Archive of Our Own

• laundry
• grocery shopping
• vacuum
• Rachel birthday card
• wash living room windows
• scrub bathtub
• make cookies for new neighbor in 611

With a sigh, Lucy looks down at her To Do list, willing herself to muster up the strength to do something.

Even just one thing, she tells herself. Just pick one.

The problem is she just doesn't want to. She's exhausted and her stomach feels weird and all she wants to do is crawl into bed. But she knows that if she does she won't have time to get all this done in the morning before Tim picks her up to go hiking. And she's certainly not going to waste what feels like the first day off they've had in forever doing chores and running errands. But…

That mindset is kind of what had gotten her into the situation in the first place, with her empty fridge and her dirty bathtub. She's been spending all of her free time with Tim lately, and it's really set her behind on everything else she has to be doing.

Sighing again she stands up from the stool at her kitchen island, figuring she can at least get the vacuuming out of the way before she goes to bed. Then she can wake up extra early to figure the rest out tomorrow. She's just about to head to her linen closet to grab her Dyson when she's hit with a strange dizziness, her stomach feeling queasy.

Change of plans, she thinks, heading into her bedroom.

She just can't do it right now. She's starting to feel awful, like she might be coming down with something, and she doesn't want to be sick when Tim comes to pick her up tomorrow.

I just need to sleep it off, she thinks, before sliding into bed.

Everything will be better after I get some sleep.

-----

Everything is not better after some sleep. Actually, everything just gets progressively worse while she's sleeping. She doesn't know how long she's been out, maybe a few hours, when she's awoken by that unmistakable pre-vomit feeling that has her lurching out of bed, stumbling to her bathroom, and falling to her knees in front of the toilet.

The rest of the night passes in a miserable blur of her trying to get a few hours of sleep, huddled in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, before waking up again to be violently ill. By the time morning rolls around, the sun just starting to peek in through her bedroom window, she’s miserable and disgusting. She’s sweat straight through her pajamas, has given up on brushing her teeth in between bouts of sickness, and is pretty sure there’s crusted vomit in her hair. She's lost track of how many times she's thrown up, her stomach now giving up nothing but drops of bile as she dry heaves.

In a rare moment of clarity, she thinks to text Tim to cancel on him, hating to send it but knowing it's necessary. At this rate, she'll be lucky if she finds the strength to leave her bathroom today. There’s no way she’ll make a miraculous enough recovery in the next few hours to be able to go hiking.

Lucy Chen: (6:14am) I've been puking my brains out all night…have to cancel on hiking. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour thing and I'll see you at work tomorrow ❤️

Not the most romantic text, and definitely TMI, but she’s not going to lie to him. Not even bothering to wait for a reply, Lucy pulls the towels off of her towel rack, using one as a pillow and one as a blanket, and curls back up on the cold tile floor.

Feeling exhausted and awful and like she’s gone through the wringer, she's asleep within seconds.

-----

The next time Lucy wakes up, she thinks she's hallucinating, because Tim is there, crouching next to her, his cool hand on her forehead and his brow furrowed in concern.

“What're you doing here?” she manages to whisper, her voice a hoarse croak. “I can't go hiking.” 

“We're not going hiking," he frowns. “You're sick.”

“I know," Lucy says weakly. “What're you doing here?” she repeats.

“I wasn't going to leave you alone,” he says, like the very thought offends him. “I brought ginger ale and crackers.”

The mere mention of food is enough to turn her stomach again, has her frantically levering herself off the floor to once again kneel in front of the toilet. Tim holds her disgusting hair back with one hand and rubs her back in slow soothing circles with the other as she dry heaves into the toilet for a few seconds, tears and snot running down her face.

“You need to leave,” she moans, breathing harshly and clutching at the sides of the toilet. “I’m disgusting. And I don’t want you to get sick.”

“You’re not disgusting,” he admonishes softly. “You’re sick, baby. And I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to take care of you.”

Lucy turns her head to look at him, but even as gross as she is he’s still staring at her like she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. He pulls some toilet paper from the roll and gently wipes her nose and eyes, grimacing when he notices the vomit in her hair.

“Do you think you’re strong enough to take a quick shower?” he asks her. “Then we can get you in fresh pajamas and into bed.”

Lucy honestly doesn’t know if she’ll be able to stand long enough to shower, but she desperately wants to get clean and crawl under her sheets. Her back is beginning to ache from spending the night on the bathroom floor. She lifts her shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I can try,” she says. “A shower sounds nice.”

Tim nods and leaves her on the floor while he turns the shower on and lets the water warm up. Then, he carefully strips her and himself before stepping with her into the shower, supporting her weak body in his strong arms.

Once he has her under the spray, he quickly and efficiently cleans her body and hair, letting her lean heavily on him the whole time. It’s definitely the least sexy shower they’ve ever taken, but Lucy enjoys it anyway, the water soothing away some of her aches. After Tim finishes washing her, they just stand under the spray for a few minutes, Lucy’s head on Tim's shoulder and his arms tight around her back. Eventually, she feels like she can no longer keep her eyes open, her sleepless night catching up to her, and she slurs, “I’m so tired,” against his neck. Humming and dropping a kiss to her forehead, Tim wordlessly turns off the shower and helps her out before drying her off with a soft towel. He then carries her to her room, helps her change into panties and a t-shirt, and tucks her into bed.

