Title/Prompt: The Seven Day Flu
Rating/Warnings: PG
Word count: 2800
Summary: "You look like the livin' dead," Scotty said, pulling his coat from the back of his chair. "I'm takin' you home."

Notes: Written for oucellogal, because she provides me with weekly cheer through her own Scotty & Lilly fic, and I wanted to try and return the favour. There's no plot and it goes entirely NOWHERE, but I hope it brings a smile to your face.

Beta: isabelquinn

Tuesday

Lilly woke slowly to the sound of rain falling outside her window. She frowned into her pillow - it had been raining for three days straight and it had well and truly worn her patience down.

It was several minutes before her alarm was set to go off. She sighed and closed her eyes again, feeling uncharacteristically lazy.

She and Scotty had planned to meet at a Starbucks near JFK Plaza - their lead suspect in a 1998 murder case was a barista there, and Lilly figured putting a little pressure on him couldn't hurt their cause.

She dragged herself out of bed when her alarm went off, leaving her cats to curl up together in the warm hollow she'd left in the mattress.

She caught the train to 15th Street and walked through the rain beneath a wide black umbrella that caught the slightest breath of wind, threatening to tug out of her hands and leave her to the mercy of the heavy cloud.

It wasn't particularly cold, but she burrowed her nose into her scarf anyway, cursing the rain and the wind with each step. Damn it, damn it, damn it, she thought, the soles of her shoes slapping against the thin layer of water on the sidewalk.

Scotty was waiting for her, typing out a text on his phone with two cardboard cups on the low table in front of him.

"Hey," he said. "Was just textin' you. Couldn't remember if you got vanilla or caramel."

"Either one is good." She collapsed into the seat opposite him and took the cup nearest her. Her umbrella was dripping into the canister by the door with several others.

"Well, Ramsey ain't up for mornin' chit chat," Scotty said, snapping his phone closed again and slipping it into his suit pocket. "But I figure -"

He broke off as Lilly snatched a napkin from the table and sneezed into it, her shoulders ringing with pain. She sneezed again and repeated her silent curse to the rain.

Scotty looked torn between amusement and sympathy. "Bless you."

"Hay fever," she said defensively.

His grin only got wider. "You want an antihistamine?"

"No," she retorted, crumpling the napkin in her hand and stuffing it into her pocket. "I'm fine. You were saying?"

Scotty nodded towards the front counter, where Ramsey was steaming milk and trying to pretend he wasn't watching their table.

"Think he looks worried?" he asked.

"He should look worried," Lilly answered, taking a sip of her coffee. Vanilla, and just hot enough to warm her from head to toe without being so hot she couldn't drink it.

"Well, without a confession, we ain't gonna get much further on this one," Scotty said reluctantly.

Lilly glanced over at Ramsey again, and he looked away hurriedly.

"We'll offer him a deal," she decided. "Later today. I'll talk to the DA about offering a lighter sentence in exchange for his confession. He finishes at two o'clock, right? We'll come back then."

Scotty nodded, and got to his feet. "We'll be in need of another caffeine hit by two."

Wednesday

"Ain't no way that's hayfever," Vera said, pointing an accusing finger at Lilly. "You've got plague, and you're gonna pass it to me if you don't get outta here."

"It's not plague," Lilly said, exasperated. "I've sneezed twice."

"You've sneezed six times in the past half hour," Jeffries argued quietly, not looking up from his paperwork.

Scotty grinned at her, tapping his pen against his chin as he leaned back in his chair.

"I'm fine!" Lilly insisted. "It's probably -"

"Plague," Vera said.

"All the dust in here," she snapped. "Maybe if you cleaned your desk now and then, Vera."

"Too busy detecting stuff," he sniffed, squinting at his computer. "Like, say… plague."

Thursday

"Damn it," Lilly cursed, glaring at her reflection in the mirror over her bathroom sink. She blew her nose and dropped the tissue into the waste basket. Olivia blinked up at her from her position on the bath mat.

"I might have a cold," Lilly admitted to her. "But I'll be fine after some coffee and a couple of Benadryl."

Olivia rubbed herself against Lilly's dark slacks in sympathy, leaving a gathering of ginger hair.

"You don't look so hot," Vera said gruffly.

"Don't see why that should matter to you," Lilly grumbled, and she looked pointedly at Vera's tie, which was knotted well below his unbuttoned collar.

Vera pushed a mug of coffee along the counter. "If I get sick, I'm comin' after you," he said. "It won't be pretty."

Lilly took the coffee he'd offered and wrapped her chilled fingers around it. "I'll try not to sneeze in your direction."

"Do you have to have the heat so high?" Lilly asked irritably.

Scotty glanced at her, hands wrapped around the steering wheel. "In case you hadn't noticed, it's like forty degrees out there."

Lilly pressed a cool hand to her forehead, trying to convince herself it was the heat jetting out of the vents of the car, rather than a fever trying to set in.

