“Oh, ok,” Alice said, feeling reluctant to leave Dana’s side so soon.  Glancing down at Dana, she saw a look of fear cross her face.  

Giving Alice a pleading gaze, Dana finally managed to force her voice to work long enough to whisper, “don’t leave.”    

Alice looked back at the nurse with a wordless appeal.  Having witnessed the gaze exchanged between the two women, the nurse relented.  “Alright,” she said with an understanding smile.  “You can stay, but only until she goes to sleep.”

Alice cupped Dana’s face with her gloved hand and whispered, “Don’t worry, Dana.  Go to sleep.  I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Dana tried to express her gratitude with her eyes, but they began feeling heavier as the sedative quickly made its way through her system.  She allowed it to take over without resistance, with the certainty that Alice would be there to keep her safe.

***

Five days later.

“Hey, what do you think; you think you could do without me for a little bit?” Alice asked, rubbing some moisturizer onto Dana’s arms.

Dana tried to open her eyes to respond, but closed them again, unable to gather the energy to speak.  She felt overwhelmingly tired; the past five days had passed in a mostly drug-induced haze, and she couldn’t seem to bring her thoughts together to say anything meaningful to Alice.

“Do you want some more M&Ms for your incentive pile?” Alice asked with a little laugh, as she rubbed more of the cooling moisturizer into her hands.

“Ok, but don’t get mad when you get fat.  I’m not gonna hear about it,” Alice continued.  

Dana’s breath got shallower as she tried to gather the will to speak.  It was so frustrating not to be able to communicate with Alice; more than anything she wanted to tell her how much she appreciated what she was doing for her.  Even now, after five days of very little sleep and constant worry, she was trying to joke with Dana.  She was trying to treat her normally, not like a sick person, even though it was becoming painfully clear that Dana was more ill than anyone was telling her.

“Alright, I’ll work out with you,” Alice said.  “But you can’t show off; you have to promise.”  She opened a tube of lip balm and began rubbing it gently onto Dana’s lips.  “I know how you get,” she continued quietly.  Dana closed her eyes again as the cooling balm soothed her chapped lips.