When Andy left, Rusty brought Sharon another mug of ginger tea. "Rustyyyy, I've already drank this crap," she whined.
"Well, you're going to drink some more, and then one more mug before bed."
"Nooo, it's gross."
"The pharmacist said three to four times a day. I'm being easy on you. You know if it were the other way around, you'd be making me drink this shit at least five times a day." Sharon glared at Rusty and took the tea from him like it pained her to do so. Several minutes later, she made a face as she drained the last of it and chased it with the rest of her Gatorade. Rusty took her mug and glass into the kitchen and returned with a bowl of clam chowder and a refilled glass of Gatorade. He got a bowl for himself while Sharon started to eat hers. Or sip it, rather. She looked like she could hardly hold her head up. Rusty quickly ate his bowl and helped Sharon with the rest of hers. After cleaning the kitchen, he went to Sharon's room to change her sheets. He'd gotten that idea while Andy was there. He knew he would be checking on her during the night, and if he got in her bed at all, he didn't want to do that if she and Andy had, um, done stuff since she'd changed the sheets the week before.
Rusty dug through Sharon's closet until he found a pair of gloves like the kind she uses to handle evidence. He put the gloves on and gingerly removed the sheets from her bed with as little of his fingertips as was necessary.
"Honey, I just changed the sheets on Saturday," Sharon croaked from her doorway. She was leaning against the door frame like she needed it to hold her up.
"God, you scared me. I knew I'd be coming in here tonight, and if I needed to sit with you for a while, well...I wanted to know what hasn't happened on the sheets I was sitting on."
Sharon laughed helplessly. "We-"
"Stop, Mom, whatever the answer to that is, I don't want to know. Gross." Rusty threw the sheets in Sharon's laundry basket and walked toward the hall closet to get clean sheets.
Sharon's laughs grew louder when she saw the gloves on his hands. "Oh, my god, I just noticed the gloves!"
Rusty had to put a hand on her arm to steady her. "What are you doing up? What do you need?"
"Bathroom. All of that disgusting tea you're forcing down my throat has to go somewhere."
"Did you finish your Gatorade? I don't want you to get dehydr-god, Mom, this is out of control. You're rubbing off on me entirely too much. I'm even annoying myself."
Sharon wrapped her arms around Rusty and leaned into his chest. "At least now you know that I annoy you because I love you." She gave him a gentle squeeze and walked to the bathroom. Rusty put clean sheets on Sharon's bed and picked through both of their laundry baskets for their favorite pajamas and comfortable clothes. He was starting to feel worse, and if he got as sick as Sharon was now, then neither one of them would be up to doing laundry for a few days. Once the washing machine was humming, he sat on the couch and wrapped up in one of the blankets. He was freezing all of a sudden. Sharon came in a few minutes later and curled up beside him. Her fevered body warmed him up a little bit.
"I feel awful," Sharon moaned. She pressed her face into Rusty's shoulder.
"Yeah, I kind of gathered that."
Sharon looked up at Rusty with concern. "You sound like your throat hurts."
"It's not bad. Don't worry about me, Mom. I'm just tired from dealing with a grumpy and stubborn patient all day."
"Uh-huh." She studied him closely for a few more moments. "You're sick."
Ugh, leave it to Sharon to have a nearly 104 degree fever and still notice that he probably only had the tiniest hint of a fever. "And this expert opinion is based on...?"
"Your eyes, honey. They give you away every time." Sharon felt his forehead and stroked his cheek. "You look a little flushed, but I can't tell if you feel feverish with my own temperature being thrown off." Sharon's hand did feel warmer against Rusty's face than it usually did when she felt him for a fever. She started coughing again, and he patted her back as she coughed into the tissues he was holding for her. Sharon wasn't about to admit it, but it was a little easier to cough up the unwanted material from her lungs, and she was getting more of it up since Rusty had given her cough syrup and made her drink that awful tea. Getting all of that out made her feel a little better for the time being, and she settled back against Rusty to watch the movie that had just started. He spread a blanket over her and watched the TV as a young man and woman collided on a sidewalk and dropped everything they had been carrying. They exchanged harsh words about how the other should watch where they're going and huffed off, grateful never to have to see each other again.
"I don't know about you, Mom, but I have a feeling those two haven't seen the last of each other."
"I like these movies because I love Christmas. Not because they have thrilling plots."
Several minutes later, the woman from the first scene arrived at work, where the conversation immediately turned to their strategy for beating out their competition to gain a prestigious client. "Let me guess. The guy she ran into a few minutes ago works for the competition. They'll all of a sudden start seeing each other a lot because they'll both be doing stuff with this client they're trying to bag, and they'll spend most of the movie hating each other. They'll somehow get trapped somewhere together, or otherwise be forced to spend a lot of time alone together, and fall in love."
"Can't you just let your sick mother enjoy a movie?"
