Jo consoles Henry after a horrible blind date.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. I'm merely borrowing them for my own amusement.
Author's Notes: This is essentially a deleted scene from my story Erratic Sensitivities. It takes place between chapters 8 and 9 sometime during the few day gap between those chapters. It's not strictly necessary to read Erratic Sensitivities before reading this, but it will help you understand the premise behind this story. I had originally decided not to include this chapter in the story itself because it doesn't actually have any plot at all that relates to the rest of the story, but I thought some people might still like to read it, so I decided to write it anyway.
As Jo entered the bar she heard the now familiar sound of her partner's sneezing. She scanned the room and saw Henry sitting at the bar hunched over his drink and blowing his nose into his handkerchief. She made her way over and sat on the stool next to his. "Hey Henry." He nodded a greeting to her and she noticed that he looked a lot worse than he had when she'd seen him at work earlier that day. Both his eyes and nose were much redder than they had previously been and he looked worn out and miserable. Given the state he was in, she was surprised he was out drinking instead of at home resting. She ordered her whisky and she knew something was wrong when he didn't bother to chastise her about drinking cheap alcohol and intervene. "Rough night?" she asked sensing that something else was going on other than his allergies kicking his ass.
"That is putting it mildly," he answered his voice thick with congestion. He brought his handkerchief up to his face, sneezed twice into it, sniffled, and then took a sip of his cognac.
"What happened?"
"Abe set me up on a blind date," Henry answered with a sigh.
Jo looked at her watch and knew it was way too early for a date to be over if it had gone well. "That bad huh?"
Henry inhaled sharply and then doubled over with a particularly large sneeze. He blew his nose before answering. "I really wasn't feeling up to going, you saw what I was like earlier at work, but this was a spur of the moment thing that Abe set up and he did not give me enough notice to cancel."
Jo nodded knowing Henry was too gentlemanly to back out of a social engagement last minute even if he felt like crap. "So I'm guessing you didn't make the best first impression." Though granted he didn't always make the best first impression even when he wasn't sneezing his head off. She fondly recalled the first time they met when he'd pulled his Sherlock Holmes routine on her telling her so many things about herself that most people wouldn't have noticed. She had thought it rather creepy at the time, but now she had come to value his powers of observation when they worked cases together.
"Indeed not. My allergies were already bothering me quite a bit and she was wearing an excessive amount of fragrance. I'm sure you can imagine the effect it had on me," Henry replied taking a long sip of his drink.
Jo nodded at him wincing in sympathy remembering how much her own perfume had made him sneeze when he'd developed an allergy to it and she had always used it sparingly.
"Let's just say that she wasn't nearly as understanding as you were and the date was over before it had barely begun. I think she was both disgusted and offended by my reaction," he explained and massaged the bridge of his nose trying not to sneeze again as he recalled the earlier events of the evening.
Henry took a deep breath before entering the restaurant where he was to meet Nicole, the woman Abe had set him up on a blind date with. He wasn't looking forward to this at all. He didn't enjoy blind dates in the least and he would have politely canceled if this hadn't been a last minute thing, which is why he suspected that Abe had given him barely any notice. In addition to his dislike of blind dates, he was exhausted and not really feeling up to making small talk with a stranger. It had been a long day at work and his allergies had been bothering him on and off without much relief. He had debated taking a second dose of medicine before coming here, but for some reason that second dose always seemed a lot more sedating than the first and he didn't want to risk nodding off during the meal. He spotted a woman just inside the building entrance matching the description Abe had given him. "Excuse me, but are you Nicole Wallace?" he asked greeting the woman.
"Yes I am and you must be Henry Morgan," she answered. "You're just as handsome as Abe said you'd be."
"You look quite lovely yourself," Henry responded flushing a bit knowing that he really didn't look his best at the moment. He sniffled as he quickly became aware of a rather potent floral fragrance in the air. He didn't see any flowers and concluded that someone must be wearing perfume. He just hoped it was coming from one of the other women standing around the entryway and not his own date. He quickly got them a table and rubbed his nose trying his best to stave off the sneezing fit that he could already feel building. As soon as they were seated it became clear that it was in fact his date wearing the overpowering perfume. He tried his best to breathe through his mouth, but his nose was already tickling badly and he knew it was a lost cause.
A waitress brought them water and listed off the specials of the day, then left to give them time to select their meals. Henry hid behind his menu so that his struggle would be less obvious to his date, but only a few seconds later the battle was lost. He quickly pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and sneezed, rather more loudly than he would have liked, several times into it.
"Bless you!" Nicole exclaimed startled at the sudden outburst.
Henry started to thank her, but his nose interrupted him with another three harsh sneezes. She blessed him again sounding a bit irritated this time and when he looked up he saw a fairly disgusted look on her face. "I'm terribly sorry. I think I might be reacting to your perfume."
