Absolution- Alias Fanfiction

31) Severe Illness

AN: Music for this chapter (on repeat): Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion, and Push by Sarah McLachlan.

THIRTY-ONE

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"I'll be ok Jack." She took a deep breath when she was finished coughing. "I'm sure it's just a cold."

"You never get sick; and coupled with last nights 'blight,' I think you should see a doctor. Especially since your lungs are still healing." He paused, still stroking her long hair down her back. "So, what's his number?"

"Fine. It's in my cell phone, on my desk in the library. But I have to take a shower before he gets here and change the sheets on the bed." Her 'froggy' voice, making her accent sound thicker as she spoke in English.

"Why?" Jack asked baffled, "You can't even open your eyes and you think you can take a shower and change the bed? I think that fevers affecting your genius."

"Jack, I am not going to let any doctor, especially Alexei who's like another father to me, inspecting me." Talking made her break into another fit of coughing, her eyes peering at Jack, looking at him for the first time all morning, then flopped back down on the bed, exhausted.

Jack realized she was probably right but she was obviously too sick to move. "Irina, isn't this the man who told you, you were pregnant, and took care of your prenatal needs? He 'obviously' knows we aren't celibate so 'who the hell cares if he knows?' I doubt he will. He'll be more concerned with 'why' you're ill."

"I care." She 'frogged' out, opening her eyes and throwing back the sheet, trying but failing to sit upright.

Jack reached out his hand to help and then pulled her body up next to his, feeling her legs too wobbly to stand on her own. "God you're stubborn!" He huffed, bending over and swooping her up into his arms to carry her to the bathroom. "It's definitely 'you' that Sydney gets it from."

*Because You Loved Me*

He set her down softly in front of him as he removed his own robe, carefully to keep her standing. She still couldn't keep her eyes open.

Jack maneuvered them into the shower and turned on the water, letting the steam rise and fill the glass enclosure.

"Now no taking advantage of me, Agent Bristow." She teased him, as her forehead rested against his chest, the water cascading down her back.

"You're practically dead in my arms, 'that' is the last thing I'm thinking about right now." He moved forward so that her head was completely under the spray, wetting all of her hair.

"No. I'm not dead." Irina coughed, "I've been dead and I think it's less painful then this." She started 'barking' again with such force her whole body shook in Jack's arms. Her comment and her present state worrying Jack beyond belief as he lathered up her hair in shampoo.

"Pain lets you know you're still alive right?" Jack whispered into her ear, rinsing the soap from her long tresses. The amount of pain Irina had been through in her life was unimaginable.

"I hate that saying." She turned her head, laying her cheek flat against his chest. "When you're in pain you wish for death and when you're dying you wish for pain to let you know you're still alive...but that brings you back to the first wish...it's a damn endless circle." She nuzzled her face into the crook of Jack's neck and closed her eyes, comforted by his hands massaging her head with conditioner.