First Laugh

The morning light needled through the gray storm clouds in the sky over the Berkley campus. Puddles from the recent rain shower left the sidewalks glittering like mercury in the weak sunlight.

Trudy Ellison paused to stretch and catch her breath at the top of a hill, admiring the view, wishing she had her poetry notebook with her. Something about the ephemeral nature of the weather just begged to be memorialized. A million brilliant, shining moments flitting across the shadowed surface of life without being noticed, so many details unseen, and Trudy hated to think of all that beauty going unappreciated. She'd lost too many good and beautiful things to time already.

A cool breeze ran down her back, toying with a loose curl of blonde hair that had escaped her ponytail and raising goosebumps. Shivering, Trudy set off once again on her jog, the wet thuds of her feet on the pavement providing the rhythm for her musings.

Arriving at her apartment building, Trudy slowed to wipe her feet on the mat to avoid slipping on the tile floors inside. She retrieved her keys from her pocket and made her way to the door of her dorm room, where she was surprised to hear her phone ringing. She hurried inside, where a glance at her clock revealed the time was six o'clock exactly. Trudy picked up the receiver.

"Hello?" Her greeting came out more like a question. Who would be calling her this early in the morning on a Saturday?

"Hello," a voice replied. Male. Uncertain. "This is Adrian… Monk." A pause. Trudy's mind flashed back to the shy boy with the burning eyes in the library the night before. The voice—Adrian Monk's voice—continued, "You probably don't remember me—"

"Oh, no, Adrian, I remember you!" Trudy said, smiling.

Her stomach fluttered as she recalled the thin young man. The library books had been in piles around them, uncatalogued, disordered, in the middle of a big move. But he had turned immediately to the one stack of books in hundreds that had contained the book she'd needed. There had been the briefest of contact, his long fingers brushing hers as he'd handed the book to her. His skin had been very warm and dry, and he'd flicked his fingers away from hers, as if he'd been shocked by the contact. She might almost have been offended by how quickly he'd moved away, if it hadn't been for the way his gaze lingered on her face. His dark eyes were unreadable, but there had been something so sincere in his expression.

"Oh. You remember—I…um." There was a sound like pages being shuffled. "You're probably wondering how I got your number, right?"

A guy smart enough to have memorized where every book in the library had gotten to while they were being shuffled around in piles would easily have been able to track down her number, Trudy was sure, but all the same… "I am a bit curious."

"Well, um, you see, I have sensitive skin… and a… a very good memory. So, when Steven asked for your number—"

"Oh, was that his name?" Trudy threw out playfully. "I couldn't remember."

"Well, uh, yes. Steven Douthwaite. When he asked for your number, and you wrote it on that paper on my back, I could feel it. I could… feel what you wrote and visualize what it would look like. You have beautiful penmanship, by the way."

"Thank you!"

"It didn't take me very long to figure out what it said. I didn't mean to memorize your number, it just sort of… happened. I can't really help it. Once I see something, or feel something, it's in my head forever."

Trudy found herself sinking into a chair, the phone pressed to her ear, curling the long, winding phone cord around one finger as she listened to the quiet, steady voice on the other end of the line. "You remember everything?" she asked softly.

"It's a gift… and a curse. Like with that book, last night. But also, the weather for every day of the last twenty-five or so years. And the names of every classmate I've ever had… and their pets' names. And their parents' names. Every law in California Vehicle Code. And… every type of flower that grows wild in San Francisco." He sighed and then forced a chuckle. "I'm sorry, I didn't call you to bore you with lists."

"I'm not bored," Trudy reassured him. "But… Adrian, what did you call for?"

"I…" There was silence. Trudy waited. Almost a full minute went by. "I'm not… I wanted to ask if you might…"

Silence again. Trudy almost thought she could hear Adrian's heartbeat over the buzzing of the phoneline. "Yes?" Trudy probed, her voice gentle, after another full minute had gone by.

"Can I be honest?"

The question, said without the hesitant uncertainty he'd shown thus far, caught Trudy off-guard. "They say it's the best policy," she replied carefully, unsure where this was going.

"Look, here's the thing," Adrian's voice continued, still firm. "I have never called a girl—a, uh, woman—on the phone, in my life. You see, I'm not very good with people, and especially not with beautiful women." Trudy blushed and opened her mouth to object, but Adrian was still going: "But… when I saw you last night, in the library… I thought, if I'm ever going to take a chance on calling someone, it would have to be you.

"I'm not very good with people, but I'm very observant. I see a lot about people. And when I saw you last night, I thought... I had never seen someone who was so clearly good and decent. And maybe you're thinking I'm strange and you'll hang up any minute, and I wouldn't blame you, people have been saying that about me my whole life. But I thought, if there was someone so good in a world that is so… not… then perhaps there is a purpose to life after all."

Trudy's breath came in a strangled hiccup. Her heart seemed to swell in her chest. "Who are you?" she whispered into the phone.

