"Dad?"
"Dad?"
"Papa?"
"Please wake up. . ."
I blinked groggily and wiped a hand across my face.
My beautiful husband was still asleep next to me, burning with fever but thankfully asleep. He had contracted some kind of stomach bug within the past 24 hours and had been feeling reasonably poorly, resulting in the both of us taking the day off together, which I was in no way complaining about.
If Harry was asleep, why was I awake? I could've sworn I heard a voice.
"Papa?"
One of the twins.
I eased my arm out from underneath Harry carefully and sat up on an elbow, trying to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. There wasn't a speck of light in the room and even after a minute or so I could only just make out the shape of the furniture.
"Dad?"
She was behind the closed door.
I was a little confused as to why one of the twins was even up and about this early in the morning as it had been a fair few years since they hadn't been able to sleep through the night.
I sighed and got up out of bed, tugging up my sweatpants and I drew closer to the door.
The coldness of the handle melted into my skin as I opened the door gently, in case she was leaning on it.
"Papa!"
She pounced onto me without hesitation and if she'd weighed much more I would've fallen right over. I softly wrapped my arms around her little body, feeling the straps of her singlet under my fingertips.
It was Sienna. Harper felt the cold like nobody I'd ever met and always slept in a thermal no matter what time of the year it was.
"Hey, sweetie did you have a nightmare?" I asked, figuring that it was the only reasonable answer here.
She just tightened her grip on me while I twirled a strand of her long hair around my finger. I wasn't really sure what I was doing to be completely honest, Harry usually dealt with these kinds of things since I was normally the heavy sleeper.
I guessed today was the exception.
"You're alright, Si. . ." I whispered, "do you want to come into my bed with your Dad and I?"
She shook her head against my shoulder.
"Dad's sick," came her muffled reply. Right, scared of getting sick and germs.
Out of the things in the world to be afraid of Sienna was most frightened about feeling ill. As in, she hadn't been closer than a three meter radius from Harry all day.
Seeing as she didn't seem to be letting me go any time soon. I managed to pick her up because thankfully she wasn't too heavy for an eight year old, and then made my way over to the light switch in the hallway. I was awake now anyway, a little light wouldn't make any difference.
"Papa I'm scared," Sienna mumbled into my neck, her small lips against my skin.
"It was just a dream, princess, I promise I won't let anything happen to you," I replied softly.
"My tummy hurts."
Right.
Fuck.
Now I was really screwed.
"Oh Sienna, you should've told me sooner, babe."
I gently pulled her out of my shoulder so that I could see her face, which was a little pale and stained with tears. A sympathetic sound fell from my parted lips as I swiped softly at her damp cheeks.
"Don't cry, beautiful, you'll feel better soon," I soothed her as a fresh tear rolled down her face.
"I want to feel better now, Papa, I don't like this. It's so stupid, Dad's sick, he's not crying like a bab-"
"Shhh hey it's not your fault." I cut her choked ramble off before she could get very far and carried her out to the lounge. I slowly put her down on the couch and laid the throw-over blanket on top of her.
She looked absolutely tiny on the couch, it looked like it could just swallow her whole.
"Is it bad Si, does it really hurt a lot?" I asked carefully, not wanting to make her cry again. She just shrugged, her splotchy face barely even twitching.
"Would you like some medicine?" I tried.
"Will it make it go away?"
"It will make your stomach feel better," I said, changing the words around slightly. I couldn't lie to her, Harry was still throwing up after 24 hours and I honestly doubted a dose of stomach relaxer for kids would stop this bug but I didn't exactly want to tell her that either.
She nodded shakily, "okay then."
A few minutes later I had the recommended dosage ready to give to her and she uncertainly took it from my grip. She downed it like it was a shot, as if the few seconds difference meant everything. It mustn't have tasted all that great though because a look of disgust passed over her features as she relaxed into the couch.
I noticed a small bead of sweat on her hairline and remember the 103 degree fever Harry was currently fighting.
"I'm just gonna go grab the thermometer from the bedroom, sweetie, hang tight til I get back okay?"
"Go fast."
Sienna looked at me with her big green eyes and I pretty much ran back to the room. I walked around the bed to Harry's side and ran my hands over the table slowly, realising that trying to find the instrument in the dark was no easy task .
"Watcha doing?" Harry croaked, his throat most likely ripped apart from vomiting all day long, poor baby. I blushed, feeling guilty for waking him up.
