"Dr. Cul-" She tried to say my name but the only word coherent was "doctor". Her voice was too raspy, threatened by a flood of cough.

"Tell me, Elizabeth." I sank to my knees so that she could have a better view of my face.

Her breathing was interrupted, halting. "My chest…"

I guessed immediately.

"It hurts, doesn’t it?" Whenever she coughed.

Elizabeth did not reply, only tried to suck in a breath without breaking down into a riot of coughing again. "Edward?" She gasped. "How is he?"

Reluctantly, I pulled my eyes away from Elizabeth’s colorless face to a cot on the farthest end of the room. On the first day she arrived at the hospital, still strengthened a little, Elizabeth had begged me to let her be placed near her son. The room was already crowded, got more crowded every day, but Edward Masen remained on his cot at the end of a line of other drifting patients.

He was too weak even to cough. This disgruntled me. I didn’t want to tell Elizabeth that. Her son was probably in the last stages of the fever. Though, without a doubt, she could hear the silence that came from his side of the room. I permitted a quick but valid glance at Edward’s cot. The young man’s body was hunched over on the side, leaning over the springy mattress, heaving over the floor. I left Elizabeth’s side without a word, rushing to Edward’s cot.

"Edward?" I knelt by his side, permitting sufficient space so that he could reach the bucket on the floor.

His face looked miserable, drained as he pulled back. Edward didn’t meet my eyes, probably didn’t even notice me as he crashed back on the mattress. The fern green tint of his eyes disappeared quickly underneath his pale lids. Lightly laying the back of my hand on his cheek, I felt how thin his skin had become. Then I stood, lifting the bucket’s handle and hurried to dispose of its contents so that I could return to Elizabeth.

Her emerald eyes looked less intense when I walked back to her side. They seemed to have lost some of that confident hardness. I hesitated, only fixing her with a blank stare. I hoped that she would be able to interpret the urgent message I was trying to display upon my face.