gonna_live | (no subject)

Kaylee knows what's to come: if she's not careful, if they're not lucky, everything will settle in his lungs and he'll die.

Kaylee isn't going to let that happen.

Kaylee sends a wave.

hey jordie this is kind of an emergency and I need you to trust me and not ask too many questions so check out the attached vid.

he is real sick with the damp-lung which he said you call CPB here. I will tell you how he got it once we can talk face to face but if you know what it is like in adults at all we do not have the time to waste with me getting all the germs off me and coming out to you and that's even assuming I could leave him alone which I can't and you know why. you are not safe from this unless you got the second shot simon says. he did not which is why he is like this now. I have seen folks through this illness before and I can do it now but there are things I need.

if you can get these to our door we will owe you so many favors. and I will give you answers I promise.

- something to make you cough up the yellow stuff
- nickel chrome wire 80-20
- a real big stock pot, big as you can find
- enough plastic sheeting to cover a bed tent-like, and I can splice them together so don't worry about a whole one
- paracetamol because we are running low
- soup
- juice
- something cool for his throat and sweet too
- crackers for the soup
- tissues
- mag salts (they might have a different name? i don't know? they're the ones you soak in and it relaxes you for a bit and takes the ache out)
- coffee and a lot of romance stories or if you can't bring yourself then something good to read because he is sleeping a lot

please please please let me know. I will find another way if you cannot. and I can set up a temp account and give you access to it if you want. let me know. and if you are bored you could even get the shot ha ha.

thank you jordie

The return wave comes, and it's short:

I'll be there this afternoon. Let's talk through the door. No answers now.

I have an appointment for the vaccine tonight. You call me if you need anything regardless.

See you soon.

She runs her hand over her face again, looks down at the plans, nods, and minimizes the window.

***

Kaylee touches Simon's forehead. It's a lot cooler.

"Hey. Handsome. I got something for you."

Jordie came by, and came through: there's a steaming cup of coffee on the bedside table. (It's not the only thing that's steaming. Kaylee's in shorts and a tank top, and her hair's frizzed. A lot.) She feels like a new woman.

"Come on. You got to wake up. Simon."

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She holds out the datapad. "Good. -- and I'm gonna unplug the pot for the duration." As she slips outside the tent, she says, "And you could stand to maybe write a little slow, read it over three or four times before you send it."

And circles around to her side of the bed. "I'm just sayin'."

Half an hour. He can't justify taking longer than that to write a textwave, even writing slow and rereading it before sending it. All right.

"I'll keep that in mind, ai ren."

"Oh," she says, as she settles (almost collapses) on the bed, curled up, head on her arm, facing him. "So it's sweet talk now that I threatened you with a cuspidor?"

(Kaylee's eyes are already closing.)

"Well," he says thoughtfully, and doesn't finish the sentence immediately.

Not like Kaylee's going to notice.

Which is more or less what he figured.

Simon watches her for a few moments, then takes another long drink of water and opens the datareader.

He's about halfway through composing the wave to Jordie when it occurs to him.

He's getting himself vaccinated tonight, he said. Just in case.

The just in case that he had in mind had more to do with the small but existing possibility of the disease spreading through a closed door. Just in case Jordie might otherwise come down with it himself.

It's not until now (proof enough that he's still exhausted, if proof were needed) that he realizes the other possibility, the other reason Jordie might want to get himself vaccinated: just in case Simon gets worse. Just in case everything Kaylee can do isn't enough.

Sometimes you need a doctor.

In the wake of that realization, it takes him nearly the entire half-hour to finish writing the wave after all.