Chapter Text
Penelope rotates her position on the sofa, trying to find a new yet equally uncomfortable position. If she rests her head just so against the pillow she brought out from her bedroom, it keeps her sinuses open a bit more and when the mucus drips at that specific angle, she can even breathe a bit through one of her nostrils.
She fucking hates being sick.
With each cough or sneeze or disgusting hack up of mucus collecting in her throat, she prays to god that the next time she is able to breathe properly through her nose, she won’t take it for granted.
Her tea’s gone cold, but she’s shivering violently and achy and can’t get up, so she continues to lay there, letting Netflix show her new episodes of The Office. She knows she’s supposed to like the British version better, and if anyone ever asks, that’s always her answer, but she’s got a soft spot for Jim and Pam and Dwight usually makes her laugh so hard. She’s not laughing today as she’d be too afraid she’d cough up a lung.
While she usually runs a tight ship, falling sick throws her off and the coffee table is littered in overpriced takeaway boxes from the last twenty four hours, plus the pity party from the day before that, old dishes she meant to get to earlier in the week piled high in the sink. She hasn’t even been eating much, but managed to force a few bites down. The rest has gone bad in the boxes and if she could access her sense of smell, she’s sure she would retch.
Everything feels wrong, completely off centre. She knows why, but she doesn’t want to think about it. Her chest is aching enough from all the coughing without thinking about… the fight.
It’s the gambling night episode and Jim kisses Pam and the ache blooms in her chest anyway. She presses pause and turns over, pulling the blanket up to her chin, hoping after a nap, she’ll wake up feeling a bit better.
Her mouth feels cottony and disgusting when she wakes up, smacking her lips together, resenting that she hadn’t thought to get more water before her nap. She always wakes up like this, and it’s far worse when she’s sick. Her ears are stuffed and tinny too. She can’t breathe and everything just hurts. It takes her a few moments to register the sounds from the kitchen. It sounds like running water.
As she scans the newly empty coffee table in front of her, devoid of rubbish, she squints, trying to shake off some of the brain fog. The sound of clinking dishes causes her brain to catch up and alerts her that someone else is here.
“Hello?” she calls out, barely managing to sit up. The blanket falls from her chest and she realizes suddenly that while she fell asleep shivering, she’s drenched in sweat now. Another high temperature must have been the culprit.
The water stops running. Her heart beats faster in her chest. When Colin appears in the doorway of her living room, she sucks in a tight breath.
“What are you doing here?”
It looks like it actually takes effort for him to not scoff at that. He clears his throat instead, moving towards her to place the glass of water in his hand down in front of her. “El told me that you’re sick.”
“Yeah,” she says, still not moving.
“You should drink that.”
She caves, picking up it and draining it, her eyes suddenly feeling dry and itchy.
“Christ, you’re drenched,” he comments as he assesses her state. “Let me start the shower for you.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” she mumbles, suddenly feeling more moody and irritated by his presence. “You’ll get sick too.”
He ignores her and a moment later, she hears the sound of running water from a different part of her flat. She’s still confused.
When he returns, she stands up and crosses her arms, trying to seem steadier. She’s not.
“What are you doing here?”
“You’re sick, Pen. I came to take care of you.”
“I don’t need you to—”
“Please,” he begs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please just… I started the shower for you. Let me finish up in here.”
She looks around at that, trying to understand what he wants to finish.
“I’m working on the dishes now. Already got to your room. The old sheets are in the wash and I put fresh ones on. I’ll disinfect in here a bit too.”
Penelope sneezes, barely having time to turn away from him, and certainly not having time to grab a tissue before it’s all over her hand. She groans and as it turns into a whimper, she almost starts to cry. She fucking hates being sick.
Colin, for whatever reason, is unphased by the fact that she’s turned into a disgusting, snotty swamp monster right in front of his eyes.
“Go shower. I added eucalyptus oil, it’ll open up your sinuses a bit. I left the bottle in there, you can add more if you like.”
Before she leaves the room, she catches him glancing at the paused telly, raising his eyebrows at her, and choosing not to comment on her treasonous choice of sick entertainment.
The shower feels amazing. She relishes the opportunity to brush her teeth and wash all the sticky dried sweat and snot off of her body, and as the steam works her swollen airways open, she inhales deeply for the first time in a day, allowing the eucalyptus to fill her lungs, soothing her from the inside out. She does add more.
