A week or two passed. Bill wasn't so sure—his perception of time wasn't exactly the best, even though he had several calendars and clocks stored away in the boxes he'd been too lazy to unpack. Instead he had been using the packages as chairs and tables when he needed them. But most of the time he just sat and slept on the floor.

He wished he could use his spare time to practice magic, but Pep had been keeping a pretty close eye on him ever since the hospital allowed him to leave. It was like she had eyes planted all over his house—maybe it was womanly instinct, but whenever he did something out of line, she seemed to know about it. So he kept his magical practices to a minimum and spent his time reading his parent's old geography books, instead. He especially took a liking to the pyramids. The way the sun shone off them and made them glimmer with golden yellow light, much like his eyes...eye.

He felt where his other eye used to be with his hand. He'd traded in the bandage for a black eye patch, and though it made him look wicked cool, he disliked feeling blind on one side. Maybe if he had time he could look for a spell to fix his eye. It was unlikely such magic existed, but he could hope.

Every day after Pep came home from her job at the Copy Shop, she would come over and talk to Bill for a few minutes or so. With the little bits of information he gathered about her every day, he found her to be quite a rare person. For one thing, she had red hair, but blue eyes to pair with it. He'd read somewhere once that was the rarest combination of hair and eye color in the world, so in a literal sense, that was one way she was rare. But her personality and eagerness to care for other people was also something that made her rare. Bill was pretty sure she'd never been a parent, but there was something a little motherly about her.

That day when Pep came to knock on the door, Bill was in an unusual position against the wall. He was laying down, but his legs were up resting on the wall in an awkward position. He held a geography book pretty close to his face and did nothing but look at the pictures. When he didn't answer the door, Pep let herself in.

"Bill? Are you here?" She called. Bill suddenly realized she'd never actually been inside his house.

"Yeah, I'm here," Bill called back. He continued looking at the pictures in the book, and it seemed to be getting closer and closer to his face with each page he turned.

Pep entered the room and sat down next to him with her back against the wall. She had a purse slung over her shoulder and a ring of keys was jingling in her hand. "You haven't unpacked yet?"

"I grab things as I need them," Bill said simply. He'd have thought she'd noticed that he hadn't unpacked by now, what with her watching him like a hawk and all. He finally flipped to the last page in the book and slammed it shut.

"You need to get out more," Pep said. "Do you even have any food around here?" She got up and headed towards the kitchen.

"Some," he said, moving to a sitting position awkwardly and grabbing his crutches from the ground. Pep carried a box of crackers and a can of tuna into the room.

"Yeah, 'some'," she said. "Do you have any money, Bill?"

"Yeah, I got a lot of money," Bill said. "Most of it's in the bank. But I inherited a lot from my parents. How do you think I could afford this house?"

Pep looked stunned for a second. "Okay, grab some cash. We're going shopping."

Bill wasn't very happy. Shopping wasn't his "thing". It might have been if his mom actually took him shopping as a child, but he hadn't grown up with it. So now he was in the front seat of Pep's car, frowning.

Bill wondered if Pep saw him as a friend or just a little kid that needed to be taken care of. Because of her attitude, he just assumed it'd be the latter. He wasn't that young. 17 was old enough to be living on his own. But he didn't even have a driver's license yet, and he was accident prone enough to need a parent or guardian to watch him.

"So, Bill, what's your favorite food?" Pep asked, on the car ride there.

"Dunno," Bill said. The rest of the ride was uncomfortably silent.

When they pulled into the supermarket parking lot, Pep got out first and handed Bill his crutches. They walked into the store, got a cart, and started shopping...with great difficulty. Bill wanted everything from every section and every shelf, while Pep was insistent on only buying what he really needed. In the end they bought a few luxuries, but mostly healthy foods. Bill paid for everything, of course, and even bought Pep some dark chocolate because she'd commented that she loved the stuff.

"Y'know Pep," Bill said, as they walked out of the store. "You're a rare person. Thanks."

"No problem," Pep said, but the way she said it, Bill knew he had been a problem for her. He wanted to make it up to her somehow, but any attempt at it would probably look pretty stupid from her point of view. He frowned again.

He'd make it up to this rare female somehow.