A/N - So TTWHH is not finished. It's almost finished but I have a bit of a mental block about it right now because I'm not ready for it to end. So it'll happen eventually. In the mean time, in honor of Jamie's ~almost-aspirations~ of becoming a teacher, enjoy this AU treat featuring teacher!Jamie and schoolnurse!Eddie. :)
"Keep the ice on it. And if you start to feel dizzy or your vision gets blurry, come back and see me."
"Thanks Ms. Janko."
Jamie shifts to make room for the freshman on his way out of the nurse's office who holds a plastic bag of ice to his forehead.
"Hey Mr. Reagan," the kid mumbles.
"Evan, you alright?" Jamie wonders.
"Soccer ball to the head."
"Oh man." Jamie blows out a sympathetic whistle. "Are you gonna make it?"
"Afraid not," his co-worker, Eddie Janko speaks up as she leans over her desk to sign his nurse's pass. "He's looking at a full lobotomy."
A smile breaks onto the student's face. "Stop," he laughs, and pushes up his glasses.
Jamie nods, dropping a reassuring hand on Evan's shoulder. "Just don't cut out the part of the brain that remembers due process and the Bill of Rights because you still have a test on Friday."
Eddie hands off the signed pass. "Good to know. I'll make a note in his chart."
Evan rolls his eyes. "Alright, I'm going to class now."
Jamie glances over at Eddie. A shared enjoyment for annoying their students makes him laugh before he directs Evan down the hall. "You'll pull through."
Then Jamie moves into the doorway of Eddie's office. "Hey," he exhales, watching as her blonde ponytail swings when she turns to offer a smile.
"Well hey Mr. Reagan." The smirk that coasts along her lips nearly makes him forget why he actually stopped in there. "Did you need me?"
"I do." With his shoulder against the frame of the doorway, he pushes off and makes his way closer. "I've tried to ignore it which is my usual way of dealing with things-"
"Right..."
"But I need you to tell me if I have a fever," he tells her. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all. Come sit."
He glances around her small office, at the posters for treating a nosebleed and recognizing signs of a concussion. The bulletin board on the wall decorated in red and pink for Heart Health Month makes him weirdly aware of his own pulse and he can't ignore the heavy thud in his chest all of a sudden.
As he takes a seat, Eddie steps up to him. "Open," she says, the covered probe of her thermometer at his mouth.
He complies and she sets it under his tongue.
"Close."
He exhales a soft laugh through his nose at her routine instructions while he waits. Glancing up at her, he sees her study the handheld monitor before her lashes lift and she quickly sneaks a look at him. He's not used to seeing her from this low angle considering she stands barely over five feet.
The chirp of the thermometer is quick to pull her gaze away and she steps back. "One-oh-one-point-nine, Reagan." She moves to the corner where she pops the disposable probe cover into the trash and stowes away the thermometer.
"I had a feeling."
"What's going on?"
He sighs heavily and rubs a hand along the back of his aching neck. "I don't know."
"You're sick."
"It's probably just allergies."
A laugh blows out of her. "You're gross and no one wants to be around you," she tells him, a reassuring grin lighting up her face. "Go home."
He merely manages a groan and leans forward to hang his heavy head.
"Any vomiting or diarrhea?"
"Now I regret coming in here," he mumbles at the floor.
"Don't feel special. I ask that a dozen times a day. I have to."
"You don't have to." He feels one side of his face scrunch as he lifts his head and looks up at her.
She rolls her desk chair closer and sits down to face him. "I do have to. I took an oath to ask people about diarrhea when I became a nurse."
Pressing a hand into his eyes, he manages an exhausted laugh and he shakes his head in amusement. "Alright, well now I might throw up."
Reaching a hand out, she playfully flicks his tie at his chest. "Yes or no?"
"No."
"Headache? Body aches?"
He lets out a heavy sigh as he sits upright. "Yeah."
"Cough? Sore throat?"
"Not really."
She rolls back, reaches for her shelf where she plucks a few tools. "Open," she instructs before scooting closer with a tongue depressor and a light. "Say AHH-"
He blinks in surprise at how quickly she moves and has his mouth open for her once again to do as she tells him.
She's out just as fast and pushes back. "Your throat looks fine. But it might be the flu. But it's probably syphilis."
"Shut up," he chuckles, the back of his hand knocking against her knee.
Eddie just looks at him, her shiny lips twitching. "Okay, but go home, Reagan."
He really does feel awful and he lets his eyes shut for a moment as an achy wave starts in his head and sinks through his back. "I don't want to get a sub," he complains.
