In Flames Extras

Mari gets sick, Eddie panics (slightly)

Sometime in the near future

With two kids, Eddie wouldn't lie and say that he wasn't used to hearing someone throw up. Mariana's side of the bed was empty so he assumed she had a handle on it until he heard a curse - in Spanish, thankfully - erupt from the bathroom. He was up and out of the bed in seconds, sliding on a pair of sweats as he stumbled towards the bathroom.

His wife was kneeled in front of the toilet, her dark hair a messy disarray and falling in her face as she tried to pull it back while she bent over the bowl. Eddie grabbed one of her hair ties out of the jar she keeps on the counter and wordlessly gathered her hair up into a ponytail. She let out a soft moan of discontent and leaned forward, gagging out more of her dinner.

"Oh sweetheart," he whispered and ran a hand up and down her back. She whimpered and pressed her face against her arm, tears building in her eyes. Mari sniffled and he could have sworn his heart dropped at the sound of her tears. In three years of dating, almost two years of living together, and a few months of being married, Eddie had never seen or heard his wife get sick.

"I'm sorry," she cried. "I hate throwing up so much, I cry every time."

"It's okay, baby. You don't need to apologize. When did you start feeling like this?"

"My stomach hurt before we went to bed but I figured it was just your cooking," she rasped out. "Woke up feeling like death and luckily made it to the toilet."

"Is it like a stomach ache? Or pain?" he asked, running his hand up and down her side as she leaned back against the toilet. She winced at the movement, her hand drifting down to press against her right side.

Nausea, vomiting, stomach pain on the right side, he mentally catalogued. Reaching out, Eddie pressed the back of his hand to her forehead and swore under his breath. He grabbed one of their hand towels and ran it under cold water, pressing it to the back of her neck.

"I'm going to try something and I need you to tell me how you feel," he said. Eddie pressed three fingers down on her stomach, right where she had indicated the pain coming from, and waited a few seconds. Mariana sagged in relief at the pain seemingly leaving and when he lifted his hand away, her fingers curled tightly around his shoulder as it returned.

"Okay, sweetheart, I need to call Buck," he said. "If he can't come, then I'm calling Bobby and Athena."

"Hmm? What's goin' on?" she hummed out, staring up at him with tired eyes. Eddie grimaced and cupped her cheek. If she couldn't read the symptoms, then she was really sick. She was practically shaking from chills and he grabbed a towel from the rack to wrap around her.

"I'll be right back," he promised. Eddie pushed himself off the ground and hurried back to their bedroom to grab his phone. It was three in the morning but he knew that Buck would answer. He was the lightest sleeper of the 118 and was always the first one out of bed when the bell rang.

"'Lo?" Buck greeted. "Eddie, what's wrong?"

"Hey man, I gotta take Mari to the hospital and I can't leave the boys here. Could you come by and stay with them?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. What's wrong with Mari? Is she hurt?" Eddie could hear the rustle of bed sheets and Buck rushing downstairs. Anytime his sisters were involved, the blond would be there.

"I think she's having appendicitis. All the signs are there and she's pretty out of it," Eddie explained, running a hand over his hair nervously. "I don't know her family medical history, but she mentioned once that she never had to get her appendix out."