I Unintentionally Became Her Kitten

Chapter 116: Emergency Maintenance

The doctor hurried up the steps. Tye hesitated at the bottom. There was an invisible line between where Alisha was herself in private and where she was Ms Takeno. That line existed, I thought, at the bottom of the stairs to her bedroom.

Then he turned, pulling his phone out to address whatever situation came up that had tried to demand her attention and looked out one of the windows in the front foyer area.

I wiped my nose on the back of my wrist, trying to look less like a mess.

The doctor didn’t hesitate to listen to her breathing, and her heartbeat. His brow was furrowed in focus as he did so, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. He picked up her hand and pinched the skin across the back of it and frowned more.

“Has she been drinking water?” he asked me.

I thought for a long moment. “No… not when she’s been home.”

He pulled his stethoscope free from his ears just to drape it across the back of his neck.

“She’s dehydrated,” he explained.

I gave him a look that probably said, ‘do I look stupid to you?’ People didn’t simply fall asleep and not wake up due to dehydration.

“I’m going to give her some fluids and some IV nutrients, but from what I can tell, she’s simply asleep.”

“But why?” I asked.

He took a deep breath. “In the past month I’ve been asked to check her over twice for major trauma. And each time she’s been relatively okay, but that’s physically. Most people wouldn’t still function after the first traumatic experience, not like she has been. And I’m assuming the last few days have been difficult for her?”

I nodded, knowing she’d been exhausted, skipping meals, probably more than just dinner with me, and without drinking water…

“Her body had enough of that, so it shut down. There's a phrase... 'if you don't make time to schedule routine maintenance, emergency maintenance will be scheduled for you,'” he explained. “She will wake up, probably feeling like she’s been run over by a truck a few times and confused. It’s important you don’t let her go straight back to work.”

I opened my mouth to protest on her behalf, then closed it. She wasn’t any good at controlling chaos when she was dead. So she would rest whether she liked it or not.

“One week,” the doctor said. “No work, and the week following, only work from home.”

… The world was going to come to a grinding halt. But I nodded. I'd discuss it with Tye, he was acting second in command.

“It's vital she gets three meals a day and drinks water with them and also when she wakes up and right before bed. No strenuous exercise for a few days, after that it's up to what feels right to her. And I'd recommend limiting screen time as well.”

I nodded along again. It all seemed quite logical, maybe excessive, but looking at her, unresponsive and asleep, sent a chilling dread into me that she could just not wake up again. The doctor hooked her up to an IV, letting it drip steadily before packing his things. “Call if anything else comes up or if her condition changes. She should wake before the end of the day. If not, she’ll likely need more advanced care. And her first meal should probably be something simple. Chicken broth or a smoothie– something like that.”

I went down the steps behind him, hearing Tye’s voice low and urgent, probably addressing issues. The doctor left, and I waited for Tye to finish his conversation.

When he did, finally hanging up and leaning his weight against a chair in the dining room, he looked up.

“He said it was stress induced hypersomnia,” I informed.

Tye looked down at the surface of the table, his thoughts grinding against each other.

“He said she can’t go to work for a week and should work from home the week after,” I explained.

And then Tye took a deep breath. “I figured she’d be down and out for a bit,” he agreed.

“Has this happened before?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. But it’s not surprising the pressure would catch up with her eventually.” He went quiet again, thoughts processing.

I started to go up to check on her again but he stopped me with a, “wait,” and I froze.

“I’ll take Lili today and I’m going to have to delegate some tasks to Matteo so you’ll be on your own with Alisha. Is that okay?”

I nodded. “We’ll be fine. No one else really knows where this is right?”

He nodded. “It is one of the family's most coveted secrets,” he agreed. “If someone does come here, you need to shoot them without asking questions. I don’t care if its a child, no one should know where this is. I’ll clean up the mess after.”

My brain wandered, tempted very briefly to ask how old he was the first time he had fired a gun at a person, but I shut it down. Now wasn’t the time.

“I… will need to go to the store at some point,” I informed him.

“If you can’t wait until someone’s there to go with you, go with a jacket you don’t normally wear. Keep the hood up and take maybe… your car. No one should recognize it yet.”

I agreed to this and he got ready to leave, just to hesitate again.

“Can I have her work phone?” he asked.

I nodded and scampered up the steps to retrieve it, finding myself unsure when staring at the two identical iPears which was her work and which was her personal phone.

I brought them both down and he took whichever one he deemed was her work phone.

“If she worries, tell her I’m maintaining appearances,” he explained.  Then he left, looking already worn out and exhausted. If Tye ended up in a stress induced hypersomnia, a lot of people were going to get hurt. Hopefully he’d be able to keep it together for a while.

Back upstairs, I settled next to Alisha, holding her gently as she slept. The dripping of the IV lulled me a little, but every time her breathing slowed too much or she went too still for too long, I couldn’t help but panic. In the end I buried my face into her chest and just listened to her steady heart beat. It was like that I finally managed to slip back into a drowsy rest.