It starts with movies because it always starts with movies.
Shirley's ex has drama that he needs her to fix, and even though she's his ex and not required to help, she's kind. So she helps him.
But then she has Elijah and Jordan, the two lights of her world. She leaves them with someone she can trust, someone she didn't realize she trusted so much until push came to shove. She picks someone who believes she's a good mother and supports her as she is.
She calls Abed.
He comes over with movies to entertain the boys, and he falls asleep on the sofa waiting for her to get home. She's been late because the drama with her ex, the good-for-nothing, was never ending. She first looks in on her boys and sees them both tucked away in bed as they should be. She silently thanks Abed as she walks through her house back to the sofa where he's sleeping.
She lightly brushes the hair on his temple, and he opens his eyes to her, pursing his lips into a smile. It's not a shining and glorious smile, but one of recognition and comfort. He's happy to see her, but closes his eyes to fall back asleep. So she leaves him there until morning.
The next time she needs help, Shirley dials Abed. She's armed with apologies, but he takes it in stride with that calm way he has where nothing bothers him and he does not judge. It makes it just a little easier for Shirley to get her crazy out.
That time, when she comes home late, he's awake and waiting. She can tell by the table that he's been studying. He gets up and makes her a cup of tea. He tells her that he learned how to do that from his father and that drinking tea is a good meditation when things go wrong.
Shirley knows that things have gone awfully wrong, and she needs a friend. It's hard being a single parent with no one to turn to at times.
Abed tells her that she's got him, and he puts his hand on hers. He looks at her with the same nonjudgmental sincerity he always has.
And she begins talking. She tells him everything as he makes her more tea. She pours her heart out until the early hours when it's so late that again he sleeps on her sofa.
The third time she needs help, she calls him and tries to laugh it off. Elijah and Jordan jump at the chance to see him again. Abed is always fun, they say. And he is. In his own strange, meta way.
Shirley realizes she likes spending time with Abed. She even mentions him at her Baptist church because even though she's a good, God-fearing baptist, she has a real Muslim for a friend. They're not all so bad, she says, and tells the others not to be so narrow-minded.
It's later, much later, when she realizes they've fallen into a pattern of spending time together outside the study group. Abed still spends time with Troy, but Troy also has a new girlfriend. Shirley doesn't know for sure who it is, but every once in a while she sees Britta sending him looks across the study room table.
That confuses her, though. The group is so messed up, and she thinks she really needs to pray for them. But they're not all bad. She thinks of Abed helping, coming to her home and being with her boys when she needs it, and that makes her smile.
She watches him sleep sometimes on her sofa, and when he wakes up and fixes his dark eyes on her, that makes her smile.
It's Pierce in his off the cuff remarks that makes her think on things like she never had before. The guys were going to do a guy only thing, and Annie and Britta were planning on doing a just the girls thing, just the two of them without her. She was feeling alone when Abed said he would not be joining the guys.
"I have a movie night planned with Shirley and her boys," he says.
"How come we're not invited?" Troy asks.
"Are you sleeping with her?" Pierce blusters in his distinctly Pierce way.
"Would it be so bad if he was?" she explodes. She can't stand feeling marginalized by her friends.
"It's just..." Britta starts. "You. And Abed..."
"I always thought if he was going to get together with anyone, it would be Troy," Annie says and gestures to the former jock.
"Hey!" Troy says indignantly. "I'm all about the ladies." He pulls Britta closer to him as if to prove his point.
"So you're all paired up except for me?" Pierce asks.
"It seems so," Abed replies, his hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
When the group disperses, Abed turns to Shirley and asks, "So are you ready to see the movie?"
"Abed," she says, averting her gaze, "You don't have to come over."
"I know, but I like spending time with you and Jordan and Elijah."
When she finally looks up at him, her face is bright with happiness. Wordlessly she clutches her ever-present large purse to one side, and holds her free arm out to him. He places his hand at her elbow, and they both leave the study room to head out to her mini-van.