When Her "Death" Couldn't Break Him (Cecilia and Nathaniel)

Eventually, the wail of a siren carved through the snow-choked silence. Magnus scooped Denise into his arms and raced outside, boots crunching through powder until he placed her inside the ambulance. Not until the hospital doors swallowed them did he dare draw a steady breath.

Doctors ushered her onto a gurney, ran tests, hung fluids, prescribed antivirals, and then admitted her to an isolation ward.

"High fever and influenza. Why bring her this late?" the attending physician chided, pen scratching angrily across a chart.

Magnus blinked, thunderstruck. "Influenza? I-I didn't know."

"It's been two, maybe three days. Haven't you noticed?" the doctor pressed, brow furrowed in reprimand.

"I swear I didn't." Magnus' voice shrank to a rasp. "If I'd realized, I'd have brought her sooner."

Nothing but truth rang in the admission. Had he known, nothing would have kept him away from the ER.

"You two must be fearless or careless. If her condition gets worse, it'll be troublesome," the doctor muttered before stalking down the corridor, white coat flapping like an angry flag.

Those final words echoed behind him, then faded with the doctor's departing footsteps.

Magnus dropped into the metal chair beside Denise's bed, hands folded but restless, prepared to sit the night through as sentinel to every shiver, every sigh.

Denise peeled her eyes open, drifting up from fever-thick dreams into a glare of antiseptic white. The ceiling above her looked endless, a blank sheet of snow lit by fluorescent tubes.

She turned her head. Everywhere she met more white starched sheets, a plastic pitcher, a jungle of monitors softly blinking green. The sharp scent of disinfectant clung to her nostrils, telling her exactly where she was long before her mind caught up.

"Is this... a hospital?"

Last night, she had fallen asleep in the cheap apartment she rented downtown, yet now

upright, nearly spilling the cup he had been guarding. Steam curled from the rim as he hurried

scolding, half relieved. "Your fever finally broke. You scared me

explanation, did Denise piece things together. She recalled her fever, delirious rambling,

pushed herself upright, every muscle protesting. "Come on," she said,

you've got a nasty strain of flu with

"A few days?"

folded

her for only one reason, and

she scraped together felt like a lifeline, so the thought

the billing desk was almost worse than the

insisted, shaking her head. "Really, I'm okay. Let's leave before this turns into a money

told herself, chest tightening at the imagined total already

eyes, and a flush

matters more? Your health or your bank

like a slap. She

pressed on. "You were rambling nonsense, burning up, and I thought I'd lose you. If something happened, who would look after Mr. and

such blunt

stopped trying to

bed.