Suzie-Q

Chapter Twenty Five

"Morning Jack!" Tara greeted cheerfully as she headed back to her desk.

His response was delayed half a second and when he finally managed a greeting it was only a half-hearted wave and a grunt. "Myles," he said in a nasally voice, "I – what's with the balloon?" He sniffled loudly as he gazed shifted from the light blue ball hovering above the Bostonian's desk to the Bostonian himself.

It was Bobby who answered as he gave his best mate a pat on the back. "Didn't ya hear, mate? Myles got his appendix out."

As if that was supposed to make more sense than the balloon itself. Jack turned to Sue to find out what had happened while he was out of the office.

"Long story," she told him.

He nodded and turned back to Myles. "Anyway, I need you to look over this case file and let me know what you think." He handed said file over to his teammate who, along with everyone else—sans Sue—just stared at him. "What?" He sniffled again and coughed into the sleeve of his winter jacket.

Great. Just what they needed around the office. More germs.

Myles shook his head and tried to remember where he'd put his bottle of Germ-x. "Nothing. Um… I'll get back to you on the file." After he sanitized it first.

"Good," Jack agreed and walked over to his desk. He could feel eyes following him as he did so and tried to ignore them.

Sue was confused. Ever since Jack had entered the room, everyone had started starting at him, but she couldn't figure out why. Of course, he did have light purplish bags under his eyes and his nose was a little red, but that was all she could see and even those weren't reasons to stare.

She looked to Lucy, feeling like she'd missed something. "What did I miss?" she signed to her roommate.

Lucy only pointed toward Jack and signed the word "cold". But that didn't make very much sense because it was freezing outside.

"What?"

"He's all stuffed up and he has the sniffles. He has a cold."

Fortunately, by the expression on her face, Lucy did not readily put two and two together. Perhaps that would give Sue enough time to convince Jack that Sue would need a female confidante to talk to when she found she couldn't talk to him. Although, lately, it seemed as though she could tell him just about anything.

"Oh," she said aloud and glanced back toward Jack who just at that moment decided to sneeze.

"Hey, mate," you feeling okay?" Bobby asked as he took a seat in his chair after pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Wiping his nose on a tissue, he shrugged out of his jacket. "I guess so, why?" At least he looked better than he felt. Aches and pains ran up and down his body in the strangest places. Not to mention the fact that he could only breathe out of one side of his nose. Plus, he felt like he was getting a fever.

But being the big, brave, stubborn man they all knew, he wouldn't tell them that.

"Maybe because we've already had enough germs and bacteria floating around this office and we really wouldn't like any more," Myles replied but glanced in Sue's direction. His comment hadn't been directed toward her and her cold and he hoped she'd understood that.

His forehead crinkled at that thought. Her cold?

Sue blushed. Myles seemed to be piecing things together quite nicely. The entire team would probably figure out that she and Jack were a couple before they had the chance to tell them!

Jack had noticed the wheels turning in the Bostonian's mind as well. "It's just a chill. I took a dive into a snow bank yesterday, but it should be gone in a day or two." His eyes darted to Sue who stared back at him with that 'I-told-you-so' look of hers.

Now that she had the chance to look at him properly, she could see the familiar signs beginning to creep up on his features. If he wasn't careful, that cold would knock his feet out from under him.

"Be that as it may, I hope you don't take offense if we just pretend you aren't here the rest of the day," Lucy said as kindly as possible, but there was still a hint of venom in her tone. By the laughter twinkling in Sue's eyes, she knew exactly the reason why. "I was lucky I didn't catch what Sue had and I'm not taking any chances."

"None taken," he said acerbically with a roll of his eyes. Grabbing his empty coffee mug, he walked over to old Bertha, hoping for a fresh cup. Unfortunately, someone—that someone being Bobby—had drained the last dropped and hadn't made a fresh pot. That was fortunate for three reasons. One, Jack wasn't really in the mood to be drinking battery fluid this morning. Two, Sue was the one who'd ended up at the coffee maker before him. And three, they were well out of earshot of any prying ears.

"I warned you, Jack," she whispered to him as she put a filter in the basket and scooped some grounds into it.

He winked playfully at her. "You know me, I like to live dangerously."

"Lucy's going to figure out that something is up sooner or later." She put the basket into its slot and poured the water into the back. "Especially if you don't get better in a day or two."

He tore open two packets of sugar and poured them into his empty mug. "Well, maybe I'll make a miraculous recovery; especially if I have my favorite nurse there to take care of me."

Sue blushed as steam started to erupt from deep within Bertha's belly. "And where do you expect to find such a nurse?" Her eyes shifted to his and they completely froze in their sockets at the electrical current flowing between them.

He grinned that crooked little smile she loved so much. "I was kind of, sort of hoping that you would play that part."

"Jack," she protested weakly as her cheeks burned hotter. He only continued to stare at her in the same heated manner that always managed to turn her into jelly. "Well, my mother did give me a recipe for chicken soup that I've wanted to try out." She poured some coffee for herself and then for him.

Seeing her smile felt like sweet success. "It's a date then, Suzie-Q," he grinned and turned to go back to his desk.

Sue smiled into her coffee as she watched him go. 'Suzie-Q' was one of the nicknames her grandfather had given her as a little girl, along with 'Suzie-girl' and just plain ol' 'Suzie'. She'd never really liked those variations of her name before, but there was just something about the way the name formed on Jack's lips that made the butterflies rage to life in her stomach.

Now, with that new reason in her mind, she figured she could learn to love her nickname just as much as she did the man saying it.

Smiling contently, she walked back to her desk to start the day, thoughts of the love of her life forever at the forefront of her mind.

The End

Author's Note: Thank you for reading. I had a blast writing this and I hope you had a blast reading.