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Blue gets the worst cramps of her life and nearly faints during a reading.
Her mother helps her upstairs, leaving the client in Orla’s hands- only temporarily, thank God- and orders her to bed rest for the day.
“You have so many appointments, though,” Blue argues. Her voice sounds weak even to her own ears, and she knows she’s fighting a losing battle.
Maura crosses her arms across her chest. “I’ll make do without you. It’s what I did the first twenty years of my life.” Somehow she has the ability to sound stern whilst looking caring and concerned. She smoothes her hand over Blue’s forehead. “Don’t you worry about me. You just rest up. I’ll make some tea for you in a bit, okay?”
All Blue can do is nod, her face contorting as her abdomen screams in agony. She can’t help the moan of pain that comes out of her mouth.
“Oh, honey.” Maura bends down to kiss her cheek, her forehead creased in worry, and then lets herself out of Blue’s room, shutting the light off behind her.
Blue huffs out a sigh of frustration, although she can’t tell if she’s frustrated with herself or her ovaries or goddamn mother nature. Whatever. She’s handled far worse than this, right? This is nothing.
Half an hour later she’s puking her guts up in her bathroom.
She bundles herself up in all her quilts and blankets and glares out at her tiny TV screen, watching a rerun of a cooking show. She scowls. God, she wants some chocolate cake.
Her door bangs open and she jumps, her heart puttering in her chest. There’s a person in her doorway, shadows tossed across their face so she can’t tell who it is. The person steps in a bit further, and the TV casts a pale blue glow across sharp features that she’d know anywhere.
“Hi, maggot,” Ronan Lynch says. “Heard you were feeling down.”
Blue pulls her blankets over her head, silently cursing to hell and back. “Oh, of course you can come in, Ronan. Thank you for asking.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Ronan replies, uncharacteristically cheery. She wonders if he gets a sense of joy from seeing her in pain. “I brought you something.”
Cautiously, Blue peeks out. He’s sitting at the foot of her bed, a bulging plastic bag in his lap. “What is it?”
“Well, it’s multiple somethings,” Ronan says, digging through the bag. “Some painkiller, some candy, some magazines. I even got you a heating pad.” He thrusts the bag towards her, as if he finds it vaguely gross. He probably does. “All off Gansey’s approved list, of course.”
“Gansey?” Blue echoes faintly.
“Yeah. So if you don’t like any of it, take it up with him.” He stands then, looking relieved to have done his part, and pats her leg. “Well, that’s all I got. Hope you’re feeling better soon.” He lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug. “We missed you this morning, maggot.”
Blue rolls her eyes, trying her best to scowl, but it turns out more like a grin. Her stomach is still rolling, and her back is killing her, and she still desperately wants a gourmet cake. But this makes it a little bit better.
Next up on Gansey’s List of People to Bother Blue While She’s (Probably) Dying must be Adam, because he shows up an hour or two after Ronan leaves, finding her curled up on her side.
“Go away,” Blue mumbles. She’s feeling whiny and mean, and she doesn’t want poor Adam to stick around and be the target.
“No can do, Blue,” Adam replies on a sigh, sitting in the spot Ronan had been in only an hour earlier. “Gansey ordered me to come. And I want to be here, of course.”
Blue pulls her face out of her pillow long enough to glare at him. He stares right back. She huffs and faceplants into her pillowcase again. “Fine.”
“I brought soup.”
At this, Blue peeks out a little bit, because soup sounds divine. And Adam’s a very good cook. Because of course he’s a good cook. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep it down,” she warns.
“That’s fine,” Adam replies, unruffled. He nudges her trashcan over with his foot so it’s closer to her end of the bed. “Here. A chuck bucket.”
Blue wrinkles her nose. “Ewww.” But they both laugh about it a little bit, and Blue sits up enough to accept the warm container of soup, and she thinks okay, we can do this. Adam stands, digging though his tattered backpack, and Blue frowns. “If you’re pulling out homework, I swear to god-”
“No,” Adam says, but there’s a smirk on his face. “I brought movies. VHS, so they’ll play on your TV.”
“Oh.” Blue’s mildly surprised and kind of flattered. “Gansey’s idea?”
“Yeah. He said not to pick anything that would make you cry.”
Blue picks idly at a loose thread on her quilt. “Where is your elusive leader, anyway?”
She’d been going for nonchalant, but one glance at Adam’s face tells her he doesn’t buy it. His smirk deepens. “He’ll be over later. Be patient.”
Blue huffs and glares at his back, wishing she had some sort of psychic ability that allowed her to burn a hole through him with her eyes. “’Be patient’,” she mimics, her voice high and annoying. “The sooner I kick you out, the sooner he comes by?”
“Nope,” Adam says, having successfully set up the movie and flopping back down on her bed. “We’re on a time schedule.”
She stares at him, unable to tell if he’s kidding or not. One side of his mouth is turned up a little, but she doesn’t know if that’s indicative. “You bastards are crazy,” she tells him.
“Be quiet and eat your soup.”
She does.
Adam had picked a happy movie- some romcom Blue doesn’t know the name of- but it had still made her cry. She’s splayed on her back when Noah drifts in, his footfalls as quiet as a mouse. “Hi, Blue.”
