Falling

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"Here," Ginger said, handing Hemlock a full bowl of something as liquid as water and vaguely yellow in tint-the fruits of Ginger's kitchen pilgrimage, Hemlock's tired mind realised gradually.

"What is it?"

"Lemon-water." Ginger took up his seat by Birch's side once more. "It's not much, but there were lemons in the refrigerator, and it can't hurt. It's one of the few things I haven't tried yet. Make him drink it, next time he gets a drink." The male shook his head self-depricatingly. "Only I forgot to put it in a pitcher."

"His water pitcher is almost empty," Hemlock offered with empathic weariness. "I'll just pour it in there. You're right, it can't hurt anything. Lemon-water will give his system a good cleaning at least, if it can't give him a total one."

Hefting the bowl to a manageable angle, he poured the pale beverage out into the tall pitcher they had been using for varied mixes and tinctures over the course of the day. At the sound of splashing, Birch whimpered and shifted uncomfortably against his sweat soaked sheets, searching unconsciously for some kind of relief from the pounding waves of heat which enveloped his whole body and kept even sleep from giving him rest: the cub-bearer had long since been drifting in and out of shallow, unstable half-slumber. Every new remedy helped a little, but nothing really helped enough to matter.

"He's quieter than he was, but I'm not sure what to make of it." Ginger snorted in disgust, rising to pace the length of the floor. "If he doesn't show any change, I'm going to go and see Mica for a few minutes and give him some of the medicine Birch didn't finish off. Is that okay with you? I won't take more than a few minutes..." the other Kindred muttered, almost sheepishly. "Mica will kick me out anyway. I just want to see them."

Hemlock wiped the back of one hand across his forehead, sopping away the sweat there with his hair before shoving it out of his face. "Sure. Go now, nothing's happening. As long as you take only a few minutes, you can't possibly miss a thing."

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Ginger went, leaving the stagnant light of Hemlock's bedroom for the broiling, airless shade of the windowless halls, and headed towards the guest bedrooms where his sons would be. He had put a visit off as long as he could for his mate's sake and for Mica's pride, which would undoubtedly be offended at his father dropping in for an 'inspection', as Mica always said. The cub-bearer of Ginger and Birch's pair, who adored no one and had neither idols nor illusions, got along well with his father and tried harder to earn Ginger's approval than that of any other living thing; this in spite of the fact that Ginger rarely shared his younger cub's dryly realistic outlook on life and the people in it.

They made a good team anyway. Probably, Ginger had often reflected, for the same reason that Birch and Ginger did so well as a pair. Birch and Mica were very alike. Their pragmatic attention to fact made Ginger take a second look at things that he might have preferred to leave alone, and, left to himself, would have done so.

The door to the room Jessamine had said was Mica and Topaz's was closed, but Ginger knew better than to knock. There is not a thing in the world better for a sick person than sleep, Ginger's da, Willow, often said. That was even more true in this case, where a mere few minutes of sleep meant time to regroup and not have to deal with the wild-eyed creature that the patient had become.

Sliding the door gently open, he peeked inside.

The younger of his two offspring was sitting crosslegged on the bed, chin in his hands, watching his twin sleep soundly against the pillows. Ginger gave him a questioning look; the teenager looked back with businesslike solemnity.

"He's been sleeping for a while," Mica said, without preamble or warning. "A very deep sleep. For about an hour, maybe."

Ginger felt his throat close up. He sputtered around the fearful lump, anger at the nonchalant arrogance of his youngling sending his heart tripping off-beat.

"And you didn't call me!"

"Papa, don't yell," Mica remonstrated, the space between his eyebrows puckering into a slight frown. Ginger was much too upset, too angry to stop yelling.

"What if he had woken up? You don't know about-about anything that we've been doing, you wouldn't know how to deal with it or see him through! Haven't I told you not to take more than you can handle-things you don't know about? Mica, this is important, this isn't the time for showing off!"

"I wasn't," Mica interrupted impatiently. "I was going to come and get you as soon as he woke up. What's the use of dragging you away from Da while Topaz is still asleep? There isn't anything you can do to help him until he wakes up."

Silence sifted into the room as Ginger considered. At length he hissed between tight-clenched teeth, throwing himself backwards against the wall with a muffled thud.

"Your da's still sleeping, too. I'm sorry I yelled at you. You're right, I would just have had two things to obsess over. I just... gods in heaven, Mica. I wish you'd told me anyway. Next time, go ahead, please. Anything would be better than this shock."

Mica nodded, then reached down to the floor at his feet and produced a cup full of water.

"Have a drink, Papa."

