She had noticed the lack of roommate, but she couldn’t have put her finger on when it had become more than a ‘we-keep-passing-each-other’ kind of lack, and something more sinister. It could have been weeks, a month! She felt a little sick, and guilty that her mind had been so occupied with work, online school and Andrew to realise something was up.

At first her mind assured her that nothing was wrong, that Andrea was spending more and more time with Saph and had finally decided to make the move into his room. Odd, for such an innocent and aloof young woman (not to mention the fact neither eyes nor hands were an option) to make that move, but they were adults, it was none of her business who Andy spent her time with, at night or during the day. In fact, her conclusion made her smile. It was good that Andrea had found herself someone to keep her from being lonely.

And so she had believed for several more days, until she decided that, in a moment of late-night cleanliness, the floor needed vacuuming. All was well and good, the hoover sucking up dust and dog hair alike, until she edged the end of the tube along the side of Andrea’s bed. A dull ‘thwock’ followed by a high-pitched whine from the motor sent Jack into a barking frenzy and let her know that something was causing a blockage.

Flipping the switch off quickly and hushing Jack before he woke the entire hall she drew the nozzle out and inspected the blockage. It was a piece of paper. Slightly crumpled, she smoothed it across her knee and began to read.

‘Verdigris,’

O-oh, full name. Off to a bad start. Heart thumping she continued to read, shooing the excitable Jack away from snuffling the now silent hoover.

’This, as much as it pains me, is a goodbye letter.’

Wha?

'I must leave the school... for reasons that will probably come to light soon enough.'

What could have happened that would force her friend to leave?

'If you must know sooner than that, Find Saphirus and he will be able to explain everything.'

Saphirus. Spending nights together… come to light soon enough… Oh God! Stomach flip-flopping as she drew her conclusions she rushed through the rest of the letter as she stood and snatched her key. Shoes were unnecessary. The time spent locating pants to don under her oversized sleeping t-shirt unavailable. One Mr Saph was on his way to one hell of an ear-bashing.

’I will miss you very much my friend.. you are the only person I have ever been able to call a friend, did you know that? I will cherish all of the happy times we had together, and I promise that I will never forget you. I have left Miss Piggy in the care of Saphirus, if you want to go see her.

Listen... I know I really should have told you in person, but... It was just too hard... too dangerous. I will miss you greatly Verdy,

With greatest regret,
Andrea.

PS, If you do see Saph... Tell him I am sorry.’

He’d be the sorry one once she got a hold of him. Storming out of her room, key clutched tightly in her hand she stomped! (rather ineffectively, since the floor was carpeted) to the door she was certain belonged to that particular young man. After a moment of thumping and waiting, and another of apologising and explaining, she was directed to Saph’s actual door and resumed her two-handed pummeling.

Thump-thump thump-thump. Thump!

“Saphirus!?”

Nobody. Nobody got her friends pregnant then sent them off into the world by themselves. That was a horrible thing to do. As such she had no qualms about waking him up at this late, or early, hour.

“Open up!”

And prepare for the biggest tongue lashing you’ve had in your life. Buster.

…It could have been weeks, a month! She felt a little sick, and guilty that her mind had been so occupied with work, online school and Andrew to realise something was up.

Saphirus was awoken in a rather unpleasant way; by someone knocking and screaming at his door? No; that actually seemed like a pretty common occurrence around here. No, he was woken by a pig kicking him in the face. Maybe it was the delirium from just waking from a peaceful sleep, but he swore he heard it say something along the lines of "buuuuurn." Then again, it might just have been another squee.

Saph sat up quickly as the little pig skittered off. Damned thing was a terror! Every morning. EVERY MORNING, he was woken by it disturbing him in some way, and then standing by it's food dish, staring at him with those squinted eyes of hate and disdain. This animal hated him. He didn't even know what he did! Well, there was that whole kicking it out of the way of an attack, thing, but that was to save it's life! It would have been one dead slab of bacon if he hadn't saved it! Still, it wasn't like he had much to do ever since Andrea left... The little animal reminded him of her, so it was good to have it around, even if it wanted to see him die a painful death.

Damn, he was hungry for bacon, now. He pulled off his sheets climbed out of bed, grumbling lowly. When he'd finally pulled himself into a sitting position at the edge of the bed, one foot found floor, and the other found something warm and unpleasantly moist.

"SON OF A @#%^" He swore the pig was laughing as he cleaned up the little present she'd left on the floor, and then went to take a shower and clean his poor foot.

