Work Text:
For the billionth time that day, Kate sneezed.
It was, of course, scientifically impossible for her to sneeze a billion times in less than twenty-four hours. The human heart beat on average a hundred thousand times a day, and humans blinked around twenty-eight thousand times a day. She would have to sneeze over eleven thousand times a second for her to even come close to a billion… but when her airways were clogged to the point where she felt they would never feel air again, and her nose was the colour of the tomatoes in the farmer’s market she and Jill attended every weekend, she thought she deserved the hyperbole of the assumption. As a little treat.
The handwritten paper wavered before her eyes, sprawling black ink detailing an argument about gravitational lensing. What had been the prompt again? She opened up her laptop to double check, but the glare of the screen burnt into her watering eyeballs with such ferocity that the lid was immediately slammed back down again. Maybe she should ask her students to write the prompt at the top of the paper next time, lest she have more illness-ridden days in the future.
Lifting the lid again, she lowered the brightness right down and managed to squint at the submissions portal. Ah, yes, the use of gravitational micro-lensing in order to detect exoplanets. Reading the prompt alone was enough for her to close the laptop again with just as much force, for no reason except the fact that the existence of the assignment and her professor-bound duty to grade these papers frustrated her and her poor, tired, aching head.
She needed to get this marking done, otherwise her whole schedule would be thrown off for the week. Which wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it would certainly be irritating. It was just three more papers. Three…
Kate lowered her head and picked up her pen.
When she next raised her head, she found her fingers limp and the pen rolled to one side of the desk, and a figure quietly but insistently packing up the papers into her folder.
“You look like shit,” was the first thing her ever-observant partner said.
“Criminology professor, right?” Kate said, her voice grating unpleasantly in her throat. “I can see why you got the role.”
Jill snorted a laugh. She booped Kate’s nose with the pen. “Sarcasm is forbidden until you can speak a sentence without sounding like a rusting accordion, darling.”
“You flatter me.”
“Hey, I gave you plenty of praise last night,” she winked, stuffing the folder into Kate’s satchel, and Kate’s flu-flushed cheeks went, if possible, even redder. “I’m simply concerned, my love. I said you should’ve taken the day off today, and now look at you. Falling asleep on your marking. Come home with me and let me take care of you tonight.”
“...fine,” Kate relented.
She braced her palms on the desk and stood. Immediately, her legs buckled and a buzzing filled her ears as the room tilted sideways. Kate, for a split-second, wondered if she and Jill had been caught in the gravitational pull of some strange, rogue planet that was on a collision course with Earth… but then Jill’s arms were around her and she was sagging against her partner’s torso and she decided that no, there were no rogue planets. Just a sudden drop in blood pressure. Or a lack of hydration? Perhaps both.
“Home,” Jill said firmly.
“Ngh,” was Kate’s only reply.
With a tenderness that sent shivers across Kate’s skin, Jill helped her into her coat and bundled her scarf around her neck. She flicked off the office lights and looped an arm around Kate’s waist, guiding her out into the quiet halls of the Beecroft Building.
“It’s so stupid,” Kate muttered. “Last night, I was feeling fine—”
“Mhm, fine is one way of putting it.”
“Shut up. And today my body went nope, had enough of that, and now I’m a mess. Science is stupid.”
“You’re an astrophysicist.”
“I’m qualified to say science is stupid. As are y—”
The end of her sentence was broken by a coughing fit so violent that she had to pause and double over, one hand pressed to her mouth. Every muscle in her torso screamed in protest as she hacked and wheezed, whilst Jill rubbed her back and murmured a mixture of gentle reprimands and soft reassurances. When Kate could breathe once more, she leant against Jill—this time more heavily, as she was beginning to realise the extent of her exhaustion.
Jill’s car waited outside, the lone vehicle in the parking lot. Kate blinked up at the stars she could just about make out in the sky. “What time is it?”
“Around seven pm.”
“God,” Kate groaned. “I said I’d be home for six. I’m sorry…”
Jill simply smiled and squeezed her arm. “I’ll only forgive you if you take the day off tomorrow.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Raymond.” She sank into the passenger seat, the leather creaking beneath her. “...but yes, I’ll take the day off tomorrow.”
As Jill drove out of the parking lot and weaved her way through Oxford’s streets towards their house, Kate pulled out her phone and messaged Christofer to cancel their gym training session tomorrow. It took her several goes to spell each word correctly, so clumsy were her thumbs, and by the time she pressed send she vowed to never look at a screen for as long as she lived (or, more practically, for the rest of the day).
“What do you feel like tonight?” Jill asked. “Pasta? Soup? Something else?”
“May I ask you a favour, love?”
“Anything.”
“Can you decide for me tonight? I just want to curl up with a hot water bottle and not think about anything.”
Jill reached across and squeezed her ice-cold hand. “Soup it is. You should take a shower when we get in, and then you can get all cosy and not worry about getting out of bed.”
Kate did as suggested and spent a luxurious half-hour under the cascading hot water of their rain shower. She scrubbed away all the smells and stress of the day, lathering shampoo through her greasy hair and covering every inch of her body in lavender-scented shower gel. When she emerged, she found Jill had folded her favourite pyjamas and dressing gown outside the bathroom door, freshly warmed from the radiator. She pulled them on, snuggling into the material, a lump rising in her throat. No matter how much of a cool, calm exterior she could put on, it was always the small things that got to her in the end.
Downstairs, Jill had cast off her checkered coat and was busying away at the job, making a pot of soup from scratch. The silky back of her waistcoat shimmered in the warm glow of the wooden pendant lights, and her crisp white sleeves were rolled up and cuffed just above her elbows. There was something strangely addictive about watching her cook, how she moved through the kitchen with nary a stumble or a pause, and Kate leant against the doorframe for a moment, hands pushed into her dressing gown pockets, watching her with a small smile on her face.
