September 7th, 1964
“How do you feel today?” Verloc asked. He bent down in front of Gemma and inspected her pupils for dilation. He spoke with more interest today than he’d shown yet to date. It was progress. She made herself smile just a bit more than she had yesterday and perked up her eyebrows a smidge to look more open and at ease. She couldn’t actually do anything about her pupils but with the rest of her adjustments, maybe his own wish for success would convince him they looked bigger too.
“Better. I still have a headache but I forget about it sometimes,” she answered. “I think the fever’s broke finally, but I still feel warm. And sort of… fuzzy?”
“What do you mean by ‘fuzzy’?” he asked, leaning back.
She’d just been laying it on a bit thick throwing that detail on the pile and hadn’t expected to be asked to elaborate on it, but that wasn’t a problem. “You know how Joy- Oh. No, I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you?” she said, catching herself with a little laugh. Verloc didn’t share her amusement and just gave her a look of impatience. Gemma got back to the point. “Joy makes everything seem a little softer. And when you think about things, any things, you never really think that hard. Everything is just… fluffier? I feel like I’m just on the verge of feeling like that.”
Not bad for some absolute bollocks.
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