The bathroom door creaks open while she’s shampooing. She tenses momentarily.
“Just grabbing your clothes so I can add to the wash,” Colin says before closing the door behind him. As soon as he’s gone, her shoulders sag.
How did they end up here?
The thought rolls around her brain, prickly and uncomfortable, the duration of her shower. How does her favorite person on the planet become someone she doesn’t know how to be around?
The door opens again while she’s conditioning. “Some clean pyjamas.” And then it closes again.
While she towels off and dresses in her favourite set that Colin brought in for her and the comfy very un-sexy knickers he’d placed on top, she tries not to pay attention to the sense of dread rising in her chest. She throws some quick plaits in her hair because she’s got no strength for anything else and can’t stomach the idea of the rats nest she’d have to deal with otherwise.
When she reenters the living room, it smells lemony and clean. Everything is straightened up, sitting at the perfect ninety degree angles that she loves so dearly and had let fall to the wayside the last day or so. A fresh cup of tea with steam rising off the top is waiting on a coaster on the end table. She picks it up and takes a sip. Of course, it’s perfect.
She pads into the kitchen quietly. While her mind is still hazy, feeling clean is doing wonders for her emotional state, and she feels more prepared to face him.
He’s at the hob, a large pot boiling in front of him.
“Why did you come?” she asks, her voice small. She could have said anything else, but this is really what she wants to know.
Colin doesn’t even look up, continues to stir, adding a handful of chopped carrots to the mixture.
“You’re sick. You needed help. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because. We had a fight.”
He scoffs at that, still not looking at her. “I know.”
“A bad one.”
His jaw tenses. “I know that too.”
“Colin—”
“Did you get the tea I left for you?”
She nods, but he’s still not looking at her, so she says “yes” quietly, and even manages to add a “thank you.”
“Shower good?” he asks tensely.
“Yeah. It helped.”
“Right. I’ve got a load of laundry in now and this will be done in twenty, so why don’t you head back to the sofa and watch your terrible show while I finish up in here?”
Even though he’s making a joke, she feels properly chastised at that, and decides not to push him. Besides, she still feels awful and wants nothing more than to be horizontal again.
She pushes down all the feelings of discomfort while she resumes her position on the sofa and watches Jim spend time with that wench, Karen. The nature of the episode isn’t making her feel much better, though it does seem apt for her current emotional state.
Towards the end of the episode, Colin comes in and he’s holding a Boots bag in his hands. “More cold medicine,” he says, pulling out a box. “Wasn’t sure what you had or if it was expired.”
Her cheeks turn red, which she tries to hide in the pillow that also happens to smell like lemon. “It is.” Penelope is normally very on top of things, but being sick makes her the worst version of herself.
Colin pulls out a capsule and hands it to her, alongside another fresh glass of water. “Take this. Got you some Night Nurse also to help you sleep.”
She nods as she sits up and swallows down the pills. “Thank you.”
“Have you eaten today?”
Penelope lets out a pained breath. She doesn’t even know what time it is, but knows she missed breakfast. “Not much.”
A timer goes off, so Colin returns to the kitchen. When she hears the blender running a few minutes later, she wonders if he’s making her a smoothie, but she really doesn’t want that. Michael Scott says something offensive that she doesn’t really understand, but she doesn’t know if it’s from the cultural differences or the brain fog.
Colin returns with a bowl and a spoon that he places in front of her. She can’t really smell it, but there must be a psychological connection to what she sees because she just knows it smells good, and she doesn’t even know what it is.
“Pastina,” Colin says, answering the unspoken question for her. “The vegetables are blended into the broth. Makes it creamier and tastes better. And I think it’s just more appealing for sick people.”
Penelope nods at his explanation. She’s weak, but she can manage to sit up and pick up the spoon, holding the bowl carefully with a napkin. As soon as it hits her tongue, her body relaxes. It’s salty and comforting, the broth is just hot enough to soothe her aching swollen throat, and settles in her stomach like a salve.
“Oh, that’s good,” she says, eyes fluttering shut. She rolls her head a bit on her neck, not having realized until now how stiff and painful it had become.
Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Colin watching her from where he’s perched on the arm of the sofa. When she finally turns to look at him, she notices the soft, pained look in his eyes. She takes another spoonful and tries to relax her shoulders.
“You don’t have to stay,” she says, which she means to be a good thing.
