Someone Lost, Something Gained

From: Niall
> I think I’ve planned our date really well.

To: Niall
< I’m trusting you. Don’t make me regret this.

Veda giggles, dropping her phone into her pocket. Niall had woken up yesterday evening and sent a long text apologising - again - for having to cancel. The explanation he gave was vague, but she didn’t want more details. Reading that there was an influx of patients in his ward was bad enough; knowing the extent of their conditions would have been worse.

Unfortunately, Veda had tortured herself by opening up the local news website last night before bed, only to read about a car accident that sent four kids to the hospital and a fire at the Boys and Girls club that injured seventeen.

She hadn’t read on to see if any had died.

Sighing, she grabs her name-badge from where it hangs in her locker, shuts the door, and turns to leave the locker-room. The world swims, fuzzy and blurring around her. The vertigo has occurred a few times already today; she’d hoped it was something she ate, but that theory is quickly turning inaccurate. It wouldn’t be getting worse if it was merely food disagreeing with her.

“Veda?”

She peels her head up from the counter of the nurses’ station, blinking slowly, and peers at Nadia as the woman’s face warps and doubles. When did Veda get here? She was just in the locker-room, on the other side of the floor. “Hm?”

“You look awful. You okay?”

“‘M fine,” Veda says as she lets her head thunk down on the counter again. “Just tired. Na’ya? Gimme bin.”

Nadia barely gets the garbage bin in front of Veda before she’s throwing up. Someone lets out a groan of disgust, another gasping, and Nadia rubs her hand along Veda’s back. When she’s finished, Veda tries to stand upright, but her body rebels against the order - she sways unsteadily, and her knees buckle. Nadia carefully lowers her to the floor.

“Okay, this isn’t just being tired, Veda. Holy shit,” she breathes when she presses her hand to Veda’s forehead. “Angela, get Phyllis. Alice, thermometer.”

Veda closes her eyes and leans heavily against the front of the station. The lights are far too bright, piercing through her eyelids until her head throbs. Or maybe it’s the fire in her throat. Or the tightness in her chest. Voices grow muffled around her, but Nadia’s comes through, ordering Veda to open her mouth. She gags, nearly throwing up again, on the thermometer under her tongue.

“You’re going home, Veda.”

“‘M fine,” she protests, words clawing from her throat and leaving behind glass fragments.

The night manager snorts, and two pairs of hands haul Veda to her feet. She doesn’t open her eyes, letting out a whimper as her stomach lurches. Alice tells Veda to chew on a piece of gum and put on a mask, she will give Veda a lift home.

“The subway is the last place you should be with a fever of a hundred and two.”

Veda stops trying to argue. There’s no point, and she’s exhausted. Nadia was right - this isn’t just being tired. Alice helps her out to the car park, into the passenger seat of her tiny hatchback, and Veda rests her head against the window. Maybe going to bed will be a good idea. Rest. That’s what usually the doctor orders when a person is ill.

Veda doesn’t even get upstairs to her room. Instead, she drops her bag by the door , trying and failing to shut the door behind her, and shuffles to the couch. Falling face-first onto the cushions, Veda falls asleep in her scrubs with her sneakers still on her feet.

Somehow, she feels even worse when she wakes the next morning - the cruel punishment of karma or fate or something who absolutely hates her. Veda shivers and burrows further into the blanket. A small, non-feverish part of her mind wonders where it came from; she didn’t grab one last night. Then again, she can’t recall the trek from locker-room to nurses’ station, or even the drive home.

But she definitely did not put the cool, wet cloth on her forehead.

Hattie’s voice nears the living room, singing an old Kenny Rogers song from their childhoods. She comes to a stop at the end of the passageway connecting the living room and kitchen, smiling slightly when she sees Veda is awake. In one hand is a glass of water, the other carrying a bowl of soup. The bottle of ibuprofen balanced on the top of her head is unexpected, and Veda raises a brow before grimacing.

Why does even her hair hurt?

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty. You scared me. You left the door wide open last night, and I swear I thought the air-con was about to blow until I realised it was you breathing.”

Veda pushes herself to sit up with shaky arms, coughing and wincing when her chest burns. “Sorry.”

