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Lucas hates winter. Because for him winter means sickness and death at every turn.
And now, when a little girl is choking in his hands from coughing — just a baby, she barely turned two — his blood runs cold in his veins and his heart shrinks from fear. He hears wheezing under the thin ribs and feels the heat from tender skin. And although the alchemist knows almost for sure that she will recover — it is warm in the house, the mother is sincerely alarmed, and the nanny is worried to the point of tears — he is still afraid for this child.
He is afraid for everyone, and each time it becomes as painful and tight in his chest, as never.
All the teachers he ever had tried to beat this “excessive compassion”, as they called it, out of him. If you worry about everyone, you won't last long, they said; learn to let go, they said; be honest, do your best, and leave the rest to chance and the patient himself, they said. These were the right words of experienced people, but they did not fit into Lucas’ mind even after years of his own practice. And he reconciled. He let this stupid, too sensitive soul hurt and tremble — while he is afraid for everyone, he will give all the best for the old and the small. For anyone who needs his help.
But Lucas is also afraid for himself. His health is far from perfect; a night in the swamp and a long illness after escaping from the monastery weakened his lungs — as the teacher said, forever. As a youngster, he often fell ill and each time was afraid to die — after all, he knew too well how fragile the human body is. The illnesses receded when Lucas began to harden himself with daily buckets of cold water. But this is not a panacea — his own business puts him in danger every day.
Lucas is careful. He covers his nose and mouth when he enters a feverish patient, carefully washes his hands after each appointment and takes his time breathing clean, chilly air, barely making it outside. But sometimes he has to break his well-established order. The girl is afraid of the tall masked man, and Lucas cannot examine her tongue or listen to her breathing while she is crying in fear. He has to open his face to earn the trust of the baby, albeit at the risk of his own health.
And by the evening, Lucas feels strange. Just weariness of the long day, he tells himself; he hasn't been sleeping well in recent days as he continues to study Macula. It's been weeks since the dreadful night in the forest hut, but Lucas’ mind still hasn't found peace. Night vigils do not go well with countless hours of daytime work — many people in the town are sick, especially children, and Lucas sometimes returns home well after midnight. If not for Amicia, who puts a bundle of food in his suitcase every morning, Lucas would not have sustained such a pace and would have become ill himself long ago.
Well, eventually, he hasn’t sustained it.
It gets too cold in the van by midnight, and Lucas moves to his room, setting up a workspace on the floor. Surrounded by books, notes and candles, dispersing the sticky winter darkness, he tries to find answers to questions that not a single soul have ever asked before. But his head becomes heavier every minute, his nose begins to itch disgustingly; at some point, his throat tickles, and he coughs — unexpectedly hard, painfully.
So, Lucas thinks, whatever needs to happen will happen.
He rakes the books and papers into a sloppy pile in the corner and slowly gets up to his feet. His head hurts and throbs, and Lucas feels the inevitable approach of a fever — goosebumps run down his back in waves, and he shudders all over. He needs warm drink and sleep; patients are waiting for him tomorrow, and he cannot afford the weakness of being sick.
Lucas hopes to sneak into the kitchen unnoticed, get himself hot water for herbal tea and return to his room again, but his plan fails at the very beginning. He finds Amicia by the hearth in the kitchen; in a nightgown and a thick warm shawl on her shoulders, with a disheveled braid on her slender shoulder, she is sewing something by the light of a candle. Lucas' heart skips a beat at this sight — he still can't get used to this Amicia: homely, tender, vulnerable.
She recognizes his steps and quietly calls out to him, not looking up from her sewing: "Good night, Lucas."
"Good night, Amicia," he replies just as softly.
He puts a kettle of water over the fire, throws more wood into the hearth, and sits down on a stool across from Amicia. The flickering light of a candle picks her out from the darkness for him: a high forehead, a straight stroke of noble eyebrows, a deep shadow of eyelashes, chiseled cheekbones and a smooth bend of the neck. Her hands and fingers flicker in the cozy twilight, darning some shirt with deft movements. Every line, every gesture is like a melody, and Lucas lets his eyes wander mindlessly over her flawless features.
“You’re staring,” Amicia says with a soft chuckle.
Embarrassed, Lucas looks away sluggishly.
"Sorry".
He sees out of the corner of his eye that Amicia has been distracted from her work and is now studying him.
"Are you okay? You are kind of pale.”
Putting on a smile, he nods.
“Just a little tired.”
And then he goes into a treacherous cough.
"Are you sick?" Amicia's gentle voice sounds inquiring, but of course she already knows the answer.
Suppressing a violent attack, Lucas just shrugs.
He doesn't like to be a burden. Completely powerless to deal with life's circumstances, left with no choice, Lucas had to rely on someone else too often for his taste. On the teachers who died in his arms; on the will of a cruel, unjust law; on Amicia and her family. Until, at some point, he found himself terribly alone in the whole world. Lucas quickly got used to licking his wounds, hiding from prying eyes, but all these years his heart was inexorably yearning for the times when there was a caring shoulder nearby.
Lucas is no longer alone, he has a home and a family — real, forever one. But god knows, it is not easy to get rid of the long-term habit of hiding his inevitable weakness.
He is pulled out of his thoughts by a lean, cool palm touching his forehead.
“You have a fever.” Amicia speaks softly and puts her hand on his cheek, gently making him look into hazel eyes. Lucas involuntarily clings to the touch; it is too pleasant to feel this soothing coolness. "You’d better lie down, Lucas."
“Don't worry, it's just a stupid cold,” Lucas protested weakly. But the sewing has already been put aside, and he is already being lifted by the elbows, forced to stand on his unsteady legs.
