Disclaimer ; not mine.
After Abby Road
"Looks like cold and flu season has hit with avengence." Mark commented lightly as he arrived for his day shift. He could tell before Kerry even spoke she was ill.
"Yes take your pick. Fever, sore throat, runny noses, assorted aches and pains, vomiting. Why don't these people go home?" she said, without a pause in what she was doing. It certainly sounded like she had the majority of those symptoms.
"My point exactly. I got it coming out both ends."
Wonderful. "Thanks for sharing Dave." On top of clearly being ill, she also had Dave hassling her, and as she was now describing for him, was woefully understaffed – all courtesy of this delightful bug making its way through the population of staff and city alike.
"...40 behind in triage." Mark stepped back as she almost dropped er crutch, and nearly elbowed him in the ribs picking it up and moving across admit.
"You look awful Kerry." Mark suggested.
"And I look better than I feel. Carol called in two...kCHITChh..." Mark neatly moved his coffee away... "registry nurses. God only know when they'll get here..." and the entire tirade faded away into a god-awful sounding cough.
"That's a nasty cough Kerry, you should see a doctor." He actually meant it. Whatever disagreements he and Kerry currently had between them, he didn't want her to die on him, and from the sound of that cough it wasn't much of an exaggeration.
Taking an armful of charts, he signed his initials up on the board and made his way to Exam 1 where he knew, courtesy of the board, Luka was with a weak and dizzy old lady.
Evidently, the old was less weak and dizzy than she had been as Luka was in the process of discharging her. "Luka...when you have a minute?"
"Good morning, Mark." Luka said, sending the lady on her way.
"As I'm sure you've noticed our fair Dr. Weaver is not feeling herself, and, if you get a chance to corner her could you try take a look at her, and maybe suggest she go home? I'm not she'll take it too well from me."
Luka nodded, "Of course. She's sounded terrible all night."
"If by some chance she actually listens to you, I can cover her last few hours."
"I can only try."
"Thanks Luka."
...
Luka finally managed to catch Kerry on her own, in the drug lock up, a few hours later. He heard her stifle another sneeze, muffled no doubt by the crook of her elbow.
"Kerry?" he said softly, but still startled her.
"Hi Luka." She replied with a small nod, he could hear the increasing hoarseness of her voice and smiled sympathetically.
"How are you feeling?"
Kerry looked up at him, eyes wide in surprise. "Oh. I'b fide, Luka." She smiled wanly and moved as if to squeeze past him.
Luka held his ground, "Mmm, yes, you sound it." Taking a large slice of personal liberty, he leant forward and briefly, gently felt her forehead. "You have a fever. You should let me examine you."
"Luka I'b fide. It's just a cold."
"Really, that cough doesn't sound like just a cold. Let me examine you, there's no harm in that."
She stopped and hesitated for a moment. Luka seized his chance, "Come on, exam 2 is free. Let me take a look."
To his surprise, she nodded curtly and followed him across the hall and into the exam room. It was concerning, the careful slowness she moved with instead of her usual swift, assured if unique gait.
"Hop up." Luka patted the gurney, Kerry winced noticeably as she did so.
"Muscle aches?" He asked, gathering a few instruments.
Kerry nodded, somewhat resigned.
"How long have you been feeling ill?" Luka asked, after taking a look at her throat and checking her pulse.
"Few days...it's just a cold..."
"Ah ha." Luka sarcastically agreed as he rubbed the end of his stethoscope vigorously between his hands. Kerry still shivered when it, and his fingers, touched the soft, hot skin of her back. "Breathe for me." She did so. "Good, again...alright, and cough... again..."
"I hear a few crackles, maybe a little fluid in the right." He told her.
"I know."
Luka's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. "You know? What on earth are you at work for?" Shocked by the apparent callous disregard for her own health, his voice dropped, becoming stern, almost angry.
A little deep red flushed Kerry's pale cheeks and her eyes darted away.
"Any vomiting?" he asked gently as he put the tip of the thermometer into her ear.
"Doh, but thed I haven't eaten adything to throw up."
Luka sighed with resignation and checked the thermometer read out. "102.5. Kerry, if your temperature was any higher you should be in here yourself, as a patient. You need to go home, now. Mark has already said he would cover the end of your shift."
There was something in his tone which warned Kerry to garner no protest, so she merely nodded.
"Thanks Luka...I'll...I'll go ask Mark to cover."
"No need for thanks. Just go home. Get better." He smiled, his most charming and sympathetic smile and was pleased when it earned a genuine, if small, smile in return.
...
Luka shivered and stamped his feet on the cold, snow covered front step of Kerry's house, waiting for her answer the door. After a moment, the hall light flicked on and the door opened.
