Disclaimer: All stories are individuals of themselves and are unrelated to each other.

Gale didn't understand why someone was knocking on his door at 2 in the morning. It was a good thing they'd knocked – he'd fallen asleep on the couch again while studying for his stupid Criminal Justice final and hadn't set an alarm, so he could've ended up sleeping through his test if it weren't for whoever was at his door. But at the same time, who the fuck was knocking on his door?

Rubbing his eyes he padded across the uneven hardwood floor to his front door, pulling it open without even looking through the peephole. He paused when he saw the girl on the other side, instantly stunned by her gentle beauty and still sort of half-asleep. "Um," he rubbed at his eyes some more. "Are you lost, or something?"

"No, um, hi," the girl hugged her laptop – why did she have that? – close to her body with one arm and extended the other. "I'm your neighbor, actually. I live down the hall. My name's Madge." He blinked a few times at her extended hand until she lowered it. "I–I saw your light was on, through the window. And I heard music playing, so I thought you were awake. I'm sorry if I woke you."

He took a deep breath and shook his head. "What do you want?"

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"It's two in the morning. This is the first time you've spoken to me. Do you need something? Coffee, or sex, or–"

"No!" she blurted. "No, God no. Um, I just wanted to welcome you to the building!" He arched an eyebrow at her, rocking backwards on his heels. "So welcome," she said.

"I've been living here for a month," Gale told her. So obviously that was not why she was here.

"I was letting you settle in."

"For a month?" She opened her mouth to protest but Gale gave her another look. "What do you want?" he asked again, his voice back to monotonous. "For real." His eyes darted to the computer in her hands. "Out of wifi, or something?"

Her face fell. "I'm sorry," she said. "I–my printer just like, exploded, and my thesis is due tomorrow morning, and it's a lot of pages and I'm freaking out I'm so sorry–I'll," she back pedalded. "I'll go find a print shop or something, I–" she paused as he swung open his door with a sigh, granting her access. "Oh, God bless you," she entered his apartment. "I'll pay you, or bring you a cake or something, honestly thank you so much." Gale reached up and rubbed at his eyes again as he shut the door, and then led her to where his printer was set up. As he was fiddling with the cords to hand her she shuffled awkwardly. "I don't know your name."

"Gale," he muttered.

"Gale," she echoed. "Thank you. Honestly."

"How many pages is this thing, anyway?" he asked as he handed her the connecting cord. She gnawed on bottom lip as she stationed herself at his desk, plugging the cord into her laptop.

"That's what I'll do," she said. "I'll buy you ink. Lots of ink. A lot of it."

"How many pages?" he asked again.

"Oh God, um, seventy. Two. Seventy two pages."

"Shit, Princess," Gale scrubbed at his face. "I hope I've got enough ink to last you." Madge finished hooking up the laptop and adjusting a few settings, hopefully to make the ink last longer, and then set her computer down. Gale's printer coughed to life and started chugging out pages, one by one. "Well, it's probably going to take a while. It's an old printer, but reliable."

"Thank you again," Madge said. Gale lifted his shoulders, sinking down onto his couch. Madge stood from Gale's desk and slowly walked over to him. "I did mean to come over and welcome you," she said. "Honest to God. I even made cookies." He arched an eyebrow at her and she shrugged. "I ate them. While writing this thesis."

"Been working on it for a while, then?"

"Feels like forever," she murmured. Her eyes darted to the papers that he had spread out across the coffee table. "Are you criminial justice?"

"Yeah." He didn't feel like elaborating. Gale rubbed his eyes another time and reached for his phone, setting an alarm for the morning just in case he was to fall asleep again without doing so. Madge looked around his apartment, the bare walls and boxes still stacked in the corner. "I'm still unpacking," he said, noticing her wandering eyes.

"I thought you've been here for a month," she said, tossing his words back at him. Gale couldn't help but smile then, lifting his shoulders into a small shrug. "Planning on staying long?"

"Yeah. I just haven't had the time to unpack," Gale told her. He moved into the apartment building halfway through the semester and classes had been kicking his ass. After a long day in graduate school he didn't want to come back and rifle through his winter clothes. "I'll get to it."

"I could help you, if you want."

Gale threw his head back in a laugh. "I don't know anything about you, Princess, other than the fact that you've got shitty taste in printers."

Madge laughed a little then, too. "Well, I'm an only child," she told him. "And I'm studying music education. Um, I live just down the hall from you, sometimes you might hear classical music playing when you walk past because that helps me study best."

"Wait," Gale stopped her. "That's you?"

"I really like Debussy," Madge said with a smile. "But Bach's a close second."

"I've always been a Motzart man myself," Gale told her, and she arched an eyebrow at him. He didn't know why he was flirting with her, probably lack of sleep and overall amusement at the situation, but she seemed to be taking the bait. "Okay, I'm kidding, I don't know the different between any of them." Madge opened her mouth as though she was going to explain when Gale stopped her again. "And I don't really care."

"Fine," she said with a laugh. "I'll save you the story." They were silent for a moment and Madge looked over her shoulder at the printer, listening to the vvrp, vrrp, chhhhh of the page by page print. "Your turn," Madge said, looking back to him.

"Oh, is that what we're doing?" Gale wrinkled his nose for a second. "Alright, I've got three younger siblings that are growing up way too fast, if things play out correctly I'll have a job at the police station by the time I graduate in a month, and classical music makes me want to fall asleep."

"Fair enough," she laughed.

And that's how they spent the morning (it was so late), though Gale wasn't really sure why. He should've been studying, and he was sure she could've been on Twitter or something. But Madge had a nice smile and an even nicer laugh, and by the time the printer stopped chugging out pages (they had to replace the paper tray at least three times) Madge was falling asleep and Gale was almost happy she'd knocked on his door.

Handing her over the final stack of papers she sighed in relief, holding them to her chest. "Thanks, Gale," she said. "I'll pay you back somehow, I promise. This really means so much to me."

"Then how about you help me unpack like you suggested?" Gale asked. "Whenever you're free. I can order pizza. Maybe grab a bottle of wine."

She shifted on her feet, looking at the floor before meeting his gaze. "Are you asking me on a date?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," Gale nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing."

"Okay," she smiled. "I left my phone number on a post-it on your coffee table," Madge told him as she started for the door. "Text me sometime." She stopped at the door and glanced over her shoulder. "Good look on your test."

"Good luck with your thesis," he returned with a grin.

Madge let herself out and Gale crawled back onto the couch. He was only going to get a few hours of shut-eye before his test in the morning, but he'd say it was worth it.