Archive of Our Own ^beta

“She’s right this way, Leader,” one of the medics murmured to her.

Ada straightened her spine, steeling herself as she followed the rebellion medics. As the two of them walked, Ada couldn’t help but wince at the growing number of sick filling the beds of this particular house. The disease’s chokehold on the city of Middlesea seemed almost unstoppable – but the scholar couldn’t let her unease show when she was among the people she tasked herself with protecting.

It wouldn’t do for their leader to look worried.

Despite that, Ada wasn’t able to suppress the grimace that grew on her face when they got to the rebellion’s scout leader’s room. Shivering under the thin covers provided by the sick bay was Jay Birde, her face covered in purple blotches. Her wings were draped over herself, the feathers frayed and broken in spots as she shook.

“Miss Birde? You have a visitor,” the medic whispered. They stepped in and set a glass of water on her bedside.

Her scout’s eyes creaked open, an unnatural red light shining in them. Her lips parted, dry and split before she coughed. “I don’t… Who?”

“I’m here, Jay.”

Ada stepped to try to console her, but was quickly stopped by another medic. “Ma’am, we can’t let you touch the diseased! There’s a lot we still don’t know about it, we can’t have you succumbing to it too!”

“What? But, she’s-!”

“It’s okay,” Jay murmured, a deep sadness in her glassy red eyes. A feather from one of her head wings fell out. “I know you’re not really here, anyway. But it was a nice thought to have…”

The words froze in Ada’s throat, her eyes flicking between the two medics with her. They looked between each other, before the first one who led her to Jay cleared their throat.

“Leader, she’s… been having hallucinations of you, as far as we can tell.”

“Me? How- I don’t…”

“It’s not her fault,” Jay coughed wetly. Her breath tensed as she shut her eyes, leaning into a phantom touch. “I’m… nothing more than a scout. There’s no reason for her to waste her time on somebody like me.”

“Jay, that’s not true…”

Ada took a step towards Jay’s cot, and this time the first medic stopped the second one from intervening. She gave them a grateful nod as she knelt beside her scout, gloved hands gently brushing the hair out of her eyes.

“But… I’m nobody special, really.” Birde’s words came out cracked as she lay there, eyes unfocused and gazing upward. It was here Ada noticed that the blotching had spread from Jay’s face to her neck and shoulders. “You’ve got so much to do. You don’t have to waste time on me.”

“Can you sit up?” Ada murmured, her heart twisting into knots.

“I…” Jay grunted as she tried, but couldn’t. “Sorry…”

“Here.” Ada helped her up, pressing the cup of water the medic left behind to Jay’s lips when she was upright. The scout drank halfheartedly, the action only making Ada’s dread worse. “How long has she had Stage Three symptoms?”

“Um, a day or two, ma’am…”

“There’s still time,” Ada whispered to herself. “I can fix this somehow.”

“It’s okay, Ada,” Jay barely spoke. Her gaze was focused elsewhere. “I don’t regret it. I’d die for you if you asked. It’d be worth it.”

“But I don’t want you to die,” Ada hiccuped, hot tears prickling at the edges of her eyes. “We’re supposed to be working together for a better future for Middlesea. I want you to be there too, Jay. What’s the point if you’re not there to see it with me?”

For a moment the distant look in Jay’s eyes almost dissipated, but the scout let out something between a sob and a laugh as she laid back down. “I don’t know. I don’t know, I… I’m scared.”

Ada gently held Jay’s cheek as she tried to pull her emotions into gear. Again Jay pressed herself into that simple touch, tears welling up in her glassy eyes. “I’m scared, Ada. Don’t go again.”

“I… I want to promise I won’t, but I can’t,” Ada admitted. She didn’t miss the wince Jay made at her words. “I need to check on some things, but then I’ll be back. I can promise you that.”

“Okay,” Jay breathed out, her lip quivering. “I’ll wait for you.”

All Ada could do was brush a purple-tinted tear out of Jay’s face before she stood again, watching as the scout drifted back off to sleep. Did… she only make Jay’s sickness worse? That’d never happened before.

The same thought must’ve been on the medics’ minds, given how quickly the worried medic from before demanded Ada’s gloves for disposal. Ada could only sigh as she handed them over, her mind working to try to find a solution.

“Have any of the patients recovered from Stage Three recently?” She asked the medics softly.

The first medic stopped their work, seemingly thinking back to something. “One of the Yoseph clan medics, they said they managed to cure someone that was on the downhill decline. I’m not sure who, though.”

“Wait, really?” The other medic asked, blinking in surprise.

“Really. Should I contact them, Leader?”

“Please do. I have to see how the Rebellion is doing, but… please keep me posted on how that’s going.”

I can’t help but feel like there’s more I could do, but…

Ada’s gaze drifted over to Jay again, promptly punching down the urge to hold her close. She had things to do, and she was the only one who could do it – so she had to get moving.

I’ll be back, I promise.

“so i like know how this is going to sound but when’s the last time you have cuddled another person,” a young and heavily masked medic asked Jay.

Birde blinked tiredly up at the two new medics (at least, she assumed they were medics, one of them was in a jester outfit?) that stood over her bedside. She tried her best to swallow and clear her throat, unsure what exactly to say.

