Who: What who are these people
What: OMG THE BBS
Where: Paris, France
When: last night!
“Shut
up, already, I’m coming,” Juliet grumbled under her breath--whether out of caring that her 3-year-old son would hear her anger at being awoken in the middle of the night or that she was just too tired to yell at him, no one would ever know.
The grandfather clock in the living room read two-forty-two in the morning and with sleepy laziness, she dragged her bare feet across the rug to the adjacent room, towards the piercing cries of a thoroughly unsettled little boy. Whatever this was, it had better not be that idiotic
monster-in-my-trunk rubbish that the twins had been spouting a few months back. They were three years old, and had been trained not to wake her up over stupid, illogical things for a
year now. She had already told them that further lapses of judgement on these matters would be unacceptable.
Her kids were smarter than that.
At least, her son had better hope he was smarter than that, or the next words out of her mouth would be coming out in far more than a grumble.
Pushing open the door to the bedroom the twins shared, she immediately spied the toddler, sitting up in bed with tears streaming down his face and dark hair matted in sleeplessness.
“Evan Christian Nott, if this is not important, by the Founders, I swear I will--”
“Mummy..”
The whimper was so faint, so fleeting, that she almost couldn’t be sure that she had heard it at all. Not to mention, since
when did either of the demonic duo call her
’Mummy’--Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, but now inexplicably disarmed of her previous anger, she lowered herself down on the edge of the tiny bed and reached out to touch his arm.
The instant that her skin made contact with Evan’s, she drew back as if scalded. And she might as well
have been, with how just---he was burning up. Beyond burning up. He was---even the superior intelligence of her Ravenclaw brain failed her for an appropriate adjective in that moment to describe just how terrifyingly warm his tiny body was. Before she could recover from the surprise enough to think of what to do, the boy had unceremoniously thrown himself around her waist, sobbing uncomfortably into the fabric of her sleep shirt, blubbering something about how he didn’t
feel good.
“NOTT! Get in here!”
Rhys let out a loud groan, and rolled over onto his back. Why was there such a sudden need for everyone in this house to be
screaming? It was three in the morning, not a free-for-all shouting display in the park at noon. He let out a heavy sigh, pressing his fingers at the bridge of his nose in the dark.
Apparently, he would not be allowed a peaceful night’s sleep upon his return home. Why had he expected that? After being away in England for work, he had been looking forward to some quiet time. Not in the tea leaves, apparently. He was back on French time, where everything seemed to have a hint of personal torture.
While exhaling another loud sigh, Rhys swung his legs over the side of the bed and to the ground. No doubt, Juliet just didn’t want him to sleep through whatever it was that the twins had her up about. He really wished she would come up for a better excuse of having him present for everything other than ‘exemplary parenting.’
“What is it?” he asked in a heavy tone, once finally making it to their children’s room. He leaned heavily in the doorway, unwilling to commit to whatever it was that was going on in here just yet. For all he knew, Juliet simply felt the need to have him be present while she tucked the children back into bed.
Was he really going to be intent on testing her patience at three in the morning?
Really? Or was it just that his brain was not yet awake enough to realize that she had a blubbering child attached to her stomach---a problem which she thought she had gotten rid of three years ago. Which
should have been gotten rid of three years ago, but apparently hadn’t because suddenly the normally sharp-tongued and sassy Evan had reverted into the form of an infant.
Juliet shot a scathing, impatient look to the doorway, although in the dim light of the moon coming through the window it was hard to know if he could see it at all. “Your son doesn’t feel well,” she snapped, “And since it is probably
your fault for bringing something back from England, I am certainly not about to deal with it by myself.”
The truth was, though, as angry as she tried to make herself sound, her arm on her son’s back continued to remind her just how feverish the little boy was, and that was... scary. Yes, it was scary, even for her. Neither of the twins had ever really gotten sick before, at least not like this. Of course, it was just the fever--as far as she could tell, anyway--but what if it was caused by something greater? What did they do then? She knew quite well how to take care of them day-by-day, but this was new territory.
Evan clambered up further into Juliet’s lap, and she was so distracted that she actually let him do it, even bringing her arms around his burning little body as he did it. She stood up from the bed then, and--well, if her useless husband was just going to stand there in the doorway being
impertinent, then she would have to put this right under his nose.
“Look, just
feel the kid,” she demanded, shoving Evan forward towards his father.
Rhys quickly brought his hands up as Juliet unceremoniously dumped their son into his arms. His wife was not over exaggerating; the child felt very warm in his hold, and was also making little noise about being tossed around. Usually, Evan demanded he do things on his
own, because he
could, and he didn’t need help from anyone. But now, Evan was merely shaking as he pressed his head in Rhys’ chest.
Frowning greatly, Rhys hitched his son up so he could rest his head on his shoulder. Pressing his lips together momentarily, Rhys thought carefully before speaking his next words.
