So I pretty much hate this, but it's written and it's typed which is a miracle when it comes to me, so I figured I might as well post it.
Migraine
Miranda looked up when she heard movement in the door of her study and was on her feet and at her lovers side the minute she took in the younger woman's pale face and tense shoulders.
"Darling?" she said gently, reaching up to stroke the brunettes cheek, "Are you ok?"
"Migraine," the younger woman mumbled and Miranda slipped her arm around her shoulder and immediately led her away from the study and towards the bedroom, most of Andrea's weight leant into her body. The other woman had only had one other migraine in the time that they had been together and on that occasion Miranda had come home to find her curled up on the floor of the en suite sleeping having spent an hour throwing up the content of her stomach. Having never had more than a tension headache herself Miranda had no way to know exactly what Andrea was going through, but seeing how pale and weak she had been had broken her heart. She'd done some research since and now had a whole arsenal of things up her sleeve to try and make that time around more comfortable for her love.
Depositing Andrea carefully on the bed Miranda flitted around the room, grabbing comfortable PJ's, painkillers and a glass of water as well as pulling the heavy curtains closed to block out the late afternoon sun. Leaving the items she had collected on the bedside table she turned again to Andrea to find that she had barely moved. Crouching down in front of her she stroked the woman's cheek and brushed her hair behind her ear,
"How long?" she asked quietly, slipping of Andrea's shoes
"About lunch time but I was working to a deadline, I thought I could get finished up before it got too bad."
"Tell me you didn't get the subway home?" she said as she continued to divest the brunette of her clothes and reached for the PJ's, helping her into them.
"No, no I got a cab." Andrea sighed, pulling her hair up into a lose twist as she carefully maneuvered her body to help Miranda without jostling her head too much.
"You should have called darling, I could have sent Roy to get you." Getting to her feet Miranda quickly changed into her own lounge wear then handed the water and the pain pills to Andrea, "Take these and drink this, I'll be back in a moment."
She returned with her mobile and the book to find that Andrea had done as she was told but hadn't moved much further simply sitting with her eyes closed and breathing steadily. Dropping her things onto her bedside table she carefully pulled Andrea to her feet and pulled back the covers, sliding into the bed and getting herself situated against the headboard. Patting the mattress between her thighs, she reached out to tug the younger woman to her. It said something perhaps about how awful Andrea felt that she did not resist or argue, simply crawled into the space, bracketed by Miranda's thighs and curled up against her body, twitching the blanket over both of them Miranda began to rhythmically stroke Andrea's head and back.
"Close your eyes darling, get some sleep."
"Will you read to me?" she mumbled, her eyes already slipping closed and Miranda smiled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before reaching out to pull a thin volume of poetry from her bedside table, juggling it open with one hand, the other continuing to run soothingly over the younger woman's back as she read. It wasn't long before the brunette fell asleep but Miranda kept up her actions and her reading. She had brought the book with the intention of working on it once Andrea had fallen asleep but she found she really didn't want to and so she continued to read, her young love curled against her chest snoring lightly. The Book and Runway could wait a few hours, some things were simply more important.
Hangover (because it's a type of sick)
Miranda rolled over and cracked her eyes open at the sound of retching coming from the en suite. With a sigh, she pushed herself upright and cast a glance at the clock, 6:30am on her first free Sunday in weeks. Brilliant. She briefly considered pulling the duvet up over her head and going back to sleep, this was self inflicted after all, but the part of her that knew how pathetic Andrea looked when she was ill couldn't ignore her other half's plight. Rolling out of bed she pulled on her robe and padded to the en suit, grabbing a hair elastic from Andrea's side of the bed as she went.
"I'm ok, you can go back to bed." Andrea groaned from where she was lying on the cool tiles, she looked positively green.
