We'd been dumb enough to hope that a visit to urgent care would be enough. Instead, we hadn't made it through triage before the nurse was getting a doctor, the doctor calling an ambulance, and Carlisle landing back in the local hospital's emergency department despite our efforts. All we'd achieved was a few more bills than if we'd gone directly, and my husband was in for an overnight admission anyway.
He was too tired to care. The nurse had been concerned over how high his heart rate was, how low his oxygen levels were, how his temperature refused to budge despite everything he tried, but he'd barely spoken to her, all of his attention focused on not letting himself faint in the chair. He was pale and unsteady, weakly holding my hand while I sat beside him. We didn't have to wait long for the ambulance once they knew about his medical history, fast-tracked through the hospital as well. Barely two hours after we'd left home, we were in an isolation room in another ward.
"Did Al go home?" Carlisle asked me eventually. It was the first thing he'd said since we'd arrived, slightly less pale now that he was lying down again, saline running through the drip in his arm. Alistair had left soon after he'd dropped us off - he was still feeling awful and there hadn't been any point in keeping him out of bed if our visit was going to be an all day event.
"Yeah." I reached forward to brush his hair away from his face, frowning as the soft touch was nearly the end of his consciousness. It wasn't worth explaining that his friend had been gone for hours, and I doubted he'd retain the information anyway. "You're really out of it, huh."
"Mmm. What'd they give me?" Trying to clear the feeling, he sucked in a deep breath, twisting slightly to see the bag attached to the IV pole, panicky despite the drowsiness.
"Nothing; you've just been unwell." I was getting better at reciting his details, the endless list of allergies and conditions. The discharge paperwork I'd shoved into my pocket before we left home, a souvenir of his last admission, filled in whatever I'd missed. I quickly kissed his temple as he gave up and settled again, my fingers finding his against the mattress.
"I can't think properly."
"You don't need to right now, Carlisle," I reasoned.
"Don't let them drug me," he pleaded suddenly.
"Relax; they're going to give you antibiotics - you have a chest infection, and you'll get pneumonia if you don't take it." I tried to make it a firm decision, to not give him wiggle room to back out of it, but he didn't do a convincing job of masking the anxiety it brought on. "I don't want you to end up here with a longer admission because you're spitting your meds again."
He reluctantly nodded. A few minutes of silence passed, enough that I thought he'd fallen asleep again, before he squeezed my hand. "What happened to Al? Where are we?"
The same conversation repeated every time he woke himself up. Over and over again for the next few hours, until his fever edged down enough for him to sleep comfortably. I wasn't sure if I should wake him when I needed to go home, my own headache driving me away from the soft beeping of the monitor. The chair screeched under me as I stood anyway, off balancing me enough that I had to grab the rail of the bed to catch my footing, jolting him awake.
"You should go home," he said softly. It seemed lucid, the episode of confusion seeming to have passed, his searching around the room ceasing.
"Do you remember what's happening?" I asked cautiously.
He nodded. "Yeah. Go home to bed?"
"I'll be here in the morning when the doctors come around, but you can call me if you need me to come back earlier." I leaned over the bed to pull him into a hug, kissing his face, pleased that he wasn't quite so hot now. "Take your medication; I need you to come home in one piece."
"I promise."
.
.
Alistair, yet again, was passed out on the couch when I got home. I didn't bother waking him as I put together an easy dinner, sure that he wouldn't have fed himself yet. It didn't look like he'd made it any further than his seat once he'd gotten home - he was still wearing the jacket he'd been in at the hospital, slightly damp from the rain. He didn't so much as flinch until I shook his shoulder, but his initial reluctance to wake up was gone once he realised food was involved.
Besides a guilty thank you, he didn't really talk much while we ate, and I didn't want to push him while he wasn't feeling great. "You know how you mentioned that I could maybe move with you," he started carefully. His fork scratched against the bottom of his bowl as he avoided looking at me, his shoulders suddenly stiff as he broke the lingering silence. Something about being unwell seemed to erode a great deal of his confidence.
"Yeah. Have you thought more about it?" It made me feel awkward too. As much as I hated to admit it, I had been pleased to not have to come home to an empty apartment. Pleased to come home to Alistair, nonetheless. We were friends whether I liked it or not.
