Rating: PG
Pairing: Sam/Daniel
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net) , anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Sam has a cold
Notes: This is what happens when I have a cold and I'm miserable…

When the ringing first started, interrupting Sam from a deep and dreamless sleep, she couldn't figure out where it was coming from. When she eventually realised that it was her phone, ringing on her bedside table, she spent a good minute staring at it, then at the clock just behind it, trying to make sense of the time. Of course, she reasoned, the last time she'd woken unexpected, it had been because she'd been seized in her sleep by an uncontrollable fit of coughing, the kind that left her gasping for breath, with sore ribs to boot. On the whole, she decided as she reached across, wincing over those same sore ribs, she preferred being woken by the phone.

Unless of course, it was someone trying to convince her to go into work. That was the thought that struck her as her hand hit the cold plastic of the receiver, and she mentally ticked off the reasons why that wasn't possible. First, General Hammond had listened to her croak her apologies at the start of the shift and sternly told her to stay in bed until she felt better. Less than twenty minutes after that, Janet had been on the phone, cataloguing her symptoms, insisting that she could make a house call if Sam wanted her to. It had taken quite a bit of fancy talking to get Janet to back down on that one, which had brought with it quite a bit of coughing, which had in no way aided Sam's case.

But she'd managed to convince Janet to stay away, and General Hammond's stern admonition hadn't really been needed; there was no way that Sam was going anywhere near Cheyenne Mountain today.

That being said, if a certain bull-headed Colonel was on the other end of the line, she was going to have serious words with him.

"Hello?" she said, and she winced again when she heard her voice. She'd hoped that sleep would do her good, but the huskiness of the just-woken and the huskiness of the dying-of-a-cold did not mix well.

Her silent prayers that it not be the Colonel were answered in short order when she heard Daniel's concerned voice on the other end. "Sam? Is that you?"

"Yes Daniel," she said, rolling over on her back, staring up at the ceiling. "It's me."

"You sound terrible," he said, probably without thinking, and she chuckled, which was a mistake, because it led to another round of coughing. There was merciful silence on the other end of the line, which was only broken when she finally stopped, drew in a ragged breath.

"Sorry," she said, reaching for the glass of water on her bedside table, reaching over to take a sip.

"It's fine, it's fine," Daniel said quickly, and she fought back a smile, well able to imagine the look on his face right then, eyes wide, brow furrowed, mind racing as he tried to figure out what to do next. "You're really sick, huh?"

This time, knowing what would happen, she fought down her chuckle, not as hard as she might have thought. "Nothing gets by you Daniel, does it?" she asked dryly, and he chuckled easily, no coughing from him. She narrowed her eyes, feeling a completely unfounded spear of jealousy stabbing through her. She hated being sick.

"No… um… I just… I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do for you," he says, and she sighs shallowly - she doesn't have the breath for any other kind of sigh- and shakes her head.

"You don't have to do that," she said, and there was a second's pause before he spoke again.

"Yeah, well… I kinda already did." There was something in his tone, a vaguely amused kind of tone, that made her frown.

"Daniel?" she asked, continuing with, "Where are you?" though she was pretty sure that she knew what he was going to say next.

Nor did he disappoint her. "I'm at your front door," he told her, and she rolled her eyes. "I was going to ring the doorbell," he continued. "But I didn't want to in case you were asleep. You weren't asleep were you?"

Sam was pretty sure that there was an obvious flaw of logic in his reasoning there somewhere, but having neither energy nor inclination to pursue it, she said simply, "Now that you mention it…"

"Oh." A long pause. "Sorry."

Another long pause, in which she took pity on him. "Daniel, it's ok," she said. "But you don't have to-"

"Like I say, I’m already here," he interrupted her, and it was in that tone of voice that he got whenever he wanted to make it clear that he wasn't going to take no for an answer. "Is your spare key still in the same place?"

She closed her eyes again, ran a hand over her face before accepting the inevitable. "Under the blue and yellow flower pot," she confirmed, and she heard him chuckle.

"You should really do something about that," he told her, and from the noises that were coming through the phone, she gathered that he was on the move, figured that she'd better be too. So she slowly sat up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed, swallowing hard against the waves of coughing that threatened to overtake her, all the while listening to Daniel deliver a speech that he'd already delivered to her countless times in the years that they'd known one another. "I mean, under the flowerpot by the back door? How much of a cliché do you want to be for some burglar?" His voice grew disjointed, and she was pretty sure he was at the back door, leaning down to find the key, and he kept talking all the time. "You can laugh, and you can ignore the statistics all you want, but one of these days you're going to come home and find a stranger in your kitchen…"

"Trying to set the place on fire while he cooks me dinner?" she parried, interrupting him to remind him of the time that he'd done just that, trying to surprise her for her birthday, even though he couldn't cook to save himself.

