Chapter Text
Tromping through an abandoned warehouse in Queens was not what Peter had had planned for his Sunday afternoon. He’d had a very pleasant day of watching the game with El and doing absolutely nothing ahead of him, but then one of Neal’s street contacts had turned something up on the forger they’d been after for weeks. Now here he was, in a dark, dank warehouse that smelled like an armpit.
There were times when Peter really questioned his life choices. Not usually for very long, because all he had to do was look at Neal to remember how much worse his decisions could have been, but at moments like these . . .
“Boss, there’s no one here,” Diana called from the second floor.
“No one but a bunch of rats,” Jones added. A skittering sound accompanied his words.
Peter winced. “All right. Let’s look around a bit more, see if Donaldson didn’t leave some evidence behind. You, too, Caffrey,” he added, holding out a pair of rubber gloves to Neal, who looked like he was five seconds away from suggesting he wait in the car. “Come on. This is a team effort.”
Neal grimaced as he took the gloves and snapped them on. “Peter, I highly doubt -”
“Don’t, Neal,” Peter said. “Look, if we get this over with, you can come over for dinner. El was thinking about making pasta sauce tonight from scratch. You don’t want to miss that, believe me.”
Neal perked up at the prospect, as Peter had known he would. The two of them spread out over the ground floor, while Jones went upstairs to join Diana. Within forty-five minutes, Neal had turned up a few shavings of paint that Peter suspected would match the paint on the forged Picasso currently sitting in an evidence locker, and Diana had found a handful of partial prints. All in all, Peter called it a job well done. He let his agents head home, and he took Neal back to the house with him for a pleasant evening of pasta and DVR’d football.
Three days later, they arrested Donaldson. By Thursday, there was nothing left but the paperwork. Normally, lulls made Peter nervous, because Neal didn’t do well when bored, but this time he was grateful; a headache had settled in at the base of his skull that afternoon, and no amount of Advil could get rid of it.
It was still there at four o’clock on Friday, when Diana appeared in his doorway. “Hey, boss,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb. “Would it be okay if I headed out early?”
Peter gave up on the file he’d been reading. It had stopped making sense at least thirty minutes ago, anyway. “Yeah,” he said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “Any plans this weekend?”
“My sister’s coming to town tomorrow, actually.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Yeah,” Diana said, sounding distinctly unenthused. Peter raised his eyebrows. “Sorry. It is nice. It’s just that she’s a professor in some podunk town in Missouri, so whenever she comes to see me, she wants to go out dancing.”
“And that’s not a good thing?” Not that he himself had ever enjoyed that sort of thing, but Diana struck him as the sort who might.
“Normally I’m up for it, but I’m totally worn out right now. But it’s fine,” she added with a shrug. “I’ll just take it easy tonight. Watch some TV and go to bed early.”
That sounded like a great idea to Peter just then. “Okay. Have a good night.”
“You, too, boss, thanks.”
Peter pushed himself to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. Down in the bullpen, he could see Caffrey at his desk, head propped on his hand, doodling idly. Jones’s desk was empty; Bank Fraud had borrowed him for the afternoon.
Peter gave in. He grabbed his coat and trudged down the stairs. He picked up Neal’s hat from its perch on his desk and set it on Neal’s head. Neal glanced up. “Peter,” he said, immediately pasting on a smile, “I was just -”
“Doing nothing,” Peter said. “Me, too. Come on. I think we earned an extra couple hours of weekend.”
Neal raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Peter said. “Now get your ass in gear. I’ll drop you at June’s on my way home.”
“Thanks,” Neal said, sounding genuinely grateful for once. He shrugged into his coat, and the two of them went to wait for the elevator. “Any interesting plans this weekend?” he asked Peter.
“Not really,” Peter said. “Probably watch the game - hopefully without any interference from your street contacts, this time.”
“Hey, my street contacts gave us the evidence that’ll put Donaldson away,” Neal pointed out.
“True,” Peter conceded. “What about you? Plans?”