"Don't be ridiculous, you've woken me, now you'll deal with me." Miranda snapped, she may have chosen to get out of bed but that didn't mean that she couldn't make Andrea suffer a little for it. Pouring a glass of water she put it on the floor beside the woman's head and riffled through the cabinet for some pain pills, making as much noise as she could.
"Miranda please." Andrea groaned from her prone position, "I know you're angry but please, hold fire until I can defend myself."
"Oh sorry dear, am I making your headache worse?" Miranda snarked, dropping the Tylenol box an inch from the brunettes nose before lowering herself gracefully to the floor beside her.
"Have I mentioned lately that I hate you?"
"Not this week sweetheart." she smiled, brushing the hair from the brunettes face, "And I know you only hate me when you are hungover."
"Only because you are so smug." Andrea murmured, rolling onto her back with a groan, "What time is it?"
"About quarter to seven." she said lightly, trying to keep the annoyance from her face as she stroked her fingers through brunette locks,
"Oh shit Miranda, I'm sorry. Go back to bed, honestly I'm ok."
"Not without you, do you think you're done being sick?"
"Yeah I think so," Andrea nodded, beginning to push herself upright and groaning as the room swam, "I might need help up of the floor." Miranda chuckled lightly and pushed herself up, holding out her hand for the younger woman to take and bringing her slowly to her feet. She pulled her into a hug and kissed her temple before leading the way back to the bed.
The next time she woke it was to a weight impacting on her stomach and a pathetic whimper from the bed beside her. Cracking her eyes open she smiled up at the red head looking down at her and reached up to brush unruly hair away from their youngest daughters face.
"Morning sweetheart," she smiled and the little girl nuzzled at her face with a grin
"Katy honey, can you take your knees out of mummy's tummy?" Andrea asked quietly but Miranda could hear the quaver in her wife's voice, her sympathy for the brunette only growing when their daughter pushed herself up onto her knees instead. She was very impressed that her young wife managed to refrain from swearing at the action, but from the look on her face and the way it greyed she was too focused on not throwing up for her to process any kind of verbal reaction. Jumping to action she pulled herself up and simultaneously pulled the girl onto her knee.
"Why don't you and I get breakfast started, give your mummy the chance to wake up properly?"
"Pancakes!" Katy squealed and she saw Andrea wince, unable to suppress the smirk at her wife's obvious discomfort. It would serve her right for letting Nigel lead her astray!
Period Pain
"No," Andrea muttered when Miranda's alarm pierced the silence and the older woman leant over to switch it off and began to climb out of bed. She chuckled at the feel of strong arms curling round her waist and holding her back.
"Andrea darling, I need to get up for work," she said gently, landing back on the edge of the bed and twisting to regard her wife, stroking gentle fingers through her hair. She looked exhausted and Miranda wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed with her and forget about the rest of her day. "Is it a bad one?" Miranda had been relatively lucky when it came to periods, never finding them anything other than slightly uncomfortable but that meant that when she had first seen Andrea go through one of hers a few months into their relationship she'd assumed the younger woman was exaggerating. They hadn't spoken for over a week after that one and when the next month came around and Andrea seemed to breeze through it Miranda had become even more skeptical. It hadn't been until they were living together and she had whitnessed the whole process first hand that she realized that the younger woman must be a damn good actress, because she had no idea how she had managed to cover up how bad she actually got for so many months and go on like everything was fine.
"Mhm," Andrea groaned, "The worst."
"What can I do?" she asked gently, Andrea looked like she might be on the brink of tears and it pulled at her heart.
"I just need some painkillers and a heating pad." Miranda nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead before pushing herself to her feet.
"Give me a couple of minutes."
On her way downstairs, Miranda reviewed her day in her head. She couldn't do anything about her morning, Irv wouldn't budge on a board meeting but there may be something she could do about her afternoon.
