Title: The Best Medicine (formerly titled "I'll take care of you") Chapter 1
by vannadear
Disclaimer: The Characters don't belong to me, I only borrow them to do my evil bidding.
!!SPOILER WARNING!!
I got this idea from watching a sneak peek for next weeks episode 'Move on Cartwrights' on the ABC family SPOILERS FOR THE AS OF YET UN-AIRED EPISODE!! where Cappie is sick and Rebecca comes to take care of him, only it looks like she won't do a very good job. Cappie even has to stop himself from saying "Yeah, but you're no Casey" when Rebecca questions if Casey ever took care of him when he was sick before.
Notes: This thing just kind of snowballed into a much longer fic them I've written for GREEK, so I decided to make it multichaptered. I even researched how to take care of someone with pink-eye (amongst other things) Since I'm writing this before the episode even airs, this will be separate from my "Directors Cut" Universe.
Enjoy!
Thirty minutes had never seemed like a long time. Time was normally inconsequential in the domicile of the Kappa Taus; as it was something that the Dean had most likely made up in an effort to get in the way of all their fun.
True, time usually passed without incident here; as it always did when you were having the best fun of your life. But the spell seemed to be lifted this day, as when the timepiece on the wall had finally shown thirty minutes to have passed, the waiting brothers had changed seats and positions over two dozen times as they anxiously waited for Casey to show.
A swift rap on the front door jolted both to their feet and the smaller of the two to quickly yank open the front door, admitting a tiny blond woman in a dark rain coat, her arms laden with paper bags which they each quickly moved to take.
Casey cast a grateful smile up at Beaver and then Wade, ignoring the twin questioning looks she received at her choice of attire with the clear blue skies outside. The black raincoat she wore covered her form from neck to ankle; the only other visible attire being a pair of white peep toe heels, and her toenails which were covered in a candy apple red varnish.
"So where's the patient? still as ornery and hard to please as I remember?" she inquired, gesturing for them to follow her with the bags as she moved quickly down the hall and into the kitchen. Wade hurriedly closed the door behind her as she moved away, falling into step behind his much larger friend and into their small, somewhat untidy kitchen.
Both men watched perplexed from the sidelines as she easily went to a cupboard and removed a sturdy wooden tray by one of it's handles, bumping the cabinet closed with a hip before setting the tray that they had been searching for all morning on the counter and motioning for them to set the bags on the table.
She thanked them for their help and began rifling through one of the bags, removing several items and placing them next to the stove before sifting through a lower cabinet for a few seconds, and finding a sauce pan that she quickly filled with water and placed over a newly lit burner.
Both men stood stock still as she swiftly moved through their small kitchen, deftly assembling the tray with various things she had brought. She flowed through the small space like she owned it, not needing to ask where anything was and placing things artfully on the tray as though it were an every day routine for her to care for her sick ex-boyfriend.
Shaking himself from the shock of her fluid actions, Wade realized that he had yet to answer her question; he had been staring at her silently as she prepped and arranged things for the tray.
"Yeah, uh-we kinda suck at this..He's just never sick y'know? Nothing we do seems to be the right thing; he's pretty miserable." he ran a hand through his gravity defying hair, before deciding to get the elephant out of the room.
"Rebecca was here earlier..uh..she didn't seem to help any better then us; even made him soup and brought him some tea, he didn't seem to like it though, when Beav last peeked in on him it was all still sitting on his table untouched," he briefly cringed when he saw the small blonds shoulders tense at his mention of the brunette girl. Her hands tightening on the handle of the sauce pan as she poured the now boiling water through a small herb filled tea strainer and into a large garish turquoise tiki mug she'd unearthed from one of the bags.
Beaver shifted next to him nervously as he finished speaking, hoping that the knowledge of the other woman wouldn't cause their savior to leave. She really looked like she knew what she was doing, and that could only be good for getting Cappie back to his old self. Provided they didn't piss her off and cause her to leave.
Once the tiki mug was filled to the brim she moved to the next one she had lined up on the counter top; a gaudy orange thing with a cartoon squirrel in a fighting pose proclaiming "The rabid squirrel kung fu academy-Protect your nuts". The collection of odd glassware provided by the normally conservative sorority president prompted Wade and Beaver to exchange a bewildered look before both turned to observe the rest of the things she had filled the tray with.
A medium sized bottle labeled "Artificial Tears" sat dwarfed next to an extra large box of lotion infused Kleenex; which sported none other then Bugs Bunny's smiling visage on the sides. A large bottle of hand sanitizer stood next to that, along with a bag of lemon-honey flavored Halls and a novelty shot glass filled with purple liquid which read "Remember my name, You'll be screaming it later!" in large yellow text.
