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Annie knocked softly on the bedroom door. "Abed?" she called. "You all right in there?"
No response.
She bit her lip. Abed had seemed fine when they'd all seen Troy off at the school, and she'd thought he was taking things rather well. But then he'd sat in complete silence as she drove him home, staring straight ahead at the road without seeming to see it. Once they reached the apartment, he'd gone straight for what had been Troy's room and shut the door. That had been two days ago, and Annie hadn't seen nor heard from him since.
She knocked again. "Abed, please come out! I'll make you buttered noodles!"
Still nothing but silence. Annie had lived with Abed for about two years now, so she was used to him shutting down and not talking to them when something bad happened, but this was the worst she'd ever seen him. Usually when Abed was at his worst, he still managed to walk to the kitchen for food, but this time he hadn't even done that.
Annie touched the door handle, but then pulled it back. No. That was an invasion of privacy. She couldn't just enter Abed's room without his permission.
But then her mind wandered back to the food. Abed hadn't had a full meal in two days. She knew Troy kept snacks in his room, but those had to be running low. And come to think of it, she had no idea if he was even eating them. She should probably go in to just check that he was alive, right?
She froze. Check that he was alive. The thought had never occurred to her before, but now that it was there, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it. After all, Abed's best friend in the world had just left him, possibly forever. Abed didn't strike her as the suicidal type, but if there was ever a time for him to start…
Annie threw the door open before she could stop herself. Abed was lying motionless on the bed, staring off to the side with lifeless eyes. She screamed and ran to him. This was all her fault. How could she have just left him alone with all he was going through? She had killed Abed.
But as she approached him, she saw him flinching at her scream so close to his ear. And on further inspection, she saw that he wasn't staring off into nothingness, but at a laptop screen displaying a slideshow of pictures of him and Troy. She sighed in relief and collapsed to kneel on the floor beside his bed. "Abed. Sorry. I thought you were dead."
His only response was to turn his face slightly away from her, toward the laptop. She couldn't tell what the gesture was meant to express. Troy would know.
Annie looked around the room. It looked almost exactly like Troy had left it when he packed his bags three days before. She bit her lip. As much as she usually cared about tidiness, she found herself almost wishing the room had been trashed. Then at least she would know that Abed had left the bed sometime in the past two days. But she couldn't even see snack wrappers. Not on the floor. Not in the garbage. Abed really had been starving himself.
And he looked it. She knew that two days wasn't enough time for him to actually lose much weight, but his already-skinny form looked even thinner laid out on the bed. Or maybe it was just the unwashed clothes he hadn't changed since Troy left, the greasy hair, and the patchy beard taking over the lower half of his face. He hadn't even bothered to pull the sheets over himself. The more Annie looked at him, the more the relief at finding him alive shrank away. She was starting to doubt exactly how alive he really was.
"Abed?" she said quietly. "Please talk to me. You're scaring me."
He didn't even glance at her.
"Come on," she pleaded. "I know you're hurting, but I need you to talk to me. I want to help. Just tell me what you need."
Abed's head didn't move, but Annie saw his eyes turn to focus on her for a second or two before sliding back to the laptop screen as his hand moved to the keyboard to pause the slideshow.
Annie smiled. "Thank you."
But Abed didn't turn to her to talk as she expected. Instead he opened a folder labelled "Inspector Spacetime episodes."
"Abed, stop it!" she yelled. "You can watch TV later!"
Abed just scrolled through the contents of the folder.
Annie stood up, glaring at Abed. "You know what? No. You've been sulking in here for days. If you want to watch Inspector Spacetime, fine. But you're going to have to stop being a self-centered jerk and go out there to do it! After we've had an actual conversation!" With that, she grabbed the laptop and ran out of the room with it before Abed could see the tears coming to her eyes. She tried to ignore the panicked whines coming from the bed behind her.
Annie collapsed on the couch, clutching the laptop to her chest. She let the tears come, and pour down her face. She couldn't have stopped if she wanted to. Troy was gone, and Abed was shutting her out, and now she was acting like a monster…
It was about ten minutes before she heard Abed's door slowly creak open. Abed came to stand in front of her, staring down at her with the same blank look he had directed at the slideshow before.
Annie wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and gave him a weak smile. "Hey. Um, sorry I yelled. You're not a jerk. I just-" She took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry. I miss him too. And with you locked up in your room… I'm sorry."
Abed still didn't say anything, but he sat down next to her on the couch. Annie adjusted herself to make room for him. "I'm sorry," she repeated.
Abed reached for the laptop, giving her a questioning look. She nodded, and he took it off of her lap, moving it to his own. He started scrolling through the "Inspector Spacetime episodes" folder again.
Annie sighed and stood up. "Okay. Watch your show. I'm going for a walk."
