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Meg quite likes the oatmeal lotion Parker brought her.

It doesn't clash with her hair nearly so much as the calamine, and it seems to work fairly well on the itching.

She's still ridiculously covered in little red spots, but they're mostly crusted over now.

Still, she'll wait at least another day before she goes downstairs.

Much better safe than sorry.

Meg gives up on examining her face in the mirror and goes to pick a book to read for the afternoon.

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The second she'd read the note she'd received from the bar, Kim had dropped everything and headed straight for Meg's room.

She knocks softly but steadily at the door.

"Meg? It's Kim."

After several seconds (while Meg crosses the room), the door opens a couple of inches.

"Hello, Kim.

"I'm probably still contagious."

"How long have you been showing symptoms? And don't worry about it," she adds. "I'm immune."

"Okay."

Meg opens the door enough to let Kim into the room.

"Just about a week, I think. The spots are mostly covered over, but there are still a few that look like they're problematic."

She lets out a small sigh of relief. "Not too much longer to go, then."

Kim holds up the note, and gives Meg an amused look.

"Dr. Cullen, huh?"

"Yeah.

"He found me downstairs. I'd fallen asleep on one of the couches. I think my fever was somewhere up above 39 at that point.

"He thought avoiding an epidemic would probably be in everyone's best interest, so . . . " Meg gestures to the room she's been in ever since.

"I can't argue that," Kim agrees. "And given you're stable enough, might as well wait it out somewhere more comfortable than the infirmary, right?"

She glances around.

"Need me to get you anything from back home? Or here?"

"I think I'm pretty well stocked," she says.

"Dr. Cullen thought of most things that would be practical, and Edward brought books and music, and X-23 took notes down to the bar for me, and Parker brought everything she could think of.

"And I should be able to go downstairs soon.

"Then it's just a question of waiting for the spots to fade.

"I think it might raise some awkward questions if I go home and have half a case of chickenpox, you know?"

"Just a few."

Her tone is very dry.

"At least there's no time passing back in Canada while you're here."

"It's handy, that.

"I doubt I'd be nearly this calm if I thought there were."

"I imagine not," Kim murmurs.

She has reason to know.

"Just how did you catch the chickenpox, anyway?"

Meg shrugs.

"I'm not sure.

"School, standing behind the wrong person in line at the grocery store, on the metro . . . who knows? No one else I know has said anything about having it, though."

"Probably just as well that you're going through it here, and not in the middle of all your eager classmates."

"Or around Alain.

"Compromised immune system, since they removed his spleen after the accident.

"And oddly enough, he and I have never discussed communicable diseases of our childhoods."

She supposes they ought to.

"It's not the sort of thing that often comes up, I'd think. Unless actually needed."

Kim gives her a rueful grin.

"Like now."

"Yeah.

"I learned a lot of his medical history after the accident. But I was more thinking in terms if something else like that happened. Bloodtype and drug allergies and all that. Not this."

"Really, though, who ever expects chicken pox after a certain point?"

She shakes her head.

"Probably just as well you got it now instead of later, though. I mean, can you imagine calling out to your own practice?"

Meg opens her mouth to answer, then pauses to cough.

"Sorry," she says, after a moment or two.

"That's one of the lingering symptoms, it would seem.

"Anyway.

"How are you?"

"Doing pretty well," Kim tells her. "Neville and I are talking about taking on a couple of student placements between our practices -- between you and me, I think Mark's worn both of us down."

She seems amused by the fact.

"It was either that or give in to his pleas to come teach a course down in London, which I'm not quite ready to do yet."

"I can't quite see you as Professor Kim, no," Meg says.

"Me either, but Mark's stubborn," she laughs. "The only thing to do is distract him with something else."

Meg smiles, and the tone is teasing.

"No offense, Kim, but there are very few people out there I think could out-stubborn you."

"Coming from you, that's a high compliment," she teases back, without missing a beat.

Meg wrinkles her nose up at her sister.

"You're supposed to be nice to me, Kim.

"I'm sick."

"I am being nice!" Kim protests. "I haven't once offered to take a picture of you in your current speckled state."

"Given what I know is in the albums at home . . . it's as much to your benefit as mine that you don't launch photographic mutually assured destruction."

Because there have been a lot of pictures over the years.

"Speaking of home, at some point we need to look into getting your dress for the wedding."

"I guess I might have developed a healthy sense of self-preservation somewhere along the way."

She brightens at Meg's second observation.

"We do, at that. Have you -- wait, who am I kidding, of course you've thought about styles and colors."

"Well," Meg says, "My dress is about thirty-five or forty years old.

"So I think we probably ought to look for something for you that's from about the same time, or we're going to look very odd.

"And you're the only bridesmaid, so . . . I think we just see what we find that looks reasonably matched to mine, and that we like, and that isn't white.

"Or black.

"But beyond that . . . I think it depends on what we see in the shops.

"When I'm not contagious and covered in spots, I'll drag you off to Montreal and we'll see what we can turn up."

Kim beams at her.

"I think that sounds like a good plan. And if we meet here to get started, we can even take advantage of the time zone difference and not have to worry about waiting on planes."

"And you can save the money for the ticket for the wedding."

Since that's not something you leave to the whimsy of Meg's door.

"I think it's a plan."

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