The One Who Got Away – CH 10

Chapter 10

Part One: Something In Between 

Seth was facing away from the door when he woke up, but he couldn’t remember being turned. Groggily, he blinked at the wall opposite him. It looked kind of wobbly and alive. Fever brain. He had no idea what time it was, but it definitely wasn't morning. The light from the nightstand was hurting his eyes, even though it was dimmed to the lowest level.

"No, I already took a sample," he heard Brian saying in the corridor, and Seth sluggishly realized that this was what had woken him up – his carer's voice. Talking to someone on the phone, apparently.

"Yes, we do, and I know how to use it," Brian was now saying, then paused to let the other person speak. "You can look that up in his files, it's all there." –  A grumble. – "That's not an option." Now his voice started to sound annoyed. "Because I'm not gonna take him through the whole process of transportation –"

Ugh. That bad? Seth sighed. So Brian was talking to the clinic. Awesome. Closing his eyes in exhaustion, he continued listening to the conversation – well, Brian's part of it, and the pauses in-between.

"I'm not sure you understand what it would entail for him to even be moved right now – " Pause. Then Brian sighed in exasperation, and Seth could just picture him pulling at his hair bun. "No, you wouldn't be giving them out to just anyone, because – … Listen, I know about the rules. I've been a certified nurse for over ten years. Which is why I – … What?"

There was a longer pause as Brian was listening, grumbling from time to time. Then there was a slightly more positive sigh. "Ok, yes. That's even better … Absolutely. … I appreciate that … Right … Thank you."

Seth could tell Brian had hung up when he heard him groan again – this time with less inhibition. 

But then there was another voice all of a sudden, softer, female: "What’s going on?"

Seth's eyes snapped open. Kay. She was still here?

"He's got a UTI," he heard Brian answer.

Ok. Could have been worse.

"Is it bad?" 

There was a pause, in which Brian probably shrugged, nodded or shook his head. Preferably the latter. "We just need the right antibiotics," he then said. "Nothing we can't handle."

"Who was that on the phone?"

"The clinic we usually go to. They're sending someone over."

"To bring the meds?"

"I sure hope so. But they want to take a look at him first."

Oh. That was a first. Well, definitely better than a ride to the emergency room though. Seth let his eyes drift shut. They were burning, and he was starting to feel sleepy again. 

But then, footsteps approaching the room. Two pairs. Seth sighed tonelessly. Kay, no.

It wasn’t Kay who leaned over him a couple of seconds later though. "How you feeling, Dude?"

"Ok," Seth croaked. Actually, he felt crappy – his head hurt like hell and he was nauseous. But he could feel Kay's presence behind him, so 'ok' was what he was going with right now.

Brian offered him his sipping bottle. "Looks like you've got a UTI," he said. "I called the clinic for the meds –"

"I know," Seth interrupted him feebly after taking a sip. "I heard."

The PCA nodded. He grabbed the thermometer from the nightstand and put it in Seth's ear. It beeped thrice, and Seth didn't even need to ask – he knew it was high.

"At least it's no longer going up," Brian mumbled, and he pulled down the blankets to touch Seth's unsplinted right hand. "Are you still feeling cold?"

No, not anymore. Seth shook his head, and an invisible sledge hammer started banging his temples. Grimacing, he closed his eyes. Then he dozed off.

He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke up again. Tired green eyes were looking at him – Kay was sitting next to his bed, on the padded footstool that usually stood in the corner. Her hair was down and a little tousled, and she was wearing another t-shirt of his – one she had apparently chosen as a pajama. 

She was everything. 

"You’re still here," Seth croaked the obvious.

A fond smile joined the concerned look on her face. "Not going anywhere." She reached for the sipping bottle, holding it to his lips. How did she know? He hadn't even said or done anything to indicate that he was thirsty. "You've become really good at knowing," he mumbled, after taking a long sip, and Kay gave him a funny look, because she probably thought he was babbling feverish nonsense. Seth's eyes tiredly followed when she slid her fingers into the upturned palm of his right hand. She frowned, hissing softly. "You should try something in between, you know. Between ice cold and scolding hot.”

