Chapter Text
Berlint General Hospital
The words towered over Yor as she gazed up at them aimlessly. A light breeze brushed the hair from her face, and with her free hand she reigned the unruly locks back in without looking. Her attention was elsewhere; what little poise she had left was dedicated to keeping the bag in her arms upright. At the same time, Yor struggled to hold back the sneeze that fought its way past her. The wind tickled her nose, and her face crinkled.
Yor quickly snatched up her new handkerchief and blew into it, making an ugly sound as she did. Several people walking into the building tossed her side-eye glances as they tiptoed around her, and Yor deflated at the feeling of their stares. She quickly recomposed herself and wiped the snot from her upper lip. A slight red lingered on her cheeks, and her normally sparkling eyes seemed duller than usual. Her whole demeanor felt subdued.
“Darn these allergies,” she whispered to herself- as if to convince the universe that it simply was just allergies.
Because it most certainly wasn’t a cold! Heaven’s no; she never got sick. Even as a child, the most she would ever get were the occasional hay and spring fevers (and summer fever, and winter fever…sometimes more than once in a season- but never a cold!) Even now, well into her late twenties, Yor took great pride knowing that she was immune to any and all forms of diseases and poisons, due in no small part to her stint as an assassin.
She was tough. She could take a bullet to the behind, and fight off an army of men all at once!...
…but it’s not like she could tell that to her husband, hence why he forced her to call into work that day.
Loid had insisted on it. The moment she shuffled into the kitchen, he took one look at her and deemed her unfit to go outside. Anya cornered her as well, saying that she needed her rest- a very motherly thing to say, despite the little girl being only six years old. Yor would have put up more of an argument, if not for her family practically pleading for her to stay. The look of relief on Loid’s face when she begrudgingly accepted ended up sealing the deal. Yor was homebound.
Or, so she thought.
Her one demand of Loid and Anya was that she make them both their lunches. It was about the only useful thing she could do that day, as most of her time would be spent either doing chores or watching soap operas. She wanted to be productive and also show them her appreciation for caring about her. The gesture was taken about as well as one might expect; Loid and Anya smiled nervously, and Yor was none the wiser.
She made them their lunches, then the two of them left for work and school.
Except, Anya had taken her bag…and Loid hadn’t.
He was in such a rush, he forgot to grab his lunch on the way out. Yor realized it the moment she finished cleaning up in the kitchen. Loid’s brown bag sat right on the kitchen table where he left it, and Yor cupped her cheek in dismay. Now he wouldn’t have anything to eat; meanwhile, she sat comfortably at home with a pantry full of food (that she wasn’t even hungry enough to eat).
Despite promising Loid she’d stay home, Yor took it upon herself to do him a favor in turn. She grabbed her coat and put on her loafers. She made sure to fill up Bond’s food bowl before leaving, then went straight to the train station. The entire time, she clutched the bag to her chest- both to keep the contents inside from shaking, and the wind from ripping it all away from her.
It was especially breezy that day, hence why her “allergies” had started acting up. That’s what she told the people on the train, at least; when she swayed back and forth a little in place, a flush to her cheeks that didn’t seem natural, several passengers asked her if she was alright. Yor of course told them everything was fine- nevermind the slight drip of snot that hung from her nose. A kind sir offered his handkerchief, and she accepted.
Hopefully she could return it to him someday, Yor thought to herself as she tucked it back into her purse.
Cold air struck her as she walked through the open doors of the hospital, into a bustling lobby with many people sitting and standing all at once. Yor clutched her bag a little tighter. She walked up nervously to the front desk. There, sitting on the other side of the counter, was a nice-looking lady with a tall, slender frame. She looked up at Yor and smiled.
“Hi! How can I help you?” she asked.
Yor waved politely. “Hello, my name is Yor Forger. I came to bring my husband his lunch.”
“I see.” The woman pulled out a clipboard with some papers on it, before fetching a pen she’d tucked away behind her ear. “And what’s the patient's name?”
“Oh, he’s not a patient,” Yor shook her head. “He works in the psychiatry ward. Loid Forger?”
The lady blinked. The cogs in her head seemed to turn for a moment. Then, her face quickly broke into an excited grin. “Wait- you’re Dr. Forger’s wife? Goodness! You’re even prettier than he described you!”
“L-Loid said I was pretty?” Yor stammered, immediately devolving into a blushing heap on the floor. She tried to hide behind the brown paper bag in her hands, but to no avail.
“Look at you, getting all worked up over your husband’s compliments!” the lady giggled. “And your daughter’s simply an angel! What a lovely family you have!”
