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In hindsight, the aura should have been Rafael’s first clue that this one was going to be bad. He should have called in a junior ADA, should have just called a cab and gone straight to bed. Instead, he got stubborn. Of course his body decided to make him pay for it. The little squiggles of white at the edges of his vision were just a warning - he figured he had a few hours at least. Never mind the blur that made it hard to read. He had the names and plea deal memorized anyway.
His skin felt prickly against his clothes. Well, that was new. He dragged his hand through his hair. Two more hours before the arraignment. He could make it two more hours, probably a half an hour in court, then back to his office to ride the migraine out before depositions in the afternoon. He dug the Excedrin out of his desk drawer and gulped the pills down with a swig of coffee that had already gone cold. He shuddered.
The headache started gently at first. It was ignorable. Just a light throb behind his eye. No big deal. One hour to go. He drew the curtains over his office windows and started to think through a line of questions for his first witness if the Danvers case went to trial. His brain felt slow. He chugged the rest of his cold coffee.
By the time Rafael was walking up the stairs of the supreme court, his head was pounding. It radiated down his neck and into his shoulders. He desperately fought the urge to gag. The headache was uncomfortable, but not debilitating. He was fine.
“Counselor!” He almost threw up right then and there on the marble. Sonny and Liv were walking towards him. He swallowed and took a deep breath.
“Hey, you okay? You’re looking kinda green there, Rafi,” Sonny muttered and laid his hand on his shoulder.
“I’m fine. Just a headache.” He shrugged off the touch. Sonny raised an eyebrow at him. Liv looked concerned. Rafael steeled himself. He needed to get it together because he couldn’t go in there looking weak. Buchanan would smell blood in the water and try for less time served. At least it wasn’t Rita. She knew all his tells. At least Sonny didn’t yet.
“Did you take anything? Do you need an aspirin?” Liv asked, already digging through her bag.
“You sound like my mother. No, I took something earlier, I’m fine. I promise,” he told her. He pushed open the courtroom doors.
“Go nail that bastard!” Sonny yelled after him.
Rafael cringed. He liked arraignments - they were fast paced, energetic, and he liked the challenge of working the room despite the noise. Today though, he wondered if this was what hell felt like. The defendant of the case before his was yelling something while the court officers dragged him out, a woman was sobbing and yelling after him, and the mid-morning sun pierced through the windows.
“Docket ending 635, the People vs. Charles McCandles.” Rafael brought his elbow over his mouth as he gagged, trying to make it look like a sneeze. He moved behind the prosecution table. The nausea was threatening to bubble over and the blur over half his vision wasn’t helping. He would not throw up here.
“I understand that a plea deal has been reached…” Rafael said everything he needed to and Buchanan behaved. Judge Austen hit the gavel. It felt like Rafael’s head was being stabbed from the inside out. His gut lurched with the headache. He needed to vomit. Now. With a hand over his mouth, he ran out of the courtroom and barely made it to the trash can outside before throwing up.
“Rafi!” Sonny was behind him, rubbing his back. He moaned. Actually moaned. It was mortifying. His head hurt so much. Tears dripped down his face and he wiped them away, wiped his mouth.
“I thought you said you were fine!” Sonny sounded worried.
“Just a migraine,” Rafael grunted out.
“Sarge, help me get him over to this bench,” Sonny said. Liv grasped one arm and Sonny took the other and they guided him down to the bench outside the courtroom doors.
“Rafa, you should go home. Can I call Carmen for you?” she asked.
“No… Can’t. Depositions later,” he muttered. Sonny rolled his eyes.
“Babe, you’re sick. I’m taking you home,” he said. He sat next to Rafael.
“I’m gonna get my car and we’ll go home, okay? Don’t argue.” Sonny whispered to him, then stood up. Rafael nodded and immediately wished he hadn’t. He gagged and shot up to get to the trash can in time. Liv grabbed his shoulders and kept him steady as he threw up whatever was left in his stomach.
“Go, Carisi. I’ll stay with him,” she said.
Rafael spent the next ten minutes hugging the trash as Liv rubbed his back just like Sonny did earlier. Several people stopped to ask if he was okay, and Liv waved them off. Rafael was shaking and unsteady by the time Sonny came back and they led him into the car.
“Here you go, Rafi. If you need to throw up again,” Sonny handed him a plastic bag and then thanked Liv. He shut the passenger door as gently as he could and then got into the driver’s seat. The motion of the car was worse than the light and the noise of traffic. Rafael screwed his eyes shut and clamped a hand over his mouth.
“When did you take medicine last?” Sonny asked. Rafael shook his head.
“Few hours,” he slurred.
“What time?” Sonny prompted.
“Dunno.”
“Okay babe. Did you hit your head or anything?”
“…No,” he said slowly. Why was Sonny asking him questions? He just needed to go to bed.
“Rafi, have you ever had a migraine this bad before? I’m a little worried here,” Sonny said. The throbbing was reaching a new high and Rafael started to wonder if a headache could actually kill him. At least it wouldn’t hurt anymore.
