More days passed, with more of the same until at last they started sending people home. Although the outgoing patients were told to stay in bed for a few more days, to just take it easy. Miri was still ill, though she wasn't getting any worse. She just was responding slower than the rest.
They decided to keep her right in the lab, instead of moving her to a bed that had been freed in the ward.
"How are you feeling today?" Lily asked as she began to take Miri's vital signs one morning. With the lighter work load, she was looking for something to do and visiting Miri was her first choice. Besides, there was no reason why Byrin needed to be her sole caretaker anymore.
"Well enough to feel frustrated. Byrin just did this a few hours ago...I'm not sick enough to need that closely monitored." Miri frowned. "I mean, it's nice to have everyone's attention..."
"Uh-huh. Byrin takes his own set of vitals for his purposes, mine are the ones logged onto your chart. Are you feeling a little suffocated?" Lily wrote down the temperature reading, which was miraculously normal. It was true enough. Yesterday when she had picked Miri's chart up to read it, she realized that the good doctor had never written any of the vitals down that he'd taken. She'd found them eventually, but not until she had confronted him about it and asked, nicely of course, if he'd written them down somewhere else. He had, so she'd quickly copied them down into the other woman's chart.
"Cabin fever, I believe it is called. You know, how you feel when it's snowing outside and you can't go outside for days on end."
Lily laughed. "We didn't have snow where I lived on Beta Talisman. It never even got cold enough for frost. But I do know how you're feeling."
"I want to be up and about, taking care of my people."
"Not that we don't miss you out there Miri, but we're doing fine. Especially since we've been sending people home. The workload is lightening." Lily sat down on the bed beside her and patted her on the shoulder. "And once we told people you were sick, and why, they understood your absence. They know you didn't desert them or anything like that."
Miri sighed. "Good. I am hungry today. Has the supply ship arrived yet?"
"No, it hasn't." A fact that was more disturbing than Lily wanted to admit.
"Not the first time it's been late," Miri murmured. "Perhaps when Grandfather goes out, things will change."
"I hope so. I certainly wouldn't want to face his wrath!"
Miri laughed.
"Now there's a sound I've missed!" said a gruff voice just entering the lab. Levi smiled down at his granddaughter over the nurse's head.
Miri laughed harder as Lily blushed a bright red.
"What?" Levi asked.
"I'll leave Miri to explain," said Lily, rising swiftly to her feet. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I'm going to go see if there's something for her to eat." She left the lab as quickly as she'd risen.
"Was it something I said?" Levi asked, mildly perturbed.
"Not exactly."
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