Each passing second brought more red into Yor’s already flustered cheeks. She had no rebuttal for the lady. All she could do was nod weakly in reply.
“Ah, but Dr. Forger.” The lady swiveled in her chair and pointed down the hall. “Just follow it all the way down until you see the sign that says ‘Psychiatry Ward’. Go through those doors, and that first hallway will be where the doctors offices are located.”
“Th-Thank you,” Yor told her meekly. The woman waved, and she returned the gesture.
Yor wasted no time getting out of there. She quickly made her way down the hall, passing several patients on the way. Some were hooked up to IV’s, and others were in wheelchairs. All of them had hospital gowns on, and a few were being talked to by doctors and nurses. Yor imagined Loid conversing with his own patients like that, and the thought cheered her up a bit.
That didn’t mean she was feeling better, though. Her “allergies'' hadn't gotten any better since that morning. Actually, after all that excitement just now, she felt more light-headed than before- and a little out of breath from all the walking. Her fluster may have abated, but her temperature certainly hadn’t. She blamed it on how hot the hospital felt- despite it being far cooler than it already was outside.
Yor tried not to think about it as she entered the ward. Following the lady’s advice, she continued down the hallway all the way to the end. There, to the second-to-last door, she spotted it: Loid Forger, M.D, in golden, bold lettering, etched into a metal placard placed neatly in the middle. Yor paused as she stared at it. For the first time, it truly struck her that she was married to a doctor, and her lips squiggled into a silly smile.
She went to knock on the door, striking it gently on the off-chance he was seeing someone.
Immediately, there came a reply. “Come in.”
Yor turned the knob and opened it. She was quickly met with the sight of a brightly lit room. A single desk stood at the far end of the room, with several empty chairs on the side closest to Yor. On the other side of it sat a familiar face; blue eyes glanced up from a report in their owner’s hands, before twisting in surprise at the sight of her.
“Yor!?" Loid exclaimed. The report quickly fell from his hands. “What are you doing here?”
“Hi, Loid,” Yor greeted tiredly. She held up the brown paper bag in her arms. “You forgot your lunch, so I came to bring it to you.”
“I…see,” Loid replied, eye twitching slightly in dismay. “How thoughtful of you…”
“It’s the least I could do.” Yor closed the door behind her and shuffled inside. The closer she walked towards him, the more Loid’s brow raised.
“Yor, you really should have stayed home,” he chastised, looking over how miserable she looked. Her eyes, especially, seemed worse than before. “You need your rest.”
Yor made a face as she came up to Loid’s desk and dropped off his lunch. “My allergies will still be there regardless of how much I rest. At least this way I can be useful.”
“Still on this whole ‘allergy’ business, I see?” Loid shook his head with a sigh.
He left it at that for the moment. Not wanting to press the matter further and upset Yor, Loid instead went digging through his lunch. He hadn’t even bothered to see what she had made them, and was pleasantly surprised when an (admittedly) appetizing smell came wafting into his nose. He raised a brow and inspected the tupperware container in his hands; an orange liquid sloshed inside, and he recognized both the color and smell.
“You made your mother’s stew?” Loid smirked. His smile grew bigger when he looked up and found Yor’s rekindled fluster.
Yor was quiet for a moment. Her stare seemed distant, and Loid waited patiently for a response. Then, after a long pause, she seemed to spring back to life again. “Right. Yes. Of course.”
Loid tilted his head. “Yor?” Her response seemed off.
Loid wasn’t a real doctor. He had no degree, or any actual training whatsoever- at least none at any institution of learning. What he did have, however, was experience. He’d seen plenty of things during his time as a spy and -even further back still- as a soldier. There were times, more often than not, when there was no medicine; no help at all, really. He’d binded wounds, both his own and his comrades, and he’d consoled the dying more times than he could count.
Loid knew what to look for when a soldier was about to falter, or when a fellow agent was about to crack under the pressure. Just like all the other roles he played, Loid could -and did- make an excellent doctor, in any capacity
Which is why it didn’t take him long to realize that his wife was far sicker than he first diagnosed.
He scanned his wife’s face and found her skin clammy. As observed previously, Yor’s eyes were duller (even more so now) and her nose was leaking. That fluster that Loid thought had come from her usual bashfulness was, in actuality, her fever rising. There was more that told him she was sick, such as her swaying and heavy breathing, but he had no time to focus on any of that.
Before he knew it, she was teetering forward.
“Yor!”
In an instant, Loid hopped from his chair to intercept her. He practically dove over the desk to keep Yor from landing face first onto it. With his knee, he kept them both upright, as slowly he hopped around the desk with his other foot. After a minute of balancing both Yor and himself, Loid could finally stand upright and hold his wife up. Her head fell against his chest as he scooped her up and took her over to the chaise lounge off to the side.
