Grace and Maureen were almost finished their morning rounds, overseeing their patients' breakfasts and making sure everyone had taken their a. m. medications. As they approached the last patient room, Maureen steeled herself and in a low voice said to Grace,
"I hope Albert's better today. The last two mornings have been brutal."
Grace sympathised, "His dementia's really taken hold hasn't it?"
"Poor guy. Couple months ago he couldn't get enough of teasing you about your Dr. Reid. And now he doesn't recognise us as his nurses sometimes. He even called LaMarr 'Stewart', thinking that LaMarr was his son."
Grace shook her head sadly. It worried her that Diana Reid would someday be in the same predicament. Spencer's mother did have her bad days; she had on several occasions not recognised Iris or Maureen as her nurses and she'd stared blankly at Grace and at her own son, not knowing who they were. But most days, Grace thought thankfully, Diana was quite sharp and her intelligence was quite evident. Her eyes met Maureen's and they pasted smiles on their faces and opened Albert's door.
"Good morning Albert! How are you today?" Maureen asked as she approached his bed. He glared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing.
"Oh, I'm just fine! For someone you had to wake up at this ungodly hour!" he said in a teasing voice, but with an undertone of seriousness.
Maureen clucked her tongue and scolded him gently, "Well if you'd go to bed before 11 like everyone else does, Albert, we wouldn't have to wake you up at the—" she paused to check the clock and pointed out the time before finishing in a purposely overly dramatic fashion, "ungodly hour of ten a. m." She turned to Grace and said, "Maybe we should let him sleep until noon. Then we won't even have to give him breakfast, he can lose a meal every day and just start with lunch. What do you think?" She turned her head so Albert couldn't see and winked at Grace.
Grace laughed and answered, "Well, Admin was looking to cut the budgetary spending—"
"Now wait just a minute, girls" Albert sputtered and hurried to climb out of bed. Instantly, Maureen and Grace moved to help him and all three of them laughed. He managed to dress himself with very little help. His fine motor skills had deteriorated and small things like buttons on a shirt, or tying his shoelaces were beyond his capability anymore. The last two times Albert had shaven, he'd managed to cut himself and Maureen was no longer going to allow him to carry out this task himself. He'd accepted this measure reluctantly but understood the reasoning and he and Maureen made a game of it now. Maureen would pretend to operate a barbershop and treat Albert like a paying customer. He even called her Paul, which, after some careful questioning, Maureen determined was the name of the barber Albert had patronised for years as a young man.
Grace was impressed as she watched the two of them interact. Maureen was such an empathetic nurse. Fifteen minutes later, Albert was ready to face the world at Hetherington's. He chattered obliviously as Maureen tied his shoes and then he rose from his seat and gestured towards the door.
"I'm ready to go charm all the ladies," he announced.
"Yes, you are, Albert," Maureen agreed and waved him off.
Laughing, Maureen pirouetted to meet Grace's eyes.
"And I suppose we can finally go for our lunch break," she told Grace.
Normally, Grace would frequent one of the little restaurants close by Hetherington's for her lunch break. Since Maureen had the same shift, she decided to stay and eat with her friend in the small cafeteria on site. She enjoyed the fresh air and exercise afforded by the trips out, but today, Grace was tired and feeling a little out of sorts. They chose soup and sandwiches and made their way to a small table. Half an hour later, Maureen rose and explained that she wanted to get started on the afternoon rounds. Grace was scheduled to look after the residents in the games room that afternoon so they parted ways. Maureen hurried away. Grace took her iPhone out of her pocket and caught up on her text messages.
She was a little disappointed to find that Spencer hadn't replied to the text she'd sent him earlier. It was entirely possible he hadn't even seen it yet, she conceded as she swiped through the other messages. There were four from Penelope and Grace smiled as she opened the first one and found a video of a baby elephant taking its first steps under the careful watch of its mother. The second and third messages were also of cute animals: a penguin sliding along the ice and a puppy captioned 'Newbie's friend's doggy Lou!'
Grace shook her head. Poor Alvez, she thought. Over a year on team already and still being called newbie. Garcia's just overcompensating and oh— She rose from her chair and hurried to the bathroom and managed to make it to a cubicle in time to throw up her lunch.
