Chapter Two
It should not have been a surprise to anyone that, a few days after playing nursemaid to a sick Tommy, Deborah herself began to feel ill. It started small, just a few sniffles she blamed on allergies and continued on her way to work. Then came the sneezing and coughing, until finally one morning she woke up aching and shivering despite the July heat. Her throat felt like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper, her head pounded when she moved, and it was all she could do to just turn her head to one side and fumble for her alarm.
"You look like death," was all AJ said when she poked her head into the living room, to see if Deborah was getting up. From her spot on the folded-out futon, Deborah groaned. From the door, AJ took note of her pale face and bleary eyes and frowned. "You're not going into work like that."
The moan that escaped Deborah's lips might have been an attempt at AJ's name or just a reflection of life in general at the moment, but it certainly didn't sound like any actual words. She reached up towards her roommate, but she could neither reach nor properly see AJ, and her hand fell limply back onto the futon. AJ sighed. "I'll be here until I have to go to work, and I'll call the library to let them know you're not coming in. Okay?" Deborah nodded, settling back in under the blankets.
With another large sigh, AJ flopped onto one of the soft armchairs in the room. "I told you that Jarvis guy was trouble."
Tourist season was the worst. That's what Tommy's coworkers had told him since he first started working at the small gas station and garage in Forest Green. By now, he believed it wholeheartedly. It was one of his quieter days, he was allowed to stock shelves and run inventory and not have to worry about working the pumps and being social. Now, however, his shift was almost over and he was busying himself by putting things back on the right shelves from where tourists had put them. A number of not-at-all nice things passed through his mind, aimed directly at the person who thought it was too hard to put things one shelf up from where they'd left them.
As Tommy reached up to replace a bag of potato chips on the shelf, a chilly tingle shot down his spine. It felt like someone was watching him. Not just watching, staring . Instinctively his pulse rose, his breaths becoming shorter and faster. He spun around, hands balling into fists, ready to defend himself… but it was just a young woman, standing there behind him and staring so hard it was like daggers in his skin. Tommy squirmed under the intensity of her gaze.
"Can I help you?" The words were hard to get out, sounding even quieter than he usually did.
"Deborah's not coming by to see you today."
What ? Tommy had the strange sensation he'd walked into the middle of a conversation. His eyes darted from side to side, trying to figure out what she had meant. "I'm sorry?" Again he looked at her, and a faint moment of recognition came over him. The young woman was curvy, with purple streaks dyed into her wavy brown hair and her dark clothes matching her somber expression. And Tommy had definitely seen her before. "Wait, you're Deborah's roommate, right? Uh, CJ… DJ…"
"AJ." The reply was firm and he nodded instinctively.
"Right, AJ. And what's this about Deborah? She's where?"
AJ shrugged, crossing her arms across her chest. "Home. She was sleeping, the last time I saw her. A parting gift from her trip to play Florence Nightingale the other day."
Oh . A flicker of guilt flared up in Tommy's chest. He hadn't asked her to come visit, and it wasn't his fault she'd caught his illness, but still he felt just the tiniest bit guilty. She'd come all that way and made his day better- and then came down with the same bug that had been plaguing him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"-I know, I was just letting you know. I've gotta get to work before I'm late." AJ turned to leave but paused at the end of the aisle, resting one hand on the shelf nearby as she turned to look back at Tommy. "We're also fresh out of ginger ale." The look she gave him couldn't have been more pointed if it was made out of a bucketful of icepicks. Then she rounded the corner and was gone.
All the tension that had been building in his body released as AJ left the store. Other people were a minefield as it was, but short and unassuming as she was, AJ was intimidating somehow. It was like talking to a porcupine, knowing that at any time those sharp quills would stop being simply menacing and suddenly end up buried in your skin. Tommy almost leaned against the shelf in relief, until something caught his eye at the end of the aisle. It didn't look like something that was supposed to be in the snacks section, and when he went to investigate he was certain of it.
It was a pair of keys, sitting right where AJ's hand had rested a minute before. Not car keys, that was certain; most likely house keys. With a slight sigh, Tommy slid them into the pocket of his pants and glanced up at the clock. His shift was over in an hour, but any plans he'd had for the rest of the day were effectively scrapped.
It was rare for Deborah to get colds. She ate all her vegetables, was careful about washing her hands, she even took vitamins on a regular basis. More often than not it was other people who got colds around her, so she was used to taking care of them. Being on the other side of the coin for once was not only unusual, it was humiliating .
