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May. 17th, 2009 10:34 pmWednesday, Serenity makes a cargo drop on a little moon out back of beyond. Everyone on board gets a chance to stretch their legs while the captain's negotiating with his disreputable buyers; under her father's watchful eye, Naomi Warren-Washburne spends some quality time playing in the dirt with three or four other kids. One, a six-year-old boy, has a nasty-sounding cough that makes Wash nervous after a little while, and he brings Naomi back to the ship sooner than he'd planned.
(Not quite soon enough.)
Friday morning Naomi is uncharacteristically listless, and by the afternoon she's started coughing and whimpering. A textwave marked URGENT is dispatched, and Simon makes his return to the ship several hours earlier than usual.
-----
"It's the damp-lung," Kaylee says flatly. "Seen enough of it to know. Had it myself, when I was eight."
"This doesn't make sense," Simon's muttering, flicking between pages of his medical encyclopedia. "Kaylee, are these always the symptoms of damp-lung? High fever, swollen throat, wheezing, that very harsh cough? Usually a children's disease?"
"Shi a. Why don't that make sense?"
"That part makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is that every test I've run indicates that Naomi has CPB. Ah, children's pneumonic bronchiolitis. And that's ... " He looks up from the screen. "That's supposed to have been stamped out."
"Well." She leans against the doorframe, arms folded. "Guess not. Or not out here."
-----
By Saturday afternoon Naomi's fever breaks, and starts sinking.
Dinner conversation is mostly on the subject of home remedies for the damp-lung. Simon's bemused by some of the suggestions: the bag of salt and orange peel to be placed under the bed or in the sick child's pocket is possibly the weirdest one, though the hot ginger-and-garlic infusion championed by Ma Cobb may have some real therapeutic value.
Sometime near the end of the meal, a tiny figure in a white nightshirt peers into the kitchen, pads silently over to Simon's chair, climbs into his lap, and puts her dark curly head down on his shoulder as though utterly exhausted.
By the time he's taken her temperature one more time (down another .4) and handed her off to Zoe to carry back to bed, she's already mostly asleep again.
-----
Sunday midmorning, Naomi's temperature is within a degree of normal and her coughing has all but completely stopped. Simon pronounces her recovering well, and promises both worried parents to come back to check on her Monday afternoon. She should keep resting, he tells them, and drink plenty of fluids.
Yes, including the ginger-garlic infusion if she'll drink it. (It can't hurt.)
(Not quite soon enough.)
Friday morning Naomi is uncharacteristically listless, and by the afternoon she's started coughing and whimpering. A textwave marked URGENT is dispatched, and Simon makes his return to the ship several hours earlier than usual.
-----
"It's the damp-lung," Kaylee says flatly. "Seen enough of it to know. Had it myself, when I was eight."
"This doesn't make sense," Simon's muttering, flicking between pages of his medical encyclopedia. "Kaylee, are these always the symptoms of damp-lung? High fever, swollen throat, wheezing, that very harsh cough? Usually a children's disease?"
"Shi a. Why don't that make sense?"
"That part makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is that every test I've run indicates that Naomi has CPB. Ah, children's pneumonic bronchiolitis. And that's ... " He looks up from the screen. "That's supposed to have been stamped out."
"Well." She leans against the doorframe, arms folded. "Guess not. Or not out here."
-----
By Saturday afternoon Naomi's fever breaks, and starts sinking.
Dinner conversation is mostly on the subject of home remedies for the damp-lung. Simon's bemused by some of the suggestions: the bag of salt and orange peel to be placed under the bed or in the sick child's pocket is possibly the weirdest one, though the hot ginger-and-garlic infusion championed by Ma Cobb may have some real therapeutic value.
Sometime near the end of the meal, a tiny figure in a white nightshirt peers into the kitchen, pads silently over to Simon's chair, climbs into his lap, and puts her dark curly head down on his shoulder as though utterly exhausted.
By the time he's taken her temperature one more time (down another .4) and handed her off to Zoe to carry back to bed, she's already mostly asleep again.
-----
Sunday midmorning, Naomi's temperature is within a degree of normal and her coughing has all but completely stopped. Simon pronounces her recovering well, and promises both worried parents to come back to check on her Monday afternoon. She should keep resting, he tells them, and drink plenty of fluids.
Yes, including the ginger-garlic infusion if she'll drink it. (It can't hurt.)
