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The day started out, in Jem’s opinion, like any other day. He was woken up around 8:00 by Will coughing in the room next to him. From what he could tell, they sounded completely normal and he couldn’t hear anything that sounded like Will was choking or throwing up, so he laid in bed for a few extra minutes before getting up and dressing.
Will was still coughing when Jem left his room but he had stopped by the time he got to Will’s door. He knocked gently and waited for an answer. When one didn’t come, he knocked again and said, “Will?”
“What do you want?” Will said from the other side of the door.
“Can I come in?”
“No. Go away.”
Jem reached down and tried to turn the handle, but the door was locked. Will hadn’t been allowed to lock his door since Henry had to use an unlocking rune when he didn’t show up for dinner and found him passed out on the floor with a high fever. “Can you please unlock the door so I can come in and do your physical therapy?” Jem asked.
“No. Leave me alone.”
Jem sighed and asked, “Why won’t you let me come in?”
“Because I don’t want you to come in. Leave. Me. Alone.”
Jem shook his head and walked away. If Will didn’t want him to come in, then he wasn’t going to be getting in that room any time soon. It wasn’t the first time that Will had refused treatment, and it definitely would not be the last. He would just tell Charlotte about it and get on with his day.
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Charlotte was in her office when she heard a knock on her door. She called out, “Come in!” and waited as she watched Jem walk in and close the door behind himself. He looked worried, and although she didn’t know why, she had a feeling that Will had something to do with it.
“Is everything alright?” Charlotte asked.
Jem shook his head and said, “Will wouldn’t let me do his therapy.”
Charlotte frowned. “Did he let you in his room at all?”
“No, he locked the door.”
“Well,” Charlotte said, thinking about it for a minute. “If he sounded alright, then I guess it isn’t too much of a problem if he misses one treatment. Just make sure that you do it tonight.”
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Later that night when Will refused to open the door, Jem was annoyed, but not surprised. He stayed outside of Will’s room for longer than he had that morning, but in the end, he gave up and let Charlotte know about it before going to bed. She told him again to make sure that it was done in the morning, but based on the events of that day, Jem didn’t think that he would have much luck doing so.
The next morning went very similarly to the previous one. Jem laid in bed for a few minutes listening to Will cough before getting up, and if he listened closely, the coughs sounded much wetter and heavier than they had the day before.
When he got to Will’s room, Jem was met with another locked door. After multiple pleas that were met with either silence or curt refusals, Jem sat down with his back against the wall and waited.
Two hours later, Jem still hadn’t moved, and although Will had stopped coughing about an hour ago, the door still hadn’t been unlocked. Jem looked at the time on the clock in the hallway and realized that Agatha was going to stop serving breakfast in about ten minutes, so he stood up, turned around, and knocked on the door again.
“Will?” he called. “Breakfast is over in ten minutes. If you’re hungry, I can bring you something.”
“I’m fine,” Jem heard Will say. He decided not to ask again and instead just went on his way to breakfast.
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A few hours later, Jem was on the second floor of the library looking for a book for Charlotte when he heard the door open on the floor below. He knew that Charlotte was busy and everyone else in the Institute didn’t have much interest in the library, so there was only one person that it could be. Jem quietly crept to the railing and looked over to see Will dropping into a chair with a book. Jem could tell that he was out of breath, even though Jem knew from experience that unless he had been in Henry’s crypt, nothing strenuous had to be done to get to the library from anywhere in the Institute.
Jem really wanted to go downstairs and make sure that he was alright, but he knew that Will would deflect his questions and run off as soon as he saw Jem, so he decided to stay where he was and get as much information as possible without asking any questions. Despite being out of breath, Will seemed to be alright. That would definitely not be the case if he tried to go after any demons, but Jem was sure that Charlotte would not let that happen.
Jem watched Will for a few more minutes before stepping back to where he wouldn’t be seen if Will decided to look up. It was obvious that Will needed some form of airway clearance other than coughing, and if Will wasn’t going to let him do his physical therapy, then Jem would have to trick him into it. So, as he slipped through the barely used door of the library’s second floor, he put together a plan.
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Half an hour later, Jem walked into the library and sat himself down in the chair across from the one Will was in. Will glanced up to see who it was and immediately looked back down at his book and said, “What do you want?”
