Note: I do not own Adrian Monk, Dr. Charles Kroger, Sharona Fleming, Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, AmbroseMonk,or any other character of the "Monk" series.
The bright sunlight of dawn streamed through the blinds of Adrian Monk's bedroom, but he didn't stir from his position under the array of sheets and blankets. Eventually, though, the warmth of the light shining upon his face made him lift his hands in defense, becoming conscious as he batted the offending source of heat away.
As he took in his first waking breaths of morning, he became acutely aware of a pressure in his sinuses and an inability to take in air through his nose. He jolted to a seated position and hoarsely moaned the words he hated to even consider. "I'm… sick!
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After considering whether or not to even get out of bed, he decided that he must, for he had to use the restroom. It was a common morning routine and he had never digressed from it before. May as well not start to, either, even if I am unhealthy, he supposed, as he unsteadily made the short trek. He stopped in front of the mirror to examine himself, and was shocked by what he saw.
There were… bags under his eyes… and his nose was so… red, and swollen! He couldn't help but notice how terrible he looked. He turned on the taps, preparing to splash some of its coolness onto his tired-looking face. How was it humanly possible that he, Adrian Monk, could be sick? He was so careful to wipe his hands and avoid touching things and cover his mouth when walking amidst sick people! Maybe Sharona would know what he should do…. He then sighed with frustration and disappointment, realizing that she had been gone for almost half a year now, and she was never coming back to him.
After he rinsed his face off, the sickly look still remained, now compounded with a paleness that had cast itself across his face. How had he lived without her for so long? Now he was going to die, miserable and alone, and it was all her fault!
He opened the medicine cabinet up with a segment of toilet paper, so as not to leave a smudge mark on the glass, and examined the massive stock of OTC medications he had in his possession. There was Robitussin, NyQuil, DayQuil, Sudafed, and Vicks Vaporub for cold/flu relief and cough suppression; Advil, Tylenol, Aspirin, Aleve, and Motrin IB for pain relief; and Allegra, Claritin D, and Benadryl for antihistamines. Sharona had bought most of these for him, even though he had managed to avoid being sick… Until now…. Too many choices, he mused, grabbing the Robitussin and DayQuil and switching them around, since they were out of alphabetical order; he'd be there all day trying to decide. Scoffing to himself, he shut the cabinet and returned to his previous thoughts of how he could have possibly picked something up from somebody.
He'd been in the apartment for practically an entire five months, only leaving to buy groceries, or— well, that was about it, actually.He frowned at himself in the mirror, hating himself for feeling so lousy. Sharona left him with nothing; no number to call her or contact of her, or anything. He paced slowly back to the bedroom, slipping back under the covers once more.
Later on he'd eventually get up for the day… He held out his hands, preparing to count his fingers. First, he'd need to gargle with some hot salt water, and then vacuum the kitchen—and the bathroom—and bedroom—and living room—and the dining room… He needed to buy a new toothbrush as well…. He'd have to put the bed sheets in the laundry, as well as his pajamas; no use wallowing around in his own sick-germs….
Once he realized the sheer amount of work ahead of him, he sighed and sat back up, slipping out of bed once again. "I may as well just get up," he said to no one in particular. His entire head felt like a balloon full of wet socks, and he could feel the liquid in his nose dripping, making its way for the outside…
He almost touched it, to wipe it away, but reconsidered and dashed into the kitchen for a paper towel. "Going to have to buy some Kleenex as well," he muttered, disgusted with it all, after wiping his nose with the rough material. Although it was barely moistened, the detective tossed the balled-up paper towel in the trash can and washed his hands in the sink.
After washing his hands, he continued to stand in front of the sink, gazing out the window through the blinds at the clear blue morning sky. "How can it be so nice outside, when I feel like this?" He really should have been boiling some water at the time, for his salt water gurgle that he was going to try. I just feel so run down, I don't want to do anything, Adrian moped.
He shuffled over to the couch where he and Trudy used to always snuggle, and stared at the crooked coffee table for a minute or so, pondering on whether to clean the room or not. Well, the table was spotless, but he had just dusted and polished it yesterday….
The cordless phone sat on his desk, beckoning his attention. Sighing nasally, he walked over to it and picked up the receiver, examining it in his hand. Couldn't she at least have left him a number to reach her? He turned on the phone with his pinky finger, hearing the dial tone, an unfamiliar sound in these silent past five months. The only people who had checked up on him in this period of time were Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, who had dutifully called at least once a week, his psychiatrist Dr. Kroger, and his brother Ambrose, who had called him once, a few days after Sharona's departure. It really had been a pleasant surprise to hear his brother's voice again, but he had been too depressed at that point to completely appreciate the company of his formerly estranged sibling. He reminisced about that phone call, all the while ignoring the operator's voice recording in the background, saying "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up and try again. If you need help, hang up and then dial your operator."
