Ailment by Slipstream (slipstream_chan@hotmail.com)
They were quite the pair, the two of them. Whatever Daisy and Sammie Gardner did they did together, so when little Sam-lad came down with a nasty case of the flu when he was seven Daisy announced that she had suddenly fallen ill as well and crawled right into bed beside him. Sammie had grinned at her a little weakly, face flushed and hair plastered to his brow, and she had grinned right back and handed him his tea.
Rosie smiled and permitted this as Daisy was hale and showing no signs of catching Sammie’s ailment. But his fever turned into a cough and his cough turned into the early stages of pneumonia and Daisy was shuttled from the closed in bedroom into the front parlor with the other children.
It was boring in the parlor, the same old familiar maps and other odd bits from Sam-dad and Uncle Frodo and Old Bilob’s adventures having been explored a thousand times before. Daisy pressed her nose against the rain slick glass and blew, making a steam-face that cried when bits of moisture ran down its cheeks. Rain-faces weren’t nearly as interesting without Sammie. She frowned at it, restless, and headed back down the hall to the bedrooms. Perhaps she could poke her head in and see how he was doing and maybe the adults would let her stay if she was very quiet and stayed out of the way...
The door to the room that Sammie shared with several other Gardner children was half-open already, so she felt no qualms in having a little peek. Things were very confusing inside the little room. There was a bustle of activity, adults rushing everywhere, with Sammie pale and white in the middle. Elanor had been recruited into helping, and she appeared to be boiling something over the room’s small fire while Rose-mum, Sam-dad, and Uncle Frodo were attending the frailest Gardner child.
Daisy stood there, suddenly feeling all awkward, and jerked in surprise when Uncle Frodo’s eyes, all big and blue and full of shadows, looked up to meet her own. He seemed very grave for a moment, as if frozen in some emotion that he couldn’t unstick himself from, and then his features brightened and his smile, though strained, was directed only at her.
"Ah, Daisy! Would you like to help?" She nodded, and he beckoned her in, motioning for her to be quiet. "Now, Sammie’s just been a little bit sick, and we need to change his sheets and nightgown before we put him back to bed, but it’ll take a little while ‘cause we need to get some fresh ones from some of the other rooms and put these out to be washed."
Daisy peered over the edge of the bed at the small bundle that was her brother. He looked very pale and sweaty and not at all happy. Uncle Frodo gathered him in his arms while Rose-mum stripped the sheets with an efficiency born of long-practice. Daisy followed Frodo and her blanket-swadled brother to the cozy rocking chair in the corner.
"Now, Daisy, do you think that you can sit and hold Sammie while we change the sheets? He’s very sleepy and shouldn’t be sick again for a while, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that. Just hold him and comfort him while we get everything ready and then we’ll put him back to bed, alright?"
Daisy nodded, catching the small smile her Sam-dad gave her from where he was crushing herbs for a steam treatment by the bedside. She clambered atop the old rocker and sat very still as Frodo arranged Sammie on her lap like an infant. Though he was but barely a year younger than she was, Sammie had always been a bit smaller and paler, more prone to sickness. But now, tangled in his sheets, cheeks flushed with fever, hair tousled, eyes glued together with sleep, he seemed no bigger than young Bilbo.
She stared at him, breathing slowly so as not to wake him. He mumbled in his sleep and shifted, eyes fluttering but never opening. Holding him, feeling the shallow rise and fall of his skinny chest, she felt a surge of feeling she had never known before, and her mind inexplicitly traveled back to some of the final chapters of the Red Book and the image of her father carrying Uncle Frodo up the side of that fiery mountain.
Sammie made a small noise and shifted in his sleep, scrabbling weakly at the air with his free hand. She took hold of it, stilling the movement gently. He opened his eyes and seemed confused for a moment until his gaze focused on her.
"’lo..." he mumbled.
"Hello," she said.
He smiled, as if in some private joke. "Knew you wouldn’t leave me alone for long..."
She smiled back. "’Course not. We’re a pair. Now go back to sleep, poof-head, and don’t breathe your sick on me."
~
Pretty Good Year