“I’ll be right back,” he murmurs after pulling the covers up and over her. She watches through half-lidded eyes as he leaves her bedroom, only to return a moment later with a water bottle and the bucket from under her kitchen sink.

“I think I’m done throwing up,” she tells him quietly. “There’s nothing left in my stomach to even come up.”

“Just in case,” he says, putting the bucket right next to her bed and the water bottle on her bedside table. “You should try to drink some water when you can…but not too much at once.”

Lucy nods and snuggles down into her pillow, letting her eyes flutter closed.

She ends up sleeping all day, waking up periodically to Tim wiping her sweaty forehead with a cool cloth or urging her to sip some water. At one point, it sounds like he's going through her dresser, the quiet sound of the drawers opening and closing, but she doesn't have the strength to ask him what he's doing. Another time, she wakes up and swears she can smell cookies baking, and she assumes Tim has lit one of her many scented candles.

Sometime in the afternoon, she wakes up to him standing over her bed with his car keys in his hand. He has a hand outstretched like he’s debating whether or not to wake her up, but he pulls it back when he sees her eyes open.

“Lucy, I gotta run out for a bit,” he tells her. “Do you need anything?” he asks.

Lucy thinks about her whole To Do list and how she actually needs a lot of things, but it’s not like she’s going to ask Tim, who has spent his whole day off taking care of her, to buy her groceries. Knowing her To Do list will have to be a problem for another day, she simply shakes her head at him.

“Okay,” he says, leaning down to kiss her head. “I won’t be gone long. Call if you need me.”

She stays awake just long enough to hear him close the front door behind him, and then she’s succumbing to sleep once again.

By nightfall, Lucy finally feels like the worst of it is over. Hopeful that she was right about it being a 24-hour bug, she gathers the strength to climb out of bed and shuffle out into the apartment, a little bit hungry and eager to get something back into her belly. She knows that her food options are less than ideal, her fridge and pantry decidedly bare, but Tim had mentioned crackers earlier. And crackers are better than nothing, she supposes.

When she gets out of her bedroom, she’s shocked and confused to find Tim cleaning the huge windows of her living room. For a second, she stares at him, a little bit mortified that her windows were apparently so dirty Type-A Tim had noticed and decided to clean them himself.

She’s still standing there in her bedroom doorway, unsure of what to say, when Tim finishes with the windows and turns around. The second he sees her, a smile spreads over his face.

“Hey,” he says. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” Lucy replies, slowly walking into the kitchen and dropping down onto a stool. “I’m actually kind of hungry.”

“That’s a good sign,” Tim tells her, rounding the island and putting the Windex back underneath the sink. “I’ll make you some toast.”

Lucy is just about to tell him that he can’t make her toast because she doesn’t have any bread, when he pulls a loaf she doesn’t remember having from the cabinet next to the coffee maker. He pops it into the toaster and says, “We need to rehydrate you, too. I’ll grab you a Gatorade.”

Feeling completely baffled by the proceedings, Lucy watches him cross to the fridge, presumably to get a Gatorade that she knows he won’t find. But then he’s opening the fridge and her jaw drops when the door swings open to reveal a fully stocked interior. In her weakened state, it takes her several seconds to put the pieces together.

“You went grocery shopping?” she asks stupidly, as Tim opens a blue Gatorade and puts it down in front of her. He goes to the toaster, plates that up as well, and puts it next to the Gatorade.

"Oh yeah," he says absently, writing something down on a piece of paper that’s sitting on the island. He looks up at her. "Now that you're awake I can vacuum," he says. "I didn't want to wake you up with the noise earlier."

Lucy just stares.

Vacuum? What?

Apparently oblivious to Lucy’s bewilderment, Tim heads to the linen closet and grabs her vacuum, wheeling it over into the living room and plugging it in. Before turning it on he calls out to her, "There's a birthday card for Rachel on the island. If you sign it tonight I can drop it in the mail tomorrow morning on the way to work."

Then, he starts up the vacuum and starts vacuuming her living room, leaving Lucy sitting at her island nibbling toast and feeling so confused.

She looks down at the aforementioned card on the island before swiveling her eyes to the paper right next to it.

It's her To Do list.

• laundry
• grocery shopping
• vacuum
• Rachel birthday card
• wash living room windows
• scrub bathtub
• make cookies for new neighbor in 611

Suddenly, everything makes sense. Tim going through her dresser, the smell of the cookies…

He didn’t wash your windows because he was horrified by how dirty they were, she thinks. He washed them because it’s on your list.

He did everything on her list. Without her asking or even telling him the list existed. Hell, she hadn’t even implied that she was stressed about being too sick to get any of it done. He just saw that there were things she needed to do, and he knew it would be a big help to her if he did them.

God, she loves this man. This amazing, impossibly sweet man.

She’s startled out of her thoughts by Tim turning the vacuum off. He wraps up the cord and replaces it in the closet before coming back into the kitchen. She watches as, without a word, he crosses off the final item on the list before looking up at her.

“I love you,” she says. “I love you so much. You didn’t have to do any of this,” she gestures at the completed list. “But thank you.”

“I know I didn’t have to do it, Luce,” he tells her, walking around the island to pull her into his arms. “I did it because I wanted to…

I did it because I love you, too.”