A/N: This is going to be more loosely connected snippets than a tight, structured, one chapter flows into the next story, and because of that, the chapters will be quite a bit shorter than my usual chapters are.
It was early Monday morning, Penelope Garcia was watching the local news as she munched on toast with raspberry jam. It was five-forty-five in the morning, at six o'clock, when the news ended, she would be leaving for work. She ate in silence, while her cat, Sergio, sat in his favorite spot on the windowsill in the kitchen. Normally, she would've been chatting away with him about what they were seeing on the news, but this morning she felt an odd soreness in her throat whenever she tried to talk. It was as though it had been burned on the inside out, but that couldn't be right, unless…
No…no, that is not happening… the team needs me. I don't have time to be sick… she thought, turning her attention back to the news.
"In other news, DC is currently in the grips of the worst flu epidemic we've seen in the last fifty years and as the number of new cases per week continues to climb, it's obvious we still haven't seen the peak of this year's flu season. CDC officials warn that this year's strain is extremely contagious and are advising residents displaying symptoms to stay home."
Garcia turned the TV off and sighed, carrying her plate over to the sink. She was surprised to find that there was a tightness in her chest as she did so, it hurt more than she realized to take large amounts of air down her increasingly sore throat, and it made her cough.
She looked up to find Sergio staring at her with his large, yellow-green eyes. His long black tail twitched back and forth ambivalently.
"I know what you're thinking, you little rascal. I'm fine. Probably just allergies or a twenty-four-hour bug, you'll see… there's no way this is the flu…" She said quietly as she stroked his sleek black fur and listened to him purring back at her.
She said the words, but there was a small part of her that didn't believe it. Before she left for work, she took the time to swallow a dose of Dayquil and grab some cough drops, putting one in her mouth and throwing the rest in her purse. No matter what this was, cold, flu, or something else entirely, she wouldn't and couldn't abide it. The team needed her, she had no time to waste by being sent home.
It was a bitterly cold morning in mid-January, the wind could rip right through a person, chilling them to the bone in an instant. As Garcia pulled into the employee parking lot an hour later, she knew that she had to avoid actually being seen by the rest of the team as much as possible. So, she devised a plan in which she would make a beeline for her office and lock the door behind her. It was the only way to keep the fact that she might be coming down with something a secret. She knew exactly what would happen if the others thought she was sick, Emily would make her go home and get Kevin to do her work for her. Not that Kevin was a bad analyst, but he wasn't her.