With his sluggish fever brain, Seth needed a moment to understand that she was referring to the temperature of his skin. She was, wasn't she?

Now Kay was studying him with a reproachful scowl. "You should have told me."

Told you what? Seth knitted his brow.

"How fucking cold you were."

Oh, that. He swallowed. "Wouldn't have changed anything."

Kay didn't respond to that. She just kept sitting there, looking at him. If he hadn't been feeling so groggy, it might have been awkward. Good thing he was too feverish to feel awkward. It also made it hard to think, which was also good. Otherwise, he might have thought about what had happened between them earlier. He might have thought about that kiss… Or about how horrible he felt about pushing her away. And about how much the look on her face in that moment had torn him up inside. 

Right now though, he was too tired for that, drowsiness already pulling him in again. He blinked at Kay. "You should be in bed," he mumbled. "Get some sleep."

With a half-smile, she shook her head. Her hand moved away from his, and it unexpectedly came to rest on his forehead. It felt cold on his skin, and he flinched unintentionally.

Kay quickly pulled the hand away again. "Sorry."

"No," he whispered. "It felt good. Head hurts."

She put it back, and Seth closed his eyes – he was just so tired... Suddenly, he and Kay were in Lakeside Park, and she was kissing him in the rain. Her lips tasted sweet but also bitter, and he didn't know if maybe they were poisonous. “Why are you doing this?” – “What do you mean, why?” 

He startled awake. Kay was still sitting there, and her hand was still resting on his forehead. "Everything's fine," she whispered. 

I wish it was, Seth thought, then he let his eyes drift shut again. In the dream, Kay kept kissing him, and he wasn't able to pull away.

Part Two: Not Today

Seth was sound asleep when a young physician arrived not long after, and Kay felt bad that he would have to be woken up again. She left the room with reluctance, but she knew she had no business being in there while a doctor's visit took place. Tiredly, she went to the living room and sat down on the couch, resting her head on her arms for a moment. 

A good half hour passed before the doc and Brian finally came out. The PCA had an annoyed look on his face. 

"So did he hand out those antibiotics you wanted?" Kay asked when he came back from showing the guy to the front door.

"In the end, yeah," Brian grimaced. "After some discussion."

"What was the problem?"

Brian rolled his eyes. "Overeager resident doctors." He made a dismissive hand gesture. 

Kay nodded, rubbing her eyes. "How is Seth?"

"Back asleep. He barely made it through the whole examination without dozing off."

"Is that normal?" She knitted her brow. "That he's so… out of it?"

"I wouldn't call it out of it," Brian shrugged. "He's just tired. Especially with the fever."

"Is it still high?"

"Slowly coming down now." Pausing, he put his hand on Kay's shoulder and looked at her. "Time to go back to bed."

Kay eyed him critically. "Promise to get me if… if anything comes up?"

He gave her a deadpan look. "No. If anything comes up I will have better things to do than coming to the first floor just to get you."

She crossed her arms. "In that case, yell. Promise to yell."

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose. "Man, you and…," he trailed off, shaking his head. Then he looked at her with a sigh. "I'm not gonna yell, and nothing’s gonna come up."

Kay chewed her lip. "I sure hope so." She gave him a tired wave as she turned in the direction of the staircase. "Otherwise, yell."

"He's right, you know," Brian softly called after her with a snort. "You are unbelievable."

"Goodnight, Brian."

"'Night, Kay."

Her phone alarm went off three hours later, at 6 a.m. Groggily, Kay lumbered downstairs to see how Seth was doing. She found him sound asleep and Brian dozing on the sofa, so she went back to the guest room, set the alarm to an hour later and then went back to sleep. At seven thirty, she called the office to tell Lacy she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't come in today. Which, actually, wasn't even a total lie, because Kay felt like she'd been run over by a truck. Apparently staying up half the night wasn't what it had used to be back in her twenties. Getting old. 

