Internal War
A modern Musketeers story by Deana
Takes place soon after 'Backfired'
This is my entry in the 'Fete des Mousquetaires' contest for July. I almost didn't finish it in time after being in the hospital with diverticulitis and sepsis…between July 7th and 24th, I've only used my laptop 3 times! Aramis' situation in this story is yet another new experience of mine, poor guy.
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"Aramis?"
A nudge to his arm brought Aramis back to the present, and he blinked at all the faces around the table. "What?" he asked.
"You were dozing off," said Porthos, from his right.
Aramis looked at him. "I was not!"
"Do wide-awake people always tip over for no reason, then?" said Athos.
Aramis looked at him. "I…tipped over?"
"Yeah, into me," said Porthos.
Captain Treville studied Aramis, who looked exhausted. He'd only been back to full duty for two weeks after recovering from the car accident that had nearly killed him*. Treville still felt guilty for sending him on the foolish errand that had resulted in the terrible crash, and was instantly concerned. "Are you all right?"
Aramis nodded. "Fine."
The door suddenly opened and d'Artagnan came in. "Morning!" he brightly said.
Everyone echoed the greeting, watching as he sat down.
Treville began the briefing on their new case, and Aramis' fatigue was forgotten…by everyone but him. Lately, he'd woken in the morning feeling like he hadn't even slept. His mind grew foggy at times, and his body had developed frequent aches. He had a sore throat that apparently wanted to stay forever, and he felt all-around sluggish. He hadn't mentioned anything to his friends, as he felt that they'd already worried about him enough since he'd been injured in the car accident.
Suddenly, everyone around the table stood and Aramis blinked, not having heard Treville end their meeting. He stood along with the others, inwardly wincing at the aching stiffness in his body.
"Aramis," Treville called. "Stay for a minute."
Aramis obeyed, gingerly sitting back down in the chair.
Treville waited until the others had left before he spoke. "Are your injuries still bothering you?"
Aramis shook his head. "The bruising is completely gone. If I start to get a headache, Tylenol gets rid of it. My ribs are good; I only get a twinge if I move wrong."
"But you don't seem completely well," Treville remarked.
Aramis knew that the captain wouldn't appreciate a lie. "I've been tired."
"Obviously," said Treville. "Maybe you should have bloodwork done. You've been through a lot lately and something in your body might've gone out of whack."
Aramis nodded; that made sense. "All right." He stood to leave the room.
"Go now," Treville told him. "I'll call Dr. Harris and tell him that you're coming. And Aramis…if something shows up, don't keep it from me. If you don't tell me the results, I'll call him and find out for myself."
Aramis nodded, knowing that his commanding officer needed to know what ailed his men. "Yes sir." He left the room and headed towards the back door of the precinct, leaving the building and getting into his red Camaro. The purr of the engine sounded exactly like his car that had been destroyed in the accident, and he'd named this one 'Adele', just like the other. The Pusheen plush that Porthos had given him hung from the mirror, and everything looked exactly the same, enabling Aramis to pretend that the accident had never happened.
Except, of course, for how he felt.
Aramis had slightly lied to Treville. His ribs reacted a little more than just a 'twinge', but he figured that it'd be a while before they felt fine anyway, so there was no sense in dwelling on it. What bothered him the most was how tired and achy he'd constantly become.
A few minutes later, he arrived at the hospital and had Dr. Harris paged, who arrived a few minutes later.
"You do look tired," the doctor commented.
"Hello to you too," Aramis joked.
Harris chuckled and led him towards an exam room, where Aramis sat on the table and waited as Harris gathered the phlebotomy supplies.
"Any symptoms besides the fatigue?" Harris asked.
"I've had a sore throat for a few weeks," Aramis answered.
Harris turned to look at him. "A few weeks?"
Aramis nodded. "It's not bad, and some days are better than others..."
Harris put the syringe down and walked over to him, placing his hands on either side of Aramis' neck and feeling all around his throat. "Your thyroid is enlarged."
Aramis blinked, not expecting to hear that. "What?"
Harris nodded before turning to get the syringe. "Your thyroid hormones are out of balance. I won't know if it's too high or too low until I get the lab results back."
Aramis pulled up his left sleeve and watched as Harris tied the elastic around his upper arm. "Is this bad?"
Harris prodded the vein a couple of times before rubbing the alcohol wipe across it and sliding the needle in. "It depends on your hormone levels. Hyper and hypothyroidism are both treatable, but the cause has to be determined. Grave's Disease, Hashimoto's...it all depends."
Aramis barely felt the prick, and watched as his blood filled the tube. "Is there a chance it could be cancer?" he asked, though he was afraid to.
Harris pulled the tube out from behind the needle and popped another one in. "There's always a chance, but I wouldn't assume that."
Aramis swallowed nervously, ever more aware of his sore throat. "When will you have the results?"
