Chapter 161: I Meant To
Tim usually wakes up pretty easily. There's a sort of moment
where he switches from dreaming to just lying in bed, and from there a fairly
gentle slide into fully awake. And for the most part it's a pretty quick
transition, usually a matter of two or three minutes.
Some mornings, and those are mornings he very much
appreciates, Abby gives him a hand on sliding from dreaming into fully awake.
Occasionally he returns the favor, but most of the time she wakes up before he
does, so she's in charge of morning sex. However it happens, making love is
definitely his favorite way to go from asleep to awake.
Other mornings, his phone or Gibbs jerks him from dreaming
into full on awake. Those mornings he transitions in a matter of seconds. He's
significantly less happy about those mornings, but well, it's all part of the
job.
So, for the most part, he's pretty good at not getting stuck
between dreaming and awake.
But today he can't shake it. The little awake part of his
mind knows he's at home, in bed, but the sleeping part of his mind is stuck in
the freezer again. He's cold. So cold. Somehow colder than he was when he was
there for real, and like when it really happened every single part of his body
aches. And to make it worse, Abby's there too, and he's clinging to her, trying
to keep her warm, but she's already icy cold, and he can't warm her up, can't
warm up at all. He's shivering, hurting, and panicking because he can't get out
of it.
"God, Tim…" Abby's trying to shove him off of her,
and he's gripping onto her tighter. She had been sleeping pretty comfortably,
but suddenly Tim turned into a scalding hot boa constrictor, and she feels like
she's going to suffocate or possibly drown in sweat. "Tim! Wake up."
She shakes him while trying to scoot further away. "God, baby, you're on
fire. Come, on wake up."
That finally brakes through the dream, and he's fully back
in bed. But he's still bone-deep cold, hurts all over, tired, weak, and wet.
"Tim?" Abby feels him loosen his grip and assumes
that means he's awake. She carefully gets up, tucking the blankets around him
tighter while rejoicing at no longer being two seconds away from over-heating.
"Mrgh."
His eyes are glassy and not tracking well. His skin is
flushed and sweaty. And she's not sure why she asked, because it's obvious he's
sick, but she did anyway. "Are you feeling okay?"
"No." He starts shivering and begins to cough.
"Did you get a flu shot this year?"
He coughs, hard. "I meant to." More coughing. He
thinks about it and comes to the conclusion that he'd planned on doing it and
ended up getting wedding rings instead, and from there it pretty much slipped
his mind.
She heads off for a second and comes back with more
blankets, tucking him in further, stroking his shoulders. He curls into a ball,
hugging his knees to his chest, and tries to get warm.
"What's your doctor's name?" He opens his eyes.
She has his phone in hand.
He thinks about that for a good long minute. He hasn't seen
the guy since Jethro tried to eat him alive, and right now he can't come up
with his name. "I don't know."
"How can you not know?"
"Besides going to the emergency room, I haven't needed
one in years."
"Great." She taps the screen of his phone, and a
minute later he hears, "Hey Ducky, sorry to get you up on a Sunday
morning… Oh good… Look, I think Tim has the flu, and he's in no condition to
get out of bed to go to a doctor's office. Would you be willing to make a house
call? Thanks, Ducky."
Time goes wonky for Tim after that, but eventually he
notices that she's gotten dressed, a shower, and is snuggled up behind him on
the outside of the blankets. And with that, something else occurs to him.
"If I have the flu, you should get out of here."
"I got my shot this year."
"Doesn't always work. Don't want you getting sick,
too."
"I'll risk it."
He tries to roll over to face her, and manages to get, well,
his head turned in her general direction, the rest of his body had no interest
whatsoever in getting out of the fetal position it was wrapped into. "Get
the fuck out of here, now! I do not want you getting sick!"
She smiles in a gently condescending way, pets his hair, and
says, "That would have been way more impressive if your teeth hadn't been
chattering." He groans, coughs, and shivers some more. She kisses the top
of his head. "But it's good to know your fever is so high you've lost the
ability to think clearly. I can add that to the list of symptoms to tell Ducky
about. Tim, you spent the last…" she checks the clock… "eleven hours
breathing on me. And last night I had your tongue, fingers, and cock in my
mouth. (Turns out make up sex was a whole lot of fun.) And you spent a good
twenty minutes licking all of me, too. Either the vaccine'll work or it won't,
but the me-not-getting-sick-from-you ship sailed the day before
yesterday." She pets him again, hoping gentle stroking feels good on aching
muscles, and finishes with, "Ducky'll be here soon, and if you've got the
flu, he can give you, and maybe me, I'll have to go look that up, some Tamiflu,
and that will help. I'm going to go make some breakfast, do you want to eat
anything?"
