Chapter 34
A nice hot, steamy bath, a cup of hot tea with honey, no less than 3 humidifiers for her room and two trips to the all night pharmacy later, Sam and Freddie were sitting on the sofa while Alex slept peacefully in her bed.
"I guess all we can do now is wait." Sam sighed.
"Yeah. We've done all we can do except let nature take its course." He agreed. "You know, I should be exhausted, but I can't sleep. Even though it's almost eleven. And I've got a lot of work to do in the office tomorrow."
Sam nodded. "I know I'm not sleepy. How about a couple of those cheezy old horror movies from the 80's we used to watch when we were kids?"
"Don't you have to get up for work? You've got to be in at what, seven thirty? At least I don't start until 9."
"I should be OK to get up, Mama can live with a couple hours sleep. And if I can't, I can call off. My boss is cool. As long as I make up the time, she's alright with it. Now, what do you say? Go zap some popcorn and I'll try to find something to watch on in-demand."
The two drifted off to sleep at nearly one in the morning, sitting on the Bensons' sofa, all propped into one another just like they did when they were 16.
Freddie roused first, which caused Sam to sit up a few hours later. She had been propped into his shoulder which was all wet from her sleep drooling. "Oh, uh, sorry dude." She pointed at him. "I guess I was more tired than I thought."
"Well, at least we both got some rest." He stretched. "Chiz, it's almost 4 a.m. Guess it's time to go to bed. Goodnight, Sam." He said as he headed back the hallway. "Can you make sure the door's locked when you leave, please?"
The blonde simply stretched out on the sofa. "Turn off the lights, dork brain. Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Aren't you going home? Carly will freak if she gets up and you're gone."
"Meh, she'll live. Goodnight, Fredward." Sam grunted and buried her head into the throw pillows.
Sure enough at half past six, Sam's alarm clock started and woke Carly as always. She knocked on Sam's bedroom door after a few minutes. "Wake up, Sam. Shut your clock off." Sam was a notoriously sound sleeper and she needed an extra loud clock, on the opposite side of the room, to wake her and get her feet on the floor.
A minute later, after a bathroom stop. "Sam. Come on! Not that I don't thoroughly enjoy listening to the 1812 overture at full volume before sunrise, get up and turn it off!"
Still no response after another thirty or forty seconds. "Sam!" Carly flung open the door to see the crumpled mess that was Sam's bed, all twisted and piled up, with no blonde in it. "OMG! She spent the night at Freddie's!" Carly screeched to herself. This could be good or bad, depending on exactly what spending the night entailed.
Less than a minute later, still in her own night clothes, Carly grabbed the Bensons' door knob and marched inside. Thank goodness no one locked it or she would have injured her wrist. There she saw Sam curled in a ball, still fully dressed lying on the very uncomfortable looking couch. "Sam!" The young woman yelled.
The blonde managed to rouse herself and sat up, stretch and greeted her friend. "Hey, Carls. Ya miss me or something?"
"What the fudge are you doing here?" Carly questioned.
"Duh, sleeping." Sam cracked. "What else do people do at . . . what time is it anyway?" She groped around on the coffee table for her phone. "Six thirty-eight a.m."
"Why are you here? Are you and Freddie? Did you guys . . . "
"Ugh! Relax, woman." Sam rolled her eyes. "Do you see Freddie? My niece is sick, I stuck around to see if there was anything I could help with. Freddie's in his own room, before you say anything more. Where he was all night. And I wasn't." She neglected to mention their napping on the couch together earlier.
"How's Alex feeling?" Carly asked.
"Well, last I heard she was sleeping peacefully with enough humidity in the air to rival the Amazon rain forest but then again I was asleep like a normal person for the last few hours. I didn't hear him up with her on anything."
"Oh, thank goodness." Carly sighed. "Say, if you're going to work today you'd better get your butt upstairs and get ready to go. Didn't you say you were starting early this week?"
"Yes, mother." Sam smirked. "Can't be late for school, mother."
"Don't be a wise cracker." Carly huffed. "Did you want to check on Alex?"
