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Part 1 of Maisie's Sicktember 2025
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2025-08-31
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1,675
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you don't have to be on your own

Summary:

BTHB prompt- Misdiagnosis

Sicktember Day 1- "It's the middle of the night, why are you up?"

“God, John, you sound worse. How long have you been down here?”

He stifles another cough and lifts a trembling wrist to check his watch. The time- 2:28am- comes flashing up immediately, but it takes him a few seconds to answer her.

“I… I don't know, a couple hours m-maybe? Couldn’ sleep.”

OR

Carter's sent home with bronchitis, but it's actually pneumonia.

Notes:

And thus Sicktember begins, my friends. If you missed the daily uploads of Medwhump May, this is your lucky day... or month, I suppose.

Unfortunately, this luck does come with a downside. After this challenge finishes, my uploads are likely to slow down considerably for around eight weeks- I start university (Oxford, wild wild wild I'm so unprepared), and the workload is probably going to be insane enough that writing my little fics will have to go on the backburner. (THIS DOES NOT MEAN I PLAN ON STOPPING. RIGHT NOW I WANT TO WRITE MY LITTLE FICS FOREVER, AND HOPEFULLY I WILL FEEL THE SAME AT THE END OF MY FIRST TERM).

Anyway...

For now, though, we have a month of content.

I can assure you that at least.

ENJOY!

Title from A Message by Coldplay

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

In the first moments after Anna opens her eyes, blinking into the pitch black of 2am, she doesn't know why she’s awake. It's only when she rolls over, seeking John's familiar warmth, that she realises- he's not here. The sheets beside her are cool, slightly damp as though they were recently sweat through. Their door is ajar. And from the underbelly of the house, she can make out an intermittent, muffled cough. 

Her shoulders sag. Oh, John. 

Despite his apparent best efforts to keep her undisturbed, she sits up, swings her legs over the side of the bed, and wanders blearily to the Clothes Chair. They really ought to put this laundry away, and usually, they do. But John is sick, and it's convenient for her now to just swipe a cardigan from off the top of the pile, so she considers it a worthwhile feature in their little townhouse for the time being. 

Plus, it's not like it's out of place- the bedroom, nay, the entire house, is cluttered with move-in boxes. Anna weaves between one labelled ‘kitchen shit’ and another sharpied with a question mark, at last reaching the door, and beyond it, the stairs. 

The coughing sound comes into sharper focus the closer she gets. It's harsh, even more so than it was yesterday evening, and between the fits there's a telltale wheeze that doesn't bode well for his shortness of breath. Soon, his shivering silhouette comes into view, his back to her in his position on the couch. There's a blanket tucked round his shoulders. His head is bowed. 

“John?”

Her gentle call meets with no response except his continued wheezing, and the pit in her stomach only grows. He doesn't turn when she wanders round the side of the couch. Only looks up when she calls his name again, cheeks flushed, eyes dull and watery. 

“A-anna? Did I” - a few coughs in quick succession- “Did I w-wake you?”

Anna frowns and lowers herself onto the couch beside him. She doesn't purposefully ignore his question, but her current concerns seem more pertinent. 

“God, John, you sound worse. How long have you been down here?”

He stifles another cough and lifts a trembling wrist to check his watch. The time- 2:28am- comes flashing up immediately, but it takes him a few seconds to answer her. 

“I… I don't know, a couple hours m-maybe? Couldn’ sleep.”

She reaches out to rub his shoulder, feeling him shudder a little beneath her touch even through the blankets. Before he can reroute her, she draws her hand upwards. Places the back of it against his forehead.

Within a second, she’s clicking her tongue in sympathy, diagnosis confirmed. 

“You’re feverish, sweetheart. Have you taken any Tylenol?”

He blinks, clumsily feeling his own forehead and cheeks the moment she pulls away. “I am?”

“Mhm. Tylenol, John?”

“Um… um, no. I haven't.”

There's a confusion in his every syllable, every minute twitch of his brow, and it only heightens her concern. She knows John. He's quick, and occasionally snarky, and stubborn as all hell. The only time he becomes this sluggish and dazed is when he's very sick. 

He got sent home from work today with strict orders to rest- bronchitis, Mark said, and a pretty nasty case of it too. Something is unsettled in Anna’s gut, though. This doesn't feel quite right.

“Alright.” She murmurs, back to rubbing his arm again, attempting as much reassurance as she can without overstimulating him. “Alright, I'll go grab some, and then we'll get your prescription inhaler out. Okay?”

He nods, sucking in as deep a breath as he can and immediately doubling over in a painful-sounding coughing fit. Anna winces as she stands, and drags a hand through his hair on her way past the couch. 

It can't take any more than a minute for her to grab the supplies she needs, but John somehow looks even sicker when she returns. Turning on the lamp reveals just how stark the difference is between the flush on his cheeks and the pallor of the rest of his face. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, too. 

She sits down beside him again and offers him the Tylenol first. He tosses a couple pills back, following them with a swig of water from the glass she thrusts towards him, then bows forward again, elbows braced on his thighs. Trembling with every rapid breath. 

