The day that Callie and Mark got married, Lexie came down with a terrible fever. I hadn't been invited, and neither had Lexie - and I'm sure even with an invitation, we wouldn't have gone, anyway.

I don't think I've ever met someone who has gotten as delusional as Lexie when they're sick.

I'd known she was sick because the doorman at the lobby of my apartment complex had told me that the girl who had always come over had fallen on the stairs in a daze. He was going to call the ambulance but then remembered that I was a doctor.

I told him it was okay, that she was just burning up, and she clung to my neck as I helped her up and onto the elevator.

"Are you sick? Lexie?" I asked her, feeling her forehead. She felt incredibly hot and I felt the back of my neck burn from contact with her heated skin.

"A little," she murmured. Her eyes were glossy, as if she had just woken up.

"I just.. wanted to see you because I thought you were sad. And no one's home because everyone's at the wedding and I guess I just wanted to come see you. But I'm sick, so I should probably just leave," she explained, letting go of her hold on my neck. She stumbled back a bit from the loss of balance before hitting the button for the lobby and leaning onto the wall.

"No, you're way too sick to go home," I told her. I grabbed her shoulders so I could steady her and she acquiesced, gently leaning into me just as we got off and onto my floor.

I made sure she didn't topple over as I opened the door to my apartment and led her inside. She seemed to be in a complete daze and she looked rather disheveled. Her hair was tied in a loose, messy ponytail and she was wearing some old, oversized sweat pants that seemed like it would fall from her waist as she moved.

I led her to my bedroom and sat her down. She groaned as I felt her forehead again, then I leaned over her to loosen her ponytail.

"You smell good," she murmured, and wrapped her arms around my neck as I took off her hairband. She seemed so fragile and delicate, and clung to me as if I were her only life line. Her skin felt so hot against mine and I couldn't help want to take care of her.

I gently pulled myself from her embrace and stripped off her clothing piece by piece. She held her arms up as I took off her shirt - she was already sweating and her pale skin seemed to be glowing. There was a deep impression of blush on the white of her skin and I could see the fading teeth marks that I had left a few days earlier. I gently traced them with my finger and watched as she watched me with hazy eyes.

"I don't feel good," she murmured. I laughed and brushed her hair back and then bent down to unlace her old, beaten canvas shoes. The laces were gnawed as if by a dog's teeth (how old were these shoes?) and there had seemed to be rips all along the ridges of the shoes. I took them off and rolled my eyes at her mismatched socks. She really was in a daze, I thought, finally slipping off her sweatpants.

"Why are you taking off my clothes?" she asked me.

"So I can wipe your body and put you to bed," I told her.

"Oh," she murmured, and laid down as I left to fetch a wet cloth.

When I came back in, she was staring at my ceiling, lost in her own thoughts and twirling a strand of her long, brown hair.

"Lexie," I said.

She looked at me and smiled, though it seemed to a kind of a sad smile.

"Sorry," she said, as I started to wipe her back.

"For what?"

"This," she said, her shoulders slumping.

"That's okay," I told her, and kissed her temple before wiping the rest of her body. It wasn't a lustful gesture, what I'd been doing. Her body seemed so weak and tired and it was only an instinctive feeling to want to revitalize her weakened state.

I grabbed a sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts from my drawer and had her put them on before laying her on my bed and covering her with my sheets.

"Everything smells like you," she murmured, as I sat next to her on the bed and brushed her hair back.

"I like it," she said.

"Mhm," I murmured, and took up a glass of water. She took a sip and then laid back down as I ran my fingers through her hair in silence.

"Mmm, Arizona.." she whined, grabbing onto my arm.

"Okay, okay.." I cooed, brushing the damp hair away from her sweaty forehead.

"I like you, you know.." she mumbled, clutching my arm and closing her eyes.

"I know you do," I told her, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

"I like you!" she yelled.

"I know, Lexie. I like you too."

"Do you really?"

"I do."

"Okay," she murmured, letting go of my arm.

It seemed as though she was finally going to sleep, but instead, she kicked off the sheets from her legs and groaned.

"I can't believe I called you my solace," she suddenly said, covering her eyes with her hands. That was quite some time ago and it made me raise an eyebrow, the way she suddenly decided to reflect on it. She looked embarrassed, and it was undeniably cute, but I reached out and pulled her hands away from her eyes.

She opened them and looked at me, her eyes were glazed and glossy - almost glowing, they looked beautiful. They were the kind of dark, misty eyes you could find yourself getting lost in.

But I couldn't get lost in her eyes right now.

"Stop. Go to sleep," I told her.

"'You're my solace,' how lame," she continued.

"Lexie," I groaned. Why was she like this? It seemed more like she was drunk rather than sick.

She stopped talking for a while and closed her eyes. I knew she'd been contemplating about something and I waited until she finally spoke again.

"Arizona.."

"Hmm?"

"We can't have sex."

"I know."

"But I'm here, in your apartment."

"Yeah."

"And I'm sick. So we can't have sex."

"Yeah," I agreed again. Where was she getting at?

"Why?" she asked me.

"Because you're sick," I told her.

"And if I wasn't?"

I thought it over and gave her the answer I suspected she wanted, "Then we'd have sex."

But she suddenly got up and pulled the sheets off of her and stumbled out of the bed.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, standing up and grabbing hold of her as she picked off her discarded sweatpants from off the floor.

"I'm just bothering you," she told me. She stumbled again and almost fell and I stood up and pulled her back to the bed. Due to her weak state, she didn't resist and fell onto the bed again.

She laid down and covered herself with the sheets, burying her head into the pillow.

"I'm only here because we're not at the wedding and everyone else is so no one else can take care of me, right? So I came to you and now I'm bothering you and we can't even have sex," she explained.

She thought she was a bother. She came looking for me. But she hadn't known that I'd been wondering what she had been doing, as well. She had no idea that I was going to call her just before the doorman had informed me that she was here.

She didn't know how my heart dropped when he told me that she'd fallen on the stairs.

"I don't care about that. I'm glad you came," I told her.

I pulled the sheet off of her head and leaned into the pillow and pulled her face to mine.

"I'm glad you came, so please stay here and go to sleep."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I'll make you some soup. Or I'll buy some, whatever you want. You can stay here for a few days," I continued. She smiled at me and watched me and then closed her eyes and clutched the pillow.

I stood up and took up her discarded clothes and shoes from off the floor and neatly piled them near the bed.

"And when you're better, we'll go buy some shoes," I told her.

"What about sex?" she asked me.

"Shut up, Lexie."

She laughed into my pillow and then stuck her head out from the sheets to watch me.

"Arizona?"

"Hmm?"

"Please don't cook."