Usually, the piece of furniture was just for show, but that day it served an important purpose. Loid lowered Yor gently onto it. He grabbed one of the pillows and stuck it under her head, then proceeded to shed his lab coat. Just like with the lounge, his normally superficial coat was better spent aiding Yor. He laid it over her as a makeshift blanket. She curled into it instinctively, and it wasn’t long before her eyes welded shut.
Loid frowned at the sight of her, and at his own incompetence. He simply stood there and watched her for a time. If only he had known she'd go through the trouble of actually coming here to bring him his lunch, he never would have “accidentally” left it on the table. Guilt swept over Loid at the realization that this was entirely his fault. He was the reason why Yor was so exhausted right now, and the feeling stung- a lot.
The most he could hope to do was try to make things better in the present. To that end, he left Yor for a moment to go back to his desk. There on the corner of it was an intercom, and he pressed it. A little buzzing noise crackled over the speaker.
“Yes, Dr. Forger?” a familiar voice inquired on the other end.
“Ms. Frost, please do me a favor and cancel all of my scheduled meetings today-” Loid paused for effect “- all of them.”
A similar pause took place on Fiona’s end. “By all of them, do you mean all of them?”
Loid glanced at the report on his desk; the one that had nothing to do with actual doctor work. “Yes, including the one with Ms. Sherwood.”
“But what about your Hand-!”
“-My hand’s perfectly fine, thanks for asking,” Loid cut her off pointedly- an intercom was most certainly not a secure enough channel to discuss spy matters. “Now, please let Ms. Sherwood know I’ll be missing coffee today.”
The slightest huff of annoyance came through over the static. “Very well.”
“Thank you, Ms. Frost.”
Loid let go of the intercom, and their conversation ended. Once that was done, he was free. Loid promptly returned to Yor’s side and pulled up one of the chairs by his desk. The report he also grabbed, and once settled he thumbed through it to pass the time. There wasn’t much to be done while Yor was asleep. The most he could hope to do was watch over her and be there when she woke up.
That ended up happening relatively soon. Coincidentally, Loid finished re-reading his report around the same time his wife’s eyes started to flutter open. He looked up in time to find a lidded stare aimed in his direction, and he quickly cast his paper away.
“Yor?” he spoke softly, quietly. “How are you feeling?”
She blinked through her fevered stupor and thought for a moment. “I think I might be sick…”
“I see-” Loid cracked a smile “-and how exactly did you arrive at that diagnosis, Mrs. Forger?”
Yor’s eyes closed again. She hummed low in exhaustion. “My husband’s a doctor...”
“Well, perhaps you should listen to him the next time he tells you to stay home and take it easy?”
Yor said nothing. She continued to hum with her face half-buried in the pillow beneath her. Loid couldn’t tell if she was completely coherent or not; he assumed (rightfully so) that a sick Yor was about as lucid as a drunk Yor, meaning she wasn’t all there mentally. She wasn’t in a sound state of mind to let her out of his sight, so -until he could figure out a better solution to all this- he’d care for her as best he could.
Yor’s nose was running again. He glanced to the floor and noticed her purse- likely fallen there after her tumble. Assuming there was a handkerchief in there, he picked it up and carefully rummaged through it. Quickly he found what he was looking for, though not exactly; yes, he found a handkerchief, but it wasn’t his wife’s usual one. There was someone else’s initials on it, one he didn’t recognize, and he raised a brow.
“Yor, where did you get this from?” Loid asked with great interest.
He watched Yor’s eyes creak open slowly. She blinked, as if suddenly remembering he was there. “A man on the train gave it to me. He was very sweet.”
Loid looked down at the piece of cloth. He made a face, one that went completely unnoticed by Yor, but said nothing. He simply leaned forward and took it upon himself to wipe his wife’s nose. Her face scrunched up in mild disapproval at the sudden feeling, though she put up no fight. For once, Yor’s strength seemed subdued. She didn’t seem like she could harm so much as a fly, let alone him.
“There.” Loid pulled away. He glanced down at the cloth and found it covered in bright yellow/green snot. His brow furrowed. “Looks like you might have caught the flu.”
Yor shook her head gloomily. “No…I’m a lousy catcher. I always get picked last for softball...”
Loid paused. He stared briefly at his wife; she seemed completely serious, despite how ridiculous she sounded at the moment. “I see…well, uh, I’m going to give you a quick examination, okay?”
“Oh dear…!" Yor gasped in her stupor. "I forgot to bring my pencil…!"