A few minutes later, feeling better, she soaked some paper towels and wet her face. Patting it dry with some more paper towels, she scolded her image in the mirror. "That's like, the third time in your life you've had tomato soup. And all three times, it's disagreed with you in this manner. Think there might be something to that?! No more second chances!"
Resolving never to consume tomato soup again, Grace rummaged through her purse for cosmetics and reapplied lipstick and powder. Shoving the makeup back into her purse, she took the iPhone out and thumbed it back to life to read the last message from Garcia.
Heads up. Case concluded. BoyWonder & team s/b back 2nite.
Tomato soup and vomiting forgotten, a smile lit up Grace's face and she quickly sent Garcia a thank you text and resumed her workday. Feeling out of sorts was instantly forgotten, knowing that Spencer would be home tonight and they'd be together for the first time in almost four days. She fairly glowed with happy anticipation at the prospect of holding her love in her arms as they slept that night. Instead of dreading the rest of the day at work and what would have been the lonely night at home, Grace happily made her way down to the patients' game room to oversee the afternoon's Scrabble matches.
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Instead of getting off at his usual subway stop by his apartment, Spencer rode further until he reached his first destination and debarked the train at the downtown Gallery Place mall. He had a number of errands to run, and quickly made his purchases at several different shops in the mall before returning to the station and taking another train to his next intended destination.
As he made his way through the Lush store, he paused to peruse the array of soaps and bathing cosmetics, carefully reading the ingredients and inhaling the various scents until he found the one he wanted. Milky Bath he committed to memory and picked out several of them. Taking his selection to the cashier, he quickly paid for them and made his way to his next stop.
An hour later, heavily laden down with packages, Spencer arrived at Grace's apartment building and used the access key card she'd given him for the first time. The door opened easily and he made his way to the elevator.
Despite the fact that they'd been a couple for several months now, Spencer felt just the slightest bit nervous about letting himself into her apartment unannounced. Closing her door behind him, he made his way into the kitchen and set the packages down on the counter before returning to the front hall and removing his shoes and new overcoat. He laughed as he hung the coat up in the closet, right next to the one it was replacing. Nervousness left him and he settled in with a new resolve.
Grace's text message had indicated she'd worked four consecutive twelve-hour days. And that she missed him. I can relate to that, he thought with a smile. He missed her too. According to her text, she'd gone in for seven o'clock this morning and would be finished work at seven that evening. He looked at the clock in the kitchen as he put away some of the groceries he'd picked up. It was just after four p.m. He had about three hours, he figured, to get his plans all in order.
Spencer took the Lush bag to the bathroom and realised he'd forgotten something.
"Dammit!" he exclaimed as he hurried back to the kitchen and made sure everything that needed refrigeration was put away before he grabbed the apartment keys and his wallet and rushed out. Fifteen minutes later, he returned to Grace's apartment with an armful of flowers. He set those down on the coffee table in the living room and hurried back into the kitchen to get to work.
Just after six p.m. he put his finished dessert tray in the refrigerator and set to work on another course. Relatively unfamiliar with anything more than just basic cooking, Reid's progress was slow and cumbersome, but eventually he managed to secure a dozen slices of bacon around a dozen scallops and laid those out on an oiled cookie sheet. He took a bakery box from the refrigerator and removed the tiny spinach quiches from within, laying them out on another cookie sheet.
After a quick investigation of several kitchen cupboards, Spencer found a suitable dish and set about arranging the raw vegetables he'd cleaned and cut. He spooned ranch dip into a tiny glass bowl and placed that in the centre of the larger dish then set that back in the refrigerator.
The flowers he'd put down on the coffee table earlier caught his eye and he realised he was working against the clock now. Hastily, he scooped up the flowers and put that part of his plan in motion. It was almost seven p.m. when he realised he wasn't ready and he hurried into the bathroom to shower and shave.
He ran naked into the kitchen to make sure he'd prepared everything and stopped short at the entrance. The room was an unmitigated disaster. There were dirty dishes and pots and pans everywhere. Every centimetre of counter space was covered with something: dishes, vegetable peels, packaging from the various food items.
"Oh no," he realised there was no way he'd have time to clean this mess up before Grace got home. He had to hope she'd have no reason to go into the kitchen and a thought occurred to him.