They watched as she removed the tea strainer from the tiki mug and duly disposed of it's contents in the garbage, returning only to pour half a bottle of honey into the mug before stirring and setting it gently on the tray next to the rest of her arsenal.
Both sets of eyebrows raised as the speedily working blond threw a couple bullion cubes and several dashes of chili pepper into the boiling water of the squirrel mug; she then proceeded to crush a handful of oyster crackers over the mug before placing it gently on the now full tray and turning her attention back to her audience.
"I'm not surprised she couldn't handle him," she began, moving back to the table and shifting through whatever remained in one of the near empty paper bags "Cappie reverts to an even bigger four year old then he usual when he's sick." she confirmed, removing a handful of white cotton wash cloths that she tucked under the bag of halls before moving back to the table and continuing on.
"I learned this lesson the hard way in our Freshman year, I'm just surprised he hasn't gotten pink eye or a cold in so long, he definitely had enough of them in the year we dated," her eyes looked glazed for a moment, clouded with memories of the past.
She shook out of her stupor after a moment, removing a handful of DVD cases from an almost empty bag that she then handed to the unmoving Asian man in the room. He held the bag loosely by the brim, an eyebrow lifting as he observed the barbecue tongs and yellow rubber gloves inside, he looked at her questioningly.
"Hey, I can't do everything by myself!" she protested, "I need you to put those gloves on and use the tongs to pick up all the tissues he's no doubt covered in; pink eye can be contagious as hell and I don't want your entire fraternity-my brother included-to come down with it." she gave him a pointed look, and he grudgingly nodded his acceptance of the task.
"Put the tissues in the bag and then wait for me, I'm going to need to clean his infected eye and apply these drops, the wash cloths will be contagious too by then so I'll need you to take them from me and put them in the bag before throwing it out." she instructed, watching him don the gloves and move out of the kitchen, her attention then turning to that of Beaver's hulking form.
"Can you get a TV and DVD Player up to his room? All the sleeping will just make him grumpier in the long run with nothing to do," she asked, lifting up the collection of Kevin Smith DVDs she held in her hand and the large blond man nodded quickly, shuffling off to do as asked.
Casey's upright posture slumped a bit as she was left alone in the kitchen, her fast paced movements from earlier gone as her heels softly clicked against the linoleum on her way back to the overflowing tray. She lifted the bugs bunny tissue box and set the stack of DVDs under it, placing a condensation soaked water bottle on the tray next to it.
Rebecca had already been here, she bristled, the image of the younger girl and Cappie dancing together at the Greek Ball the previous week etched in her mind. Her fists clenched tightly as she wondered if this was such a good idea; she knew that Cappie was a difficult patient, but maybe she should just leave his worried fraternity brothers with instructions and be on her way.
The bright red varnish on her fingernails caught her eye then, and her hands moved to toy with the belt of her tightly closed rain coat, as doubts and fears ran rampant through her mind. Cappie and Rebecca were dating now, she repeated to herself, 'He's not yours anymore Casey! Just accept it, you had your chance' she reasoned. Hazel eyes filled with self hatred as she became disgusted with herself for her actions.
She heard a loud hacking from upstairs, and resolved that she would do what she had come here to do. She would help Cappie feel better, and then leave. She didn't want to be one of those girls that slept with other girls boyfriends, and she'd already reached her all time low with the statutory rape encounter from a few weeks ago. Her self respect could only take so much; no need to add seduction of a the sick and dying to her already shining repertoire.
Resolve firmly in place, she tightened the belt of the coat to ensure it remained closed, one hand searching through a pocket to reassure her of it's contents while the other swept away her loose flowing curls behind an ear. Ashleigh should really think about becoming a hair and makeup artist she absently thought as she moved to the sink, washing her hands.
The perfectly applied make up she had done for Casey a scant half hour ago looked both natural and flawless. Her eyeshadow shimmered, a light dusting of silver and her lip gloss the faintest shade of watermelon. The hairstyle was as much a miracle; the large waves of blond silk lay curled around her shoulders enticingly, looking as though she had just woken up looking ethereally gorgeous.
Drying her hands before utilizing the hand sanitizer and donning a small pair of white latex gloves, she hefted the overladen tray by the handles before moving down the hallway and up the stairs, heels clicking against wooden floors. No more time to waste, she admonished herself.
She had a patient to see.
TBC
YAY! Here's Chapter 1, what do you guys think?
We get to see sick!Cappie next! And just what is she wearing under that rain coat? Keep reading/reviewing to find out!!