Everything ached, a deep throbbing pain that sapped all her strength and made her dread the times she had to stand to hobble to the bathroom. Whenever she pulled the covers up, she sweltered under the heat of her own body, but kicking them off left her shivering. She tried to focus on the TV that AJ had left on, but her brain felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls, and the plots of the daytime soaps were even more incomprehensible than usual. And in between it all she slept, drifting into fevered dreams of running and hiding and Tommy and then melting back into reality.
One dream was particularly vivid and it took her a moment to realize the Tommy standing over her was actually the real one, and not swooping in on a daring mission to rescue her from certain death. With a startled gasp, Deborah yanked the covers up to her chin, staring up at the strangely blurry face over her head.
"Your roommate left these with me," Tommy said, holding out something above her head, before setting it down on the coffee table. The metallic clink told her it must have been keys, but all she saw was a faintly grey smudge. He glanced over in the direction of the TV, which had just come back from a commercial apparently. "You watch this stuff?" Despite his efforts, a note of disdain snuck into the statement. Deborah shook her head a little, not having the energy for much else.
"AJ left it on so I wouldn't be lonely." Tommy looked back at her, then stepped over to the TV and switched the dial off. The faint voices cut out abruptly, leaving the room in silence. "Why're you here?" Deborah asked finally, her throat rasping with each word.
"I was told you caught my cold," Tommy said simply. "And your roommate was very persuasive." He sat down on the -thankfully very sturdy- coffee table nearby. "I figured if I didn't stop by she'd slash my tires. How are you doing?"
"Not bad," Deborah said, trying to force a smile. It was a baldfaced lie and they both knew it. She hadn't felt this awful in several years. Tommy leaned over, placing his hand against her forehead.
"You're really hot," he said after a few moments.
Something came over Deborah all of a sudden. Her brain was as foggy as her vision right now and somehow or other the inhibitions that normally kept her from saying anything that popped into head simply stopped working. "Thanks, you too Tommy!" she replied with a giggle. The blur that was Tommy seemed to frown.
"...No, you have a fever, Deborah."
"Oh, is that all?" She forced a laugh. "I thought it was something awful!" Her rough attempts at laughter quickly shifted into sobs, and she rolled onto her side, burying her face in the mound of pillows and yanking the blanket up over her face. A few moments later she felt a hand rest lightly on her shoulder.
"Deb? Are you okay?" There was clearly worry in Tommy's voice, and she rolled back over, raising her tear streaked face up to peer in his direction. Her chest tightened at the thought of worrying him more; he'd already come to visit her when he didn't have to, and now she was making him worry about her.
"I'm a mess ," she moaned, tears welling in her eyes again. "I don't want you to look at me like this. My hair's not brushed, I don't have any makeup on…" A level of horror rose in her chest as she realized what she was wearing. "I'm still in my nightgown !" Deborah had always been fond of her nightgown, with the lace around the neck and sleeves, but the material was ever-so-slightly sheer. Wearing it around Tommy, well… a hot flush not at all from her cold rose to her cheeks. She yanked the blankets up over her nose and mumbled, "I can't even find my glasses."
"Well, I was a mess too, if you remember" Tommy said softly. A few moments later, a blurry hand appeared in front of her face, holding a pair of black-rimmed glasses by the earpiece. "They were under the coffee table." Deborah dried her face on the blanket and put the glasses on. The world felt a little less scary when she could actually see what was in front of her.
"You can't ever look anything less than amazing, Tommy," she found herself saying, even though in her right mind she'd never be able to say something so bold. "I just look like…" Clumsily she gestured at herself.
"You look like yourself," Tommy said, catching her hand. "And you're a lot prettier than you think."
Deborah scoffed, but didn't pull her hand away. "You need glasses," she mumbled.
"So do you."
She moaned and halfheartedly tried to pull her hand away. "No logic today, Tommy, I can't think." Tommy let go of her hand, then reached out to tidy up her bangs across her forehead.
"It's okay, you're sick. You're allowed to feel down." A small smile crossed his face. "Have you even eaten today?"
Deborah shrugged. She too had noticed the reversal of the situation that had happened just a short time ago, and she tried to smile back but her face wouldn't cooperate. "I don't remember, I don't even know what time it is." She sighed, nestling into the mound of pillows. "I think there's a can of chicken noodle soup in the kitchen that I didn't use the other day. Don't burn down the apartment, AJ would kill me."
