Jamie Addams Bedroom~ a joining room to Val

Val opened the door to Jamie's adjoining bedroom. It was connected to the Lad's Barracks so that he would have easy access to his daughter's room in case of emergency. Ever since they had lost little James... well, despite his constant humor Val tended to make sure his daughter wasn't too far away from him or another trusted individual.

Speaking of Jamie, she was held against Valerio with his other arm and dressed in the same pajamas she'd had on this morning. Val didn't think it necessary to have her dressed for the day when she was suffering from a cold. Or, at least, he hoped that's all it was. "Okay, little sunshine..." Valerio half-grunted and shifted Jamie in his arms. "What flavor potion would you like tonight, sweetheart? There's apple... banana... mango... and peaches. Anything sound good, sunshine?" he inquired, looking to his poor little girl.

Valerio didn't like it when his baby was sick, and thus tried even harder to make sure Jamie wasn't feeling miserable.

Jamie hugged her daddy, she didn't like being sick... her nose was stuffy, her throat was sore and she was always coughing. Not to meantion she aways felt slightly chilled.

So she hugged her Daddy even closer trying such as much warm from him as she could.

When asked what flaver of potion she wanted she made a face... no matter what her daddy said thoughs potions never tasted like the real thing.

Coughing or a bit she aswered with "Ummmm... apples Daddy" she answered before sniffing again.

Yes Jamie Hated... Hated being sick... took the fun out of even Apples.

Val accommodated Jamie's quest for warmth via hugging her in return. His little girl loved to hug, thus he did not see this as solely for an ulterior motive. The wizard didn't care if he got sick in tending to Jamie: he'd rather be sick than watch his daugher have to deal with the evil germs responsible for daring to make her days miserable.

And there it was: the Icky Face; an expression of rather blatant lack of enthusiasm for something. Valerio generally got this look upon offering up veggies at mealtimes. As his child coughed, the wizard didn't bother to tell her to cover her mouth this time. It was just them, and he didn't mind being coughed or sneezed on. Merlin knows he'd been sneezed and spat up on when Jamie was still in diapers!

"My little 'apple girl'..." Val trailed off and charmed a little medicine goblet of potion to hover beneath the flavoring nozzle. As the potion flavored itself, the wizard placed a gentle kiss to his daughter's forehead. Yes, tonight was a night for her favorite blanket, her plush puppy she'd had since she was a baby that he'd made fore her, a story, and the rocking chair. Well... he would be in the rocking chair. Before he knew it, the potion was flavored and ready for Jamie to take. "I know it's nothing like apple juice but here you go, sunshine. Drink up," he offered sympathetically.

With a brief glance around the room and a few whispered spells, Val gathered everything that would be needed to get little Jamie settled into bed. She was very much daddy's little princess.

Jamie took the small goblet, she made one last "icky face" and looking at her daddy one last time as if she was asking if she really had to drink it, but then resolved that is was a stupid question and started to drink the "icky" medicen.

The intial taste was fine, it was the taste that came after she swalllowed the mad her gage.

"Icky.." she muttered her throat much to sore to complain much more then that.

Then she curled up in her bed as her Daddy got all the stuff for bed time. Even though she was plenty tired it was hard to sleep when she couldn't breath through her nose, and very time she swallowed her throat hurt more.

So Jamie Addams was officaly sick of being sick...

Despite Valerio's tendency to melt the moment he was set with the infamous 'puppy dog eyes' or most any other pleading look from his daughter, the wizard stood his ground on the medicine on the basis that she would get better by taking it. He was glad Jamie didn't protest too much, yet on the other hand it worried him: for her not to put up a metaphorical 'fight' over taking the potion meant that she really wasn't feeling well at all. Or, at least, that was the pattern he observed.

He didn't enjoy giving Jamie things she didn't like... but if it helped...

"I know, sunshine. But it'll help, I promise," Val reassured her in a soft voice before she left his side to get into bed.

"Shall we read Peter Pan tonight?" he asked, said book halfway pulled off the shelf before the question was fully out. Brown eyes found Jamie's so that, if her throat was bugging her too much, all she'd have to do is nod.

Jamie got curled up under the covers and watched her Daddy get all the stuff for bed time, useually she wasn't much of a fan of bed time, she usually tried to get a few extre minute in with all the people that were still awake, before her daddy swept her off to bed.

So yes bed time wasn't favorite.... most of the time.

But when she was sick, sick enough to be a miserable as she was now, bedtime didn't seem so bad any more. Actually is felt kinda nice.

She nodded at the question, "Yes Daddy...." she pasued to yawn, the potion already making her drousey.

"I like Peter Pan" she finished with a small smile in her face... now matter how sick she was she always smile for her Daddy..

Val smiled - wanly, kindly, and lovingly - at his daughter as he pulled the book the rest of the way off the shelf. Jamie was such a sunny personality about the Keep... much like his father was when he was alive. He approached the bed and tucked his little girl in with the blankets from her bed. "There - snug as a bug in a rug, as your granddad would say," he declared in a quiet yet cheerful voice.