“Are you two actually medics?” She blurted out, mental filter not properly set up yet. While she was feeling more lucid today, that was still not a high bar to clear.

“ouch,” the one she was definitely sure was actually a medic murmured.

“Look, we’re not sure why it worked either, but it worked on me,” the jester medic(?) said, his chest puffed out in pride. “So, answer the question, bird girl!”

“I can’t remember,” Jay admitted, before blinking in realization. “You can’t be serious. You’re saying cuddles work on the sickness?”

“We’ve been telling everybody we can about it. Jeffy figured it out.”

“that’s how miss ada found us,” the medic apparently named Jeffy nodded. “she wanted us to see what we could do for you.”

“That’s right,” Ada’s voice rang out from somewhere. Jay had been trying to ignore how it made her feel like her skin was rotting. “So then, what do we do, exactly..?”

“Well since you’re volunteering, we’re going to be out there in case stuff goes wrong,” the jester said, then, in an almost stage-whisper, “(but honestly there’s nothing that I specifically can do, I just entertain The People, I’m here for the dork.)”

They’re not even staying?

“Wait,” Jay’s brain stuttered for a moment. “What’s going on again?”

Yellow lenses filled Jay’s vision as Jeff smoothed out the feathers on her head. “we’re on standby while miss ada keeps you company so like, don’t worry. if everything goes well you’ll be feeling better by morning like everyone’s hoping”

“Everyone?” Jay blinked in surprise.

“They think you’re strong, Jay. They want you to recover.” Warm arms wrapped around the scout as Ada’s voice wafted from behind her. Jay froze in place, something finally clicking in her head as two and two went together. “So, if I can help, I’m going to.”

“Wait, hold on-”

“okay you just relax miss birde we’ll be right outside rest up” was all Jeff said before they shut the door to Jay’s room, leaving her with what had to be the real Ada.

Well SHIT.

Her skin felt like it was melting. Jay took a deep breath as she tried to settle down, her heartbeat thundering in her ears.

“You’re… actually pretty cold, Jay,” Ada murmured into her shoulder. “I thought you’d be warmer with the feathers.”

“um,” Jay started, finding her brain wasn’t making sense, “normally I’d say it’s the ice magic but I think this time it’s also the bad diet?”

“Right, Stage Three. Decreased intake of food and drink.” There was a pause, then the sound of shuffling as Ada buried her face into Jay’s loose tunic. “We’ll need your soup recipe. Everyone’s been missing it while you’ve been out.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. I missed it too.”

“Oh.” God, she sounded like an idiot with how slow she was catching on, but she knew it was just because she was sick. “You do? I mean- I know you like it, I just-”

“Well… maybe I just missed seeing you there, handing it out. You always have this big smile on your face seeing people eat your food,” Ada mumbled. “I missed that.”

“Oh.”

Her face felt hot and she felt stupid.

“You’re… actually here.”

“Was that supposed to be a question, or just a statement?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t- how long have you been here?”

“Does it really matter?” Ada asked softly.

“I… guess not.”

“Do you want me to be here?”

“No- well- Shouldn’t you be… doing other more important stuff?”

“This is important stuff too,” Ada huffed. “You’re important to me.”

The protests froze in Jay’s throat, suddenly blocked by tears threatening to spill. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Ada lifted her head to try to look Jay in the eye. “You stuck with me even after I was kicked out of the castle. You decided to leave your job to support the Rebellion. You put your life on the line for me every day and I just… I want to make sure you live to see this through, Jay.”

One of the arms wrapped around her let go to brush the tears off of Jay’s face, the gesture making her eyes well up even more. “I want you to get better. I want to see what comes next.”

Without thinking, the scout pressed her face further into Ada’s touch. It felt just like the hallucination’s, but… real. This was real.

“I really don’t want to die,” Jay admitted, the tears rolling down her face. “I mean, I know it doesn’t look good. But I still don’t wanna die.”

“I’m here, Jay,” was all Ada said as she held her again, arms wrapped tight around Jay’s waist. “You’re not dying.”

Somehow, when Ada said it like that, Jay could almost believe it.

“The blotching’s reduced almost entirely,” Ada breathed out in wonder as she looked over Jay in the morning. “How are you feeling?”

While Jay certainly looked rough, the Rebellion leader couldn’t help but feel better at seeing the improvements she had made overnight. Jay was sitting up, the glassy look in her eyes gone and the redness reduced. The worst of the blotches of purple on her skin had become faint now, and she seemed much more alert than the previous visits.

“Sleepy,” Jay yawned, “but better. Not 100%, but… not dying, so that’s good, right?”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing.” Ada smiled as she brushed a hand through Jay’s feathers. “Those two really were right about this…”

“Gah, I really should apologize to them for the ‘really a medic’ thing… Can you help me up?”

“You’re getting out of bed? Isn’t it too soon?” Ada asked, though she did help Jay stand.

“I think I’ve spent long enough rotting in that bed,” Jay admitted. She held onto Ada’s arm a bit shakily. “You know I don’t like asking for help, but…”

“I can help you walk and apologize,” Ada smiled.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“It’ll be alright. We’ll take it a step at a time, okay?”

“Yeah. Just… one day at a time.”