Emmalin Holden almost giggled when she saw the sleeping figure lying tangled on the bed. Quietly, she approached the all too familiar mattress.
His limp frame was half-covered and half-uncovered by the bedding, a mountain of tissue surrounding him like the Great Wall of China.
Poke…Poke…Poke
The seventeen year old couldn't help sticking out her tiny index finger to prod his bare back. The pad of her thumb brushed his spine and she felt him shiver in his slumber.
"Jeremy?" Emmalin called, finally addressing her boyfriend.
No response but Specialist Jeremy Sherwood stirred.
"Ugh…" came the Soldier's groggy reply, tired and strained.
"Jeremy?" Emmalin called again, silently asking her lover to roll over and look at her.
"Ughh…" Begrudgingly he rolled from his side onto his back. His chocolate-colored eyes where cloudy as they stared into her amber one's.
Emmalin had to refrain from cooing, knowing that Jeremy wouldn't like that. He hated people fussing him. But it was hard for her not too after getting a good look at her poor boyfriend.
Jeremy's cheeks and nose where red as a reindeers and his skin was clammy with cold sweat. He looked miserable and it broke Emmalin's heart.
"Hey there, baby boy. You feeling any better?" Emmalin whispered, incase he was fighting off a migraine, and softly she kissed his forehead. Pulling a tissue free from the box on Jeremy's nightstand, the Army Brat dabbed gently the sweat from his cheekbones.
"No." Jeremy rasped, his usually deep husky voice sounded like it had been put through the blender and then attacked by sandpaper.
"Want Mama to kiss it better?" Emmalin smiled.
"Awff…yeah." Jeremy coughed, then chuckled as Emmalin leaned over and laid kisses across his face.
Her pale rosy lips brushed his cheeks, forehead, nose and throat as softly as a feather.
"Guess what I brought you." Emmalin stroked his buzz-cut lovingly.
"Mmmh?" Jeremy murmured with his eyes closed, enjoying his girlfriend's sweet administrations. He'd been impatiently waiting all day for her to get out of school. He wished more than once that he'd asked her to skip and spend the day with him.
"Chicken noodle soup. Homemade, your favorite." She giggled, pulling a thermos of soup from her book bag.
"God, I love you." Jeremy said as she handed him a spoon.
"Awhh! He speaks and a whole sentence too! My Grandma always said that food was the way to a man's heart." Emmalin teased, helping Jeremy sit up to eat.
"Very fu—achoo!...funny." Jeremy began as a violent sneeze tore through him.
"Bless you." Emmalin excused before she pressed her lips wordlessly to the Specialist's forehead, checking his temperature, "Your fever's gone down. Do you want anything?"
"No. Baby, I feel sick." the nineteen year old pouted. He hated being sick. He hated the yucky cough medicine he had to take, he hated feeling nauseous, and he especially hated the doctor he would soon have to visit if he didn't get any better.
"I know baby boy." the seventeen year old couldn't keep from laughing at her boyfriend's childlike pouting.
"You know I bet you wouldn't think this was so funny, if you were the one who was sick." Jeremy glared, halfheartedly before sneezing again.
"But I'm not the one who's sick. You are…and I am unashamed to admit that I love it when you let me baby you." Emmalin chuckled, kiss Jeremy square on the lips.
"Ughhh…" the Soldier coughed.
-One week later-
"Told you, you wouldn't think it was so funny if you were the one that was sick." Jeremy Sherwood teased as he carried a steaming bowl near Emmalin's bed.
His seventeen-year-old girlfriend sneezed from her place under the covers. She was buried under a metric ton of fleece blankets and still couldn't seem to get warm.
"Ha ha ha. This is all your fault, Jeremy. You got me sick." the youngest Holden sniffled, pointing an accusational finger at the Specialist.
"What happened to 'being unashamed of admitting that you love babying me', huh?" Jeremy sat next to her on the bed, wrapping his arms around the brunette to warm her up.
"I do love babying you, I just don't like suffering for it later." Emmalin sneezed.
"Well lucky for you, I made soup." Jeremy said proudly, happy to cook something for her rather than the other way around. He was pretty pathetic at cooking. Jeremy had practically gotten kicked out of HomeEd in high school for lack of teach-ability.
"You made it?" the Hockey player raised one eyebrow nervously. She loved Jeremy, more than anything, but if she ate his "cooking" as he liked to call it then she knew there'd be painful consequences later…probably in the form of food poisoning.
"Made as in, opened a can and microwaved." Jeremy clarified, kissing the top of her head as he handed her the hot soup.
"Ohhh good. You already got me sick, it'd be morally wrong to give me food poisoning too." Emmalin sighed and eased into her boyfriend's warm arms, finally feeling comfortable. God, she wished he could've skipped PT today and stayed with her.
"Yeah I figured I'd baby you to the best of my abilities." Jeremy laughed.
"You know…when I babied you I wore a naughty nurses outfit. Where's your uniform, Nurse Sherwood?" Emmalin asked. She put on "the works" for him, he practically owed her the same since he was the reason she was sick. She wanted him out of those jeans and into a sexy outfit NOW.
"Please, I think we both know that I couldn't get my ass in that tight spandex dress of your's even if I wanted too." Jeremy laughed again, smoothing Emmalin's hair out of her face as she finished her soup.
So he wasn't exactly a "domestic goddess" in a naughty nurse's outfit, he didn't food poison her so that counted for something, right?
