Keep Your Girl Out of My Shoe Cabinet, Your Wife

It felt like the weekend was never ending and Sidney was getting impatient. Viviane spend sunday with taking a bath and laying in bed while organizing all sorts of things.
After breakfast Sidney had disappeared into his bedroom and was yet to leave it. Lunch time had come and passed. Viviane wasn’t hungry do she only walked to his door, knocked once but didn’t get a response so she didn’t prepare any food.
Later when the sun had began to set and she still hadn’t heard from him she started to worry. She decided to knock on his door again. Like hours prior Viviane didn’t get an answer from him. Slowly she opened the door and stepped inside. The blinds were closed, the room was cold and the windows needed to be opened to let new oxygen in. Viviane didn’t care. The only thing that had her attention was Sidney, he laid in bed under the covers, curled up to a ball with his back facing her.
With as little noise as possible, Viviane walked over to the bed, sat down on it and lightly laid a hand on his massive shoulder.
Sidney didn’t move but when she saw his chest rise and sink and the eye balls move she let out a relieved sigh. She sat there fort he better part of the next 10 minutes just watching him lay there. Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist and squeezed it lightly.

In shock she jumped a little and looked at him. His eyes were wide open and he looked right back at her. Without smiling or smirking like he had constantly done in the past days.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked in an expressionless tone that matched his face.

Viviane was shocked “Excuse me?”
Was all she could say.

“I don’t want you to see me like this, all weak and sick. Go back to your bed or our bed.” He wanted to escape her gaze so he tried to turn around but her slender hands pressed his shoulders down.

“Sidney, what’s wrong? Talk to me. I thought we were on a base that we could share our thoughts.”

She broke their eye contact and looked at her hands.
Sidney sighed and whispered: “The headaches won’t go away. The team is back in town and I wanted to play the next game.”

A tear of frustration, anger and pain escaped his left eye and rolled over his prominent cheekbones. Quickly Viviane’s hand shot up and wiped it away.

“Hey Sid…” she said in a soothing tone while walking around the bed and sat down on the other half, with her legs under the covers. “I’m sorry and you know I’d do anything to help you.”

Sidney moved around and placed his head onto her chest over her heart. His face was turned away from her and his right hand reached out to caress the bump. The rhythmic beating of the heart calmed him down and he started to relax a little. The pressure in his head was pushing towards his temples and he squeezed his eyes shut. Softly Viviane let her hand wander over his back and watched his suffer. After a while he seemed to be a lot calmer.

“I know you hate it when I run around these days but right now I’m in the better conditio. So you want me to get you anything? Water, food, painkillers?” she asked and softly let her fingers draw circles on his temples. He responded with a low moan. Her cold hands were doing little wonders.

“Water would be great. Could you maybe get me my blindfold from my toiletries bag? I think we should open a window but the light is such a pain.” He replied just above a whisper.
Viviane smiled, placed a light peck onto his temple and answered: “Of course. I’ll be right back. Will you just let me get back up again?”

Sidney moved his head only a little so she could get up and let his head fall back into the pillows with a sigh. Viviane quickly headed to the bathroom and grabbed the black object. Greatful he accepted it and pulled it on before pulling the cover up to his chin. Viviane sighed in defeat and moved the blinds up with as little noise as possible before opening the windows.

On the tip of her toes she left the room and went to the kitchen to get some water. Suddenly she remembered a childhood thing their mothers had always done and put a mug of milk into the microwave.

When she got back into Sidney’s room minutes later, fresh air filled the room so Viviane put all the stuff onto the nightstand before closing the window and closing the blinds again. Sid pulled away the blindfold and smiled a little.

“The air is much better now.” He was thankful.

“I agree. You used every single oxygen atom in here.”

She smiled back at him walking back to him and sitting down by his side.

“I know you asked for water but then I remembered this.” Viviane grabbed the mug and handed him the steaming liquid.
Cautiously Sidney tried the drink to not burn his tongue. The warm milk and the mild honey ran through his throat and he sighed.

“When did you become this perfect? This tastes exactly like your moms.”

Viviane smiled at him, happy about him remembering it. When he finished the milk minutes later, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her back under the covers placing his chin on her shoulder.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Odd… it’s not like I felt when I had the concussion first… dunno how to describe it.”

“You know if you want me to get you anything…”

“Vivane you’re not doing anything. I can get myself things on my own and you have to lay down. I don’t want to celebrate Christmas or new years in a hospital. I don’t care if we have to celebrate it laying down all night but I rather have it at my house than at a hospital.”

