Work Text:
“You called in sick and you didn’t tell me?”
“Jordan?” Yaz rasps groggily into the phone. She blinks once, twice, trying to clear the spots from her eyes. She’d closed them for only a moment after calling Martha, face-planting into the pillow again before Jordan’s concerned face had appeared on her phone. “…You were literally my next call.”
“Are you okay?” Jordan asks, peering at her through the screen at strange angles such that all Yaz can see are one eye and a very large nose. “Why are you in darkness? Oh—does your head hurt? Do you have a migraine?”
“No…no, not a migraine, just a flu or something,” Yaz says.
“I’m coming over,” Jordan says decisively.
“Jordan—” But her face has already disappeared again with the telltale beep-beep-beep of an ending video call, and Yaz can only slump down back in her bed and pull the covers more firmly around her shivering, aching body. It takes only seconds before she is out cold once more.
The sound of the door to her flat banging open jolts her awake again. She briefly wonders if she is being robbed—and, when she feels like this, if she cares—before slowly coming to the conclusion that robbers would probably decidedly quieter about it, so the culprit is more likely Jordan. The sounds of adult feet pitter-pattering in and out—what is taking that many trips—and the yelp as something goes plonk and starts rolling across the floor were a bit of a clue.
Sure enough, the blonde pokes her head in Yaz’s bedroom door, then squeezes herself through the crack when she sees she’s awake. She’s still dressed in rumpled light blue hospital scrubs, stethoscope around her neck. “Hiya, Yaz,” Jordan greets her softly.
“Hey.” Yaz struggles to sit up. “What are you doing here?”
“Taking care of you,” Jordan replies brightly. “Told you I was coming, didn’t I?”
“But—I thought—” Yaz’s brow furrows. “But you’ll get sick too.”
“Nah,” Jordan replies, stepping more fully into the room. “Immune system of steel, me. Sheffield steel!” She grins at her own joke, coming to perch on the edge of Yaz’s bed.
“How…how’re you even here?”
“Called in sick. Well, told-in-sick. Hollered it at Martha as I were runnin’ out of the place, really—”
“…great,” Yaz says. “Yeah, Martha’s totally going to believe that.” Her brow furrows, her brain still feeling sluggish, like fishing for thoughts through cold, half-congealed soup. “Didn’t you have a surgery consult scheduled for today?”
“Passed her off to Saxon; he’s done more of these than me anyway,” she shrugs. “Claims he’s the ‘master’ at it.”
“They pay the best?” Yaz guesses in an undertone.
“Yep.”
“You really didn’t need to come,” Yaz tells her. Jordan’s face falls minutely, the second before Yaz reaches for her. “But I’m glad you did.”
“‘Course I did,” Jordan says, vaguely muffled by Yaz’s hair as she hugs her. Yaz holds on for longer than she normally would on a hello-hug, taking comfort in the warmth and gentleness of the touch and the small relief from the headache it brings, even if only temporarily. Jordan’s hand slowly sneaks its way to Yaz’s forehead—not Yaz’s favourite place for Jordan’s hand to sneak, generally speaking—and presses against it. “You’re warm.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” Yaz mumbles, half-contemplating burrowing further into Jordan to see if that will stop the persistent chills running up and down her body.
“Oh! I brought meds. Lots of stuff, actually. Do you want to see? I’ll just go—“ Jordan slides off the bed, then out the door. “Be right back!”
Yaz flops back down under the covers, hiking them up to her chin just as Jordan reappears lugging three bulging reusable shopping bags across the hardwood and a backpack slung across her shoulders. She immediately plonks them down with gusto, then tears the first one open. “So, I have—“
“An entire pharmacy?” Yaz asks.
Jordan nods happily. “Well, I didn’t know your exact symptoms, so I just made some guesses based on how you sounded on the phone and what’s going around at the moment—“ She holds up a set of three bottles splayed between her fingers, too far away for Yaz to read the writing on them. “These’ll be ace if you caught that same flu as Clara’s patient down in peds, the one that painted her that really awesome alien invasion watercolour, and I brought these just in case it’s that weird one we saw in A&E last week. Oh, and some anti-fungal cream just in case, but I really don’t think his toenails were related. Probably.” She grins at Yaz. “So, I have cough syrup—grape-flavoured, since you hate artificial cherry. I have ibuprofen and paracetalmol and naproxen for fever and body aches…” Her face falls. “Oh, Yaz, you didn’t want aspirin, did you? I’m allergic so I don’t keep it in stock, but I can run out to the chemist’s if you want—“
“Jordan,” Yaz cuts her off. “That’s more than enough. Thank you.”