He nodded. "I think I want to. I've sent my resume in to a few places, and I'll still have to go home to ship my stuff back, but I think I want to be here again."
"We're going to start looking at places once Carlisle is well enough; come with us?"
"I'm not sure he's going to be on board," he mumbled. "He was pretty adamant about not wanting to move last time we spoke about it."
I frowned at the TV, sighing. "He's not been that cooperative, but he admitted that he needed to while we were away - I don't think he'll fight it much. He really wants to get away from this house."
"Hopefully."
We fell quiet again, both of us settling into our seats once we'd finished eating, Fox licking at the plate I'd momentarily abandoned on the ground. I couldn't deny that I was a little jealous that she clambered up into Alistair's lap instead of mine. "Nice to know I'm still not the cat's favorite, even when Carlisle is away."
He groaned, scooping her up to pass to me. "Take her; I'll never get up if she falls asleep there."
"Why don't you go to bed, if you're that tired?" I still took her, cradling her against my chest while she purred, sinking my fingertips into her fur as she settled into my arms. He was obviously still sick, as much as he tried to pretend he wasn't; the early night wasn't going to do him any harm. It looked like he was going to drop off to sleep where he was regardless, if he sat there any longer.
"I'm gross - I need to take a shower." Still, he leaned his head back against the couch, his eyes drifting closed. "It's too cold; I don't want to," he mumbled, whining a little.
I rolled my eyes though he didn't see it, unable to help chuckling at the childish tone he'd taken. "I'll turn the heater on and make you a cup of tea, and you go and shower?" I proposed, figuring I at least owed him that at this point.
"I knew I liked you for a reason." It was enough to convince him to haul himself up, already out of his coat before he reached the hallway.
I didn't rise to the bait. Instead, I listened to the water in the shower turn on and the door click shut, freeing one arm from Fox to grab at my phone. As much as I wanted to call my husband, I didn't want to risk disturbing him if he had managed to stay asleep. A couple of texts were too hard to resist though. It didn't make me any less anxious about the state he'd be in tomorrow, though - I'd started to lose faith in the doctor's promises while Carlisle had been so confused.
Fox chirped her complaint as I pushed her into the seat beside me, making good on my promise to Al of tea and heating. Sipping the hot dink helped, my pulse calming slightly, the exhaustion of the day starting to set it. I washed the few dishes we'd used, tidying on autopilot as I waited for Alistair to come back so I could switch the lights off.
When he finally reappeared, he'd stolen a clean sweatshirt out of the clothes drier, and I tried to find the energy to tease him for the transgression. He beat me to it, tugging the front of it, suddenly awkward and pausing in the doorway. "Is this yours or Cullen's?"
"It was mine, but I haven't had possession of it for a few months," I chuckled. To be fair to him, if he'd tried to steal something from my husband based on what he usually wore, he wasn't out of line.
"Is it okay if I…?"
"It's fine, Al. It's just a sweatshirt." I held his drink out to him as he approached, the few words we exchanged before we both retreated to bed a little strained.
My hand was met with cold sheets when I habitually reached for my husband. My stomach knotted - I wanted him home so badly, my heart thudding as I contemplated not getting him back tomorrow. Fox wiggling under the blankets in search of my heat was little consolation.
.
.
On the off chance that he'd be well enough for breakfast, I stopped for bagels and coffee on the way to the hospital. The carpark was getting all too familiar, as was trudging through the rain to the main building like I'd done so many times over the last few months. My fears of him being worse were quickly banished when I reached him. His face lit up at the hot drink, the smile that followed instantly melting me.
"Feeling better?" I asked hopefully. I set his drink down on his tray, my free hand catching his jaw to guide his lips to mine while I leaned down. "You look better." No longer pale and vacant, the flush in his cheeks no longer rampant fever.
"I feel so much better," he assured me.
"Good." I instantly did too. I kissed him softly, pleased to feel that the unbearable heat under his skin seemed to be under control now too. "Are you hungry? I brought breakfast."
He pressed another kiss against my jaw as I pulled back to hand him his food. "Yeah, thanks, Garrett. Are you okay?"
"Me? Yeah, of course." Aside from my sinuses still being a little stuffy, all of the other symptoms had eased.
"And Al?"