"I'm sorry, I'll stop...My way is more fun, though." They watched the movie in comfortable silence for several minutes until the man and woman ran into each other on work-related tasks and started heatedly arguing. "Little do they know, they're going to be sucking face by Christmas Eve." Sharon glared up at Rusty. "Sorry. It's hard to stop." A little while later, he made her drink more tea and take more cough syrup. By the time the movie was ending in the way Rusty had predicted, Sharon was sleeping heavily against him. He knew he should take her to bed, but her fevered warmth and steady breathing made him want to stay where he was. She would be more comfortable in bed, though, so he begrudgingly eased himself out from under her.
Sharon stirred as Rusty got up to take her bed pillows back to her bed. "Wha-"
"Be right back." Rusty returned the pillows and came back to take Sharon to bed. "Come on, sickling." He gathered his mom and the blankets in his arms and carried her to her room.
"Sheets...Cold," Sharon protested.
"I have the blankets from the couch. They're still warm." Rusty gently laid Sharon in her bed and settled the sheet and blankets over her before covering her with her comforter. "Are you cold?"
"Not bad."
"Let me get you some Tylenol PM, and I'll lie down with you for a little bit."
Sharon gave Rusty an amused look. "You're right, this is getting creepy. You sounded just like me."
"What can I say? I learned from the best." Rusty got some Tylenol PM and two glasses of water from the kitchen and grabbed the Kleenex and trashbag from the living room. Sharon was coughing when he came back, and he hurried over to her with the Kleenex so she could cough into it. Once that was taken care of, he climbed into bed beside her as she swallowed the pill. "Call me tonight if you need more water or something, please don't get up unless you have to."
"Mm-hmm," Sharon murmured. Rusty pulled her into his arms and brushed her hair that had escaped from her bun out of her face. She still felt hot and had to be miserable just from the high fever alone. "Feel better, Mom. I love you."
"Love you, sweetie." Sharon reached up and found his cheek with her hand without opening her eyes. "Wake me up if you start feeling really bad." She was sleeping again before Rusty could tell her how dumb it would be for him to actually do that. It would be like the blind leading the blind at that point. He was ready to go to bed, himself, so he laid Sharon down once she was good and asleep, got ready for bed, and climbed under his covers. He couldn't fall asleep for sitting up every five minutes to listen for Sharon. After about an hour, he moved to the living room, where he could hear her better. It was no longer a mystery to him why he'd woken up a couple of mornings before when he'd been, like, bad sick to find Sharon sleeping on the other side of his bed. He gave up and went to crawl in bed beside her, grateful to any and all high powers that he'd had the foresight to change her sheets.
When Rusty woke up again, he was freezing, and his entire body hurt and felt heavy. He stumbled to the kitchen for some Tylenol. As he was drowsily rifling through the medicine cabinet, he felt Sharon's hand on the back of his neck. The hand moved to his back as her other hand went to his forehead. He felt a little warm to her touch, so she knew his temperature was higher than hers. "Moooom, I don't feel good."
"I know, honey. I'm sorry." She pulled Rusty into a hug and held him for a few moments before getting the Tylenol and a glass of water for him.
"Oh, my god, I forgot you were sick. Why are you out of bed?"
"I heard you coughing and wanted to check on you. Come get in my bed, we can be miserable together."
"You sound terrible. Your voice is completely gone."
"You don't sound so good yourself, honey. I thinking my temperature is lower now, though. I don't feel quite as achy or heavy as I did earlier." Sharon tucked Rusty into her bed and kissed his forehead. "Feel better, honey. I hope you can sleep through the worst of...Whatever this crap is."
"Thanks, Mom," Rusty mumbled. He curled up beside Sharon and went to sleep.
On Wednesday morning, Andy stopped on his way to work to check on Sharon. He found her in bed with Rusty at her side, which wasn't good. Either she had gotten worse overnight, or the kid was sick now, too, and wouldn't be able to take care of her. He sat on Sharon's bed and held his hand to her forehead. Sharon's hand came up to grab his wrist, but she hadn't opened her eyes. "Still hot, but you were hotter yesterday," Andy noted.
Sharon cracked an eye open. "That better be a fever you're talking about."
"Of course. Hot doesn't even begin to describe what I'm looking at."
Sharon sat up. "Yeah, I'm sure my snotty nose is a real turn-on."
"Don't tempt me." Andy kissed her forehead. "Is Rusty sick, too?"
Sharon feigned ignorance. "I don't know. I thought he just slept in here because he was worried about me."
"Please. I've seen you notice he was sick from across the murder room."
"Okay, fine, he's sick, but I don't feel as bad as I did yesterday. I can get food and medicine and whatever else when we need it, and we'll just spend the day in bed. We'll be fine."
Andy sighed. "Nicole's temperature shot up overnight, and her cough sounded a lot worse this morning. I'm using personal days for this afternoon and the rest of this week to stay with her. I'm afraid she may be getting pneumonia, so I'm taking her back to the doctor tomorrow if she's not any better tonight."
"You need to be with her, Andy. I'll be fine, I promise."
Andy looked at Sharon uneasily. "I hate leaving you like this. I thought Rusty would take you to the doctor today, but if-"
"I'm really okay. Go to work now so you can get back to Nicole. I'll let you know if I get worse, I promise."
"All right. Call me if you need anything, and I'll come back at lunchtime before I go to Nicole's. I love you."
"Love you." Andy kissed her forehead once more and left.
