Offer me something inside

A place to go, a place to hide

Offer me something inside

Charlotte's P.O.V.

I get along with him much better than I thought I would. I mean, granted, we got along on the plane pretty well, but we could talk about more than just passing subjects. It was nice. As I got him his coffee and myself my own, I saw him take a pill bottle out of his jacket.

"I hope you don't mind, I get headaches. I can take this with coffee." I smile.

"You're not the only one. I have type one diabetes, so I have to do a certain amount of math with every meal. I have to take shots of insulin with meals and glucose tablets in between." I head over to the kitchen counter and retrieve my insulin and my glucose tablets, even though I don't plan on taking those soon. I turn around and hold them up.

"Twins." I say, shaking the pill bottle. I sit down on my couch in front of the television, and invite him to sit down with me silently not before sticking the syringe in my mouth so I could have a free hand to pat the couch with my hand. He gingerly sits down and takes his medication with his coffee. After he sits, I carefully put a small shot full of insulin into my arm before consuming my coffee.

"Shall we begin?" I ask, still kind of weirded out that for once, I am watching television with someone other than myself. It's not a bad feeling, it's just kind of… new? Like when you move a piece of furniture or get a tooth removed and you can feel where it was and it doesn't bother you. It's just new. Was is a mistake inviting him in? Do I know him well enough to have him here? I mean, he doesn't seem like a serial killer. He doesn't seem weirded out or uncomfortable, he actually seems… what's the word? At home. Like he's comfortable with being here. I suddenly realize that I haven't had a houseguest in my life, and don't know how to handle one.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. Did you want cream or sugar? I don't really like to add anything to my coffee for taste and also the whole 'diabetic' thing."

"Uh, No cream. I'm lactose intolerant. I'll have some sugar, please." I got up and took his coffee back to the kitchen, recieving my sugar container from the cupboard underneath the sink.

"How much? And is regular sugar okay?" He looks over from the couch.

"Yeah, fine. And is six tablespoons too much?"

"Six?"

"Too much? If you don't want to, I can do whatever." I recoil in my head. I just made him feel bad about his coffee choices, didn't I? Have I become a Sloan?

"I mean, that's not bad. Coffee choices are a personal prerogative. Six is fine. I have no problem with it." I say, clinging on for dear life to the one and only houseguest I have ever and possibly will ever get.

"No, no. I get it. You should see the people I work with when we make our coffee in the morning. Even the barista at the coffee shop I go to thought I was joking the first time I actually ordered coffee. She asked me and everything. You're fine."

"Great. Six tablespoons of sugar coming up. If you keep this up, I could give you a free membership to the Diabetes club. Free of charge, seriously." What. The. Hell. Am. I. Saying. If I wasn't making him upset before, I am now. I most certainly definitely probably am now. To my surprise, instead of standing up and walking out the front door, he laughs.

"It's okay. Our meetings can consist of Star Wars marathons and gummy worms followed by insulin injections." Now, it's my turn to laugh.

"We can do Doctor Who night once every few weeks and order Jelly babies for the occasion."

"Perfect. Just keep downing the sugar with a side of coffee, Spencer." I say, finally finished with the sugar. As I walk over and hand it to him, he looks at the mug like it's the most delicious thing ever.

"I'll be there in no time." His smile reassures me that I'm not driving him away. It makes me happy. It reminds me of a puppy, or a child. It's a very happy smile.

We start watching a few episodes of season one. And then we watch more. and more. We take breaks between episodes. Myself to offer opinions and questions and observations on concepts, actors, and general aspects of the show. He always replies with more observations, fun facts, and answers. We go on like that for much, much longer than anticipated. We finish watching around nine o'clock in the morning. We look like animals that had been left in a cave for months, but we don't seem to care, and while our general amount of energy goes down as we watch, no matter how much coffee we drink, we never get tired of talking. It was only when we realize that we have been binge watching for over five hours that we decide to stop. I don't even know how many episodes it was after when we realize it. The sun peeks through the blindfolds in my kitchen window, casting itself across the linoleum floor of the kitchen and onto the fuzzy carpet of the floor in the living room, trailing its way up to our eyes.

"Is that…" I mutter, squinting as the window like it was something to be feared.

"Sunlight. That means that it's day. Morning." I laugh and cover my face to hide from the light.

"Doctor Reid?"

"Captain Wills?"

"Do you think it's possible that we let this get a little bit out of hand, Doctor Reid?"

"That is entirely possible and very likely, Captain Wills." He chuckles a little and rubs his face with both of his hands.

"Splendid." I say, finally standing up. My legs make sounds when I stand up that would make a bowl of rice crispies envious. I look back at the television. The preview screen is of a few Klingons speaking to each other.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"No, not at all. What is it?" I sit for a second, nodding at the Klingons on the television, finally taking in how sleep deprived I really am.

