In Sickness

[andhiswife]

This is absurd. Greta's always been a hardy sort, and none of the children at the Gardens have been ill enough for her to notice. But she's picked up a cold from somewhere.

'A cold' feels like too simple a diagnosis for the riotous state of her body, though. She feels as if she has at least three different illnesses at once: feverish, joints aching, throat scratchy, sinuses a stuffy, drippy mess. The doctor had referred to it, in that deliberately unflappable manner that doctors have about them, as an 'unusually robust immune response' and sent her home with antibiotics that don't seem to be doing a bloody thing.

It's bad enough that she's given in and started using tissues. Well, they're far enough removed from actual paper that she can pretend they're something else, and she doesn't possess enough handkerchiefs to otherwise cope with the onslaught.

Ugh.

Thomas has been a godsend, of course. And though she feels a bit bad that he's missing work at the shop to tend to her, she also can't deny that it's a small comfort to be fussed over.

So long as it doesn't get too fussy. When one of her coughing jags causes a stricken look to flicker across his features, she feels obliged to give the poor man an out. "You could go to the shop, you know," she tries to insist. It's admittedly hard to sound insistent when you sound a bit like you're dying. "I'm not going anywhere." She gestures vaguely at the bed she's in no condition to leave, then plucks a fresh tissue from the box.

Comments

[very_sharpe]

"Rowan and Blue have things handled," Thomas insisted right on the heels of Greta's comment. She'd made it a few times already, and he would not be swayed when she sounded so pitiful.

"See, there's the trouble: I know that if I go, you might try to get things done around the house, thinking you might as well try while it's empty. Or you'll try to get out of bed to make yourself tea or soup, when I'm perfectly capable of going up and down stairs."

Thomas didn't mean to be so... worrisome, but after watching a handful of wives get sick and die, he was taking Greta's illness rather seriously. Even if he knew, for certain, that she wasn't being poisoned by anything or anyone. It sounded like a cold, or perhaps the flu, and while he knew that modern medicine made the illnesses more like inconveniences than death sentences, there was no need for Greta to be up and about.

He set a mug of tea, full of lemon and honey and echinacea, on the nightstand next to the bed.

[andhiswife]

She didn't really expect Thomas to take her up on that offer. He hadn't the previous few times she'd floated the idea, and it's not as if she's been noticeably improving as the day wears on. Still, she feels a little mulish, just on principle. And a part of her thinks: if Thomas looks fretful now, goodness knows how worried he'll get if she starts wearily acquiescing to everything he says.

"So am I, if it came to it," she insists. "My legs still work well enough." True, her joints are aching a bit, but half the stiffness could just be down to her spending so much time in bed. They might actually improve if she stretched her legs and had a little putter about the house.

But being doted upon is the only arguable perk this illness has brought with it, and she has no real desire to get up and start puttering right this minute. Having made her point, she's content to pick up the cup of fresh tea and settle back against the headboard with it. "Thank you, though," she says, cradling it close, enjoying the warmth. "For looking after me."

[very_sharpe]

Greta did have a point - her legs worked just fine - and he realized, perhaps, that he needn't treat her like a total invalid. That was hardly fair, even if he thought she needed the rest. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her leg gently over the blanket.

"Why don't we have lunch downstairs, then? We could settle in and watch a movie together or something."

That actually sounded like a nice idea: curling up on the couch with mugs of soup and something nice on the television. And it probably would do Greta good to get up and move around some. Even if it was just a trip downstairs.

[andhiswife]

The gentle drift of his hand over her leg is a comfort. She's always been rather tactile -- more than seems typical for this day and age -- and one of the most unpleasant aspects of being ill is feeling too disgusting to have any business snuggling up to anyone. Even if she's having an atypically poor reaction to whatever this is, she still wouldn't wish it on Thomas. And that means keeping her germ-riddled hands to herself, though she wants nothing more than to curl up against him like a cat (albeit a coughing, congested one).

But when he suggests that they relocate to the living room, she brightens. It would probably be more sensible to stay put and try to limit her sphere of influence. But it would be nicer to go downstairs, and she can hardly scold herself for making a questionable decision when it was his idea. Besides, they've stocked up on disinfecting wipes and sprays and so on. It shouldn't be too hard to sanitize everything after she's gone back to bed.

"That sounds perfect," she replies, her voice reduced to a sort of wistful croak. "If you don't mind hosing everything down with bleach, after," she adds wryly, wincing at how awful she sounds. She's so ready for this to be over. But in the meantime, she's ready for a change of scenery, and she sets down the mug of tea so she can extricate herself from the blankets and get her feet on the floor.

[very_sharpe]

"Here now, let me help."

Thomas got up as Greta freed herself from the blankets piled on her. He had to imagine that was one of the most miserable parts of a summer cold: the fact that it was anything but cold outside, and so bundling in blankets became the most counter-intuitive part of recovery. He offered Greta his hands to help her to her feet. He'd seen colds make people feel weak - he'd been rendered rather pitiful by one in the recent past - and he didn't want her to worry about feeling unsteady.