“We should train,” Jem said. “We might have to go after some demons soon and we need to practice for when Charlotte lets us go out by ourselves,” he added, hoping Will would go along with it.
Will didn’t answer for a minute and Jem thought that he had succeeded until Will said, “I don’t want to.”
Jem opened his mouth to try again but decided at the last minute that it would only make Will angrier than he already seemed to be. “Oh. Well, if you want to later, just let me know,” he said.
“Sure,” Will muttered.
Jem stood up and left the library. His carefully thought out plan had failed spectacularly and he was running out of ideas. If Will was still refusing to let Jem do his therapy that night, then he was going to have to figure out exactly what was going on and do something about it.
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When Jem went to Will’s room that night, he wasn’t expecting Will go open the door, but he was still determined. Will couldn’t go much longer without treatment and Jem was sure that he would go crazy if he had to worry about Will this much for another day, so he really needed to get in.
Jem knocked on the door and said, “Will? Can I please come in?”
The only answer he got was a curt, “No.”
“Alright, well…” Jem ran through his options before settling on one. “Can Charlotte do your therapy then?”
“No.”
Jem sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Is there anyone else besides me or Charlotte-“
“No,” Will said, cutting Jem off. “Go away.”
Jem felt like crying. If Will wouldn’t let him or anyone in the Institute do his therapy, then he didn’t know what else he could possibly do. He was starting to think that their only option was to knock him out and drag him to the Silent Brothers so they could do it.
“If you won’t let anyone do it, then could you please explain why?” Jem asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Will said. “You won’t like it.”
“I don’t care if I won’t like it, Will. I just want to understand why you won’t let anyone help you.”
Of everything that Jem thought would happen, he wasn’t expecting the door to fly open to reveal a very angry Will standing in front of him. He took a step back out of surprise as he took in Will’s slightly disheveled and very out of breath appearance.
“I’m done, okay?” Will said. “I’m done with all of it. All of the treatments and the people worrying about me and avoiding people when they have the slightest little cough. I’m tired of it and I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Jem took a moment to process what Will had said before asking, “So you’re just giving up?”
“If you want to call it that, yes.”
Jem was shocked. There had been other times where Will had refused to let anyone do his physical therapy, but it was usually just because he wasn’t feeling well or just didn’t want to do it. It had never gone on for this long before or had a reason behind it that was this serious.
“You’re throwing your life away just because you’re tired of doing something that’s keeping you alive,” Jem said.
Will nodded. “There’s really no point in doing it if I can’t even get out of bed some days anyway.”
Jem felt like he couldn’t breathe. He hadn’t even known Will for six months yet and he was already going to lose him. He didn’t want to say it out loud, but he knew exactly what Will was hoping to get out of this. He wanted to stay standing in the hallway for as long as it took to convince Will not to throw his life away like this, but the more that he thought about everything Will had said, the more he felt like he was going to cry.
Jem took a deep breath and blinked away the tears that were threatening to make their presence known. “One can't live with half a soul, Will,” he said. “So please, don't make me.”
Jem didn’t wait to see Will’s reaction and instead just walked away before he could say anything. He didn’t want it to seem like he was trying to guilt trip Will into changing his mind with tears so that meant that he couldn’t let Will see him cry.
Once Jem was back in his own room with the door closed, he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. He couldn’t let this happen. He had to do something to show Will that there was more to his life than trying to deal with his illness. He would tell Charlotte and together they could come up with ideas to show Will that this was a horrible idea and then implement them tomorrow when everyone was well rested and calmer.
But if it didn’t work and they couldn’t convince Will…
As Jem tried to push the image of the very possible future out of his head, he felt the first of many tears slip down his face.
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Charlotte was about to leave the library when she heard the door open and saw Jem come in. At first, she assumed that he was getting a book for Will or for himself, but as he came closer, she saw that he had been crying. She immediately rushed over to him and put her hands on his shoulders to try and comfort him.
“What happened?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
Jem wiped his nose with the back of his hand and said, “Will told me why he won’t let anyone do his therapy. He’s just giving up. He said he’s tired of having to deal with his illness.”