But even if she hadn’t been so dead tired, going to work wouldn't have been an option. Was it kind of weird of her to simply overstay the invitation she had made herself in the first place? Definitely. Would Seth roll his eyes at her? Probably. But could she help herself? Absolutely not. 

Seth's fever was mostly gone, but his tiredness apparently wasn't – he slept and slept and slept. By noon, he still hadn’t been awake for more than a minute at a time. Which was whenever Greg, who had taken over from Brian in the morning, gave him something to drink. Though one couldn't really call that state awake either. Each time, Seth barely even opened his eyes when he complied with his PCAs prompt, simply taking the offered straw between his lips and drinking a few sips before going back to dreamland right away. 

It was puzzling to Kay how a person could be so utterly and persistently sleepy – and also a little troubling, because the extent of Seth's exhaustion kind of scared her. At least Brian hadn't seemed fazed by it when he had left around ten. "It's just what he does when he's unwell," he had told her. "Give it some time."

The problem with not being at work and just sitting at the house while Seth kept on sleeping was that Kay had a lot of time to think. She was still trying to make sense of what had happened with that kiss – or rather, what was going on in Seth’s head. It was endlessly confusing to her how the way he had kissed her back didn't fit at all with how he had pushed her away after.

‘Let it go’ ... But why? In hindsight, Kay regretted not having been more persistent with him, not having demanded an answer to that question. But she had just felt so utterly stupid in that moment, and the fear of losing Seth altogether had been stronger than anything else – just like it always had been.

Friends. It had been her who had said it, but now as she was sitting here, Kay wanted to curse the word. Friends didn't kiss each other like that. Friends didn't look at each other like that. And most of all, friends didn't need to constantly remind each other that they were friends. 

Kay knew Seth couldn't be oblivious to that. After all, six years ago, it had been him who had seen it long before her. He knew they weren't just friends, Kay was sure of it. In her mind, she kept going back to the day before, replaying everything, and then she went back to earlier – to the past few months they had spent together; to every conversation and moment they'd shared, to all the things Seth had said to her – and those he had not said. Finally, Kay went back even further, back to the beginning of it all. 

And it started to dawn on her that she had never really known what was truly, actually going on inside of Seth – not when it came to his feelings for her. While the two of them had always been very good at insinuations, allusions and at dancing around each other, they had never fully laid it all out on the table.

This had to end – Kay needed to put an end to it. She wasn’t sure how and when she was going to do it, but she somehow had a feeling the moment would present itself at the right time. Definitely not today though. And probably not tomorrow either. Seth needed to get better first. 

There was a comfy armchair in one corner of his room, and Kay snuggled up in it some time after lunch. She was listening to a podcast and almost about to doze off when she abruptly felt like she was being watched. Even before glancing up she knew Seth was awake and looking at her, simply because of that particular feeling on her skin she only ever got when under his gaze. Kay hesitated a beat to meet those dark eyes, a little bit apprehensive of what she was about to find in them. Seth was maybe annoyed with her for still being here, or he was embarrassed. Or both. 

When she finally looked up, all she saw in his eyes was softness. And something else. Was he… moved? Kay blinked at him with a smile. "Hello sleepyhead. About time."

Seth's voice was hoarse. "You're not at work."

Kay smirked. "That's right, Sherlock."

"But… it's Monday."

"So what?" She winked, getting up from the archchair to walk over to him.

He mustered her pensively. "You look tired."

She couldn't help but chuckle. "I can imagine."

"Did you get any sleep at all?"

"I got a few hours. Will catch up on it tonight."

There was something in his eyes she couldn't quite identify. "I –," he swallowed. "It means a lot, Kay."

"I know," she said softly, and she sat down on the edge of the bed, putting her hand on his arm. Seth's gaze followed the gesture, and his face turned unreadable for a moment. It was the same look he always got when she touched him; a look that made her self-conscious about doing it. The other part of her though just didn't care and let her thumb stroke over the fine hair covering his forearm. "How are you feeling?"

His shoulder twitched in an attempt to shrug. "Been better. But I've also been much worse." He produced a half-smile.

