In Sickness and in Health

Alexandra Eames didn't get sick often, in fact she figured it had been two years since the last time she had a bout with the flu, but apparently it had come back and this time with a vengeance. She knew when she went to bed last night that she was starting to feel lousy, but she hadn't thought much of it, maybe a cold. Oh no, this was far past any cold, she'd wager her shield that right now she felt worse than the people who died of the Spanish Flu almost a hundred years ago. She knew that there had been a particularly nasty strain going around, but she hadn't thought much of it, flu was flu, at least it always had been to her.

She didn't know what time it was, she couldn't even be sure what day it was. In some dark recess of her mind, she was amazed that she'd actually gotten out of her work clothes and into her pajamas before collapsing in the bed. Today, her whole body ached, she ran hot and cold like a faucet, she felt like she was tied to the bed and couldn't produce enough energy to get up from it. In this instant, she thought it was safe to say things couldn't possibly get any worse.

"Eames?"

Or maybe they could.

It was enough of a struggle to muster the energy to force her eyelids open, and when she did, she wanted to scream at the sudden sight of Goren standing over her, but another unpleasant aspect of this illness was a razor blade sore throat.

"How'd you get in here?" she managed to ask, in a weak voice. If she were in a better condition than she was, she would've also demanded to know what he was doing there. They might be partners but she had never invited him over to her place.

Goren fished into his jacket pocket and took out his keyring and told her, "You gave me a key."

Sick or not, Alex knew better, she shook her head and told him, "I never gave you a key, you broke in."

The next thing she was aware of was her partner's massive hand pressing against her forehead.

"You're very feverish, Alex," he said, as though that explained something.

"I don't care," she told him, "I still never gave you a key, either you broke in, or you picked the lock, either way…" she forced herself to sit up, and that was a mistake. Her head dropped against her chest and her hands to her stomach.

Goren hunched his head down, the way he did to watch suspects they were interrogating, and he asked her, "Are you going to throw up?"

She didn't even bother trying to nod, she forced herself to her feet but didn't get much further than that. Goren grabbed her and quickly walked her into the bathroom right before a wave of nausea washed over her. The first time was always miserable, but she knew from past experience it would get worse before the day was finally over. When her stomach finally calmed down for the moment, Alex became aware of one large hand holding her hair back, and the other rubbing her back.

"You didn't answer your phone when the Captain called, you didn't come in this morning," Goren told her, "I told him I'd check in."

Well that explained one thing anyway.

Once Eames was sure it was safe to stand up, she pushed herself up, went over to the sink, rinsed her mouth out a couple times, blew her nose, and weakly staggered back to bed.

"What time is it?" she asked as she smoothed a few loose strands of her hair off her face and to the back.

"11:30," Goren answered.

It was going to be a long, miserable day.

Over the afternoon, Eames found herself back in the bathroom throwing up every hour or so. Goren tried to coax her into taking some pills for her fever, which she refused because she wasn't able to keep anything down as it was. So then he tried getting her to drink some ginger ale to at least keep her from getting completely dehydrated, but she refused that too on the grounds of if she drank anything, she'd just throw that up again too. So then he dug a half full bottle of Pepto-Bismol out of the medicine cupboard and tried to get her to take a dose of that to calm her stomach down, but she refused again.

"If I take that, I'm just going to throw up everything in pink," she told him.

"Then why do you have it?" he asked.

"Not mine, it was Joe's…" she explained.

"…I see," Goren put the bottle down, and made a mental note to toss it out sometime since it was well past its expiration date.

It was obvious from the pained look on Eames' face that she felt worse now than she had all day. She could barely keep her eyes open but Goren suspected it was more because her whole body was in constant pain instead of mere lethargy.

"I'll be right back," he told her, "Stay here."

"Funny," she groaned, leaning against the tub for support on her back.

It seemed to her that Goren was gone longer than that, but when he finally came back, she could see why; he'd apparently stripped the top blankets off the bed and had them in one arm and the pillows off the bed in the other.

"What're you doing?" she asked.

"I think you'd be better off staying here for a while," he said as he spread the blankets out on the floor, "Until your stomach settles anyway."

She hated to admit it, but he was right, doing the 100 yard dash from the bed to the bathroom every hour wasn't all it was cracked up to be. When Goren finished setting up the makeshift bed, she reluctantly crawled onto it and rested her head against the pillows, in a weird way it was comfortable, maybe just because it was a change from laying on the mattress for hours. At least now all she had to do was get up on her knees, throw up, and she could lie down again.