"I was thinking tomato soup and grilled cheese for lunch, unless you have any special requests," he said as he slid his arm around Greta's waist and picked up her mug with his free hand.

[andhiswife]

Greta takes his hands with a wan but grateful smile. And it's as well she does: getting to her feet after so long in bed makes her head spin for a moment, dark blotches intruding on her vision. But it passes quickly, and her sight clears by the time he slips his arm around her.

"No, that sounds excellent," she says, reaching across herself to give him a thankful pat, just below his sternum. It sounds straightforward, which might be the biggest selling point. Much as she appreciates his tending to her, she also doesn't see the point in going out of her way to make it more complicated for him. There's something far more endearing about what he comes up with on his own, as opposed to what he might go along with if she pushed him.

Besides, she doesn't want him stuck in the kitchen when he could be right beside her, instead. Concerns about her contagiousness aside, it's nice to just lean against him, his arm warm around her.

Sadie comes up to nose at them both as soon as they're downstairs, and escorts them over to the couch. "Poor Sadie," Greta murmurs to the dog once she's settled. "Who's playing with you?" The dog tips her head at the word 'play,' then goes to fetch one of her toys, a stuffed purple ball with a squeaker inside. She brings it over, squeaks it once, then sets it in Greta's lap and takes an anticipatory step backwards, tail waving.

Greta looks up at Thomas. "Well, that's me sorted for the next few minutes," she says, before lobbing the ball across the living room.

[very_sharpe]

"I'll be back in with lunch," he said before kissing her forehead. "Here, find us something to watch, if Sadie will let you be for a moment."

He set the remote in Greta's lap, then headed into the kitchen. The domesticity of it all sometimes gave him pause, but not in a bad way. He'd never really had a life like this before, one that felt so settled but so bright. Greta's home - their home - was warm and loving, not dark and dank and full of secrets. There was a future here, a future he'd always wanted. Greta's illness made him nervous, no matter how much he rationalized that she was likely fine. Still, it was hard to bar the memories of the rest of his wives falling ill and dying.

He shook it off and prepared a new cup of tea with honey; he brought that to Greta so she would have something to sip on while he made the rest of their lunch. Tomato soup with basil, grilled cheese sandwiches. Thankfully it wasn't a lunch that took long. He came back out to the living room with a tray: two large mugs of soup, for easy handling, and a single plate with two sandwiches stacked and cut.

[andhiswife]

Sadie actually gives Thomas a reproachful look, though the effect is somewhat spoiled by the fluffy toy she's holding. Greta huffs out a laugh, which quickly transmutes into a coughing fit. Ugh. No comedies, then. She turns on the television as Sadie slinks up onto the couch and curls up beside her, head in Greta's lap.

Television is one of the stranger things Darrow has to offer, and she finds it fascinating and unsettling by turns. Saoirse probably watches more of it than anyone else in the house, and she usually sticks to cartoons. Greta's seen enough of those to get a sense of what Saoirse's putting in her head, but they aren't the sort of thing she finds especially interesting (aside from the characters' tendencies to burst into educational musical numbers, which is both achingly familiar and incredibly strange when it comes from the mouth of an animated cat).

She flicks through the channels with one hand and pets Sadie with the other, pausing to thank Thomas when he provides another cup of tea. Eventually, she finds a show that appears to feature... baking. It's a bunch of people at little kitchen stations, and they all seem to be dealing with varying degrees of anxiety as they work. Greta blinks a few times, then sets the remote down.

By the time Thomas returns with soup and sandwiches, she's started to grasp the overall gist of it. "I've found a baking contest," she says as she budges over a little to make room for him. "I think they're competing? Except they're all so nice to each other."

[very_sharpe]

"Competition doesn't always have to but cut throat," Thomas pointed out. "Sometimes it's just people trying to do their best against others in their field."

And, if he was perfectly honest, he rather liked that more gentle, supportive model of competition. There was no reason to cut each other down, especially if they weren't in direct competition with each other out in the real world. Right?

"Are they amateurs?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to call them that, per se, but he couldn't think of what else to call someone that baked as a hobby versus someone who did it professionally, who made a career out of it.

[andhiswife]

"You should see some of the other shows people are airing," she says wryly, before taking a sip of her soup and humming in appreciation. She knows her sense of taste isn't what it ought to be, but even dulled as it is, she can tell he's done a fine job. The basil is a nice touch, too.

She hitches a shoulder at his question. "I'm not sure." She hasn't been watching long enough to know what any of them actually do for a living. There's a bit more nerves than she'd expect from a group of professional bakers, but that might just be because they're so worried about impressing the judges. "I think so. Either that, or the judges are brutal."

She hasn't actually seen them, yet; apparently they've been ushered out of the tent for this portion of the contest. But after a minute or two of watching the assorted bakers scramble to put their dishes together, the scene cuts to a man and a woman sitting at a table with a finished product between them. The man is elderly and rather sweet-looking as he expounds on the virtues of a perfectly baked whatever-it-is.