Scotty slid the heat settings back without a word. Lilly knew it probably wasn't that warm in the car at all - Scotty always preferred the temperature on the cooler side - but she could feel sweat prickling along her hairline and under her arms.

She shifted in the seat uncomfortably, watching the wipers glide back and forth against the rain, trying her best to ignore the pulsing aches in her joints and the heavy feeling behind her eyes and her nose.

Friday

When Lilly walked into the bullpen on Friday morning, Scotty took one look at her before he shook his head in exasperation.

"All right, that's it." He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

"What?" Lilly asked, trying to sound confused instead of panicked. She knew what he was about to say.

"You look like the livin' dead," Scotty said, pulling his coat from the back of his chair. "I'm takin' you home."

"It's just a sniffle," Lilly insisted.

"Lil, Scotty's right. You look like death warmed up," Stillman said, though it wasn't without sympathy. "Go home and get some rest. Take a long weekend and we'll see you on Monday."

Lilly couldn't think of anything worse. "We just picked up a new case!" she argued, though her voice treacherously betrayed her, fire trailing down her throat and eating her words away to a husk.

"It'll still be there on Monday," Scotty said, taking her arm and turning her around. "We ain't gonna solve it in one day."

"Not without me," she agreed smugly, letting him lead her back to the elevator.

By eleven o'clock, Lilly was bored out of her mind. Scotty had dropped her home and had made her promise she'd go back to bed - which she had, for about twenty minutes.

She sat on her couch in the living room, her cats curled up beside her, watching repeats of terrible sitcoms and crime dramas.

She dug out her phone and sent a text to Scotty.

Did you go and talk to Esther Mills?

She drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch, waiting for him to reply. It only took him thirty seconds.

Fucking go to sleep, Lil.

By the time mid-afternoon rolled around, Lilly was ready to do just that. The sitcoms and the crime dramas playing on TV were all blurred together into a comforting background murmur.

She dragged a quilt off the bed the cats usually slept on during the day and burrowed herself down into the couch, her phone clutched in her hand.

Her nose was blocked and her throat was on fire. She closed her eyes and let herself fall asleep under the dizzy rolling of her fever.

Saturday

Lilly stood in front of her refrigerator, her quilt around her shoulders like a cape, her over-sized pajamas caught under the heels of her bed socks.

She eyed the expiry date on the carton of milk and wrinkled her nose. "Better not risk it," she said to Olivia, closing the door on the expired milk.

The idea of going out for groceries was too much. She had a decent supply of canned soup, two brown bananas and a slightly soft apple. Enough to last her a day.

She'd go out for food tomorrow.

She trudged back to the couch, her socks loose around her toes, her quilt dragging behind her.

On any ordinary Saturday she'd be poring over case files, or wrapping up paperwork at the office. She sank onto the couch, covering a hefty cough with her sleeve.

"Oww," she complained aloud, ribbons of fire scorching her throat. She jumped as three quick knocks sounded against her front door.

"Lil!" Scotty's voice was muffled, but unmistakable.

She raked her hands through her bed-flattened hair and looked down at her baggy pajamas. She was sure she had sweaty face, bags under her eyes, a red nose... Grumbling to herself, she staggered to her door and let him in, clutching her quilt around her like a life preserver.

"Whoa," Scotty said, looking at her. He held two bulging grocery bags in his arms.

"What?" she asked defensively, lifting a hand to her hair.

He decided not to comment any further on her appearance. "Nothin'," he said. "I brought supplies. Figured your fridge was empty."

She grudgingly allowed herself to be impressed. "How'd you know that?"

"Well, I know you," he said with a grin, stepping around her and heading for the kitchen. She closed the door, shutting out the morning chill.

"Did you get started on the Annette Dawson case?" Lilly asked, following him.

"Sorta," he answered distractedly. "Old Esther Mills was havin' an off day. They weren't lettin' visitors in. Said I'd go back Monday to see if she was any better. By the sounds of it, even on a good day she might not remember enough to tell us about Annette's last day."

Lilly coughed into her sleeve again. "I'll be better by Monday," she said.

Scotty looked over his shoulder at her, his eyebrow raised.

"I will!" she insisted. "It's just a cold."

"I dunno," he drawled, sitting a carton of juice and a clean glass in front of her. "I'm startin' to think Vera was right. Might be plague."

"Shut up." She poured herself a dose of juice. "Thanks for the supplies though, Scotty."

He grinned at her and shut the fridge, the shelves loaded with fresh food. "S'okay," he said. "But you owe a few rounds at First Thursdays now."

"Okay," she agreed. She rested her head in her hands, feeling tired. "So, Esther Mills worked with Annette, right? And she was the last one to see her before -"

Scotty sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I might have the file in the car," he said. "If you really wanna look at it, I'll get it. But you should maybe - I dunno - wake up a bit first."

"I'll be back in ten minutes," Lilly said, heading for the bathroom. She was sure a hot shower would make her feel better. "Go get the file."