"But this is a high quality fragrance," Nicole protested.
"I never said it wasn't," Henry answered. "I just said it was making me sneeze." He muffled another series of sneezes into his handkerchief and blew his nose as quietly as possible.
Nicole sighed. "Is this going to be a problem for our entire date?"
"It might not be too much of a problem if you'd be so kind as to go try to wash it off as best you can," he gently suggested before succumbing to another sneezing fit. The look on her face seemed completely out of proportion to what he had proposed and he thought she couldn't have looked anymore shocked than if he had suggested that they engage in cannibalism.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think this is going to work," said Nicole curtly. She then stood up, grabbed her purse, and stalked out of the restaurant in a huff.
Henry watched her go, his eyes wide with surprise, but he didn't have much time to contemplate her rudeness before he started sneezing again. As soon as there was a break in the sneezing he pulled his pill box from his pocket and swallowed a couple of antihistamines with a gulp of water. He quickly made his way to the men's room as the sneezing started up again and locked himself in one of the stalls until the worst of the attack had passed. Not wanting to go home and face Abe just yet, he made his way to the bar at the end of the block.
"Oh Henry I'm sorry," she said placing a comforting hand on his arm, "but anyone who can't tolerate a medical condition that you have is not someone you want in your life anyway."
Henry smiled weakly at Jo with red watery eyes. "Yes I know. I just wish Abe would stop trying to fix me up with women that come into the shop. Sharing a love of antiques is not enough to base a relationship on."
"Yes you need to hold out for someone that loves both antiques and scarves," Jo teased.
Henry rolled his eyes but couldn't help laughing. "To scarves," he said and raised his glass.
"To scarves," Jo agreed with a smirk and clinked her glass against his. "For what it's worth, your date sounded like a real bitch."
Henry silently agreed with her, but he would never say such things out loud. He was glad he had run into Jo. He was certainly in a better mood than he was in before she had showed up. He was grateful that she seemed to accept him for who he was, even if she had been wary of him when they had first met, especially when it came to his allergies. He wasn't sure if he would ever tell anyone else about his immortality, but if he did, it would probably be her. He knew she'd probably have to find out eventually anyway if they worked together long enough. "Well it was lovely seeing you Jo, but I should probably head home and rest now." He drained the rest of his drink and stood up. He suddenly felt dizzy and swayed on his feet.
Jo raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like Henry to drink enough for it to affect him like this. She realized that he had been slurring his words a bit, but it had been hard to detect with his voice sounding so congested. She found it hard to believe that he would get himself drunk over a bad blind date. "Henry how many drinks have you had?"
"Two," he answered and sat back down on the bar stool before he fell over.
Jo stared at him puzzled. Two drinks should not be affecting him like this and she wondered if someone had drugged him. Then she realized that he might have drugged himself. "Did you take any allergy medicine?"
"Yes though it hasn't fully kicked in yet." He sneezed three times into his handkerchief as if to prove his statement.
"Jeez Henry, you're a doctor. You know better than to mix those pills with alcohol," she said shaking her head not quite believing that he did that considering that she had refused to let him have alcohol when he was on medication the last time they had drinks together.
Henry shrugged knowing it didn't matter. He could drink himself to death and it wouldn't matter. He'd still come back. "I'll be fine," he said dismissively. He stood up again and felt another wave of dizziness and gripped the bar tightly to steady himself.
"Sure you'll be fine if I drive you home."
"You just got here Jo. I wouldn't want to spoil your evening."
"It would spoil my evening even more if you got yourself killed trying to cross the street," she pointed out.
"Very well, if you insist," he replied with a slight grin knowing she only seemed annoyed with him because she cared.
"Don't worry Henry, you're going to make it up to me," Jo said grinning back at him.
"And how am I to do that exactly?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm sure I'll think of something." She led him back to her car only having to grab his arm a few times to steady him. It didn't take long for him to doze off on the ride back to the antiques shop. Jo shook her head and smiled wondering if Henry falling asleep in her car was going to become a regular thing. He opened his eyes and yawned just before they reached the antiques shop. "Have a nice nap?"
"I wasn't napping, I was just resting my eyes," Henry insisted groggily.
Jo chuckled. "Sure you were." She parked the car and walked him into the shop noting that he seemed a bit steadier on his feet than he had been earlier. The nap must have done him good. Henry walked over to the phone and read a note that had been left there and frowned slightly. "What is it?" she asked.
"It's nothing. Abe's just gone out bowling with some friends."
"Oh too bad, I was going to say that you could make up for ruining my evening by providing me with one of his home cooked meals. I guess we're ordering Chinese takeout."
"I can cook," Henry said narrowing his eyes.
"Never said you couldn't," Jo replied, "but are you really up to it right now?" Henry sighed and shook his head. "Chinese takeout it is then."