"Ah." There was another pause, and this one was broken by the sound of her back door opening, then another, longer pause, before it closed. "There is that."

"I'm hanging up the phone now," she told him, because it was pointless to be running up his bill when they were in the same house, and he called out his response to her.

"OK."

She laid the phone back down on the bedside table, then put her feet on the ground properly, standing up carefully, waiting until she knew that she was going to keep her balance before she did anything complicated like find her slippers. As she was trying to get her foot properly into the left one, she heard footsteps in her hall, footsteps that stopped at the ajar door.

"Sam?" he said, his voice gentle. "You decent in there?"

She lifted one eyebrow, even though she knew he can't see her. "I don't know about decent," she told him, reaching for her bathrobe. "But you can come in."

He did as he was told, walked into the room, his blue eyes raking her up and down, and he froze. She knew it was nothing to do with what she was wearing, the pale blue flannel pyjamas with dancing zebras on them, a gift from Cassie, the over-sized white terrycloth robe that she was pulling on. Him seeing her in her comfort PJs, the ones she wore when she was sick or upset about something didn't bother her, and she was willing to bet that it didn’t bother him either. It was far from the worst ensemble that he'd ever seen her in, when you consider that ripped, torn, muddy or bloody uniforms, or that hideous blue dress and head-dress from Simarka were also on the list.

What Daniel had never seen though, was her looking quite like this. Face, she was sure, pale as the white sheets on her bed, her nose and the skin under it red raw. Her lips were dry and chapped, her eyes gritty and sore, and therefore probably bloodshot. Her hair, unbrushed, unwashed, slept on, must have looked like a bird's nest, sticking up all over the place. And she was uncomfortably aware of the mass of used tissues littering both bed and bedside area.

"Wow," he said, and she looked down. "You look terrible," he continued, and she looked up sharply then, any comment that she was going to make cut off by a huge sneeze, followed by another, then another. She hastily reached for a tissue, pressed it to her nose, and when she looked up again, her cheeks pink with embarrassment, he was standing right in front of her, his face a mask of concern.

"I'm fine Daniel," she told him, and he looked anything but convinced, even when she continued, "Seriously. You should have seen me at three o'clock this morning."

She meant it as a joke, but it had been the wrong thing to say, she knew that when his frown deepened, knew it even without his muttered, "Not helping." She gave him a weak smile, and he reached out with one hand, laying his palm on her forehead, checking for a temperature. His other hand fell on her terry cloth clad shoulder, but she felt the warmth of his skin right down to her bones.

"Daniel, really," she protested weakly, pushing that thought aside. "I really do feel much better. You didn't have to come over..."

He shrugged, dropping his hand from the top of her head. "Well, I did bring a care package…" he said, letting his voice trail off.

"Care package?" she echoed, and he smiled a small smile, tilting his head towards the door. She fell into step beside him, and when they got there, she realised that there were indeed bags on the counter that had not been there when she staggered out to fill a glass of water a few hours before.

"Sit down," he said quickly, pulling out a stool for her, and she sank down onto it gratefully.

"So… what did you bring me?" she quipped, and he met her gaze over the bags, grinning at her.

"Tissues," he said first, pulling out two large boxes. "The soft kind," he added. "With the balm on them, for under your nose?" One hand indicated that area on his own face. "I've had some experience with sneezing… I know the little things matter."

"You're too kind," she told him, already reaching out for one, ripping it open and taking one out.

"Juice," he continued, more boxes emerging. "Apple, orange and cranberry. I wasn't sure which one you'd like, so I figured we could put the extra in your fridge…" Which is exactly what he did, even as she blew her nose, noting absently that the balm really did make a difference. "Cough drops…" He upended one of the bags, a variety of brands and flavours spilling across the counter, more than she would need to get her through ten colds, let alone one, and she looked up at him, her eyes dancing with merriment. "Yeah… I um… may have gone overboard there."

"May have?" she asked, reaching for one of the honey and lemon ones, popping it into her mouth.

He shot her a look, but otherwise didn't say anything, reaching instead into the other bag. "And soup," he said, triumphantly pulling out a can. "I know you like chicken…" His voice trailed off as he looked around curiously. "Pots?"

She pointed him in the right direction with no small amount of trepidation, remembering the last time that he'd cooked in her kitchen - it had involved much smoke, air freshener and had had Mrs Finkelstein next door coming over to see if everything was all right. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked him, and he turned to her, eyes wide in affront.

"There are instructions," he told her, pointing them out. "On the tin. I can read Ancient Goa'uld dialects Sam… this…" Whatever he was about to say, the tiny writing on the side of the can captured his attention, and it took a couple of seconds for him to get back to his train of thought. When he did, he didn't sound as confident suddenly. "No problem."