“What?”
“I don’t want you to get sick too. You should—”
“I’m staying,” he says with a scoff. “You can fight me on that too if you’d like, but it won’t change the outcome.”
She sinks back into the couch, not having it in her to argue.
“Sorry,” he says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “That was too much.”
Not knowing what to say to that, Penelope keeps eating. She shovels the delicious pastina into her mouth until the bowl is empty while Colin sits in silence. Before she can set the bowl back down on the table, he stands up and collects it from her hands, bringing it back into the kitchen.
Over the next couple of hours, she watches her show, rotates on the couch to get comfortable, sneezes her guts into a growing pile of tissues, and tamps down the growing sense of dread gnawing at her insides. Colin continues to flit around the flat, cleaning surfaces, folding laundry, fluffing pillows, spraying disinfectant. He empties out the rubbish bin with all of her tissues, replacing the lining, and ensuring she has a spare box ready to go for when her current box runs out, which it’s clearly about to. He periodically swaps out her old tea mugs with fresh piping hot cups that sooth her aching throat. She can even taste that he added a bit of honey.
She isn’t fully aware of how much time passes, but he heats her another bowl of pastina and she eats it gratefully. He’s spent plenty of time in the kitchen throughout the day, and given how much she knows about his penchant for eating, she assumes he brought more food with him that he was eating his meals in there. Maybe it’s to avoid getting sick, or maybe it’s because he doesn’t want to be around her more than necessary.
After he cleans up her bowl, she tries to find another opportunity to dismiss him.
“You can head out if you want. I’m feeling better anyway, and I wouldn’t want you to get sick. Thanks for the—”
“You’re joking, right?”
Penelope’s obviously not joking, but she doesn’t have the mental fortitude for a sparring match tonight. And before she can open her mouth, she’s hacking up more mucus, coughing it into a tissue. It’s simply vile. Colin should run for the fucking hills.
“Please just go. You don’t need to do this. You’ve proven your point.”
“I’m not proving shit. I am staying, though. I already told you that.”
“You can’t—”
“When you go to bed, I’ll disinfect the sofa and sleep here.”
She doesn’t have the energy to fight him on it. Her head falls back down to her pillow behind her. With all the laundry folded, the dishes cleaned, the food put away, Colin finds himself with nothing left to keep him busy, so he settles himself at the opposite end of the sofa, pulling Penelope’s feet up and then placing them on his lap.
He doesn’t have to, but he rests his hand on her ankle and the sensation of his touch does something to her. At first, it’s over the material of her pyjama pants, but then after she sits up to cough again, she readjusts, and now his hand is touching her skin. Her throat clogs as his thumb brushes back and forth gently across the bone there, his touch warm and comforting.
She breaks.
A sob rises up in her body, from the depths of her cells, and a hiccuping strangled cry spills out of her mouth.
For a moment, Colin seems alarmed. As soon as he registers what’s happening, he softens, reaching for her.
“Baby,” he coos. “Come here.”
He pulls her up and then keeps pulling until she falls horizontally again, but this time into his lap, her head on his thighs. She cries into his joggers, soaking them through as he strokes her hair.
“I’m s–sorry.”
She can feel the slow, deep inhale he takes, his body moving underneath her as she lets it out. “You’re okay. We’re okay.”
“We’re not, though.”
“Of course we are. Obviously we have some shit we need to talk out—”
“I didn’t mean—”
“—but we’ll talk about it when you’re better. For now, will you please just let me take care of you?”
He hands her a tissue, and then another. She blows her nose and tries to mop up the tears drenching her face in addition to the snot, and she already couldn’t breathe, but now she can’t breathe even worse.
“Why would you want to after I was so awful to you?”
“Because I love you and that’s what boyfriends do.” He bends down to press a kiss to her forehead. “And it’s not like I didn’t say awful stuff too.”
She cries some more and curls her body up into his lap. His long arm stretches to wrap around her middle, pulling her more tightly into him.
“I really needed you today,” she sniffled out.
“I know. That’s why I’m here.”
She cries harder at that, but the feel of Colin’s large palms rubbing comforting strokes up and down her side sets her more at ease.
“Do you wanna stay out here a little longer or do you want to get into bed?”
Her sniffles slow down a bit. “Will you just hold me for a little?”