He had been at his desk, poring over the papers involving his wife's death, when the call had come. Immediately he had supposed it was Sharona, prepared to make an amends and return in a blaze of glory, but was a bit startled at hearing the unfamiliar male voice on the other end.
"Hello, Adrian. It's your brother… Ambrose," he had heard his brother say timidly, and it struck him speechless for about a minute or so, as he thought about the time they had last spoken on the phone.
"Oh, hello, Ambrose," he said, in the lightest-sounding voice he could muster in all his upset over the recent abandonment.
"I heard about what happened; I'm sorry, Adrian," Ambrose said, with such a sincere, heartfelt tone, that he felt his eyes watering.
"I'm doing… alright." The words sounded hollow and fake to him, and he had immediately regretted not telling his brother how he had been feeling. He had wiped his eyes and stood up to pace around the room, regretting the lie. Come to think of it, he still regretted it now….
"I-I… moved back into the house," his brother said cheerfully, attempting to change the subject. Ambrose had always been the more emotional of the two, holding onto his feelings for years and years and allowing for his hopes to rise at the thought of his father's return. Well… Adrian had held on to his feelings as well, but that was a different subject altogether…
"How did you do that? It was really charred from the fire." Changing the subject was alright, he had decided. Well, it took his mind off of Sharona….
"Well—I had various restoration companies audit the house and repair what they deemed hazardous. It—looks acceptable now. I had to throw almost all the newspapers out, though; they were all ruined, except for three dozen from 1985. Dad's going to really upset with me when he finds that I had to th—"
"I doubt it," Adrian said. "He'll never come back, just like Sharona will never come back." His emotions had gotten the better of him, and he had admitted his anguish over her departure. He had then felt stupid for bringing up such a dire subject with his brother, especially after mentioning it in the same sentence as their father. Ambrose had fallen silent, probably unsure of what to say to him. He was lost for words as well. After a long pause, they had exchanged awkward goodbyes and that was it. He was left alone with his thoughts once again, to wallow in his own misery for the next four and a half months…
Hearing a thump at the front door, he snapped out of his reverie and made his way to the front door to pick up the paper. Ever since the murder of his paperboy, the new kid (well, not too new anymore) always chucked the newspaper at his front door. He'd probably have to scrub the door off again, because sometimes he found that the black print rubbed off where it had hit.
The paper that morning was rather thick, and he opened the first section to find an article on yet another unsolved murder. Just like Trudy's murder, he thought, but this one will probably be solved in the next week. He laid the newspaper against the edge of his kitchen table and prepared to make himself some ginger tea. It was disturbing how exhausted he felt. He should have been vacuuming, not making tea…. Vacuuming always made him feel better.
He forgot about the paper and the tea, and went to the pantry to pull out the vacuum cleaner. It had always improved his attitude because of the white noise's calming effect, Dr. Kroger had said, but he supposed it had been because he knew all the dirt and germs were sucked inside a very small place, and they couldn't escape. He pulled up a chair and prepared to stand atop it to vacuum the ceiling. It had always been his habit, to vacuum from the highest point downwards, so no new dust accumulated from the disturbances of the hose on the ceiling and walls.
After ensuring that no food products or containers remained on the kitchen counter, he swept up every last particle of dirt from the ceiling and walls and made his way down to the crannies on the highest cupboards. Once he finished the kitchen, he felt an urge to continue cleaning, since he had the equipment out already.
The morning slipped away as Adrian vacuumed and dusted his apartment, repeating each room a couple of times to ensure that no detail was left out and that every surface had been swept. It was 1 pm when he finished up the job, and he felt even worse than he had in the morning. His head was now throbbing with a sinus headache, and his nose was running but still excruciatingly stuffed up. Little aches and pains popped up at every joint, and his throat had obtained an extreme dryness. Once the sneezes came on, he had returned to his bed with an unopened roll of toilet paper and had pulled the trash can to the bedside.
He considered sniffing Trudy's pillow for familiar comfort, but realized he couldn't smell a thing right now, so he lie on his back, staring at the swirls in the ceiling. He had to keep his mouth open to breathe, for the disagreeable substance in his nose prevented anything from passing through. It had been years since he'd been this miserable… It can't be much longer now, he mused. Soon I'll return to you, Trudy…
The ringing phone startled him to jolt up in bed and grab the receiver in one rapid motion. Apparently he had fallen asleep, which he had originally thought impossible. "Hello?" he asked in a gravelly, nasal voice.
"Is that you, Monk?" It was the captain, calling to check up on him. Maybe he knew that he was going to catch something, for he'd called him twice already this week. Well, it was still this week; wasn't it?
"Yeah, it's me, Captain," he responded, wiping his nose with the toilet paper.
