Sweet Nothings for the Mercedes Benz

[Charlie]

Charlie knocked softly on Mercedes door, and getting no reply, figured she was asleep. It was 2 in the morning. He slipped the door open enough to slip in quietly, and leave a crisply folded crane oragami on her desk and slipping back out.

Sure it was a little late to be saying sorry for throwing clean socks all over her room. That, and pretending to jerk off so she wouldn't tackle him to the ground and stab him with the freshly sharpened pencils on his desk. But he did feel like some form of apology was needed for starting the war.

Charlie snuck back into his room and laid back in his twin sized bed. At almost 6 feet tall, his feet were just on the edge of the bed, dangerously close to dangling. His blanket, however, ended at his ankles. Whoever thought up this idea was out of their minds, he thought. Then laughed.

They probably were. He knocked lightly on the wall above his head and mumbled " 'Night Mercedes Benz" before going to sleep

[Mercedes Langstrom]

MErcedes woke with a start, her eyes straining against the dark, her body stiff as a board. Something was wrong, very very wrong. She swung her legs over the bed and let them dangle as she tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness that engulfed her. The small amount of light that spilled under the crack of the door was not enough to show her what had changed. Now more then ever she wished that the rooms had light switches, but that would never happen. No one was suppose to be up in the middle of the night, they made sure of it with sleeping pills before bed every night. But Mercedes, oh tricky girl had the last months worth of meds stashed in the hole under her mattress.

This small task allowed her to think and feel for herself. She was able to sleep when she was tired, wake up when she wasn't. It also allowed her to carry emotions. To be mad when something pissed her off. Like a shower of Charlie's socks on her floor. Or to be content, like when her and Charlie watched M*A*S*H re-runs in the Rec room on Friday nights. Yes it was sad that those small things could change her moods so drastically but what do you expect from her. Her world was small, she was a goldfish and the Attendings controlled her world, her very small, low impact world.

Her feet hit that cold tile floor causing her to curl her toes before placing them flat on the floor and walking toward her desk. She let her hands run over the clean surface searching for that one item that was throwing her off. Her fingers ran lightly over the pens she had alined in the top right hand corner of the desk, the composition not book she had pushed toward top and dead center. Inch by inch she searched her desk until she found the culprit. With delicate fingers she plucked the small object from the desk and walked over to her door and laid belly down careful to not smash the foreign object. As soon as the light spilled over the gift her lips formed a small smile. A paper crane.

Quickly she jumped up walking back to her desk her free hand roaming over it until she reached the upper left corner and gently placed the crane down making sure it was evenly spaced between the edge on both sides. After a considerable amount of time shifting the paper one hundredth of a centimeter to the left then back. Then up then back she was satisfied. There it would stay. Her hands trailed to the desk once again but quickly found the drawer that held the small pieces of brightly colored paper. Six blue, six red, six yellow, and six green. She plucked one of the green ones from the stack and quickly folded the paper as she walked to her door.

She had to blink a few times to adjust her eyes to the blazing light in the hall. The florescent lights that hung every foot or two lit the hallway so well there was never a shadow to be seen. As she leaned her head out of the door her eyes scanned the corridor making sure she was between bed checks before slipping out into the light. A second later she was plunged back into darkness and was blind. But it didn't matter, she knew Charlie's room as well as she knew her own. Hours of laying on someone's bed watching him fix the collection your just knocked over with a sneeze could do that to ya. Quickly she reached his desk her fingers running over the collection of stolen nick nacks he hand until at last she found a spot between the McDonalds plastic barbie toy and the sacred air freshener. She placed the frog down taking just as much care to space it as she had with her crane.

[Charlie]

Charlie woke the next morning, immediately knowing that something was odd in his room. He looked around, trying to see what was off. There weren't socks on the floor, everything was stacked, his collection was neat and in order. And then he saw it. The little green frog sitting between the Air freshener and American Pride barbie he 'collected' from McDonalds. The restaurant, not to be confused with Jack/Denny, the weird one. Charlie shivered, rubbing his arm where he'd been rudely forked on their last encounter.

Charlie stood, picking up the frog and putting it on the window sill, admiring it. He turned, looking at the Marilyn Monroe wall clock, and saw it was just passed ten. They would be done with breakfast by now, so he pulled out the travel sized bunson burner he had in a backpack, his special frying pan, and tucked them under a pair of jeans and a book. Walking down the hall in his crisp blue plaid pajamas, he walked to the kitchen, pushing through the doors when no one was looking.

Charlie looked around the fatefully empty kitchen. The staff must be on a break, he thought as he picked up a some eggs, a zip lock baggie of bacon, water bottle, flour, butter, and two small containers of milk. Walking back out, he went and grabbed two glasses of left over orange juice, and walked out. He smiled, knowing no one had seen him leaving.

He knocked on the dear Mercedes door, and with no reply, opened it. She was laying on her side, mouth slightly open and a thin creek of drool on the pillow. He laughed quietly, seting up at the foot of her bed. Cracking open the eggs in the mixing bowl he collected from his last girlfriend, he added the milk, flour and stirred. He poured the mixture into the pan, as it had separate sections that formed the batter into hearts. he smiled, watching the batter cook before flipping the sections. He cracked open two more eggs, and cooked them in the other two small heart containers, making two perfectly done sunny side up eggs. He plated them on paper plates he kept in the back of his closet for occations like this.

Smiling, he removed the heart shaped sections, and added the bacon, watching it quickly crisp. he flipped them, watching them shrink up as they got closer to being done. He looked up, seeing her shift positions. But alas, the fair maiden was still asleep. He laughed at his last thought, pulling the bacon out of the pan and onto the plates. he set up the plates next to her bed, and sitting on the edge carefully, he rubbed her shoulder gently. When that didn't work, he poked her cheek. twice. To no avail. He sighed, hoping the breakfast would smooth things over enough, and licked up her cheek, watching her shoot straight up and wipe off the side of her face.

All Charlie could do was smile nicely and hold out the food to her.