When they reached the stream, Charlie moved a distance away from her friends, before scooping up some water out of the stream in a shallow part with her bucket, planning on going behind a tree.
However, the next thing she knew she was in the water. Her nose was sticking out of it, but other than her feet and lower legs, and maybe part of her chest, the rest of her was completely in the stream, her back on the streambed. Charlie also didn't feel like moving, despite the chill of the water that was flowing over and around her.
It felt surreal, like there wasn't anything out of the ordinary of her being like that. It was almost as if this was how she had planned on washing herself in the first place.
Eventually she noticed blurry shapes outside of the water enter her field of vision. Despite feeling like she should know what the shapes were, it was like her brain had shut down and wouldn't process what was happening.
"Are you okay?" Charlie heard, but couldn't think what to do about it, nor where the sound was coming from.
After a little bit, the shapes moved again, this time coming closer to her. Then she felt something touch her and Charlie could only look at the hands that were lifting her out of the stream, like she hadn't seen them before.
"Charlie, what the hell happened?" one of the figures snapped at her.
Charlie looked at the person and felt like her brain had started working again. She could recognize the person. It was Beth. Although, it still felt like her brain was moving slowly. She saw Hannah and Amelia there too. Beth and Hannah had already stripped to their underwear while Amelia had only taken her shirt off.
She looked at the stream. Was this because of the stream? She thought she'd read in a book somewhere of streams that had magical properties doing things like this to people, but she couldn't say for sure. At the very least, it felt like she was missing something.
"Charlie, are you okay?" Beth asked.
"Um, I- I don't know," Charlie admitted, alarmed at a sudden dizzy spell hitting her hard, to where she almost fell, but was caught by Beth and Hannah.
"Amelia, check her out. Maybe you can figure out what's wrong with her," Beth told Amelia as she lowered Charlie to the ground with Hannah's help.
"Alright, give me a minute," Amelia said, kneeling at Charlie's side.
Idly, Charlie looked at Amelia as she felt Amelia's magic flow through her, recalling the time she'd kissed Amelia when she'd been influenced by the spores. While she preferred kissing Alex, she had to admit, at least to herself, that the softness of Amelia's lips were pretty nice, especially since Amelia's were softer than Alex's.
After a minute of Amelia's magic running through her, Amelia suddenly stopped and turned to their friends. "There's a problem," Amelia said.
"What's wrong?" Beth asked.
"I think she's contracted a virus of some kind. I tried purging it, like I've done a few times with the cold virus, but this seems to be absorbing my magic," Amelia answered. "I- I'm not sure what else to do."
"Well, should we wash her even though she kind of already had a bath?" Hannah asked in a playful tone. "I mean, she's soaked through, but I think we should add some soap to it anyway."
Beth merely sighed. "I think we should just do the bird bath for her," Beth said after being quiet for a minute. "Since she's sick, then Amelia should wash her."
"Alright, but I'll still have to wash her under her underwear," Amelia told Beth.
"Right, but as long as you don't take it off, I don't think Charlie will object," Beth said.
"No, I can still wash myself," Charlie said, suddenly feeling like whatever had come over her had gone away. "I actually feel a lot better already."
Amelia looked at Charlie skeptically. Charlie merely smiled back.
"Alright, fine," Amelia said. "As long as she doesn't collapse on us again, Charlie can wash herself. I'm getting a headache anyway."
"We'll be watching you," Beth said, sounding like she was convinced Charlie had done that on purpose.
"It's okay, I'll just do my bird bath quickly then I'll head back to the camp, alright?" Charlie said, smiling. She hoped she wasn't letting the others know just how worried she was at what she'd heard Amelia say.
If she was sick, then was her feeling better just a temporary thing? She hoped it meant she was going to recover, but she knew sometimes when she was sick in the past that she'd have times when she felt alright before the unpleasantness came back.
"I'll stay with Charlie," Amelia volunteered. "That way I'll be by her if something else comes up."
Beth didn't say anything, just merely nodded. Charlie hoped that they were merely being overcautious, but had a feeling they were probably thinking about the same things she was in regards to some symptoms of some illnesses.
Despite having Amelia next to her, Charlie didn't have as many emotions coming up with stripping down to her underwear before taking a washcloth and lathering it up with some soap before starting to wash herself.
While she had complained about stripping down completely, she wished she could take a real bath. While this bird bath cleaned her and helped her feel a little better, she couldn't deny that it was a little limited to the fact that she still had her underwear on.