“And if he refuses treatment, that means he’ll…” Charlotte trailed off, suddenly putting together what Jem had just said and why he was crying. “Oh no.”
“We can’t let him do this,” Jem said. “We have to do something.”
Charlotte nodded in agreement and looked down at Jem. She knew that he was very mature for his age and she often forgot how young he really was, but all she could see at the moment was a scared little thirteen-year-old boy who thought that he was going to lose his best friend. “We’ll think of something,” she said. “Don’t worry.”
“I can’t lose him too,” Jem whispered, blinking back tears.
Charlotte pulled her handkerchief out and handed it to Jem. “I know, I don’t want to lose him either. Why don’t you go to bed and have a good night’s sleep? We’ll talk in the morning after breakfast and figure out the best way to go about this.”
Jem nodded and, after handing the handkerchief back to Charlotte, left the library. Charlotte waited until the doors closed behind him to collapse back into the chair she had just vacated. She had been worried before, but after hearing what exactly Will was planning to do, her heart was pounding. She couldn’t tell his parents at the moment, but she imagined having to write and send a letter to them in the next week telling them what had happened and asking them to come as soon as possible.
She couldn’t do it.
Tomorrow, they would have a nice, relaxing breakfast and then come up with ways to convince Will to change his mind. She wasn’t sure at the moment what they would do, but she had a feeling that they would be successful. When it came to Will, it was usually easy to make him do things when Jem was involved.
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The next morning didn’t go how any of them had imagined. Jem woke up at the usual time and listened to Will cough for a while to make sure that he was still alive and breathing. He didn’t try to knock on the door or go in because he knew that Will would make him leave, but he still listened long enough to know that Will wasn’t in any serious danger at the moment. Once he had done so, he got out of bed and got dressed, then went down to breakfast.
That was when everything changed.
Halfway through breakfast, Jem felt his condition rapidly deteriorate. In just a few minutes, he went from being talkative and healthy to being quiet and pale. Charlotte, who seemed to be finely tuned to recognize any change in Will and Jem’s health the moment it happened, noticed this and put her fork down.
“Jem? Is something wrong?” she asked.
Jem opened his mouth and was about to tell her that he didn’t think so when he was interrupted by a fit of coughing. When it was done, he could see blood on the hand that he had been coughing into and his vision was starting to go black.
The last thing that crossed his mind before he passed out was Will.
As soon as she saw Jem pass out, Charlotte sprang into action. She told Henry to carry Jem up to his room while she ran ahead of them and prepared the yin fen that Jem would need. Henry wasn’t particularly strong, but he was stronger than she was and Jem was pretty light anyway. Henry hadn’t gotten upstairs yet by the time she had measured out the correct amount of yin fen and gotten a glass of water ready, so she left Jem’s room and went over to Will’s. He may have been pushing everyone away and refusing to let anyone do what needed to be done, but he still deserved to know what was happening.
Charlotte knocked quietly and said, “I just wanted to let you know that Jem had an attack. It wasn’t a very bad one, but I’m still going to have the Silent Brothers examine him.” There was no answer, but she could hear something that sounded like the sheets on his bed rubbing together, so she at least knew that he was in there.
Charlotte turned away from Will’s door just in time to see Henry appear in the hallway with Jem. She spent the next few minutes making sure that all of the yin fen was taken and that he was comfortable before she was able to take a deep breath and relax.
At least until it was time to talk to Will about his recent decisions.
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Charlotte was washing the blood and yin fen from her hands when she heard coughing. She immediately looked up at Jem to make sure he was alright, but he hadn’t moved an inch. There were other two people in the Institute who coughed regularly, and if it wasn’t Jem, then there was only one possibility. Charlotte’s gaze moved from Jem to the doorway where Will was standing with one hand holding him up. He was out of breath, which was normal, but it wasn’t normal for him to be out of breath after walking the ten feet from his room to Jem’s room.
“Are you alright?” Charlotte asked, rushing over to him. He clearly wasn’t alright, but she wanted to be sure.
“I’m fine. Is Jem okay?” Will answered, waving her off.
“He had an attack, but he’ll be fine.” Will looked like he was about to fall over, so she wanted to make him sit down as soon as possible. “Do you want to sit with him?”