Wordlessly, he shifts her up until she’s leaning against his chest. He leans back and pulls her into his side, turning to press another kiss to her clammy forehead. If this isn’t love, she doesn’t know what is.
She breathes deeply (through her mouth) trying to fill her lungs as much as possible before letting it all out slowly. Colin’s hand continues winding its path, up and down her arm now, lulling her into a trance. It’s as though his touch is magic, zapping away all of her stress and worries. Maybe as much as being sick hurts her, recovering from their fight hurts her more.
“Why don’t you go wash your face and I’ll make you some more tea, hmm?” His voice rumbles through his chest under her cheek. Even the sound of it is like a balm on the cracked crevices of her heart, healing it over like it never cracked to begin with.
She follows his instructions, pulling her heavy, aching body off the sofa and back into her bathroom. The water takes a minute to heat up, but once it hits her skin and washes away the fresh snot and tears, she’s glad she listened to him. (Yet again.)
He meets her in the hall when she’s finished. “I think it’s time for bed.”
Penelope nods sadly. “Okay.” She steps forward, placing herself directly in front of him, and allows her weight to fall forward into his chest. He catches her, wrapping one arm around her, the other holding the steaming mug of chamomile tea.
“I’ve got you.” He squeezes her tight, pressing a kiss to her hair, and turning to lead her into the bedroom.
“What is this?” she asks, gesturing at a large water tank on her nightstand.
“A humidifier. I picked it up on the way here earlier. Mum said it’s a must.” He pulls back the covers, gesturing for her to get in, and clicks on the machine. A large stream of mist puffs out of the top like a watery volcano, but it’s not hot. “It’ll help with the congestion.”
“Ugh, thank you,” she moans as she lays back against the pillow that he’s brought back from the sofa for her.
Colin sits on the edge of the bed, helping her get situated, tea on the nightstand, before reaching out to hold the back of hand against her forehead. “Warm, but more normal warm than hot warm.”
“That’s good, I guess. I think I had a temperature break just before you got here, when I was napping.”
“That would explain why you were sweating so much.” He flips his hand over to caress her forehead gently, her eyes fluttering shut at the sensation. And then his voice gets softer as he says “my poor baby.”
She grumbles a bit because she’s feeling sorry for herself and relieved to have him here with her. He hands her the Night Nurse, knowing she’d prefer the liquid kind, and makes her take it, holding out her tea for her to wash it down with. She takes a few sips, savouring the way the warmth soothes the throbbing in her throat.
“I hate this,” she says, unable to stop feeling sorry for herself over and over again.
“Me too.”
She sniffles and reaches for a tissue to wipe up. Colin holds out the bin stashed next to her bed for her to dispose of it.
“You’re staying here tonight?”
He nods, probably tired of repeating himself, but doesn’t give her a hard time. “On the sofa, though. But if you wake up and you need me, please just call for me.” He gives her the look and she knows he’s serious. Under other circumstances it would be hot, but tonight, it just makes her melt a little bit more into her pillow as she sips her tea, leaning up, trying not to spill.
“Okay,” she mutters. “I will.”
He sits with her for a bit, letting her finish her tea and grumble on about the regular frustrations of sick life, before placing the empty mug back on the nightstand. The medicine has already started to kick in because she notices sleep beginning to tug at the backs of her eyeballs.
“Better?”
“A bit.”
Colin pulls the cord on the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, save for the sliver of light coming from the hallway beyond the door.
“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” she whispers, turning onto her side.
“Of course,” he whispers back. He strokes her hair back, tucking it gently behind her ear. The sensation is tingly and comfortable and eases her eyelids shut.
Before he pulls away entirely, his hand finds hers, threading their fingers together for a moment. She squeezes with all her might, which isn’t much considering how weak she is. He squeezes back.
“I love you.” His voice is hoarse and quiet, but relief surges through her chest at his words. “Sleep, Pen.”
Everything after that is dark and fuzzy, the medicine pulling her under, locking her into a deep, dreamless sleep.
—
Mornings when you’re sick are the fucking worst. Penelope wakes with a start, a pained groan, and a tension and achiness throughout her body that feels akin to having been sat on by a gorilla. The cotton mouth gets her again, but this time, she sighs in relief when she sees a fresh glass of water on her nightstand, and the mug from last night is gone.
Colin.
He must be up.
After she gulps down her water, the sneezing begins, thick, painful, and disgusting. Fuck. She needs more medicine.
