1
Last Year...
As Matt entered the penthouse from the elevator, Chris got up with a stack of papers for him to sign and smiled when she said, "Welcome back! These are the only two Murray gave me yesterday that he said had to be signed today."
Matt asked her, "Thank you, its good to be back. Where's C.J.?"
Chris looked back toward C.J.'s office and told him softly, "She's in her office and she's still sick."
Matt looked back at Chris concerned after signing that second form and said, "Still? I left for London two weeks ago and told her she needed to see a doctor then. Didn't she take off that day?"
Chris shook her head, "No, she said it was just the flu and they probably wouldn't be able to do much about it anyway. Said she was really busy wrapping up something from that Roy Turner case from Lake Etah and couldn't let F. Lee Bailey down. She did leave, but it was to go to the courthouse."
Matt looked confused, "Roy Turner?" Then he remembered, "Oh yeah, the first parole hearing...she's working with Bailey on that psychological evaluation recommendation." He looked back toward her office where he could hear her coughing all the way into the lobby. He patted Chris on the shoulder and said, "Thanks, I'll check in on her".
He walked into the penthouse and over to the bar where he found two glasses and poured both of them a glass of orange juice. As her best friend, he planned to take this and simply offer it to her before looking her over with his keen eye, evaluating whether or not he was going to push the issue of her going to the doctor.
C.J. had fallen asleep at her desk. This flu was one of the worst she had ever had. Her nose was stuffy and running at the same time, she felt like she couldn't warm up even though she had two sweaters on until about 5 minutes later when she felt like she was sweating to death until about 5 minutes after that when she was freezing again, her throat and chest were both killing her and she couldn't stomach anything. Just the thought of eating anything sent her into a bout of nausea and/or vomiting that was simply torture.
She laid her head down after eating yet another cough drop and chasing it down with over the counter cold medications that seemed to do more harm than good. How much weight she had lost, she didn't know, but in the last two weeks, her clothes seemed to have ballooned.
That was how Matt found her, sitting at her desk with her arms folded on it and her head lying on top of them. She was holding a tissue in one hand and a cough drop wrapper in the other. Matt narrowed his eyes as he walked in and sat both glasses on her desk. He took one hand and brushed back the hair from her forehead and noticed her skin not only felt warm, but downright hot and beads of sweat had damped the brunette locks. He gently shook her shoulder to wake her up and she slowly opened her eyes to see him, kneeling down beside her, clearly worried.
"C.J., hey there. I thought you were going to see a doctor about this nasty cold," he said as she started to sit up, blinking her eyes.
She took her tissue, wiped her nose and tucked her hair behind her ear as she tried to make herself presentable and said, "I'm sorry, I can't believe I fell asleep on the job." Matt heard the words, but they didn't sound like they were coming from C.J. as she was so stuffed up and hoarse.
Matt looked her over good, he noticed the weight loss and how pale she appeared. He told her, "Stay here for a minute and drink this." He handed her the glass of juice he poured her and then ran downstairs where she kept the first aid kit with the thermometer.
Walking back into her office he found her trying to straighten her desk and put away all her cold medications in a drawer. He knelt down again and put the thermometer in her mouth despite her objection. "Now, don't fight me on this...I'm sure you're running a fever, I just want to know how high and whether or not I'll be firing up the chopper to get you to the hospital or not."
She shook her head with the digital instrument in her mouth and tried to say, "There's no need, I'm fine."
Matt continued to brush the hair back from her forehead and then pulled it back where it clung to her neck, drenched in sweat saying, "Shhhh, just let it do its job." Before he knew it the thermometer was beeping and he pulled it out to read, 104.8.
She asked, "So what's the verdict?"
Matt put it down, took a deep breath and asked her if she could stand up. She started to but began shaking rather violently. He pulled her to him and could feel her essentially vibrating against him so he told her, "We're going to the chopper."
C.J. pulled out of his embrace, leaning quite a bit on her desk as she said, "No, I don't need to go in the chopper. I'll go in your car without a fight. There's no need to take the chopper." She had to close her eyes for a second.
Despite the fact that he wanted to fly her, he relented when she promised to go quietly and do as the doctor orders. He put his arm around her waist and she leaned heavily on him as they walked to his car. On the ride over, C.J. kept her head down as she tried to concentrate on not vomiting in Matt's car.