Amused, she opened her mouth to say something, but it was swallowed in another succession of sneezes. "Fine," she muttered when she could talk again, discovering to her surprise that a glass of orange juice had miraculously appeared in front of her. "Thank you," she said, and he just waved in response, already trying to figure out how to operate her can opener, and the one thought that came to her head as she laid her arms down on the counter and rested her head on top of them was that he didn't lose a finger. She didn't think she could handle the sight of so much blood, not today.

She didn't move, and he didn't speak, until she felt his hand on the back of her neck, rubbing gently. "Go back to bed," he told her quietly, and she moved her head so that she could see him, her cheek now resting against her arms.

"And leave you alone in my kitchen?" she countered. "Not likely."

He smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll bring it in to you," he promised. "Come on Sam… do I have to carry you?"

She chuckled dryly, thanked her lucky stars that she didn't cough. "I'd like to see you try," she said.

"Sam…" It was a warning.

"Daniel…"

They stayed like that a long moment, blue eyes meeting blue, and she was the one who blinked first, thereafter closing her eyes, not opening them until she felt his fingers on top of her head, threading lightly through her hair. She left her eyes closed for a few seconds, savouring the feeling, then opened them slowly, gave him a half-smile.

"Fine," she muttered. "But if you set the place on fire, you're springing for the repainting."

"Yes Sir," he promised, helping her up, thrusting the open box of tissues into her hand, walking her as far as the kitchen door.

Once she was in her bedroom, once she could see her bed, whatever burst of energy had accompanied Daniel's arrival left her body abruptly, and, stripping off her robe, she crawled under the covers, pulling them up to her chin and lying down on her side. As he made the soup, Daniel kept up a constant stream of talk, telling her all about what had happened on base that day, and despite the ache in her ribs, the tickle in her throat, Sam was so warm, so comfortable, that she didn't even notice that she was drifting off to sleep.

Someone in her room woke her, the clink of metal against china, and when she prised open her eyes, Daniel was laying a tray down on the bedside table, looking at her with a stricken expression on his face. "Oops," was all he said, and she smiled, pushing herself up to a sitting position.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Nothing's broken." She let her eyes run over the tray, at the various things that were on it. "What's all this?"

"Your juice," he said, handing her the glass, watching her as she took a sip. "You sound like you could use it." She glared at him, but he wasn't wrong. "This," he added, holding up another glass, "Is some hot brandy. Very good for a cold… Nick used to swear by it."

Sam frowned. "I thought it was supposed to be hot whiskey."

He blinked. "Ah. Yes. Except that Nick doesn't like whiskey." He blinked again. "Sorry."

"It's ok," she smiled, and she meant it. "Neither do I."

"Oh. OK then." Turning away from her, he lifted the tray, laid it on her lap. "And this is your soup… and some toast." Lightly done, just the way she liked it, but there was a second plate of toast there too, more than a little burned. This, he picked up, even as he sat down on the bed, careful not to jostle the tray. "I made some for me too. Hope you don't mind."

She smiled, but didn't otherwise answer, taking a spoonful of soup instead, closing her eyes as the thick liquid made its way down her throat. It wasn't not too hot, was just right in fact, and it tasted delicious. "You're forgiven," she told him, and he flashed her a bright grin as she scooped up another spoonful, and he munched on his toast.

They ate in silence, and when her bowl and plate were empty, when his plate was likewise, he took the tray from her, put her now empty juice glass on it, and put the brandy into her hand instead. "Drink," he commanded, walking towards the door with the tray, and a retort came into her mind about him trying to get her drunk, one that she swallowed quickly, along with the first mouthful of the drink. She wasn't sure which one made her choke slightly, but the second sip went down more smoothly, and she settled back down in the bed, pulling the covers all the way back up to her chin.

By the time he came back, the brandy was half gone, the glass on the bedside table, and beside it, he placed another glass of water. Squatting down beside the bed, he reached out to finger her hair again, his eyes serious behind his glasses as he looked at her. "I'll head off," he told her quietly, so quietly that she could barely hear him. "You need some rest."

She smiled, one hand going up to close over his wrist. "Yeah," she agreed, though a tiny voice in the back of her mind was telling her to ask him to stay. "You don't want to catch this thing."

She was only half-joking, but he treated it as a serious comment. "You know I haven't had a single cold since I came back?" he told her. "I think Oma might have left me with a few extra antibodies in my system."

Jealousy made her narrow her eyes again. "She couldn't have passed them around?" she groused, and he laughed.

"Sorry." But he didn't sound it, and when he leaned in, kissing the top of her head, she really didn't care. "I'll see you tomorrow Sam."

Then his hand was gone, and she was looking at him walking towards her bedroom door. "Daniel," she called after him, and he stopped with his hand on the door, looking at her expectantly. The words froze in her throat, and she had to swallow hard, take a deep breath before she could force them out. "Just… thank you," she finally managed.

He smiled, but all he said was, "Feel better Sam."

With that, he was gone, and when she heard her back door open and close, she allowed herself a smile, because she already did.

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