouldn't let go, she was blurry. Why was she blurry?

Would she leave him alone?

"I feel horrid," he said, really before he had time to think of speaking. It just sort of tore from him. Because it was true. Pain rippled through his system. His stomach ached, his head pounded, his body hurt, all of it.

And where was he?

"Do you know where we are?"

She put something equally as cold as her hand on his forehead, it made his skin turn into ice. "We're on a boat, remember? Going to America."

"Where did Mum go?" Again, that hadn't really been what he had wanted to say, but it seemed he had less and less control over his actions as time wore on.

The time he had no concept of. Cold and hot chills overtook his body.

Briefly, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, and saw the concern there.

"Your Mum, Helen, is in America. We're traveling there, remember?"

Yes. Nodding slowly, he did remember. And then he could see full and everything came back in a horrid turn of his belly.

He had fainted. Literally. Had come down with the sickness. The one he'd been trying not to catch. Had a fever, and that was why Rita had felt cold to the touch. To top it all, he felt awful. Probably like Lucy and Robert had felt, like Edith.

How many hours had it been since he fainted? Or, perchance, days?

He sat up quickly, but before he could ask anything, everything once more lost focus. Like he'd been tossed into the angry ocean below.

Then darkness came.

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Rain drizzled down on his back and smudged his face with a sheen of freezing water.