"I'll get you some ginger ale," Goren told her as he stepped over her towards the doorway.

"I don't want ginger ale," she said.

"I know," he said, "But you need something, Alex."

"Yeah," she replied as she pulled the covers over her, "I need you to get my service revolver and put me out of my misery."

The afternoon dragged by slowly, and the evening was even slower. Finally, Eames thought her stomach was settled enough that she could move back to the bedroom. But half an hour later, she felt hot again, and felt her stomach pulsating. Goren hit the light in the bathroom and stood back as she came charging in and just knelt by the toilet in time as she threw up again. Goren came in behind her and knelt down behind her and resumed assuming the position of holding her hair back and rubbing her back until the moment had passed. This time though, it wasn't as easy as before. Eames choked and sounded like her whole body was being ripped apart from the inside out, and the final additional noise she made before her whole body stopped convulsing was a high pitched scream emanating from the back of her throat. When it finally passed, she rocked forward on her knees and pressed one arm against her chest and pressed her other hand against the side of her face and sounded like she was crying. Being sick was bad enough, being sicker than a dog needing to be put down was even worse, but worse than all that was the sheer embarrassment, not only of having her partner be here to witness all of this, but also of his presence as the mortifying realization washed over her, that in the last body wrenching episode, in her own terminology, her valve popped.

"Eames?" Goren placed a hand on her shoulder, which was the wrong thing to do.

Eames whipped around and yelled at him as best as she could manage, "Get out of here, Bobby! Get out!"

He stood up, and did as she asked. He got out of the bathroom anyway, but he stood outside and waited, incase anything happened and she'd need help. He heard the shower turn on, and listened to the water run for several minutes, then suddenly he heard Eames and it sounded like she was sick again.

The protective side of him almost charged into the room to see what was wrong, but the logical side of him kept in mind that either now or when she was better, Eames would do something to make him regret walking in on her in the shower. An idea came to him, he remembered an old, lesser known Charlie Chaplin movie from the late 50s, "A King in New York", he knew what he'd do.

"Alex, I'm coming in," he called, and opened the door.

"I'm not looking," he told her.

He closed his eyes and reached for the towels hanging on the other side of the door, picked up a large one, held it out in front of him and walked over to the other end of the room. He was intentionally trying not to unintentionally see anything but he took a couple peeks through one eye to get an idea where she was and therefore where he needed to position the towel. Still not seeing anything, he found her, and draped the towel over her as she continued to dry heave, not possibly having anything else in her left to lose.

The room was thick with steam, Goren made his way over to the shower and turned on the cold water. Now he could actually see Eames on the floor, soaking wet, with the towel wrapped around her like a blanket.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

She brushed her hand under her bottom lip and told him, "I was so cold…I kept turning the water hotter, hotter…then I got too hot and I got sick."

"Uh…yeah," Goren said, glancing at the floor of the tub.

Eames' whole body was shaking again, she sounded desperate as she said to her partner, "Bobby, just shoot me, I don't think I've ever been this sick before, I can't take it."

"It's alright, Eames, it's going to get better," he told her as he helped her up, "You should be about past the worst of it now, by morning you should…"

"Morning?" she repeated, "I'll never make it until morning!"

Goren tried to sound reassuring as he walked her out of the bathroom and told her, "It'll be okay, let's get you back into bed," he cut her off when she tried to protest, "I'll get everything picked up in here, it'll be alright."

He got Eames settled into the bed, went back into the bathroom, and returned a minute later and placed one cold washrag on her forehead, and another over her eyes. Even if she wasn't physically tired, it was obvious she was exhausted and needed to rest.

"That better?" he asked as he stroked a hand through her hair.

His partner just barely nodded her head.

"Alright," he told her, "Now I'm going to be here tonight if you need anything, okay?"

Another slight nod.

"Okay," he said as he lightly squeezed her hand momentarily before returning to the bathroom to clean up everything.