“About that… I don’t think I’ll be able to fly home for Christmas. I googled it and they don’t recommend flying with shortenings…” Viviane confessed.

Sidney softly intensified his embrace and squeezed her lightly from behind.

“I don’t care. It would have been nice to go back home but I already thought about the possibility that it won’t happen. Don’t worry too much. We’ll go home for Christmas. You, me and the little one. This year it will be just us. We can invite someone over or order in and watch dvd’s all day… don’t worry okay… all we have to worry about right now is that you stay home as long as possible and that the baby comes as close to the date as possible and maybe we have to hope for these PCS to go away. Other than that don’t worry.”

Viviane turned around and faced her husband.

“Thank you Sidney… You know I…”

Midsentence Sidney’s mobile rang and he turned away from her to get it. Viviane let out a sigh and slid further under the covers snuggling into the pillows breathing in his scent.

Sidney was sitting up straight in bed talking on the phone.

“Hello?” he asked.

“Oh hi mom…” he said a couple of seconds later turning around to Viviane. He pulled his legs in and moved a little closer.

“Yeah she’s here… why don’t we just get an iPad and we’ll skype in a moment?”

“Yeah bye.”

Sidney laid his phone back on the night stand and let out a sigh.

“The moms need to talk to us… don’t ask me why.”

He got up and walked to the office to get Viviane’s iPad. Back in the bedroom she had sat up against the headrest and put on one light. Sidney sat down next to her and handed her the device while chugging a bottle of water. Viviane opened the app and waited for their mothers to come online. Sidney slid back under the cover, pulled it up over the two of them and wrapped his arm around her so she could snuggle into his side comfortably.

Soon the obnoxious ring told them that the two ladies were trying to contact them and Viviane hit the green button so the connection was built up.

“Hey Moms” Sidney and Viviane said unanimously.

“Hey… look at you…” Viviane’s mom cooed. Viviane hid her face in Sid’s neck but he still felt her smile and let his hand wander up and down her spine. “If I took a picture of you right now and showed it to yourselves months ago you would’ve hunted me out of the country.”

Sidney laughed about his mother in law’s comment and smiled: “Probably…”

His own mother let out a content smile and watched the couple interact. “Why are you two doing this to me? I’m not speaking about the baby and all but why are you injured again… you two are giving me a heart attack.”

“Trina I’m not injured I’m just weak…” Viviane’s head spun around and she looked at the tiny screen. “Really… your son treats me like a glass ornament or something. I’m happy I’m allowed to breath and move around every once in a while. Actually I’m a little happy he’s on IR again so he can’t control me all the time.”

“Hey…” Sidney huffed and pouted.

“You know I don’t mean it like that.” She giggled and sat up straight to peck him onto the cheek.

The mom’s ‘awwww’-ed when they saw the former enemies interact.

“So uhm as you might have guessed we won’t make it home for Christmas since Viviane here can’t fly and I don’t know what’s up with my head right now. I just need some rest and hope to get out as soon as possible but right now it’s all buzzing and I’m not happy with my head.” Sidney explained.

“Don’t put yourselves in a hurry. All we need to know is that you are save. It would have been nice to have everyone here for Christmas but it won’t happen this year. Sadly we don’t find a way to get to Pittsburgh… Grandpa wants you to know that he loves you and that he’s really proud of you and that he can’t wait to meet his first great grand child.” Viviane’s mother announced.
Viviane’s lower lip began to shiver in thought of her sick grand father and a hot tear ran down her cheek. Sidney softly wiped it away and stroke her back.

“Thank you Mom… how is he?”

“He’s conscious these days and he still know who we are. Though he thought you still were 12 and he asked when you two will finally be home from summer camp. He cried when we told him that you two are married and expecting your first child. He’s so happy. We just couldn’t tell him the truth. If you call him don’t tell him okay? He will get a phone next week so I will give you his number. It seems like he’s better now but the doctors still say that the cancer is too strong and that they don’t think he’ll survive the spring.”

Sidney watched his mother grab her friends hand while she was fighting her tears while telling them the latest news about her father.

“He’s a fighter just like you entire family is.” Sidney said “When I saw him before the wedding the doctors told me he most likely would be dead when we came back from the honey moon. He’s a fighter and he will keep fighting until he holds his first great grand child in his arms. He promised me.”

Viviane and Sidney talked a little longer with their mother and promised to call soon. Natalie came over around 7pm and brought them dinner so they wouldn’t have to ran around so much.
That night they fell asleep in Sidney’s bedroom talking about the memories they had with Viviane’s grandfather who always had been like another grandfather to Sidney. Even after he went to Shattuck.