"Too bad. You need to get better."
"And… dinner tomorrow," he murmurs.
She chews the inside of her cheek as her gaze meets his. After nearly five years working together at the same school, through a back-and-forth friendship tangled with something more, one- two unexpected kisses that the both of them decided would be left in the past, Jamie had finally asked Eddie to go out to dinner.
"No way." She shrugs. "I'm not going out with you. You're all virus-y."
"Ah-" He grumbles and pushes himself to his feet. "I'm fine."
She rolls her eyes and the way they shine, a deep, alluring blue has always made his chest feel tight.
With a shake of her head, Eddie gets up and turns to her desk. She reaches into her plastic cup that sits there emblazoned with the Villanova logo and tugs loose a wrapped lollipop in the shape of a red heart. "Feel better soon," she offers.
He can't help a playfully stubborn glare and he reaches out to snatch the candy from her. He pulls off the clear plastic wrapper before he drops it in the trash. "I'm getting a second opinion," he decides, tucks the sucker in his cheek and turns to show himself out. But not before he glances over his shoulder to catch her annoyed gaze once more as he turns the corner.
"So alright. I was sick." With hands in the pockets of his jeans, Jamie rocks on his heels at the threshold of Eddie's apartment.
Eddie bites down on her lower lip, as if she's trying to contain her smugness. "You were out a whole week!"
When Jamie had finally managed to rise from the flu-ridden dead, he reached out to Eddie to make that dinner actually happen. He only hoped that the continued obstacles that seemed to get in their way weren't some sort of sign from the universe.
A moment passes where he's not quite sure if he's breathing as his gaze falls. Eddie's light hair swings soft around her face and flicks out adorably at her shoulder and it's like he forgot what she looked like outside of school. In tight, inky black jeans and a thick grey sweater that almost seems too big on her but really it's perfect, she suddenly makes him nervous.
"Yeah, it feels weird to miss that much." Reaching up, he scratches nervous fingertips at the back of his head. "I have no idea what's going on, or what day it is, or what."
"Well they fired you and turned your classroom into a yoga studio."
"Oh perfect."
"Are you feeling back to your old self?"
With a thoughtful inhale, he considers it as he glances up. "Better."
She blinks in surprise, like she's impressed. "Well that's good to hear."
He nods and they share this sort of quiet, appreciative moment before they propose their next question at the same time.
"You ready to head out-?"
"Do you want to come in for a drink-?"
Jamie's offer stalls and they look at each other, breath catching before they both exhale a soft laugh.
"Okay," she agrees, turning back to point inside her apartment. "Let me just grab-"
Jamie quickly retracts his suggestion. "No, coming in sounds better. I want to come in."
She cuts him an amused look, tilting her head and the smile she gives him is easily destroying the sensible restraint he had managed for himself that evening.
Then she backs up a step, her shoulder pushing the edge of the door open wider. "So come in."
There's a heat that zips through his chest, swooping lower as he makes his way inside, the door closing behind him. "I'm all better," he tells her, and he can feel this earnest curve at his brow. "I promise."
She doesn't retreat. Her head tilts back as he approaches and she gazes up at him, this taunting twist at her lips. "Good, I hope so." The quiet edge of her voice lures him forward and his steps carry him until his mouth drops onto hers in a kiss that's entirely just gravity, like it's the only place he's supposed go.
They urge each other closer, his hands around her back while she reaches up around his neck. The easy warmth of her, of soft lips and familiar taste and new sighs make him sink a little heavier. He pulls her and she tips against him, dragging encouraging fingertips up the back of his head.
A silent admission sneaks up on him that their agreement to go out to dinner was probably code for come over and makeout. Because the both of them had tip-toed around, and avoided, and accidentally slipped across the blurry lines of their friendship, work relationship, whatever they had. It was kind of undefined.
But this fundamental need they had for one another is what had surfaced. And before Jamie can wrap his head around how completely erased that line was about to be, Eddie moans a soft noise against his kiss and tilts her chin down.
"I uh-" he starts before he clears his throat. "We probably should have- I mean, we should-"
"We could just order food," she suggests in a breath, glancing up at him. "Have it delivered here."
Her hands are still in his hair, she could do whatever she wants and he'd be just fine.
"I'm- Yeah, I'm good with that." He nods. "Let's order food."
She nods with him and manages a hard swallow before her hands slide down, over his shoulders and she pats them against his chest. "Yes. I'll get my phone."
He watches as she turns away toward her kitchen. Dragging his teeth across his bottom lip, the promising taste of so much more still lingers there and he realizes he'd never felt better.