A smile shattered Loid’s attempt at a serious face. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
Loid wasn’t a trained medical professional, but if he could at least pinpoint her symptoms, then he could figure out what medicines she needed and go from there. He didn’t have any equipment to aid him (considering he didn’t actually meet with patients), so all he could do was give her a quick once-over. He instructed Yor to sit up, just a little bit. With great effort, Yor pried herself from the soft comfort of her pillow.
With both hands in her lap, Yor balanced herself as Loid loomed over her. She stared up at him with distant eyes and a crimson-burnt face. Loid had to make this quick- otherwise she might fall over at any minute.
“Alright, lift your tongue up for me.”
Yor complied, giving him the standard, “ahhhhhhh.”
Loid then instructed her to lay her tongue flat, and she listened. “Mm, no discoloration.”
He gave her the go-ahead to stop, and Yor nodded her mouth shut. She swayed a little in place, but had help stopping. Hands came around, seemingly out of nowhere, and gently clutched her neck on either side. Yor’s delayed response to this was to stare up at Loid for the longest second of her life, before finally realizing that he was touching her. Her face grew a little bit more red, yet she didn’t freak out as was the norm. Truly, she was feeling under the weather.
Loid rubbed both sides of Yor’s neck in small, circular motions. “Your lymph nodes are swollen.”
“I’ll be sure to soak them…” Yor murmured airily.
“And your fever is worse than I thought,” Loid frowned. “You’re practically burning up.”
Yor gave no reply this time. She quickly checked out of the conversation. Unbeknownst to Loid, it was his impromptu massage that made what little thought remained in Yor’s head disappear altogether. His hands were cold, and they felt good on her skin. She closed her eyes, briefly, before Loid instructed her to open them again. Yor did so at a snail’s pace and before she knew it, she found her husband’s face hovering in front of hers.
“I need to see if your pupils are dilated,” he explained.
His hands returned once more, this time as they cupped both sides of Yor’s cheeks. He lifted her head up into the correct position, then told her to look vaguely in the same direction as the light on the ceiling. Yor did so as best she could. Her nose was clogged up, and tilting her head back only made it worse. She was forced to breathe through her mouth, which quickly left her winded. Not only that, despite being sick, Yor was rather self conscious over the smell of her breath, and her face flushed even more.
Before she could tell Loid anything about it, though, there came a sudden knocking on the door.
“Dr. Forger, I must insist that you reconsider going to that appointment of yours-”
In an instant, Loid’s head snapped to the front of the room. There he found the door already open, as a cold-looking woman appeared out from it. She carried with her a clipboard filled with papers, likely all related to the mission report Loid had on his desk. Such was to be expected from his WISE-planted assistant, Agent Nightfall; a dependable comrade, though one that clearly had no concept of waiting for someone to let them in.
Taken aback by the sudden intrusion, Loid was caught with his pants down.
That may have been a figure of speech, but from the look on Ms. Frost’s face as she quickly realized there was another person in the room…well, one might have assumed that Loid was indeed caught red-handed doing something he shouldn’t have. Fiona stopped mid-step, and her eyes zeroed in on the two of them. Still caught off-guard, Loid didn’t have any sense in him to release his hold on Yor.
Loid did have enough, however, to know this wouldn’t end well for him.
The first words out of Fiona’s mouth certainly did attest to that.
“Yor Forger-!? What the hell are you doing here-!?”
Nightfall’s signature icy stare was suddenly nowhere to be seen; it melted away as all the blood in her veins rushed to her face. That heat in her cheeks only grew the longer she stared at Loid and Yor in scathing silence. He had her face in his hands as he stood over her. Their faces were inches from each other. Her cheeks were red, and she was panting, and…was that his lab coat hanging off of her!?
FIona nearly snapped her clipboard in half.
Loid, meanwhile, panicked internally, though he kept it together as best he could. He opened his mouth to run interference, but someone else beat him to the punch.
“Hiii, Fiona…” Yor loopily greeted. Her eyes drifted to Fiona, though she made no attempt to move her head. “Loid was just in the middle of checking me out…”
“Excuse me!?” Fiona hissed like a viper.
“Fiona!" Loid scrambled to do damage control. "I can assure you, I'm not ‘checking her out’ like that!"
“You’re not…?” Yor’s face scrunched up in confusion. “Then why did you tell me how hot I was when you had your hands around my neck…?”
That last sentence rolled off Yor’s tongue like a slow-motion train wreck. Loid’s stomach fell to the floor, and there it joined Fiona’s heart; the look of destruction on the woman’s face was almost pitiful, though it was offset mostly by the sound of snapping wood. Loid watched, horrified, as the clipboard in her hands was pulled apart like tissue paper. Papers of varying degrees of top secret information were shredded in an instant.
