Page 52 of Embattled Ever After

Her beeper went off, shattering the calm of the doctors’ lounge. She jerked her head up, realizing she’d dozed off at some point. Dreaming about Duncan, again. Figured.

Alex pushed to her feet, fighting the exhaustion that was dragging her down. Just a few more hours before somebody would relieve her.

When she finally walked out of the hospital, bundled against the brutal cold, she felt like a damn zombie. She was literally rambling along the sidewalk with her eyes closed, because it felt so good to close them. It was a good thing she didn’t get mugged. She would probably have just laid down on the street and given the muggers everything.

The two blocks seemed to stretch for miles, until the cheery vestibule light of her building shone through the night. Fumbling her keys, she let herself into the building, then clomped up two flights of stairs. She felt like her eyes literally crossed as she tried to fit the key into her door, but she finally got it done. She slammed the thing shut and immediately started removing layers. Now she was sweating.

Crossing to the bathroom she peed, brushed her teeth and drank what seemed like a gallon of water, then fell face down onto the bed. Dragging the comforter over top of herself she fell into a deep sleep.

Alex didn’t rouse for a solid twelve hours. When she finally woke, she realized she was the next woman down in the Kansas City flu epidemic. Shudders wracked her body and she felt like she’d been dragged over twenty miles of bad road. Getting out of bed took a Herculean effort, but she had to use the bathroom. When she was done, she drank a glass of cold water. Then another. Before she crawled back in bed, she got two bottles of water from the kitchen that she put next to her bed. Falling across the mattress, she let herself pass out.

It took a solid three days for Alex to get over the flu. The hospital was still short staffed, but they didn’t want her on premises if she was still recovering. She caught up on her lost sleep within the first couple of days, then got so tired of sleeping that she couldn’t any more. Crashing on the couch, she watched as many episodes of ER as she could before her eyes dried out and she fell back to sleep, exhausted and sore from doing nothing.

Shannon called her at one point, commiserating when she realized that Alex was under the weather. Shannon admitted that her morning sickness had kicked in with a vengeance, leaving her snappy and tired all day.

“I hate to say it,” Alex told her, “but sleep and laying down is your friend right now. I’ve been on bed rest for days and I’m sick of sleeping, but I know it’s what made me better.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just really hard, right now. I have so much to do for the nursery, and this darn puppy wants to play all… the… time. Pickle looks down her nose at her, but Gray Cat has actually played a few times. Of course, the puppy thinks she needs to play all the time. Or chew. She has found something to chew in every room in this house.”

“Did you ever come up with a name?”

Shannon sighed, “We did, but we still call her Puppy. Her real name is Carmela, because her coat’s such a pretty caramel color.”

Alex laughed and made appreciative noises, but it was hard to stay upbeat. She rung off and headed back to bed to take yet another nap.

After being off work for four days, she managed to walk a block down the street to get a few essentials from the convenience store. It was all she could do to make it back to her apartment. Throwing back a couple of vitamins, she crawled back to her cursed bed.

By day five she thought she had kicked it. Though her head felt groggy everything else felt fine. Her fever was gone and she didn’t feel like walking across the room took too much out of her. She called her boss at the hospital and promised to be in the next morning for her regular shift. The older woman was thrilled.

“You have no idea how it’s been around here. Are you sure you’re ready?”

Alex appreciated the question. “I think I’m good. Might have to take a breather here and there. But I’ll be back.”

And at six am she headed in to work. The epidemic had lessened but there were several key people missing, so others were pitching in to cover. At one point, Alex just pulled a chair away from the wall and sat down. Unfortunately it was that much harder to get up when she did have to move.

Though she got rid of the sickness itself, it took her another week to get most of her energy back. Then she still felt queasy.

I need to get rid of this damn flu.

***

It was kindof a relief to get back to work. If she was focused on a case she wasn’t daydreaming about Duncan.

“Hey, Alex, several of us are getting together at the Depot if you’d like to join us.”

Tall, stunningly handsome Dr. Thomas Frear, a cardiology resident, leaned against the nurse’s counter beside her. The man had women all across the hospital drooling to be noticed by him, but Alex just couldn’t dredge up any excitement.

“I’ll see, Tom. I’m still catching up on a few things at home.”

She wasn’t, actually, but she didn’t want to go out.

Or, at least, she didn’t want to go out with these people. If she had her choice, she would like to hang out at the Frog Dog with the LNF crew. Though she didn’t know them well, she had an idea of the quality of people they were just because Duncan had hired them.

Maybe she could take a few minutes out of her day and call Shannon. Alex missed her, and had looked forward to watching her pregnancy progress. And maybe, peripherally, she could glean some details about Duncan.

An hour later, that’s exactly what she did.

“Lost and Found Investigative Service. How may I help you?”

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