She brightens, immediately reverting back to her excitable self, though only Jordan could get this excited about NSAIDs. Jordan was special, even among doctors. “But I haven’t even gotten to the others yet! Day and Night Nurse if you’re feeling it, makes me a bit loopy so it’s not my fav, Sudafed, Lemsip, and Vaporub!”
She raises an eyebrow. “Is this just because you wanted to rub something on my chest?” Yaz teases.
“No!” Jordan looks scandalised. “No, Yaz, I would never! I’m your doctor…partner. Doctorpartner?”
“Come here, Doctorpartner,” Yaz says, crooking her finger. Jordan scampers over to her, and Yaz tilts her head. “Is your Sheffield steel immune system up to being kissed?”
“Mmhmm, yup, definitely,” Jordan says eagerly, and so Yaz does, gentle and full of gratitude.
“And those other bags?” Yaz nods toward them.
“Groceries!” Jordan shouts happily, moderating her voice again when she spots Yaz’s wince. “For about a month, actually—I may have gone a bit overboard. But also the ingredients for soup! Do you feel like soup, Yaz?”
“Are…you making it?” Yaz asks, flashing back to the squelch between her teeth of gummy bears floating in cereal milk and all of the other questionable culinary choices she’s seen Jordan make.
“I am ace at soup-making, I’ll have you know, Yasmin Khan,” Jordan says, puffing up like a peacock. “Got a whole degree in it. Or I would, if they offered degrees in soup-making. Just you wait.”
“…Just tell me there are no marshmallows involved.”
“Only as a topping.” Jordan grins in that way that doesn’t tell Yaz if she’s kidding or not.
Yaz only sighs, knowing she’ll eat it regardless. She reaches out her arms toward Jordan. “Come on, help me up.”
“Up?” Jordan questions, coming toward her anyway.
“I want to move to the couch,” Yaz tells her.
“Why?”
“Because I want to be with you,” Yaz says. “And I don’t need groceries in my bedroom.”
“Oh,” Jordan says, cottoning on. “Oh! Right. No oranges in your sock drawer?”
“Please no,” Yaz says as Jordan helps her up. She starts to move toward the door, arms clenched around herself tightly as her body begins uncontrollably shivering in the cool air, but Jordan stops her.
“Yaz! You need to be bundled up,” she says before diving for the bedspread. Yaz can only stand there in slight befuddlement as Jordan proceeds to run circles around her with the force of a miniature hurricane until her bed is nearly fully stripped and Yaz is draped in so many blankets that it’s hard to move, much less walk. “There!” Jordan says happily. “C’mon, Yaz, the sofa awaits!” She bounds forward, then stops as she realises Yaz is only capable of the slow, shuffling steps of a well-bound mummy and comes back to her side. “Although you probably could, you know—maybe even make a string out of the pith? That’s ingenious; I wonder if anyone has ever tried it. There’s some new research out there that orange oil is good for the skin too…”
They make it to the couch with Jordan still animatedly debating the merits of knitting a sock out of orange peel, and Yaz gratefully collapses onto it, cuddling up on one side in a small ball and resting her head against the armrest. Jordan makes sure the top blanket is tucked all the way under Yaz’s chin before sprinting off to go fetch the grocery bags. She rests her eyes to the sound of Jordan humming what sounds like a mish-mash of three different songs as she stocks the fridge and cupboards. She is awoken from drifting off once again by Jordan dragging a strangely-still-full bag toward her.
“Pssst, Yaz,” Jordan whispers. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have woken you up, but I brought you this—oh, meds! remind me to give you meds after—but—here.” She proffers toward her a soft brown plushie that Yaz immediately recognises as the stuffed manatee they had bought together at the aquarium and that usually lived at Jordan’s flat given the decided lack of stuff animals there. Yaz wrestles her arms out of the blankets to take the creature, then rubs the softness against her face. It smells like Jordan too, which might be the most comforting thing.