"That's… good." And unsettling. She didn’t really want to think about what 'much worse' looked like.

Seth softly cleared his throat. "If you hadn't gotten me out of those clothes yesterday, I'd probably be in the hospital right now," he said with a sheepish smirk. "So… thank you for being so relentless."

Kay smiled at him. "I'm pretty good at being relentless."

Their eyes locked, and just like that, the quiet of the room was suddenly filled with unspoken things. Seth's adam's apple bobbed nervously, and Kay’s cheeks started to burn. She licked her lips. Was this the moment? She looked at him, at how he was lying there flat and tired, with circles under his eyes. No, she decided. Not yet.

The uncomfortable silence in the room was broken when Greg walked in. "Oh, it's alive!" He exclaimed at seeing his client finally awake. 

Seth chuckled. "Hey Greg. How are you?"

"Better than you I'd say. Sounds like one hell of a night you had." 

"We've had worse."

Greg weighed his head. "That we have." He fished the blood pressure meter from the top of the dresser, and Kay stood up, seeing that as the cue for her to give them some privacy. Time for care stuff. "I'm gonna make some coffee," she told Seth with a wave, then closed the door behind her as she left the room.

When she came back about half an hour later, she found him slightly repositioned, legs propped to the side. His phone was in front of him, mounted on the fixture that was attached to the bed. Not that he was using it though – he had dozed off again. Kay’s heart ached with affection. All she wanted was to climb in and curl up next to him, hold him. She sat down in the comfy armchair again, and watched him sleep for a while. Until her own tiredness suddenly crept up on her with full force. Rubbing her eyes, she looked at her watch. Time to go. She went over to the bed and gently squeezed Seth's shoulder. "I'm leaving," she whispered, once he was sleepily blinking at her. "I have meetings tomorrow and need a good night's sleep first."

"Of course," he rasped. "It's high time you went home and got some rest."

"Is Brian going to be on shift tonight?"

"Yes, why?"

Kay shrugged. "No reason." No reason you need to know. She cleared her throat. "I'm gonna come back here right after work tomorrow. Could grab us something for dinner on the way."

Seth knitted his brow as his eyes ran over her face. "You don't have to do that, Kay."

"We can also order something."

"No, I mean, you don't need to…," he licked his lips.

Kay understood what he was trying to say. She stroked her thumb over his shoulder and gave him a fond look. "I want to." Did he really not know that there was no place in the world she'd rather be?

Seth swallowed, silently looking back at her. His shoulder moved under her hand – not away from but into it, almost as if he was trying to touch her back in his own way. Fuzzy warmth spread through Kay’s chest, and she squeezed ever so slightly. After hesitating for a second, she bent down to place a light kiss on his cheek. The stubble of his now four-day beard prickled on her lips as they lingered there for just a tad longer than they usually did, because pulling away from him was so very, very hard. The vivid memory of that other kiss – the real kiss – was just too present. "Rest up," she whispered. "I'll see you tomorrow.”

"Night a little rough, much better now.
He's still sleeping a lot. B."

About time you answered. Kay breathed a sigh of relief. She had texted Brian right in the morning ("Everything ok over there?"), and now it was almost noon already.  

Of course she was aware that replying to obnoxious texts wasn't at the top of Brian's priority list while he was taking care of a bedridden quadriplegic. But she'd been concerned nonetheless when she hadn’t heard back for so long. 

She didn't want to worry about Seth like this, but she couldn't help herself. Right now, it even took some self-restraint to not text back and inquire what "a little rough" meant exactly. She would just have to wait a few hours to find out.

When she got to the house after work, the atmosphere there already felt a little less infirmary-like than when she had left, and Roberta pointed her to the terrace doors instead of the bedroom. So Seth was up! Kay found him on the patio, slightly reclined and his lower half untypically covered by a blanket. He looked a lot more alert than the day before, but still pale and tired. 

"How's the patient?" Kay asked, as she bent down to give him her usual peck on the cheek. "Apparently well enough to be up."