"It's pretty early and he doesn't have to start as early as I do, I guess I'll text Freddie after bit and see how she's getting along."
The girls left the Bensons' apartment and returned to their own place to get ready for the day. Alex got up and was well enough for school so Freddie took her on schedule.
Several calls and texts were exchanged between the two throughout the day with updates on the child. No news was good news and by 2:30 Freddie was preparing to leave work to pick her up when Sam called him.
"Hey, Fredweenie. Looks like she's going to get through the day." Sam cracked.
"I think we might have dodged a bullet, Sam." He sighed.
"How's about some beef stir fry tonight? Carly picked up a whole mess of those sweet snow pea pods and some of those little dwarf corn ears."
"Sounds good. I could grab a couple containers of that special chicken soup from Chef Wongs on the way home from picking Alex up."
"Good idea. And if you're stopping for Chinese, don't forget a dozen or so of those pot stickers they make." Sam suggested. "And something for yourself and Carly too."
He chuckled at her suggestion. "Alright, Sam. See you about six then?"
"Later, loser." Sam teased, hung up and got back to work.
The evening was spent in Carly and Sam's apartment. In lieu of a stop to visit her, Freddie called his mother for a quick video chat while Sam put together their dinner. He didn't dare mention the little girl's sniffles. Nor did he mention the idea that Sam spent the night in their apartment.
By the time they were done eating, he knew it was soon time for Melanie to call Alex. He had to admit that it was amazing how she never missed an evening.
"We're gonna head down for her mom's video call." He told his two friends. "Sam, you coming down after while?"
"Yeah. I'll be down after I help Carly clean up and grab a shower. Don't let Alex go to bed without me saying goodnight."
By the child's bedtime, Sam had arrived in her own night clothes-a baggy t shirt and sweat pants, hair still damp and strolled right in to help get her ready for bed.
"Aunt Sam. You're here." Alex called.
"Wouldn't miss it, kiddo." Sam replied and bent down to give the little girl a hug. "You get some rest so you can feel better soon, ok?"
"OK. Goodnight." The child responded and snuggled under her covers.
After setting all the humidifiers and tucking his daughter in, Freddie went out to the living room to find Sam sitting cross legged on the couch, trying to find something on TV.
"Your mom still have all the good channels blocked?"
"No. There's just nothing on." He smirked and flopped down beside her. "I am so tired, I don't even care. And I have to go in for meetings all day tomorrow. You see we're working on this new app for the next generation of Pear Phones that uses the camera to . . . "
"Hey, Freddie." Sam interrupted him.
"What?"
"I don't care." She cracked. "You know, your life was less tiring when you were just a grunt working from home."
"Yep. And a grunt working from home makes half what I do. So, if I want to be able to send Alex to college in twelve years, I need to take whatever they throw at me."
Sam sighed inwardly. Sure, she wasn't rolling in money but she knew he had a lot more responsibility than she did. If her sister would only contribute to their marriage, maybe he wouldn't have to worry about where his daughter's college money would come from. History was certainly repeating itself. Only difference was, Pam could have cared less whether her kids got an education and apparently her dad did contribute toward Melanie's at some point.
"I guess I should head home. You've got a long day coming up, you should get some rest."
"No. Stay. Just for a little while, I mean."
"Well, you know I wasn't really here to see you to begin with." She teased.
"I know. But stay for a little bit anyway. I think there's still some of that Butter Brickle ice cream in the freezer from the weekend."
"What are you having?" Sam smirked and jumped up. "'Cause that is mama's."
He just chuckled. "I think with all you've been doing for us, I should do something better than ice cream for you. How about instead of you cooking Saturday, I take you for dinner. Something nice? Not out of a paper bag or foam box."
Without even considering that he was asking her out, Sam agreed. "Since you're paying, how about Dead Lobster? Oh, and we need to bring something back for Carly. She's been lamenting for their cheesy biscuits for a month now."
"I could handle some Dead Lobster." He replied. "Maybe we can get Carly and Spencer to hang out with Alex if we agree to bring them some takeout."
