She does tell her family thanks. She also tells them she can’t make it, either.

“It can’t be easy taking care of a sick kid at all, let alone when you’re sick yourself,” she tells Hannah softly but firmly when she weakly protests Caroline staying.

Hannah puts up as much of a valiant fight as she can before she gives in and goes to nap in her bed. Caroline tiptoes around the living room, trying to avoid waking Abbie where she lays on the couch as she cleans up tissues.

Her heart squeezes in sympathy when Abbie wakes up, looking utterly miserable. She hesitates, ready to go get Hannah for her if that’s what Abbie wants. But instead she asks Caroline to sit with her, reaching an arm out for her from under the bundle of blankets she’s cuddled up in.

She’s had a fairly present phobia of getting sick for years but she doesn’t think twice before she settles in with Abbie, who presses her little fevered head against Caroline’s shoulder. “Can I play with Norah when I get better?”

Her nose is so stuffy, her n’s and t’s both sound like d’s, and Caroline strokes a hand through her hair, pulling it away from her clammy neck. “Of course. You two can sleep over my place again if you want. We can have a Chopped marathon and try to cook our own basket, if you want.” She doesn’t know where Abbie’s Food Network kick had come from in the last month or so, but she’s enthralled with all of the competition shows.

“Can we?” There’s an excitement there, but extremely tempered. Like she just doesn’t have the energy to truly show her happiness.

It’s an unfamiliar feeling, this overwhelming sympathy for Abbie and urge to protect her when she sniffles miserably against her. “Of course.”

She doesn’t mean to realize she’s in love with Hannah over chicken soup, while Abbie lays against them, snoring through her congestion.

Hannah holds her bowl of soup – made from a can, Caroline’s mom would be so disappointed in her – carefully balanced in her lap as she lays her head back against the couch. Her eyes are still tired but a bit more alert, as she says, “If you’re not careful, I’ll get too reliant on you saving the day.”

It’s warm but also… there’s a vulnerability under her words. And because Hannah is so very much like a sunset – with all of the layers that make her who she is, every single one of them different and absolutely beautiful, but sometimes concealing what else is in the sky – Caroline can’t quite read all of the emotions under that vulnerability.

But it’s in this moment that things shift into place and her heart pounds with the certainty she has to call these feelings love.