The first thing that Seoyeon noticed when she woke up around three hours later was that Chanyeol had stopped shivering.  He was still in her arms, but he appeared to be sleeping peacefully, and the horrible cold sweat and the discomfort in his features were no longer there.

The second thing was that Baekhyun was poking her shoulder through the covers with his index finger, and he had his other hand clasped over his eyes.  He was muttering something under his breath about lost innocence.

Trying not to laugh, Seoyeon reached out to grab his hand and stop him poking her.

“It’s fine for you to look,” she whispered.  “Why are you here?”

“Minseok sent me with food for the captain,” he whispered back, pointing to another flask on the bedside table.  He already appeared to have removed the one she’d used before she’d fallen asleep.  “And also, Jongdae says the physician wants to check up on you this morning.  And your father wants to see you.”

Seoyeon frowned.  “Tell them I’m too feverish.”

Baekhyun wrinkled his nose.  “I’m not sure it’ll pass muster, ma’am.  Neither of them saw you yesterday and the physician says he doesn’t trust Jongdae’s ‘rustic remedies’.”  He made air quotes.  “Plus your father’s a bit worried you might be dying because your fever’s so high and he seemed pretty determined to spend the rest of your days by your side, so…”  He shrugged.

Seoyeon groaned.

“When are they coming?”

“I don’t know.  Jongdae’s trying to hold them off.  Your father wanted to eat breakfast with you.”  He glanced at Chanyeol.  “How is Captain Park, ma’am?  He seems a bit… attached.”

Seoyeon turned her head to look at Captain Park, only to find herself practically breathing in his hair.  He’d somehow weaselled himself even closer while she’d been distracted.

“I think he’s improving.”

“We should hide him,” Baekhyun told her.  “I brought blankets and everything and we can put him in the servant’s stairwell.  I’ll stay there with him until it’s safe to bring him back in.  That way I can head off anybody coming in from that direction.”

“It’ll only be Jieun if it’s somebody who doesn’t already know about Chanyeol.”

“Still best if I stay.”  Baekhyun cocked his head to one side.  “Do you trust Jieun, ma’am?”

Seoyeon shrugged.  “I suppose I have to.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”  Baekhyun moved forward, hand reaching for the bed covers, and then stopped.  “Uh, ma’am, not to be inappropriate or anything, but I really think we ought to move the captain, kind of… right now?”

Seoyeon reckoned she probably gave him the fright of her life when she slipped out of bed, but she’d been too tired to change out of the clothes she’d been wearing the previous night and so was already fully dressed.  Baekhyun squeaked, hiding behind his hands, and then peeked through his fingers.

He recovered pretty quickly.  “Ma’am, no offence, but I don’t think you’re going to convince your wonderful father and his equally wonderful doctor that you’re sick if you’re dressed like you plan to go on an excursion.”

It was a valid point, but moving Chanyeol was more important at that moment, and after Seoyeon had said that and Baekhyun had agreed, they decided that they should actually move Chanyeol instead of talk about moving him.  After rolling the captain to the edge of the bed, Baekhyun gripped the man under the arms and Seoyeon wrapped her arms around his knees, and they hauled him off the mattress.

Chanyeol made a soft noise of distress, his head turning from side to side against Baekhyun’s chest, but didn’t wake up.  They staggered over to the servant’s door, which Baekhyun somehow managed to open with his elbow, and through onto a nest of blankets that Baekhyun must have prepared beforehand.  They managed not to drop Chanyeol – barely – but he still ended up sprawled out in an uncomfortable-looking manner on the blankets, and Baekhyun quickly began tucking him into them when Chanyeol suddenly shivered.  Seoyeon was temped to stay with them, especially if there was a possibility that Chanyeol would get worse again, but she knew that she couldn’t.

She managed to change into a nightdress and slip back into bed just before her father and the physician knocked on the door.  It took almost everything she had in her not to look in the direction of the secret door that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were hiding behind while the physician fussed over her.  Her father looked very worried when he reported no drop in the fever.

“It’s still dangerously high,” the physician said.  “I’m going to prescribe you some—”

“No,” Seoyeon grumbled.  “I don’t trust you.”

Her father sighed.  “Seoyeon—”

“Father, he tried to prescribe me a sedative before!  I trust Jongdae and that’s it.”

The physician didn’t look at all happy.  “My lady, you were clearly in distress and I thought a mild sedative might have helped to relax you.”

Seoyeon glared at him.  “Valerian is hardly mild, sir.”

“And your Jongdae’s remedies have hardly reduced your fever, ma’am,” he retorted.

Seoyeon very nearly lost her temper with him again.  “Well, according to both you and Jongdae, my temperature means I should already be dead, so clearly he’s doing something right.”

“Seoyeon!” exclaimed her father, appalled.  “Please, you’re ill.  Don’t work yourself up.”

Seoyeon almost snapped at him.  At the last moment, she held herself back.  It would help absolutely nothing, and in any case, after being up all night, she was tired and already irritable at pretty much everything.  It wasn’t going to help matters if she started screeching at everybody.  Taking a deep breath, she dug into the food that her father had brought for her.

Conversation drifted from there to less dangerous topics, and after a few minutes, the physician left.  He’d probably realised he was going to get no further unless he just wanted to make Seoyeon angry, though she was pretty sure he’d come back some other time – and tell her father that she was still ill and delusionally stressed until he did.

Her father stayed much longer than she would have liked.  Ordinarily, breakfast in bed provided by her father, especially when she was sick, was just about everything that would have made life better, but even though he tried to keep the atmosphere calm and light with small talk and other safe topics he knew she enjoyed, like what books he could order her from the capital (in case she was bedridden for some time), there was a very obvious elephant in the room and Seoyeon knew it had to come up eventually.

It sort of did before he got up to leave.

“Seoyeon, my dear, when you’re up to it, we do need to talk about what happened to you over the past couple of weeks,” he said.  “I understand that now might not be the best time for you, so w