Another Knock

It seems that every time someone knocks on my door, my life gets shaken up a bit more.  And now, it's happened again.

In the middle of the night (or rather, the morning), I was woken up again by a rap on my door.  It was Poe.  Now, let me explain something for a moment here: I haven't been talking to Poe much recently.  I've assumed that she wanted a bit of time alone to mourn Caper's death.  She ended up getting a new partner who's kind of...not the most pleasant guy, and I've really been worried for her, but I assumed that if she wanted to talk to me, she'd let me know.

Well, last night, she did.  She showed up at my door, sobbing.  Asked if she could come in.  I nodded and opened the door for her, and she just stood in the middle of the room for a while, not saying anything, just kind of...stunned.  Not sitting, not moving, just...standing there.  And then she started to try to speak, and through the tears, it was all just this incoherent babbling that I couldn't understand a word of.  I led her to the couch and sat down with her, and she started to calm down some.  "I'm sorry," she finally said.  "Can I stay here tonight?  I...I just don't want to be alone anymore."

Naturally, I couldn't just turn her down.  So I told her to let me grab a blanket and pillow for the couch so she could take the bed.  She didn't actually want to take the bed at first, but I insisted.  I mean, she's been under such stress lately.  She needs a good night's sleep more than anyone, and she didn't need to be spending the night tossing and turning on the sleeper couch.  After a bit of convincing, she finally gave.

So there I am, sleeping on the couch, just about asleep, when I feel the bed give under me as someone climbs onto it on the other side.  A second later, I feel a back pressed against mine.  "I thought I told you to take the bed," I told her.  All she said was "Sorry."  She didn't move, didn't say anything else the rest of the night.  Just said "sorry" and then stayed there.

I woke up before she did.  Got ready to greet the day.  Probably would have made her breakfast of some sort to cheer her up if I had the skill to cook anything more complex than ramen.  I did have some oatmeal, though, so I was at least able to provide a hot breakfast.  Anyway, I showed her the post about Jacob and told her that we could probably work on convincing him to let her change roommates.  We're working through that now.  Don't know yet if I'm going to end up with Screwtape or Poe, but Poe keeps saying that she'd probably feel more comfortable around me than Nee-chan, so let's hope things work out that way.

-Don't Shoot The Messenger-