"I just needed to get out of that bed for a while", Seth shrugged weakly. "It gets depressing really fast."

She plopped down on the nearest lawn chair. "I can only imagine.”

He rolled his head toward her. "How was work?"

Kay shrugged. "Met up with a potential client in the morning. New build project. He wanted to see what kind of ideas we have to offer."

"And?"

She grimaced wryly. "Could have gone better. I don't think I was convincing enough."

Seth lent her a smile. "I'm sure you were. You're always good at pitching."

"Thank you, but sometimes I'm actually not." She sighed. "I guess I was still a bit tired from yesterday. And obviously distracted."

Seth frowned. "Distracted?"

Oh Seth. Kay gave him a funny look. "By you, genius. I was worried about you."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh. I didn't hear back from Brian after sending him a text in the morning, so I kept wondering if everything was ok."

Seth uncomfortably shifted his shoulder. "I didn't know you're keeping yourself updated through my PCAs," he mumbled, not entirely without irritation. 

Kay snickered, giving him a placating look. "Just this once. Because you've been sleeping so much and wouldn't have texted me yourself." She paused. "So, your night wasn't too great?"

The irritated line on Seth's forehead was still there, and he didn't meet her eyes. "Had to deal with AD."

"Bad?" 

He clenched his jaw. Then he looked at her. "Kay."

"Yeah?"

"Can we stop talking about my wellbeing?"

She blinked at him, actually a little bit taken aback. Because there was an impatience in his voice she didn't know from him. A sort of directness that was new. "Of course," she uttered. "Sorry."

Seth's gaze softened and he cleared his throat. "I know you mean well, but…," he licked his lips. "I'm a patient all day every day as it is. I really don't want to be one with you."

Kay swallowed, nodding quietly. It had never occurred to her to look at it in that way. "I understand," she said softly. "It makes perfect sense." 

"Thank you." 

She fingered her ponytail. "So. I guess we'll have to postpone that movie we were going to see tonight, huh." They had bought the tickets weeks ago.

"Oh that was today," Seth groaned with a roll of his neck. “I completely forgot.”

"Me too," Kay smirked. "Only remembered this afternoon."

He looked at her. "You can still go if you want."

"With whom? I would have to find another handsome wheelchair user within an hour."

Seth laughed, shaking his head. "That makes zero sense whatsoever.”

Kay grinned at him. "We'll go some other time. I want to see it with you."

He smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that." 

They stayed outside for a little longer, then Seth abruptly announced he needed to go back to bed. Kay held herself back from asking if he was ok. She really understood where he was coming from with what he'd said earlier. He had enough other people around him who were preoccupied with his health, and it was actually a compliment that he didn't want her to be one of them.

"I brought Sushi," she commented as she walked into the house behind him. "Are you hungry?"

"Maybe later," he mumbled apologetically, slightly turning the chair around. "But I'm sure Bertie would love to have some."

"I would!" Roberta called out from the corridor, and Kay laughed. "I'll prepare some plates while you're getting settled," she said to Seth, and they parted ways as she went to the kitchen and he to his room.

Getting settled took quite a while, apparently. Kay was sitting on the couch and reading emails when Bertie finally came out and winked at her, gesturing in the direction of Seth's room. "All yours."

"Ditto," Kay smiled as she handed her a sushi plate. 

Roberta's eyes lit up. "You're the best."

There was nothing she could do about it: When she walked into Seth's room, her heart automatically beat faster, and giddy warmth spread all through her chest. No matter that the reason for the giddy feeling was lying on his bed pale and tired, propped up on his side by half a dozen cushions. No matter that he was so dependent, no matter that he was 'a patient' – he made her weak in the knees, and she wanted to be with him. Did he even have the faintest idea about that? Probably not. Kay unconsciously took a deep breath. Not yet. Not today.

Seth was watching her quietly as she put down the sushi on the nightstand and then dragged the comfy armchair over to his bed. "I know you don't feel like eating, but do you mind if I do?" she asked.

"'Course not. Enjoy."

