Alex awoke with the feverishly hot aches that are the calling card of the flu. She tried to talk herself out of it, but the dry hotness of her throat and the sweaty hotness of her forehead insisted. The whole body aches shouted down her mind's denials until they curled up and whimpered in a dark corner. The temp agency hadn't called, so she was free to nap off and on all day.

She awoke to find Gabe, Rile, and Cale curled around her. Cale had stared Gabe down over their presence when he had objected.

"Easy," Cale said. "Don't blast us. We're all here in the clan bed. Just sleeping. Nothing more."

"Don't yell at me when I'm asleep and I won't wake up and blast you. If I'm not startled awake, I'm less confused," Alex said, "But I'm sick."

"Are you?" Gabe sounded puzzled. "But you're hot, not cold."

"Heat is special. We never waste body heat on our world," Rile said.

Trust Rile to have a good reason to be in bed with me. Us. Next to, not with.

"Do you want us to leave?"

Only Cale would ask that. The nice one.

Rile elbowed him with a surreptitious jab.

"No, you can stay. I doubt you're susceptible to the flu virus and if you are, it's too late now." Alex settled back to sleep but a cold sweat broke out. "Okay, now it's time for you to leave. This is the part where my body overcompensates for the fever by sweating and I'll get the chills. You don't want to be around for that."

"Sounds inefficient," Rile said.

"Tell me about it. Anyway, I don't want any of you getting damp and chilled, so out, out, out."

Gabe ran a gentle finger over her brow. "This 'sweating' is what makes you cold?"

"It's all part of the flu, this infection that's making me sick." When they all looked at her, puzzled, she asked, "Don't you have something like this back home? Surely you get sick."

"We're a pretty healthy lot," Cale said.

"Once you survive infancy," Rile added dourly.

Alex expected Gabe to be irritated, but instead he looked sad and said, "There is a high mortality rate for the very young. We're the only males that survived from each of our clutches."

"We have sisters," Cale said.

"Had." Rile progressed from sour to anger.

Cale deflated and curled back on the bed.

"You had to say that, didn't you?" Gabe sounded irritated and he poked Rile with an imperious claw.

"No family feuds in my sickbed. Go and let me shiver in peace," Alex ordered.

"Cale, retrieve some towels." Gabe no longer sounded irritated, only concerned.

Cale revived with a task and jumped up to retrieve them.

"Is this 'flu' something lethal?" Gabe asked.

Alex laughed. "No, not anymore. I may feel like dying, but I won't. As long as I don't dehydrate or catch a secondary infection that's untreated."

"Dehydrate?" Rile now looked worried.

Rile's worried? That's rare.

"Secondary infection?" Gabe asked.

"I'm sorry I said anything. I'll be fine. Just go." Alex shivered again.

Cale trotted in with the towels and offered them to Gabe. He threw one to Rile and kept one for himself.

"Cale, fetch some water. There's a danger of dehydration," Gabe said.

Cale darted out of the room, tense with worry.

Who did they know who had died of dehydration?

Gabe patted the towel up against her back. Rile patted her brow and face, but she clamped her hand on his wrist when he tried to pat down her chest. Her ferocious expression made him give up.

"We are excellent absorbers and retainers of heat. We'll keep you from getting chilled." Gabe lay down and curled along her back.

"But," Alex said.

Rile lay down and jammed his back against her chest. Cale walked in with a pitcher and glass of water.

"No buts. Drink and sleep," Gabe said.

It was nice being ordered to sleep, Alex decided, but her body had other ideas. "Let me get up and take a sleeping pill first."

"You have pills to make you sleep?" Cale asked.

"Are they safe?" Gabe jumped in.

"Are they safe when you are ill?" Rile added.

Alex sighed.

What a bunch of mother hens.

"They're perfectly safe. A doctor prescribed them for me."

"A doctor? Why did he prescribe them?" Cale asked.

Alex's sigh this time was more exasperated. "It's a long story."

"We have nothing but time," Rile said.

Alex growled and covered her head with a pillow.

"You're not going to take it until we know more." Rile assumed to speak for his brothers.

Gabe hissed, but didn't contradict him.

Alex groaned and spoke from beneath the pillow. "After I first escaped from Morgan, I would wake up at night having flashbacks of what he did. I went to a doctor and told her. I was still beat up, so she prescribed sleeping pills. I take them when I need them. Satisfied now?"

"That wasn't a long story at all," Rile accused.

Gabe reached over and tried to punch him but his youngest brother effectively blocked him.

"Stop you two. You'll squish me. It's an expression when someone doesn't want to talk about something," Alex said.