She leaned back with her eyes closed at one point and swallowed hard, then she took a deep breath. "You don't have to do this Houston...you can just take me home and I'll go straight to bed."
Matt looked back over at her as he sped a bit through the maze that was the medical center, "You said you'd go quietly if we didn't take the chopper, so no, I'm not driving you home. You're seeing a doctor and then you're coming home with me to the beach house."
"The beach house? Houston, I can take care of myself, really. Its just the flu." She tried to protest but starting coughing hard again. He looked over at her as she seemed to have a hard time stopping coughing. On her tissue as she finally brought it under control were spots of blood.
He took a deep breath as he looked over at her at the last remaining red light standing between them and the Angeles Memorial Hospital emergency entrance. "Is that what I think it is?" he asked.
C.J. took her tissue and wadded it up, hoping he hadn't seen the blood, but clearly he had. She told him, "Maybe, but there wasn't much, really..." she had to close her eyes again and put her head down with her arms over the back of her head.
Matt rubbed her back and then pulled through the intersection and into the emergency room entrance. He replied to her, "You're coughing up blood so its not just the flu and you will let me take care of you until you fully recover." He got out, shut the drivers side door and walked around the front of his car telling her, "That is, unless they plan to keep you here overnight, which wouldn't surprise me." He opened up her door and then helped her to her feet, putting his arm around her waist.
A nurse came out with a wheelchair and Matt helped C.J. into it. He told the nurse, "She has a serious case of the flu or some kind of cold. She's running a high fever, over 104 and was just coughing up blood. I'll be in after I park to sign all the necessary paperwork." Given the frequency of his visits to the E.R. most of the nursing staff and many of the doctors knew the two personally, so she was wheeled inside and put in Exam Room 7.
She had changed into the stupid flimsy, but cloth hospital gown when Matt came in. Between the lights of the room and the thin gown she knew she looked horrible. What didn't help matters was the fact that she was shaking so hard she could barely stay on the examination table.
Matt looked around the room and took a couple of folded up blankets from a cabinet and put one around her and one over her as he rubbed her arms. He told her, "Just lay back here. I'll leave when he does the actual exam, but I don't really want you to be alone in the meantime."
The doctor did finally come in about 30 minutes later with a nurse and Matt excused himself so she could have her privacy. After the brief exam the nurse came out and motioned for him to rejoin them as he was pacing in the hallway.
The doctor was shaking his head and telling C.J., "You should have come in much earlier. We'll get these samples run so we can pinpoint exactly what it is you have, but I'm thinking you have pneumonia. It probably started out as bronchitis with a sinus infection and then developed further. In fact, I want to run some chest x-rays." He scribbled something on her chart and handed it to the nurse who nodded and left.
"So, when do I get to leave with a handful of prescriptions?" C.J. asked thinking that was the next logical step, just wanting to go home.
Matt looked at C.J. then back at the doctor who told her, "You may not be going home...adults should never let their fever get over 102 and yours is 105.0." Then he looked at Matt and told him, "Depending on the chest x-ray we may be looking at hospitalization for at least tonight if not 1-2 days. We'll have to see how far this has progressed."
Matt nodded at him and the doctor left. He looked at C.J., still shivering under the blankets as she fell back on the bed exasperated trying to tell him, "I can't believe this. Its just a cold, I just want to go home. Everybody gets a cold every once in a while."
He walked over to her and pushed the hair back off her forehead which was still pale and still hot. "C.J., honey will you just listen to the doctor? He just said he thinks you have pneumonia, and that's serious, C.J. You're lucky you aren't in worse shape which I suspect you would be if I hadn't come back today at Murray's request."
He sat down on the bed beside her and softly told her, "Let's just see what the x-ray shows and go from there. From now on though, when you have a cold you can't shake in a couple of days, you are going to see a doctor. Alright?"
The nurse then came in with another wheelchair and took her off for a chest x-ray and before she knew it, she was back in the room with the doctor and Matt. He informed them that they were able to identify the bacteria causing the pneumonia, that the chest x-ray revealed that both the alveoli and bronchi were inflamed and the pulse oximetry revealed that C.J. was not getting enough oxygen. They placed a tube around her face under her nose and told her she was being admitted for the next 24 hours.
