As Zelgadis disappeared back to his own body, Lina sighed. "Oh Zel, you're being so kind. I wish..." She sighed again and leaned back against the tree, desperately trying to think about anything but the pain wracking her body. Somehow that "anything" kept turning into Zelgadis, though.
How did he even find me? she wondered, I didn't tell him where I was going...I couldn't have, he's been gone for weeks on a quest to find his cure. Is he even really here? He could just as easily be a figment of my imagination. Yeah, that's probably it. It's not as if the real Zel would care...
The "real Zel", who cared a great deal more than he would like to admit, was currently feeling quite helpless. He had tried every healing spell he knew, but none of them had seemed to have any effect. Since it was too soon for him to try to enter her mind again, and he could think of nothing else, he bathed her feverish forehead with ice-cold water from the pool in the back of the cave. It seemed to help a bit at first, but then she took another turn for the worse, pulling herself even more tightly into a ball, if that were possible. Hesitantly he smoothed her bangs away from her face.
"Lina." he whispered, "You have to get better, you hear me? Get better and come back to me, sane, please!"
He let his hand drop, aghast. I hope she won't remember me saying that. he thought as he closed his eyes, Why would she ever want a misshapen monster when she could have a handsome swordsman?
Zelgadis felt something brush against his hand and was surprised to see Lina had slipped her hand on top of his.
"...Zel..." she sighed softly as some of the tension seemed to dissipate from her body and she slipped into something more closely resembling natural sleep.
Zel felt himself blush bright red, but he didn't move his hand. It felt nice, and for just a few minutes he could imagine she really might care for him the way he did for her.
He hadn't at first, of course; at first she was just another obstacle to finding his cure and getting revenge on Rezo, but he admired her spunk, and came to see also the caring soul which she hid behind it. It was when she defeated Shabarnigdo, though, that he had known his heart was lost. When he saw her lying there as though she were dead, his heart stopped, and when he realised she was alive it was the first time he could remember being happy since, well, before he could remember. He could never let her know, of course, that's why he left soon after, but when they had met up again he had realised that even if he never told her how he felt, it made him more complete just to have her around.
All through the night Zel fed the fire and wiped Lina's brow and watched the flickering firelight play over her hair, making it seem almost like molten copper. He went over her words in his mind, trying to guess what might be waiting for them to deal with at the end of the two days.
"If what she wanted to gain will be reversed, I need to know what she wanted to gain." he pondered, "Well, what would Lina want from a book of spells? Knowledge?" The thought of Lina acting like Gourry ran through his head and he shuddered. "Even if it was only power, Lina without her magic is still a disturbing possibility."
When the morning came he decided he had to enter her mind again. It was the only way.
And besides, he said to himself, she needs to know I'm still here the way I promised I would be.