A/N: Hurrah, first WH13 fic! I'm about 3/4 of the way through the series right now and I have totally fallen in love - especially with Claudia. Hope you all enjoy!

Side by Side

Won't you let me match your stride?
I can slow down if you want to.
We can handle it side by side.
What do you say now, don't you want to?

"I'd Be Lying," Greg Laswell

The box was empty.

Panicking, Steve flipped it over and shook it, the cardboard rattling in his hands. Nothing. With a groan he fell back onto his bed, the empty box of Dayquil lying, forgotten, on the floor.

"Great," he mumbled, rubbing his hands over his eyes. His headache was already starting to come back, and, sniffing experimentally, he found that the congestion was too. He struggled back up to a sitting position, closing his eyes against the dizziness beginning to tug at his vision again.

He'd woken up three days ago with the beginnings of what had turned out to be the cold from hell. It was a rather unpleasant surprise; apparently the metronome didn't do a whole lot for ailments that weren't a threat to his life.

Steve wasn't sure if Claudia would feel his sickness like she would his injuries, but he wasn't about to wait and find out. Her use of the metronome, while keeping him alive, had linked the two of them so that she felt every bump and bruise, every scratch that he received. It was inconvenient at its best, and deadly at its worst. While on the metronome, Steve couldn't be killed, but Claudia sure as hell could.

So three days ago when he'd woken up sneezing, he'd started popping cold meds like his life had depended on it. They'd kept his symptoms at bay for the most part, but apparently the metronome had accelerated his metabolism enough that he burned through them four times faster than a normal person would. And now he was out, and the all-too-familiar sensation of guilt was back with a vengeance.

None of this was fair to Claudia. She played it cool, but Steve had seen the way she'd limped around when he'd banged his knee on a shelf doing inventory, and he couldn't help but remember the pain in her eyes when Alice Liddell had stabbed him through the shoulder. She was young and bright-spirited and had such a glorious future ahead of her. It wasn't fair that she was now tied to him, an agent who had rightfully died in the field and had done nothing to warrant a resurrection.

A hot, prickling sensation in his nose distracted him from his guilt spiral, and he ducked his head into his elbow to catch a harsh sneeze. "huh'RASSSH'uh." He sniffled and wriggled his nose experimentally, trying to dislodge the tickle. No luck. "AESSCH'uh."

He was blowing his nose and trying to make his ears pop when someone knocked on his door. He quickly shoved the handkerchief back into his pocket and cleared his throat before calling, "It's open."

Claudia let herself in with a flourish and tossed him a dossier. "Gooood morning, Jinksy!" He leaped for the folder and missed, and she snorted. "Nice work. Hopefully you'll be a little sharper in the field today."

Steve's heart sank. "We're going out into the field?"

"Yupperoni! Not too far, just over to Featherhead. The whole town's been out of power for a week now, and Artie wants us to check it out."

Steve raised an eyebrow as he paged through the dossier. "A power outage? That's what we're checking out?"

"Oh come on, don't be all elitist, Mister ATF," Claudia scoffed, plopping down onto the bed next to him. "I'm sure there will be something sufficiently artifact-y once we get there." She jostled him with her shoulder.

He sighed. "All right. I can pack and be ready to go in half an hour."

"Marvelous. I'll ready the car." Claudia got to her feet and was halfway to the door when she stopped, a look of vague confusion crossing her face. Steve had opened his mouth to ask what was wrong when she took a deep, shuddering breath and bent forward with a powerful "hupt'CHOO!" She straightened, shaking her head like a dog coming out of water. "Whew, sorry, no idea where that came from."

"Bless you." Steve swallowed. "I — I haven't cleaned in here lately."

"Hup'CHUH! Damn." Claudia scrubbed at her nose with the side of her hand. "That'd be it, dust always makes me sneezy." She sniffed hard, then cleared her throat. "Right then. I'm going to go blow my nose and let you pack, and then we can head out."

Steve heard her sneeze again in the hallway, followed by a "Bless you!" from Myka's room, and he dropped his head to his hands with a groan. It was going to be a long day.

Featherhead was a false artifact-alarm, as Steve had suggested, and it took the two agents more time to track down someone willing to talk to them than to fix the problem itself. Turned out that the power grid was buggy — literally. Claudia had gone in armed with pliers, a retrieval bag, and a welding mask but had only found a handful of spiders and some unlucky caterpillars that had gotten fried in the circuits.

"Girl genius: 1, icky crawly things: 0," she muttered, giving herself a mental high five before crawling back out of the low-ceilinged closet housing the entire town's power grid. In an uncharacteristic show of impatience, Steve had gone to call Artie and bring the car around so they could be on their way back to the Warehouse.

Something's up with him today, Claudia mused, pausing to comb the spiderwebs out of her hair. He's all…twitchy. Speaking of twitchy — "hh'CHOO!" The sneeze caught her unawares, giving her no time to cover it. Her sneezes had always been loud and aggressive — a bit like her, she acknowledged — and generally came alone, unless she was catching something or had gotten into some dust. (Artie had finally taken her off shelf-cleaning duty when one too many of her impromptu sneezing fits had ended in an artifact disturbance.)