Neal shook his head. “June’s out of town, and I haven’t seen Moz in a couple of days. I might do some painting. Maybe go to MOMA tomorrow afternoon with Sara.”
There was a joke that Peter would usually make there, about Neal casing the place. But it seemed like a lot of effort. Neal was unusually subdued, too, and Peter didn’t feel like taking him down a peg. So instead he just nodded.
It was a relatively quiet drive to June’s. “Have a good weekend,” Neal said, as he climbed out.
“You, too,” Peter said, with a wave.
The drive back to Brooklyn in rushhour traffic was never pleasant, but today it seemed to take twice as long as usual. By the time Peter found parking on his street, his headache had reached near-blinding levels. He fumbled his keys out on his front porch, suddenly wishing that El didn’t have an event that night. Inside, he went through the motions of letting Satch out and back in and filling his water and food bowls before going upstairs. He downed a double dose of ibuprofen in the bathroom, then went into the bedroom. He only meant to change into sweats before making himself dinner, but the bed looked so inviting that he stripped down to his underwear, leaving his suit in a puddle on the floor, and crawled beneath the covers.
He was asleep within minutes and didn’t wake when El returned and crawled in beside him. When he woke, it was to a dark bedroom and the certainty that he was about to be very sick. He threw back the covers and stumbled toward the bathroom, ignoring El’s confused, “Peter?” He barely made it in time to be violently ill into the toilet.
“Hon?” El said, flicking the bathroom light on. Peter flinched, groaning as the pain in his head skyrocketed. “Sorry,” she said, and used the dimmer to turn it down. Peter threw up again, and El went to sit on the bathtub, resting a cool hand on the back of his neck. “Breathe,” she said, and reached over to flush the toilet. Peter rested his head on his arm on the rim of the toilet, closed his eyes, and tried to slow his breathing. “Better?” El asked after a minute.
Peter shook his head. “Not much. God.”
“What’d you have for dinner?” El asked. She got up and went over to the sink, where she took a clean washcloth out of one of the drawers and ran it under the tap.
“I . . . nothing,” he realized. “I came home and went straight to bed.” At five-thirty. He should have realized then that something was wrong with him.
El seated herself on the bathtub again and draped the damp cloth across the back of Peter’s neck. “Sounds like you already weren’t feeling well. Why didn’t you call me?”
“It was just a headache,” Peter said. “I’ve had it since yesterday.” He leaned over the toilet again, heaving. But he hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours, and there wasn’t much to bring up. El rubbed his back until he was done, then handed him the cloth so he could wipe his mouth, and a cup of water to rinse and spit. “Thanks,” he said, sitting back.
“Come on,” she said, prodding at him. “Don’t get comfortable here. Let’s get you back to bed.”
“Not sure that’s a great idea,” Peter said. Even the few sips of water he’d taken felt miserable in his stomach. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the nausea, tried to concentrate on how El’s fingers felt, stroking his hair, but after a moment or two he gave up and leaned forward to be sick again.
“Oh honey,” El said, sympathetically, stroking the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
Peter groaned, pillowing his head on his arm on the rim of the toilet. “You should go back to bed.”
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Here, sit back,” she told him, and helped him ease himself back to sit against the wall. He tilted his head back, swallowing. “Just a sec,” El told him. He nodded and listened to her leave the bathroom. When she came back, she draped a fresh washcloth over his eyes and a blanket, warm from their bed, over the rest of him. “Open your mouth,” she said. He did so, and she slipped a thermometer under his tongue. Then she sat beside him, gently kneading his scalp with the pads of her fingers, until it beeped. “A hundred and two,” she announced. “How are you doing?”
“A little better.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“Sort of.” He sighed. “At least it’s Friday, and we don’t have an active case.”
“You know, hon,” El said, “most people’s reaction to getting sick on the weekend isn’t, ‘oh good, this won’t interfere with work.’”
“Yeah, well, most people don’t have a convicted felon they have to keep entertained, lest he commit further felonies.”
