Summary: ACHOO!
Rating: PG
A/N: So I've been sick four times in the past three months. What? I tell you, my life does not affect my writing... Thank you very much, Karen! *smooch*
As always, feedback is much appreciated.
"Aaaaaaeeeeegggggghhhhhhh-ppppphhht."
Well. That was an attractive sound. She wasn't quite sure she could ever reproduce it again but maybe that was a good thing.
Sam rolled onto her back, hoping that the whole breathing, swallowing and, eventually, sleeping scenario would be made easier by a new prone position, but it became very obvious very fast that breathing through her nose was simply not going to be possible in any position whatsoever.
She blew her nose again and dropped the tissue into the bin beside her bed. She lay back, staring at her ceiling for the third day in a row and pretended she wasn't sulking.
Her eyes started watering.
Then her head started to throb.
A moment later, a pain started behind her eyes.
Reaching blindly to her left, she grabbed a-hold of her most powerful decongestant and read the back of the packet. Two tablets every four hours. And it had been.... she turned her head to the side to glance at her digital clock. She whimpered. It had been approximately fifteen minutes since her last dose.
She tried out her throat again, "Euueeergh."
She sniffed, which was a mistake because it seemed to increase the size of her head. Her skin felt bizarrely tight and she wasn't entirely sure how it was possible for her whole body to ache at the same time without her having had any exercise.
She twitched her toes experimentally. Okay. So not her entire body.
Scientists didn't, after all, exaggerate.
Bravely, she reached for a tissue and half sat up to blow her nose. Her head spun and she slumped back against the pillows, tissue to her face.
She sneezed.
Coughed.
Hiccupped.
"Kilb be," she told the ceiling, her voice muffled through the tissue. Probably the layers of mucus that were currently swelling her head to twice its normal size didn't help either.
Sam blew her nose and winced before throwing the disgusting tissue in the bin with all the others. Then she made the fatal mistake of touching her hair, which turned out to be an unwashed and sweaty nest on the top of her head.
Ugh.
She tilted her head to the side and pathetically looked at her empty glass of water. She was certain that if she stood up, she'd do a very feasible wet rag impression and slump to the ground. Then she would be stuck there, probably for the rest of her life. Schroedinger would probably occasionally visit to nibble on her ear or meow pitifully before he moved on and found a family that actually came home to feed him regularly. She was pretty sure he was cheating on her with the Howards anyway.
Miserably, Sam conceded that they probably deserved him more than she did.
She really did need a drink though. Slowly, she slid one foot off the bed until it dangled mid-air. Hydration was very important, she told herself. If she moved very... very.... very....
You know, that ringing in her ears sounded remarkably like... her cell phone.
She closed her eyes and reached for her phone.
"Carter," she said, enunciating carefully. She decided she ought to stick to as few words and syllables as possible.
"You're still sick?" a familiar voice accused.
God. The Colonel had terrible phone manners. "Yub," she said. She opened her eyes and blinked. Damn. Where had her 'P's gone?
"What's up with you *exactly*?"
"Flu."
"Oh." He said that in a way that suggested having the flu was nothing particularly interesting. "A lot of people are getting that around, I hear. People sneezing all over the place. Snot flying left... right..."
She would have rolled her eyes but they were burning and kinda sticky. She was afraid they'd get stuck up there. "Well, I hab it."
"I can hear that."
Sam all but groaned at the grin in his voice. "Is dere..." Dammit. "Any par...ti....cular reason d... you called, sir?"
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. "You had trouble there, didn't you?"
She pressed her lips together and tried to ignore the burst of temper. She could practically feel her temperature rising higher. "Sir?"
"Oh, okay. No. No par...ti...cular reason I called. You've been sick for a couple of days. I just wanted to check in."
Sam sniffled pathetically. That was kinda nice. No doubt Daniel had told him to do it but she could pretend he'd done it out of concern. "Thanks."
"Weird how you managed to a catch a strain of the flu that wasn't in the vaccine."
Actually, it was *just* her kind of luck. When she got sick, she *really* got sick. Unpredictable viral strains of the flu were nothing.
"Do you need anything?"
She plucked a tissue from the box and dabbed at her nose. "Bo."
Oh for....
"Is that... was that a 'no'?"
Colonel O'Neill was laughing at her. Out loud.
"I'm sick!" she exclaimed, waving the tissue around. She nearly added 'Be nice to me!' but she thought she was already pathetic enough. She shifted up on her pillows, raising herself into a sitting position.
Her head rolled.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. You sure you don't need anything?"
Putting a hand to her now ringing ear, she winced. Ugh. "I'mb sure."
"You got enough meds?"
She looked at her overfilling bedside table, covered in bottles and pots and packets and.... she could probably open up her own pharmacy. "Just about."
"Okay. Well," he sighed heavily, "I'll get back to my paperwork now."
Ah. "Bored?"
"Like never before, Carter. Like never before."
She smiled. "You'll hab to do it sometime." After all, if he left it any longer, his desk would probably buckle under the weight.
"Now, see, that's not true. Some day, Carter," Colonel O'Neill assured her, as if he was letting her in to a big secret, "we'll come across a planet full of bureaucrats who are just *dying* to rid Earthlings of their paperwork. Starting with me."
She groaned with laughter. "Oh, please don't make be laugh." She pressed hard on the bridge of her nose and decided at some point today she would have to wash her face. She would just have to. Even if it involved looking in a mirror.
"God, Carter, I'm sorry." He genuinely sounded upset. "You sure you don't need anything?"
"I'mb sure."
"Cool. Do you know when you'll be back in?"
"Tomorrow, probably." And, oh boy, she was really looking forward to *that*. "I'b missed so much work."
"Don't come in until you're better, Carter. That's an order. Plus, the longer you stay away, the more time I have to do my paperwork."
She smiled. "Okay. So long as it's an order."
"It is."
She sniffed. "Thanks, sir."
"My pleasure, Carter."