Ginger groaned, still half-annoyed in spite of rationalising the situation.

"How can you be so... flippant?"

Again, the space between Mica's eyebrows crinkled. "Da wouldn't like you to be so worried," he told his father quietly."Sit down here," he gestured at the wood chair which had been placed in the room for his use, "and try to catch your breath, Papa. Worrying yourself to a frazzle won't help."

For a moment, Ginger was ready to continue on his tirade: then all at once, his frustrations deflated. He took the offered chair by the bedside, vacated by Mica for whatever reason, hooked his heels into the bars between the legs thereof, and put his head into a cradle of tired hands. His head throbbed.

"It's okay, Papa," Mica offered gently, sounding sympathetic for the first time in days. Sometimes, Ginger thought ruefully, it was more of a curse than a blessing to have a son who pushed himself to his limits and expected nothing less than the same of others. Especially when said son imagined his limits somewhere in the unforeseeable distance.

"Da will get better. I heard Tala Jessamine say that the methods are so different nowadays, it's too hard to foretell what the results of the Fever will be, and I know that you're a good healer. You're not often as comforting as Grand-da is, but you're just as good at mixing the medicines and giving them out."

"Thanks, I think."

"Da needs you to be in control now."

Ginger sighed. "That's not as easy for me to manage as it is for you to say. Guess I don't have as much faith as you do. I can't stop thinking about all the things that could happen... every time I sit down for a minute, it's something else."

Mica laughed suddenly, and Ginger looked up at him, surprised.

"You know Da," the teenager explained. "He'll like it better if you can say you worried about him. Just don't let it drive you crazy, and if you can't keep from thinking about it, then find something else to think about. When all this is over, you might not think it could be forgotten, but it will. Da'll be worried about how the crops are doing without our help and whether the honeybees give a heavy yield this year. We'll be fine."

They settled into silence again, but this time it was more companionable. Ginger sat back in his chair and relaxed as asked, while Mica reached out with the soaked rag in his hand, which Ginger's anger had kept him from noticing until that moment, and wiped the sweat from his brother's head, neck, and torso. Topaz's flushed face was still under the ministrations.

"I don't think his fever is very bad yet," Mica said, while his hands ghosted over skin with just enough pressure to transfer water to its parched surface. "Only as bad as he's had with some of his colds. If I'm very careful he'll take drinks too, but I'm trying not to give him too much in case he chokes on it or it's not going down right."

Ginger dipped his chin in agreement. "I'll make a space for him in your talé's room with your da, and you can come in there with us and look after him. He'll be easier to move than your da will, and I have all of my medicines set up in there. We'll have to move him later anyway; I can't be running back and forth from that room to this one all the time: so might as well get it done now. Then we can all keep an eye on him."

He trailed off, regret welling up inside him like the steam he'd been speaking of and clouding his vocal cords with a hot lump of helplessness. "Mica... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm sorry for everything. I left you alone to deal with your brother, and it isn't right. I should have been here taking care of him. You're a great healer, you really are, but you haven't been alive long enough to get the kind of experience that I have, and you're both too important to me and to your da to leave you hanging like this."

"Don't apologise, Papa," Mica interrupted. "We're both fine. His fever isn't high enough to have done any damage. There's nothing to be sorry for. Move him into Talé's room, and you can start all over, just don't let it get to you: not right now.

"Now go on, get his place ready while I get all his stuff."

And that was how Ginger ended up on his way back to Hemlock's room, an armful of soft quilt from the linen cupboard to make a bed on the floor for his son. Mica had assured him that quilts would be soft enough, "and especially Tala Jessamine's!"

The door of Sineult's room was open on a small tableau of three; Onyx, pacing from one wall to the other, Sineult, pale lashes at rest against his cheeks while he slept, and Jessamine, bent over an earthenware bowl full of fragrant concoction. Ginger paused by the open doorway to watch for a moment the older healer at work.

"Ginger," Jessamine murmured acceptingly, giving him a nod without looking up from the bowlful of leaf-choked, greenish liquid which he held in his lap. "Aren't you supposed to be in with Birch?"

There was a trace of accusation in the russet-headed healer's tone: Ginger ignored it. Jessamine had a right to be snippy, after all. As much as Ginger had.

"He's asleep. Hemlock is looking after him, keeping him wetted down and everything, so I could go to take a look in on Mica and Topaz before I'm too busy," he replied quietly. "Topaz is asleep too now. Mica says he fell asleep just a little bit ago, so hopefully I won't be called away in the middle of something.

"He's asleep," Ginger repeated, shaking his head. "I've done everything I can until he wakes up."

And it felt good to finally admit it.

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