The woman sitting across from him looks exactly like the Witch.

Greta coughs once, just out of surprise, which of course leads to half a dozen more. None of that stops her from scrambling off the couch and dropping to her knees a foot or so from the television, her eyes fixed incredulously on the woman the captions have labeled 'Paula Hollywood.' It's not a perfect match -- her hair isn't blue, and she's dressed to fit the modern age -- but her face, and that knowing glint in her eye, are unmistakable.

It can't be. Greta's fingertips rest against the television screen, unable to tear her eyes away even as she coughs into her sleeve. It can't be her.

[very_sharpe]

"I mean, it could be both," he said with a quiet laugh. Thomas was content to watch while he ate, though, at least until Greta started coughing so hard that he thought she was either choking or having a fit. He set his lunch aside and quickly rescued hers as Greta just darts off the couch and across the floor to the television.

Thomas couldn't help the way he stared at her, perplexed and more than a little worried.

"Greta? Are you alright?"

He got up to gently pull her back from the TV screen, worried that she might claw at it or something with the way she was staring. Then she was coughing again and he had to quell the quiet panic that threatened to rise in him. No blood; she was alright. "Darling, you're working yourself into a state - what is it?"

[andhiswife]

Greta sits back on her heels as the coughing fit subsides, making a soft, exasperated noise once she's recovered enough to do so. She hates being ill; it makes everything so bloody dramatic. Granted, it's not her illness's fault that she went scrambling at the television like a madwoman, but at least she could've done it without the unpleasant addition of coughing like someone with one foot in the grave. She's worrying Thomas. That wasn't her intention, obviously, but she does feel a twinge of guilt. She finds his hand and gives it an apologetic squeeze, even as she continues to stare at the screen.

After taking a few slow, careful breaths, making sure she isn't about to devolve into another coughing jag, she nods at the television. "It's--she looks just like her. The Witch from next door."

Which is a thing that happens -- people looking like other people -- and now that the initial shock has worn off, she begins to feel a bit foolish. "Even the way she looks at people," she adds, a touch plaintively, as if that will excuse her behavior.

[very_sharpe]

Thomas moved her back a bit while she recovered, not certain it was entirely healthy for her eyes to be focusing so closely on the screen anyway. When Greta finally managed to articulate what had given her such a start, he frowned and looked at the TV to actually pay attention to the woman on screen.

"The one that-- Well, I suppose there would only be one, wouldn't there?" He'd hate to imagine there was more than one witch in Greta's neighborhood. "You don't think it could be her, though... do you?"

Paula, the on-screen title card said. Greta had never used a name when referring to the witch other than the Witch, but he supposed she could have a name all the same. He looked at Greta again, concerned. "Are you alright? Here, let's get you back onto the couch at least. Do you want some water?"

[andhiswife]

"I don't know," she says, the post-fit hoarseness making her sound even more wretched than she feels. "With the way Darrow works, she might have arrived here years before I did." Long enough to assimilate, to some degree -- dress in normal clothes, find a less alarming shade for her hair. Long enough to find a job that doesn't even involve magic, because she hadn't had much at the end, had she? A Witch with real power wouldn't have done so much negotiating with a rampaging Giant.

"It would be rather fitting, her tormenting bakers for a living," she mutters as Thomas shepherds her back over to the couch. "Right up her alley." The Witch would appreciate the irony.

She sits down, and finally gives Thomas -- poor, worried Thomas -- her full attention, shaking her head at his question. "I'm fine, dearest. Sorry, that was... I didn't mean to be so, er, dramatic." She picks up her still-warm tea and takes a sip, soothing her throat and steadying her hands. "I just... never thought I'd see that face again." And she hadn't minded the idea. She could have gone the rest of her unanticipated after-life not seeing the Witch, and been perfectly happy about it.

[very_sharpe]

"No, you aren't usually very dramatic," he said kindly. Thomas picked up his own tea to take a fortifying sip of it. "And I must imagine, if I happened to see Lucille's likeness on our television screen, I might have been just as dramatic. Maybe a bit worse in terms of my horrific denial."

If he was honest with himself, Thomas actually had no idea how he'd react to seeing Lucille again, especially seeing her in Darrow. She'd killed him for wanting a better life, and she'd done it violently.

"Let's just quietly hope it's one of Darrow's very strange coincidences, and that she isn't actually your Witch."

[andhiswife]

Greta hums, and while it's in a mostly acquiescing key, she can't wash all the dubiousness out of the sound. 'Quietly hoping' has not, in her experience, been a winning strategy. Even now, beneath the haze of cold medication and the lassitude that burst of adrenaline has left behind, part of her is still ticking over the possibilities.

Can anyone enter this baking competition? Maybe if she got closer to 'Paula,' and actually met her...

She tucks the idea away, like dough that needs time to rise. "Yes, you're right," she says, letting her head briefly drop to his shoulder. "It's probably just... Darrow."

Funny how just saying the city's name can encompass such a wide variety of nonsense.