As expected, he appears in her doorway, looking tired, wearing a different T-shirt than yesterday and his boxers. And his hands are full.
“More tea and medicine.”
Penelope groans, which turns into a whine, nearing a cry. “I need to brush my teeth.”
“Okay, but medicine first. It needs time to kick in.”
Penelope sits up in bed, but sways unsteadily, and yet Colin is there, pulling her upper body into his chest. “I’ve got you.”
Mornings when you’re sick are the fucking worst. She keeps saying it in her head over and over again.
What else can she do but feel sorry for herself? She whimpers a bit more as she presses her forehead into Colin’s body, his arm holding her there, squeezing her shoulder.
“Everything hurts.”
“I know, love. Take the medicine. It’ll help.”
She follows his instructions because he’s right, of course, and she has to admit that she genuinely likes someone else taking care of her and calling the shots. Maybe under normal circumstances she likes to make all the decisions for herself, but with the brain fog, she’s happy to let Colin’s brain lead the charge.
He helps her up and into the bathroom, even going as far as placing the toothbrush in her hand. She rolls her shoulders, trying to loosen up the stiffness in her neck. Every muscle in her body is still tight and achey.
“I’m gonna make you eat breakfast. Just warning you so you can mentally prepare. Toast at the minimum. Eggs if you can manage.”
She squirts some toothpaste onto her toothbrush. “I think I can do that.”
And she thinks he’ll leave her be, but he just stands there against the back wall, watching her in the mirror as she brushes her teeth, and for whatever reason, she finds it completely adorable that now that she’s awake, he doesn’t want to leave her.
“Are you gonna watch me wash my face as well?” she asks, aiming for joking.
“Yes.”
“Colin…” she mumbles around her toothbrush, doing her best to speak and breathe through her mouth, her lungs feeling heavy.
He throws his hands up in exasperation before crossing his arms. “Well, I’m worried about you. Let me be a little overbearing, yeah?”
She spits into the sink and continues her routine, letting him watch. He even hands her a clean towel to dry off with.
“You can wear pyjamas all day if you want, but at the very least, you should switch into fresh ones,” he says as she finishes up.
When she makes it back into her bedroom, she falls back on the bed, her body sagging into the mattress.
“Here,” he says, pulling clean clothes out of her dresser. “Change into this.” He grabs her hands and pulls her slowly into a sitting position. “C’mon, I’ll help you.”
And then Colin physically pulls off her pyjamas and replaces them with new ones, even down to her socks. He’s so gentle with her, arranging her limbs slowly and carefully as he tugs the material across her body, trying not to put too much strain on her any which way.
Once she’s dressed, he steps back to admire his handiwork. “How does that feel?”
She shrugs. “Better? But also the same.”
He frowns at that. “Well, the regular daytime cold meds don’t work as fast as the nighttime stuff. That shit’s heavy duty.”
“Can I have couch time now and watch my blasphemous show on telly in peace please?”
Colin smiles and she realizes it’s the first one she’s seen in days. It makes her heart flutter in her chest.
“C’mon.” He holds his hand out for her and ushers her back towards the living room. After she’s seated, he brings her (more) tea, toast, and eggs, supervising and she slowly swallows down bite by bite.
The rest of the morning rolls on rather dreadfully. Penelope moans and groans and sneezes her guts out, while Colin continues to dote on her, bringing her refreshed cups of tea, helping her up when she needs to pee and her body aches too much to move, and cleaning up around them as he goes. They both know the chances of him getting sick after this are high, but he’s doing his best to mitigate that with plenty of disinfectant and constant hand washing.
He also doesn’t try to kiss her, which Penelope tries to remind herself is because she’s sick and not because he’s mad at her.
Colin plies her with more cold medicine and by the early afternoon, she’s starting to feel some reprieve as he heats her some more pastina.
“I can breathe a little bit, which is actually incredible.”
“And you haven’t sneezed in over an hour.”
“What a milestone. My throat feels better too.”
“That’s good.”
She rolls her neck around again, her shoulders raised and tense, wincing at the pain and tightness there.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, frowning at her from the opposite end of the sofa.
Penelope sighs. “My neck hurts. My entire body hurts, really.” She explains about the severe chills during her high temperature, and the way her entire body curled up and remained clenched for hours, until she woke up dripping sweat.
The sympathy on Colin’s face sends another pang to her heart. He’s always worn his emotions on his sleeve, and she can tell that he’s hurting for her.