Kay took her chopsticks and pointed with them to one side of the plate. "These are yours. Let me know when you change your mind."

Seth smirked lopsidedly. "Will do. But I'm really not hungry."

"Have you eaten at all today?"

His shoulder twitched. "Some toast and a protein shake after I woke up."

She wrinkled her nose. "Sounds lovely." With gusto, she took a bite of a Futomaki, taking her time to savor the taste. 

Following her every move with his eyes, Seth chuckled softly. "You and your food. Always a pleasure to watch."

Kay blushed a little and stopped chewing for a second. With a grin, she took another bite. "Sure you don't want anything?" 

"I'll have some water."

Without interrupting her happy munching, she grabbed his cup from the nightstand and held it up for him to sip, until he nodded – the sign that he was done. She studied him thoughtfully. "Can I ask you something stupid?"

He answered with a whimsical smile. "Always."

"How do you know if you're hungry or not?"

Seth gave her a curious look. "What?"

"I mean," she shrugged sheepishly. "Since you can't feel your body."

He chuckled, awkwardly looking down on himself. "That’s not how it works."

"How does it work?"

His eyebrows seesawed. "It’s… It's difficult to explain."

"Try." Kay shoved a Salmon Nigiri into her mouth.

Seth sighed. "I can't feel my body, but I still feel my… insides, I guess?"

She nodded with interest. "So you would actually feel if your tummy ached for example?"

"Definitely."

"What about when your stomach growls?"

Now he was chuckling. "This is all very fascinating to you."

The statement gave her slight pause, and she cocked her head. "It is, actually. Trying to figure out how this body of yours works."

A self-conscious flicker briefly flashed up in Seth's eyes. "Good luck with that." He shifted his head on the pillow. "Wanna watch a movie?"

Kay's face lit up. "Good idea. Since we're going to miss the other one."

She turned her armchair around so it was facing the mounted TV screen opposite the bed. If the nightstand hadn't been in the way, she would have been sitting right next to Seth, like in a movie theatre. Well, except for the fact that he was lying down. 

They chose Back To the Future, because they agreed it was the right kind of movie for tired people who just wanted to relax. Kay ate the rest of her Sushi, plus most of Seth's portion. He did end up having two pieces – better than nothing. Feeding them to him made Kay feel all weird and mushy inside. She knew it was nothing special to Seth; obviously that was just how he ate nowadays. But to her, it felt crazy intimate. 

Halfway into the movie, Seth started to distract her by constantly shifting around on his pillow. He kept shoving his head from side to side, rolling his shoulders along awkwardly. Kay frowned at him. “What's the problem?”

"Nothing," he mumbled, his attention with the TV, but Kay studied the pillow situation more closely. It looked like it was just too high up. "Let me fix that for you," she remarked, reaching out.

Seth gave her a strange look. "Bertie can do it."

Kay scrunched her nose at him in bewilderment. "You seriously want me to get your aide just to reposition a pillow?" She pursed her lips. "Is this also part of not wanting to be a patient with me?"

It actually seemed like he needed to think about that for a second. "No," he mumbled, looking kind of embarrassed. 

She nodded in satisfaction, grabbing the pillow from both sides. "Lift your head a little?"

Seth paused, glancing at her. "I can't do that."

You can‘t do that? What's that supposed to mean? Then Kay's eyes widened. Oh. He actually couldn't. There was really something new to learn every day. Gently, she slipped one hand under his neck and lifted up his head, grabbing the pillow with the other one. "It needs to be lower, right?"

"Yeah, just… under my neck."

"Like this?" She pulled her hand out, only reluctantly letting go of him – she wanted to run her fingers through his hair forever. 

Seth tested out the new position. "Perfect, thanks." His eyes were a little shy when they looked at each other, and yet another one of those loaded silences arose – well, safe for the movie that was running on the TV, but who cared about Back To The Future anyway. Kay swallowed. This was just crazy. They couldn't go on like this – she couldn't go on like this. She looked at Seth, who looked away, and she sighed silently. Not today, not yet. 

But soon. Very soon.

To be continued...