“True,” El said. “But Neal can entertain himself for a few days, I’m sure. Do you think you could try drinking some more water?” Peter pressed his lips together and shook his head. “What about ginger ale? I think we have some downstairs.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
El went downstairs. Peter slumped against the wall and let out a slow breath, suddenly even more grateful than usual - and ever since Keller, Peter was very grateful indeed - that he had El with him. The truth was that he felt more ill than he ever had as an adult, and he wouldn’t have wanted to try and handle this on his own.
El returned after a couple minute with a glass of ginger ale. Peter took the washcloth off his eyes to take the glass from her. “Slowly now,” she told him, and draped the cloth over the back of his neck again.
The ginger ale stayed down more easily than the water, though it took him forever to drink just half of it. By then his eyelids were growing heavy, and he was in danger of dropping the glass. El rescued it from his loosening grip and then helped him up. He leaned on her as they shuffled back into the bedroom, where he sank gratefully down onto the bed. El set the ginger ale on the bedside table, along with the thermometer. “You should try and take some Advil,” she said.
“Maybe later,” Peter mumbled, already half-asleep. “Don’t think it’d stay down now.”
“Okay, later then,” she agreed, and brushed her lips across his forehead before going around to climb into her side of the bed. He felt her fit her body to his, spooning him protectively, and let himself fall easily toward sleep.
He was sick twice more in the night. By morning he was exhausted and feverish and his whole body hurt. His fever was higher, too, creeping up toward 103, and El was visibly worried. She called the on-call advice nurse for his doctor’s office, and was told there was a bad GI virus going around that was making a lot of people sick. As long as he was able to take in fluids and the worst of the symptoms were gone within twenty-four hours, there wasn’t anything to worry about. She pushed ginger ale at him whenever he was awake.
He thought El had probably had something she’d had to do today - she often did, on Saturdays - but she stayed home. He couldn’t find the energy to argue about it. She curled up on the bed with him as he drifted in and out of sleep. He was chilled from his fever, and she was so warm, and all he could think was that he was far, far luckier than he had any right to be.
By Sunday morning, Peter could at least say that he hadn’t thrown up in twenty-four hours, but he suspected that might only be because he also hadn’t tried eating or drinking anything other than ginger ale. He felt terribly weak - even getting out of bed to use the bathroom was an ordeal - and his fever remained stubbornly high. El started looking worried again. Peter ate a few crackers to please her and managed not to bring them up through sheer force of will. He didn’t mention that to her, though, and the worried line between her brows eased a little.
By that evening, he’d worked his way up to chicken broth. But sitting up to drink it left him exhausted, and his headache was, if anything, worse.
“You’re not going to work tomorrow,” El told him. “No arguments.”
“You won’t hear any,” he said. Even if they’d had an active case, he wouldn’t have been of any use to the team. “I should call Diana, though. Let her know she’ll have to be Neal’s handler for a couple days. Come to think of it,” he frowned, “where’s my phone?” He hadn’t seen it since Friday night, not that he’d had the capacity to worry about it much.
El handed it over. “I confiscated it. Five minutes.”
Peter thought about arguing, but it seemed like a waste of energy. If anything dire had happened, the Bureau would have called the house phone to reach him. But there were two voicemails - one from Diana about an hour earlier, and one from Sara about ten o’clock that morning. Peter knew better than to think Elizabeth wasn’t timing his five minutes, or that she wouldn’t pry the phone from his hands when they were up, but he checked them anyway.
Diana’s played first. ”Hi Peter,” she said, sounding absolutely awful. ”Just wanted to let you know that I think I’m going to be out for a couple of days. I’ve been horribly sick all weekend. I think I’m over the worst of it, but I don’t want to expose anyone else.”
Peter called her. “Hey, Di,” he said, when she picked up.
“Hey boss. Wow, you too?”
“Yeah. I haven’t been this sick in years.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been this sick.”