"Sienna's out in the lounge feeling sick to her stomach so I'm just grabbing the thermometer," I murmured quietly, "how are you doing?"
He sighed tiredly, "Sienna? Oh god, this'll be fun."
I wasn't sure if he'd purposely avoided my question about his well-being or not but I decided to let it go just this once.
"Yeah, I'm just hoping the rest of them are alright."
My fingers finally hit what they were looking for and I picked it up, weighing it in one hand.
"Do you need any help?" Harry asked.
I shook my head, "H, you're as sick as hell, and she won't let you anywhere near her and you know it."
"Fine, fine, you get back out to her then Lou." Harry's voice was just getting quieter and quieter and I knew he'd be asleep within moments.
I grinned and pecked him on the cheek before leaving as quietly as I could.
Sienna was tucked up into a little ball when I got back, her lanky arms wrapped around her knees tightly. I plopped down right next to her and gave her an assuring look before sliding the instrument under her arm.
"I really really don't want to throw up, Papa. . ." she whispered, eyes wide as we waited for the beep.
I nudged her shoulder as the device let out a sound, "you'll be alright, princess. I'm right here beside you."
I took it from her and just as I thought she definitely had a temperature, not quite as high as Harry's was thankfully, but still higher than the usual.
"How about we just have a little nap out here, babe? we can just lay down here," I suggested.
"Can we leave the light on though?"
"If that's what you want."
I smiled and spread out against the back of the couch, patting the seat for her to join me. She took a breath before snuggling down into my side, squirming a little until she got comfortable and relaxed. I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in even closer, until my head was resting on her little shoulder.
"Go to sleep, sweetie, it'll do you good," I said.
Her breathing slowed down over the next ten minutes and soon she'd fallen asleep. I knew that I probably shouldn't even try, it wouldn't make sense. Harry would probably be up in the bathroom soon and I had no idea when I was going to have to run Sienna there.
Maybe it was worth waking Jake and having him help me.
Nah, the kid needed his sleep too, especially if this bug was going to rampage through the entire household. It had only happened once before but holy hell, it had been chaos.
My arm was getting numb by the time I heard movement from the other room and I slid away from Sienna as carefully as possible to go help my husband.
He was sick of vomiting by now, he was just plain exhausted and when he was finished heaving up the rest of his guts he pretty much fell asleep on the spot. I managed to coax him back to bed after a few tries and then I went back to the lounge where Sienna was sitting up, leaning over her knees and trembling hard.
"Sienna babe, are you going to be sick?" I asked her, needing to know if we had to go to the bathroom or not. It was way too early to even be considering scrubbing vomit out of the carpet.
"I don't want to!" She cried, positively terrified.
My heart didn't just break in two, it shattered into a million separate shards that stabbed into my insides like knives.
"Come on, sweetie, you'll feel better afterwards I promise you."
I was holding back sobs too as I scooped her up and hurried to the closest bathroom. I placed her in front of the toilet and tied her hair up as she continued to bawl her eyes out.
"Papa, please don't make me!" she shrieked as she tried to pull away from the bowl, successfully waking up the whole house.
"I can't do anything, beautiful, you've got to just let it happen. I'm right here."
I rubbed her back and bracketed her body between my legs. She gagged and her back arched forwards as a ragged cry escaped her mouth.
"Stop!" she sobbed and now I was biting my lip to keep from crying with her. It honestly sucked so bad to see her like this and not be able to do anything. I just wanted to take it all from her.
She coughed and threw up heavily in the toilet. Her breathing was still fast and sharp but she seemed to be done for now so I pulled her into my chest and just held her there, letting her tears dry on my shirt. There was probably up-chuck too from her shirt but I couldn't really care less, I had more shirts.
Her crying slowed down until she was just hiccuping every few seconds and she managed to calm down a fair bit.
"I'm proud of you Si, you're incredible," I whispered into her ear.
"I don't feel incredible," she rasped. I chuckled and tucked a stray tendril of sweaty hair behind her ear.
"Can we please just go to your bed with Dad?"
I hid my surprised look. Never in a million years did I think she'd ask to get into bed with someone who was sick. "Are you sure?"
"Carry me?"
There you go, two nights in a row because I'm still guilty. I really hope you like it though Jazz1482, and everybody else reading, thank you all!