Not All Shells are Hollow

Sickly

As it turned out, standing out in the rain in late November doesn't do anyone any favors for their immune system. Although Ghost didn't experience much of any symptoms the next three days, he woke up on the fourth feeling like a corpse. His throat must have been the first thing to rot in his sleep, because it was outright painful to swallow. That would have been more than enough to make the Lieutenant's day a pain, but this was on top of fatigue that made his tasks far more rigorous than they should have been, and a persistent headache which absolutely refused to go away.

Despite this, he made an effort to work through it rather than see if he could take the day off to rest. He had a pretty good idea what the response would be if he went to bother the medic with it: take two Motrin, drink some water, get back to work. That was pretty run of the mill for a cold. If it were only that minor then it wasn't worth the trouble.

Now this plan of his would have worked just fine had he not run into Captain Price, who told him, "You're on sick call. Get your arse to the infirmary on the double." The speed at which he made this call was both impressive and extremely surprising, so much so that Ghost didn't even put up a word of resistance to this and immediately turned and headed straight down. The sudden development didn't even register fully with him until he entered the infirmary.

The medic gave Ghost a single look. One. Next thing the Lieutenant knew, it was all "Go sit down. Lemme have a look at you." While Doc got out a thermometer, he asked, "What seems to be the problem?"

"It's just a cold, no need to get alarmed," Ghost waved off, though still let the guy take his temp. "I's really no big deal..."

Beep beep. "... Mm... You're running a temp of 38.3, mate."

The words left Ghost stunned. "That's... really high..."

"In other news, sky is blue." The medic grabbed a small flashlight off his desk next. "Alright, open your mouth." Ghost caught sight of the other man's nose crinkle as he looked inside. "It's looking like strep."

"Strep...?"

"Hey, keep your mouth open. I'm gonna get a sample." One deep throated cotton swab later, Doc broke out a kit to set up a quick test, then let that sit. "Alright. We'll check that in a few and see what comes up. In the meantime, I'll go get you some water."

Ghost gave a slow nod as all this processed. He'd heard at least a couple of people on base came down with strep throat within the last couple weeks, but he thought he'd managed to stay in the clear. The test said otherwise. "So what now?"

The medic opened up a cabinet and got out a pill bottle. "Simple. You're confined to quarters for a few days. Take these antibiotics and get plenty of rest. Hopefully by then we can get you back on light duty, but we'll see where you're at."

With that, Ghost went back to his quarters. It was little more than a small room with a bunk bed pushed to one wall and a desk near the other. Neither he nor Langley went out of their way to do anything to it, so it stayed as bare bones as the day they were assigned it. With the other out on duty, as normal, Ghost had the room to himself for the time being; not that he expected Langley back any time soon, he'd probably idle somewhere or other until it was curfew. Given the blissfully quiet moment, Ghost curled up under the covers and fell asleep.

His dreamless sleep was only disrupted by a knock on the door. He grunted and sat up. "...Who's that...?" He rubbed his eye and got up at this point to check. Opening the door only a crack, he found himself staring at Captain MacTavish. "Ugh... What the bloody hell do you want?"

He'd managed to avoid the man for the last few days. Seemed his luck ran out here; there was no way he could stop this confrontation. The Captain must've had the same line of thought. "I'm just here to check on you. Mind opening the door?"