“Inhaler, John.” She prompts gently. “Lift your head for me.”

He's just about cognizant enough to obey. She shuffles closer and uncaps the inhaler, shaking it briefly before lifting it to his lips. 

“Exhale.”

A wheezing breath leaves his lungs, crackling as it fades out. Rales. And bad ones at that. 

“And inhale- slowly.”

She presses on the pump right when her instruction reaches his fever-addled brain, and her own muscles start to relax sympathetically. 

“That's it… hold it. As long as you can, baby.”

He manages a few seconds before he's doubled over again, unable to contain his coughing any longer. Anna slips a hand beneath his blanket and rubs his quivering back as he hacks, again and again and again. The constant spasming echoes against the skin of her palm. 

“Sh-sh-sh. I know. I know.”

Finally, the coughing trails off into another whistling wheeze, and he tilts, spent, against her. She lets him, guiding his head to rest on her shoulder. Adjusting the blanket around him. As he settles, the heat of his fever only feels more potent, blazing from his cheek right through the thin fabric of her nightshirt. The fingers of her left hand curl around the last item she grabbed when she was gone- the thermometer. 

“John?”

She threads her right hand through his hair. 

“Mm?”

“I need to see what temperature you're running.”

He turns his face into her neck so close she can feel his sluggish blinks. His answer reverberates in her own throat. 

“Mkay.”

She should be glad of his acquiescence- after all, it's making her job here a lot easier- but yet again she's struck by how wrong it is. He ought to be fighting her on this, insisting that she doesn't need to check, he's alright, or perhaps that he took it earlier so if she just takes his word on it-

But no. Nothing. He parts his lips when she presses the tip of the thermometer against them, and lets her take the instrument without complaint thirty seconds later. 

The reading confirms her suspicions. 

104.4.

Sighing, she sets it back down on the coffee table and pulls his head onto her shoulder again. Kisses his temple and waits for him to mumble that she's going to get herself sick. Yet again, though- silence. 

All that exists is the rattling wheeze, and her boyfriend growing heavier against her while she runs her hands through his hair. 

Eventually, his strained breaths even out. When she shifts slightly to grab the phone from the coffee table in front of them, he lolls bonelessly, his head nearly slipping until she gently guides it back to equilibrium on her shoulder. 

She deliberates whether to call or not, punching in a few numbers, deleting them, punching them in again- another crackling wheeze is enough to harden her resolve. Any further doubt doesn't have time to voice itself- only seconds after pressing dial, she hears Mark Greene’s voice, and the bustling ER around him. 

“Anna? Everything okay?”

She twists her head away from John’s and keeps her words low. 

“He’s worse… I don't think it's bronchitis.”

A sigh rustles over the line. “Pneumonia?”

“Think so. He's got a temp of 104.4 and he just isn't himself. His inhaler doesn't seem to be doing much- definite rales, too.”

“Sounds about right.” A pause. “I think you ought to bring him in.”

Anna huffs out a humourless laugh and swallows back the lump in her throat. Shakes her head. 

“Yeah. I was hoping you weren't gonna say that.”

“I know… better safe than sorry, though, hm?”

Their conversation wraps up. She tells Mark she'll see him soon, and he tells her to pack some overnight stuff for John- if it's acute pneumonia, he says, they'll want to admit him for IV antibiotics. Anna knows this, but it doesn't make it any easier for her to hear. 

Harder still, though, is waking John to tell him the news. 

She begins with another kiss to his temple- a balm for the wound she's about to inflict- then rubs his shoulder. 

“John? Hey, wake up, sweetheart.”

A groan. He turns his face into the fabric of her nightshirt again, resisting as much as he can.

“I know, I'm sorry.”

“W-wan’ sleep.”

“I know, John. But I think we need to go to the ER.”

At this, he lifts his head and blinks at her with bleary, feverish eyes. Hair mussed, lips tinged slightly blue now with cyanosis (he needs to be in hospital, he needs to be there now). When he speaks, his voice is barely more than a rasp. 

“‘M I on shift?”

Anna’s heart sinks, but she swallows back her grief and cups his cheek in her palm, thumb dragging soothingly against scalding skin. 

“No, baby. No, you're not on shift. You're really sick, and you need to go to the hospital so they can look after you. Help you breathe better.”

His expression cracks like porcelain, and all her boyfriend can do is shake his head. Before long, she can feel his tears cresting over her hand, seeping into the gaps between her fingers. 

“Let’s- let's just s-stay at- at home, y-yeah?” He manages. Every word sounds like a struggle. 

If he weren't quite so unwell, she'd happily indulge him this request- hell, she'd give him the moon on a stick when he looks at her like that- but this time, she must refuse him. 

“I’m sorry, John. We're going to the ER.” 

He bows his head. Swipes clumsily at his tears, still falling despite his best efforts. 

And with a whisper, admits defeat. 

“O-okay.”

Notes:

TBC on Day 4...

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