Yes, that's rational. But that doesn't mean he has to like
it. So he sounds a little sulky when he says, "No."
"Drink?"
That gets his attention. A drink means he can get something
hot into him, maybe warm up a little. "Hot. Don't care what it is.
Hot."
"One steaming hot something will be up in a
minute."
It may have been a minute. Could have been an hour. He's got
no idea. The only thing he's paying attention to is the way muscles he didn't
even know he had were aching and how much he absolutely loathes being cold. When
she came back with the cup of… hot chocolate he thinks, (It smells sweet and
chocolate-y.) he doesn't want to get out from under the blankets enough to
drink it, but he also doesn't want to have something so wonderfully hot sitting
so close to him, and not drink it.
It's likely he's sort of pouting at the drink.
He's kind of aware of the fact that Abby must have brought
it up, because he can see it on his bedside table, but she didn't appear to be
in their room.
Then he feels the bed dip, (which is when it occurs to him
that his eyes are probably closed, which brought up another troubling thought,
namely, how is he looking at the hot chocolate if his eyes are closed?) and a
straw presses against his lips, and then glorious hot, hot, hot liquid slips
into his body, and no it doesn't help the shivers, and he's still bone deep
cold, but at least there's a little warmth in the world, and by that point
nothing else in the universe mattered.
She's petting his forehead and cheek, and he really wants to
rest against her hand, take comfort in her skin on his, but right now her hand
feels like ice.
"Abby, you're so cold."
She jerks her hand back. "It doesn't feel good?"
"Not right now."
"Sorry." She gets up, and he hears the sound of
water running. A minute later, she's back. "Here."
It's a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel; it's snuggly and
warm, so it's beyond brilliant right this second. He purrs at it and unclenches
from the little ball he's curled into just enough to be able to hug it, and
from there he pretty much checks out.
"Timothy." A soft and once again, really cold,
hand on his forehead went with his name. Tim opened an eye, saw Ducky looking
at Abby. "Abigail, do you have a thermometer?"
"Yeah." She headed over to her side of the bed and
got it. Ducky looked at it curiously. Tim's vaguely amused by the idea that
Ducky probably hasn't seen one jerry-rigged with duct tape and electronics the
way theirs is. Abby saw the way Ducky was looking at it. "We were using it
for getting pregnant. Tim modified it so it automatically uploads my
temperatures to a program that keeps track of everything."
"Ah. Let's get your temperature, Timothy." He more
or less just let Ducky manhandle him. A few seconds later Ducky said,
"104.2, that's awfully high. Can you sit up?"
He managed it. He really didn't want to do it, most of his
body was sending him, What the hell is wrong with you? Do not try to move.
Just lay here and shiver signals, but he eventually got his arms unlocked
from around his legs, his legs away from his chest, and his body into a
somewhat upright position, but once he did that, waves of scalding cold hit him
because getting upright meant the blankets were no longer wrapped around him.
So, he was sitting up (noticing that Abby's keeping him
upright, and he was suddenly suspicious that without her help he'd be lying
down again) and utterly miserable, shaking, flushed, cursing quietly, and
wishing he was dead.
And yeah, he did shriek and jump when Ducky pressed the
stethoscope against this chest. There is no way he doesn't keep that thing
stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen. It's so cold he's expecting to see his skin
come off, stuck to it, when Ducky pulled it away. But once he pulled it away,
Abby gently eased him back to lying down, Ducky wrapped two of the blankets
around him, and took the other ones away.
That involved cursing on Tim's part, as well. At least, he
thought he was cursing. Ducky and Abby were talking to each other, not really
paying attention to him. In retrospect, he may have been moaning in a pitiful
manner.
Then Ducky knelt down on the floor in front of their bed,
making sure he was eye to eye with Tim and said, slowly and carefully,
"Timothy, you have a very high fever. I know you don't like the way this
feels, but bundling you up further just exacerbates the problem. You're at
104.2 and 104 is when I usually suggest people go to the emergency room. I
believe Abigail is right, and that you do have the flu. My hope is that in an effort
to avoid chill, you've bundled yourself up so thoroughly that you're cooking
yourself. So we are going to see if we can get your temperature down here at
home. Which means there will be regular doses of Tylenol or Advil, no more
huddling under every blanket in the house, and Abby's going to rub you down
with a lukewarm wash cloth."
"No." And sure, he may not have been cursing out
loud, but he was awfully sure that came out loud and clear. Just the idea of a
cold, wet wash cloth made him want to curl into a defensive ball and die.
"Look at me, Timothy. If your temperature isn't at
under 103.5 in an hour, you are going to the hospital. If it's not under 103 in
two hours, you are going to the hospital. Because if you stay as hot as you are
for much longer than that the proteins in your body will start to unravel in
response to the heat. That will cripple or kill you."