“Do you need anything?” Peter asked. Not that he was in a position to do much for her, but he could call Jones or Neal if need be.
“Nah, I’m okay. My sister’s in town, and she’s going to stick around for a couple of days.”
He’d forgotten about that. “Oh, right. Not the visit she was hoping for, I bet.”
“Not at all,” Diana sighed. “Well, hang in there, boss. Don’t come back before you’re ready.”
“That goes for you, too,” Peter said. He hung up. He’d have to put Jones in charge of Neal, he thought with a sigh. Not that that was a problem, precisely; it was just that sometimes, Jones was a little too amused by Neal. Peter trusted Diana to be tough on Neal when he needed it; he wasn’t sure he trusted Jones in quite the same way. But it was only for a couple of days.
He glanced at the clock. Only about a minute left before El re-confiscated his phone. He thought about just calling Jones, but he was curious to see why Sara had called.
”Hi Peter, it’s Sara,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d heard from Neal this weekend. We were supposed to go to MOMA, but I never heard from him. I called him twice yesterday and once this morning, and he didn’t pick up. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but it’s not like him not to call me back, so I thought I should let you know.”
“Okay, time’s up,” Elizabeth said, appearing in the doorway. She held her hand out.
“Diana’s sick,” Peter told her, without handing the phone over. “She’s got the same thing I do. And Sara left a message, saying that Neal was supposed to call her yesterday and he never did. She’s tried calling him three times, and he didn’t pick up.”
Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed, frowning. “You think Neal might be sick, too.”
“Yeah,” Peter said. He tightened his grip on his phone. “He mentioned on Friday that Moz and June are both out of town. If he’s sick, he’s been by himself for forty-eight hours. El, if you hadn’t been here -”
“Hon, calm down,” Elizabeth said, reaching out to stroke his hair back from his face. “We don’t know that Neal is sick. There are other reasons he might not have returned Sara’s call.”
“Not many good ones.”
“Well, maybe not,” Elizabeth admitted. “Let me take care of this, though, okay? You’re stressing yourself out.”
“Try calling Neal,” he told her, letting her have his phone at last, “and if you can’t reach him, call Sara. Tell her -”
Elizabeth laid a finger on his lips. He fell silent. “Peter, I’ve got this. I care about Neal, too. We’re going to make sure he’s all right, but I need to you to rest right now. Okay?”
Peter nodded. He waited until she took her finger away, then said quietly, “If he’s this sick, he shouldn’t be alone.”
“He won’t be, honey,” El said. “I promise.” She took Peter’s phone and left the room. Peter closed his eyes, feeling worn out just from making a phone call and listening to a couple of messages. This was one hell of a virus. He hoped El wouldn’t catch it, but if it’d managed to take down him, Diana, and Neal in one fell swoop, her odds probably weren’t great.
El came back after a few minutes. “Did you reach him?” Peter asked.
“No,” El said, sitting on the edge of the bed. “But I did reach Sara. She’s going to go over there.”
“June’s gone, the house might be locked,” Peter realized.
“She’s stopping by here for your key first,” El replied, a little wryly. “I promise you, hon. We’ve got this.”
“I know you do,” Peter said, reaching for her hand. “It’s just that when it comes to Neal, I’m used to being the one responsible.” He should have realized something was wrong with Neal on Friday night, he thought. Neal had been far too quiet. If Peter hadn’t been so distracted by his own headache and weariness, he would have caught that and tried to figure out what was going on.
“You’re blaming yourself,” El said, abruptly. “Stop that.”
Peter raised his eyebrows at her. “How did you -”
“I can see it in your eyes.” El shook her head at him. “If Neal’s sick, we’ll take care of him. But you don’t get to blame yourself for not figuring it out sooner, when you were in no condition to figure anything out all weekend.” She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. “We won’t know anything for a little while. Try and get some rest.”
Peter didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, but he hadn’t counted on how completely exhausted he was. He dozed to the sounds of El moving around downstairs and woke briefly when he heard Sara come to the door for his key to June’s house. He wanted to get up, but even picking his head up off the pillow was too hard. El’s got this, he thought, and went back to sleep.