“Thank you,” Yaz murmurs, cuddling Timothy the Manatee up to her chest. She peers at the bag. “What else have you got there? Is that…a mug?”
“Your mug from mine!” Jordan nods. “Because—“
“My mugs are sad?” Yaz finishes, and they both stop to smile at each other.
“Also your favourite movies and a blanket in case you didn’t have enough and some fuzzy pyjamas in case you want to change later cos I know you only have one set here, and fresh clothes always make me feel better,” Jordan tells her.
Yaz looks up at her questioningly. “My favourite movies…on DVD?”
“It’s just not the same on streaming, Yaz!”
“But I don’t even own a DVD player.”
Jordan grins, then reaches over and pulls out entire DVD player and mess of wires from her backpack where it’s leaning up against the couch.
“But…” Yaz stares, open-mouthed, then just starts laughing, though that aggravates the steadily-growing tickle in the back of her throat and makes her head pound. Jordan and her antics are worth it, however. “Do you have a degree in DVD player installation too?”
“No, but I do have one in engineering,” Jordan says happily, lugging the DVD player over to Yaz’s television set.
“Wait—what?”
But Jordan only begins humming again as she sets herself to connecting up the player, a process which apparently involves way more cables than Yaz rather thinks it should, spread in a wide circle around Jordan on the sitting room floor along with the television remote and, of all things, a silver screwdriver. Yaz can only watch in amusement and mild befuddlement as she works, the utter picture of concentration—head ducked low, hair falling in her eyes and tongue peeking out between her lips.
The tickle in the back of her throat steadily increases no matter how much she swallows, trying to be rid of it. Yaz shifts uncomfortably, then tries holding still, straining to push the urge back and not interrupt her, but loses to the abrupt coughing fit that takes over her body. It stops in mere moments, leaving her throat feeling more raw than ever, but even that much has Jordan jerking back upward from where she’s wedged under the TV, banging her head on the underside of the cabinet. She jumps up immediately, bounding over the mess she’s made on the floor back to Yaz, eyes wide. “Oh! Yaz, I forgot to give you your medicine!”
“‘S okay,” Yaz croaks, waving away her apologies. “Really. Though I’ll take some cough syrup if you have it?”
“Of course!” Jordan digs through her travel pharmacy to produce the bottle, then carefully pours out the correct dosage and holds it out to Yaz. The taste is disgusting, but not disgustingly cherry, which makes all the difference. Yaz thanks Jordan with a smile, handing the cup back. “I can make tea too,” Jordan offers. “Or should I set up the humidifier first? No, you could be sitting all cosy with a cuppa while I set it up—but it takes a while to diffuse to maybe I should get it started first—or both at the same time?!”
“Jordan,” Yaz stills her with a calming hand on her own, slipping their fingers together even though her own are probably warm and a bit sweaty. Her brow furrows. “You brought a humidifier with you too?” Yaz asks. “Where? How?”
“It’s in Amy’s car,” Jordan says a bit bashfully.
“You got her to agree to lend you her car again?!”
“Oi, I took all the turns very carefully the last time and the actions of road squirrels are not my fault. Squirrels are evil plotting things, Yaz, everyone knows that.” Her face scrunches up, and she determinedly looks everywhere but Yaz, shifting on her feet. “But, er, no. Or…not yet?”
It takes Yaz’s aching head a few extra seconds to parse Jordan’s words, or rather her fidgeting, which is really doing more of the talking here. “You stole Amy’s car?!”
“Not stole! I have her keys, for emergencies. And you were sick, so…” Jordan’s puppy eyes stop darting all over the room and meet her own. “Emergency.”
“I am a doctor too, you know,” Yaz reminds her, the words gentle and teasing. “And I’m not dying.”
“No, but you’re sick!” Jordan insists. “And sick alone is sad.”
Yaz just shakes her head. “I adore you.”