For a moment, Will looked like he was trying to measure the distance between the chair and where he was standing. Charlotte was ready to suggest that he go back to his room and rest when he said, “I might need some help getting there.”
Since arriving at the Institute, Charlotte could count the number of times that Will had asked for help on one hand. It was such a rare occurrence that she didn’t want to do anything to keep it from happening again, so she did her best to hide her surprise and nodded. “Of course.”
Charlotte held on tightly to Will’s arm as they walked across the room. She was happy that Will had asked for help, but she wasn’t happy at all with the reason why. She knew that is was because Will wasn’t letting Jem do his physical therapy. It had been at least two days since it had been done and it was obvious from his condition at the moment that he was starting to be affected by it.
Charlotte helped Will slowly sit down in the chair and let go. Once she was sure that he wasn’t going to pass out or hurt himself somehow, she quickly ran to his room to get the bowl and a blanket. When she came back to Jem’s room, Will was leaning forward with his eyes closed and obviously trying to take deep breaths. She put what she had brought down on the floor next to the chair and put her hand on his back.
“Do you need anything?” she asked.
“Could you…” Will started. He hated asking for help, but it needed to happen. “Could you do my therapy?”
Charlotte smiled and nodded. “Gladly. I need to go call the Silent Brothers and then I’ll be right back to do it. I’ll have them examine you too when they’re done with Jem.”
“They should just focus on Jem,” Will said. “I don’t need their help.”
“We’ll see,” Charlotte said. She picked up the blanket and put it over his shoulders, then handed him the bowl. “I’ll be back soon.”
Charlotte tried to keep herself from running on the way to the study. She wanted to get there as fast as possible so she could get back to Jem’s room quickly. Both of her boys were sick and she couldn’t stand leaving them for even a second. When she arrived in the study, Charlotte opened a drawer and took out a piece of paper and a pen so she could write a message to the Silent Brothers. She sat down at the desk and wrote, “Jem had a bad attack and is currently unconscious with a bad fever. I have given him the yin fen but I thought it would be best if he was examined by you. Will may also need to be examined as he has been refusing treatment for the past two days. He has asked me to do his physical therapy, but I fear that the lack of treatment may have badly affected his health.”
Charlotte signed the note and sent it off, then ran back up to Jem’s room. When she got there, she was relieved to see that nobody seemed to have gotten any worse, but she could see mucus in the bowl Will was holding that hadn’t been there when she left.
Will nodded and carefully stood up. Charlotte pulled the trunk at the end of Jem’s bed out slightly so that Will could sit on it and she could sit on the bed behind him. He still had the blanket over his shoulders, which was good because it would provide an extra layer of padding so that she didn’t hurt him.
A few minutes after starting, Charlotte pulled her hands back and waited as Will coughed into the bowl. She could tell that he was spitting up more mucus than usual and she tried to see it as a good sign that the therapy was helping, but she was still worried.
When he was done coughing, they moved to the floor to do the rest of the therapy. As Charlotte was finishing with his chest, she heard Sophie let the Silent Brothers in. By the time they arrived in Jem’s room, Charlotte was standing to greet them and Will was sitting on the floor and coughing.
Are their conditions changed at all from when your letter was sent? Brother Enoch asked.
“They haven’t changed. I just finished Will’s therapy but he coughed up a lot more mucus than he usually does,” Charlotte said.
We will examine James first while William recovers. I believe that he would be more comfortable in his own room, if he is able to go there.
Charlotte helped Will stand and made sure that he didn’t fall or pass out on the way to his room. When they got there, she helped him sit down on the bed and watched as he laid down and pulled the blankets over himself. The therapy didn’t usually tire him out that much, but he had coughed up a lot more than he usually did and she knew he was probably exhausted.
“Just rest for a while,” she said. “After the Silent Brothers are done with you, you can go back to Jem’s room.” Normally, she would make him stay in bed, but she had a feeling that Jem had something to do with Will’s decision in asking her to do his therapy and she didn’t want to keep them apart for too long.
