The past three days (had it really only been three days? It felt like a week of misery) had been so wretched that by the time Ciara's fever broke on Wednesday afternoon, she was too exhausted to truly appreciate it. For a time upon waking she simply lay there in Luke's bed, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest through half-lidded eyes, before her stomach made its first protestations since Sunday at being empty. She tried to ignore it, wanting to fall into the peaceful oblivion of sleep. But her slowly returning appetite was like a pebble in her shoe and impossible to ignore, though her sore throat protested the thought of swallowing anything at all.
Eventually, Ciara gave in and crawled free of the cocoon of blankets she and Luke had wrapped themselves in. She took a moment to steady herself before bending down to fish her discarded robe from the floor where she had unceremoniously dumped it the previous day. Or was it the day before that? Ciara didn't know and really didn't care, and padded barefoot to the kitchen in search of some meagre form of sustenance.
Tea and toast were about the only tolerable things Ciara could think of, she had just set two mugs on the kitchen counter and dropped slices of bread into the toaster when there came the untimely sound of an opening door. A frown played across features that were for once unadorned by makeup, and Ciara reluctantly ventured out to see just who had walked into the Palace outside of opening hours. She was already preparing to tell them to go away unless they had real business being there but halted in her step at the sound of Reagan Shrike's voice a second before laying eyes on the woman herself.
Ciara was all at once aware of just how starkly they contrasted each other. They both wore their hair loose, but Reagan's fell in elegant waves about her shoulders and it was abundantly clear that Ciara had just rolled out of bed without so much as using her fingers to try and comb through her wild curls. A prickle of irritation made her straighten her shoulders upon feeling underdressed in her own home and she regarded the seamstress with bright eyes devoid of curiousity. What was there to wonder about, when it seemed obvious why the other woman was there? She was no Emlyn Delaney, wanting to check on every resident of Glynn who had developed so much as a sniffle since the weekend.
"Oh, hello," she greeted, as if it were a regular occurrence for the other woman to be there, her usual sultry voice erring far closer to sickly as she turned back toward the kitchen. "Would you care for a cup of tea?"