"He's getting better too." I hadn't woken him before I'd left, sure that he wouldn't appreciate it, but sleeping for almost two days straight seemed to have made him less miserable the night before. Sitting down in the chair across from him, I unwrapped the sandwich, needing to force down my first bite with a scalding sip of coffee. That familiar anxiety was knotting the pit of my stomach despite it only being him and I in the room.
He keyed into my discomfort pretty quickly and immediately offered a distraction. "I found a couple of apartments that we could look at next week. I know it's not the best time of year to be moving, while it's so close to Christmas, but there's properties close to Eleazar that are really nice, and a lot of them are pet friendly." He was mumbling through a mouthful of food as he handed me his phone, the listings already pulled up on the screen. "Or we can try the ones closer to your parents?"
I stopped listening, letting him ramble about it while I ate. It didn't matter what I said - he refused to believe that I wouldn't resent him for needing to move further from my family, and bickering about it while he was hospitalised wasn't good for either of us. I scrolled through the page he'd shown me anyway to humor him.
To be fair, most of the apartments fit our budget and weren't terrible - a few even boasting fresh paint and new carpet. I took another bite of breakfast, distracted by the noise in the corridor, unintentionally eavesdropping in case it had anything to do with my husband, like the doctor wouldn't be in to explain it to us anyway.
"You really want to look at places that soon after you've been unwell? I think we should allow a little more time for you to recuperate, Carlisle," I broached carefully once I realised he was still waiting for a response.
"I really need to get out of that apartment, Gar," he told me slowly, equally as cautious.
I sighed and nodded. "I know."
.
.
The walk down to the carpark had made him queasy. I held his hand, letting us come to a stop whenever he started to slow down so that it didn't bring on a coughing fit. We'd both been over confident with his overnight improvement. "The antibiotics are making me feel a bit sick," he offered when our eyes met, having needed to stop at the bottom of the pavement steps, not quite brave enough to let go of the handrail and step into the carpark. It hadn't seemed like a problem when the doctor had come to discharge him.
"You were feeling sick before the antibiotics, Carlisle." I caught his waist, holding his hip firmly against mine to keep him steady, his hand knotting in my shirt between my shoulder blades. "You're still pretty dizzy, huh?" The rain wasn't helping, making the pavement under us slippery and me off-balanced while I fought with an umbrella.
"My heart races whenever I stand too long." We made it back to the vehicle with only a few minor stumbles, his relief to be sitting in the passenger's seat almost palpable. He hesitated, trying to swallow away the feeling before admitting defeat. "Do we still have something in the car, in case I…"
I nodded, giving his hand a quick squeeze. It was only a short drive, but I wasn't about to run the risk of chancing that he wouldn't get sick - we both knew better at this point. I waited until he had tucked himself inside the vehicle before crossing around to the driver's side. His hands wouldn't cooperate with the seatbelt, his fumbling with the buckle so painful to watch that I clicked it into place for him, reaching across his lap to get a sick-bag out of the glovebox. "We can stop if you need to."
.
.
We bundled up on the couch for the rest of the day. Although only he had been wrapped in the blanket when I'd first sat down, it had crept across me as well over the course of the afternoon, my husband nestled into my side. Still achy and tired, he was struggling not to fall asleep, head on my shoulder.
We'd booked several apartment viewings for the next week. It was a brave assumption that Carlisle would be well enough to attend, but he seemed less concerned about having a say in where we lived than just getting out of our current unit. I wasn't sure how to bring up the decision Alistair and I had made behind his back - especially because Al had tactfully left our home for the first time in nearly four days. "We should look at places where we could have a roommate." I pulled the blanket up around his shoulders as he slouched down further into his seat, escaping the heat of it while I sweated and he shivered.
"Al?" he guessed immediately. It didn't look like he entirely cared, especially not with the repetitive circles I traced against his bicep. "Yeah; he's thinking about moving back - it would be helpful for all of us if he lived with us, even if it's just temporary. Do you need to go to bed?"
He ignored my question. "Won't it be uncomfortable?"
"He pretty much lives with us already, and it'll be difficult for him to find a flat while he technically lives in a different state and he's unemployed."
He hesitated so long that I was sure he was going to outright refuse. His words ran into each other when he did try to answer, lacking conviction. "I really don't want him to move back here because of my health, and I don't trust him when he says it's not; he was really unhappy here before."