"Luka!" Kerry said in surprise.
He held up the bag he held in his hand. "I brought supplies."
Kerry wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as she lent in the door frame. "Supplies...oh, god, Luka, I'm sorry. Please, come in." She pushed the door open wide to allow him past.
The warmth of her apartment bled into him immediately and began to thaw his frozen fingers, toes and nose. "I'm sorry to just drop round, but I did ring and there was no answer." At her quizzical look he elaborated. "I wanted to check on you."
"You're checking up on me?"
"Make sure you were following doctors orders and resting, that kind of thing." He took off his coat and hung it on the pegs by the door.
She laughed softly, "Yes. I was. I had a bath as soon as I got in, and fell asleep straight afterwards, I never even heard the phone. But thank you." She turned and led the way down a short corridor which opened onto a kitchen and living room. Luka noted with curiosity that she wasn't using her crutch.
"Would you like tea? Or...ehhh...hitchKERSHOO...excuse be, coffee?" she leant on the counter and took down 2 cups. "I was just making some anyway." She coughed a bit, and rubbed her chest with one hand.
"Tea would be great. But you should sit down, stay warm. I can do it."
Kerry raised her eyebrows, then her hands indicating the clearly labelled tea jar on the window sill. "Alright, thank you."
Luka watched her for a moment, as the kettle boiled, limp to the sofa and fold her legs under herself as she sat, again noticeably wincing. "Did the bath help at all with the muscle aches?"
"A bit, but my hip has also been playing up in the cold."
Finishing off the tea, Luka brought the two cups over to the sofa, along with the bag of tricks he had brought.
"Mmm, my knees ache in the cold." He said, sharing a confession for a confession. "Can I ask..." he gestured vaguely in the direction of her left hip.
"Hip dysplasia." She filled in.
Luka nodded, understanding, "Since you were a child?"
"Yes, it's codgedital. The correction techniques just dever worked."
"Does it ache much?"
"In the cold, or if it dislocates." She sipped her tea, watching him over the rim of her cup. "Your knees?"
"Arthritis, from too much sport and long distance running when I was young."
Kerry nodded, turning away to sneeze. "So what supplies did you thigk I deeded?"
"Cold medicines, juice, soup...you don't seem the type to get ill very often, I thought you might not have anything in the house for it."
"That's very kind, Luka. Thank you. And you're right, all I have is Ibuprofen."
"Well I brought that too. I get a lot of colds, so I always have this stuff in. Do you feel any better at all?"
Kerry gave him something of a withering look, but shook her head, "Not really."
Again, he reached over and gently felt her forehead, smiling at the surprise in her eyes at the touch. "Have you checked your temperature?" She shook her head. He grinned, ruefully. "Do you have a thermometer?"
"Doh...Luka it's really dot decessary, you've alread..." she broke off, coughing harshly this time, audibly wheezing with each breath in. "Oh, I'b sorry."
"Don't be. Here, it's a good thing I brought one of those too." He handed her a thermometer.
She sighed, but under his steady gaze, turned it on and put it under her tongue. "Happy?" she mumbled.
"Mmm hmm." He was rummaging in his bag again and extracted his stethoscope. Kerry rolled her eyes at him, but shifted position so he'd be able to listen to her chest.
The thermometer beeped, Luka took it from her before she had chance to do it herself. "102.9, higher than it was."
"It could be from the bath, or the tea." Kerry suggested, Luka shrugged not so sure and put the buds of his stethoscope into his ears. He heard the same crackles as before as he moved it across her back, but this time insisted on a complete exam and also listened to the front. As he did so, he noticed the freckles across her collar bones continued further down her chest and tried to avert his eyes as she rebuttoned the top 2 buttons of the oversize shirt she was wearing.
"It's a nasty chest infection, a little bit of fluid, but not pneumonia yet, I think." He reported as he put his stethoscope away.
"I didn't think it was that bad." Kerry replied quietly.
"Doctors are the worst patients." Luka said in an understanding tone. "I also took the liberty of writing you, and filling, a scrip. Here, baktrum." He handed her a small bottle of pills.
"Is there anything you didn't think of?" she chuckled lightly, but it soon turned into a coughing fit.
Cautiously, almost hesitantly, Luka put a hand on her back and rubbed gently. It was one thing to touch his boss in a professional examination, but this was offering comfort, perhaps friendship, and not five minutes before, he'd been trying to not to ogle her chest.
"Ugh...Luka, don't, you shouldn't." She said, taking a deep breath in at last and wiping her mouth. Luka removed his hand as if burned. "No. No, I meant, you'll catch this awful thing. You said you already get a lot of colds, I don't want to give you another one."
