So This Is Karma...

[Anonymouse]

The wonderful Masking and I took a break from our Metalocalypse roleplays to try something different. We're both fans of 30 Rock and I recently started re-watching the series with my boyfriend, so I was confident in attempting a 30 Rock roleplay after Masking pointed out how at the end of the episode "Flu Shot," both Liz and Jack realize that despite getting flu vaccinations they both somehow got the flu. Then the episode ends. BUT IT SHOULD HAVE CONTINUED. So this is where our roleplay comes in.

Since lattelover09 wrote this fantastic story in hopes of inspiring others to write 30 Rock fics, I decided to convert our roleplay into a story format to post so that others could enjoy it. It's got Liz and Jack sneezes and fevers and caretaking and all that fun stuff. We're still roleplaying this out, but I'll post new chapters when we come to reasonable pauses in the story. If anyone's curious, I play Jack and Masking does Lemon.

Here's the first part.

---

It hit them at the same moment. Whatever the chances of getting sick from a live virus vaccine were, it looked like neither of them had beaten the odds.

Liz didn't know if it was a few seconds or half an eternity between the first surge of nausea and her hurried footsteps to the toilet, but all she knew was that she barely made it. Jack’s bathroom, of course, was equipped with fancy motion-sensor lights, and they flashed on her like a spotlight as she retched, shivering and gripping the sides of the toilet to keep from falling over. It all made sense now – the flushed feeling she'd tried to ignore all day, the tightness in her chest that she'd assumed was an allergy to Jenna's perfume. Of course she had the fucking flu. Squinting against the too-bright lights, she let out a soft moan and rested her cheek on the toilet seat.

Meanwhile, Jack was experiencing what they called karma for the first time. He usually got away with taking advantage of the “little people” unscathed, but it was only a matter of time before he got his. And that time was now. He instantly regretted taking that vaccine – he probably would have had more luck without it. It’s not like any of the underlings, save Liz, came up here all that often.

Of course she was here now, vomiting in his toilet. The sound made him wince, his own stomach lurching with discomfort. “Lemon?” he said, fighting away a sudden wave of dizziness as he made his way to the door to knock gently. “Lemon, can I come in?”

Liz lifted her head off the toilet seat and coughed, her throat burning from the upsurge. “I guess,” she croaked. “I don't see why you'd want to.”

Her nose may have been more than slightly stuffy, her stomach may have been shaky, but she still found the wherewithal to be sarcastic.

“I'd like to make sure you didn't throw up on the newest issue of Businessweek,” he said, quite used to expecting sarcasm from her, sick or not.

As she flushed away her vomit he pushed the door open carefully, bracing himself, but the floor and Lemon herself were clean. Thank God, because he was sure he would have thrown up too if he had to see her puke.

“I wouldn't throw up on anything conservative," she shot back. "It doesn't serve the honor of... three bags of Sabor de Soledad.”

“Only three?”

“… okay, four.”

Jack gave her a knowing smile as he leaned against the doorframe. “I propose we take the rest of the day off... I'm not feeling so hot myself...”

Liz looked relieved at the suggestion. “You look like crap,” she said bluntly after looking up at him. He was pale except for the red splotches on his cheeks, and his eyes were a little glassy. “Get a taxi home. I'll find Pete.”

He didn't live with her anymore, but he owed her a ride back to her apartment – plus, if she recalled correctly, he was sick himself. He'd probably be glad of the opportunity to take the rest of the day off himself.

“I gave Pete permission to leave early,” he said slowly. Pete was even worse off than the two of them, though it was probably only a matter of time before they started looking and feeling as bad as he did. “I supposed we could always... share a t-taxi...”

He trailed off and sniffled heavily, finding that his nose was on the verge of running. Quickly he yanked the handkerchief out of his suit pocket and pressed it to his nose, his face contorting behind the fabric. “HhhhMPHFFSHH!”

Before Liz could even attempt a blessing her own nose twinged with a sympathetic tickle that made her breath hitch. “Hihh’hihh...” She wrinkled her long, straight nose, trying to ward away an unflattering pre-sneeze face, but it was no use. She ducked her head and sneezed openly towards the floor. “Hihh'ISHHieww!”

Sniffling softly, she looked back up at him, cheeks reddening. "If you do'dt bind sharing a cab with me and mby sdeezes."

Jack gave a quick, forceful blow into his handkerchief to clear the congestion – stuffy voices were so undignified – before folding it, though he kept it clenched in his left hand, in the likely case that he needed it again in the near future. “No, I don't mind,” he said, his voice more gravelly than usual. Well, that was okay. A rough voice was sexy. Better than a stuffy one, anyway. He offered his arm to her, in case she was feeling as dizzy as he was. “Do you need to stop by your office for anything?”

