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Wakana knew that Bell was pushing herself harder, with Otoha gone away to Prism Stone and away from them both. (And she hadn't talked to Otoha much, since then, but she'd peered in the windows a few times. Enough to see that Otoha's trying to make herself useful like she always has, but she looks... happier, there, than Wakana can remember her looking anywhere that wasn't a stage for a long time.)
She knew, but—there's a difference between pushing herself hard, something that Bell has always done, and pushing herself too hard.
"Bell!"
She's never collapsed before. She doesn't respond when Wakana drops to her knees beside her, only groans without opening her eyes when Wakana shakes her.
"This isn't funny, you know," Wakana mutters, and then feels awful for muttering it at all, even though it doesn't matter because Bell probably didn't even hear her. "Alright, let's... come on, up you get!"
Bell weighs about the same as she does, she knows—easier to coordinate that way—and one does not simply become good at Prism Shows without being fairly athletic. But she's heavy, when Wakana manages to get her arm around her shoulders, and pretty much entirely dead weight. It's all she can do to get her to the couch Bell doesn't usually spare a second glance—and really, calling it a couch is a strong word, it's not very comfortable and it's not meant for the Prism Stars themselves, just for observers. Spectators, looking from the outside in, who don't understand her or Bell or anyone at Edel Rose.
She probably should lie down, but Bell's slumped over onto her shoulder before Wakana can move herself, and she doesn't really want to move Bell more than she has to at the moment. Wakana frowns, instead, and presses her other hand to Bell's forehead.
"You're burning up!" Wakana exclaims. "I told you, Bell. Now you've gone and made yourself sick!"
Bell would be arguing if she could, which honestly makes this worse. She'd been sweating when she walked in—Wakana thought it was from exertion, and maybe some of it was. But she's growing increasingly sure that not all of it was.
Wakana's frown deepens as she brushes Bell's hair out of her face where it had fallen. She'd never show this much weakness, not even to Wakana, if she had the choice. But she doesn't. Her body made the choice for her, and Wakana's left to pick up the pieces.
"What are we going to do now?" Wakana asks her. Despite not feeling it, she laughs. "Well, what am I going to do. You need to rest, and we both know you wouldn't be if you had the choice, would you?"
She's warm—too warm—beside Wakana. She needs to rest, and... Wakana gets why she doesn't want to go home, really, she does.
"Going home with me would be worse, you know that," she tells Bell. "And Otoha—"
Otoha isn't here.
"Well," Wakana says quickly—why is she even bothering? It's not like Bell can hear her and get snappy right now, "if Otoha was here, her house would be fine. Her parents seem nice, but you've never let Otoha see that you're a person like the rest of us and you're definitely not going to start now that she's abandoned us for Prism Stone. No matter how much you could probably use her help right now..."
Honestly? Wakana doesn't hold Otoha leaving against her. She doesn't. Most of the time. It's a little harder at times like this.
But Bell would have to do a lot worse than that to drive her off, something they both know. So Wakana sighs.
"You could save us both some trouble if you woke up now," Wakana says hopefully, shifting Bell against her to better get at her phone. "You more than me. I'm flexible, I can work with anything, but you're not going to like this... any more than you'd like anything else, but you'd like this less."
No response from Bell. Wakana sighs deeper, and pulls up her contacts. She has exactly two numbers memorized, and this isn't either of them.
"Last chance, Bell," Wakana warns her.
Despite how much she's burning up, Bell shivers, and it's that more than anything else that drives Wakana to make the call.
"Wakana? Is something the matter?"
She mouths an apology to Bell, and then tells her mom, "Hi, ma'am! Sorry to bother you, but Bell just collapsed during practice."
There's utter silence for a few seconds, except for the sound of Bell's breathing, as Wakana holds her breath.
"She did WHAT?"
Wakana flinches, as quietly as she can, and forces a big smile she doesn't feel. It's easier to lie, even over the phone, that way. "There's been a bug going around. Honestly, Bell avoided catching it way longer than anyone else I know, but in the end these things really just come down to bad luck, you know? That said, she's... I don't think either of you would want people to know she's caught it, so if you can come get her..."
"You say this as if the mere fact that I am retrieving my daughter personally would not make it quite evident that something is amiss," Bell's mom replies, which is... about what Wakana expected out of her. But she's been working around this woman for Bell's sake for years, and she isn't about to stop now.
"It wouldn't have to," Wakana says in a polite, chipper voice that makes her want to barf.
Thankfully, Bell's mom says, eventually, "I suppose not. Are you certain she won't be able to make it home on her own?"
"Not without hurting herself." For once, Wakana's being entirely truthful—not that anyone else needs to know that, and not that it'll be continuing. "And everyone else I know who caught the bug going around was pretty much fine once they rested. She'll probably even be alright for her big break!"
(That one is more wishful thinking, on Wakana's part—but Bell will, quite possibly, be the only person more furious with herself than her mom is if she isn't able to pull it off. And without resting... she needs to rest. Badly.)
"I certainly hope so," Bell's mom says. "I will be there momentarily."
She hangs up. Wakana risks a glance over at Bell—she's still shivering—before she sticks her tongue out at her phone, pockets it, and wraps an arm around Bell's shoulders. Her shivering doesn't stop entirely, when Wakana does that, but it lessens, and that... it's better than nothing.