"Are these all the crime scene photos we have?" Lilly asked, shuffling through the black and white photos in the file.

"They're the only ones in there," Scotty answered. His socked feet were propped up on her coffee table, and he'd made himself a cup of black coffee. "If there were others taken, they're not in the box with the rest."

Lilly knew she'd care more about it next week, when her head was clearer. As much as she wanted to get a head start on the case, it was hard to get her eyes to focus, and she had to keep reaching for tissues to blow her nose.

"The boyfriend didn't have much of an alibi," she added, dropping his statement back into the box, on top of the photographs.

"He died four years ago, so we're not likely to get a better one from him," Scotty said. He checked his watch and drained the last of his coffee. "I gotta jet, Lil."

"Okay. Thanks again for the supplies, Scotty."

"No problem." He laced his shoes and got to his feet. "You wanna look over that file some more?"

She hesitated, but gave in. "You take it," she said. "You'll be able to concentrate better than me."

He laughed and hefted the box under his arm. She followed him to the door, feeling tired all of a sudden.

"Thanks, Scotty," she said again.

He gave her a careful look, and lifted a hand to squeeze her shoulder gently. "Feel better, Lil. Don't leave me alone with Vera and Jeffries too long, huh?"

She smiled back at him. "I'll see you Monday."

Sunday

Lilly had spent a sleepless night listening to the rain fall, shivering in the final dregs of her fever. She'd been through a box of tissues and half a packet of cough drops, and the floor beside her bed was littered with novels abandoned after one or two pages of attempted reading.

She watched the water running down the window panes, exhausted, her head aching.

When her phone buzzed, she groped for it with sweaty fingers, flipping it open to see Scotty's name on the screen.

Feeling any better?

It took her a long time to manage a reply without any spelling errors in it.

Almost normal again, she tapped out, gritting her teeth against the lie. I'll see you tomorrow.

His reply came a few seconds later. Glad to hear it, he'd said. Must have been the juice.

She grinned. You're so full of yourself, Valens.

Monday

Scotty showed her the text she'd sent the previous day: Almost normal again. I'll see you tomorrow.

"Liar," he said with a grin.

"I'm here, aren't I?" she asked. Her voice was still husky.

"Not feelin' normal though, are you?" He touched a quick hand to her brow, but her fever was gone, and she knew he wouldn't be able to use it against her.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"You still look pale," he said, sinking into the chair at his desk.

"I'm always pale," she answered. "Are we gonna visit Esther Mills today, or not?"

"You think they'll let you in when you're crawlin' with germs?"

She hesitated. He had a point. Esther was living in a nursing home, probably surrounded by frail souls Lilly could knock over with a single sneeze.

She felt a spike of frustration. If she couldn't get started on the new case, why had she bothered to drag herself out of bed, coughing and aching every step of the way? She was all caught up on the rest of her paperwork - she needed something to keep her busy.

"Listen, Annette was adopted, right?" Scotty looked like he was about to make an offer he would later regret. "Why don't we go to the orphanage and go through the records there? See if we can find anyone who might remember Annette."

Lilly brightened, a jolt of excitement giving her a sudden boost of energy. "Okay!"

"Vera and Jeffries can visit Esther," Scotty said.

"Oh, we can, can we?" Vera asked, coming up behind Lilly with a cardboard cup of coffee in his hand.

"You got a certain way with the ladies," Scotty said.

Lilly coughed, and Scotty laughed.

"You sure you're okay to be back?" Scotty asked, glancing over at Lilly as they stopped at a red light.

"I'm fine," she grumbled, wishing he'd stop fussing.

"I can take you home if you want," he added.

She shot him a look.

"Okay," he said, knowing there was no point in pushing the issue. "Just wonderin', though - if I catch whatever disease it is you got, are you gonna take it easy on me?"

"I'm gonna nag you every time you try to tell people you're fine," she said.

"I'm not plannin' on pretendin' to be fine." He grinned. "I'll milk it for all it's worth."

Tuesday

Lilly put a hot cup of coffee down on Scotty's desk, and he looked up at her in surprise.

"Thanks," he said. "What's the occasion?"

"I, uh - I actually feel a lot better today," she admitted. "For the first time in a week or so. And I just wanted to say thanks for putting up with me."

He grinned. "Ah, you're not so bad, Rush."

"I dunno," she said, feeling guilty. "I've been kind of… grumpy."

"And sneezy, and sleepy," Vera chipped in. "Dopey, too."

Lilly sighed, waiting for him to finish.

Vera grinned, and then his brows snapped together. "Hey, where's my coffee?"

"Ask your partner," Lilly said, flicking a glance to Jeffries.

Jeffries didn't look up from his crossword. "It's Vera's turn to get the coffee."

Vera muttered what sounded like a curse word.

Lilly turned back to Scotty. "You wanna head out and find Michael Riley?"

Scotty grabbed his jacket. "Right behind you, Lil."