“Ndoe, I have everythih’g here." She indicated her purse, hanging half off her arm onto the floor, and stood up a little shakily to take his arm – she was feeling pretty dizzy herself.

Jack raised an eyebrow at her purse, still not quite sure how women managed to fit everything they needed throughout the day in such a tiny container. Well, average women anyway. From the look of her Lemon probably didn’t worry much about touting around cosmetics, though it wouldn't surprise him if she had a leftover sub crammed in there. He grabbed his briefcase and she ducked over to grab a handful of toilet paper from the roll, blowing her nose as quietly as she could before tossing the balled-up paper into the wastebasket. With the arm that wasn’t clinging to Jack’s sturdy frame she did a little victory fist-pump, and Jack couldn’t help but smile.

“All right,” she said. “Let's find a cab.”

She hoped the driver wasn't the chatty type.

Edited March 30, 2012 by AnonyMouse

[Masking]

Yes. This. THIS was amazing to write, and you've done a wonderful job of integrating the RP-style viewpoints into a wonderful, coherent story.

We should write more of it.

[Anonymouse]

Oh babes we are just getting started.

[lattelover09]

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..!!!!!!!!! Thank you both so much for starting this. I literally come to the site everyday hoping that SOMEONE will have written 30 Rock fics! This came up in a google search for "Liz" "jack" and "sick" so you can't imagine my surprise when it actually brought me here!!! There's a few fics that scoot around the premise--like Jack taking care of a sick Liz, a sick Liddy, or Liz urging Jack to go home, but nothing ever executes it full on. And then all that jack/Liz love stuff. But no one really ever goes there. I'm so excited. I wonder how often checking he site is too often? This is amazing. You guys are amazing. Please keep going, an even explore further. With 6 seasons of content to inspire care, there's just so much you coud do!!!! Thank you!

PS--listen to Jack's voice in season 3-- the bubble

[lattelover09]

Yeah...I'm too excited. I hope it's LONG and multi-parted! Who's with me?!

[lattelover09]

I can't take the suspense. I'm just saying.

[ohlala8]

"Flu Shot" is literally the only episode of 30 Rock I've ever seen. And this fic is still awesome. Therefore, the two of you are awesome as well.

[lattelover09]

I can't stop coming back to read this. I hope it's just the beginning!

[Anonymouse]

Sorry this took so long to post! Here's part 2.

---

They managed to escape from the building relatively unscathed. As soon as they entered the elevator Jack saw one of his colleagues rushing down the hallway and gesturing for him to keep the door open. Jack frantically mashed the “close doors” button, pretending he didn’t notice him. The last thing he needed was to be seen like this by someone who actually mattered.

Liz sniffled, unable to keep from leaning against Jack just a little; they were alone, after all, and she was dizzy. He didn’t seem to mind, engrossed as he was in watching the numbers change with glazed eyes as the elevator descended.

Once they were outside Liz shivered and drew her sweater a little tighter around her. She didn’t remember it being this cold this morning when she came into work. “Taxi!” she coughed, flinging a hand up and repeating the request a little louder when nobody seemed to stop.

Jack watched as the taxis continue to pass, despite Liz’s almost embarrassingly obvious attempts to flag one down. Any other day he would have found this amusing, but he was freezing, too, and wanted nothing more right now than to just go home. Stepping to the curb, he stuck an arm out and about five taxis nearly slammed into each other trying to stop for him. Too tired to look smug, he merely opened the door and gestured for Liz to enter the taxi closest to them before falling onto the seat beside her. He gave his address to the driver before slumping back against the seat with a miserable sniffle.

Liz leaned into the warmth of his body, her nose pinkening from the cold air and her excessive sniffling. “Do you want me to give him my address?” she asked, trying to keep from sounding stuffy. “I'll pay for the ride from mby house to y-yours… hhh...!”

He couldn't help but laugh at her offer, though it was more of a hoarse wheeze than a laugh. “You, pay? Lemon, I'm the head of—”

He stopped when he noticed that she seemed to be struggling with an oncoming sneeze. She rubbed her nose slowly with the back of her hand, her face contorting into an embarrassing pre-sneeze expression despite her efforts. Reaching down to open the front of his briefcase, Jack pulled out a spare handkerchief and handed it to her. “Here.”

The driver was looking at them expectantly in his rearview mirror, awaiting instructions on how to proceed. Jack shook his head. “Just take us to my place, please.”

He hesitated, then glanced at Lemon, who was bunching up the handkerchief against her nose. “If that's alright with you...” Even though he really didn't want to suffer alone in an empty house, he didn't want to kidnap Lemon and make her stay with him against her will.

