Will ignored her, because this was about the tenth time he’d heard her say a version of this sentence in the half hour since he’d come up to her place, out of breath from the frantic, terrified twenty minutes he’d spent after she’d covered her tear-streaked face and fled from him. A few barked instructions—for someone to go up and check on her, for Sally to take the kittens, for the photographer to put his goddamned camera away—had been followed by the hottest, most aggressively scrubbing shower Will could stand, a change into an extra, cat-danderless set of clothes he’d had in his car, and a dead run up the steps to Nora’s apartment.

“I don’t want you to come in,” she’d said, at first, her voice still tear-soaked, but Marian, for once, had taken Will’s side and opened the door to him, and then she’d shouted at Nora that she’d needed a doctor for two days, and “this one’s probably as good as any.”

Once he was in, Nora had given him a whole host of pouting do not wants—to get checked over, by either him or someone else, to have her temperature taken, to have her nasal passages examined, to take Tylenol, to drink water, to sit down. Every time, it was pretty toothless; he could tell that she was the kind of sick where simply every single thing felt bad, even the things that were meant to make her better. Between him and Marian—who’d only left a few minutes ago to start an aggressive group vacuuming project—they’d at least gotten her to do the basics.

“Come on, then,” he said to her now, setting a metal bowl of steaming water onto the coffee table. “Lean forward.”

She made a noise of protest, and Will bit his cheek to keep from smiling. An hour ago, with his heart pounding in his throat and his whole body gripped with irrational panic, a smile would’ve felt impossible, but now that he was here, close to her—being of some use to her—he’d calmed down. It was still straight misery, seeing her like this, but at least he was seeing her. At least he was helping her.

With exaggerated effort, she leaned forward, turning her still-swollen eyes up to where he stood. “This is all pretty embarrassing, Dr. Sterling.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said. “Put your head down.”

She sighed, then coughed, then finally put her head over the bowl.

“I’m going to set the towel over your head, okay? This is going to help with some of the pressure behind your face, until I can go get you a strong decongestant.”