He woke not much later, feeling considerably worse than he had in hours. He spent about thirty seconds trying to quell the nausea before rolling out of bed.
El found him throwing up in the bathroom. She wet a washcloth for the back of his neck and went to sit on the edge of the tub. She waited until he’d finished, then said, “Honey.”
“I know,” Peter said, slumping over against the toilet. “I know.”
“The doctor said the worst of the symptoms should go away in twenty-four hours. It’s been almost forty-eight.”
“I know,” Peter said again. “But -”
“But nothing, Peter. It -”
Peter’s phone rang. El gave him a look to say that they weren’t done with this, and pulled it out to glance at the screen. “It’s Sara,” she said, and answered it. “Hi, Sara.” She paused, and Peter, watching her face, saw her eyes widen. “Oh my God. Have you called 911?”
“What?” Peter demanded, alarmed. “What happened?”
El reached out and pressed a hand to his shoulder. Peter suspected he was supposed to find this reassuring. He didn’t. “Okay,” Elizabeth said after a long pause. “Do you know where - right. Okay. Are you okay?” She paused and her mouth twisted wryly. “Yeah, I bet. Keep us informed, all right? Bye.” She hung up.
“El,” Peter said, “what the hell is going on?”
El shook her head. “Sara found Neal unconscious in his bathroom. She couldn’t wake him, so she called 911.”
“Oh God.” Peter closed his eyes. “Neal.”
“He’s going to be all right, hon,” El said, sliding down to sit with him on the floor. She pulled him down to lie with his head on her lap. “They’ll pump him full of fluids at the hospital. He’ll be all right.” She stroked a hand through his hair. “But I’m really worried about you right now. Your fever doesn’t feel any lower, and you can’t even keep broth down.”
“It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday night,” Peter said. “The only thing open is the ER. I don’t want to sit in a waiting room for four hours, that sounds awful.”
“I know,” El said, still stroking his hair. “I know. I’m just worried.”
“I don’t think it’d help, anyway. I’m not seriously dehydrated, so I don’t think they could do much for me.” He wasn’t in Neal’s situation, after all. Peter couldn’t stop thinking about how miserable he’d been, even with El here to look after him, and imagining how much worse it must have been for Neal. Poor Neal, all on his own in that big house, getting worse and worse, until he passed out on his bathroom floor. He was lucky he hadn’t choked on his own vomit.
“Okay,” El said, after a moment. “No ER. But if you’re not better by tomorrow, we should get you to the doctor, all right?”
“Yeah, okay.” Tomorrow, he might be able to get in to see his own doctor, and if not, at least urgent care would be open. That wouldn’t be as bad as the emergency room. But Peter hoped to avoid them both altogether.
It was an hour and a half before they heard from Sara again. In the meantime, Peter let El help him back to bed, then succeeded in convincing her to let him call Jones to tell him the rest of the team was going to be out for at least the next few days. Peter more than half expected him to be sick, too, but it seemed he’d managed to avoid succumbing. “I’ll hold down the fort,” he promised. “You guys just get better as fast as possible.”
“Thanks, Jones,” Peter said, more grateful than ever for his team.
When the phone finally did ring, Peter was dozing in bed, his head resting against El’s hip. “Let me talk to her,” he said, pushing himself up. El didn’t look happy about it, but she handed the phone over, and Peter answered. “Sara?”
“Peter!” she said, sounding surprised. “God, you sound awful.”
“Well,” he said with grimace, “considering I have the same virus that landed Neal in the hospital, I think I’m doing all right. How is he?”
“Well, he’s still out,” Sara said, “but they got an IV in him right away. The doctor won’t tell me much, because I’m not Neal’s next of kin, but he says he should be fine. They want to keep him overnight, regardless.”
“Probably a good idea,” Peter said. “Sara, I know this is asking a lot, but do you think you could -”
“Stay with him? Yes, Peter, of course.”