She just dropped her head and started to cry as the nurse came over and began the I.V. with antibiotics and fluids. Matt held her other hand in one of his own, rubbing her back with his other telling her it was going to be alright and to just take it easy. He stayed with her for the rest of the day. When they first got to the room, he sat beside her, rubbing her hand in his and softly telling her to relax and get some sleep, which she did for about 3 straight hours. When she woke up he listened to her provide excuse after excuse as to why she had been unable to go to the doctor and how this was all taking up way too much of her time. He argued back with her that her health wasn't something that could be low on her list of priorities. It didn't matter how busy she was or how much she felt she needed to do, her health was more important.
"In case this isn't clear enough...as your boss, I'm ordering you to take a day off when you don't feel well and that after three days if you don't feel like you are making progress, you go see a doctor. Do I need to get a legal document drawn up that says that?" He asked, halfway kidding with her, but serious at the same time.
She replied back with, "I guess I would be the one to draw it up for you. You trust me?"
she asked smiling. Her smile did make him feel better and he knew she was already given that her fever had broken. The rest of the day he watched some bad tv with her, tried to fill out the crossword puzzle together and simply talked. He told her about his trip to London, how he met with the founders of a couple of small businesses that he was planning on investing in and that he hit a few of the local taverns and pubs and essentially went on an amateur pub tour. He then pulled out of his pocket a little box with a pair of earrings he picked up while he was there thinking of her.
She took them and looked them over. They were little gold crowns with 3 tiny emerald studs, simple and elegant. She thanked him as she gave them back for him to keep for the time being. He told her she could wear them when she was well enough to go out to dinner with him someplace nice.
He kissed her on the forehead before he left for the night and went back to the beach house to make sure she had everything she needed in her room. When he bought the beach house with the three bedrooms, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the third one, but he had planned for one to be hers. Matt knew she loved the beach and in some ways bought the house as much for her as for himself. Not that he had any designs on her moving in, but they were best friends and he knew what made her happy and always wanted her to be close to him.
The next day when he came to see her, she was arguing with the nurses over the food they brought her, or the lack thereof. Apparently she got some toast and milk and that was it. She wanted to go home, she just wanted to go home was what she kept telling them over and over. Matt came in to arbitrate between her and the doctor and nurses and they agreed to release her on the condition that she stick to bed rest for the next couple of days, drink lots of fluids and take her medications on a consistent basis. The last set of instructions included a statement that she not return to work for at least 2 weeks.
Matt took her home with him and tended to her while trying to keep her in bed for the next two weeks or at least relax and take it easy. The first few days didn't see much conflict, however around the second week things started to get interesting.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked as he came in her room to find her sitting on the bed with a stack of paperwork. He had just returned from going down to the local market to pick up some more orange juice and fruit for her to keep her recovery going well and more roses, the ones he brought her the day she left the hospital had wilted. He could have sworn he spotted Murray leaving the drive heading out to the highway when he turned in.
She looked up at him with a pen behind her ear and a stack of sticky notes at her side and several on a legal document where she was clearly making notations. "I'm just going over a few of these. Murray..." Matt walked over with that look on his face revealing his displeasure and took the stacks right off the bed, interrupting her train of thought.
"You can do these next week maybe." he told her as he left the room with all of it and put it on his bed.
He walked back in her room and she was giving him the face he had just made toward her. She told him, "I'm not doing anything the doctor said I couldn't do. I'm sitting in bed. All I'm doing is reading and making a couple of notes for Murray. He needs those tomorrow." She coughed a few times.
He sat down on the bed and told her, "Your illness could have been a lot worse. The doctor said no work for at least 2 weeks and that means no work, Mz. Parsons. That stack was work." He pulled the pen out from behind her ear and watched her hair fall around her shoulder. Then he picked up her bottle of water and handed her the antibiotic pill for her to take, which she did. Then he told her as he put the bottle down, "Now just lay down, its time for you to take a nap." She yawned, still tired from the illness as she was still battling it and drifted off while he sat there and watched. He told her the day he brought her home that when she needed to take a nap, he planned to stay in the room until he was sure she was asleep, just to make sure she followed doctor's orders.
Once she dozed off he went downstairs and checked on the chicken soup he had started. He had called in to a couple of friends of his including Mama Novelli and Prince Polansky to get some recipes so he could make this himself from scratch and had spent several hours on the phone with both earlier that morning and was simply waiting for the everything to cook as it simmered in the crock pot. He didn't venture into cooking in crock pots too often, preferring instead to grill outdoors, but he cared so much for C.J. that he wanted to do something special for her.