However, under the circumstances, she was willing to accept that this was the best that she'd be able to get. After all, it wasn't like they were in a luxury resort or even a cheap motel. This was closer to a camping trip that didn't have any port-a-potties nearby. In addition to that, she wouldn't be able to get enough privacy to feel comfortable doing that even if they had everything needed for a real bath.
When they all had finished cleaning themselves, Charlie and Hannah were carrying a bucket of water back up to the camp, despite part of the stream being closer to the camp and Flare was running around, as energetic as ever. The idea was that they could boil it and then let it cool and they'd have some more drinking water. Plus, since they were already by the stream, why not bring some back? Yet, when they were almost halfway there, Amelia suddenly collapsed.
Charlie set her water down carefully, mostly because she didn't want to go pack to the stream to refill it, before moving to see if there was anything she could do to help. Not that she didn't think that Beth or Hannah couldn't do anything she could.
"Charlie, you're the best after Amelia on scanning others to see if there's anything wrong, do it for Amelia," Hannah said as Charlie knelt by them.
Charlie nodded. She didn't consider herself to be the best after Amelia, but she wasn't going to argue with Hannah. At least not now. It definitely wasn't the time for that.
Charlie took a deep breath as she pulled on her magic, letting it flow through her and into Amelia, scanning her to see what she could find. When the results came back as nothing, she continued letting the scan continue. She was confident there was something there, but she couldn't quite see it.
She moved slowly through Amelia, first by her brain to see if there was anything wrong with the blood flow or connections to the brain, but she didn't see anything. Though, she could tell that Amelia was going to wake up shortly.
As Charlie continued to check more of Amelia's body with her scan, she felt herself start to sweat and she became light headed. While she hadn't had this reaction before, she hadn't pushed herself when scanning another person to this point before. She merely hoped that she'd find something before she was forced to stop because of her own limits.
Then when she reached Amelia's chest, she noticed something in her heart that she couldn't identify at first. It wasn't until a small piece of it broke off and moved through Amelia's bloodstream that she determined it had to be a virus. The piece that had broken off seemed to shrink until it disappeared from Charlie's senses the farther it moved from Amelia's heart.
How Amelia and Charlie got a virus, Charlie couldn't begin to say. Though, she didn't try to purge it from Amelia, as Amelia had tried for Charlie, because she remembered what Amelia said about how it seemed to absorb her magic.
Charlie let her magic scan come to an end and she looked at Beth and Hannah. If this really was a virus, how contagious was it? Were all of them infected or was there still time to quarantine both Amelia and herself to keep it from spreading.
Of course if they were quarantined, then who would bring them food and other things like that? she couldn't help but wonder.
"What'd you find?" Hannah asked, her voice full of worry.
"I think she has a virus," Charlie said, not seeing any reason to dance around the truth. "I don't know what kind or if it's like the one she said that I have, but I'm not going to try and do anything about it, because Amelia's the one who knows that stuff better than any of us and she did say that mine seemed to absorb her magic."
"Will she be okay?" Beth asked.
Charlie looked at Beth and could hear the underlying question: Would Charlie herself be okay?
"I have no idea, honestly," Charlie answered, hoping that they might be able to figure something out, though she couldn't think of how they might do that.
"Well, should we carry her back to the rest of the way?" Beth asked.
"Oh, I think that won't be necessary," Charlie said. "I forgot to mention, but she should be waking up soon."
"So, she'll be okay then, right?" Hannah asked.
Charlie merely shook her head. "I said she'd wake up. If this is a virus, then we're in uncharted territory here. I think it could be like 'War of the Worlds,' where the aliens died because they didn't have any immunities to the illnesses on Earth. Though, I hear it was the common cold, but who knows. It could be any number of airborne illnesses that are around."
Hannah nodded absently. Charlie had a feeling that Hannah was more worried because of how long Amelia and she had been friends. At times Charlie suspected they thought of each other as sisters rather than just friends. So, she could only imagine how Hannah was feeling. Charlie couldn't even begin to say how she herself might feel if it was Cherie who had this illness right then.
"Hannah, how about you go back to the others and let them know what happened," Beth suggested. "When Amelia wakes up, I'll help her walk back to the camp. If it is the same virus as Charlie's then it would go to reason that it'll have the same effect as Charlie. Which means she'll wake up a little out of it and maybe be a little dizzy, but it'll only last a few minutes before she'll be back to normal. Mostly."
