Helen covered her mouth up as germs flew into the air when Emily let out a series of coughs.  She had backed away from the bed as she let it all out.  Helen stayed close to her, so she could take care of her, but she also didn’t want to catch the infection that Emily had gotten.  They were the only two in the house, and she couldn’t afford to get sick, herself.  Emily let out a painful moan as she stopped coughing and Helen put her hand over the cloth that was on her forehead. 

The girl’s eyes were closed tight, yet she was wide awake.  Helen had advised that she go back to sleep, which she was trying to do, but the sickness just wouldn’t let her.  She’d gotten a quick infection from when she had gotten hurt earlier.  Signs aren’t exactly the cleanest things in the world and it had gashed her leg up pretty well.  Jim’s bandage had covered up the wound, but not before some germs had managed to infiltrate it and get some sickness into the poor girl’s body.  Even Larges were susceptible to disease and sickness, despite their size.

The medical conditions for the Larges had long been a topic for debate in the medical community, before the government started allowing them back into society.  It was well known that germs were micro organisms that dwelled inside the human body, but how would they be able to effect Larges?  A White Blood Cell that deals with those kind of organisms, in a Large would be drastically larger and more efficient than those in a Minor.  At least, that’s what scientists believed, at the time.  Since they didn’t have any blood samples to test, they could only judge by the bigger height.

Once they had been re-integrated into society, however, a lot of research was done with blood samples from the Larges.  A few Larges had agreed to donate some blood for the research, in the interest of Medicine.  Not all of them wanted their blood on the table, where they were too big to see anything happening to their stuff, but research was done, and it was discovered that their theory was wrong.  Larges did not have drastically larger white-blood cells, or even cells at all.  It was discovered that their cells were the same size as cells of the Minors.

This astounded the scientific community.  They could not imagine how or why that could even be possible.  The Larges had enormous bodies, going up to 100 feet in height.  How could cells of that small amount be enough to manage a body like that?  More tests were done on the matter and it was discovered that, not only were the cells the same, it seemed that the amount was also the same.  They had the same amount of cell-reproductive capacities.  Everything was exactly as it would have been in a Minor, so…how did that happen?  Why did that happen?

It puzzled the Scientific Community for years.  How were they THAT similar to Minors?  Some people theorized that the Larges weren’t always Larges.  Some theorized that, at some point in time, the Larges used to be Minors and, under some strange fluke, were expanded far enough to become as big as Larges are, and that the basic building blocks never changed their size.  Those theories were mostly mocked by the community.  The thought of Larges once being Minors was laughable, at best, and the medical community was full of Anti-Large people at the time, who were disgusted by the idea of those people once being like them.

It led to one conclusion, though.  Larges were just as susceptible to disease and illness as Minors were.   No one understood why, but that’s just how it was.  A Large could just as easily catch a fever as a Minor.  Emily was living proof of that, right then and there.  The poor giant woman was lying in bed, coughing and hacking her lungs out, sick and in pain.  Her entire face was red from her fever and she couldn’t talk much.  After her thank you to Helen from earlier, she pretty much stayed quiet.

As her coughing began to slow down, she turned towards Helen, and offered her a soft smile.  She could see the smiling face of her cheerleading ‘leader’, who had given up her time to make sure she was well.  She held the smile and thought about all of the friends she had around campus.  She was a new student and hadn’t made many friends yet, but she had both Jim and Helen, which made her feel less bad about being sick.  Her eyes were barely open at all, but it was enough to see that she was being cared for, and that made her happy.

Her breathing started to slow down as she reached her own hand up and touched Helen’s.  Helen looked at her and took her other hand, softly brushing her fingertips along the icy-cold hand of her sick friend and asked her if she needed anything.  Emily, normally, wouldn’t have asked for anything at all, wanting to do things herself, but at this time, with how she felt, she couldn’t hold anything back.  Helen was the only one who could get her anything, so she decided that she needed to tell her when she needed something.

She couldn’t talk much, but she let out what words she could.  She softly whimpered “S-soup…could I…have some soup, please?”  Helen stopped brushing along Emily’s hand and then stood up from the chair.  Taking a moment to brush against the girl’s hair, she spoke down to her, the smile still on her face.  “Of course you can.  I’ll go make you some right now.  Don’t get up or anything.  I’ll be right back.”  Helen began to walk away as Emily let out a weakened nod.  She held onto her covers and watched the woman walk off, into another room, and started thinking more on the past couple days.