“It's f-fide with m-me - hehhh... hh'mmphsh!” She stifled the sneeze in the handkerchief and gave a tiny moan, although she tried to disguise it as a cough. Dammit. Now her sinuses were getting in on the act; it looked like they were going to do that lightning-bolt-of-pain thing every time she stifled. “I'd rather dot slip od the floor and die in mby own apartbedt,” she admitted from behind the crisp, soft cotton. As long as he didn't make any jabs about her pathetic state, she supposed it would be tolerable.

The Lemon-slipping-or-fainting-and-concussing-herself scenario had occurred to Jack as a distinct possibility, as well as a thousand other things could have happened to her. If someone called her from the studio to tell her that Tracy was hijacking a plane or Jenna was whining that some sick person who didn't get a flu shot was getting more attention than her, he had no doubt that Lemon would feel obligated to return to work. She needed to rest, and he wanted to be around to make sure that she did. He looked out his window and tried to resist the urge to press his forehead against the cool glass. Drawing in a sudden, deep breath, he pitched forward against his seatbelt and muffled a “Ihmpf’schhh!” against his sleeve, unable to get his handkerchief up in time.

She felt his body shuddering next to hers with the force of the stifled sneeze, and she shivered, thinking about how good that must have felt. Her own sneezes always felt kind of... unsatisfying, like there were more to come, even when there was only one. That usually ended up with her rubbing her nose for a good ten minutes – at the thought, she gave her nose a rub through the handkerchief and coughed a little, glancing sideways at Jack and smirking slightly when she saw he had another sneeze coming on. “Gesundheit,” she said quietly, and perhaps a little preemptively.

“Thahhhahh— hhn’MPHSHH! Thahg you...”

He managed to get the handkerchief up this time and kept it clamped against his nose as he gave a series of short, strong blows. After he was all cleared out he lowered the balled-up fabric and leaned back with a sigh, his nose starting to look a little red and his eyes fogged over. He stayed that way, immobile, even when the taxi pulled in front of his house.

“$16.90,” the driver said, and with a start Jack realized he sounded so impatient because he'd said this twice already.

Fumbling for his wallet, he pulled out a twenty and handed it to the driver. “Keep the change.”

Liz smiled a little as Jack paid the pissed-off cabbie. This had to be the first time she'd seen him like this – apart from any incident involving Devin Banks and Don Geiss, that is. Then, he'd cried. Now, he was just sick. After the fare was paid, she slid out of the back seat and onto the sidewalk, shivering again and waiting for him to get out of the taxi as she dabbed the handkerchief against her nose.

He clambered out after her, nearly spilling the contents of his briefcase under the cab. Cursing softly under his breath, he slammed the door behind him and watched the taxi take off before turning towards Lemon. “I see that handkerchief is serving you well,” he said jokingly as he led the way to the entrance to his house. He'd tucked his own back in his pocket after folding it neatly.

“Yeah, it is,” she said, without being sarcastic, for once. “Thank you.”

She sniffed, following him into the house and rubbing her now-pink nose with the handkerchief. With the way she was dripping, she figured she was going to need it soon. Fucking flu - Dr. Spaceman had probably given her a placebo or something, since this was hitting her so hard that it had to be the real thing. Taking in a deep, ragged breath, she muffled an embarrassingly wet “Hihh'PSHH!” into the cloth and blew softly.

“Bless you,” he mumbled over his shoulder.

Opening the door, he held it and gestured for Lemon to precede him, though it was not so much out of politeness as an effort to distract her from the fact that he was about to sneeze. Pressing his fist against his nose, he sniffled a few times then sighed, having lost the urge, before following her inside. It was a lot warmer than it was outside, and he suddenly realized how exhausted he felt.

“You should really lie down,” Liz said, hoping she didn't sound rude or anything. She was just concerned. “I'll, uh...I can just nap on the couch. It looks comfortable.”

More comfortable than her own bed, in fact. She could probably sleep for hours on there. “Ihh'hihh... mmpsh!” She stifled into the handkerchief, which was getting seriously wet by now, and coughed.

“Bless you. I do have two guest rooms,” he informed her, "but if you'd prefer the couch, by all means, take it.”

Opening a cabinet in the hallway, he took out a few more handkerchiefs and brought them to her. “If you'd like to go the more proletarian route, there are tissue boxes in almost every room as well.” He wasn't too tired to give her a slight smirk, though even that seemed to take a lot out of him.

“Thank you– whoa.”

She took the handkerchiefs, then stumbled over absolutely nothing and had to catch her balance. Jack was taken by surprise, but he stepped forward instinctively to grab her arms and steady her. When it seemed she'd regained her balance he let go quickly, almost as if he were embarrassed “Crap,” she exclaimed raspily, stopping to muffle a coughing fit against a new handkerchief. “Maybe I would sleep better in one of the guest rooms.”