Abed grabbed her wrist tightly, looking intently up at her face. His gaze was so intense, so different from the blank stare she'd seen in the bedroom, that she couldn't do anything but sink back onto the couch. "Okay. Let's watch."
Abed opened the file. Annie recognized the episode as the one immediately after Constable Reggie's death at the hands of the blowfish. You don't live with Troy and Abed for two years without learning to recognize their favourite episodes.
Abed skipped to a place about two-thirds of the way through the episode and hit play. The Inspector sat on a bench beside the captain of the ship on which the episode took place. "Your friend's death is clearly weighing on you, Inspector," the captain was saying. "Is there anything me or my men can do to help?"
The Inspector shook his head. "I sometimes feel that Reggie was the only person who ever truly understood me. He was the chief stabilizing force in my travels through a chaotic universe. The terrible irony is, captain, that the only person who could help me to feel better about Reggie's death is Reggie himself."
Abed paused the video and turned to look at Annie.
Annie was silent for a moment. When she finally spoke, it was difficult for her to keep the tears out of her voice. "That's how you feel about Troy. He's the only one who knows how to make you feel better."
Abed nodded.
"Is that what you were trying to show me in the bedroom?"
He nodded again.
Annie wrapped her arms around Abed. "I know I'm not Troy. And I can't do everything he probably could. But I'm still your friend, okay? I still care about you, and I want you to be happy. So if there's anything I can do to help…"
Abed closed the Inspector Spacetime video and started searching through his extensive video files again. This time he chose a video Annie didn't recognize entitled "Santa Clause (1959)". He found the part he was looking for and hit play.
A young girl was speaking to what looked like a doll come to life. "No," the girl was saying, "you know stealing is evil, and I don't want to be evil."
Abed paused the video and looked at Annie again.
Annie frowned. "Stealing… What? I know stealing is- Oh. Is that about the computer?"
He nodded.
"I can help you by not stealing your stuff?"
Another nod.
"I'm so, so sorry Abed. I shouldn't have taken it. I didn't know you were trying to communicate with me. I thought you were just ignoring me and watching TV. And that's no excuse, but… I'm so sorry."
Abed made no move to respond, so Annie took a shaky breath and kept going. "I miss him too, Abed. So much. I hate being in the apartment without him here. And then you were locked up in that room and… I felt like I had lost both of my best friends in one go. I miss having you around. That's why I was so mad that you were ignoring me. I'm so sorry I stole your laptop. I wasn't thinking straight. I don't think I even knew what I was doing."
Abed seemed to consider that for a moment. Then he opened the internet and found a YouTube video. A person Annie didn't recognize stood in front of a white background, talking directly to the camera. "When a meltdown happens, so much is going on that it's hard to suss out what you're feeling or even remember it later. It's a lot of very strong, and very negative emotions. When I try to explain it to people, though, I usually describe it like an adrenaline rush and a mental breakdown and a panic attack all rolled into one."
Annie nodded, feeling her throat tighten. "Yeah. It was a meltdown. I'm so sorry."
Abed didn't respond.
"Do you forgive me?" she asked cautiously.
Abed hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
Annie smiled. "Thanks. I really did miss you the past few days. I know you're upset and being in Troy's room is part of that, but I still missed you. A lot."
Abed went back to his downloaded videos and opened Raising Helen. It had been Annie's pick for movie night a few weeks back, and she was flattered to see he still had it on his computer. The clip he was looking for was only a few minutes into the movie. Three teary-eyed children sat on the floor of their recently-deceased parents' closet. The youngest one sniffled. "It smells like mommy in here."
Annie gave him a gentle smile. "That's why you've been staying in Troy's room?"
He nodded.
Annie wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. Abed placed a hand on her arm and gave it a slight squeeze.
"Thank you for showing me those clips," she said after a few moments of silence. "They really helped me understand."
Abed's mouth opened and closed a few times without sound coming out. Then he spoke, slowly, as if it took enormous effort to force the words past his lips. "Troy said it was like a game when we talked like this. Trying to figure out the meaning."
Annie smiled. It was good to hear Abed's voice again, even if it was forced. Then something occurred to her and she laughed. "Wait. Is this what he meant when he said you two were engaging in non-verbal communication?"
Abed shrugged. "Probably."
"Oh my god. I always assumed that meant the two of you were making out!"
"Well, sometimes…" Abed was almost smiling now.
Annie smiled back at him. "Well I'm not going to do that part. But if you ever want to talk using movies again that's fine with me. Okay?"
Abed's smile grew just a hair. "Okay." A pause. "I'm hungry. You want buttered noodles?"
"Yeah. That sounds good."
Annie smiled as she watched Abed walk to the kitchen. For the first time since Troy left, she knew everything was going to be okay.