He raced back into the bathroom, picked up all his clothes that he'd just dropped on the floor in his hurry to shower and brought them back into the front hallway. Piling them neatly on the floor right next to the door, he hoped she'd get the hint. As he surveyed the floor, he was pretty sure she'd get the other message he'd left and he made his way back into the bathroom to finish preparing.
The wall clock said seven-ten p.m.
At seven twenty-one p.m. the apartment door opened and Grace entered. She stepped over the pile of Spencer's clothes on the floor, smiled at the implication and then gasped.
Strewn all over the floor in front of her were hundreds of rose petals. She peered around the corner into the living room and noticed that the trail of flowers led down the small hall towards the bedroom, the way lit by a line of small scented votives. Faint music sounded from the direction of the bathroom.
Grace's heart melted as she walked carefully towards the music. All the unsettled, out of sorts feelings from earlier in the day dissipated as she stepped through the door into the bathroom and found Spencer waiting for her. He reached for her, taking her in his arms and they kissed tenderly for a long moment. She shivered as he ran his hands down her back and she snuggled closer and wound hers through his hair.
When they disengaged a few minutes later, Grace took a moment to look around and fully appreciate the lengths to which Spencer had gone. More candles than she could count were lit and placed all around the bathroom—the vanity, the edges of the tub and along the floor leading out and back to the bedroom. Red and white rose petals were everywhere and as she inhaled, she realised the bathtub was full of delicately scented white bubbles. Milky Bath she recognised her favourite Lush bath and turned to acknowledge his efforts. He was freshly showered and shaved, she noted, and wearing full-length fluffy white terrycloth robe.
"You've had four consecutive long rough days," he said, as he reached for her, and began unbuttoning her sweater. "You are going to relax, soak in the tub," he directed, drawing the garment off her shoulders and hooking it over the doorknob before turning his attention to her scrubs. She tried to play with the part of his chest that peeked out from between the lapels of his bathrobe, but he thwarted her attempts and she abandoned that plan and instead helped him facilitate her own disrobing. After she stepped out of her scrub pants and underwear, he steadied her with one hand as she stepped into the tubful of bubbles and sat down.
"I'll be right back," he promised, as he took all her work clothes and disappeared, closing the bathroom door behind him. Grace looked up and saw an identical bathrobe to the one Spencer was wearing hanging on one of the two hooks on the back of the door. She dipped her hands into the bathwater and brought up an enormous pile of the suds. A thought crossed her mind and she smiled, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she did so.
The bathroom door opened and Spencer reappeared, bearing a wine glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Before he could say anything, Grace held up her hands and blew on the suds. In an instant, Spencer was covered in bubbles, and Grace was laughing heartily.
Chuckling, Spencer knelt beside the tub and handed Grace the wine glass. She held it in place as he opened the bottle and noticed that he'd forgone the usual red wine she drank and favoured her with bubbly Henkell Trocken. The cork popped and sailed through the air, eventually landing in the bathwater causing Grace to break into a fresh bout of laughter. Spencer was wiping bath bubbles off his head and shoulders and flicked a few of the suds back at Grace.
"Good, you're relaxing," Spencer observed as he poured the bubbly champagne into her glass and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "I'm going to leave you here for a couple of minutes. I have dinner cooking—" he started.
"Oh my goodness, Spence. You made dinner?" Grace was pleasantly surprised. While he was by no means helpless in the kitchen, Grace hadn't witnessed him do much more than scramble eggs and make toast in the months they'd known each other. They'd done some baking together—she smiled at that recollection—but she'd never seen him put together an entire meal on his own. Although, she reasoned, logic dictated that he must have at least some experience cooking, given he'd been responsible for himself and his ill mother most of his life.
He grimaced and confessed, "Mostly I'm just heating up already made components."
He set the bottle down on the vanity and told her he'd be back with their dinner in a few minutes. Grace leaned against the back of the tub and allowed herself to fully relax in the fragrant bath bubbles. She heard the clattering of dishes from the kitchen as she sipped her champagne in the tranquility of her bath. She took several deep breaths and sighed, letting the stress and tension of the day slide away.
"Dammit!" sounded from the kitchen, shattering her peace. The silence following his outburst worried her.
"Spence?" she called. She set the glass down on the edge of the tub and stood up. "Oh no," she muttered, not liking this sound of silence.