Exhausted&Lost

Chapter Twenty Eight

A/N: I AM SO SORRY FOR ABANDONING YOU ALL! I'm finally back to work after like a year off, and my brain has just not been connecting to this story at all! Here's a new chapter, it's kinda short and it might suck, but I'm already working on the next one! Thank you all for reading and voting and commenting! It's very appreciated! 

"Hey, Ava?" Dave's voice called again from down the hall, causing her to pause what she was doing and roll her eyes. She had passed the worst of her cold very quickly, feeling better after a day of mostly sleeping with just a few lingering symptoms. Dave, however, hadn't left her house for two days since catching it from her. She loved him but my God he was not a good sufferer.

She gritted her teeth before taking a deep calming breath and called back, "Yeah?"

"Could you get me some Advil?" he asked.

He was holed up in Ava's bed and hadn't moved except to go to the bathroom. At first, she was worried sick about him, but now she kinda wanted to smother him with a pillow.

"I left the box by the bed for you," she told him.

"Oh," he said, "Then can you refill my water?"

She dropped the laundry basket she was holding and let out a sigh of exasperation. She had been at his beckoned call for long enough and she was reaching the end of her tether, she even had to send Elliott to her Dad's this afternoon because she felt like she was looking after two babies.

She filled a fresh glass of water for him and marched into the bedroom, ready to tell him to either grow up or go home, when all of her frustrations immediately melted at the sight of him wrenching himself upright in her bed with a weak smile on his face.

"Thank you, baby," he croaked, "I'm missing you, wanna climb in for a little while?"

She glanced back to the hallway where her laundry basket had tipped over and strewn clothes all over the carpet and decided it could wait.

"Sure," she smiled, and crawled up the bed to lay beside him.

*

Ava woke up again, disoriented and alone. She couldn't remember falling asleep, and she had no idea what time it was. She got up, trailed a tangle teaser through her mess of curls, and brushed her teeth, she pulled on her sweats and assessed herself quickly in the mirror before deciding that she didn't have time to address all of the issues that were going on in the looks department today. As she moved towards the living room, she could hear a familiar and comforting mix of voices.

"Hey sleepyhead," Dave grinned, "There she is!"

She looked around the room, first noticing that Dave was standing over the stovetop, cooking something that smelled delicious. Her father was sitting across from him at the island breakfast bar and Elliott was perched on Dave's hip as he watched over the food.

"I was about to send El down with a bucket of ice to wake you," Dave grinned, earning a hearty laugh from her father.

"What time is it?" she asked no one in particular, shocked when the answer was just past 11 am. 

She had joined Dave in bed at around 8 pm the evening before, she must have really needed that rest.

"Mama," Elliott grinned as she neared him. She scooped him up out of Dave's arms and buried her face in his curls. She planted a kiss on his head and let him down so he could run to his neatly organized box of toys which were immediately scattered across the floor.

"You should have woken me earlier," she told Dave as she settled into a seat beside her Dad, "I have wasted the whole morning."

"You looked so exhausted after taking care of my useless ass for the last few days that I didn't have the heart to," he chuckled. He looked much better, he was freshly showered, his hair still damp, and had on one of her favorite hoodies of his, which had been stashed away in her closet. She made a mental note to steal it back when he wasn't paying attention.