Esposito awoke when he felt the bed shift. He glanced at the clock and saw it was just past five in the morning; his alarm would be going off for the seven to five shift soon. Reaching blindly he patted the empty space normally occupied by Meredeth, thought perhaps she'd gotten up to work on one of her articles or story arcs. It wasn't weird for her to do that when they spent the night at her place, since Artie needed to go out at random times some nights anyways, but it was out of the ordinary when she was at his place, like now.

Looking around in the near-black, he heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting coming from the bathroom. He tossed the comforter aside, padded quietly over and felt his heart break for Meredeth as he saw her kneeling on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet, her face bright red and stained with little tears.

'Mere? You okay?'

'Do I fucking look okay?' she snapped in a bitchy tone. 'I got my period in my sleep, and vomiting my internal organs is one of the lovely treats that comes with it, along with bloating, gas, and back cramps.'

'Oh.' Esposito rubbed his hand over the back of his head. 'Is there a pill for all that?'

Meredeth spat viciously into the toilet, her stomach rolling. 'I wish. I just need some rest, maybe a back-rub.'

'Well that I can take care of.'

She flushed the toilet, stuck her face under the faucet of the sink to take a drink and rinse out her mouth and let him lead her back into bed as gently as he would a shocked survivor of some disaster. She loathed when that wonderful time of the month hit; despite having prescription strength muscle relaxants, it forever made her want to punch those skinny little blondes she saw at Duane Reade's buying the travel size boxes of tampons and musing on how long it would take them to be used up - two months or three. Some months she was just a cranky bitch, others made her feel like a wobbling flabby mess with nasty bodily fluids trying to escape every orifice of her body. All she wanted was the damned thing over with.

Esposito watched her slide into the restless sleep of the not-feeling-so-hot before he stepped into his shower, the same frustration taking over as when he'd watched her first session with her hypnotherapist and she'd gone through a simulated night terror. He needed to fix it; seeing her in distress brought out that basic need in him. And despite having grown up with a younger sister, he knew almost nothing about how to make a PMSing female feel better. Most of his ex-girlfriends had just made him stay away for a few days because they weren't willing to let themselves be seen as anything less than magazine-model perfect.

After dressing, Meredeth zonked out cold in the bed and hugging one of his goose-down pillows as he did so, he wandered into the kitchen to make his morning coffee. While he waited for it to finish dripping in the maker, the kettle to finish boiling, he examined the contents of his fridge. Not much in there someone who sounded like they were throwing up their stomach lining would like to eat or drink. A quick examination of the freezer gave him the same message.

Sighing, he went to the cupboard and got out the box of tea his non-coffee-drinking girlfriend liked and fixed her a cup. When he took it into his room, he saw she'd stripped off her shirt and was lying sprawled on her back in her bra and sleep pants, staring at the ceiling with a miserable expression she turned on him when she heard him enter the room. His heart broke a little that this was the same woman who just five days before had banged his brains clean out of his head in various places in her Chelsea townhouse.

'Babe, I gotta get to work,' he told her as he set the tea on the bedside table. He brushed the strands of her sweat-drenched hair off of her forehead, felt her skin burn under his touch. 'I'll call when I can.'

'Kay,' she muttered. 'Stay safe. Love you.'

'Love you too.'

The animals of New York had decided that it was far too cold to get up to any nonsense in their cages, leaving Esposito with a relatively light work day; he was able to get caught up on paperwork for the Simone Greer case, work on salient details he knew the DA's office would want when it went to trial.

Seeing no harm in a quick call, he took out his cell and dialed Meredeth's number. He was met with her voice mail.

Hey it's Meredeth, you know what to do.

'Hey, baby, it's me, just wanted to check in and see if you're feeling any better. Gimme a shout on my cell when you get this. Love you.'

'What a softie.'

Esposito glanced over his shoulder to see Castle standing there with the tell-tale take-away bag of Cubby's, the only place in the city whose sandwiches rivaled Meredeth's works of culinary art. 'My girl's home sick, I'm making sure she's okay. You don't do that for Beckett?'

'Beckett doesn't get sick. I think her white cells are reinforced with space-shuttle grade titanium and armed with laser-guns. I got you roast beast with spicy mustard on toasted rye,' he added, passing his friend a wrapped sandwich from the bag. 'Ryan, turkey-wrap, hold the tomatoes.' He tossed the other wrapped sandwich to the good Irish cop as he approached the desks.

'Chips?' Esposito asked, unwrapping the recycled paper.

'They were running low, only had salt and vinegar chips.'

'Salt and vinegar chips?'

'They're really popular up in Canada. They've also got ketchup, dill-pickle and something called all-dressed too.'

'Weird.' Esposito took a monster bite of his lunch, then rolled his eyes as his desk phone rang. 'Esposito,' he said around the mouthful of meat and bread.

'Javi?'

He snapped to attention, grabbed his coffee to wash down the bite he'd taken when he heard Meredeth's weak voice on the line. 'Hey, babe. Why are you calling my desk phone?'

'Oh, sorry. Must have hit the wrong speed dial.'

'How are you feeling?'

'Like someone reached up my ass, grabbed my small intestine and is trying to pull it back out.'

'Lovely.' Setting aside the sandwich he now had zero percent interest in eating, he shifted his phone to the other ear, turning his back on Ryan and Castle though he could still feel their eyes. 'You still yakking?'

'No. Thanks for the tea. I was actually hoping you could pick some stuff up for me on your way home.'