“Thanks.”
“The question is, what about tomorrow after they release him? He shouldn’t be on his own. I can try to be around some, but I’m not really in a position right now to take a lot of time off.”
“Tomorrow,” Peter said slowly, and glanced at El. She nodded. “Tomorrow, bring him here after he’s released. We’ll look after him.”
“Okay,” Sara said, sounding relieved. “That sounds good.”
“And, Sara?” Peter added. “When he wakes up, if he’s with it enough, have him call me, all right? No matter what time it is.” El was frowning at him, he could feel it, but Peter didn’t care.
“Will do, Peter,” Sara said. “See you tomorrow.”
Elizabeth took the phone back from him. “You don’t need to be getting three AM phone calls right now, Peter Burke.”
Peter knew she was right, but . . . “It’s Neal.”
“I know,” she said, mouth softening, and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
It was after eleven when the phone rang again. Peter had been dozing while El read, but he wasn’t properly asleep yet. El got there first, though. “Sara?” she said, then, “Oh, Neal, sweetie. How are you?” She paused. “Yeah, I bet. Here, let me hand you over to Peter. Feel better.”
Peter took the phone. “Neal, buddy, how’re you doing?”
“Peter,” Neal said, in a weak, thin voice that Peter wasn’t sure he’d have recognized, had he not known it was Neal. “Not so good. But better than - than before.”
“Good,” Peter said. “Look, I don’t know what Sara’s told you, but she’s going to stay with you tonight, and tomorrow, after they let you go, she’s going to bring you here. Is that okay?”
“Oh,” Neal said, and if Peter wasn’t mistaken, his voice shook just a little. “Yeah, that’s . . . that sounds good.”
“It’s gonna be okay, Neal,” Peter said, as gently as possible. “You’re gonna be okay. Get some rest, and we’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
“Yeah,” Neal said. “You, too.”
They hung up. “Poor kid,” Peter said, putting his phone back on his nightstand. “Thanks for letting him stay here, El.”
“You’d have worried about him constantly otherwise,” El said, stroking a hand through Peter’s hair. “Better to have him where you can keep an eye on him. And where I can keep an eye on both of you.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “Now let’s get some sleep.”
***
The next morning, Peter was woken by voices in the hallway outside the bedroom door. He pushed himself up on his elbow and rubbed a hand over his face, trying to orient himself. He’d slept for over ten hours, he realized, glancing at the bedside clock, and felt better than he had since Friday. In fact, he felt well enough to stand, retrieve his bathrobe from the back of the armchair, and go see what the fuss was.
The fuss was Neal and El, unsurprisingly. Peter paused in the threshold, half hidden by the bedroom door. Neal looked like he was barely standing, and El had a hand on his arm, clearly trying to steer him into the guest bedroom. “Neal, sweetie, Peter’s still sleeping,” she said, gently but very firmly. “You can see him after he wakes up, but he needs his rest. I’m happy to have you stay with us, but you need to understand that.”
Neal almost flinched. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I’m sorry, El. I won’t bother Peter, I promise.”
“Hey, hey, Neal, it’s okay,” she said, reaching up and forcing him to look at her. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just trying to look after both of you. Now, do you need to use the bathroom before you lie down?” Neal nodded. He shuffled into the bathroom and shut the door. El covered her face with her hands.
Peter finally opened the door the rest of the way. “Hon,” he said quietly.
She turned. “Oh, Peter. I hope we didn’t wake you.”
“I think I was pretty close to awake anyway.” He went to stand beside her. She wrapped her arms around him, then checked his forehead with her hand. “Better?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, with a distinct note of relief. “You look better, too. You actually have color in your face today. How are you feeling?”
“Not like I’m ready to run a marathon,” Peter admitted. “But I might actually be able to eat something.” He nodded toward the closed bathroom door. “How’s Neal?”
“A bit of a mess,” El sighed, leaning against Peter’s chest. “Sara said he slept really badly at the hospital. How much of our conversation did you hear?”
