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Jean's reminded of his precarious position when leaving the trial, going down the elevator with one fewer person than it had been the way up. Sensing the danger, Ingrid sets up a rota of people to watch over Jean: bring him food, check on his condition, make sure he isn't getting worse. Make sure he doesn't die, he feels, although Ingrid never says it to his face. It's what he hears Damon whispering to her outside his door once, and Ingrid doesn't refute the statement.
Food makes it worse. He'd skipped a whole day of meals the day before the trial, and they had all been too exhausted to consider cooking after Eloise's execution...but when he'd woken up the next morning, he was starving but surprisingly clear-headed. Fever receded, well enough to get out of bed, even though Ingrid had insisted he should rest for another day to make sure. And then he'd eaten the soup she'd made him...and by that evening, he was slipping back into that same feverish state, headache back with a vengeance. And it didn't let up, even after three more days of bedrest.
"You look worse again." Damon's face is slightly blurry, but Jean thinks he's frowning at him. "Weren't you feeling better a few days ago?"
He was. Which only confirms his suspicion that it's what he's eating that's affecting him.
Jean didn't want to suspect Ingrid - not when she'd been nothing but reliable, not breaking under the pressure even during the nightmare of a class trial they had to endure. But he thinks of Toshiko, always sticking close to her...and he thinks of that memory, dreamlike, where she had been moments from slitting his throat...and he thinks of her serious expression as he tucked the baseball bat under his bed...
"Guess I'll leave you, then. Ingrid's bound to be here any minute..."
"Wait."
Damon halts halfway to the door. Turning, he sees Jean drag himself to a sitting position - and before Damon can force him to lie back down Jean starts to talk.
"What would you do..." Jean pauses, trying to approach the topic of Toshiko trying to murder him in the most careful way possible. "...if someone tried to kill you...but they left you alive?"
"If they left you alive?" He looked puzzled. "Why would they do that? There's no point in leaving a victim alive to tell everybody what happened to them."
...If he mentioned Rule Thirteen, Damon would realise in an instant it was real. So Jean abandoned the topic. "...Never mind. It was only a hypothetical."
"A hypothetical?"
Jean nods as convincingly as possible. When it doesn't work, Damon's eyes still narrowed in suspicion, he tries to change the subject. "It was Ingrid who made the soup, wasn't it? It's delicious."
"Ingrid and Toshiko." Damon corrects. "They cook your meals together...usually, the kitchen's off limits when they're doing so."
Ah. That's his answer. Ingrid...and Toshiko.
Ingrid and Toshiko? Was it really her, too, or was it Toshiko on her own fooling the both of them? Toshiko had been careful to attack him when nobody was around, and had been scarily precise, nearly emotionless apart from the deep sadness in her eyes when she had brandished her knife...it was impossible to believe Ingrid wouldn't know anything, but it was equally unbelievable to imagine Toshiko attacking him - Toshiko working with Tozu, the two of them striking a deal together. And there was no point in both of them making a deal with Tozu when only one could escape alive.
"Is there something wrong with that?" he asks. "Is the food bad?"
"No." Jean shakes his head. "Nothing's wrong with the food, it's..."
Delicious. Hearty. Drugged with some kind of substance that's keeping him bedridden, giving him headaches for days. How long had Toshiko planned this for?
"...it's fine." he decides on. Fine - the least descriptive word. Least convincing, for trying to make Damon believe nothing is wrong. Before Damon speaks any further, the handle on the door turns - and someone steps inside, interrupting them.
"Sorry I'm so late, Damon!" Ingrid enters the room with a tray of food, completely oblivious to the tension building in the room. "I got a little sidetracked solving a dispute...but it's all sorted now."
"You're not even five minutes late." Damon breaks eye contact with Jean, heading to the door. He glances at the food on her tray - apple pie, Jean thinks, judging by the nice smell wafting into the room. "Desmond and Mark again?"
"...It was nothing serious." Ingrid says, but her smile's strained and Jean doesn't completely know what's going on here. Desmond had been tight-lipped about any disagreements with Mark he'd been having...if only Jean was well enough to get out of bed, he'd know what to do...
Damon looks back at him, and although Jean tries to smile at Damon, his frown doesn't lessen as he leaves the room.
"Everything okay?" she asks, concerned. "The two of you aren't rowing, are you?"
"Not at all." he reassures, looking down at the pie. The pie that Ingrid baked...and that Toshiko must have helped with, too.
Jean can't keep this secret for much longer. The pie's appearance has nothing out of the ordinary, but he knows he'll only be feeling worse tomorrow. Maybe the next time he sees Damon, he'll raise the talking point again - try to see if Damon might believe him...or tell him anyway, even if he doesn't. Jean doesn't exactly have time to waste in the condition he's in.
First: there's pie that's waiting to be eaten.