If she'd have been feeling better, he would have teasingly thumped her in the arm for the mango tea commentary, but as for now, he just shook his head again. She really could be such a brat sometimes. And he did, very well, know about her feeling on cut flowers. "Perhaps I was going to bring you a flowering plant, wife," he said, raising his eyebrows. "That would also qualify as flowers. But if you want basil, I'll buy it for you, too." He'd gotten quite creative over the years, bringing her bouquets of lovely things that had nothing to do with slow moving death of something beautiful. His favorite had been the roses he'd had a friend fashion from paper. That had taken months to get together, because each rose was from a letter he wrote her, so just glancing at them, you could see little touches of his feeling for her. 'I love you' here, and 'amazing woman' there, and 'the way your hair falls around your shoulders' if you followed that one line from the tip of the petal on down. He'd learned how to romance her early, and he'd done it often and well.
He frowned a touch. "I'm not going to yell at you, Nic. I'm pretty sure you're beating yourself up enough for not only me, but for Hudson and everyone else who loves you as well. So I feel no need to yell, or even talk about it overmuch. You're sick, and I'll nurse you back to health, and I'll remind you a thousand times how much I love you and how none of what happened at the campus is at all your fault. And while I'm doing that, I'll allow you to fuss over me and tell me that I did all I could, and that I'm not at fault for not having brought Drew back from the dead. Eventually, we may even start believing each other, and when that happens, maybe we'll both start actually feeling better. All I know is that I refuse to fight anymore, and I'm sorry that we did." He covered her hand with his own and wrapped their fingers together. It was as peaceful as they'd been together in days, and he was grateful for it. "Just be glad I didn't call Mum and have her yell at you for not taking care of yourself," he said lightly. He knew as well as she did that Sorcha would have been on the next plane to New Orleans if she thought Nicola was doing poorly.