“Do you want to bring him to the hospital?” he spoke quietly, now staring at Juliet through the darkness.
Then, Rhys realized that after all this, their daughter had yet to make a sound. Surely, she would have said something to say about these developments already. Aemelia could also not be asleep, for they had been talking quite normally, so.... mind already jumping to the worst, but hoping that his daughter was merely waiting for the best moment to evoke terror, he paused, then said, “Is Aemelia asleep?”
Hopefully, from that Juliet would understand, or, think of his concern. Because while one sick child was difficult,
two was a straight out problem.
Juliet could not tell if this ice-cold feeling that had just rushed through her was the result of Evan no longer being in her arms, or the sudden realization that their daughter had shown zero signs of movement or unrest despite all of the noise that had been bouncing around the bedroom.
Aemelia---she... that was not normal. Both of the twins were pranksters, of course, but--no, she would have been the
first to have started berating her brother into silence once his crying had begun earlier. On a normal night, Juliet didn’t even have to come this far, because whoever was making the ruckus would have been controlled by the other one, just wanting to go back to sleep as soon as possible. So no, this was not normal of her, which meant that something very
wrong was going on.
She had turned on her heel in a second flat, forgetting Rhys and Evan in the doorway for the moment and padding over to her daughter’s bed. Her eyes were immediately drawn downward towards exactly what she had been both expecting and fearing. Laying there twisted in the sweat-soaked lavender sheets was a lump of little girl, tangled dark hair and red cheeks showing signs of a struggle that had ended quite out of nowhere--for now, in that image, she lay completely and entirely still.
No. No, this was
not okay. Juliet couldn’t---she didn’t understand the magnitude of the the distress that suddenly took hold around her normally tightly-locked heart, but she did know that this was
not okay. Attempting to ignore her shaking hands, she clenched them into fists and turned back to Rhys and---
She didn’t know what to say. What did she say? What was all of this, and these--
feelings, that she couldn’t even think clearly, that she needed him to tell her what to do and take control of this situation because somehow seeing her daughter laying there lifelessly had sent her over some sort of brink that she hadn’t even known existed. All she hoped was that the lighting was too dim for him to see all of it in her eyes, because Juliet must have been an open book in that very moment.
Juliet’s lack of response was all Rhys needed to confirm his concerns. The
twins, not Evan, were sick. Very sick, too sick for three year olds to be without warranting action. Deciding upon this, Rhys nodding his head curtly, then immediately began to move. Juliet may be momentarily fumbling about this familial development, but he would not.
Feeling much more awake than he had moments ago, Rhys did not hesitate in his next actions. He quickly closed the space between him and Juliet, and gently, but firmly, placed their son back into her open arms. Turning without a word, he walked the short distance to the twin’s closet, and pulled out their coats.
“We are leaving for the hospital,” he stated bluntly, producing Evan’s coat for Juliet. When she took it, Rhys then moved onto their daughter. Without missing a beat, he carefully slipped Aemelia out from her bed. Rhys withheld frowning as he realized how hot, and clammy her skin was, and instead proceeded to slide her small arms through her coat.
“Right now,” Rhys finished, standing back up straight with Aemelia in his arms. He looked at Juliet expectantly.
Juliet never thought that she would be happy for Rhys to take control of a situation which involved her, but here she was, several years older and two sick kids richer and she couldn’t help but be relieved that he was going to get this taken care of. Unthinkingly, she caught Evan’s coat and began to wrap it around him, pushing his arms in while the overheated boy fought with her half-heartedly.
She could not even think of a way to scold him, could not think of a single biting remark to make like usual about how he had no choice in the matter. She just did it silently, continuing to re-dress him arm-by-arm until he finally gave up and laid a tired head on her chest in defeat. Once he had calmed down, she made her way back to the master bedroom, quickly and one-handedly grabbing coats, pants, shoes--anything warmer than underwear and sleep shirts out of the closet. She slipped her shoes onto her feet and went to throw on her jacket--carefully, hoping to disturb Evan as little as possible... until she noticed that he, too, was now sagged against her, eyes closed and unresponsive.
No--unlike before, she could not freak out. They were going to the hospital and no matter how many moronic French people they had to deal with while there, they were going to make sure that the twins would get whatever they needed to end whatever this was. The only thing she could do about this now was go out to the Floo, give Rhys his clothes, and get the hell out of this house.
Alright. Juliet breathed once, taking in a shot of her infamous focus and calm, as she hoisted the now dead weight of her son up on her chest with one arm, her husband’s trousers, shoes and jacket in the other. She made it to the living room in a couple of steps, thankfully only to find the other two members of their family already there waiting.
“I appreciate the haste,” she said, tossing Rhys a couple folded-up items of clothing with her free hand. “But first, put some trousers on.”