"Okay," Hannah replied, sounding a little lost, but she stood up and picked up her bucket of water before starting to walk towards their camp a little unsteadily.
Charlie kept Beth company, partly in case one of them needed to do something else while the other kept an eye on Amelia. While she was recognizing how serious of a problem this was, she couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of this as a possibility before. She wasn't even sure how to react properly to it. If there was anything considered a 'proper reaction' to this kind of situation.
Fortunately it was only a minute longer before Amelia opened her eyes. When she did, it was clear that she looked confused, but also a little dazed. Charlie helped Beth get Amelia on her feet, though when Beth started to walk with her to the camp, it was clear Beth was supporting most of Amelia's weight. Charlie picked up her bucket of water before following Beth and Amelia.
When they had gone about a third of the remaining distance to the camp, Tim and Wes came over. As they got closer, Tim called out, "Hannah finally told us what happened. So, we came to help where we can."
"Are you sure you want to chance whatever Amelia and Charlie has being contagious?" Beth asked.
"Well, if it is, I wouldn't be surprised if we all have it by now," Tim answered. "I mean, last I heard, the flu can be transmitted even when you haven't started showing symptoms. So, there's a good chance that if it is contagious, then we've all already been exposed."
"Whatever," Beth said. "If you want to take Amelia's other side, then that'll help us get her back to the camp faster."
"I'll take the water for you, Charlie," Wes said as Wes helped share Amelia's weight with Beth.
Charlie wanted to say that she could get the water, but even as Wes offered to take the water, he was already taking it out of her hands. Which Charlie decided not to argue about it. She was suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue and couldn't be sure if it was whatever she had or if she was just that tired. She suspected it was the illness, but part of her stubbornly insisted it was because Charlie was just tired.
Though, even though she was tired, she at least felt better at having been able to have cleaned herself. There was always a positive feeling associated with being clean for Charlie, although there hadn't exactly been much opportunity to enjoy that so much since they'd started the expedition.
When they reached the camp, Charlie started to make her way to her tent, but stopped when Beth insisted they have a quick meeting to discuss what happened with Charlie and Amelia. Charlie didn't feel like participating, but she couldn't think of an excuse that she thought might actually work to get out of it. As it is, even as she was starting to enter her tent, Beth called her over. So, apparently being sick didn't qualify her to be given an out from the meeting.
"As we all know, Amelia and Charlie have come down with something," Beth said as they gathered together. "Does anyone have any suggestions on where you think they might have gotten the illness?"
"Well, Charlie did have physical contact with that man yesterday," Ralph commented. "Maybe he was sick and that's why he told Charlie to get away. Maybe it was because he was sick and was trying to protect her."
"Well, if that's true, then he failed miserably at it," Wes remarked.
"Well, what about Amelia?" Hannah demanded. "I'm pretty sure the man was dead before she even got to him."
"What if it's like with the black plague?" Tim asked. "That was spread by the parasites from rats. I mean, the man didn't exactly look like he took care of himself, so he might have passed on his parasitic bugs to us when he died."
"Which would mean we're all probably going to come down with that disease, right?" Beth asked. Charlie wasn't sure, but she suspected that she detected a hint of fear in Beth's voice.
"Probably," Tim answered calmly. "What we need to do though, is see if there's anything we have that can treat it. If there is, then we'll be able to get through this easily enough."
"And if we can't?" Amelia asked, her eyes more lucid than they had been when she woke up.
"Well, then we have to wait for the disease to run its course," Tim answered gravely.
"How long will that take?" Amelia asked. "And what's the survival rate?"
"Your guess is as good as mind," Tim replied. "I'm only able to say what I know about. As far as I know, it could be over in a few days or it might become a chronic condition. You know, one that'll go on and on, like some cancers."
"Yeah, I know what 'chronic' means," Amelia retorted. "I'm just saying that even if all of us get sick, we need to figure out what to do if it takes so long that we start to run out of our supplies."
"Well, it's not like we can just go back to the elven world and try to get our supplies replenished," Hannah remarked, sounding a little bored.
"By the way, how do we know that Amelia caught it from the dead guy and not Charlie?" Ralph asked. "I mean, she could have caught it by touching Charlie at any time."
"Maybe, but aside from when Charlie collapsed in the stream, she hadn't touched Charlie since we encountered that man," Beth said.
"Well, why couldn't she have caught it then?" Ralph asked. "Who knows how quickly it spreads?"