“Okay, you’re going to Urgent Care today.” When Veda shakes her head, Hattie frowns and carefully lowers the bowl to the coffee-table; she somehow manages to not dislodge the plastic bottle on her head. “Nope, no doing. I was okay with you staying home and sleeping it off if it was just a cold. But you sound like you’ve smoked since you popped outta the womb, and you’re obviously in pain.”

“I’m fine,” Veda protests, but she can’t argue against the fact that her lungs seem to have morphed into a fireplace at some point.

She flops back to lie on the couch, the world spinning around her, and closes her eyes. Pills rattled as Hattie slams the bottle onto the tabletop. Footsteps slide along the hardwood, the front door opens. Then -

“Nonna, Veda won’t go to the doctor!”

Veda groans and tugs the blanket over her face. It’s a low blow to get Nonna Costa involved; everyone knows that unless it’s an actual emergency, Nonna is best left out of it. She reacts swiftly to anyone being ill, and she doesn’t relent until the lingering cough or other discomfort is gone completely.

Not even thirty seconds later, Nonna bustles into the house. Veda whines like a petulant child when the woman yanks the blanket down, presses the back of her hand to Veda’s forehead and turns toward the ibuprofen on the coffee-table. She doesn’t let up on the admonishment, given in both Italian and English to double the impact. Veda sends a pleading look toward her cousin, but Hattie raises her hands and takes a pointed step back.

Groaning, Veda throws her hands into the air - or she thinks she does. She isn’t quite sure her body even recognises the signals her brain is trying to send. “Okay, okay, I’ll go. God.”

“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain, Veda. You may not believe in Him, but I do, and you will not drag me to Hell with your heathen ways.” Thankfully, Nonna is smiling, an amused gleam in her large brown eyes. “Now, take your medicine like a good piccolina, and rest.”

Nonna kisses the air over Veda’s head and moves toward the door. Her final words before leaving are an order for Hattie to come get her if Veda continues being stubborn. Once the door is closed, Veda flips her cousin off and rolls over, burying her face into the back of the couch. She can just die here, and she wouldn’t care.

Unfortunately, Hattie is equally as obstinate as Veda is, so Veda finds herself wearing a medical mask as she is half-dragged to the car fifteen minutes later. She lies down on the backseat, not bothering with buckling her seatbelt, and piles Hattie’s spare sweater over her face. The sunshine is far too bright, painful.

It isn’t until she’s curled up in a chair, waiting to be called, that she remembers what today is supposed to bring. She holds the wet washcloth to her forehead with one hand and searches through her scrubs pockets for her phone. Every movement brings with it a crashing wave of nausea and another round of pounding in her skull.

She needs to stop moving, but she needs to call Niall. He can’t think she stood him up. She’d never do that. Not to him.

Hattie wiggles Veda’s phone in the air. “Already called your boyfriend. I explained what was going on, and he understands. He says he wants you to feel better soon, and he and DB send all the virtual cuddles you can stand.” Her face scrunches up. “How can you stand that much cutesy stuff?”

“Shut up, he’s amazing.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you keep saying. Anyway. I also told him he is not to step foot into our house until you are no longer a biological weapon and we’ve decontaminated everything. We’re not risking him catching this and passing it on to his patients.”

“What would I do without you?” Veda croaks, settling down in her seat. The wall is blissfully cool against her forehead, and she sighs at the small amount of relief.

“Probably be an idiot about potentially having strep or bronchitis or pneumonia or a variety of other highly contagious illnesses.” Hattie shrugs as she slides the phone into her purse. “Seriously, V, you work in the health sector. You should know not to take being sick so lightly.”

“It wasn’t this bad last night. Just some throwing up and a headache. And a fever.”

Hattie snorts. “Yeah, well, whatever this is, sounds like it’s gonna kick your ass for a while.”

‘This’ ends up being strep throat and double-pneumonia. Veda almost isn’t surprised - she rarely gets ill, but when she does, it’s always worse than it could be. The doctor winces in sympathy as Veda doubles over with a cough that rattles in her chest. Prescriptions written for antibiotics and cough medication, Hattie helps Veda out to the car and into the backseat.

It takes nearly a week for her body to fight off the infections properly. Each time Veda wakes, Hattie is right there to force medicine into her and disinfect anything within reach. Her cousin also allows her exactly ten minutes of ‘phone time’ to read well-wishing texts from her coworkers, Niall, and even his friends; then the phone is wiped down with a Lysol wipe and tucked into Hattie’s pocket.

