Charlie Burghard (charlieburghard) wrote in tiberiusswann, @ 2011-10-24 07:18:00 |
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Entry tags: | adam, ana, charlie |
Saturday (late): February/14/09
Who: Charlie, Ana, and Adam
When: late Saturday (a little before midnight)
Where: Adam's campus apartment
What: Charlie brings a much needed cure.
The last few weeks had been absolute hell on Charlie. When the sickness set in, he'd thought it was just heartbreak finally catching up to him. Charlie wasn't exactly doing a great job of looking after himself without Ava in his life, and since Maggie was at school so much, and he was mostly unemployed, there wasn't much else to do but sit around feeling sorry for himself. But when Maggie called one evening and told him she wasn't feeling well and wanted to come home, he snapped out of his mood long enough to drive to the school. What happened when he arrived was totally unexpected. Maggie wasn't the only one feeling ill. Everyone was sick, well, everyone who shouldn't be sick was sick. And it hit Charlie fast. He just about collapsed as the virus latched on to him. While he was terrified about his own health, he was more worried about Maggie. Unsure what to do, he texted his brother for help. It was a bad move, even though humans couldn't be infected (something Charlie didn't know at the time), because once Lewis (along with William and Alicia) arrived at school, they were all stuck there. Quarantine.
The days that followed were still a bit of a blur for Charlie. He fell in and out of consciousness a few times, though really, he was out for much of it (drugged, actually, because the healers thought it would be best to keep everyone immobile). And when he did wake up, he didn't believe what he saw. Maggie was aging at a frightening pace. She was in misery from it as well, and there was nothing Charlie could do to help. At one point while awake, he heard people talking about work on a cure, and how they were worried they'd run out of time. Some supernaturals were coping with the virus better than others. Charlie had noticed the demons appeared to be knocking on death's door. What if they all died like this? His cellphone had long since died, and now it seemed like Charlie would as well. No help would come, and he'd end up in Hell a lot sooner than he'd planned.
But it seemed the Devil wasn't ready for Charlie just yet (the red carpet that needed to be rolled out was being cleaned, apparently). Charlie was given some sort of injection, and the symptoms began to fade. Charlie was functional again. His poor family was relieved beyond belief. Charlie wasn't dying anymore, and Maggie had stopped aging, though she appeared to be in her teens. It was the strangest thing, and it was apparently not reversible or curable like the virus itself.
When all was well at the school again, and the family was released from quarantine, they all returned home. It was then that Charlie was finally able to charge his phone and see that there were many panicked voicemails, text messages, and emails from Starbuck and Cassie. Charlie tried to reach them by phone in return, but no such luck. He came to discover that a horrible storm had swallowed much of the east coast, making service patchy. The power outage issues concerned him as well, because he knew some of his friends at TJS might not fair well in the cold.
After getting a text in return from Starbuck, Charlie was made aware of the real problem. Everyone at TJS was sick as well. Thankfully, he learned that Ava was not among them, but the person she loved most in the world was. Without wasting time, Charlie hurried back to school to demand they produce as much of the cure as possible for him and give him instructions on how to make more. He then went to the airport at night and sat around for two days until he could buy his way onto the first evening flight headed into Boston.
Charlie arrived just before midnight. The rental car company was a pain, but he got an SUV with four wheel drive and made his way back to the school. Since Ava was fine, Charlie went straight to Adam's apartment. He knew now that the virus only attacked supernaturals, and Charlie was willing to bet that Adam was looking after Ana. He knocked hard on the door, "It's Charlie.. I've got the cure," he yelled in.