With bloodshot eyes, Madeline read the line in the text for the fourteenth time. Her eyes were dry and raw and she tried to blink them both to regain some moisture and to get ride of the fuzziness threatening to overwhelm them. As she stared at the line again, still uncomprehending, her eyes went unfocused and then slowly began to droop. The lead weight of her head slowly fell forward toward the table until her cheek rested on the offending pages of the book that she was attempting to read. She was so frustrated with all this work. None of it appeared to be paying off. She didn't understand anything better than she had before she took the class. Was there something wrong with her that made it more difficult for her to understand? She wasn't certain. The only thing that was certain is that the whole ordeal was making her depressed. Maybe she should just take something to help ease her to sleep and then not bother waking up for class... or ever again. But maybe that could wait. The textbook was such a nice pillow at the moment anyway...

"Mattie! I found you!"

Madeline shot straight up so fast that her spine cracked and she gasped in pain. She wasn't sleeping. She had to study. This book wasn't going to read and understand itself!

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Gilbert knelt down in front of her face and rested his palm on her cheek. She leaned into it, grateful for both the comfort it lent to her and the human contact that she had been avoiding in favor of late nights at the library, like the one she was currently having. "I have three things that are going to happen for you. You have no choice in the matter. Got it?"

"But—" Madeline began, her forehead creasing, eyes going wider than they had made it in hours with sheer panic crossing the threshold of her face.

"No buts." Gilbert cut her off, moving his hand to press a finger lightly to her lips. "You're going to do these things, okay?" He looked intensely into her eyes, trying to send a beam of trustworthiness from his eyes to her own, letting her know that he would never do anything that wasn't for her own good.

Slowly, Madeline nodded her head, a strand of hair falling forward into her face. It had been awhile since she had given it a trim and the hair was trying to frame her face, accentuating her feminine fingers, against the will of the makeup she slathered on her face every morning.

"Good. Actually, make that four things." He gently pushed the lock from her forehead before pressing his lips lightly against the uncovered skin, which furrowed under adding a new demand to the list. "The one I just added is that you need a haircut. You look like a girl. I could do it for you, if you want."

"No, it's fine." A slight smile attempted to sneak onto Madeline's lips for the first time in months. "I'll cut it myself. What's the next one?"

Gilbert smiled, glad that she was going along with this. "Okay. My next thing is that immediately following this conversation, you are going to put away your things, stop studying and go to bed. I don't care if you sleep in your own dorm room or mine, but you are finding a bed and sleeping in it. Got it?"

His face was stern and it was obvious to Madeline that there was no was he was going to budge of this. With a sigh, she nodded. "Can I have my own condition on that one?"

"That depends on what it is."

"Will you stay with me tonight? Maybe it will stave off the nightmares of textbooks being literally crammed into my skull."

"Of course I will stay with you. I've been wanting to every night." He pulled her into a tight embrace. "Which brings me to my next thing. You have lost too much weight. It's not like you were a big guy to begin with. So, for the next week, you will join me for every meal—that's breakfast, lunch and dinner. No skipping. And you will eat at every one of them." He stopped and thought for a moment. "And at least one of them will be balanced. Y'know, fruits, veggies, the whole deal."

"That sounds nice, but I don't want to get anything on my books..."

"Oh, that won't matter, because you're not going to be studying. You need breaks. It's good for you and helps absorb information better."

"Where'd you learn that?" Madeline didn't believe it for a second.

"It doesn't matter. No books."

Madeline huffed. At least now if she failed, she would have someone to blame it on.

"No books?" Gilbert reaffirmed.

"Fine, no books."

"Alright, good. My last requirement is that at the end of the week, you're going to finally fulfill your promise to have a hockey match with me! I've already got teams." He looked at her, beaming from ear to ear, so proud to have remembered that little detail, and then to have gone and actually made a plan of action?! It was perfect!

"I don't remember that promise!"

"It was way at the beginning of last semester, before we dated and stuff."

"I still don't remember."

"Please just do it for me?" His eyes got wider and somehow seemed to sparkle as his lower lip jutted itself out, showing black marks amongst the pink of his skin.

"Fine, fine." Madeline looked away from the puppy dog face, but the curiosity for what was on his lip stuck with her.

"Good. Because all the sitting around you've been doing to study is bound to have given you muscle deterioration. I want you strong and healthy." He winked at her and she couldn't fight the blush that bloomed over her cheeks.

"W-well, I'll do it if you tell me one thing."

"Of course. Anything." He leaned forward, curious to know just what she could want from him.

"What was that on your lip?"

"My lip?"

"Yeah, when you stuck it out, there was black..."

"Oh! Ja, that's my tattoo. It says 'life' in German." He pulled down his lip and stretched it out so that she could see the neat little black letters with their saliva shine.

"I never new you had a tattoo..."

His mouth tried to smile, so he had to let his lip go so that it could. "You never asked."

Madeline pushed him playfully, feeling a bit better already, now that she'd had some contact with another life form outside of the classroom. Gilbert laughed and let himself fall backward onto the ground, even though the push had barely been anything.

Madeline smiled and moved to the ground next to him. "So... what made you get it...?"

"Truthfully?" Gilbert licked his lips. He was fine with the story now, but other people got upset when he told it... But Matthew did ask him after all, and the two were dating... "When I was younger, I tried to kill myself. It didn't succeed, and afterward, Lutz basically became my therapist. It was hard coming up from that, but I did. And now to remind myself whenever I get down about life, I have this tattoo to remind myself that life is worth living. Especially now." He looked straight into her eyes, the meaning of his words all to plain in the space between them, pulling another blush up from Madeline's cheeks. He leaned in and kissed her sweetly, having missed those lips.

"Excuse me." The librarian walked up to them and they pulled apart immediately. "Library's closed."

"Ja, ja, we're going. Don't harass us." Gilbert rolled his eyes, got to his feet and then helped up Madeline. He grabbed her books before she even had a chance, then took her hand and headed out. "Now let's get you some sleep."

Madeline nodded and they made their way to the dorms for some much needed rest.

A/N: Creative juices flowing! Yay! Also, I thought Gilbert with a tattoo would be hot. :)