"Adrian…Monk. I thought you said you remembered—"

"Yes, I remember you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

There was a long silence. Out of the corner of her eye, Trudy saw her roommate, dressed in an oversized t-shirt, stumbling from her bed into their shared closet. The sight reminded her that the tiny private world that had ballooned around her and this shy, strange, sweet young man on the phone could be burst by an interruption at any moment. She cleared her throat.

"Adrian, I—"

"You've gotta go, I understand," he said, his tone mournful.

"No," Trudy said firmly, "It's not that. I was wondering if you'd like to continue talking in person. Meet me? In an hour or so—on the quad?"

There was a quick intake of breath on the other end of the line. Then, "I'll be there."

Adrian paced.

He'd chosen his spot strategically; from his position, he could see every entrance to the quad. His eyes moved steadily, checking each walkway and doorway. He didn't know where she lived, so he couldn't be certain which entrance she'd use, but he had already calculated which three entrances were most likely. He let his eyes rest on these walkways longest. Between glances around, watching for Trudy, Adrian looked down at the bunch of small flowers in his hand. Ten flowers exactly, each with four round yellow petals.

Was it too much? Was it normal to give flowers to a person you'd only met to talk with? Perhaps Trudy would think he was creepy, bringing her flowers when they'd only just met.

Or perhaps it wasn't enough? Maybe he should've bought a real bouquet from a shop? The flowers had been growing wild beside the highway. He'd almost made himself late, stopping to carefully choose the ten flowers, cutting their stems at exactly the same length with the scissors of the Swiss Army knife he kept in the glove compartment of his car.

He'd thought, after he told her that he knew all the flowers that grew in the Frisco area, she might like the little native flowers. But perhaps Trudy would find the tiny flowers underwhelming?

Adrian pressed a hand to his chin, scanning the damp sidewalk as he paced. What if this was all a mistake? What if she didn't show up? Or if she came only to—to laugh at him? His foot hit a crack in the sidewalk, and he stumbled. She wouldn't laugh at him, like so many others, would she? She'd given off every signal of being the good kind of person, understanding and sympathetic, as very few people he'd known in his life. But what if—

"Adrian, hello!" said a bright female voice and Adrian looked up. There she was, walking quickly toward him, a smile on her face.

Relief, powerful and pure, spread through him and he couldn't help the short smile that jumped across his lips in return. He raised his little bundle of flowers.

"San Francisco Wallflowers. Erysimum franciscanum Calflora," he said, shyly. "For you."

"Oh wow!" Trudy breathed, her eyes falling to the flowers and then lifting back to his face. "You know the scientific names for all the flowers too?"

Adrian shrugged, looking down at the flowers in his hands. He extended them again, and this time Trudy reached for them. Adrian went completely still, like a deer listening to a rustle in the forest. Moving slowly, Trudy gently—intentionally—brushed her hands over his as she closed her fingers over the flower stems. A shiver ran from the skin of his hands up his arms and down his spine. Years of distrust of anything and anyone whose cleanliness and safety were not in his direct control had trained him to flinch away from any human contact, and yet—

Her hands were so soft. And gentle. Suddenly, he wanted nothing so much as he wanted her hands to remain on his forever.

But then the flowers were in her hands, she was lifting them to her face, eyes closed, to breathe in their scent, and his hands seemed to sting in absence of her touch.

"Thank you, Adrian, they're lovely," Trudy said, raising her eyes to meet his gaze.

Adrian smiled down at the sidewalk and, without a word, he fell into step beside her as she began to meander across the quad. Adrian tried to remember one of the questions he had prepared in order to make casual conversation with her, but his mind had gone blank. He was so aware of how close she was walking beside him, her elbow occasionally grazing his. It was distracting. How did people talk and walk beside someone like her?

"What are you studying?" he blurted out as his mind finally caught hold of his list of questions.

"English," Trudy said.

"Oh." Would she say anything else? What else could he ask? "Why... did you decide to study that?"

Trudy blushed and Adrian nearly fell over, admiring how the rosy pink color clouded her cheeks.

"I love words and communication," she said. "I guess I've just always thought there is something so magical about how human consciousness can be conveyed from one person to another through just a few lines on a piece of paper. Words have such power. They can unite people. They are the vehicle for thought and they're how we learn." She shrugged. "You can change the world with words. And I think everyone wants to change the world, deep down, in some small way."

A bird whistled in a nearby tree, it's song the only sound besides the squelching of their shoes on the wet cement.

"Your turn. Now you tell me something, Adrian," Trudy said.

He waited for her to explicate, but she stayed silent. "What would you like me to tell you?"

"Anything. The first thing that comes to your mind."

Adrian looked around the quad, scrambling for inspiration. Between the foliage, the sky was beginning to clear. He cleared his throat. "It is physically impossible for a pig to look at the sky."

Trudy stopped and turned to face him. "No way, seriously?"

"Seriously," Adrian said, deadpan.

Trudy looked up at the small patches of blue showing between the leaves and the diminishing storm clouds. "Why can't they?" she asked, her eyes still on the heavens.

"Their necks. The anatomy—they're too thick. They can't raise them enough."