“Hold on to me, just in case. I don't want you to fall on the stairs." Amicia lets him grab her elbow and leads him back to the bedroom. Lucas winces involuntarily, remembering the mess he left there. But Amicia, of course, does not pay attention — she leads him straight to the bed, where he climbs, slowly moving his heavy limbs. It's nice to lie down. But why is he so cold?
“I'll make you a decoction,” Amicia says, straightening the blanket. “Are you hungry?”
Lucas just shakes his head and wraps his shoulders tighter.
"Okay. I’ll be back really soon." Another refreshing touch on his burning forehead, and Lucas is left alone.
The room seems to sway a little, and Lucas feels like he's lying in the ship's cabin. The ship runs briskly through the waves, and he is a little sick from rolling. Lucas had only been on the ship once — on the way from France to England — and that's when he learned that he was suffering from seasickness at its worst. “No way you can be a sailor, my young friend,” one of the sailors said with sympathy, watching how he vomits overboard for the fifth time in a day.
Fever is not seasickness, but it's still not very pleasant. Lucas understands that the temperature does not allow him to warm up, and he shivers finely under his clothes and his woolen blanket. He can't bring himself to shed the extra layers, but he needs to cool down, he needs to...
"Lucas." Amicia's voice is so close, and Lucas struggles to lift his eyelids to look at her. She is here. So beautiful.
"Thanks." She smiles, and Lucas blushes to the roots of his hair, realizing that he just said it out loud. “Here, drink this.”
Lucas struggles to get up in bed and gulps down the warm liquid from the mug. He feels marigold, chamomile, thyme and the pleasant sweetness of honey on his tongue. Amicia did so well, and leaning back against the pillow, he thinks with relief that the nausea will subside very soon.
“Thanks,” Lucas mutters, shuttering his eyes and burrowing back into the blankets. It does not help; he's still terribly cold. Amicia is around somewhere; he hears her clunking some flasks by his bed.
“I need to bring your heat down,” she whispers solicitously, as if coaxing him. "Help me a little."
She acts unerringly, just as he himself would have done if he had a febrile patient in his arms; perfection, as always. Lucas allows her to remove the blanket from him; the cold air of the room makes him shiver even more. He struggles to his feet and pulls off his boots, casually tossing them aside. He tries to take off his woolen tunic, but gets stuck in the sleeves, and Amicia carefully pulls off his outer clothing, leaving him in one shirt.
“God, you're already soaking wet,” Amicia shakes her head. "I’ll find the fresh shirt for you."
“In the chest,” Lucas prompts in a weak voice. He watches with blurred eyes as Amicia moves around the room. My guardian angel, he thinks sappily; not a single sound gets out of him this time.
She quickly returns and helps him remove his sweat-soaked clothes. For some reason, Lucas is embarrassed to death, being so exposed in front of her, but Amicia's face is unreadable, and only an accidental touch of cool fingers on his stomach sends another wave of trembling along the spine.
Putting a shirt on him, she lightly pushes him to lie down. A cool, damp cloth immediately falls on his forehead, and a moment later the smell of alcohol hits his nose.
“Sorry,” Amicia sounds embarrassed, and through half-closed eyelids Lucas makes out burning cheeks and fluttering eyelashes.
She rubs him with alcohol, starting at the neck; Lucas feels every touch acutely, as if all of him turned into a bare nerve.
“Carnation,” Amicia says, gently rubbing the coolness into his skin. She tries to deistract him abnd herself, Lucas understands; he hums inquiringly, and she continues. “The drawing of a carnation in your chest — why is it there?”
Pleasantly cold hands slide along his collarbones, timidly making their way under the collar of the shirt. Lucas tries to concentrate to give Amicia an answer that won't embarrass her. But the touches are so distracting, and he can barely think straight.
“It's… It's you,” he utters finally. Not the most elegant answer, but at least he's honest in it. “Reminds me of you.”
She finally removes her hands from his overly sensitive neck, and Lucas's breathing becomes a little easier. The life-giving cold is now felt on his forearms and palms, then on the legs, and Lucas tries not to curl his toes from the flutter that has seized him.
“That's nice,” comes the warm response, and Lucas distinguishes the charming quiver in her voice.
And although his head hurts almost more than before Amicia's manipulations, and he is still being thrown from heat to cold every few moments, Lucas feels how his feverish body gradually began to cool down.
"Thank you," he breathes out, lowering his now heavy eyelids. “I’m better now.”
"Now rest." The cloth on his forehead disappears, but soon returns, cooled again. “I’ll be there if you need me.”
“You have very skillful hands,” Lucas mutters, slowly drifting off to sleep. He's no longer sure if he's saying it out loud or just thinking. “And they’re cold. I love it so much, but especially now.”
He hears a soft laugh.
“You're too generous with compliments today,” Amicia replies softly. “Sleep until you say something else that will make you blush later.”
She is right, as always. Lucas is too in love with her, hides too many from her every day, admiring her graceful silhouette, marvelling her daily diligence and steadfastness, hearing her rare, precious laughter. He wants to allow himself too much — and does not allow it, fearing to betray something that could destroy her trust in him. How easier it would be to love her less, being a thousand leagues away; but she is always so close, and Lucas’ heart never got stronger. He capitulates to Amicia every day, whistled into the abyss of her shining eyes, and never thought about resistance, not for a moment.
“Stay, please,” Lucas whispers. He wants to take her hand so much that his palm clenches involuntary round the void. But just a moment later, thin fingers intertwine with his in a now familiar gesture; so intimate it takes his breath away. His eyes are closed, but he sees her face in front of him and imagines her smile, her features soften to unbearable tenderness.
He falls asleep with the thought that Amicia is his salvation, his death, his medicine and the greater weakness. And Lucas wouldn't give that weakness for the greatest strength on earth.