"Yes, Doctor," Goren said the next day on the phone as he sat down on Alex's couch, "Yes, she did…yes, she seems to be better today in that regard…" he knew the doctor couldn't see him on the phone, and he didn't care, he still responded to the question with an annoyed look before finally answering, "Well I really couldn't tell you, yes, she has a fever but I can't tell you what it is because I haven't been able to take her temperature…no, she has a thermometer," he looked at it in his hand, "But I haven't been able to get her to keep it in her mouth long enough to get a readout on it."

He listened to the doctor's useless prattle for a couple more minutes and responded, "Yes I understand the hospitals are full with flu patients…no I don't think she's suffering delirium…" he rolled his eyes, and his neck, and said, "Yes, we'll try and bring it down that way…okay, thank you, Doctor." He disconnected the phone and added, "For nothing."

Getting up from the couch, Goren returned to the bedroom and saw Alex asleep in the bed, looking notably better than yesterday but he knew she was still miserable. She'd been awake since 4:30, had gotten dressed in a fresh pair of pajamas, had a meager breakfast of chicken noodle soup and orange juice, and after a while, wore out and came back to bed. He went over to her and shook her awake and told her, "Sorry, Eames, we need to try again," and produced the thermometer.

Alex threw her head back against the pillows and was already about asleep again, but Goren pulled her up into a sitting position and made her hold the thermometer in her mouth, and this time she managed to keep it there long enough for him to read it.

"What is it?" she asked, watching him ogle the thermometer.

He glanced back at her and said, "Well you should know it's standard medical protocol to not tell a patient what their temperature is."

Alex reached for the pillow behind her and swung it at him, she missed him, but just. He looked at the digital screen again and told her, not happy about it, "It's 105, Alex."

She moaned and flopped back against the pillows.

"I know," he said, "I got some pills for you to take that should help bring it down." He picked up a bottle on the dresser and handed them to her, with a newly opened can of ginger ale.

"More ginger ale, I hate ginger ale," she said, "How do I have so much of this in the house?"

"Because I had the supermarket deliver it yesterday," Goren admitted.

She looked up at him with an expression on her face that he might as well have announced he knew where Jimmy Hoffa was.

"Oh really," she said.

"Yeah, with a few other things," he said.

"Let me guess," she said, "More chicken soup and orange juice."

"And popsicles," he added.

"Popsicles?" she looked at him again like he was weird.

He merely explained, "Dehydration's going to be an issue for the next few days probably, I figured it'd be more appealing than sucking on ice cubes."

Maybe it was the fever, maybe being sick just gave her a sense of protection against saying what was really on her mind, but for whatever reason, she looked up at Goren and said to him, "You're weird, Bobby, you know that?"

"It's, been suggested a few times," he replied nonchalantly.

Alex let out a single, unamused laugh and asked, "Only a few?"

Goren felt her forehead again, 105 degrees, probably wouldn't take much for her to slip into delirium if they didn't get it down. He picked up the bottle of pills and poured two of them out and put them in her hand.

The question, how did you know delirium if you weren't sure what you were going up against in the first place? Alex slept heavily in the afternoon, but after a couple hours she started thrashing around from side to side and seemed to be talking in her sleep. Goren had no way of knowing if this was something that happened with Eames anyway, for that matter, how many people would know if they talked in their sleep? But when she started saying the name "Joe" over and over, Goren didn't know if this was spurred from a dream, a memory, or if his partner might in fact be becoming delirious. He watched her while she slept, and watched the time, he'd give her the pills around the clock on the dot, they had to get this fever down.

The rest of what Alex said in her sleep was completely ineligible, even Goren couldn't decipher it. Joe, that was the only coherent word he could make out. Eames didn't talk much about her husband, and he knew better than to probe the issue. He didn't know what was 'normal' for Eames at the end if the day, if she came back here and carried on a routine after-hours kind of life, or if she just came home and fell to pieces. He'd never been married, he couldn't imagine being married to a cop and then her winding up killed on the job in some senseless shooting, or in any way for that matter.

Alex said her husband's name again, this time though it was a choked sob, she said his name a couple more times and fully broke down sobbing in her sleep. Goren leaned over her and took her hand in his and stroked his thumb over the back of her hand comfortingly. With his other hand he peeled back the wet washrag on her forehead and felt it again. Still warm. He'd make her take the pills 'round the clock, and he'd be checking her temperature every time to see if they were making any progress. If not, he had a sinking feeling they'd have one hell of a time trying to get her admitted in the hospital. Everybody and his brother seemed to be coming down with this flu, and the hospitals hadn't counted on as many severe cases as they were getting, due to a high number of patients suffering additional complications due to pre-existing weakened and compromised immune systems. On an average year tens of thousands of people died from the flu as it was, he hated to think how many more might from an exceptionally severe strain.