Shit, she was imposing, and she hated imposing, but she was so tired and dizzy and warm… did she have a fever? Probably. Undoubtedly, he did too.

“If you think that couch looks comfortable, you should see the guest beds,” he assured her, before pivoting suddenly to the side to suppress another “Hhihphtschhh!”against his handkerchief, followed by a groan. “Excuse be...”

Jack's voice was surprisingly cute when he was stuffy. “Bless you,” Liz said, struck by the sudden urge to feel his forehead – which she suppressed. “You, um, shouldn’t stifle those,” she said, referring to his sneezes. “It just gives me a sinus headache when I do it.”

“Thahngs for the advice,” he muttered against his handkerchief, turning away from her again to blow his nose.

“Woah…” She swayed again, throwing her arms out this time to keep her balance. “Wow, so, yeah. I better... lie down.”

“Yes, let be show you to your roomb...”

Jack tried to sniffle quietly but failed, instead giving a wet snuffle that made him cringe at how undignified he sounded. “You have your own bathroomb. If you need andything to drink there are some clean glasses by the sink. If you wandt andything else, just let me know. My roomb's downd the hall.”

He wasn't sure if he'd be able to sleep, though – he had a hard enough time sleeping when he was healthy, but it was almost impossible when he was ill. Once Lemon was settled he planned on sneaking back to the living room and watch TV on the couch.

Liz declined to make any comment about how stuffy he sounded; it just made her feel all melty inside and want to cuddle him – both because he was warm and probably a good snuggle buddy when he made the effort, and because he was sick. And she was sick, so the melty feeling was probably at least part fever. “Thanks a lot,” she said, this time putting her hand on his arm and squeezing it lightly. “For...being so generous.”

He smiled a little when she touched his arm, feeling his temperature rise another couple of degrees. “I’be only gedderous whend I'mb sick, and I pland on being healthy tomorrow, so enjoy it while it lasts.” He turned away to cough hoarsely, sounding out breath once he finished. Her hand was still on his arm, and he felt reluctant to leave her just yet. “Would you like be to read you a bedtimbe story? Perhaps 'The Little Endginde that Couldn't Because of a Lack of Federal Funding for Rail Trandsit'?”

“There's no need to be cruel,” she said, raising an eyebrow and turning away to muffle a few coughs of her own. “And since when are you in favor of federal funding for rail transit? I thought SUVs were more up your alley.”

Well, he did used to be more liberal, according to his old colleagues; if he were a little bit environmentalist, she would be just fine with that. “Hey,” she said in a softer voice, patting his arm again before removing her hand and yawning. “Sleep well, okay? Feel better soon. I need to – jeez.” She put her hand against the door frame to steady herself.

“I'mb dot leaving undtil I bake sure you get into the bed okay.” He wasn't afraid to let his concern show – he did care about her, after all – that was no secret.

“I can get into bed just fine. See?”

She smirked at him, then walked into the guest room, took off her glasses and her shoes, and crawled into the huge bed. It was just as comfortable as it looked. “Now go get some rest, Jack.”

“That's a good girl,” he said, smirking right back at her as she snuggled up under the comforter.

She looked almost... cute, all wrapped up in the blankets like that. Lemon wasn't as unattractive as he spent a great deal of his time trying to convince her she was, but he refused to admit that to himself, let alone out loud. His smirk softened into a genuine smile. “Goodnight, Lebbid.”

He closed the door slowly behind him, pressing his fist against his nose to keep it in check until he could make it down the hallway. When he was halfway to the living room he stopped abruptly, then bent double with a harsh “Hhr’MFFSCHHH! ” Straightening up, he waited a moment before proceeding towards the couch. He flopped down and turned on the television, keeping the volume down real low so he wouldn't disturb Lemon. It wasn't like he was actually interested in watching anything so much as just wanting to zone into the flashing screen, trying to keep his mind empty of those silly, feverish thoughts that were telling him to go back to the guest room and snuggle up next to Lemon.

[lattelover09]

Omg omg! It's finally up! Thank you so much! I hope she makes it down to the couch with him, or that she ends up in his bed. Love the detail! Love the caring aspect, and how it's out of the ordinary to see him in this state. CANNOT wait for more!

[lattelover09]

Betcha this is what Jack would sound like, (just like you described), season 3ish and all. And I know this is naive, but how does a role play work? What do you do, and what comes as a result? If it leads to this--success! (Hope there's more!)

[lattelover09]

I hope they're not ok in just one night. I hope they REALLY have an opportunity to get together and take care of each other for a while.

[lattelover09]

Is this story done? If it is, a sad farewell. If not, oh the anticipation!

[Masking]

As far as I know, we're not done - just busy.

[lattelover09]

I bumped this. Shameless. I know. But I had to.