Suddenly, she realized what he was proposing and turned to him. "Wait. Dude! Are you asking me out?"
He stumbled over his words. "Well, uh, no, not, um, like out - out, I just, well, I doubt if Alex would enjoy anything at Dead Lobster."
"Oh. OK then. Because I am not in if you think this a date or some chiz."
"Not really. I mean, we hung out and did stuff before and after we dated when we were kids, right? And we hung out and went out to eat and stuff that time I came to L.A. because your room mate called and told me you got hurt. It wasn't a date then, was it? We're just two friends going out to dinner."
"Two friends who are now brother and sister in law." She reminded him.
"Yeah, that too."
"Because you are married. To my annoying sister."
"That's true." He agreed.
"So we aren't going out on some date?"
"Nope." He shook his head.
"That's good." She nodded. "Because I don't go out with nubs."
Of course, neither of them truly felt that way, but only agreed to this term to placate the other.
Their temporary measures had the little girl feeling better again when she got up. She got ready for the day like normal and Freddie dropped her off in front of the school building right on schedule as always. He pulled into a parking space at work quickly to send Sam a message telling her that everything was alright.
He then hurried to his office to begin a long day of meetings and reviewing software code that his team had been working on for weeks. He was just glad his daughter was able to go to school because he knew he needed to spend a full day at work.
Unfortunately by the middle of the day, the virus had time to really set in and the little girl took a turn for the worse. She got sick right after lunch and ended up in the nurse's office. With a fever just past the border line that required a student to go home, the school nurse called Freddie.
"Mr. Benson, this is nurse Kathleen from the school. I have Alexandra here with me and I'm afraid she's running a bit of a fever and will need to go home."
"Oh gosh, I'm kinda stuck at work. Um, but I can maybe get someone to pick her up." He fussed. Maybe he could reach Spencer and ask him to stop over. "I'll see if I can reach our neighbor."
"According to her record the only person authorized to pick her up other than a parent is your mother, Marissa Benson."
"That's not going to be possible, she's laid up with a bad back. How about my friend Carly."
"Afraid not, sir. For security, the only person who can legally sign her out is a parent or other emergency contact. If you can't come in is her mother available?"
"No. She's not even in the sta . . ." Suddenly he was hit with an idea. "Let me see if I can reach her. Tell Alex one of us will be in to pick her up as soon as we can. Thank you for letting me know."
This was going to require a lot of sweet talk and he knew he would pay big time for it. He excused himself from the room his team was working in and made a call.
"Yo, Frednub." Sam answered. "How's it hanging? Any word on Alex?"
"Uh, yeah, about that. Alex got sick at school. She needs to come home."
"Aw, man. What did they feed her at lunchtime. I know school cafeteria food isn't anything to brag about but it's not supposed to make the kids sick."
"I'm sure it's because of whatever's in her system, not the food. Which leads me to why I'm calling. I'm kind of stuck in a meeting. I was wondering if you could maybe . . ."
"Really? You can't tear yourself away from your work and you want me to skip out on my job? I don't mind helping but that's kind of being disrespectful to mama here, Fredlumps."
"No, I mean, yeah. I would go if I could but, aw man, I just started this session and I can't leave. I might even have to work late. I asked Spence to get Alex after school and keep her till I got home. I've already postponed this project session twice. I'm up against a deadline. You're the only one I can count on. And trust. Please, Sam."
"What about Carls? Or Spencer? Or even, as much as this pains me to suggest this, Pam?"
"They're not on her emergency contact list. Only her parents and my mom can pick her up."
"So why call me then? If I'm not on the list, you can't get away and obviously your mom's not going, just sounds like you need to change the list."
Freddie was silent.
"Oh my God! You want me to lie to the school nurse?"
"Wellll. Just once." He begged. "And I wouldn't really call it a lie, more of just not fully disclosing your true identity."
"I know what you're thinking and no. Just no. I am not going to pretend to be Melanie. You know I would do darn near anything for that kid but this is over the line, Fred spank."