He was going to have fun explaining that one to Handler…
“DR. FORGER!” Fiona yelped, lower lip trembling. “CLEARLY I’VE COME AT A BAD TIME!”
“Fiona, would you please just calm down for a second? I can explain everything-”
“-EXPLAIN IT TO MS. SHERWOOD THE NEXT TIME YOU SEE HER!”
Fiona threw the remnants of her clipboard onto the floor, and Loid’s eye twitched at the sound of it. She then did an about-face to hide the giant, bubbling tears that erupted from her eyes, before darting off towards the door. Loid could do nothing else but watch her leave in a hurry. In a matter of seconds, the door slammed open then shut, and soon it was just Loid and Yor again in awkward silence with one another.
Well, awkward for one of them, anyway. Loid clearly had no idea just what to do next; he stood frozen for a time, still holding Yor’s head up out of fear of her falling over. His eyes stayed fixed to the door, though slowly they migrated towards his wife as the seconds ticked by. From the corner of his vision, he could see her still staring up at him without a care in the world- as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened.
Loid sighed; this woman was going to be the death of him someday.
Abruptly, he declared the examination to be over, and instructed Yor to lay back down and rest. She complied without a sound. Her head fell back onto the pillow, and Loid put his coat over her once more. She continued to focus her attention on him, however. Even as he started to turn and walk away to go do something, her eyes followed him.
“Loid…” The sound of his own name made him stop what he was doing . “I was wondering…why did you tell your coworkers I was pretty…?”
“What?” Loid turned towards her. His reply was tired, albeit concerned. “What’s this all of a sudden?”
“The lady at the front desk told me…” Yor droned, her stare lidded and distant.
Again, Loid sighed. “Well, why wouldn’t I tell them that?”
“Because I’m not really your wife-” Yor’s eyes drifted away “-and I’m not pretty…”
Loid’s body went rigid. His brow furrowed as he stared down at the somberness in Yor’s face, and he frowned. For some reason, Loid’s thoughts wandered to that handkerchief from before. An unfamiliar sensation rose in the back of his throat at the thought of some random man offering Yor help when he wasn’t around. It made little sense to him; as she said, they weren’t actually married, yet that petty feeling remained.
Loid could empathize with that somber look of hers.
Still, he forced a smile for her sake.
“Regardless of whether or not we’re actually married, you’re still the mother of my child,” he soothed. “And I happen to think you’re very beautiful, inside and out.”
For the first time through this entire ordeal, a faint spark lit up in Yor’s eyes. The sight of it caused Loid to breathe a quiet sigh of relief to himself; that was the Yor he knew. The brightly lit beam of the woman that he called his wife. She quickly curled into her pillow and pulled the coat over her so that only those eyes remained.
Even though Loid couldn’t see it, he could hear the smile in Yor’s words. “I have a very sweet husband…”
Loid’s ears perked immediately. He damned the very notion that something as simple as Yor complimenting him -the same way she complimented that man on the train- could elicit such a reaction out of him. Pride. Vindication. Over what, he couldn’t say- or maybe he could, and just didn’t want to admit it. Regardless, Loid couldn’t deny that he was happy at that moment, simply because Yor was happy.
She continued to stare up at him for a time, before exhaustion seemed to get the better of her. Yor blinked a couple times, each time opening her eyes a bit more slowly than before, until finally she closed her eyes for good. Loid confirmed it by the sound of her light snoring. She had thoroughly left him for dreamland, which freed him up to clean the mess left by Nightfall’s earlier outburst. Loid did so quickly, shaking his head as he picked up all manner of ripped up state secrets.
Once that was done, he went back to his desk and picked up the phone. He dialed a cab company to come and pick them up, deciding long ago that the walking to the train was too much for Yor. His ride secured, Loid then hung up and walked back over to the lounge. There was a little bit of room available at Yor’s feet, and Loid sat down next to her. He reached behind him and pulled out a random book from the shelf on the wall.
He leaned back, laid one leg over the other, and started to read.
His wife slept soundly beside him. His new mission for the rest of the day was to ensure she stayed that way. Until it came time to carry her to the car, Loid wouldn’t move from that spot. He glanced at Yor from the corner of his eye as he read, and the sight of her laying there, curled up in his coat, filled him with that same elation from before. The feeling was foreign to him: he didn’t like it, or rather he didn’t want to like it.
Perhaps he was starting to feel under the weather, too?
Loid smirked; maybe taking one sick day off with Yor wouldn't impede Operation Strix too much.