Then she padded across the tiles and hugged her partner from behind, resting her face in the crook of Jill’s neck where it fitted just so.
“I love you,” she mumbled against Jill’s skin.
She felt, rather than saw, Jill smile. A languid hand lifted to tangle in Kate’s hair, playing with the blonde tresses. “Softie.”
“I do,” insisted Kate.
“I know, darling. I love you too. I just find it hilarious how soft and cuddly you get when you’re ill. Or drunk, for that matter.”
“‘S not my fault you’re so good to me. Any woman would fall in love.”
“Then I’m extremely lucky it was you who fell in love with me,” Jill murmured, pressing a kiss to the crown of Kate’s head. “Come on. Let’s get you on the sofa.”
She had piled the velvet sofa with blankets and cushions galore, and Kate practically collapsed into her newfound nest in weary delight. Awaiting on the coffee table was a steaming mug of honey and lemon, a hot water bottle, and two packets of medication: one throat lozenges, the other cold and flu tablets. Kate cradled the mug in her hands as Jill fussed around her, ensuring that she was buried alive in blankets and could not move an inch (not that she had the energy to).
The soup—butternut squash, with hints of rosemary and a touch of coconut milk—was served in Kate’s favourite floral ceramic bowls. Jill put on a nature documentary in the background as Kate did her best to spoon soup into her mouth without spilling it everywhere. The throat lozenges helped soothe her throat, but it still itched in protest whenever she swallowed, and she had to fight not to cough mid-swallow and end up splattering the soup all across their beautiful mahogany coffee table.
“It tastes wonderful,” she said, resting her head on Jill’s shoulder. “Thank you, my love.”
“I’m glad. You sound marginally less like a broken accordion now.”
“Wonderful.”
They settled into a comfortable silence. Once Kate had finished her soup, she tugged Jill under the blankets draped herself across her partner’s lap (“like an oversized cat,” Jill had said teasingly). No hot water bottle could provide the warmth that enveloped her when she was snuggled in Jill’s arms, and Jill always knew the perfect way to hold her, always making her feel safe and loved.
Exhaustion began to creep into her bones again. Her eyelids drooped, the documentary blurring into marbled greens and blues. Jill murmured something in the periphery of her awareness, and when Kate failed to reply, her partner laughed that soft, breathless laugh reserved only for Kate and tightened her arms around her, peppering her with feather-light kisses.
Next thing she knew, she was upstairs in their elegant bedroom and being tucked into bed. She clung tighter to Jill, wrapping her arms around her neck, and only relented (a little sulkily) when Jill promised she would join her as soon as she’d changed into her own pyjamas. Tiredness and illness had made everything soft around the edges, including her usually razor-sharp train of thoughts. It was slightly akin to being drunk, she supposed, except this time she was not engaging her fellow professors in furious debates about the intersection of astrophysics and quantum mechanics. In fact, the only real debate she was having was with herself over how long she could really stay awake for.
The answer was, apparently, not long at all. She woke briefly in the middle of the night to cough some more, take a paracetamol, and then starfish on top of Jill, but then sleep claimed her as swiftly as a blink of an eye and she plunged into a world of dreams that never quite formed, that lingered on the edges of her thoughts and tangled together to create all sorts of bizarre tapestries of memories.
Midway between marking assignments on a beach with a black hole on the horizon and doing her gym routine in a cafe whilst giving a lecture, she became aware of Jill getting out of bed, shuffling around the bedroom, then the clinking and clanking of crockery downstairs. Kate considered getting up to follow her, but the bed was too comfortable, and she was still rather tired, and she could smell breakfast downstairs and she knew Jill would bring her some in bed, and she could steal five more minutes from her partner before Jill had to go to work, and all of that sounded very delightful, if only she could stay awake a little longer…
When her eyes next opened, it was mid-morning, and a note awaited her on the bedside table.
Breakfast waiting downstairs to be warmed up. Chris dropped round this morning with a supermarket’s worth of sweet treats for you. I’ve taken your marking with me so you don’t exhaust yourself. Lots of love, your Jillian x
“Took my marking?” Kate muttered to no one in particular, smirking. “I know you like to play dirty, but that’s a little too far.”
Wrapping herself in her dressing gown and tugging on her slippers, she took another throat lozenge and padded downstairs. On the way to the kitchen, despite the cotton-wool sensation still padding her head and dulling her thoughts, she ducked into her study just to double check, and—yep, Jill had taken all of her marking with her, and she’d left a Post-It note with a smiley face and a love heart on the desk.
Kate folded up the note and tucked it into the breast pocket of her pyjama top, smiling to herself. Fine. Alright. Jill had made her point. She would rest for the day—drink the coffee they saved for special occasions, maybe listen to that podcast she’d been meaning to catch up with for weeks before professor work had grabbed her by the throat—and then hopefully, hopefully she would be better by this evening, and then she could go to work and resume her daily routine.
Even though it had been less than an hour since she woke, she missed Jill. Dreadfully. They would have to make up for lost time tomorrow, when Kate was feeling better.
She ate breakfast (porridge with fruits, steaming coffee, a small plate of treats from the basket Christofer had brought round) and headed into the living room, armed with a hot water bottle and headphones, ready to listen to the podcast.
Her head hit the cushion on the arm of the sofa, and the next thing she knew, it was evening time and Jill was leaning over her, smiling softly, and Kate stretched her arms up sleepily to draw her partner in for a long, warm kiss.