Strange Kinda Way.
(I own nothing. I'm just playing with these two lovely ladies...in a purely innocent way. Please don't sue!)
Penny lay on her sofa wrapped in her duvet with a box of tissues at her side. No matter how hard she tried she couldn't get warm even though she had a temperature and rosy red cheeks which she knew looked completely ridiculous with her red hair. She hated having colds. She'd spent the whole day battling through her shift at work, feeling so hot and tired and sneezing so much that Elliot and Connie had decided after Frieda had told them not so subtly that she was driving the patients mad with worry about their own health's, that she should go home. She'd tried protesting of course, but after sneezing on Elliot her efforts had been declared futile and so feeling sorry for herself, and in dire need of Lemsip she had made her way home to her empty house to get into her pyjamas and watch sappy movies.
It was times like these that Penny wished that there was someone to take care of her. Someone in her life who would dote on her when she was poorly and nurse her back to health. She knew that it was only a cold and she knew that she was perfectly capable of looking after herself but still she couldn't help but wonder, if something were to happen to her would anybody really care? How would they even know? Sometimes it felt like she was doomed to live a life alone and truth be told the more days that passed when she saw colleagues in relationships and having children, or just having someone there for them when they needed a shoulder or a hug, and she continued to be alone, the less likely it felt that she would ever meet the person that would do the same for her. If only life was like the movies she had spent the last few hours watching. If only there were someone in her life that was clearly meant for her. Once upon a time she had thought that person was Scott but now...now she wasn't even sure that person would be male because a feisty Ukrainian nurse had one day appeared in her life and brought her world to its knees. While she was sure that she was more of an annoyance and target for sarcasm for Frieda than anything remotely romantic or even worthy of friendship, at least she now knew in her heart who she really was and she realised that the open mindedness that had come with realising that she had feelings for the Ward Sister who she spent so much time verbally sparring with, may be what would bring that person into her currently solitary life.
As she sneezed again; her head aching with the kind of ache that a severe cold brings, Penny sighed. She really did feel awful and lonely and at that moment she could have cried. It had been a long time since she'd had the opportunity to really be alone with her thoughts and they, along with the germs that her body was battling, were making her feel completely and utterly miserable. Usually she could distract herself with work but her body had other ideas. Never had she resented being ill more.
Penny was pulled away from her thoughts by a knock on the door.
"Go away." She shouted thinking that it may be Oliver. As much as she loved her brother he was one person that she didn't need around her when she was poorly. He generally made her feel inadequate as both as person and a Doctor. She certainly didn't want to feel that way when she was too ill to defend herself.
There was a knock on the door again.
Penny slowly got up from the sofa, wrapping the duvet around her tightly and walking to the door. When she opened it she got a shock, for standing there with a shopping bag dressed casually in a leather jacket, black vest top and leggings was Frieda Petrenko.
"Hi...I uh..."
"You look terrible." Frieda told her abruptly, walking into the flat and straight into Penny's kitchen. She immediately began rooting around in the drawers and cupboards.
"I feel it. I uh...how do you know where I live?" Penny asked, leaning against the doorframe and watching the dark haired woman curiously.
"I asked your brother." Frieda replied pulling a saucepan out of a cupboard and emptying an array of ingredients out of the shopping bag.
"And what...why are you here?"
Penny rather ungracefully blew her nose.
Frieda looked at her with an expression of exasperation followed by one of concern.
"Chicken soup." Frieda replied simply, busying herself preparing her wares.