Half an hour later, the Silent Brothers left Jem’s room and moved to Will’s. Will had fallen asleep by then but he woke up right away when they came in. Over the next 40 minutes, the Silent Brothers listen to his lungs and breath, had him cough so they could hear how it sounded, looked at the mucus he had coughed up, made him walk until he was out of breath, and made sure that he hadn’t developed a fever. By the time they were finished, Will was even more exhausted than he had been before and gladly would have slept on the floor if Charlotte had let him.
He has not been badly affected by the lack of treatment, Brother Enoch said to Charlotte. He may need his physical therapy done more often than usual for the next day or two, but he will make a full recovery from his current state.
As soon as the Silent Brothers left, Charlotte helped Will get back to Jem’s room and the chair he had been sitting in. Will put his feet up on Jem’s bed immediately after sitting down and fell asleep almost immediately. Charlotte smiled down at him and covered him with the blanket.
They were both alright after Jem’s attack and Will’s refusal of treatment, thankfully, but Charlotte knew that it wouldn’t last long. Jem would have another attack soon and Will could keep refusing treatment after Jem recovered. With two very sick children in the Institute, it sometimes seemed like there was never a moment to relax. There always seemed to be some health crisis going on or some treatment to be done.
Charlotte moved to the door and looked back at her two boys, one asleep in a chair, and the other asleep in the bed. She worried about them all the time, but she knew that if they had each other, they would be alright. She smiled fondly and left the room, closing the door behind her.
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When Jem woke up, he was immediately confused. His last memory was of being in the dining room, but now he was in his pajamas and in his bed. It was always disconcerting to wake up after passing out from an attack, but he knew he was in good hands when it did happen.
The second thing that came to his mind was that he didn’t know how much time had passed. Will hadn’t had his therapy for two days before Jem’s attack. Jem had no idea how long he’d been unconscious and if had been more than a day, Will could very well be gasping for breath on the floor of his room while Jem laid in bed.
Jem was about to throw the blankets off and use what strength he had to get to Will’s room when he noticed a pair of feet using his bed as a footrest. His eyes followed the feet up the legs until he saw Will fast asleep in the chair next to his bed. It wasn’t often that Will let himself fall asleep in what seemed to be the middle of the day, but he looked healthy as possible and his chest seemed to be rising and falling normally. Jem really wanted to wake him up to make sure that he was alright, but if Will was sleeping in the middle of the day, then he needed it.
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A few hours later, Jem was sitting up in bed and reading a book that had been left on his bedside table when he saw Will move out of the corner of his eye. He marked his page and closed the book just in time to see Will sit up slightly and immediately start coughing. Jem dropped the book into his lap and grabbed the bowl that was sitting on his bedside table to hand it to Will. Even though coughing after sleeping was normal for Will, Jem still wasn’t sure how long it had been since Will had his physical therapy and he was worried.
Jem waited for Will to stop coughing to ask, “Are you alright?”
Will took a few seconds to catch his breath before answering. “Mostly. You’ll be happy to know that I had Charlotte do my therapy and she had the Silent Brothers look at me when they were done with you.”
“I am very happy to know that,” Jem said, trying to suppress the urge to jump up and hug Will. It wasn’t confirmed yet, but it seemed like the danger had passed. “What made you change your mind?”
“Well,” Will said, “it’s all your fault.”
“And how exactly is it my fault?”
“You got sick and I wanted to help you but I got tired just going from my room to your door. Charlotte had to help me walk to this chair. I can’t take care of you if I can’t even walk six feet by myself,” Will said, looking down at his lap. He looked almost embarrassed, and Jem had a feeling that it was because he felt weak for not being able to walk on his own. He wanted to address that, but he knew that Will would get defensive if he brought it up.
Jem smiled. “I didn’t think that it would take me having an attack for you to change your mind. I’m very glad that you did, but please never do that again. Charlotte is pretty worried so you’ll have to tell her later.”
“You can stop worrying now. It most likely won’t happen again. After all, the parabatai oath does say ‘Entreat me not to leave thee.’”
“It does say that,” Jem agreed, remembering the oath they had learned about just over a week ago. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I might take a few days, but I’ll be back in fighting form before you know it,” Will said. “And, if you’re feeling up to it tonight, I just might let you do my therapy.”
Jem nodded with a huge smile on his face. “I’d love that.”