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The first clue comes in the morning.
Less than ten minutes before the morning briefing — which is, for him, basically half an hour late — OA arrives with a giant cup of steaming coffee and a frown on his face, shaking off the cold.
As he disentangles himself from his scarf and the coat, his cheeks and nose slightly flushed from the biting cold of a New York winter, Maggie can’t help but notice that his movements seem a little sluggish today, lacking his usual grace. She swivels in her chair, facing him fully. “You okay?”
He looks up at her in question, frozen in the middle of placing his coat over his chair. “Yeah, fine,” he says, eyebrows raised like he can’t think of a single reason why she’d be asking that.
He then takes his seat and carries on arranging his workplace with the usual diligence, so she lets it go.
***
It’s a slow day, for once. They spend the morning catching up on paperwork, putting finishing touches on the big murder case they closed two days ago. There’s a meeting in the afternoon to wrap up the case with the NYPD side of things. Maggie can’t say she’s looking forward to it. Those things usually drag on for far too long.
At some point Jubal pulls them into a conference room to go over the schedule for the trial that’s starting next week, and right in the middle of his evidence overview, OA coughs.
Jubal barely spares a glance in OA’s direction before continuing, but Maggie’s eyes immediately zero in on her partner, suspicion returning stronger than before. From the slightest slump in his shoulders to the still reddish nose — yep, he definitely looks like he’s coming down with something.
OA notices her eyeing him, and like he’s read her thoughts, sits up straighter and pointedly turns his attention back to Jubal.
Well then. If he wants ignore the evidence... She has a feeling there’s more to come.
Turns out she doesn’t have to wait long.
Just as they’re leaving the conference room, finally dismissed, OA sneezes, then frowns, almost like he’s offended by his own body’s betrayal.
Maggie opens her mouth to suggest that maybe, maybe, he’s caught the bug that’s been going around the office, but he’s quicker. Without so much as looking at her, he holds up a hand, insisting, “I’m not sick. I don’t get sick.”
More amused than anything, Maggie merely shrugs. Sure. If he wants to believe that.
***
Early afternoon finds Maggie and OA in the break room — she was just opening her supposedly healthy but seriously unappetizing salad when he came in and plopped down in a chair, armed with a weary sigh and what must have been his third cup of coffee of the day.
It’s just the two of them at the moment; Maggie guesses that’s the only reason why OA has allowed himself a moment of weakness like this one — he’s leaned back in his chair, head against the wall, eyes closed, brow creased. Every once in a while he reaches up to rub his temples, like he’s trying — and failing — to will the headache away.
When Kristen pops in, he doesn’t recover fast enough. His eyes blink open, unusually bright and glassy.
Kristen halts in her step and immediately asks if he’s okay.
Maggie points at OA with her fork, grinning. “Oh, you mean Mr. Superior Immune System over there? No, haven’t you heard — he doesn’t get sick.”
“I’m fine, Kristen. Thanks for asking,” OA manages, and turns to give Maggie a look, which would probably be more intimidating if he wasn’t moving in slow motion and still wincing at the movement.
He’s free to keep stubbornly refusing to admit defeat, but that doesn’t mean Maggie has to make it easy for him. She shoots him an innocent smile and turns to ask Kristen about the progress on her new senator blackmail case.
***
Maggie keeps a watchful eye on OA throughout the afternoon. He manages to put up a good enough front when among their colleagues, but she notices the winces and the muffled coughs and the slump in his shoulders that grows more prominent with each hour.
By the time she’s preparing for the meeting, she’s relieved that it’s only a couple of hours before he gets to go home and get some rest. He may not admit it, but he looks like he desperately needs it.
Of course, that’s when Jubal whirls into the bullpen with two agents at his heel vying for his attention. He makes a short and sudden stop right by Maggie and OA’s desks, gesturing between the two of them like he’s trying to remember something. “Oh, that reminds me,” he says, too busy signing something one of the agents has shoved into his hands to do give them more than a sparing glance. “OA, analysts downstairs got some intel Isobel wants you to take a look at.”
For half a second Maggie considers pointing out that right now OA shouldn’t be looking at anything other than the ceiling as he lies down. However, quite predictably, OA nods without hesitation, already out of his chair and on his way with a surprisingly determined expression. He can’t be running on anything other than sheer willpower at this point.
After watching to make sure he’s safely made it into the hallway at least, Maggie lets out a resigned sigh and collects her notes for the upcoming meeting.
Hopefully he doesn’t pass out in the elevator.
***
The meeting is everything she feared and more. It runs a good hour longer than expected, and then the lead detective catches up with her before she even makes it out of the conference room. By the time she manages to somewhat politely get rid of him, she’s almost officially off the clock.
When she returns to the bullpen, she doesn’t see OA at the first glance. Maybe he’s already been sent home.
Walking over to her desk, she looks more closely and — no, there he is, slumped in his chair, his head nestled in his arms on the desk — the complete opposite of his usual composed self. The bullpen is quiet but not completely empty, she notes with growing concern, which means he must be very much out of it. Shit.
He barely looks up when she approaches, but she can see that he looks like hell. He’s somehow simultaneously both paler and redder than she’s ever seen him, and his eyes are struggling to focus.