“Enough.” Peter eyed the bathroom door. “Hon, would you mind making some tea? That ginger stuff you got at the health food store?”
“Of course,” she said, clearly understanding the subtext. “But promise me you won’t be up for long. You really should still be in bed, even if you are feeling better.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said.
Neal emerged from the bathroom a minute or so after El had gone downstairs. His eyes widened when he saw Peter waiting for him. “Peter,” he said, and stumbled toward him, almost falling against him. Peter brought his arms up to hold him; while El occasionally accused him of being emotionally obtuse, even he knew that this was not a moment for a back-slapping sort of hug. Neal pressed his face into Peter’s shoulder, and after a moment, Peter lifted one hand to the back of Neal’s neck.
“You’re okay,” he said quietly. “You’re not on your own anymore. You’re here, and you’re safe. Got it?” Neal nodded against his shoulder. “Okay. Come on, then,” he said, pulling away and taking Neal by the arm.
“But,” Neal said, glancing over his shoulder at the guest room.
“Easier on El if we’re in one place,” Peter replied. “Plus, there’s a TV in our room. Though I understand if you’d rather be alone,” he added, when Neal looked uncertain. “This whole experience has been pretty short on dignity, hasn’t it?”
Neal winced. “Yeah. I mean, no. I mean -”
Peter squeezed Neal’s arm. “I know what you mean. Come on.”
In the bedroom, Peter quickly spread up El’s side of the bed and prodded Neal into lying down on top of the covers. Peter pulled the comforter from the foot of the bed up and over Neal, making a mental note to ask El to bring in a couple blankets from the guest room. “Okay?” he asked, once he’d gotten Neal settled.
“Yeah,” Neal said, faintly. His eyelids already looked heavy. Peter hesitated, then let his hand fall on the crown of Neal’s head. His hair was lank with feverish sweat and greasy from days without showering, but Peter pushed his fingers into it anyway. Neal sighed.
By the time El brought the tea up a few minutes later, Neal was sound asleep, and Peter was channel surfing. She paused in the doorway with the tray and surveyed the two of them, clearly trying to suppress a smile.
“Don’t say anything,” Peter muttered.
“Not a word,” she promised, setting the tray, which held not only tea but also toast, on the bedside table. She held out the thermometer, and Peter obediently stuck it under his tongue. “Scootch over,” El said, and Peter moved over, letting El sit on the bed beside him. The thermometer beeped, and El took it out to read it. “A hundred and one point two. Heading in the right direction at least.” She passed him his tea. “How’s he doing?”
Peter looked down at Neal, whose head rested close to Peter’s hip. “Not great. But he’ll get there. If you need to go to work today, I think we’ll be okay here.”
El shook her head. “I’ve already arranged with Yvonne that I’ll work from home. You’re better, hon, but you’re still running a fever. You shouldn’t have to take care of yourself and Neal.”
Peter nodded, relieved. “Have I ever mentioned how lucky I am to have you?”
“Once or twice. Do you think you could eat some toast?”
“Yeah,” Peter said. “I think so.”
He ate half a slice, very slowly, and felt okay afterward, though not quite up to the other half. El brought in a couple extra blankets from the guest room, then went downstairs to work. Peter settled in with his mug of tea and a Law and Order marathon.
Neal slept for most of the morning. When he finally woke, just before noon, it was with a jerk and a gasp. “Easy there, buddy,” Peter said, when Neal blinked, clearly disoriented. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I just . . .” Neal swallowed. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
He looked a little better than he had that morning, at least, though that might have been fever making his eyes seem bright. Neal curled up tighter under his pile of blankets, either not noticing or not caring that his head was almost in Peter’s lap. If Neal wasn’t going to mention it, Peter decided, then he wouldn’t either.
“You want some tea?” Peter asked.
“Maybe in a bit.”