Jordan lights up, a broad grin overtaking her entire face. “I adore you t—SOUP!” she exclaims. She rockets back toward the kitchen and begins rummaging through the fridge vegetable drawer, and Yaz sighs, relaxing back further against the couch cushions to watch her wonderful, ridiculous resident scatterbrain at work.
Two hours later finds Yaz cuddled up on the couch, Timothy the Manatee tucked in close to her chest and Jordan’s soft blanket spread over them both. A Disney movie she’s only been half-heartedly watching scrolls credits on the TV, ignored in favour of watching Jordan scurry around the kitchen prepping ingredients in a frenzy of chopping and dicing (and in favour of watching to make sure she wasn’t going to have to be the one driving Jordan to A&E). Jordan turns off the stove with a flourish, hair now poofed up in exceedingly messy waves from standing over the simmering pot for an hour, and carefully ladles two bowls full which she brings over to Yaz on the couch. Instead of sitting down with her and eating her own, she hands her a spoon and settles on her haunches to wait expectantly, huge eyes on Yaz.
Yaz pokes at the soup with it, causing carrots, stewed tomatoes, zucchini, and what looks like barley to swirl around in her bowl. “No gummy bears this time, so that’s a good start,” she teases, glancing back up at Jordan. She blows on a spoonful before bringing it to her lips, bracing herself and ready to pretend even if Jordan made the base out of Oreo crumbles or grabbed sugar instead of salt or—
Warmth floods her mouth, vegetables and broth seasoned just right, and she has to make sure she doesn’t accidentally spit it out in surprise because this soup is good.
“Jordan!” Yaz splutters.
“Is it okay?” she asks anxiously.
“Jordan, it’s—delicious,” Yaz tells her earnestly. She scoops up another mouthful.
“Oh. Oh, good,” Jordan says with relief. “I bring it to patients sometimes, after they’re discharged, if…if I know they aren’t gonna have anyone ‘round to cook for ‘em.”
“Then you should know it’s good,” Yaz says. “It’s amazing.” She nudges her. “You’re amazing.”
“Well, with my patients, I did just save their lives and bring them free soup, so…” Jordan says sheepishly, though the compliment has her smiling. “Dunno if I can trust them to tell me if me soup’s shite.”
“Fair.” She coughs a little, and Jordan is on her immediately.
“Need more cough syrup? I can get it—“
“No,” Yaz says, stopping her with a hand. “I’m fine, I promise.” With one hand on her leg and the bowl balanced on her knee, Yaz manages to keep Jordan from running off again
“Just drop ‘em in the sink for now,” Yaz tells her. “They’re not going anywhere.”
“Okay,” Jordan says, turning on the faucet to spray some water into them before leaving them to soak. “What about you? What can I get you next?”
“Nothing,” Yaz tells her. Jordan’s face falls a little, and she quickly follows it up with, “Nothing, Jordan, really. I have a fuzzy blanket and tea and meds and pyjamas for later.” She holds out her arms, looking at her imploringly. “Just come here and relax, okay?”
Jordan looks at her uncertainly, but edges toward the couch. “Come lie down,” Yaz invites, scooting over to make room for her. She lifts one corner of the blanket and Jordan wiggles in beside her.
“Oh, you’re very warm—”
“Shhh,” Yaz tells her. “Just lay with me.” Jordan acquiesces, snuffling into her neck as her arm snakes around Yaz’s waist in a way that Yaz pretends for argument’s sake isn’t sneakily taking her pulse at her wrist. With a fond roll of her eyes, she moves her wrist out of reach as she reaches for the TV remote, putting on one of Jordan’s favourite fish documentaries—that have the added bonus of putting Yaz to sleep even more quickly than regular films do—but even then she can tell Jordan is still restless, a vibrating ball of energy with no outlet except for bouncing limbs and elbows in her side and huffs of air against the back of her neck. Yaz only pulls her arm more fully around her, stroking the edge of Jordan’s hand with her thumb. Slowly, the fidgeting abates as Jordan relaxes a bit, but the stiffness and reluctance of her body language remains.
Yaz is content to wait her out, until—
“Did I do good?” Jordan asks suddenly as a pair of clownfish slip inside the waving fronds of a sea anemone on the screen.
