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The air inside Iris' small house was thick and close, heavy with the sickroom smell of vomit and stale sweat. Clover had thrown the windows open and propped the screen door with a brick, but there was no relief from the Capitol Wasteland's relentless summer heat. There was no breeze; the air inside the shanty was corpse-still, rancid and cloying.
Iris had been abed for nearly three days. She spent most of her days dozing; she was too weak to get up and walk to the toilet, too fatigued and dizzy to sit upright. Clover had begged a bedpan off Doc Church, it sat under the bed, neglected, its contents black and tarry. It should have been emptied days ago, but Clover couldn't stand leaving Iris alone, even for the minutes it would take to carry the bedpan out to the middens.
She was as much a prisoner as Iris, trapped by her fear, rather than her failing body. Her girl was Vault-born, delicate as lace, unused to the sun and the Wasteland's background radiation. It hit her like hard liquor, tearing up her insides and leaving her weak and feverish, bed-ridden. Clover sponged her forehead and body, and poured broth and water down her throat. It wasn't enough.
Doc Church came by twice daily with Rad-Away injections, his expression unreadable. He wasn't the sort of man to waste drugs on a dying woman, but he staunchly refused to speculate on Iris' odds of recovery. "She'll recover or she won't," he said, thin-lipped and scowling. "I'm not a wizard."
Clover wanted to scratch his eyes out. She'd had a collection of ears, once upon a time, thought maybe it was time to start over. Her girl was maybe-dying, and the miserly bastard wouldn't give her any words of comfort or encouragement.
It'd been two weeks since the trip to Vault 87, two weeks since Iris had collapsed in her arms, goggles slipping down around her neck. Clover had flagged down a passing Brotherhood patrol, begged them to help her get Iris back to Megaton. The Paladins hadn't said anything either. Seemed the whole world was ready to give up on her girl.
Clover ran her fingers through Iris' thinning hair, a few strands came lose in her hands.
"You get better," she said, voice choked with tears. "Ya hear me? You get better or else."
Iris stirred in her sleep, a frown creasing her forehead.