Peter was silent. He needed to say something, he thought, about what had happened the day before, because Neal never would. But maybe not right then. Later, when they were both feeling more themselves, he thought. For now, he didn’t think talking about anything was going to help much. The best thing he could do for Neal - the best thing he and Elizabeth could both do for Neal - was just be there. And since he wasn’t up to doing anything that would take him out of the house, that was something Peter could do very well.
“Law and Order?” Neal asked, apparently noticing what was on the TV for the first time.
Probably not Neal’s favorite show, come to think of it. Normally, Peter would have argued with him, but he didn’t have the heart with Neal looking so wiped out. “Yeah, but we can change it. What do you want to watch? I bet you’re a Leverage fan, aren’t you?”
Neal shrugged. “I don’t care. I’ll probably just fall asleep again.” He paused, looking vaguely interested for the first time. “Is Leverage on right now?”
Peter rolled his eyes but switched over to the TV guide channel anyway. “I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
That was more or less how the two of them spent the next two days. By Tuesday Neal looked a bit more alert, but he was still, to Peter’s eye, worryingly passive. He barely picked at his food, and when Peter put on Field of Dreams for the sole purpose of provoking him, he hardly grumbled. Elizabeth looked worried, too, and it was mostly for Neal’s sake that she continued to work from home, so that she could be there to prod him into eating something at every mealtime.
To Peter’s surprise, Sara came by both Monday and Tuesday evenings, bearing matzo ball soup and a few essentials from Neal’s apartment. If she thought it was strange to find the two of them camped out together in the master bedroom, she didn’t say anything about it. She stayed for a couple hours, giving El a much-needed reprieve. Neal seemed glad to see her, but also rather taken aback, and Peter got to witness, for the first time ever, Neal Caffrey being socially awkward.
“I thought this might scare her off,” Neal admitted, after Sara left on Tuesday night. “Sara’s not really the caregiving sort. This isn’t what she signed up for.”
Peter shrugged. “Maybe not, but when the chips were down . . .”
“Yeah,” Neal said. “But not leaving me unconscious on my bathroom floor is one thing. I just didn’t think she’d come back until I was feeling better.”
“Seems you might’ve underestimated her, then.”
“Hmm,” was all Neal said, but he looked thoughtful. Peter decided not to push it.
By Wednesday morning, Peter felt well enough to argue with El about going back to work, but it was Thursday before she let him do it. “I don’t want to see you at the office before Monday,” he told Neal as he stood in the threshold to the guest room, knotting his tie. He braced himself for protest, but Neal just nodded. “What, no argument?”
Neal sighed. “Can we just pretend there was?”
“Yep,” Peter said, simultaneously relieved and worried that Neal wasn’t putting up more of a fight.
“But you know, I’m probably okay on my own now. You could drop me at June’s on your way in.”
“Unless you have food in the fridge and a well-stocked medicine cabinet, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Stay at least until the weekend, all right? Otherwise El will just worry.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want El to worry,” Neal said, giving him a look. He looked pleased, though, and more than a little relieved.
Thursday was Diana’s first day back, as well. She looked about how Peter felt: well enough to be there, but not at a hundred percent, not yet. Any really exciting cases were going to have to go to other teams, Peter decided, until he and Diana were both back to normal. They spent Thursday and Friday going through piles of cold cases, marking ones to come back to when they were at full capacity again the following week.
On Friday evening, Neal went back to June’s; Peter would have argued, but Sara picked him up and assured Peter, while Neal was upstairs getting his bag, that she’d be there at least through Saturday and possibly longer. Peter thought about the conversation he’d meant to have with Neal, but there was no opportunity, with Sara and El both there, and it seemed the moment had passed. Hopefully Neal had learned his lesson, he thought, and realized how much easier everything would have been if he’d just asked for help when he’d needed it.
Peter saw Neal and Sara into a cab and spent the rest of the evening on the sofa with El, watching TV with Satchmo at their feet. And that, Peter thought with relief, was the end of the whole unpleasant episode.
Until three o’clock Sunday morning, when his phone rang.