"If we must," Henry said with another sigh of defeat.
"You don't like Chinese food?"
"No it's just that I'd prefer to eat it in a nice restaurant over ordering takeout," he explained.
"As nice as that sounds, I don't think you're up to that either." Jo called one of her favorite Chinese takeout places on her cell phone, placed her order, and gave them the address of the antiques shop. They chatted, about work mostly, while they waited for the food to arrive. Jo was glad to see that Henry's allergies were starting to settle down as the medicine started to take full effect. He was still sniffling a lot and blowing his nose, but he wasn't sneezing nearly as much. When the food arrived Henry paid for it with cash that he purloined from the cash register.
"What?" Henry asked seeing Jo giving him a funny look.
"I didn't say anything."
"I don't usually keep a lot of cash on me," Henry explained. "I'll pay Abe back later." Jo nodded at him and they carried the food upstairs and set the bags down on the kitchen table. Henry started to retrieve plates from the kitchen cabinets.
"What are you doing now?"
Henry raised an eyebrow. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to set the table."
Jo laughed and shook her head. "But Henry, part of the fun of Chinese takeout is eating right out of the containers."
Henry gave her a look of mild disdain. "While I did agree to this meal, I most certainly did not agree to that. At the very least I intend to create the illusion of a home cooked meal."
"Ok, I suppose that's a fair compromise," Jo conceded and motioned for him to proceed and watched as he set the table and arranged the food on their plates so that it did indeed look like a home cooked meal.
"What would you like to drink?" Henry asked her. "I'd offer you wine, but since I'm sure you won't let me have any, it's off the table," he said with a slight grin.
Jo laughed. "Tea will be fine." Henry prepared two mugs of tea and Jo thought it tasted better than any tea she'd ever had before. Perhaps there was something to be said for making it the old fashioned way over using tea bags. They talked as they ate and the conversation moved on from work related stuff to discussing their various likes and dislikes from books to music to movies. Of course their preferences seemed to be polar opposites most of the time with Henry always having a preference for older classic things. It was exactly what she had expected of him and while she had never been all that interested in those sorts of things for the most part, seeing how passionate he was on the subject intrigued her and made her wonder if she should give the classics a chance. After dinner he showed her his collection of books and she selected one to borrow. "Thanks for dinner and the book," she said after he had walked her to her car.
"And thank you for being my lady in shining armor as it were and rescuing me tonight," said Henry with a twinkle in his eyes. "You're probably right that I would have gotten myself killed trying to cross the street if you hadn't intervened."
"No problem," said Jo laughing. "Goodnight Henry. I'll see you tomorrow."
"Goodnight Jo." He watched her get in her car and drive off, then went back inside and cleaned up in the kitchen. When he was done he put on some classical music in the living room and settled down with a good book to read until Abe returned.
Abe entered the apartment about ten minutes later and saw Henry reading in an armchair in the living room looking rather content. "How was your date?" he asked after sitting on the couch adjacent to Henry.
Henry placed a bookmark in his book and set it down on the end table. "It was an unmitigated disaster," Henry answered glaring at Abe slightly.
"Really? What happened?"
"Miss Wallace was wearing enough fragrance for ten women. Naturally my immune system decided to mount a full on offensive strike. Let's just say she was not nearly as understanding about my reaction as Detective Martinez was. In fact she seemed to be rather offended by it and walked out on me before we had even ordered our food."
"Wow that's harsh," said Abe wincing. "I guess she wasn't the best match for you. Maybe you should have gone on a date with the Detective instead."
"Funny you should say that," said Henry with a wry grin. "She ran into me at the bar that I was drinking at after I left the restaurant. I was more than a bit tipsy due to drinking after taking allergy medication and she drove me home. We then had dinner together."
"Well at least the night ended well," said Abe with a slight chuckle.
"Yes it rather did didn't it?" said Henry thinking back on their dinner conversation fondly and realized he had had quite a nice evening after all. "Do me a favor though Abe. If you plan on fixing me up on any more blind dates, please let them know not to wear any perfume. If that's not a condition they are willing to live with, then they aren't the right person for me."
Abe nodded. "Yes I'll definitely remember to do that. Well I'm going to bed now, enjoy your book." After he was out of Henry's sight he allowed himself a big grin. When Nicole Wallace had entered the shop he had definitely noticed the strong fragrance she was wearing and she seemed rather proud of her scent when he had remarked on it. He knew when he set her up on a blind date with his father that the whole thing would be a complete catastrophe. He did feel guilty for putting his father through what he was sure had been quite a severe allergy attack, but it was all part of his plan to push his father toward Detective Martinez who he knew was the right person for him. The fact that they had run into each other and ended up having what was tantamount to an impromptu date was just an added bonus to his schemes.