"So we have just watched," I pause, trying to remember how many episodes it was, but I can't remember. "a lot of Star Trek, and I could not gather a single word of Klingon. Not that it would be easy, but I figured after so many episodes I would start picking stuff up. You know, buzzwords. I, Me, It, You. Things like that." He looks like he's trying to hold in a smile, but I ignore it and go on.

"However, I couldn't pick up a single thing. Now, I know it sounds preposterous that I would try to do it, but it got me through, like, a year of high school french vocabulary. So, please explain to me how you were able to learn the language." He nods, finally standing up himself and stretching.

"You see, I didn't learn from the show. There was a book. My mother got it for me for Christmas a few years back. I read it and inadvertently taught myself. I have an eidetic memory, so I remember everything I read." I straighten up.

"That's really interesting. One second, my hair is just a mess." I jog to my room and grab my hairbrush and come back out right after. Spencer is looking at my bookshelf, skimming the titles at his eye level.

"Good poetry," He says, turning back when I return to the room. "I really enjoy Poe, too." I smile.

"I don't know, I just think his imagination was so under-credited. I mean, yes, he was dark and scary and a genius, but look at what he could think of.

"Right? Especially the Pit and the Pendulum. He came up with such an elaborate piece of machinery and yet explained it so clearly all the while making an effective metaphor for hell and… I'm sorry. I just get really carried away." He had just stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence. Like he was going to say something, and then he just… stopped. I hope it wasn't something I said.

"But yes, he was a genius." He says, looking back up at me from the ground.

"Takes one to know one." I raise my eyebrow, turning around and making my way back to my kitchen.

"Coffee?" I ask, opening the cupboard under the sink, retrieving the sugar already.

"No thanks, I should probably head back to my apartment. Not that I didn't enjoy this, I should probably change clothes and head to town. I need food and some other groceries." I smile, internally trying to brush off the feeling that he thinks I trapped him in my apartment.

"Sure." I say, putting the sugar away and pouring my own cup after. "Thanks for Netflix binging with me. I appreciate it. I'm sorry that it lasted so long, I had no clue it was going to go on." He leans on the island in the middle of the kitchen, throwing his hair out of his face.

"Don't be sorry. I had fun. It was great." I turn around and just smile, with my head turned. I could hear the sincerity laced in his words like a harmony in a symphony. Something pops into my head, like a tap on the shoulder.

"One second." I say, running back to my room to get my purse that I had thrown in my room. In my purse, I fished around until I found my notebook and pen. On a new page, I scribbled my number neatly enough for him to read it and signed my name beneath it. I fold it in half and walk back out to meet Spencer, who furrows his eyebrows and stares at me in confusion as I walk.

"Here. So we can schedule those meetings for the Diabetes club, and so you don't have to come up to my apartment if you want to talk to me." He smiles and puts my number into his pocket after looking at my number scribbled on the paper and shaking his head.

"Perfect. Thank you so much for the fun evening, Charlotte. I really enjoyed myself." He says. I open the door for him, hoping it doesn't look like I'm trying to get him out.

"No, no. Thank you for the company. I don't really get a lot. It was really nice." He looks back up at me just before he walks out.

"Anytime."

Spencer's P.O.V.

I walk down the hall, finally realizing how heavy the lack of sleep was on my eyes. Well, that and the fact that I've been looking at a television screen for the past five hours might have something to do with it.I really appreciate the fact that she gave me her number. I don't use my phone at all really, but it was a nice thing to do out of courtesy, and I will use it. And also, by giving me a way to get in touch with her expressly, she is communicating that she sincerely enjoys my presence and would like to be in it again. I press the elevator button and head down to my apartment. I know I said that I needed to run errands, and I'm not a liar. I do have errands to run, but now that I'm up and walking, I think I need to lay down. When I get to my apartment, I head back to my bedroom, clean and cold and dark. I grab the nearest blanket and lay down on the bed. I tell myself that it's only for a minute, two at best. Just to gain energy. However, before my conscious can interrupt, I'm falling asleep, content and at peace.

Charlotte's P.O.V.

I watch Spencer go down the hall and to the elevator before I turn back to my apartment. That felt… nice. Human contact outside of work. Not that I haven't had that- I've just had a minimal amount of it. I didn't really do friends in college, or in Elementary school. High school was a bit different. I had 'friends.' They were nice people. Mostly girls. We'd get together after school and go see movies and go to dinner. I never liked the movies they wanted to see. They always loved comedies, and I have no problem with them. I just never loved typical 'teen' movies. They all seemed so shallow. I told them I enjoyed the movie when the movie was over. I tried making friends with the kinds of people who liked what I liked, but most of them were boys. The only thing wrong with that was the fact that I was a girl, and they didn't take too kindly to girls. Do I know what my interest in Star Wars had to do with my genitals? Of course not. However, it somehow made all of the difference to them. I told my mom that I just preferred being alone in my room, doing what I liked alone. After some time, I genuinely did, out of necessity if nothing else. Whatever had just happened, the impromptu television marathon and fireside chats about whatever we watched. It was different than high school. It was like having another me to talk to. Except, this me was smart and funny and wasn't me. I think they call them friends. Yes. Today, Spencer not only made the second member of the Science Fiction Diabetes Club, but he became the first member of the Charlotte's Friend Society, and he doesn't even know that.