"What's wrong?" Stottlemeyer said. "It sounds like you've got a cold."
"Oh, no," Monk replied hopelessly. "It's much worse than that."
"Did you take anything for it?" The captain knew that the former detective is quite the hypochondriac.
"Well—no." He tossed a ball of toilet paper in the trash can.
"Do you not have anything for it? I can run some over, if you need something. You really sound bad."
"Oh—that's not the case… It's just—Sharona bought me too much—and I can't decide what to take." An unexpected sneeze cut him off before he could continue.
"What are your symptoms, then? I can tell ya what to take." Monk tried to smile, but felt a cough coming on. The captain really had become a good friend. When he had first returned to consultant work after Sharona came into his life, he found that Stottlemeyer had seemed irritated by his presence, even so much as to tell him right out that he didn't want him there. That had changed over the past couple of years, and it was one thing that he could be thankful for. Of course, now he was going to revert back to his old ways, before Sharona had ever set foot in his house. It would be as if the past few years didn't even exist, and he could turn into the hermit that his brother had already been for decades.
"Well—my nose is stuffed up… I've been sneezing, and I'm aching all over…. My throat is itchy, which'll probably progress to coughing soon. It's going to keep getting worse and wo—"
"Sounds like a cold to me, Monk. Do you have any DayQuil?"
The detective leaned heavily against the headboard, glancing in the direction of the bathroom, recalling earlier.
"Uhm…. Yes, yes, I do. But how is it possible that I could have caught—"
"Well, take some DayQuil then. It won't make you drowsy either." He paused. "Everyone gets colds; it was just your time."
"It's all because Sharona left," the detective scoffed. "Now my immune system is down, and I'm open to all kinds of horrible things. I've read all about what's going to happen—"
"It's not Sharona's fault; she's been gone now for months. Stop worrying about it, it's just a cold. You'll be fine in a few days. "
"A few days?" He felt the panic rising in his throat. "Why is it going to take that long? And yes, it is her fault!"
"The cold will go away in a few days, but only if you take your medicine and rest. I have to get back to work now, but I'll call later on in the week," he grumbled into the receiver.
"Alright then. Thanks for calling, Captain," Monk sighed. In these past few months it had been hard to deal with a world almost totally devoid of human interaction.
Monk soon pushed the power button on the cordless phone, and all that could be heard afterwards was the ticking of the clock in the hallway. He looked around the room for a few moments, composing himself to actually take some medication for his cold. He really didn't think it was a cold. It felt like his whole body was shutting down.
He gulped down the gross-tasting syrup, and sat out in the kitchen to read the paper. There was an unsolved murder case on the front page, and a couple of mentioned ones on the following pages. All in all, he counted 15 unsolved murders referred to in some way. "Wow, I had no idea it was Monday," he muttered, noticing the print at the top of the page. "I'm delirious too."
He glanced over at the wall, where a line of pictures of Trudy was hanging, completely level, with precise even spaces between them. "I wish I could figure out who murdered you," he said to her black and white photograph. A determined look crossed his face. "And I'm going to find out, even if it takes me the rest of my life. I promise."
He thought of the office he had been renting downtown for years, containing all of Trudy's possessions. When Sharona had first begun helping him with bill-writing, she had mentioned it to him briefly but he had changed the subject immediately, and the subject had never been brought up again. It had been years since he'd set foot in that building; the sheer amount of memories that were stockpiled there were too much for him to bear at one time. The vast majority of stored items consisted of her own writings and sources for her job as a columnist for The Examiner. He would inspect them more closely in time, but for now his lack of new data stunted his efforts, and he felt ashamed of his own abilities.
Somehow he could not even make himself approach the building, for the mere thought of the outpouring of her knowledge that lay inside, neglected for almost a decade in the silence and dust of the building, made him regret stowing it away in the first place. But he hadn't neglected it, really; he just wouldn't have been able to breathe in a house knowing how much of the past would be there with him, representing a time gone forever.
He let the coughs commence, and they were dry and hoarse and painful. The cough syrup sat on the table next to him, and he picked it up to examine its label. "Isn't this supposed to be working?" he exclaimed, noting the side effects. "Nervousness, sleeplessness, dizziness," he spouted off, shaking his head with disgust. "Why did I take the captain's word for it without reading first?" He continued to stare at the label. "Oh, God!" he continued, "The expiration date is only six months away! It's probably gone bad!"
He spent the remainder of his evening in bed, leaning against propped up pillows against the headboard and watching television. Everything seemed so bland now, like it was fading from him over the course of a mere day. He set up a vaporizer in his room to clear his sinuses once he could fall asleep, but figured sleep would never come. The vaporizer had been sterilized thoroughly after its only usage, but he cleaned it out anyway. Eventually exhaustion overtook him, and he fell asleep, as the television softly glowed on his face throughout the night.