When he suggests a massage, she shrugs and mentions that she’ll look into it the following week when she’s feeling better.
“No, I mean now.”
“Now?”
“Let me.”
Her eyes go wide. “Colin, no. You shouldn’t be touching me.”
He sighs heavily. “Look, I’m not leaving, so I’m already exposed to a degree, but I’ll keep it to over your clothes and will disinfect properly afterwards. But I can’t just sit here knowing you’re in pain.”
She whines a bit at the suggestion, rolling the idea around between the grooves in her brain, the fuzzy edges starting to subside a little bit. “You’ve already done so much for me.”
When he smiles again, she already knows she’s going to give in. “Lie down.”
He gestures towards the sofa as he stands up, moving her empty bowl from her lap to the coffee table. She complies, a bit less reluctant now, especially as her neck gives an angry throb and she grimaces.
“Yeah. You need this,” he comments as he helps her get situated.
Once she’s fully horizontal, her face turned to the side to gaze at the paused telly screen, she tenses up as she feels Colin climb on top of her.
“Easy,” he says as he straddles her thighs. He holds himself up mostly, but settles back a bit at the cushiony part of her bum. “Try to relax.”
“I really can’t,” she says through a whimper.
“I know,” he concedes, exhaling softly. “Just close your eyes, then. Tell me if it’s too much.”
He starts at her neck, a single hand cradling the back of it, pressing down lightly. His fingers slowly press into her flesh, finding nothing but firm, tight muscles, built up into a heavy block holding up her head.
“Wow.” He digs his fingers in a bit more, rubbing gentle circles. “Is that too much?”
It does hurt, but it’s the good kind of hurt, the kind that gives way to some relief. “Nuh uh.”
As Colin gets to work, her body tenses and relaxes with each pass. He uses both hands, fingers spreading towards her shoulders, moving back and forth as he maintains gentle pressure, digging in slightly deeper as he finds her softening underneath him. Relief begins to flood her body, tingling down to her fingertips, loosening her spine. She can already feel the emotion clogging her throat, the hot prickling at the backs of her eyes.
“Good?” he asks after a few minutes.
“Mhmm,” she says, unable to use her full voice at that moment.
Colin moves his hands dexterously across her back, thumbs pressing along the ridges of her vertebrae, kneading the muscles, begging each of them to let go and loosen up for him. And then when he trails his fingers back up to her neck, brushing the frizz of her messy plaits to the side, his hands back on her skin, soft, pliant, releasing the tension, she feels herself let go, finally.
The tears come freely, sliding down her cheeks and into the sofa cushion underneath her. She shakes as Colin’s fingers pause momentarily on her upper trapezius where most of the tension has been stored.
“Pen?” His voice is raw, mirroring the way she feels.
She can’t speak. Not really. So she shakes her head, but doesn’t move otherwise. She needs him to keep going.
It turns out, Penelope doesn’t have to vocalize much anyway before Colin starts rolling motions across her shoulders and down her arms. She’s not even really sure why they hurt so much, but they’ve been feeling just as heavy and achy, making it even harder for her to get around. She feels instant relief as he presses his fingers more deeply into the fleshy part of her arm before digging into her triceps, a small hiss coming out of her lips as the tears continue leaking.
He pauses.
“No,” she croaks, finding her voice for a moment. “It’s good. Just hurts, but I need it.”
“I’ll be gentle,” he says softly, and it nearly breaks her down again, but she clenches her eyes shut tightly and grits her teeth as he rubs her through the harder bits. And then the satisfaction settles into her bones and she begins to relax as her muscles loosen up, leaving the aching behind.
“Can you go to my back again?” she asks sniffling, cheek pressed into the cushion.
“Course.” His hands find their way there, thumbs kneading deeper into her muscles this time, rolling through them, massaging all of her stress and tension away. The stiffness in her shoulders has given way to a floaty feeling, a gratification she wasn’t sure a simple massage could bring her.
Ten minutes turns into twenty, and she’s properly melting into the sofa at this point. The tears have stopped, but the sense of heightened emotions remains, her entire body tingling with warmth.
They finally stop just under the thirty minute mark when Penelope has to sneeze a few times, resulting in Colin jumping off of her to fetch a tissue. When she sits up, he grabs a few extra to wipe away a few of the straggler tears that had rolled down to catch at her lips.
