Characters: Elphias Doge, various Mungos NPCs.
Setting: Early morning, 1st April 1979, Virus Quarantine Ward @ St. Mungos Hospital.
Summary: :[[[
Rating: PG

Elphias wondered if this was a nightmare. Brown eyes only half-open, he stared blankly at his own foot that crooked limply to one side underneath the pale green sheet. He was so bloody hot but he didn't have the strength to push the blankets away. Everything hurt too much. Two days ago, he'd been doing better. The fever was lessened and he was actually able to keep food down - even if it had just been soup. Elphias had been like that for nearly a week prior and the healers had been saying things were looking up, that he was going to get out of this, much to the relief of Elphias and his family. But then on Sunday he'd woken himself up in a fit in his sleep to find himself and the covers absolutely soaked with perspiration. The fever had come back and it was looking worse than before. Coughing weakly, he winced at the feeling of sharp gravel running over his already raw throat. He heard someone enter the dimly lit room and shuffle over to his bedside. It had to be some ridiculous hour of the morning, but a nurse or healer was still in every fifteen minutes to check his progress. A familiar homely face loomed into view as Elphias felt a cool, gentle hand take his wrist. "Hi there, baby. How are you feeling today?" the woman said with a motherly smile. It was the first he'd seen her since Nurse Roberts had found him dipping back into the fever in the early hours of Sunday morning. There was concern in her tired features, but somehow just her presence made the sick young man feel safe. Elphias opened his mouth to tell the nurse that he felt bloody awful (worse than he could ever remember) but all that came out was a crackle of his hoarse, deep voice before the blast of a cough escaped and rocked his entire upper body. Nurse Roberts put a firm hand to his shoulder and held onto his hand. Face screwing up in pain, Elphias tried to draw a breath between savage coughs but no air entered his swollen throat and his lungs screamed in protest. Eyes going wide in surprise, adrenaline made his body go rigid and his pulse slammed at the back of his ears. His feet kicked lamely at their cover and Elphias looked up fearfully to the nurse who was trying to hush him as she ran the back of her hand across his cheek. He coughed and he coughed hard as he struggled to breathe. Soon his vision was going fuzzy and the edges of the room went black. Panic began to overtake him. Was he...was he dying?! "You need to calm down, baby, or you're going to send yourself into shock," Nurse Roberts said evenly but Elphias didn't hear anything but the ringing in his ears. He made one, two more tortured gasps, each weaker than the last before the remaining sight he had went white. His body then went very still. Moving quickly, the nurse had her wand out and she had flicked the lights in the room from to dim to bright with one hand while unhinging the bed to lay the boy flat on his back with the other. "I need a healer!" she shouted toward the door that led directly to a nurse station. "He's stopped breathing!" No sooner than the words left her mouth, a howling whoop went up through the ward and the color of the door and threshold that led to the room shifted from dull egg-shell to a lurid blue. The voice of Healer Smethwyck echoed over the alarm, announcing the location of the Code Blue. A patient had gone into cardiac arrest. Nurse Roberts dropped the bed's guard railing and yanked the sheet back on the young man who was soaked in sweat. "Don't you die on me, baby boy," she told an unresponsive Elphias with a deep frown, starting CPR as more footsteps rushed into the room.