Most of the past week has been a blur - it’s impossible to notice time passing when it is spent either sleeping for hours or floating around in a fever-induced haze. But finally, Veda’s temperature remains normal for longer than three hours, and she can breathe without feeling like someone’s stuck hot irons in her lungs. She still falls into bouts of coughing and wheezing breaths, though they are lesser now. Not as harsh.

She continues to wear a mask outside of the house. She may not be contagious any more, not as likely to infect others, but she does it, anyway. It’s a safety precaution, for one, and it seems to make people less wary about being around her during her coughing fits. Thankfully, her neighbours appreciate her caution, especially Miss Sylvia, so Veda doesn’t find it to be a nuisance to always have a stock of masks with her.

Veda gives the camera her cheesiest grin and a peace-sign, attaching it to a text message with a caption of I liiiiiiiiive! Once it’s on its way to Niall’s inbox, she locks her phone and slides it into her pocket before shutting her locker. This is her first day back to work, and she is excited to get back into the swing of things. Never before did she think she would miss working so much.

Obviously, it only takes a week of feeling near death to make it a reality. Who knew.

“Office work only,” Clarissa says without looking up from the scheduling book in front of her, pen flying over the paper.

“Okay.”

Her boss finally glances up, frowns at Veda’s lack of arguing. “You sure you’re not still sick? You usually try to fight me on this.”

“Why should I?” Veda shrugs and drops to sit in the chair across from Clarissa. “I just spent the last six days thinking I was gonna suffocate to death. I’ll take it easy if you say I should.”

“You realise this doesn’t mean you can sit on your ass and text your boyfriend all day, right?”

Veda laughs, shaking her head. “I know.”

“You’re scaring me, Mitchell,” Clarissa mutters, but she’s smiling down at the pages anyway.

With a wave of her hand, she dismisses Veda, who bounces to her feet. She hadn’t lied. She will take it easy. Mostly because her lungs haven’t fully recovered and breathing is still a chore at times, but also because she doesn’t want the patients to worry more about their health when they see her wearing a mask.

And because Clarissa will never know if Veda spends the time texting Niall.

From: Niall
> Welcome back to the land of the living, petal
> Feeling better?

To: Niall
< So. Much. Better. I can taste things again! I can breathe! And I am no longer contagious so we can actually go on a date now!

From: Niall
> Yeh I’m excited for that :) glad you’re feeling better. I was worried when your cousin texted and said you were doing so poorly .

To: Niall
< Worrywart <3 I was fine.

From: Niall
> Yeh ? What was your temperature then?

To: Niall
< Excuse me, sir, that violates HIPAA guidelines.

From: Niall
> Don’t quote HIPAA guidelines to me, especially when you’re incorrectly quoting them lol you’re the patient. You can tell me.

To: Niall
< I can, but I won’t ;)

From: Niall
> Rude
> I’m free Monday night

To: Niall
< Hey! Me, too! I guess that means we fiiiiiinally get to go on our date then?

From: Niall
> Looking forward to it

“Mitchell! I said not to spend your entire shift texting your boyfriend.”

Veda jumps in her chair, heart pounding a mile a minute under her ribs. She flashes an innocent smile, but Clarissa’s expression doesn’t change. In fact, she frowns even more, which shouldn’t be possible.

“Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. Getting to work now, Boss Lady.”

To: Niall
< Gotta go. Boss is gonna kill me. I’ll call after work xxxxxxxxxxx

“Mitchell.”

“Hey, am I just expected to ghost my boyfriend for work?”

“Yes,” Clarissa deadpans, rolling her eyes. “That’s exactly what you’re expected to do. Unless you’d rather be out of a job?”

“I mean, if it gives me more time with him - I’m kidding!”

Veda giggles and pulls a file closer, pointedly flipping it open. She reads the contents with an exaggerated look of concentration. Clarissa sighs, though the sound crackles with withheld laughter, then her footsteps fade as she walks away. Veda makes sure the coast is clear before tapping the screen of her phone.

From: Niall
> I miss your face
> I can’t wait until our date ! Xxxxxxxxx back to you

And, really, how is Veda supposed to concentrate now?