Chrysalis

Chapter 11

Notes: And for once, I managed to update in less than a month! (spoiler: don't get used to it) Thanks a lot for all the support you've been giving me, everybody here is wonderful!

Warnings: I hardly have any medical knowledge – and anyway, neither do my characters. I'm trying to have them react as normal people would, I hope there's nothing too far-fetched here.
Francis and Maggie are speaking in French when their dialogues are italicized.

Disclaimer: The cover art for this chapter was drawn by grace-grace-fox (grace-grace-fox.tumblr.com), I will never thank her enough for this!

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Chapter Eleven

Maggie collapsed on the bed.

Having a shower when she was hardly strong enough to stand without leaning on something hadn't been one of her brightest ideas, she still couldn't figure out how she had managed to convince herself that washing her hair would be doable. She blamed it on the fever. And the fact that her scalp had been sweaty and itchy, making her feel gross all over, but still. Dirty hair had started looking a lot more bearable after Maggie had had to spend most of the time kneeling on the shower's floor, too dizzy to stand. After she had finished showering, she had needed at least ten more minutes to gather enough strength to stand up and wobble back to her bedroom, using the wall as support.

Presently, she still had to dress up and dry her hair, but one thing at a time.

Clothes seemed the most important issue. Maggie grabbed a pair of panties and a bra from a drawer, followed by one of her old hockey jerseys. She still needed pants – a pair of leggings would probably be fine – but the drawer where she kept them was way too far away. The effort required to put on those few articles of clothes, for how minimal, had been enough to make her head spin.

Maybe, I should check my fever.

When had she last taken something for it?

Oh, I think it was about four hours ago.

Maggie could vaguely remember trying to swallow some Tylenol, only to promptly throw it up.

No, there was no point in checking her fever, not if she couldn't take anything to lower it, anyway. Her stomach still felt a bit unsettled – not enough that Maggie feared she was going to throw up right there and then, but the faint cramps hitting from time to time told her that eating anything wouldn't have been wise.

What she was truly imperative doing was drying her hair. Keeping it wet seemed tempting, but with the combination of her present condition and luck, it was bound to result in pneumonia. She certainly didn't need to add that to her ailments.

"Maggie?"

Steve's voice made her start. Her stepfather was standing in front of her bedroom, for once sober and groomed, dressed in a cleanly pressed shirt and suit pants.

"I'm going away in a moment, as soon as Joshua arrives. I'll be back for Saturday evening."

Maggie nodded. A corner of her mind was begging her to straighten up, she couldn't be disrespectful, but she was too drained to care. She vaguely recalled Steve mentioning something like that – it was the reason he had avoided her like plague in the last few days, Maggie suddenly remembered. There was something ironic in that notion.

Oddly, Steve seemed hesitant. He lingered at the doorway, fidgeting on his feet, his features contracted in an expression Maggie couldn't read.

"You aren't too sick, are you?" he ground out at last, his jaw rigid as if each word required a titanic effort. "I can trust you alone for a couple of days, right?"