Chapter Text
January - Sophomore year
Carina never gets sick; it is so rare that she gets sick that it hits her like a truck when she comes down with the flu their sophomore year.
“Carina you cannot go to class like this, you are incredibly pale and laying on our bathroom floor in front of the toilet looking like you’re about to pass out while laying down. You’re staying home,” Maya says not letting up, if Carina leaves this dorm Maya is going to do nothing but worry about her.
“No, I can go to class look,” Carina says getting up and swaying, her legs almost giving out and Maya catching her.
“Still think you can go to class now?” Maya asks laughing a little as she helps Carina over to her bed. She helps her get onto her bed and points at her trying to look scary.
“Stay in bed, I mean it. I don’t want to come back from the store and find out you tried going to class. You aren’t going to want to know what I’ll do if you’re gone when I come back.”
“Is that a threat?” Carina asks around a cough making Maya grimace.
“I want to say yes but you seem like you are in enough pain and misery,” Maya says kissing Carina's forehead noticing how warm it is hoping it doesn’t get any worse.
“Alright, I'm leaving to go to the store. Do you want anything?” Maya asks moving the hair out of her face feeling bad for her, she looks absolutely miserable.
“No. I still feel like I’m going to throw up at any given moment.” Carina says getting comfy as she closes her eyes.
Maya smiles and sighs going to Andy and Vic’s room hoping to borrow Andy’s car. She and Carina didn’t see the point of having two cars up at school so Maya gave her car to Mason. She thought about using this moment to take Carina's Porsche but that felt like cheating the system.
“Hey Andy, can I borrow your car? Carina has the flu and I need to go to the store.”
“Is that why she has been throwing up all day? That makes sense,” Vic says looking up from her homework.
“Yeah sure just use hand sanitizer I would very much like to not get whatever she has,” Andy says handing her keys over.
“I promise to use hand sanitizer,” Maya smiles taking the keys and waving, going back into her room, and seeing Carina is already asleep.
Maya quickly goes to the corner store right off campus and bought flu medicine, Gatorade, cough medicine, a thermometer and Vics. Everything she wanted the last time she got the flu back in high school. She also heads to a place just off campus that makes good chicken noodle soup and grabs a bowl to try and get Carina to eat something.
She gets back to the dorm and smiles seeing Carina still lying in bed in the exact same position. She sets everything down on her desk and goes back into Andy and Vic’s room giving Andy her keys back.
Maya hates to do it but she runs her finger lightly across Carina's cheek hoping to gently wake her up. “Car, you gotta wake up.”
“Noooooo,” Carina burrows further into her bed as she groans her headache almost too much to handle.
“Yes, come on you need to eat something and take some medicine. You’re going to feel a lot better once you do I promise,” Maya says chuckling.
Carina listens and sits up in bed immediately feeling dizzy and feeling like she might throw up again. Maya notices the change in her demeanor and hopes she doesn’t puke all over her.
Maya hands Carina the soup and sees as Carina leans against the wall and eats a few bites of the soup. Maya is thankful she is at least eating and putting some nutrients into her body, she opens the box of Dayquil and hands her two pills.
“Take both of these and then some cough medicine and then you can go back to sleep, I always want to take your temp you are really warm” Maya says going into her own doctor mode and Carina smiles and shakes her head.
“You make a really cute doctor you know that?” Carina asks laughing which causes her to go into a fit of coughing that sounds extremely painful.
Maya wince and watches as Carina also winces and takes the medicine before taking another bite of the soup relaxing at the hot liquid hitting her throat. Carina takes a sip of the broth and sighs again as Maya hands her a dose of cough medicine.
“Take this it should help your throat,” Maya says and Carina does as she says not having the energy to fight her on anything.
Carina makes a disgusted face the moment the cough syrup hits her tongue, she shivers at the disgusting taste and Maya laughs knowing how she feels. She hates the feeling and the taste of cough syrup; she doesn’t trust anyone who likes the taste cough syrup.
“Come here let me take your temp,” Maya says holding up the forehead thermometer wanting to see how high her temp is before letting her go back to sleep.
Carina leans forward slightly not wanting to fall off the bed, her head feels like it’s swimming and if she leans too far she will topple over.
Maya takes her temp and it’s 101.9 which isn’t awful, Maya doesn’t feel good about it but it’s not absurdly high. Carina leans back and takes a few more bites of soup before abandoning the have gone meal. Maya takes it from her and sets it down giving Carina a Gatorade which Carina accepts taking a few sips.
“What’s my temp at?” Carina asks curiously.
“101.9, not awful but hopefully the medicine brings it down some,” Maya put both the Gatorades in their mini fridge and grabs the soup to dump the broth into the sink.
“I feel like I have been hit by a truck, and like I’m floating in the ocean,” Carina says carefully laying back down so as to not jostle her stomach.
Maya shakes her head with a chuckle and dumps the broth throwing the container into the trash.
“Those are strange metaphors but they strangely make sense,” Maya says grabbing her laptop and her psychology textbook getting up onto her bed to start on the paper she has due in a few weeks.
“Don’t you have class?” Carina asks cocooning into her blankets and making herself comfortable.
“I do but I am already ahead so I don’t really need to go, I’m okay if I skip one class.” Maya says focusing on the textbook in her hand.
“Maya I am fine, go to class I will still be here and sick when you come back, don’t skip class on account of me,” Carina says fighting sleep trying to convince her to go to her class.
“Carina, it’s fine I can afford to skip one class, attendance isn’t even mandatory for the class anyway.” Maya says as she brushes off the need to go to class so she can be there for Carina.
Carina doesn’t have the energy to continue fighting her, she lets herself succumb to sleep as Maya continues to work on her paper for a few hours. Maya notices that it’s about dinner time and decides she can probably go down and get some dinner while Carina is still sleeping. Maya goes down with Vic and Andy to get something to eat and sit down there for close to an hour talking before going back up to their dorms.
Maya walks into the room as the timer on her phone starts to go off telling her Carina needs to take more medicine. She walks over to Carina’s bed and cups Carina’s cheek running her thumb across it.
“Car, it’s time to wake up you need to take more meds.” Maya tries coaxing her awake without much luck. She stirs slightly but falls right back asleep. Maya chuckles and shakes her head.
“Hey sleepy head you gotta wake up,” Maya lightly shakes her hoping it will work.
Carina groans but wakes up rubbing her eyes like a small child does when they are tired. Maya smiles watching it noticing the amount of heat Carina is radiating at the current moment and makes a mental note to take her temp soon.
“Hi, you need to wake up enough to take more meds.” Maya grabs the already opened Gatorade from the fridge and hands Carina two more pills along with the drink.
“I feel gross,” Carina says taking both the pills and the drink.
“I know, you’ll feel better soon. Now you know better than to turn down your flu shot when they are giving them out for free,” Maya jokes with her.
“I was not getting a flu shot in the commons from pre-med students who don’t know what they are doing.” Carina says taking the medicine.
“You’re a pre-med student,” Maya points out laughing.
“Exactly, I know they have a no clue what they are doing.” Carina says snuggling back into bed and closing her eyes.
“They obviously know what they are doing because the rest of us don’t have the flu and you do.” Maya says earning a half assed glare from Carina.
“Sorry too soon,” Maya smiles and takes Carina’s temp again.
“What is it at?”
“101.4”
“No wonder why I feel worse.”
“You’ll feel better soon.” Maya pouts and moves some of Carina’s hair behind her ear.
It takes Carina a week to get over the flu, a week of missing classes and a week of feeling like crap before she finally started feeling better and by the end of the week Maya started to feel crappy too.
I guess those pre-med students didn’t know what they were doing after all.