"And look who's gonna come join ya..." Val added, bouncing the plush puppy this way and that to simulate walking. To add to the whole thing, he brought the plush puppy's face up next to Jamie's cheek and made a 'kissy noise'. Before getting settled into the rocking chair near Jamie's bed, the wizard placed a kiss upon his daughter's forehead.

A creak of protest escaped the chair as Valerio sat and got comfortable. He remembered many a time - recently and not-so-recently - when the pair of them would sit in this chair and read together at night. It was solely Jamie's time with him, and Valerio often hoped she would get to sleep without too much fuss. A contest of wills, it seemed like sometimes. "Okay.... Peter Pan..." Valerio announced. He took a brief moment to clear his throat before beginning to read...

Jamie smiled a little more as her Daddy mentioned her granddad, she always wished she could have met him, and her mommy to... But as long as she had her daddy she was happy, besides sometimes she got the feeling her Daddy needed her as much she need him... well maybe not that much, but... sometimes when he thought she wasn't looking or listening she saw him looking at a photo of a lady she was sure was her mommy.

She smiled slightly more when her Daddy brought out her Puppy and she hugged it tightly..

"Suzzy..." she said softly as she as she hugged the plush puppy and kissed it, she had this puppy for as long as she could remember, she loved the thing.

As her Daddy read Peter Pan she listened intently... for about 5 minutes when her eyes started to droop.

The last line she heard.. or remembered hearing was, "Second star to the right and straight on til morning..." before sleep pulled her blissfully in....

It was Valerio's intention to read the whole story, whether Jamie had fallen asleep shortly after it began or not. Both of his moms - biological and stepmother - read to him when he was sick. He never really knew if they'd continued reading after he'd fallen asleep, but hearing their voices while he dozed had been soothing.

He was almost to the end when Valerio felt his eyelids grow heavy. But he wanted to finish the story though he knew Jamie was likely fast asleep. There was just a little more to go...

... but sleep gently overtook the Remnant leader: first the book tilted inward towards his chest, and then brown eyes slowly shut of their own volition. The rocking chair rocked less and less, before coming to a silent halt as Val, too, slipped into peaceful slumber.

((afew hours later))

Jamie tossed and turned in her sleep, the potion that helped her fall asleep had worn off and her nasty cold symptoms came back with a vengeance, including one new symptom, a fever.

Then she woke up from her bed feeling awful, her head hurt, she felt cold, yet hot at the same time and she was coughing uncontrollably at the moment, she couldn't stop and she wanted to breath, it scared her.

Tear ran down her small face, but weather it was from the fact she was coughing so hard or because she was scared it was hard to tell. Possibly because of both....

Val was still sleeping peacefully in the rocking chair, the book he'd been reading to Jamie having fallen from his lap and onto the floor. Blond-brown brows furrowed in the man's sleep and then relaxed as though relieved from a moment of confusion. He clearly didn't realize he was not on his cot, for he shifted this way and that. Attempts to find a comfortable position proved futile.

In between the realms of awake and asleep, Valerio heard a cough. Several muscles in his face twitched in recognition of whom had coughed. 'Jamie... but what's she doing out of bed?' his muddled mind asked himself. Then, the coughs got louder, closer together, and didn't seem to be easing up any. Brown eyes snapped open and looked to their owner's little girl.

Despite only just having woken up, Valerio was at his daughter's side in a flash with a conjured goblet of juice. "Here, Jamie... need a drink?" he asked and offered the goblet, deep concern in his eyes. His son James had died from not breathing, and he wasn't about to let Jamie suffer the same fate. A hand went to lightly pat her back.

She was warm. Very warm. A fever, perhaps? Val made a note to look into that, once he was able to help quell the coughing fit.

Jamie grabbed on to the goblet while still coughing and slowly started to drink the cold liquid, after a few mouth fulls she pulled way still very out of breath but feeling relieved that she was able to get a few breaths in.

She then wrapped her arms around her Daddy, letting a few tears fall in his shoulder, she usually tied not to cry in front of her Daddy, cause it usually made him sad to and she didn't like that. Right now however she couldn't help it, she had been very scared by what had happened.

"That was scary Daddy" she breathed out as she rested her hot forehead on her Daddy's shoulder.

Val supported both his daughter and the goblet, only advancing with the latter when she was ready for it. When Jamie pulled away from the goblet, the wizard put it on the little bedside table for now. The sound of his little girl finally able to breathe made relief flood through him - from head to toe - in a powerful cascade.

Next thing he knew, he was being hugged tight by his daughter. What could any father do in such a situation but hug back? And thus he did, albeit gently, and rubbed and patted Jamie’s back. The wizard sincerely wished there was an instant way to vanish a cold...

Though Valerio hadn’t felt the tears land on his shoulder, absorbing into the cloth of his shirt, his head was turned to where he could clearly see his daughter was crying. He couldn’t blame her for being scared. One of his hands gently finger-combed Jamie’s dark chocolate tresses in a further attempt to soothe.

