High on...
Chapter 2. ...Lucy

"So you don't remember anything at all?"

Isobel took a sip of her coffee and made an appreciative gesture. Jubal had made sure to prepare it exactly the way she liked it.

"I don't remember anything, no," Isobel replied and continued reviewing the report on the screen.

They were in her office, Jubal sitting in one of the visiting chairs. She had been on medical leave for a week because of her surgery and returned that same day. The morning was quiet at the moment and he had brought coffee for the both of them.

"Sure..." said Jubal sardonically. "Well, the slightly anesthetized version of Isobel said some very interesting things."

"Oh, is that so?" she replied absentmindedly, concentrating on the report. She typed in some notes. "Like what?"

"Apparently, she thinks I'm 'very handsome'," he boasted.

She paused and raised an eyebrow dismissively. "I don't remember saying anything like that."

As Isobel continued typing, Jubal leaned forward, looking at her with exaggerated suspicion. "Are you sure?"

"Completely."

Isobel did a good job hiding a smile, but not so good it escaped Jubal's observation skills. She's lying, he thought amused.

"Well, you said it."

"Do you have witnesses?"

And she knows that I know it. "No, I don't."

"Pity."

"Damn. I should have recorded it. But it doesn't matter, because..."

Jubal considered whether to mention also the kiss she had asked him. But in the end, he didn't dare. He wanted to joke around a little, not to embarrass Isobel for real.

"Because what?" she asked, but still with her indifferent tone.

He was slow to answer because he was drinking from his coffee cup. "Because it does not change the facts."

"What facts?" Isobel asked, looking at him over her glasses.

"That you think I'm very handsome," Jubal stated, leaving the cup on the table and leaning back with mock presumption.

The smile ended up escaping Isobel. "Ah-ah. No comment." She turned back to the screen.

"The point is, Isobel, outgoing anesthesia people have no filter, they just say what's on their mind."

"Or in their imagination. Who knows what I was seeing...?"

Jubal chuckled.

"Come on, admit it. You can't deny it," he said, opening both hands with bright eyes, and making one of his head gestures. "It would be missing the truth."

Isobel paused and seemed to reflect. But she did not answer. She just glanced sideways and gave him an enigmatic half-smile, doing one of those slow blinks which always quickened his pulse before returning to her business.

Silence means agreement, Jubal thought, secretly pleased.

He was going to push a little harder, just for fun of course, but Isobel's cell phone announced an incoming text message.

"We have a hostage situation in a restaurant," Isobel read gravely.

·~·~·

Sleep weighed down Isobel's consciousness and eyelids so heavily when she looked at her laptop screen, she had trouble distinguishing who was standing at her front door.

That night, Isobel had gone to bed early, feeling she needed rest after the last few exceptionally hard days of work. But when she was already under the covers, she had found it extremely difficult to fall asleep. It was a quarter to one the last time she looked at the clock. When she heard the doorbell, not even an hour and a half passed since.

It was Saturday night. Instead of going downstairs, Isobel had preferred to look at the image from her security camera on her laptop, in case it was a group of revelers knocking just for a laugh.

Jubal.

At first, her brain refused to recognize it was her ASAC ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night. She rubbed her eyes, but they really were not fooling her.

She wrapped herself in a bathrobe and went to open the door.

"Jubal?"

"I need help," he said, his voice somewhat hoarse.

Startled, Isobel let him go in. "What-? What's going on?"

Jubal opened his mouth but said nothing. He staggered, leaning toward her unintentionally. Isobel grabbed him by the bicep to steady him. She dismissed with irritation the unexpected effect his proximity -the touch- had on her. She studied him with growing alarm.

"I'm not feeling well," Jubal muttered, running his hand over his face.

"Are you...?" She almost didn't dare to ask. Her voice trembled. "Jubal, are you drunk?"

"No!" he exclaimed, "No, I wasn't drinking... Alcohol. I swear... They must... They must have put something... I don't know... something in my drink..."

"What!?"

It was terribly disturbing to see how hard it was for him to speak, as if he was about to faint. She didn't know what to think. If Jubal had been drinking and was now lying to her… Then Isobel noticed his words didn't slur like those of someone drunk. And he didn't smell of alcohol. He smelled good. What Jubal used to smell like, the lightly clove-scented aftershave he liked to use.

On the other hand, his pupils were definitely dilated, making his eyes unusually dark. She grabbed his wrist, taking his pulse. It was too fast.

"Sit down. I'll take you to the hospital right now."

Jubal mumbled a 'thank you' and went to find a seat on her couch with unsteady steps. Meanwhile, Isobel went to her bedroom and dressed hurriedly.

However, when she returned, already looking for her car keys, she found Jubal collapsed on the couch. She called out to him, shaking him carefully, gently patting his face until she managed to get him to react.

"Come on, Jubal, I'll take you to the hospital."

Increasingly worried, she helped him to his feet. He leaned his weight on her to take the first step, but suddenly lost his balance and slumped to one side, as if without strength in his legs.

"Hey!" she exclaimed.

Trying to grab him, they both stumbled and Jubal dragged her down with him. Isobel could only slow his fall a little; Jubal ended up lying on his side on the floor, she kneeling beside him.

"Are you all right?" Isobel asked in alarm.

He closed his eyes tightly. "I'm... very... dizzy..." he said in a thin voice. "I don't think I can walk..."

Of course, she certainly was not capable of carrying him.

Isobel studied him in anguish. Jubal looked worse and worse. She had to do something. She looked around and made a decision. "I'm going to call 911."