"That makes no difference to Rile," Gabe said.

"Can I get up now and take it?" Alex asked.

They all shifted slightly to give her room and Alex shuffled out of the room. When she came back, she dove under the covers and put the pillow back over her head.

"No talking," her muffled voice declared.

Her response was three soft bodies curling against her.

Alex found they were as good as Gabe described. When she burned with fever, their bodies soaked up the heat. When she began to chill, gentle hands dried her off and their bodies warmed hers. It was almost worth getting sick.

Almost.

***

When Alex awoke, she had to admit she felt better, if dry. She sat up and became light headed. She put a hand to her head and swayed, but Gabe caught her and lowered her back down.

"You slept too long." His accusation was gentle.

"Those sleeping pills are too strong." Rile's wasn't.

"I'm okay. Just thirsty." If Alex had been thinking clearly, she wouldn't have said that, raising the specter of dehydration.

She was surprised that it was Rile who handed her the glass of water first, beating out Cale. She drank it, three sets of eyes watching her, and the glass was taken from her, refilled, and shoved back in her hand, courtesy of Rile. She balked at the third glass.

"I'll drown. Let me up, please." Alex's bravado was ruined by shaking legs and a thump back down on the bed.

"You need to eat. What do you want?" Gabe asked and looked at Cale, who jumped up.

"I suppose soup would be best. There are cans in the pantry." Alex saw Cale leave the room. "I can fix it myself," she called after him.

"Can you fix it while lying in bed?" Rile asked.

"Well, no."

"Then let Cale do it. It makes him feel useful," Rile said.

"I wish I felt better to enjoy all this pampering."

"You wouldn't accept it if you were well," Rile shot back. "Even now you're trying to get up."

"Be nice to me, I'm sick," Alex said in a fake whimper, earning her a thump on the arm by Rile. "Ow! Bully! Beating up on sickly little females!" She rolled next to Gabe to avoid the next thump. Gabe threw the covers back over her.

"Behave," he chided Alex.

"But I'm sick." More fake whimpering.

"Behave or I'll leave you to Rile's tender nursing care."

"Anything but that," Alex sniveled.

"That's it. I'm getting something to eat," Rile swung his legs over the edge of the bed and got up.

Alex couldn't tell if Rile was really annoyed or not.

***

Alex would soon miss her sickbed. As soon as Rile judged her healthy enough, he called her out. Cale, who had been hovering over Alex the while she was sick, was witness. He also refused to leave.

"What is it with you, Rile?" Alex asked, exasperated. "You wait until the second I'm healthy to beat me up? Can you not stand to see me whole for a day?"

A memory flitted across her mind, visibly twisting her features. She took a staff from the stave on the wall.

"Morgan couldn't stand to see me whole, either. Do you enjoy beating females, Rile? Because if you do, I'm taking our sparring to a new level," Alex said.

Alex shifted, before their eyes, into something hard and predatory. Now Rile wasn't so sure that he could take her down.

"Rile has his faults," Cale said, surprising them. "But he's never hurt a female. Physically."

"A seducer," Alex said and turned into a more dangerous predator. She shifted her grip on her staff and planted her feet.

"More of a happy opportunist," Cale corrected. "I think he's too lazy to seduce anyone. He says he only takes what is freely offered."

"Thanks, brother," Rile said drily.

"I'm trying to help you. Do you want Alex to think you are only one class above Morgan?" Cale retorted.

"Now she thinks I'm two classes above. Much better," Rile said.

"You care what I think of you?" Alex was looking at them oddly, her predatory self gone. She stood up straight and rested the end of the staff on the ground. "Why would that matter?"

"Do you have self esteem issues or what?" Rile asked.

"Where did you learn about self esteem issues?" Alex asked in surprise.

"Dr. Phil show," Cale supplied.

"I'm being psychoanalyzed by an alien humanoid dragon who watches daytime TV?" Alex asked.

Cale laughed. "As a matter of fact, you are. Now since Rile started this, I'll turn the tables on him. Alex, you confuse him. You are a female who is not fawning on him, unlike the females of our world, and you fight, also unlike the females of our world. My brother has gone into default mode: fighting."

Alex cut off Rile's protest. "Default mode is fighting? I can live with that. Fighting is much better than psychoanalysis."

"Or talking about the past," Rile teased, picking his own staff.

"Them's fightin' words," Alex said, her jab to Rile's midsection almost getting through.

***

A/N

Another orphan chapter that has found new life as a bonus chapter, thanks to Wattpad!

Dedicated to my newest readers

JohnTAD

heil_shield

Canadian_Guy