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He waited but she didn’t repeat the gesture, her hand going limp again in his.

“Fuck,” he sighed, but held tight to her fingers just in case. He leaned his head back against the headboard and stared at Fee’s ceiling. It was painted a pale blue like the sky on a summer day.

What a happy little color.

And that gave him an idea.

Fee dreamed she was swimming. She was at her favorite spot, the perfect swimming hole with the waterfall. Theo was here, too, grinning at her before diving in. She remembered this day.

But things were different this time.

This time, when Theo swam over to her and grabbed her waist, he held her close, their bodies warm and wet beneath the water. She wrapped her legs around him and he kissed her, long and slow and like they had all the time in the world.

If she had to die, she’d like to spend her afterlife here.

Here was good.

Theo spent the day drinking the foul tea and eating the plates of food Runa brought him and generally fussing like a nervous mother. He refreshed the cool compress when Fee felt too hot and tucked the blankets around her when he thought maybe she was too cold. Every twitch, every sigh, every flutter of her eyelids caught his attention.

He tried spooning some of the tea between her pale lips, but it dribbled back out.

“Come on, Fee, you have to drink something.”

There! Her nose! Theo would swear on his life that she’d wrinkled her nose, just a little, just slightly at the idea of drinking the tea.

“Okay, you want something else!” he said, excitedly grabbing a cup of water instead. He propped Fee up, his arm wrapped around her. He brought a spoon of water to her lips and tipped it in.

She swallowed.

She fucking swallowed!

Another spoonful and she swallowed that one, too. Theo had never been happier about anything in his entire life. He managed to get one more spoonful in before Fee slipped back into a deeper sleep. He eased her down onto her pillows and put the cup and spoon aside.

“That was progress,” he said, pushing the hair off her forehead. Her skin was cool to the touch. Progress. “You’re doing it, my little goddess. You’re doing it.”

He wanted to press a kiss to her forehead, to her cheek, but he only held her enough to help her drink or to reposition her in the bed. At night she clung to him, and he wrapped his arms around her, comforted her, but anything else would have to wait. Wait until she was awake, until she wanted his kiss, until he could give her everything.

Theo leaned back against the headboard and watched Fee sleep. He counted the freckles across her nose and cheeks; he watched her eyes move beneath the lids and wondered what she was dreaming about.

And he felt like a real smug bastard when she whispered his name.

She was dreaming about him.

The next two days passed in the same way, but Fee’s cheeks began pinkening, and her little moans and sighs became more frequent like she was spending more time at the surface of her sleep and less time in the depths.

“You could take a break, you know,” Runa said, disrupting his very important “staring at Fee” time.

“Don’t need one.”

Runa wrinkled her nose, so similar to Fee that Theo remembered that they were in fact related. “I disagree. You could use a shower.”

Theo huffed. “I’m not leaving her.”

Phoebe’s mother rolled her eyes and placed a new tray on the bedside table. “She’s not going anywhere,” she said, her bracelets clacking as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ll sit with her until you get back.”

Theo glanced down at Fee’s sleeping form. He could swear her lips tipped into a small, secret smile. What if she woke up when he was gone? What if she thought he hadn’t come back for her?

“She’s getting better,” Runa said. “You don’t want your big reunion to be ruined with body odor.”