After he left, I decide to take some poetry off of the wall and lay down on the couch. Sleep is so compelling, but I know I need to try and stay awake until tonight so I'm not on some bizarre sleep schedule that I'm barely off of when I need to go back to work. Before I do so, I skim through my records and find a familiar album that would suit the poetry perfectly. Something light and not too distracting. The poetry? Poe would be a good pick, but I always pick Poe. I decide on Plath. I promise I don't just read dark things, I just like Plath. Halfway through my first poem. The first poem, my phone rings. I half expect it to be Spencer, testing the number to make sure he read it right, but no. I've saved this number in my phone. I don't block it out of fear that he would come to my house to make sure I was okay. I'll give you three guesses as to who it is. No warning texts, nothing. He made himself known as suddenly and loudly as possible. Now, no matter how much I absolutely hate the presence of Sloan, I hate the idea of hurting him. Wait. No, I really don't. However, I don't want to make it seem like I am mad at him. If I'm going to break away from this suckerfish, I need to peel it off very slowly until he doesn't even realize that he isn't attached anymore. I need to just keep declining and declining. Why? Because if he knows that I'm mad at him and I just come out with it in an instant, he will never leave me alone. He'll keep calling and apologizing, and if there's anything worse than Sloan, it is a Sloan who is desperate to be forgiven. If you forgive him for it to try to get him to leave you alone, he'll start texting and calling. Again. See? It's a vicious cycle. So the only way out of this terrible cycle, is to slowly start leaving until he doesn't want to look for you anymore. The only way to get him to go away is to endure.

"Hello?" I ask. I can't hear anything at first. All I can hear is heavy breathing. Heavy mouth breathing. His. I can't tell if he's just nervous or if he can't hear me because he doesn't have a signal.

"Hello?" Again, I ask. More mouth breathing. I stand up and move around. If I ask again and he just wants to breathe into my ear like a loon, he can do that, but I will hang up.

"Hello?" I finally ask. I am three seconds away from hanging up and turning my phone off when he actually says something. It's shaky and nervous. It's like I can hear him sweating over the phone.

"Y-you. Me. T-tonight. At Th-th-the Steel Crane. Eight. Meet me the- there. Wear somethin' n-n-nice." Before I can interrupt of object, he hangs up. I don't even know how to respond. To call or not to call? If I call, I have to talk to him some more. Maybe if I don't, and I don't show up, he'll realize that, what he just did, is not okay. Especially for how well we know each other. We don't. He didn't give me time to reply, and because of that, I just won't. I won't show up, either. I know he'll try to apologize, but that was so rude, and that is not an okay way to treat me.

I turn my phone off and throw it onto my bed. As I read Plath's words one after another, poem after poem, I feel some weird sort of ethereal to do what, I don't know. I end up staring at the wall, just thinking about whatever. Eventually, this thinking slows, and as the sun recedes closer to the horizon, my mind drifts closer to sleep. However, I was so far on my way, I reach sleep way before the sun meets the horizon.

When I wake up, I see that the sun has set. I wonder what time it is, also curious how far I am off of my original sleep schedule. It's pretty dark, so I'm assuming I'm pretty far off. I check the kitchen clock. It's eleven. Not as bad as it could be. But still not good. I pop a cup of ramen into the microwave and set it to cook while I go get my phone. I'm assuming any damage done by Sloan is over, and I can delete it and get it over with. Surprisingly, there is nothing. At all. I don't really understand, but I don't care. A few minutes after I turn my phone off, I actually get a text. At first, I assume Sloan didn't get the message and is trying to ask what happened, but it's a number I don't recognize.

Dear Charlotte,

Open your front door

From, Spencer.

I'm speechless for a moment. It makes me smile, but also a bit apprehensive. What is he planning? I head to the door and look through the peephole. I can't see anything, but I open the door anyways. There's something on the mat. It's a paper bag with my initials on it.

C.W.

I take it in my hand and carry it inside after looking both ways down the halls. I set it on the table in my kitchen and sit down. I put my hand inside the bag and pull out a book and a cassette tape. It's Star Trek: Conversational Klingon on cassette and Star Trek: The Klingon Dictionary. I smile and open the dictionary. There's a sticky note on the inside.

If you don't have something that can play cassettes, I can lend you something. Hope you enjoy. -Spencer

This made me happy, and warm on the inside. This was it, that final no questions confirmation that I had a friend. One that spoke Klingon, no less. He was a nerd, but he was kind. One that I definitely would love to keep. After that, It was a good night. I don't know if it was teaching myself Klingon words until I, again, fell asleep, or if it was the un-interruption from Sloan. Either way, whatever it was, it was a good night. After I read enough and before I fell asleep, I sent Spencer a text in return.

nuqneH. Qapla', spencer. :)

Thank you. Good Night, Spencer :)