Today, though…"ahh — hiih — ugh." She swore under her breath as she felt the sneeze slow to a halt somewhere deep in her sinuses, fluttering like a trapped bird and sending little shock waves of irritation through the rest of her nasal passages. She sniffed, pinching her nostrils roughly between index finger and thumb in an attempt to massage away the itch. But to no avail.

Eyes watering and breath hitching, Claudia spun to take stock of her surroundings. A small, cramped storage closet carpeted with yards of tangled wires. It had to be dusty in here somewhere.

She stumbled through the wires as she made her way to the back of the room, looking for — ah, a corner shelf. Gritting her teeth, she closed her eyes and blew.

The thin layer of dust coating the surface exploded into motion, swirling through the air in a cloud like a swarm of tiny locusts. Claudia's breath instantly caught, and she brought her hands quickly to her face.

"h'AHH'chh — hpt'CHOO — mmptchh, hhp'chh'OO! Ugh, fugk." She sniffled thickly, pulling her hands from her face and shaking them in disgust. Gross.

She was heading back towards the main hallway when, like an echo, she heard a series of harsh masculine sneezes. She turned the corner to see Steve, leaning against the wall with his face buried in a handkerchief.

"Bless you!" Claudia greeted him, surprised. "God, I don't think I've ever seen you sneeze before."

Steve's cheeks were red as he shoved the wrinkled cloth back into his coat pocket. "Well, believe it or not I am still human," he snapped. Claudia was taken aback.

"Whoa, sorry, too soon," she said, throwing up her hands in apology. "I guess that explains why I've been sneezing up a storm then. Made hunting the bugs a little tricky when I couldn't see straight."

"You — what?" His brow furrowed. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah." Claudia flapped a hand at him. "I don't think I can actually 'catch sneezes' from you anyway; I'll be fine once we're out of here." She offered her partner her arm, like she was escorting him to a ball. He took it, and she could feel the stiffness in his posture. Swallowing down a flash of concern — I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't be mad at me — she wove their arms together and tipped an imaginary top hat. "Shall we, then?"

The drive back to Univille was painful. Overcome with a sudden, unexplainable exhaustion, Claudia tried to curl up in the passenger seat, but every time she was close to falling asleep her head would begin aching, or her nose would run and she'd have to wipe it on her shirtsleeve because they were driving Pete's car and the only thing close to a tissue was a napkin with ancient taco sauce smeared across it.

She finally managed to drift into a light slumber about an hour into the trip, snoring gently with her face smooshed against the window. Steve normally would have smiled at the sight, or pulled over to take a picture and save it for blackmail, but he too was feeling the effects of their shared cold. His head felt thick and fuzzy, and he could no longer breathe through his nose. Claudia, amazingly enough, hadn't said anything about his silence today, and it made him even more worried about her. She was clearly succumbing to the illness that he'd been hiding beneath layers of medication, and it was hitting her hard and fast.

When she began to whimper in her sleep, shifting restlessly, Steve made an executive decision. He flipped open the Farnsworth and propped it carefully against the wheel, keeping his eyes open for cops on the highway.

"Steve?" Myka's face materialized, her curls tied back in a bandana. "Did you all get the artifact?"

"There wasn't one, but we took care of the power outage. Featherhead owes us a contractor's fee," he replied, taking care to keep his voice low. Claudia tended to sleep like a rock, but he didn't want to take any chances. "We're heading home."

Myka tilted her head. "Are you all right? You look a little…rough."

"Thanks." Steve rolled his eyes. "I'm okay, it's Claudia I'm worried about."

"Why? Is she okay?" Pete's head poked into view, shoving Myka to the side so the two of them were framed by the screen. Steve sighed.

"She's sick, looks like the beginning of a bad headcold." Funny that he knew exactly how bad. "It's taken her down pretty fast."

"Is she —?"

"She's sleeping, but…well, you know how she gets when she's sick."

Myka made a face. The last time Claudia was ill she had had such vivid nightmares that she couldn't sleep without someone in the room with her. Myka had taken the bulk of the shifts, spending hours tucked into an armchair in the corner of Claudia's room, reading her favorite novels aloud.

"Poor thing. I'll get Leena to put some soup on the stove, and I'll grab some more blankets for her bed." Myka disappeared off the screen, leaving Pete, who was looking mildly uncomfortable.

"Soooo what should I do?"

"Go to the drug store and get some cold medicine!" Myka yelled from offscreen. He flashed her a thumbs-up.

"Got it. Thanks for the heads up, man. We'll see you soon."

Steve closed the Farnsworth and set it back on the dashboard, then glanced over at Claudia. Her eyes were screwed shut as her lips moved silently in her sleep, too blurred for him to make out the words. He sighed and rolled his shoulders, letting his gaze drift back to the road. At least she'd be okay. He could suffer on his own.

A/N: Nooo Steve don't feel guilty! Poor bud. Let me know what y'all think!