'Like girl things?' If she made him pick up Tampax, he'd have no leg left to stand on when he teased Ryan about Honey-Milk; all credibility as the non-whipped half of their duo would be shot to hell.

'Like food things.'

'Oh, sure.' He grabbed a notepad and motioned to Ryan for a pen, noting the barely contained grin on his partner's face. 'Hit me.'

'Ginger beer, unsalted soda crackers, Lipton chicken noodle, oh and orange juice, the kind without pulp, and some Scotch mints.'

'Scotch mints? Like those round UFO-looking kind?'

'Yeah, they help settle my stomach.'

'Okay Scotch mints it is. I'll swing by your place and take Artie out, too.' Esposito paused when he didn't hear her respond. 'Mere?'

'Sorry, Javi, I love you but I have to go hurl my guts out now.'

With that the line went dead, and Esposito hung up the phone; he waited three seconds to stuff the list into his pocket before turning back to the smug-faced men he was having lunch with. 'Alright, let me have it.'

'She got the flu?' Ryan asked, biting into his wrap and promptly spitting it back out, glaring at Castle. 'Dude, I thought I said no tomatoes.'

'No, just a girl thing.'

'Is it a morning girl thing, like when we thought Jenny had the flu before Christmas?'

'More like the complete opposite of that. Something Honey-Milk hasn't worried about since Hallowe'en.'

Ryan shifted in his chair. 'Ah. Say no more.' But he couldn't resist needling his friend. 'She ask you to stop at the drug store for some supplies, I take it?'

'Shut up and eat your tomatoes, bro.'

Lying on the couch in Esposito's living room, Meredeth knew there were times in her life when she'd felt more miserable but she was having a hard time remembering them right now. Between throwing up on an empty stomach and napping in twenty-minute blocks, she'd somehow managed to find the wits to shower and wrap herself in his bathrobe. With the movements of a drunk she'd dragged the duvet and a pillow off of his bed and out to the couch so she could prop her aching back against a hard-yet-soft surface. She'd absently surfed the channels until she happened across Teletoon's marathon of classic eighties cartoons, and tried to focus on the antics of the Muppet-Babies instead of the horror-show her reproductive system was putting on.

As the cramp hit, she closed her eyes and envisioned little Gremlins gnawing away on her ovaries like they were turkey-jerky. A whimper escaped her mouth, as she cursed the fools who'd yet to invent an over-the-counter injection of liquid Midol. There was a catch-22 for the ladies - the medication was meant to prevent nausea, but how could it work if the nausea it was meant to soothe kept ejecting it from the consumer's stomach via projectile vomiting?

Groaning, she shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She wanted her Javi, not just so he would hold her hair back but so he could get there with the delicious bitter fizz of ginger beer and the bland cracker she hoped would sop up some of the acid her stomach continued to churn out.

Her eyes had just begun to sink shut when she heard the front door open and close, the soft thump-thump as he kicked off his winter-shoes, the rustle of the plastic grocery bags.

'Hey baby,' she mumbled from her spot on the couch.

Esposito looked over to the couch, saw her under his duvet and felt his heart sink a little. She always looked so young whenever she was sick, far too similar to when she'd woken up from her night terrors for his comfort. Though she hadn't had a single one since starting therapy back in December, they were still too fresh in his mind for him not to make the association. Crossing over to her, he crouched so he was at her eye level. 'Hello, my love.'

'I feel like death warmed over.'

She looked it, too, with her pale cheeks and glassy eyes, but as Esposito liked his skin on his bones he knew better than to agree with her out loud. Instead he kissed her forehead. 'You feel like something to eat yet?'

'Maybe some crackers and the ginger ale.'

'Actually, I got you this.' He went to the bag and pulled out a six back of Brewster's Jamaican ginger beer. 'Guy at the store said if you've got an upset stomach this is better than ginger ale because there's less sugar and more ginger.'

'Okay.'

Esposito went to the kitchen, yawned as he pulled a glass out and cracked the bottle open. He sniffed and nearly gagged himself; it smelled like the pickled ginger Meredeth ate when they went out for sushi, the crunchy pink stuff he couldn't stand. Still when he brought her the glass and she sighed contentedly at the taste, he knew he'd done good. He set a plate of soda crackers on the table for her, then picking up her legs by the ankles, he sat on the couch and dropped her feet into his lap. 'What are we watching?'

'Teletoon's eighties day marathon. I don't care what you say, I'm thirty-one years old, I have a masters in film history and I watch Inspector Gadget and the Muppet Babies when I'm sick because that's what makes me feel better.'

She waited for the patient, if slightly condescending, 'whatever you want dear' but it didn't come. Instead he snagged one of her crackers off the plate and said, 'I always like the one where Fozzie goes to the dentist. The dentist always freaked me out when I was a kid. Watching it when I was baby-sitting Lili made me feel better.'

'My favourite's the one with their own version of Star Wars. That's what got me hooked on the movies.'

'Really?' Esposito shifted, rubbed his hand unconsciously over the top of her foot. 'I was like that with Ghostbusters. Gimme the remote, I wanna see if they're on the marathon later.'

Meredeth sighed as she watched him scan the on-screen guide, felt his touch on her foot. What a guy, she thought,he'd already worked a ten-hour day and he'd picked up her list of groceries without a quibble, looked after her dog and returned home to take care of her. How she'd gotten so lucky was a puzzle to her she planned to spend a long time unraveling.

'Love you, Javi,' she murmured as she felt herself drift out again. She was already asleep before she could see him smile, shake his head and say it back to her.

R&R&Enjoy!