He sighed, fully agreeing with his daughter’s statement. “I know, Jamie... I was scared, too,” he murmured, admitting his own fears. However, another worry came to the forefront as Valerio felt the sheer amount of heat Jamie was putting out. “Merlin, you’re warm... are you getting a fever?” he inquired more to himself than specifically toward Jamie. Not wanting to disturb his little girl from her position, Valerio cast a temperature-reading spell he’d often seen his stepmother use whenever he or his sisters were sick.

Just in case, Valerio summoned a phial of Fever-relief potion to him. Getting Jamie to take it would be the next trick, he knew. But he’d deal with that when the time came.

Jamie sighed as she curled up against her Daddy already feeling tired agian but not wanting to leave to warmth of her fathers arms. She felt calmer as he put his hand through her hair.

However she did whimper slightly when he mention a fever, she didn't quite understand what it was, but she knew it was bad. Perhaps that was why she felt worse the earlier.

The temperature spell the had been placed on her read..

"100. F"

She then noticed despite her tired fuzzy head her Daddy summon a potion and whined.

"Daddy no..." she whispered as she barried her head in to his shoulder, she didn't want to drink another icky potion, she just wanted to sleep.

Valerio smiled warmly as his daughter curled up against him. He held her gently closer to him, still gently stroking her hair. Jamie’s whimper in response to the word ‘fever’ wrenched his heart, hating to see or even hear his daughter in any kind of discomfort or pain. The wizard wished all he needed to do was mutter a spell and the cold was cured. But alas, not even all of the Wizarding world’s advances in magic had found a way to do that yet.

Brown eyes blinked in surprise and alarm at the temperature reading the spell gave him. Not good. As he cast a spell to measure out a dose of potion from the phial, Valerio heard his daughter protest with a whine. Oh, how he wanted to just bend to her wish solely to make her happy... but he knew that just letting the fever go was not the answer. What if it only got worse?

The wizard took a moment to collect his will and his wits, both of which he would need for a tangle of willpower with Jamie in order to get her to take the potion. The pleading, bury-head-in-shoulder move was almost as crippling as the puppy eyes. Val couldn’t help but bring his arms up around his little girl in a hug, and kiss the top of her head.

“I know it doesn’t taste very good, sunshine... but it’ll help make you feel better,” he murmured into his daughter’s ear. “I promise. Then you can go back to sleep.”

Jamie sniffed on her Daddy's shoulder, weather is was from crying or the illness she had she wasn't sure.

She knew her father was going to win out, she knew she had to take the potion, but that didn't mean she had to like it.

"Okay Daddy.." she said tiredly as she reached out to take the offered cup.

Just as she was about to hesitanly drink it, another coughing fit interupted her, they were hard coughs that wracked her small body and caused her to loose her grip on the cup.

The Fever relief potion spilled all over her PJ top and dripped on to Val's lap.

Inbetween her coughs and tears that now came down her face again she cried "I am... sorry Daddy.."

Valerio glanced sideways at his daughter’s form at the sniff. If only there existed a spell to banish illness indefinitely and completely from a body. However, if such a thing existed, Val either didn’t know about it or would not risk his daughter’s life to the Dark Arts. The only way he would risk it was in the event she hadn’t long to live, which was not the case. Jamie had her whole life ahead of her... and Val hoped to be there for most of it.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured when she agreed to take the potion. The wizard could tell she was tired. Poor thing. Valerio made a note to himself to attempt to find a way to make the potions taste better. Perhaps then she would be more receptive to it.

Sympathetic brown eyes softened at the coughing fit, their owner patting and rubbing Jamie’s back in an attempt to soothe the coughing fit and provide general comfort. The spilt potion didn’t bother him; she couldn’t help it. “Jamie...” Val sighed, not for the first time wishing he could just make her sickness go away, “... don’t worry about it, sunshine. I’m so sorry you’re sick.” He gently pushed the long brown hair out of his daughter’s face, and did his best to wipe away her tears without poking her in the eye as she coughed.

“Do you want to try another drink?” he asked, offering her the same glass he had earlier. It had helped a bit last time, he reasoned.

Meanwhile, with a spell, Valerio poured out another dose of Fever Reducing Potion, and added to it a cough suppressant so that his daughter might get some rest.

Jamie whined and tried to stop coughing, she leaned into her daddy's cool and comforting hand as he moved her hair out of her feverish face.

Her eye lids dropped, feeling very tired and only wanting to sleep.

She nodded when he asked if she wanted a drink, even though she managed to calm her coughs on her own, it would soothe her firey throat.

She couldn't help but lean on her father's chest and curl up on his lap.

"Daddy.....?" she said quietly with a sniff.

"Tell me about Mummy..... what was she like when she was sick, was she ever... scared?" she asked. It was times like these Jamie most wanted to hear about her mother. Made her feel like she was actually around.