"It's nice to know you have so much faith in me," Tommy teased, standing up. No witty retort came from Deborah, though. She'd fallen back asleep on the couch.
"Okay, sleepyhead, you need to eat or you're going to feel worse." Tommy's soft voice pulled her out of sleep, along with the feeling of his fingers lightly tapping her shoulder. Deborah shifted a bit, opening her eyes to look up at him.
"'Didn't mean to fall asleep," she mumbled, trying to pull herself up into a vaguely sitting position. Ever since the first time she'd heard him speak, there was something about Tommy's soft, earnest voice that she could listen to forever. "Guess I just like hearing your voice," she said aloud. Tommy cleared his throat next to her with an embarrassed look on his face, before leaning in to place his hands on her arms and help her sit up.
Tommy left to grab a chair from the kitchen table to sit on as Deborah turned to look at the coffee table beside her. There was a bowl of soup, probably more full than she could handle at this point but it seemed like he hadn't scorched it. A spoon rested on a napkin nearby, with an opened package of saltine crackers above it. Beside the bowl was a glass of bubbly, pale gold soda. " Ginger ale ?" Deborah asked, definitely more amazed than she'd be normally.
"AJ mentioned you were out," Tommy said, sitting down on the chair he'd brought over. "I figured I couldn't exactly say 'no' about it."
"AJ's kind of intense," said Deborah, struggling to take a few crackers out of the plastic sleeve while her soup cooled. "But I think she's okay with you."
"It felt more like she was daring me to mess up." He reached forward to help, pulling apart the seam on the plastic sleeve so it was easier to reach the crackers inside.
Not eating all day had drained most of Deborah's strength, and it was surprisingly hard just to get up the energy to chew, but she realized all of a sudden just how hungry she was. "If she really didn't like you, you'd know," Deborah said around a mouthful of cracker. "She's really just shy. I thought she hated me the whole time we were setting up for camp, but she was the one who offered me a place to stay after…" Her voice trailed off and she lowered her eyes to her soup.
"Yeah," Tommy said quietly.
"But she came and told you I was sick. She even gave you a key. I'd say she actually trusts you, even if she does keep telling me you're 'trouble.'"
Tommy laughed just the tiniest bit. "Trouble? I'm not trouble ."
"You are absolutely trouble." Deborah smiled impishly at him as she took a sip of soup. "But you're nice trouble. You didn't even go home to change out of your work clothes."
"I don't mind, I didn't want you left here all by yourself. And don't tell me you would have been okay. You weren't when I got here." Deborah stuck out her tongue at him, then giggled.
"Touche, Tommy." He smiled back at her, then leaned in close. A small squeak left Deborah's lips as he impulsively pressed a kiss to her forehead.
"Your forehead's all sweaty," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"Duh, I'm sick, remember?" Deborah teased, tossing a small fragment of cracker at him that had fallen on the couch. Tommy ducked away from it with a grin.
"I can stick around until AJ gets back, okay? I don't want you left here alone." For a moment, Deborah felt embarrassed to hear that. She'd never really had someone tell her they wanted to stick around for her sake, but it was a wonderful feeling too. Having Tommy around would definitely make the day less lonely.
The sound of the door opening made Tommy jump; Deborah had fallen asleep a while ago and he'd picked a book off a nearby shelf to keep him company. Evidently he'd dozed off as well, for the sun was low in the sky outside. He set the book down and stood up, coming face-to-face with AJ as he turned.
"She's just sleeping," he said, keeping his voice low. "I warmed up some soup for her earlier too."
"She actually ate?" AJ whispered back. Tommy nodded. "Good." Silence fell between them, draped over the scene like a heavy blanket. Finally Tommy sighed.
"I should be getting home, can you let her know I said goodbye?" He would have preferred to say it himself, but the night was coming fast and he still hadn't been home. Driving along the road up to his cabin was still a bit unnerving at night too, even moreso after his last encounter with Jason.
AJ nodded. Tommy turned to leave, stopping by the door to take his jacket off a nearby hook, when AJ cleared her throat loudly. He glanced back over his shoulder. AJ had turned around, and she stood there, silhouetted against the light from the living room. "Thanks," she said finally. "I guess you're not as much trouble as I thought, Tommy Jarvis."
If Deborah was correct, that was surprisingly high praise from AJ. Tommy smiled and nodded slightly in recognition, before slipping out the door and heading off into the night.
[Author's Note] This chapter was originally posted on my tumblr on August 13th, 2017.