Hey There, Delilah

Chapter 16: The Cure

"Can I hug you?" She nodded. He put his arms around her. She practically fell into him. "I'm here..."

"Why?"

Why... Why?

"Because... I love you, okay?" he whispered. She pulled away and sat up, looking up at him. He looked away. He knew he fucked up, so why not keep going?

"I love how you swing your legs while on chairs, or how you can get a random song stuck in our heads with just a short riff, and the face you make when you don't put enough sugar or cream in your coffee. How you could easily just take charge when minutes before you were talking about how nervous you were. Or how you can have multiple lives at once, like running the coffee shop, applying to school, us. I just... I..."

"Are you done yet?" Delilah asked. Raph looked back at her. She was smiling, and her tears were dry.

"I... Yeah," he shrugged, flushing red. "Why?"

"I love you too." She gasped, and so did he. She felt she was going to explode. They both felt it, but it was ten times stronger than ever before.

"Good lord, we're helpless..." he chuckled. She chuckled, too.

"I agree..."

♦️♦️♦️

Donnie knocked lightly on the doorframe of Raph's exercise room. He found them joking around on Raph's bench, then they looked at each other like two nerds in love. He and Dill overheard Raph and Delilah's conversation and were giddy for them.

"Ready to tell them, Don?" Dill asked. Donnie nodded.

"I'm about to make their day so much better..." Donnie smiled.

"Hey guys, guess what!" Donnie exclaimed as fully he entered Raph's weight room. Raph and Delilah looked at Donnie and Dill, confused.

"What is it, Don?" Delilah asked, standing and approaching him. He held up a rack of test tubes, all filled with the same, yellow-tinted liquid. "Is that a sort of... Medicine?"

"Yes, it is."

"What kind?" Raph asked, standing and moving behind Delilah.

"Well, after the Techno-Drone events, I've been working with Vincent and the professors at the New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital. I based my research on the bone marrow transplant with Timothy Ray Brown in 2007, and as well as the second transplant last year with a London patient."

"What is this medicine for?" Raph asked. Donnie started.

"It's a trial of a cure for-"

"HIV," Delilah whispered, recognizing Timothy Ray Brown's name.

"Exactly, HIV," Donnie stated.

"I talked to Vincent, and she's agreed to talk to the people at the Lower Manhattan for me to run a trial test on you," Donnie said as he looked at Delilah. "But only if you want-"

"Yes! Yes, I want, I consent to this!" Delilah stated excitedly. Raph smiled at her. Her face suddenly fell. "Wait, how did you... how did you know?" Donnie bit his lip, then struggled to find words.