It was Luka's turn to chuckle, "You won't. And besides, I work in a hospital. I'm sure if I am supposed to get this thing, I will get it. There's not really anything to be done about it."
Kerry smiled, sitting back against the sofa and tipping her head back onto its cushions. "Well, that's one way of looking at it."
"Are you hungry?" he said, now placing the carton of hot, takeaway soup on the coffee table.
She shook her head. "Doh, I don't thidk so. I don't wadt to throw up."
"I don't think you will. I don't think you have whatever Malucci has got."
"Ugh, thank god."
"At least he doesn't have borderline pneumonia."
"I don't have borderline pneu..." she was interrupted by her own sudden need to cough.
"Convincing. Kerry, if you had come into the ER with a fever of 102 and the crackles you have in your chest, I would have probably ordered a chest film. And don't try arguing it's an unnecessary test you know that you would do the same thing with any other patient with your symptoms."
Kerry blinked, a bit stunned. "Alright, alright. You win...I'b ill, I get it."
Luka ducked his head, blushing slightly at his outburst. He eyed the soup hungrily.
"Do you mind if I..."
"Doh, of course dot. I'll get you a bowl." She sat up and went to push herself to her feet.
"No. Sit. I'll find them." Luka instructed, and smiled at the look of relief as she lay back into the nest of pillow she'd built on her sofa. He found the bowls, and spoons and brought 2 of each to the sofa.
"You should eat something. It might help the congestion too." He poured a little into a bowl for her, and a larger serving for himself. She didn't look too pleased about it, but accepted the bowl he handed her and tasted it. "It's shop bought, obviously. My own is better."
"It's dice. You cook?"
Luka nodded and described his chicken soup method between mouthfuls of, admittedly, quite nice takeaway soup. Kerry, slowly working her way through her own tiny portion, told him some of her favourite recipes to his delight to discover something in common with her and share with her that he'd missed since being in America.
"I'm sorry Luka. I can't manage anymore." She put her bowl down, she'd only eaten a few spoonfuls but at least it was something.
"Well you're sounding better for it."
With a lazy grin she breathed experimentally through her nose. "Lovely." She commented on the snotty sound before blowing her nose into a handful of tissues. "Excuse me..."
"Stop excusing, apologising and thanking me. You're ill, all to be expected."
"Doesn't stop it from being disgusting in company."
Luka shrugged. "Well at least we can hold off on the decongestants." Reaching once more into his bag, he pulled out the variety of cold medications he'd mentioned earlier and handed each one to her.
"Vapo Rub?" she raised an eyebrow.
"Oh I love it. The smell, the rubbin...well you get the idea."
Kerry raised the other eyebrow and tipped her head to the side to look at him. "You want to rub Vapo Rub on me?" she asked.
Luka grinned at the almost playful, but still disbelieving tone to her voice. "Do you want me to?"
She returned the smile. "I think I will manage." Her eyes twinkled mischievously. "Maybe next time."
Luka's own eyebrows shot into his hairline as his heart flopped unevenly, and a little unexpectedly. He reached over and touched her forehead again. "I think you might be delirious from the fever, Kerry. If that is all you feel like eating, then I think it's best to dose you up with Tylenol, and get you into bed where you can sleep properly."
Kerry nodded slowly. "Thank you for everything Luka. Really, it was very kind of you."
"It was no trouble."
She sat up, rubbed her hand over her face for a moment and braced herself to stand up. As she did, she paused, wobbling and unsteady for a moment. Luka grabbed her elbow before she could fall. "I'm alright, just a bit unsteady." She straightened up and smiled reassuringly.
Luka frowned. "Are you sure you'll be ok? On your own?"
"Yes Luka. Stop worrying."
"I'll see you tomorrow then."
"Tomorrow? Are you working tomorrow?"
"No. I'll be here, in the morning to check on you again, and to make sure you're not getting any ideas about going to work."
Kerry looked surprised, but pleased, and found she was also a bit speechless.
"I'll be alright to work tomorrow," she protested, but Luka could tell her heart wasn't in it.
"I don't think so somehow. Not until that fluid is gone from your chest, and your temperature's back to normal."
Kerry blushed, and acquiesced. "Alright, thank you Luka. But you really don't have to check up on me. I promise, I'll stay here."
"I'll see you in the morning Kerry, it was nice, tonight, seeing you outside of the hospital."
"Thank you, for making me feel better..."
"I'm glad I did." He said, returning her smile. "Now, bed. Doctor's orders. I'll see myself out." And he did, leaving Kerry standing in her living room, blanket half hanging from her shoulders, sick, bewildered but strangely content and a little bit excited.
A/N – I'm always open to suggestions of what people would like to read, any area of the fic really...