When she returned home at lunch time, the board meeting having dragged on much longer than she was happy with, she dropped her things into the study on the way past and followed the sound of the TV to the entertainment room. Stopping in the doorway she took in the sight of her wife curled up on the large sofa, their daughter curled against her chest and the little girls blanket thrown haphazardly over both of them. Andrea turned away from the TV when she heard movement, a smile breaking out over her still pale face,
"You're home early," she said with a raised eyebrow as Miranda settled herself beside the younger woman as best she could without disturbing Katy.
"There wasn't much to be done and I thought I may be better appreciated at home."
"You're right, you are," Andrea sighed, shifting so her head was pressed into the older woman's side, "You're just in time for nap time."
"I see that." Miranda chuckled, running her fingers through brunette hair, "If I change do you think there's room for me?"
"Definitely," Andrea grinned and gave a nudge with her head, "Don't take too long."
When she came back wearing a soft jumper and a pair of leggings Andrea had rearranged their daughter so she was lying the length of her body leaving the rest of the sofa free for her. Picking up the throw from the back of the armchair she lay it over both of them, curling next to Andrea and tucking her arm protectively over them both.
"Feeling better?" she asked quietly, pressing a kiss to the other woman's bare shoulder
"I am now."
And 1 time Miranda was...
"Oh sweetheart, you never do anything by halves do you?" Andrea said gently, lowering herself carefully onto the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb the baby cradled in her arms. Miranda looked exhausted but at least she was awake and their was a little more colour in her face than there had been since they had wheeled her out of the maternity ward the previous evening. Exhaustion, they were saying and she wished she could be more surprised about the fact. The older woman had been working 3 times as much as normal to get all of her loose ends tied up before she took extended leave when the baby was born, as well as trying to spend as much time with the girls as she could while they were both home and looking after Andrea. The brunette had lost count of the number of times she had pleaded with the older woman to slow down only to be told to stop fussing but it had all come to a head not long after Katy had been born and Andrea had only just been cleared to visit her wife.
"What are you doing out of bed? You should be resting." the older woman's voice was rough with exhaustion but the irritation was evident in her tone
"Pot, kettle," Andrea chuckled, Miranda's glare doing nothing to temper her amusement, "Katy and I have been discharged, I popped by to see if you wanted to join us in going home but if you want me to rest I'll be going..." Miranda's hand was on her knee to hold her in place before she had even had the chance to think about moving.
"I'm sorry darling, this is just all so ridiculous and I..."
"I know," Andrea soothed, "But I've been trying to tell you for weeks that you needed to slow down and look after yourself."
"I honestly thought I was ok." Andrea could tell by the look on the woman's face that that wasn't entirely true but she would drop it for the moment.
"Any idea when they are going to let you go home?" she asked instead
"Once this bag of fluids is empty and my bloods come back," Miranda sighed, "A couple of hours?"
"Think you could tolerate some company?" there wasn't even a small part of Andrea that wanted to go home without her wife even though she knew that the girls would be there, they were supposed to take Katy home from the hospital together and she'd be dammed if she allowed anything to stop that.
"Only if you're sure you wouldn't be better off at home."
"I'm sure," Andrea smiled, just as Katy began to fuss in her arms, "Do you think there's some room up there for us? I think this little one wants to spend some time getting to know her momma."
Curled into her wife's side, watching the other woman coo and fuss over their little girl, Andrea took the first full breath she had taken since the previous evening. The circumstances weren't ideal, neither one of them at full strength and a newborn to look after hadn't been what either of them planned but they were, all three of them, ok and mostly healthy. They could over come all the other obstacles they had to face together.
"She's beautiful," Miranda murmured, stroking her finger over a tiny cheek, Andrea unable to take her eyes off her wife, while still exhausted there was a happy glow to the other woman's face and she was as beautiful as the little girl she was holding.
"She is, and she's going to need her momma to teach her all of the ways of the world, not to mention fashion, she's going to need you healthy for that which means you need to start looking after yourself."
"I know," Miranda sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of Andrea's head, "I'm sorry that this happened and I promise to do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen again. I might need your help every now and again though, both of you."