Tim moaned, which wasn't exactly ascent, but was about all
the response he could muster. Then Abby was holding two pills for him, and he
took them. He thought he said something about just seeing if the fewer blankets
and Tylenol would do the trick but next thing he knew she was rubbing something
cold and wet down his arm and he was expressing monumental displeasure at that,
because right that second, he'd rather have his brain melt than be wiped down
with a cool washcloth.
He wasn't sure if Ducky stuck around for the sponge bath. He
does know it took about seventeen weeks, and that Abby was way more thorough
than she needed to be. For example, he really didn't need the area between his
toes wiped, let alone any other part of his body. Let alone twice. Or maybe
three times. It felt like three times. Whatever it was, it was god awful cold
and wet and took forever and he hated every second of it.
It's true that as a general principal Tim's all in favor of
nice, new, crisp, clean sheets, but not today. He thought the cold, wet torture
was over, (Abby blotted him dry with a towel) and then next thing he knew he
was being rolled around a bit and found himself, slightly damp, on cool, clean
sheets.
But it was also true that his head felt a little clearer,
and while he wanted to pout about being cold, he at least now understood why
they were doing it to him, which meant there was significantly less cursing coming
out of him as Abby draped a light blanket over him, so he supposed that was a
step in the right direction.
She took his temperature again, and Ducky appeared out of
nowhere (maybe he had stuck around for the sponge bath?) and declared him at
103.6, which pleased both of them, and probably would have pleased Tim, but in
that getting sponged off and yelling about it had completely exhausted him, he
fell asleep before she got the read out.
He woke up again, cold, shivery, aching, miserable in every
possible definition of the word. It took him a minute to figure out why he was
awake, but then it registered that Abby was trying to get him to sit up some to
take more pills.
He pulled himself up, thought about taking the cup from her,
but decided he'd just slosh whatever was in it all over the place, and let her
feed him the pills and orange juice.
And then he went back to sleep again.
The next time he woke up, he woke on his own. The light was
on the other side of the room, so it had to be afternoon. He just lay there for
a while. One of the weird things about being sick is that it completely fries
his time sense. He had no idea how long he lay there.
He was still awfully cold, and was working up the energy to
lift up his head and look for another blanket when he remembered why he only
had two of them. The thermometer was still on his bedside table, so he very
carefully reached for it, keeping as much of his arm under the blankets for as
long as he could, and checked for himself. 102.9. That's still higher than any
fever he remembers having before, but it's lower than it was, and he's not
feeling so horrendously loopy.
No, not loopy. Embarrassed as hell, because he was starting
to remember what he thinks he might have been saying when he was getting wiped
down, and well, he might not like his dad by any stretch of the imagination,
but years of living with the man meant that when he put his mind to it, he can
really curse up a blue streak.
"Hey."
"Abby." This was when he noticed she was lying on
her side of the bed, on top of the blankets, reading, and he reassessed how
loopy he was. Obviously, he still wasn't all there if he missed that.
"You feeling any better?"
"I think so." Talking was a bad plan, that made
him cough. She saw the thermometer in his hand and checked his temperature.
"It's down, good. You had Ducky and I pretty scared for
a little while there. What do you remember?"
"Cold, wet," cough, cough, "saying terrible
things," cough, "really cold," cough, "still cold,"
cough.
"Okay, you've got to stop talking. Ducky's still here,
he wanted to talk to you once you were awake enough to follow a conversation.
Think you can do that?"
Tim nodded.
She headed out and a bit later Ducky was back.
He smiled at Tim, touched his head, and nodded a bit.
"Better. Not good, but better. I want you to listen to me."
Tim nodded again.
"I believe Abby is right and that you have the flu.
You've already gotten your first dose of Tamiflu. In an effort to keep your
fever down, she's giving you Tylenol every four hours, and making sure you
don't burrow under every blanket in the house. Your job is to take your pills,
lie in this bed, drink plenty of fluids, and rest.
"If I see you at NCIS at any time in the next week, I
will not only tell the Director that you are unfit to work, I will also
personally slap you upside the head for going in, and Jethro for not
immediately sending you home. If you get up too soon, you risk coming down with
pneumonia. If you get pneumonia, you can give that to Abby. We can treat the
flu and keep her from getting sick with it. If you come down with pneumonia,
the only way to keep her from getting it is to have her go stay with Jimmy and
Breena. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to stay in bed and rest?"
"Yes."
"Good." Ducky stood back up and faced Abby, which
was when Tim checked out again. He was vaguely aware of the fact that Ducky was
still talking to Abby, but he missed most of it. Actually, he missed most of
the rest of Sunday. The main thing he remembers are periods of being very cold
and shivery interspersed with taking more Tylenol and sleeping.
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