"It's alright, Alex," he said to her, despite knowing she couldn't hear him, "It's alright."

Eames woke up, feeling like she was burning up, and also soaking wet. She'd sweated clear through her pajamas, and it occurred to her that her fever must've finally broken. She peeled off the washrag on her forehead that had dried out hours ago, and felt her forehead. Felt normal to her. The bedroom was dark, but she found the digital clock and saw it was 4 in the morning. She'd been asleep for several hours. Or had it been days? She couldn't even remember what day it was, or what day it had been when she was last awake. Oh well, she was awake now and she knew she wouldn't be getting back to sleep, so she got out of bed, went into the bathroom and took a shower.

All the symptoms of being sick aside, the worst part of it, she decided, was the smell. When you were sick, you could just smell it the whole time you were lying in bed waiting to get better. It wasn't even a smell she could describe, it was just there. So, she got in the shower and scrubbed down every inch of her body twice with a heavily scented soap. She washed her hair twice, to make sure no remainder of that smell hung on anywhere. When she stepped out of the shower, she looked at herself in the mirror over the sink, she had been sick. She brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth with blue mint mouthwash, and swallowed a little as well. Later she'd have to strip the sheets off her bed, get them all washed, put a fresh set on. She put on her bathrobe and went to the kitchen to get a drink.

She stopped in the doorway. Seated at the kitchen table was Goren, asleep, sitting up, one elbow propped on the table, his chin propped on his hand. Eames was in awe. She padded over to the table and woke him up.

"Hi," she said.

"Oh," he rubbed his eyes, "Hey, you feeling alright?"

"About halfway human again," she said, "Another week I should have the rest of it kicked."

Goren tried to wake up but instead his eyes went shut again, but he managed a tired smile and said to her, "Good to know."

"Bobby," Eames said to him, "I am so sorry for the way I acted when you were here."

He waved it off, "Don't mention it."

"I'm sorry," she said as she pulled another chair out from the table and sat down next to him, "You did so much for me, thank you."

"It's alright," he said.

"It's been…" Eames explained with some slight difficulty, "Several years since I've had anyone to help me get through being sick…I'd gotten used to toughing it out alone…" she shook her head, "But this time…"

"I know," Goren told her, "For a while there, you had me worried."

Eames made a small sound like she was laughing, but if she was it quickly gave way to crying as she tilted her head down and folded her arms over her head.

Goren got up from his chair and placed a hand on her terrycloth-clad back and rubbed it through the robe's thick material.

After a few minutes, Eames collected herself and raised her head, and reached behind her and grabbed Goren's hand with her own and she told him, "Thank you…for everything."

"Anytime," he said, and added, "What're partners for?"

Eames propped her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands for a minute and seemed to be pulling herself together, and finally she got up and told Goren, "Go home." Hardly the same caliber in which she'd ordered him out of the bathroom, no anger, no frustration, just a simple statement, she knew Goren had been here long enough waiting on her.

"I'll see you later," he said as he put on his jacket. He started for the door, then came back and told her, "Oh…what you said about the keys…you were right…you didn't give me a key to get in."

"I knew I hadn't!" Eames said, suddenly remembering that conversation, "How did you get in here?"

Goren pointed to the door and answered, "The door wasn't locked when I got here, it wasn't even fully shut."

"My God," Eames let the gravity of that answer weigh down on her as she considered all the horrible possibilities that could've resulted from a cop in New York leaving their door open for virtually any lowlife to just walk on in, and the condition she was in at the time, was no condition to try subduing an intruder.

Goren seemed to know what was going through her mind and he explained, "You weren't in any condition to have to take that in…you left your keys on the table right inside, so I just picked them up for show."

"You really think of everything, don't you, Bobby?" Alex asked.

"Well, I try," he answered simply.

"I'll see you at work tomorrow," Eames told him as she followed him to the door.

"I'll let the Captain know how you're doing," Goren said as he adjusted his jacket.

She smiled at him, "Thanks, Bobby."

Goren was halfway out the door, and told her as he pulled it shut the rest of the way, "Anytime, Eames…anytime."