"I think he's lonely with his mother, and he was unhappy here because he moved away from you and his ex was a psychopath. Do you need to go and lie down?" I shut the lid of the computer and set it beside us on the floor, twisting in my seat so that he collapsed into my lap. Pale and clammy, I wasn't about to trust him to stand, threading my fingers through his hair while he tried to breathe through it. "You alright?"
"A bit dizzy," he admitted. One arm draped across my legs, a weak form of a hug, his breathing labored suddenly.
"You look it."
There was another stagnant pause as he struggled to regulate it, uselessly gripping my free hand. "I don't want to go backwards - I felt like I was managing better."
"You're not going backwards; it's just a little hiccup," I tried to soothe, my hand brushing through his hair again. "It's my fault that you got sick in the first place; you've handled it better than I thought you were going to be able to, to be honest."
"Feels like more than a hiccup if you had to call an ambulance," he mumbled.
"We could have probably driven ourselves to the hospital, but you looked like you were going to pass out." And the staff at the clinic had immediately ushered him back onto the bed after he'd stood while he was attached to the heart monitor. "We knew you were probably going to need an admission if you got an illness like this; you're not losing progress."
He surrendered, nodding, too tired to argue with me about it. There was a long silence as he drifted in and out of consciousness, but he suddenly woke himself up enough to speak to me again. "I applied for residency before I had to go to the hospital, but it'll take a while to process."
I was grinning before I could stop myself, leaning down to kiss his face, shifting him too much to appease my need to have my arms around him. "Good; I can't wait until we get to keep you forever."
He offered me a weak smile. "Me neither."
I wondered if I could ever get him wearing a wedding band. If I was allowed to wear mine again. I kept quiet about it while he gave in to the exhaustion, settling for fidgeting with his hair instead, not wanting to turn the tv on and risk disturbing the peace. All of this felt far more peaceful than the night before, even if he was still feeling awful.
We went to bed horrendously early - Carlisle because he couldn't physically handle it anymore, and me because I couldn't stand the distance between us after we'd spent a night apart. I was more than happy to lie under the covers with him as soon as we'd finished dinner, moulding myself around him whenever he shifted, refusing to allow any space between us. Maybe it was overly clingy, but he was still too unwell to care, craving the comfort too much to refuse me. We were both asleep well before 8pm.
.
.
An intense pressure around my forearm was the first thing I was aware of. Still half asleep, I tried to pull free, reaching to claw at whatever it was. My heart leaped into my chest when it didn't budge. My panic turned to relief as I felt my husband's hand locked around my wrist. I immediately softened my attack, rubbing his fingers where I'd previously tried to pry him off. He was still cutting off the circulation to my hand. "You almost gave me a heart attack-" I breathed into the darkness.
He immediately cut me off. "There's someone in the house," he hissed.
"What?" My pulse was slowly regulating, no longer thumping in my ears, and I started to relax again. I twisted my arm so he was forced to let go, putting it around his shoulders instead.
He was half sitting up, hyperventilating, shaking when I touched him. "Someone is in the house."
Panic attack. I'd half expected it since he'd come home from the hospital, especially after I'd loaded him with painkillers and cold medicine after dinner. "There's no one here, Carlisle." I reached across him to turn on his lamp - only to be violently shoved back onto my side of the bed with more strength than I thought he had.
"Don't- there's someone in the kitchen," he whispered frantically.
"There's no one in the kitchen," I repeated. "Would you feel better if I checked?"
"No - Gar, don't; you could get hurt."
Realising he wasn't going to calm down until I'd proved that we were alone, I pushed the blankets off and started to get up, pushing him back onto the mattress when he grabbed at me again, pleading with me not to, that we should just call the police. We'd never get to sleep if I gave in to that - it was only 2AM. We bickered about it in hushed whispers for a minute or so, barely able to see each other in the darkness. Eventually, he gave in and passed me the can of mace he'd hidden in his bedside table, for the purpose of disarming Caius in this scenario.
The house was silent. I crept down the hallway as quietly as I could, not flicking on the lights until I reached the kitchen. No one. The front door was closed and locked. Windows shut and curtains pulled. Our cat stretched out peacefully on the couch, squinting now I'd awoken her with the fluorescents. Everything as it should be.