“Hi, Noah,” she greets, her voice thick and tragic. She holds her arms out and he climbs into them easily, brushing crumpled tissues off the bed and onto the floor.
“How are you feeling?” He asks. This close, she can almost feel his breath on her face. Almost.
She shrugs. Sniffles. “I managed to keep Adam’s soup down. But my back really hurts.” She knows she’s being needier than usual, but she’s always soft around Noah, and her hormones are going crazy.
“Where’s Ronan’s heating pad?” He asks her. Blue points vaguely to the foot of her bed, and Noah disappears for a moment. He returns a few moments later, heating pad in hand, and plugs it into the outlet beside her bed.
“Here, roll over,” he says, and she does, wincing all the while. Noah presses close to her, the heating pad nestled between his stomach and her back, and winds his arms around her waist. The soothing heat feels so nice that Blue lets out a little moan.
“Good?” Noah asks, his voice very quiet somewhere near the back of her neck. She nods in answer, holding tight to his hands, which are so cold in contrast to the warmth at her back.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Noah is such a comforting presence- always has been. He’s always at her side. Blue nestles deeper into his chest, hit with a jolt when she realizes that she can’t feel his heartbeat.
She wills herself not to cry any more. She’s all cried out from the movie, and Noah doesn’t like to see her sad. She drags one of his hands up to her lips and holds it there, pressing her lips to his knuckles and hoping he understands. “Noah?”
“Yeah?”
Blue’s voice is a whisper. “I really wish you weren’t dead.”
Noah presses his face into the wild nest of her hair. “I really wish so, too.”
She must drift off tangled in Noah’s arms, because she wakes up to Gansey brushing her hair off her forehead, her heating pad squished beneath her. “Hello, Jane.”
“Hi,” she says. Her voice sounds a little hoarse. She pushes herself into a half-sitting up, the light coming in from the open doorway causing her to squint. “I hope you’re worth the wait.”
Gansey just smiles, his eyes crinkling a bit, and Blue’s heart hurts. “Well, I hope I am, too. May I?” He gestures to an empty spot on the bed.
Blue nods and scoots her feet out of the way. She realizes that now, all in a day, she’s had four different boys in her bed. Orla would die.
“I’m sorry you’re not feeling well,” Gansey says. He’s slouched beautifully against the wall with his arms folded behind his head. “I read some books, and talked to Helen, and the general consensus was that I should bring you flowers and chocolate.”
Blue’s heart flutters. “This isn’t Valentine’s Day.”
“No,” Gansey agrees. “But I thought it’d be nice anyway.” He hands her a box of chocolates. They look deliciously expensive. “The flowers are downstairs. Persephone insisted on getting them a vase.”
“Probably a good idea,” Blue says faintly. She’s never gotten flowers from a boy before. She never even knew she wanted to get flowers from a boy. And somehow, the fact that it’s Gansey makes it feel even more important.
He makes her feel warm and alive and she sits up straighter suddenly, holding out her palm before she can chicken out. “Do you have your iPod?”
Gansey looks confused, but he doesn’t doubt her. Not even once. “Yeah.” He pulls it out of his pocket and sets it in her palm. “Why?”
“And your headphones?” She holds out her other palm.
Again, he complies.
She plugs the headphones in and puts one in her ear, offering the other to Gansey. She notices the way he watches the curve of her wrist as she tucks her hair behind her ear. Alive, alive, alive. “Let’s listen to music.”
Gansey puts the other earbud in. They’re facing each other on her bed, cross-legged with their knees touching, and Blue can feel his eyes on her face as she scrolls through his music. She clicks back and ends up on his lists of playlists, freezing when she sees one at the bottom.
“What?” Gansey asks, his voice soft. He leans closer to see the screen, and Blue can see his skin slowly flushing a pleasant shade of pink. “Oh.”
The playlist’s title is nothing but a blue heart, not subtle in the slightest. She glances up at him, and of course he’s already looking at her, his eyes wide. She wants so desperately to kiss him. She’s never wanted anything more.
Her stomach rolls, her cramps kicking back into gear, and she presses a hand to her abdomen in the hopes of smothering it. Gansey notices and it breaks them out of their reverie. “Lie down, Jane,” he says, but it doesn’t sound like an order, so she does.
He stretches out on his stomach beside her, reaching across her to get her heating pad. He smells like pine. She lies on her back, adjusting the heating pad until she can breathe a sigh of relief, and then Gansey starts playing music.
It’s soft and warm and honey-sweet, cello music that makes her lips press up into a smile, and Gansey hides half of his own smile in his arm. She has no idea if this song is a part of the playlist he made for her or not, but he’s giving it to her, in a way, and that’s enough.
She tugs on his sleeve until he frees his hand and holds it out to her, their palms pressing together above both their heads. A piano joins the cello and their fingers intertwine. She swears she can feel his heartbeat echo through her mattress. Her cramps still hurt and her foot’s a little numb and she kind of has to pee, but her head drifts to the juncture between his neck and his collarbone, and she knows she won’t be getting up for a while.