"This afternoon or tomorrow," said Harris. "I'll have the lab put a rush on this and call you when I have them."
Aramis nodded and watched as Harris reached for a third tube.
"How have you been feeling otherwise?" Harris asked.
"Sluggish," Aramis told him. "Not much energy."
"I'm betting that you have hypothyroidism," Harris said. "Have you lost any hair?"
"Hair? No," Aramis answered with alarm. "Should I have?"
Harris glanced up at Aramis' thick, wavy hair and shook his head. "Not everyone does, but it is a symptom. The tail end of your eyebrows are a little thinned though, that could be the sign right there."
Aramis reached up with his other hand to feel them, as Harris popped on a fourth tube. "I've mostly had fatigue and body aches...nasty aches. Sometimes I practically feel crippled."
"Trouble concentrating?" Harris asked.
Aramis thought back to less than an hour ago, when he hadn't even noticed the end of the meeting. "Yes."
Harris nodded. "It's sounding more and more likely. You'll have to take a pill every day."
Aramis sighed and watched as the doctor grabbed a fifth tube. "You're vampiring me."
Harris chuckled as he popped it on. "Not getting dizzy, are you?" he joked.
Aramis opened his mouth to say 'of course not', but a slight lightheadedness invaded his brain and he hesitated.
The doctor looked at him with a frown before finishing with the fifth tube and sliding the syringe out, pressing a cotton ball to the tiny hole and securing it with tape. He reached for the blood pressure cuff on the table and attached it to Aramis' right arm, blowing it up and watching the indicator.
Fatigue started to overwhelm Aramis again and he blinked sleepily, coming back to himself when Harris started to remove the cuff.
"One hundred over sixty," Harris told him. "Pretty low for a six-foot-tall grown man."
Aramis looked at the five tubes of his blood on the counter. "Vampired," he said, as if to explain it.
"Drawing your blood lowered it some, but not that much," said Harris. "I'd stake my career on you being hypo, or having a thyroid infection. Can you drive?"
Aramis looked up at him. "Of course."
Harris made a face. "As if you would say 'no'. Sit tight for a few and I'll get you something salty to raise your BP."
Aramis watched as he left, before he slumped back on the table and closed his eyes. He was so tired!
"Aramis?"
The sudden voice startled him slightly and Aramis blearily opened his eyes.
"Looks like 'tired' is an understatement," said Harris, placing a bottle of orange juice and a bag of chips on the counter. He motioned for Aramis to sit up and he took his arm to assist him.
Aramis chuckled at the sight of the mini bag of Fritos. "I'm never gonna live that down, am I?"
"Of course not," Harris said as he handed it to him. "I've seen children try feeding their teddy bears, but not grown men."*
Aramis chuckled again as he opened the Fritos and poured some into his mouth. "Goes to show the effect of painkillers," he said as he chewed. "And Pusheen isn't a bear, she's a cat."
Harris laughed.
The lightheadedness went away a few minutes later and Aramis left the hospital. As he drove back, he kept blinking sleepily, too tired to even think about his unexpected situation. Once he pulled into his parking spot at the precinct, that's when it really hit him; when he realized that he would have to tell everyone else.
Aramis looked into his visor mirror, seeing that his hair was as thick as ever, to his relief. He put his hand on his throat and felt around, and when he tilted his head back was when he found it; a small bulge to the left of his trachea. It surprised him, as he would never have noticed it otherwise.
A knock on his window made him jump, and he saw Porthos standing outside. With a sigh, he got out of the car. "What?"
"Treville told us that he sent you to the doctor!" Porthos told him. "What did he say?"
Aramis sighed again, before clearing his scratchy throat. "He took some blood. Let me explain in the office, I'm too tired to tell it twice."
Porthos waited impatiently, and once they arrived, Athos, Treville, and d'Artagnan looked at him expectantly.
"Well?" said Treville.
"My thyroid is enlarged and my blood pressure is too low," Aramis told them. "Doc thinks it's hypothyroidism or an infection."
"When will he know for sure?" Athos asked.
"Tonight or tomorrow," Aramis answered.
"How low was your BP?" Porthos asked.
"One hundred over sixty."
Porthos' eyebrows shot up. "And you're still standing?"
"He gave me Fritos," Aramis told him with a smile.
Treville shook his head. "How do you feel right now? The truth."
Aramis sat on the couch. "Exhausted."
"Rest," Treville told him. "Nothing here is too important that it can't wait a day."
"But…" Aramis gestured towards his desk before letting his arm drop back to his lap. "I haven't even been back to work for very long."
Treville sighed, not wanting to mention how close Aramis had come to dying in his recent car accident. "There's nothing you can do about that. Just take it easy, and we'll figure out what to do after the diagnosis."
Aramis echoed the sigh.
That evening, they left the precinct at five and headed to their favorite Chinese restaurant. Aramis kept his phone on the table to ensure that he didn't miss the doctor's call, and his phone rang just as the waiter placed his plate of sweet & sour chicken in front of him.