"Why do you do this to yourself?" Wakana asks, expecting—and receiving—the same lack of answer she's gotten this whole time. In Bell's defense, she's never collapsed during practice before—which might be part of why even her mom is taking this seriously.
Not in Bell's defense, she wouldn't be Renjouji Bell if she didn't push herself as hard as she possibly can. But Otoha's always been able to keep her from going past her limits, and... Wakana doesn't know how to do that.
She pulls out her phone again, when Bell's shivering finally stops. It isn't long before she finds herself staring at one of the two numbers she knows by heart. There's no point to calling Bell's, of course, but Otoha...
Otoha can't know. Not if she can avoid it, and she might be able to.
(Wakana's got enough lying ahead of her already.)
Bell's mom is possibly the one person in the world who cares more about keeping up appearances than Bell herself does, so while Wakana isn't surprised that she knocks before entering, it gives her enough time to reposition Bell to be actually lying down on the couch. Enough time for her to be less close to her, too—she doesn't need to give Bell's mom any reasons to doubt her.
"Come on, Bell," Wakana says, shaking her shoulder—but there's nothing. Bell is well and truly out, in the way that only the incredibly sleep-deprived or very sick are.
So she raises her voice and says, "We're in here, ma'am!"
Bell's mom enters. She's alone, which makes sense. She makes a big deal of being independent, of not relying on anyone—really, it's kind of obvious where Bell got it from.
"Like I said, it's been going around," Wakana lies through her teeth. "I thought I should at least get her off the floor, but... not sure what to do, apart from that."
(Otoha would know. But Otoha's not here.)
She nods, and then glances around. "Where's that other girl Bell keeps around?"
...She doesn't even know Otoha's name? Honestly, Wakana's surprised Bell's mom remembers hers.
"Out sick," Wakana says, which isn't even that much of a lie if you read enough into it. She didn't get sick with a fever, she just got sick of Bell snapping at her. Same thing, really.
Bell's mom sighs. "Of course she is. Bell probably got it from—"
"Oh, she's been out longer than that," Wakana interrupts, forgetting for a moment that's a bad idea if she wants Bell's mom to have a high enough opinion of her to let Bell keep her around. "And unlike some of the Prism Stars here, she actually stays home when she's feeling out of it, so she doesn't get other people sick. It definitely wasn't Otoha!"
"Hm," Bell's mom says, but otherwise doesn't comment. "Bell? Can you hear me?"
"I kind of doubt that, ma'am," Wakana says. "She has been—"
As her mom sits beside her, Bell's eyes snap open.
"—out," Wakana finishes lamely. "Well, hello, Sleeping Beauty! How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine," Bell says, despite the fact that she spent the last hour utterly dead to the world and collapsed on the floor before that. "Mother, I—"
"Wakana told me everything," her mom says, and Bell freezes. Her gaze goes to Wakana, who tries to convey as much meaning as possible into a single wink behind her mom's back.
Bell doesn't relax, but she does know how this works. Wakana's hoping she isn't too sick to remember how this works. The fact that she only nods, and doesn't risk saying anything that could result in both of them getting into more trouble, suggests that they're on the same page. Bell's still willing to trust her, at least.
(She is sorry she had to call Bell's mom. That isn't something Wakana likes doing any more than she absolutely has to.)
"It's really a shame that this had to happen now," Bell's mom says with a sigh, pressing a hand to Bell's forehead (Wakana sees her suppress a flinch of her own, and doesn't say a word), "but I suppose there's nothing to be done. Can you walk?"
Bell wordlessly nods, though it takes leaning on the couch for her to manage a sitting position and she's sweating again (from exertion, probably, more than the fever she gave herself) by the time she stands. She sways a bit, and Wakana makes a choice.
"If it isn't too much trouble," Wakana says politely (more politely than Bell's mom, or the vast majority of adults, have ever deserved), "could I ride home with you both? It's on the way."
The thing about Bell's mom is that she cares even more about keeping up appearances than Bell does, and giving one of Bell's friends a ride home is a much more plausible excuse than giving her own daughter one. So, of course, she agrees immediately.
And Wakana, completely coincidentally, has an excuse to stick close to Bell on her way downstairs to the car.
Now, Wakana had an excuse prepared for if Bell's mom happened to ask why she was being as close to someone who was sick, and possibly contagious, as she was—she'd already caught and recovered from the bug in question, obviously! But she hadn't needed the excuse. She rarely ever does, when Bell's mom is concerned—she cares slightly more about other people than she does about her own daughter, but not that much.
Still, better safe than sorry, as far as Wakana's concerned.
"Thank you for the ride, ma'am!" Wakana chirps as she hops out of the passenger side door. And... there's nothing she can reasonably say to Bell with her mother there, so she settles for grinning at her.
Bell doesn't grin back. In fact, the last thing Wakana sees out of her before the car pulls away is... her unfocused stare turning into something almost angry. But that can't be right, can it? Wakana's covered for her. She'll be fine, she just needs to rest, and now she has an excuse to.
The sun's long since set—it was setting before Bell collapsed, and Wakana's plans for her evening promptly went into the trash in favor of something way more important. But she feels the same way, as she stares after Bell, that she does when the sun's setting. Something's ending, slipping away, and... Wakana's not going to stop trying.
But Bell used to be able to say thank you.