Yaz twists to look at her. Jordan’s mouth has a slight downcast to it, her bottom lip nibbled nervously between her teeth. “What? Jordan,” Yaz chides gently. “Of course. You did so good.”
At that, Jordan smiles a little. “Okay. Okay, good. I just—wanted to check.”
“You’ve been wonderful,” Yaz promises her. “But you know what?” She flips over until she’s lying on her back to look at her, Jordan propped up on one arm against the back of the couch. She nudges her in the shoulder with her chin. “Just being here with you is the best medicine. Honest.”
“You’ve done so much for me, and I—” Jordan blushes. “I’ve never had someone to take care of before.”
“Come here,” Yaz says, opening her arms and pulling Jordan in for a hug. Jordan wriggles her body downward until her face is pillowed in the safety of Yaz’s chest, nose squashed into her jumper as Yaz strokes the back of her head.
“I love you, you know,” Jordan mumbles into the bulky fabric.
“I know,” Yaz smiles. She leans forward to kiss her hair. “I love you too, so much.” She hugs Jordan a little tighter to her, awash in affection and how grateful she is to have this big-hearted, tiny-disaster of a human in her life. “So much.”
Making a contented sound, Jordan turns her head and pats part of the jumper down such that she can see the TV screen again, still draped comfortably over Yaz. She frowns, eyebrows scrunching together. “Aww, did we miss the clownfish part? Love the clownfish, me. Did you know clownfish are all born male, an’ the ones that turn female to lay eggs for the group can’t ever transition back to male?” She pauses. “Yaz, can we go back—”
“Already doing it,” Yaz grins, indeed already with remote in hand set to rewind. “I got you, Jordan.”
The next day, Yaz awakes in her bed feeling significantly better than she had the morning previous, though the general body ache and sore throat remain. She rolls over to see Jordan curled up next to her, legs tangled with hers. Her blonde hair is a mess of waves on the pillow, and her mouth is slightly open as she sleeps. For a minute Yaz just watches her, contentment and adoration filling her up in equal measures before Jordan cracks one eye open. “Grehgr grehgregurr. Grehgr rgurgh ghee?” Jordan rumbles.
Yaz’s eyebrows shoot upwards in alarm at the same time as Jordan’s do, just before she is overcome with a horrible, wracking cough that further evidences the large blockage of phlegm in her vocal chords. “Jordan?” Yaz asks, pressing a hand to her partner’s back.
“I said,” Jordan croaks, as if testing to see if her voice works now. The cough seems to have cleared her throat just enough for Jordan to turn her bullfrog imitation into something somewhat recognisable as the Queen’s English. “I said, ‘you’re watchin’ me. Like what you see?’”
“Always,” Yaz tells her. “But…I hate to break it to you, but you might’ve caught my flu.”
“What, this?” Jordan says. “Can’t be, got—” She breaks off coughing again. “—Sheffield steel, me.”
“Well, at least Martha’ll have no choice but to believe you when you call out now,” Yaz says. “Want to take a bath? The steam might help with your throat, before we start with your entire home pharmacy.”
Jordan pauses, as if deciding—no, waiting.
“Yes, I’ll take it with you,” Yaz clarifies.
Grinning, Jordan nods eagerly, then appears to regret jostling her head so much as she scrunches her nose. “Bath cuddles with Yaz?” she gets out. “Amazin’.”
“Come on, you,” Yaz says, getting out of bed and taking her hand. “I’m taking care of you today, no arguments.”
“But Yaz,” Jordan says. “You’re still sick too, ‘less it were a twenty-four-hour stomach bug, but the symptoms didn’t match—”
“All right, we take care of each other, then,” Yaz agrees. “Deal?”
“Deal.” Jordan lets herself be helped up, then leans against Yaz as they head for the bathroom, one arm securely around her waist. She sits down on the edge of the tub to wait as Yaz crouches to turn on the water, testing the temperature with her fingers before adding the stopper to let it fill. “I think that’s all I want for the rest of my life,” Jordan says quietly. She looks up at Yaz. “Is that—”
“More than,” Yaz tells her, before she can even finish the question. “That’s what I want too.”
They smile at each other a bit soppily as the first bath of many continues to fill.