That’s it. Maggie opens her mouth to demand he goes home, but, of course, that’s the exact moment when their boss chooses to materialize out of nowhere, asking how the meeting with NYPD went. Somehow, somewhere, OA finds the strength to jerk upright — probably his body’s instinctive reaction to the presence of a commanding officer. It doesn’t magically make him less sick though, so he’s still blinking furiously, visibly trembling with effort to stay upright.
Maggie gives Isobel a quick recap, nervously glancing at OA out of the corner of her eye the whole time, wondering how much of a disaster it would be if he started diving for the floor.
Once she’s done, Isobel nods, then takes one look at OA and says, “OA, you look like hell. Go home before you get everyone sick.”
She turns and leaves without another word.
OA immediately drops his head back on the desk with a sigh of relief. “Think she’s warming up to me,” he mumbles.
Maggie smiles despite herself and starts gathering her things. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
“Can do it myself,” he says, but makes no move to even get up.
She snorts. “Yeah, I don’t need you causing a major traffic collision during rush hour on my conscience. Let’s go.”
***
He spends the whole ride asleep, arms wrapped around his middle like he’s trying to protect himself from the cold, head leaned against the window.
When she pulls to a stop in front of his house, he doesn’t so much as stir, and she has to nudge him gently, all too aware that this made him harshly jolt awake the few times she had to do it in the past. This time, however, he barely moves at all, his eyes blinking open in confusion.
“We’re here,” she informs him, relieved when he takes a look around and nods, pulling himself up. He looks like he’ll be able to make it inside on his own.
Good, because she really didn’t want to have to drag his unconscious body out of the car and up those steps. The neighbors would certainly have some questions.
He still stumbles a little as he gets out of the car, about as graceful as a baby giraffe on roller skates, so she quickens her step and comes around to his side just as he’s about to slip on the icy sidewalk. She holds him up with an arm around his waist, his muscles straining as they make their way to his front steps. Even out in this cold, she can feel how alarmingly warm he is.
Determined to quicken the process, she secures one of his arms around her shoulders, making him lean more of his weight on her as they tackle the front steps. Not exactly a walk in the park, as there’s 6 feet and 5 inches of him. She never really thought about it before, but he is unnecessarily tall.
Despite all odds, they make it up the steps and into his house.
She orders him to get changed and lie down, then slips out for some flu medicine, because of course he doesn’t have any on hand. When she comes back, he’s on the couch, burrowed under three layers of blankets with only his head sticking out, like a giant tucked-in baby. Maggie would laugh if his face wasn’t also scrunched up with the most miserable expression imaginable. She settles for a smile instead.
He still sees it, and begins to grumble something about partners and backs, but it gets cut off by a violent shudder when she places her hand against his forehead.
Surprise, surprise. He’s burning up.
She gets him a glass of water and forces him to sit up.
He’s still mumbling, “’s just a cold, you didn’t have to go out,” when she shoves two pills into his hand and glares at him until he swallows them.
His already weak protests are undermined immediately by a violent coughing fit. He coughs and coughs and coughs, his entire body seizing. She gently rubs his back until it subsides, and — just because he’s clearly in pain — bites back an I told you so.
When it looks like he’s hesitating to lie back down, seemingly hell bent on doing everything the hardest way possible, she simply raises an eyebrow, deciding it’s time to pull out the big guns. “I can always call your mom.”
Maggie hasn’t met her yet, but from what OA has been telling her, his mom is a force to be reckoned with. She’d worry and fuss about him, which is what he arguably needs right now, but Maggie knows OA, and knows that he believes his mom already worries too much.
His nose scrunches up at the threat, and yet he has no choice but to reluctantly concede. He slowly crawls back under his mountain of blankets. “You can call her — if you want us both to gain twenty pounds from all the food she’d bring and fail our next physical.”
“Maybe one of your sisters then,” Maggie says, just to drive the point home. “Or all of them.”
Maggie has only met one of them so far, but imagines that their reactions would range from good-natured teasing to jumping at the opportunity to collect blackmail.
Her suspicions are confirmed when he looks up at her, expression aghast. “You wouldn’t do that to a helpless man.”
Now she has him. “Helpless?” She grins. “I thought it was just a cold.”
He makes a face at her, the effect lessened by another loud cough. She smiles and goes to fill his glass again, peeking into his fridge to see if there’s anything useful. He’s going to have to eat something sooner or later.
When she returns, he clears his throat. "Thanks for, you know. Everything. Especially not calling my sisters,” he says, and she takes it as a good sign that he’s cracking jokes again. “But you don’t have to stay, I’ll be fine.”
She shrugs and plops down in the armchair next to the couch. “Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t suffocate under all those blankets. I don’t have the energy to train another rookie.”
He snorts at the laughably incorrect title, but doesn’t try to convince her to leave anymore, so she counts it as a win.
Settling into the armchair, she turns on the tv, determined to put on the trashiest, most inaccurate procedural she can find. She knows he secretly enjoys picking them apart.
“Now I can finally catch up on The Bachelorette,” she jokes, flipping through the channels until she finds exactly what she’s been looking for. Aha!
He groans, but still settles in with a smile just as the opening credits of CSI: Miami start to roll.