Who Else
She notices, little by little, piece by piece, that he is acting differently today. It is nothing that she would have picked up on if it weren't for her almost flawless memory and the sheer amount of time she has spent watching him by now- she has, over time, formed a reasonably three-dimensional image of him in her head- but it gradually occurs to her now, looking thoughtfully at him from behind her desk, that he has begun to act in a way that differs from this image.
For a start, he has been frowning more. She knows from experience that he tends by nature to frown often, whenever he is annoyed or concentrating hard, and it is not unusual for his brows to dip a little lower and together when he is studying- as he has been doing all day- but she notices that even when he is resting, or walking between the bookcases, the expression remains on his face.
Sneaking looks at him around the piles of books that are heaped high upon both his desk and hers, she sees that he has also been letting his concentration slip more often that normal, sitting up and leaning back in his chair for a few seconds at a time, eyes closed and expression weary and discontented- and that when he does so, he rests his right hand upon the table and raises the left to his face, rubbing his temples and forehead restlessly.
Soon he gets up once more, and disappears behind one of the bookcases in search of more research material. She too stands, leaving the room for a moment to fetch what she now knows she needs to.
She has been settled back at her desk for a while before he returns to where he has been studying, a pile of fresh books under his arm.
He stops short, and the frown drops off his face to be replaced with a look of surprise as he sees the glass of water and two painkillers waiting on the table for him. "What-"
"For your headache," she says without looking up from her novel.
He glances at her, startled. "How did you-"
She looks up then, smiling at him over the pages of her book. "I have to keep an eye on you, Edward. After all, if I don't look after you when you're in here, who else will?
Author's notes: I have recently decided that Ed/Scieszka is teh love. This series aims to illustrate that. X3