"It's as I suspected," said Harris. "You have hypothyroidism; your TSH level is forty-three when it should be around two."
Aramis sighed. "So now what?"
"A pill called levothyroxine, which supplies the thyroid hormone that your body is lacking," the doctor answered. "I already called it into your pharmacy; you need to take it on an empty stomach first thing every morning."
"Well?!" Porthos hissed to Aramis.
"Hypothyroidism," Aramis told them. "Can it be cured?" he asked Harris.
"No," Harris answered. "Furthermore, yours is being caused by Hashimoto's Thyroiditis; an autoimmune condition where the body attacks its own thyroid."
Aramis blinked with shock. "Are you serious?"
"It's the most common cause of hypothyroidism," said Harris. "Your blood showed antibodies that your body made against your thyroid. In someone without Hashimoto's, their number is zero; yours was one thousand twenty-seven."
Aramis choked on his chicken.
Porthos slapped him on the back. "What's he sayin'?" he hissed.
Aramis waved his hand at him as if telling him to shut up.
"It's not uncommon to see a number that high," Harris continued. "But the higher it is, the worse the attack that your immune system is waging against your thyroid.""
Aramis was speechless. His phone suddenly beeped and he looked at it to see a text from his pharmacy. "The prescription is ready."
"Good," Harris told him. "When you go, also pick up some vitamin D; your level was only fifteen when it should be anywhere from fifty to a hundred. That causes even more aches than the hypothyroidism, as vitamin D is needed for the bones."
"Figures," said Aramis.
"Between the two problems, it definitely explains why you feel crippled at times," Harris told him. "They sell chewable gummies; that's the easiest way to take it. Eat three per day with lunch or supper, it doesn't matter which. I'll set up another blood test for you in six weeks to see how well the levo and vitamin works."
"Okay," Aramis told him. "Thanks." With that, he hung up and looked at his friends, to see them staring. "My body is attacking my own thyroid."
At their looks of shock, he explained everything to them and ended it with a yawn.
"You're picking up the pills and vitamin tonight," said Athos; it wasn't a question.
"Yes," Aramis answered.
D'Artagnan had remained silent the whole time, and Aramis suddenly noticed his nervous expression. "What is it?" he asked.
D'Artagnan looked at him guiltily. "This isn't an effect of the accident, is it?"
Aramis shook his head. "Of course not; sometimes our bodies just do strange things."
Treville snorted at that. "Wait till you reach my age."
Everyone shared a laugh and continued to eat.
Everyone went their separate ways after supper, and Aramis went to the CVS Pharmacy near his apartment and picked up his prescription and two bottles of the vitamin D; one of which he left in his car so he could keep it at work. When he got home, he sat on his couch and looked at the medication.
Levothyroxine 50mcg tablet
Take 1 tablet every morning.
Take on an empty stomach.
Take this medication with plenty of water.
Aramis sighed. After the all the painkillers and antibiotics he'd taken while recovering from his car accident, he hated the thought of being on another drug…and one that he'd be a slave to forever. He couldn't believe that a body could attack one of its own organs; waging a war with itself.
"An insurrection in my own body," he said aloud, shaking his head. Sighing again, Aramis closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the couch. He immediately drifted off, until a text came into his phone and startled him awake.
Porthos: Did you pick up the pills and gummies?
Athos: He did if he has a brain.
Aramis blinked groggily at the group text for a few seconds before answering. Of course I did.
Porthos: Good boy.
Athos: Get off your couch and go to bed.
Aramis blinked again before chuckling. Yes dad.
Porthos: Goodnight.
Athos: Sleep well.
Ditto, Aramis texted back. With a yawn, he shuffled into his room, changed his clothes, and got into his bed, not caring that it was only eight o'clock. He put the bottle of pills on his nightstand next to a half-empty bottle of water and was asleep within seconds.
Aramis woke a few times overnight, as he always did, but his exhausted brain never remembered his new diagnosis. When he opened his eyes twenty minutes before his alarm went off, the first thing he saw was the pill bottle. He sighed and raised a hand to cover his eyes, leaving it there for a minute before reaching over to shut off his alarm. He lay in a doze before finally sitting up ten minutes later and grabbing the bottle. Opening it, he found that the pills were oblong and extremely tiny. Their small size surprised him, and made him feel better that at least they wouldn't be hard to swallow. He popped one into his mouth and drank the water without even feeling it go down.
Getting himself ready for work was a chore, as it had become lately, and Aramis didn't feel like he'd slept for so many hours. As he was ready to leave, his phone beeped.
Porthos: You took your pill, right?
Yes, he answered. With a yawn, Aramis put his phone into his pocket and headed out the door, hoping that the tiny pill would win his internal war.
THE END
*'Backfired', story ID 12486920