“Just need to go to bed,” he tried to say. It sounded garbled, even to his shattering brain. He frowned.
“Okay. New plan, we’re going to the emergency room. You’re seriously scaring me, Rafi.”
“Want to go home,” he tried to say again, but his lips weren’t cooperating.
“We’re almost there. Few more minutes.”
Sonny pulled the car up next to the ER doors and helped a shaky, stumbling Rafael towards the front desk.
“My partner needs to be seen for severe migraine,” he told the nurse. The next few minutes were a blur of bright lights and sound that made Rafael sick. He was in misery. Sonny left him at some point to go park the car as he was led through triage and into a treatment room. The nurses helped him into a bed, gave him a basin if he threw up again, and shut off the lights.
Then Sonny was back, holding his hand and rubbing his thumb over Rafael’s knuckles.
“It hurts Sonny,” he sobbed, and Sonny tightened his grip on Rafael’s hand.
“I know, babe. They’re gonna help you, it’s okay,” Sonny whispered to him.
Finally, the door slid open and a doctor came in. “I’m Dr. Hales, what brings you in today, Mr. Barba?”
“Migraine,” Rafael whispered.
“Okay, I’m going to order some meds and hopefully we can get this under control. I’m going to ask you a few questions, first though, okay?”
Rafael tried to nod. He should’ve just said yes. Shouldn’t move his head when it was this bad. He gagged into his basin. Sonny winced in sympathy.
“Can you tell me where the pain is?”
“Left side,” he slurred.
“When did it start?”
Rafael furrowed his eyebrows. “‘fore court.”
Sonny jumped in. “At least two hours ago - he’s been confused and out of it since and it was freaking me out, so I took him here.”
“Okay. I’m going to do a neurological exam just to be safe and then hopefully we can help you feel better, Mr. Barba,” the doctor said.
He had Rafael squeeze his hands, touch each finger to his, slid a hand under each knee and tapped the top, then pulled the warm blanket that the nurses left over him.
“Alright, I’m going to order some anti-nausea drugs and a migraine cocktail with fluids. A nurse will be in soon and we’ll let the meds kick in for about an hour and go from there.”
Shortly after he left, a nurse came in and started an IV.
“I’m going to give you a shot of Tylenol, okay?” She was talking entirely too loud in Rafael’s opinion. “It’ll sting a bit, is it okay if I put it in your hip? It’ll work best in a big muscle,” she said.
“‘Kay,” Rafael agreed. She could put that needle in his eye for all he cared, as long as it worked fast. Sonny helped him roll to his side and undid his belt so that the nurse could push his pants down just enough to give him the shot. It did sting, but it was over fast and she and Sonny had him covered with the blanket again and on his back before his brain caught up.
“All done, red button if you need me,” she told Sonny. When she left, Sonny took his hand again.
“Why didn’t you tell me your migraines get this bad? You seriously scared me, Rafael. I can’t believe you thought you could keep working like this.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. Whatever was in the IV was starting to make him drowsy, and the nausea was going away. Rafael could cry in relief. Sonny’s thumb continued rubbing his knuckles in a steady pattern as he dozed, and the headache eventually faded back to a manageable level.
Rafael didn’t know how long he had been there by the time Dr. Hales came back.
“How are you feeling? Ready to get out of here?”
“Much better,” Rafael slurred. Sonny chuckled next to him.
“Excellent. Looks like your heart rate came down nicely, and you seem much more relaxed. I’m going to write you a script for zofran and hydroxyzine in case the headache comes back, but you should see a headache specialist when you can. Migraines like this tend to reoccur and there’s rescue meds that can help you stay on top of it. Give me about fifteen minutes for that script and then you two can go home.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Sonny shook his hand.
“‘M sorry I scared you,” Rafael told him once Dr. Hales had shut the door. “Didn’t know it would be s’ bad this time.”
“Don’t apologize, Raf. You were really sick and I’m just glad I was there,” Sonny smiled at him. “Although…” Rafael squinted at him. Sonny bit his lip.
“I might need to send Carmen some flowers or something to apologize,” he admitted.
“What did you do?”
“I may have called her and demanded that she cancel everything. I was kinda freaking out and she talked me down,” he grimaced. “She told me that you get migraines often Rafael. Why does your legal assistant know more about your health than I do?”
Rafael scrubbed his face. Fuck. “They’re not usually this bad,” he tried, but Sonny was on a roll.
“So what, you hide in your office and force yourself to work through the pain? That’s insane, Rafi! I mean you were seriously out of it! You were saying shit that didn’t even sound like words!”
“Shhhhh Sonny,” he pleaded.
“Okay, okay. But we are having this discussion when you feel better,” he said. Rafael groaned and shut his eyes again. After a few beats, he felt Sonny lean over and kiss his forehead.
“I know you think you’re invincible, but let me help sometimes, yeah?”
“Okay,” he agreed.