Trudy's eyes were still fixed on the sky, her expression bordering on reverence. "Poor pigs, never seeing the sky. How do you know about that?"

"I read it once… in a book… when I was a child."

Her eyes lowered to his face, and Adrian's stomach flipped. Her expression of awe remained the same. "So, you really do remember everything." She paused, and Adrian anticipated that she'd begin to quiz him, trying to either prove that he couldn't remember everything or treating him like some kind of encyclopedia. But then—

"That was a very interesting fact. But I'm afraid I wasn't very specific. What I meant to say was I'd love for you to tell me something about you."

"Oh."

They strolled in silence for a few seconds. Adrian's mind raced. What would be interesting enough? He knew he had a strange upbringing—that might be interesting. But it might frighten her, or it could make her pity him. The same could be said for his peculiarities. He'd already spoken about it some and she hadn't run away yet, but that could change the more he revealed. Maybe he could just avoid speaking? But she'd asked him—he couldn't stay silent when she'd asked him, could he?

"I…" he started, hoping the beginning would inspire him to say something.

"I…" There were too many options. He couldn't decide which statement would be optimal. He wanted to impress her, but he wasn't an impressive person. What—

"Maybe your favorite color?" Trudy asked gently, interrupting his ruminations.

"My favorite… color? I guess it's… brown. Or… no, white? Uh, actually brown. Except really, white is so… white. White's my favorite. I think."

"Wow, white, huh? I've never heard that one before. Why is that one your favorite?"

Adrian sighed. "It's so… clean. Perfect. And you rarely see something that is pure white. Even if something was white originally, it gets dirty or yellows in the sunlight. If something stays bright white, you know it's because someone worked hard to keep it that way, and I respect that."

"Huh." Trudy paused and then asked, "You don't apply that to… people, do you?"

Adrian's head snapped around on his neck. "What? No! I think people of every color are equally capable of good…and bad…and, you know, terrifying evil…"

"Oh good." Trudy smiled and tucked her arm around his. Adrian stumbled, his torso going stiff with shock. Trudy sensed the change in him and glanced up, her expression turning serious at once. "Is this okay?

"Oh, um, yeah. Yes. Yes, everything is fine," Adrian stuttered. It was more than fine. He could feel the muscles of her bare arm through the cotton of his long-sleeved button up. Her arm was slender but well-toned. She probably played a sport that used her arms, maybe tennis or golf. Maybe he should ask about that? Her arm was so warm against his, her hand relaxed to dangle over his wrist. How could she touch him so casually? No one had ever—

"My favorite color is lilac," Trudy piped up. "Purple used to be the color of royalty, you know. It was so expensive to dye cloth purple, that monarchs were the only ones who could afford it. But now, you can get just about every color in the rainbow in your fifty-cent crayon package, and I think that's just so amazing! That we have access to colors—and so many other things!—that people of previous ages and times would've just gone mad for. And lilac is my favorite shade of purple because it's so soft, you know? It's… it's the color I'd wrap a baby girl in. If I were to have one, one day," Trudy finished suddenly, her eyes downcast and her cheeks pink.

Adrian nodded sagely, understanding. He had observed this before. It was normal for women to want children but to feel embarrassed to speak about wanting kids with a man on a—a first…

Adrian stopped walking, his gaze straight ahead, his eyes unfocused.

Trudy, following his gaze, looked around in front of them, a wrinkle of confusion between her brows. "What is it? Why are we stopping?"

"Is this… are we on a date?" Adrian asked quietly, turning to look at her. Anxiety and awe battled in his stomach as he waited for her answer. He hadn't thought it was, but they were spending time alone together, talking intimately… It could be a date. Or had he read this all wrong?

Trudy smiled coquettishly. "Why, Adrian, what else would it be? You call a girl up on a Saturday morning, tell her she's beautiful and good, then take her for a lovely romantic stroll on the quad… Sounds like a date to me!"

She let out a soft laugh that chimed like a bell.

Adrian had never heard a laugh like it before. It wasn't the harsh laughter of someone mocking him, or the mirthless laughter of someone who was pretending to be amused. It was genuine and sweet. It made him feel… something. He wasn't used to feeling new emotions and wasn't sure how to label it, but the feeling was surprising. And pleasant. He wanted to hear her laugh again.

Stretching his neck reflexively, Adrian curled his arm up to his chest, so Trudy's hand rested more comfortably on his forearm.

"Good, I'm glad we're on a date," he said with a small smile. "Shall we continue on that… romantic stroll you mentioned?"

Trudy's silvery laugh sounded again, startling a bird from a branch in the trees above them. In the sky beyond, the clouds had dissipated, revealing a shining blue sky.

...

Author's Note: I've loved Monk since I was a kid. I've been rewatching it lately and have been feeling inspired to write about the tender love story of Adrian and Trudy Monk. My plan is to do several Monk/Trudy one-shots and put them all as chapters in this story, but I'm not amazing at getting myself to write. So, if you enjoyed this, please comment and tell me. Like many fanfic authors on here, I'm highly motivated by external validation, lol.