A few hours later, at the alpha, Cobalt's work, a stack of papers fell out of his weak grip. As they scattered across the floor, a woman next to him giggled and started helping him pick them up.

“You okay?” she asked, handing him the ones she's picked up.

Looking dazed and tired, Cobalt nodded as he slowly picked up the other sheets. “Yeah. I just... Had some company over, and it was really draining.”

As they stood up, she handed him a sheet from her stack. “Can you finish this order?”

He looked at the page and scrunched his nose. “Why is the border all screwed up?” He exclaimed. The border was turned on a twelve degree angle sideways from the rest of the content.

“I know – I don't know what happened!”

“You must've hit something on the machine.” Cobalt sighed. “Yeah, I'll fix it.” And then he turned and started toward the copier with the stacks of papers. He rested his stack down onto the desk next to the machine, and then grabbed some scissors.

As he slowly started to trim the crap border off, the woman shuffled over to him. “Are you sick again?” she asked in a soft voice.

Cobalt shut his eyes. “No. I'm not. I just told you.”

“Yeah, but,” she gently took the sheet he was cutting from his hands. “You look like you've got a fever.”

He sighed, glaring at her. He plopped the scissors onto the machine.

“If we let you, you'll just stay and try to work through it.” She shook her head. “It's fine. You've got some sick time still. Head home.”

“But I'd really rather finish this.”

“It can wait til tomorrow. This order's not due until next week, and that one is next month.” She pointed to the one he'd placed by the machine. “Head home and sleep.” She paused, “And actually: sleep, Cobalt.”

He groaned a bit but nodded anyway. He wandered over to the manager's office and tapped on the open door softly before poking his head in. “Ash says I've got a fever and need to go home.”

The man sitting at the desk in a suit with a bunch of papers he was organizing into neat stacks, from neat stacks, looked up to him. “You do look flushed. Head home. Rest. Drink water. All that.”

Cobalt sighed. “I'm sorry.”

“Nah,” the manager waved his hand at him. “Go, go. We're all used to it now.”

Cobalt's brows furrowed as his shoulders slumped. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it. Missing you for a few days every two weeks is nothing. You do good work when you're here.” The manager waved at him. “Go home. Don't let the fever get out of hand.”

“Right... Thanks.” Cobalt sighed and left. He grabbed his bag, apologized again to the staff, and then grabbed his paycheck from the secondary office. Then he headed out.

Once he got close to his apartment, he stopped and carefully looked around to see if the king was anywhere nearby. With the coast clear, he shuffled over to his post box. He shuffled through for an empty envelope, stuffed in some bills of cash into the envelope, and closed it. He made sure to drop the envelope into Mrs. Kowalski's box, and then went to his apartment.

Once inside, he shut the door, locked it, and dropped his messanger bag to his side. He sighed, looking dazed ahead of him to the plants in the light across the way.

“I didn't even feel feverish earlier. Must've been distracted by my King.” He brushed his forehead with his palm. “Dang. I do feel hot.” He shut his eyes, and just slid his back against the front door and let gravity pull him to sitting on the floor. He snuggled his back against the door and groaned as he pulled his knees up to his chin to balance on.

“Just... a quick nap. Then I'll go to bed. Yeah... Just a nap.”