He agreed.

The operator told her they would send an ambulance immediately. With considerable effort on both their parts, Isobel managed to return him to the couch.

"It's so hot," Jubal muttered to himself and clumsily took off his jacket. Then he began to struggle with the buttons of his burgundy shirt. "My fingers are made of rubber. They don't work..." he mumbled in frustration. He looked at her with unfocused eyes. In the meantime, he managed to unbutton two of them. "Would you help me?"

Isobel cleared her throat at sight of Jubal's partially bare chest. Appealing to her own rationality, she grabbed his hands to stop him.

"No, Jubal. I'd better open the window, okay?"

He was slow to answer, as if he was having trouble understanding her; he nodded slowly. Isobel went to the window. She opened it and was leaving an opening between the leaves, when she heard Jubal sigh:

"How beautiful is the way you move…" he said in a soft voice, full of admiration. "You're a breeze among the reeds…"

Noticing herself blushing, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Jubal looked fascinated. Or maybe just sleepy.

Then his expression became bewildered. "Did I say that out loud...?" He lowered his face in embarrassment. "I'm sorry... I don't know what I'm saying."

Isobel couldn't quite suppress a smile.

Before she could say anything to alleviate Jubal's mortification, her cell phone received a call. It was 911 dispatch again: the ambulance was going to be a little late. They advised her to keep the patient hydrated and not let him fall asleep. Which, when Isobel hung up, seemed about to happen.

She made Jubal sit up straighter on the couch and brought him a glass of water. She sat down next to him.

"Tell me what happened," she asked as he drank, partly to try to keep him awake.

"Aaam... I accepted... Kelly's invitation."

Isobel nodded. The analyst also invited her, but she decided she needed the rest more.

"After dinner," continued Jubal, "we went out to throw some darts..."

Isobel burst out laughing before she could control herself. "What!?"

"What?" he asked with adorable confusion. "Oh! To Play! To play some darts," he clarified, embarrassed. "We were... in a pub? Yes. There were quite a few people..."

A group of thirty-something women were having a bachelorette party near them. They were smiling and waving from their table toward Kelly's group, which, unusually, was composed only of men. For various reasons, Maggie, Tiff and Elise had not joined the plan that time either.

Halfway through the game, the women approached and flirted shamelessly with them. As the most senior member of the group, Jubal found this rather amusing. He mentally wished his friends luck and stood on the sidelines.

Until he started to feel sick even though he was just drinking sodas.

"After a while I started to feel dizzy. I thought..." he remembered very distantly having worried but simply dismissed his suspicions as absurd, "...I thought it was fatigue, so I decided to go home."

The lights of the streetlamps and neons gave off a vaporous, overbearing halo as Jubal exited the pub. Buildings loomed over him, at aberrant angles, stalking him. Jubal knew he was not well, he needed help, but his thoughts were diluted, slipping from his consciousness without ever taking shape. Isobel's house was near the pub but he didn't even remember deciding to go. He still didn't know how his footsteps led him there. As he walked, the sidewalks, covered in complex moving patterns, sank in his wake, as if they were not entirely solid. He came across exotic creatures that couldn't be real but didn't seem to him out of place either.

"What happened then? Did you get lost?" Isobel asked, scrutinizing his face worriedly, "Why didn't you call 911?"

"911? Yeah, you're right. I didn't... I didn't think of it," Jubal said, disoriented, shrugging his shoulders.

"I see. And then?"

Isobel waited expectantly for him to continue speaking. The intensity of her gaze was too much for Jubal; he completely lost track of what he was saying.

"Isobel..." he sighed.

"Yeah?"

"Your name tastes so good to me... It's a delight."

Blinking at the abrupt change of subject, Isobel smiled pleasantly.

"Your eyes shine in a million colors," added Jubal, overwhelmed. "They have the whole universe inside them..."

The blush returned to Isobel's cheeks, even more intense than before. Then she saw Jubal shudder.

"I'm cold," he protested weakly.

Deeply moved, Isobel could not stop herself from looking at him tenderly. Forcing herself to compose herself, she went to get up to close the window and grab a blanket.

Before she could even initiate movement, Jubal wrapped his arms around her and snuggled gently against her as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Mmmh... Warm-y..." he murmured delightedly, burying his face in her neck.

The rational part of Isobel suddenly fell silent. Overcome by the sensation of his torso pressed against hers, of his breath against her skin, she couldn't help but accept his embrace.

"You smell so good..." Jubal admired, inhaling and brushing his lips against her neck as he spoke. "You smell of smiles... and rays of sunshine. Of guitar music and soft caresses in the morning..."

The heat on her face spread throughout Isobel's body. A faint moan escaped her and she clung to him.

No. She should not let Jubal do that. Surely he would regret it later.

"Jubal..." She placed a hand on his shoulder gently and pushed him away although, to be honest, not as much as she should have: they both remained in each other's arms. "This doesn't-"

She was unable to continue.

Enthralled without reservation, Jubal raised his hand to her face; he placed his fingertips in a very delicate touch, sliding his thumb along her cheekbone to the corner of her mouth.

"Your lips are silk. Are they as soft as they look?" The gravity of his voice reverberated within her, taking her breath away. "I wonder what they taste like. Like sweet promises...?"

He leaned toward Isobel. Jubal's eyes, fixed on her mouth as if hypnotized, exerted on her an attraction impossible to resist.

When his lips met hers, Isobel could only welcome them.

The rationality you are trying to call is unreachable right now. Beeeep.

~.~.~.~