I didn't bother searching any further, loitering in the kitchen for long enough that I hoped Carlisle would accept my efforts and go back to sleep. "All clear," I told him when I finally went back to bed. I turned on my lamp this time, expecting him to seem at least a little ratified, not as out-right terrified as he did. Pale, trembling, his arms locked around his knees, he looked so little and frightened, and I had no idea how to fix it.
"We're fine, there's no one here," I assured him again. I sat back on my side of the mattress, my hand drifting over his waist, tugging him closer.
He didn't budge, frozen. "I heard- someone opened the front door, and there were footsteps in the kitchen."
"Was it a nightmare?" All of this was similar to the meltdown resulting in our early morning drive a few weeks ago.
He still stubbornly shook his head. "I was awake." His breathing was getting more and more frantic, tears suddenly welling up and threatening to spill over. "It was real, Garrett, I was awake - I know I was." Hallucination, maybe - we'd been warned about that with the painkillers. Perhaps giving him cold medication on top of everything had been a bad idea.
"Lie down with me; we're okay." I waited until he was securely tucked against me, desperately hugging my waist, before I tried to talk reason into him. If he had heard something, then there were four other apartments on our floor alone, and it was fairly common for the sound of their doors to travel into our home if the street was quiet enough, the footsteps past our front door enough to filter down the hallway. "It was probably just the neighbours."
"It didn't sound like that; our door squeaks, and there's a loose floorboard in the kitchen that creaks," he insisted.
I'd never noticed either sound but it wasn't worth the argument. "There's no one here, I promise." For the next hour, I struggled to keep myself awake with him. He'd remained quiet but unbearably tense, listening and jumping at every little sound in the building. A door slamming on the floor below was enough to make him jump violently, the fearful whimper muffled as he turned his face into my chest. "It's just someone downstairs," I whispered to him.
He nodded, sniffing a little. "I know."
"You're safe, Carlisle."
It was another painful half an hour before I could talk him into taking a sedative. We still had some left over from our trip, and as much as he resisted the tablet, he eventually gave in once he couldn't stand it any more, another forty minutes of gentle kisses and soothing before it kicked in enough for him to pass out.
My text to Alistair, asking if he could be here before I left for work in the morning, must have woken him, but his reply rolled in a few seconds later - agreement, no questions asked.
We were both confused as I gave him a rundown of the night's events over coffee the next morning. "You're sure it was just a dream? You don't think he's losing it?" he asked me. He didn't bother to disguise it as a joke, frowning at me instead. "His paranoia has been worse recently - I don't trust that he's taking his tablets correctly, and we both know he's still not eating properly. Is it that much of a stretch that he's hallucinating?"
I wasn't sure whether to admit that it had crossed my mind too. "Keep an eye on him today?" I asked instead. "I'll pick up dinner on the way home."
"Don't you start bribing me with food too," he grumbled. "You don't think I'm going to watch him out of the goodness of my heart?"
"Are you saying no to dinner?"
"I didn't say bribery wasn't effective."
I rolled my eyes at him and left him to make himself a cup of coffee, heading back toward our bedroom, keys in hand. I woke my husband enough to kiss him goodbye, but he was still too out of it to be able to speak to me, only mumbling about not feeling well and asking if I could stay. "Al is going to be here; I'll be back in a few hours," I promised. It earned me a sleepy nod, and I pressed my lips to his temple before jogging down to the car.
.
.
Alistair was putting effort into keeping the conversation light between us. My husband was quiet and tense over dinner, hardly responding to his friend as he said goodbye for the evening. I stayed at the table with him, reaching over to touch his hand to get him to focus. "You okay?" I asked carefully.
"I'm sorry about last night." He swallowed tightly, looking up at me as I stood to get closer, his arms creeping around my waist.
"I'm glad you're home. Are you feeling alright?" Cupping my hand to his cheek, I stole a quick kiss before he had a chance to respond. "Everything was okay with Alistair this afternoon?"
He nodded. "He's going to come with us and look at the apartments next week," he told me numbly.
I hugged him against me, lightly rubbing his back.
"You've been more anxious since you came home again; nothing happened at the hospital?"
"No; I'm just tired, and I swear I heard someone last night."
"You've been okay today, though?"
"Yeah. I can't wait to move."
"Soon."