Like he had said, Julius returned the next day with breakfast. In fact, he was already there with it when Cale finally woke up late in the morning. His sleep had been strange, as he had woken up several times in the night and it had taken him longer to fall back asleep each time. Cale groggily stared up at Julius as the boy ate breakfast by his desk while staring at Cale with disapproving eyes.

It took some time for Cale's tired brain to comprehend what he was seeing and when he did, he sat up straight on the bed so quickly that he got dizzy. "Julius!"

"I said I'd bring breakfast, so I have." Julius imperiously stated, "I don't break my promises."

Cale wasn't really sure how he was supposed to react to that. In this situation, what would Calla do? That thought didn't help, because he didn't know nearly enough about Calla to make that kind of judgment.

Julius carried over a tray with a light, easily digested breakfast to Cale and sat it down on the bed in front of him. Cale took the hint for what it was and started eating without Julius telling him to. He found that he was ravenous when he took the first bite and soon the whole meal was gone.

It wasn't until it was all gone that he noted, "There's no hot cocoa."

"It's not good for you. You're sick."

"It's because I'm sick that I should have it."

"Your mother doesn't agree with you."

"What?" Cale stared with confused eyes at Julius. "What do you mean my mother?"

Julius rolled his eyes at him. "I notified your mother about your condition."

There was an unvoiced obviously at the end of that that Cale deliberately ignored. Instead, he chose to focus on the fact that Julius and Calla's mother were apparently in contact with each other. "Why would you let her know?"

"She's your mother." Julius glared at him, as if he didn't understand why Cale didn't get it. And thinking it over, he understood what Julius meant, but he still couldn't think of Calla's mother as Cale's mother. He had a mother of his own, one that he loved and missed more than he thought that he would have before. He wasn't nearly at a point where he could think of this other woman as his mother and honestly, he didn't think that he ever would.

Not only had Cale lost his own mother, but she had lost her son. And she wasn't even aware of it. The idea of pretending to be her son and take over their relationship to continue on as if nothing had happened made him legitimately nauseous.

A friendly relationship was fine, but not a familial one.

It felt as if that would be crossing a line.

"Wait," Cale said as a thought occurred to him. "How often do you speak to her?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Frosthaze." Julius scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "We write letters to each other. And it's only been going on a few weeks."

"But why?" Cale still didn't understand.

"To make sure you don't do anything stupid."

Cale didn't know how to respond to that and descended into silence. Julius took the tray from him and put on the desk, getting up again to go to the bathroom. He came back with the medicine bottle for fevers and held it out to Cale with a challenging stare, like he thought Cale wouldn't want to take it. Sure, it tasted horrible, but the fever was more annoying.

And he needed to get better soon, so he didn't miss any more school. He was already so far behind, he couldn't afford to fall even further.

Cale took the medicine without saying anything and watched as Julius gripped the tray. The boy threw him a glance as he left with the words, "I'll be back soon." drifting behind him.

Alone at last, Cale took the opportunity to get up and do his business in the bathroom before Julius came back and started nagging him about it. Taking a bath was beyond him right now, but going to the toilet and brushing his teeth was fine. When he was done, he returned to his bedroom and crawled back onto the bed, pulling the covers above him as he went.

The book on his bedside table hadn't been touched in a while as he'd been too sick and though technically he still was, he didn't see a reason why he couldn't read. He had finally regained the ability to concentrate enough to read and focus on the letters and it really was a very interesting book on the coordination of magical affinity and the year one was born on. Apparently it mattered if you were born on an odd or even year? Cale didn't understand it and he doubted the validity of it, but it was still an entertaining read.

As the teenager had said, it didn't take Julius long to return.

When Julius burst into his room, Cale was in the middle of turning the page in the book. He looked up and gave Julius a quick smile, ignoring the burst of happiness he felt.

Julius stalked over toward him and threw himself down onto the chair in front of the desk. He carried with him a big satchel filled to the brim with stuff — so full that the seams were almost bursting apart — that he sat down on the table and started pulling books and papers out of. He piled them on the desk and Cale had the sinking feeling that he knew what it was.

Julius confirmed his suspicions. "Your homework."

Cale sighed, but he knew that the sooner he got started on them, the better.

When Julius saw that he made a move to get out of bed, the young teenager scowled at him and shook his head. "I'm not letting you work on it until your fever is gone."

"You don't have any say on it." Cale retorted and grabbed the closest papers, sinking back into the bed before Julius had a chance to react.

Julius glared at him but made no move to take the papers back.

Cale immersed himself in doing the homework. Despite his sour attitude, Julius still fetched whatever books and writing tools that Cale required to do his work. The work was both time-consuming and difficult, as even with his progress in his studies, he was still nowhere near where Calla should be at this time.

Julius didn't offer to help with it, rather he played around with a deck of cards he had gotten out of his bag. While Cale was wrestling with writing essays and trying to figure out what the hell the professor's meant, Julius whittled away the time playing solitaire.

Cale was nowhere close to finished with it when Julius abruptly tore the papers out of his hands and placed them out of his range on the desk. As Cale was starting to feel kind of woozy again, he didn't protest. Also, the bad sleep was beginning to catch up with him, a yawn breaking through his defenses without his permission.

He blinked lazily at Julius, who gave him a harsh look in response. Cale smiled slightly at him and yawned again.

"It's time for your medicine again." Julius declared.

Cale nodded and accepted it when it was held out to him. He drank it quickly, doing his best not to think of the taste and then leaned back on the bed. He pulled the covers up to his chin, burrowed down amongst them and closed his eyes. Soon, he felt sleep beckoning, despite the fact that it wasn't night yet. He wondered where Julius had gotten the key to Cale's room, but he was too tired to ask.

He was only faintly aware of the world around him as he dozed, wakening and falling asleep in a strange cycle. Sometimes he heard muttering, but then he would fall asleep again.

Over and over, the pattern repeated itself. It seemed as if sleep was a difficult thing to catch right now. Cale turned over in his sleep often, more so when he woke up and was vaguely aware of the world around him. But he would always slip away in sleep again so quickly that he had no time to think about what he heard.

Some time in the midst of this, Cale blinked his eyes open to find that it had gotten dark. He mumbled out something he didn't remember and slowly pushed himself up onto his arms, having been sleeping on his stomach.

He stared around him and stopped at the fuzzy image of Julius sitting in the desk chair. Cale yawned and felt his eyes slip close again. "W-what?"

The whole question didn't manage to leave him but thankfully Julius was smart and figured it out. Julius answered, "I don't want you to die in your sleep. Your mother would never let me hear the end of it."

"No—" Cale yawned again and fell back down on his stomach, lazily shoving his arms under his pillow and resting his face against it. He managed to mumble out, "You need to sleep too."

"Don't worry about it."

Cale was able to blink his eyes open one more time, but then the sleep won. He yawned one last time and felt his thoughts run away from him. What did Julius mean? He was too sleepy to dissect the statement and really, even though he knew better, he trusted that Julius wouldn't hurt him. Julius was too direct for that; if he wanted to hurt Cale, he wouldn't be this kind to him.

Cale exhaled softly and smiled slightly to himself. Then he really... wasn't aware of anything...