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The fever breaking had been as much a relief for the ailing men as it had been for their caretakers. Alex, by this point familiar enough with the way soldiering weighed on him, knew that the whispers of the dead that he'd heard in the height of his fever would likely continue to haunt his thankfully infrequent nightmares.
(The dead still felt more real to him than any moment of true consciousness he'd experienced during the worst of it. It's not pleasant to contemplate if that will continue; earns the occasional shiver out of him to think on-- Though, in fairness, those may just be the lingering shakes he'd not quite worked out of his system.)
For his part, he'd worried himself nearly into illness again, fretting over how Archie's fever lingered a little longer than his.
(Archie had called for all of them-- Cass and Alex and the Williamses and Horatio, desperate and needy and sounding as though he thought himself frightfully alone. Alexander's own heart had broken for the knowledge they couldn't all be here together; couldn't even properly be there for Archie in the twist of his own mind.)
Holding his wife's hand had been the only thing to keep him steady enough to breathe until Archie regained his senses. He'd had to relinquish the comfort, when it became clear that Archie's appetite hadn't returned with his mind and he was growing too thin by half. (Alex knew he was diminished in his own right, but at least his desire to eat had come back once the fever cleared.)
At least now that they'd been sent to the estate to properly recuperate, they were even more free to find solace in touch. He and Archie were piled into the same bed, the latter dozing lightly. When Cassandra next comes into the room, Alex extricates himself cautiously from the octopus-like tangle of Archie's limbs and shifts over just enough to make space for her between the two of them.
"Come have a lie down between us, dearheart. We're through the worst of it, now."
She looks more than a little fragile herself, after all. It'll be better for them to be lying properly together; all feeling one another breathing steadily. It's not the same as having all of them all together, but hopefully it's enough.
(The dead still felt more real to him than any moment of true consciousness he'd experienced during the worst of it. It's not pleasant to contemplate if that will continue; earns the occasional shiver out of him to think on-- Though, in fairness, those may just be the lingering shakes he'd not quite worked out of his system.)
For his part, he'd worried himself nearly into illness again, fretting over how Archie's fever lingered a little longer than his.
(Archie had called for all of them-- Cass and Alex and the Williamses and Horatio, desperate and needy and sounding as though he thought himself frightfully alone. Alexander's own heart had broken for the knowledge they couldn't all be here together; couldn't even properly be there for Archie in the twist of his own mind.)
Holding his wife's hand had been the only thing to keep him steady enough to breathe until Archie regained his senses. He'd had to relinquish the comfort, when it became clear that Archie's appetite hadn't returned with his mind and he was growing too thin by half. (Alex knew he was diminished in his own right, but at least his desire to eat had come back once the fever cleared.)
At least now that they'd been sent to the estate to properly recuperate, they were even more free to find solace in touch. He and Archie were piled into the same bed, the latter dozing lightly. When Cassandra next comes into the room, Alex extricates himself cautiously from the octopus-like tangle of Archie's limbs and shifts over just enough to make space for her between the two of them.
"Come have a lie down between us, dearheart. We're through the worst of it, now."
She looks more than a little fragile herself, after all. It'll be better for them to be lying properly together; all feeling one another breathing steadily. It's not the same as having all of them all together, but hopefully it's enough.