“Do you feel any better?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed together.
She would laugh under normal circumstances, but everything just feels too heavy, too weighty. “Loads. I mean, I still feel like shit, obviously. But my neck feels so much better. Won’t hurt as much to sleep tonight.”
He smiles at her, proud of his good work. “That’s good. Well, not good that it hurt to sleep before.”
“Are you staying again tonight?” Her voice is small.
Colin reaches over to swipe at another tear that trails from the corner of her eye with the pad of his thumb. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me to.”
“Good,” she mumbles, pushing a huff of air out of her chest. “I kind of need you here.”
He beams with pride. Colin has always loved being needed, and struggled with that in his relationship with Penelope. She liked to be independent. It was a balance they struggled to find most of the time.
“Think you can eat anything other than soup for dinner tonight?”
Penelope groans at that.
“Think you can manage a cheese toastie?”
Her ears perk up. “That actually doesn’t sound terrible.”
He kisses her forehead. “Give me an hour.”
“An hour for a simple cheese toastie?”
“It’s not just a cheese toastie. Obviously there will be tomato soup. That needs to simmer.”
She chuckles at that. “Right.”
“Why don’t you have another shower? I’ll grab you some clean clothes.”
She wants to tell him she can get it herself, but he’s already up and heading into her room, and then she can hear him starting the shower for her again.
“Are you adding the—”
“—eucalyptus oil? Obviously,” he calls back.
She smiles to herself as she makes her way into the shower, passing Colin as he heads back into the kitchen.
Penelope feels like a new person when she’s clean and changed. The steam of the shower burst open her sinuses, even giving her a few minutes to breathe normally before the swelling set back in. She sips her refreshed cup of tea (of course) and debates skipping to the end of series three to get rid of Karen, but there’s some funny moments in this one, so she keeps to it.
Colin brings her a plate and a bowl, toastie and soup, and even though she can’t quite smell it, she knows it’s going to be delicious and comforting, eating most of the toastie and all of the soup.
“I told El you’re doing okay. She was worried,” he says after he cleans up their dishes.
“Oh. Yeah, I haven’t talked to her since I told her I was sick.”
“She says she tried to text you.”
Penelope wrinkles her nose. “God, I don’t even know where my phone is? That’s so not like me.”
“It’s in your room on your desk. I made sure it’s charged. I can bring it to you if you want.”
“No, it’s fine. As long as El knows I’m alright.”
“She does.”
They keep eyes trained on the telly, Michael and Dwight arguing about something insane.
“Do you want to talk about what happened during the massage?” he asks.
There’s some tightness in her chest at his words. “Oh. I don’t… um, I don’t know what that was.”
“Pen…” His voice is gentle and it makes her heart throb. “I know this is all just fucking horrible timing.”
She scoffs at that. Boy, has it been.
“You can still talk to me, though. You know you can.”
The tears begin to well up again at that, but she doesn’t want them to break. It’ll just make everything harder.
“It’s just everything,” she nearly whispers, voice trembling. “You know?” They’re both looking at the screen, not at each other. Maybe it’s easier this way.
He clears his throat. “I know.”
“It really did help, though. Thank you”
Colin’s quiet for a moment. She knows him too well, can sense his energy, the shifts, no matter how miniscule.
“I hate that you didn’t tell me you were sick.” He swallows thickly. He wants to say more, she knows it. There’s an accusation sitting on the tip of his tongue.
She sucks in a breath (through her mouth, of course.) “I’m sorry.”
Colin nods and reaches for her hand, threading their fingers together, squeezing gently.
“I don’t want to make things worse for you right now,” he says.
The implication is there. He doesn’t want to make things worse right now but he will have to eventually, won’t he? They’ll have to talk. They can’t just brush it under the rug.
“I know we need to talk,” she mumbles. “Not now, though.”
“Not now,” he agrees. “When you’re better.”
She nods, swallowing down the lump in her already swollen throat. Suddenly she realizes her teacup is empty and Colin hasn’t jumped up yet to refill it.
It occurs to her that this is what he meant. Asking for help. You never ask for any fucking help is how he so eloquently phrased it.
“Um,” she starts quietly. “Would you mind making me another cup of tea? I could go for the ginger or chamomile.”
He sits up straight and smiles. “Course. Honey too?”
Penelope smiles back and nods. “Honey would be great.”