After a long, relaxing shower, he threw on a towel, and retrieved some wet dog food from beneath his bed. Before too long, the can was opened, and he was preparing to place it into piggy's food bowl when he was interrupted.

Thump-thump thump-thump. Thump!

He blinked, and looked up, hearing his name through the door in a shout. Aww crap, what had he done this time? He walked to the door, holding his towel in place with one hand, and a can of dog food in the other. "Hold your freakin horses..." He reached down with the can, trying to open the door with the bottom of his hand. It wasn't working; it was locked, duh. He sighed and reached down with the can of dog food to use that hand to hold his towel in place so that his towel hand would be free to open the door. As his hand unlocked the door, and reached down to turn the knob, a drop of dog food gue fell from the open can, and onto his foot. The event surprised him, and cause him to nearly drop the can; while he saved it he accidentally pulled the door open, and lost grip on his towel, causing it to fall to the floor.

To sum up a very complex situation in one sentence: A naked Saphirus holding an open can of dog food was now standing in front of a very angry Verdy.

Her knocking was answered sooner than she had expected, Saph must have launched himself out of bed, or already been awake and up. Either way, it was hardly relevant to the issue at hand. That, of course, being Andrea and her apparent need to vacate the premises sooner rather than later. The door was fumbled with for a second, before the latch clicked back and her anger-filled eyes were confronted with a whole lot more Saph than she had been expecting.

Nudity!

Also dog food.

This did nothing to reduce her rage, merely increase her surprise and discomfort. Awkward… There was nothing wrong with the male body, in fact she had no problems appreciating the bits of it so regularly put on parade around the swimming pool, but to be confronted with the whole lot of it unexpectedly really threw off her argument.

“Put those jiggly bits away! Don’t you think they’ve caused enough trouble?!”

She didn’t clap a hand over her eyes, but it was an effort. Her eyes were needed to glare at the offending man. How dare he, how dare he! Arms crossed resolutely across her chest she huffed at him.

“Where is Andrea?”

Andrea's room mate had just seen him naked. Not mostly naked, or even lightly clothed, but buck, freakin, naked. To make things worse, she already seemed angry at him for something. Why? He had not clue; he never even really talked to her. He just knew her because Andrea used to talk about her a lot, and he'd seen her once or twice in passing. Why was she here, and why was she yelling? "I-I- AHH!"

Needless to say, Saphirus freaked out just a little at the circumstances, dropping the can of dog food, and covering himself quickly with both hands, he attempted to stumbled back, but slipped the dropped dog food, and went legs over head, accidentally sending a dog food covered foot toward Verdy's face, and landing on an enraged, hungry pig.

The little piggy squealed in surprise and crawled from under him, snorting angrily. Saph, were he of a more focused mind, would have cursed at the fact that the pig was going to hate him even more for that. Unfortunately, all he could really think about was that he might have just kicked Verdy in the face. Holy. Crap. Could this day get any worse?

Damnit, it always jinxed things when you asked that question!

Terror was indeed the correct response, and in the moments where he stumbled for words, before the cry of delayed shock left his lips she felt as if she had done a little good in the world. For heaven’s sake, even middle-school students knew about contraceptives in some form or another. His squirming was deserved for getting her friend into the position she was apparently in.

His movement from upright to horizontal was unexpected, and only a speedy reflexive jump saved her chin from being whalloped (good lord he had long legs…) reflexes could not save her from the glob of now foot-warmed dog food which flung from the top of Saph’s foot to impact squarely with a unpleasant squelch on her neck.

Forcing herself not to squeal like the pig she purposefully wiped the goop from her neck, before scooping up miss piggy into her arms. She and the pig had never been best friends, but somehow she felt the pigs squeals were a cry to be rescued from this man and his nekkidness.

All the demands and questions regarding her roommate, her roommate’s situation, and his role in it, were momentarily put on hold, as that one question that demanded to be asked was asked.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Stepping over the sprawled body and the threshold, flicking an abandoned towel towards him as she went, she moved into the room and closed the door, before placing the now quiet pig on the floor. Somehow having a rampaging piglet in the mansion hallways seemed a bad idea.

Not that being in the bedroom of a naked man, smeared in dogfood while said pig danced around the floor between them seemed like a good idea, but it was the lesser of two evils.

Barely.

Pun intended.

Saphirus was now thoroughly embarrassed, and even more confused. Very had just seen him naked, nearly been kicked by him, and gotten dog food in her face, and instead of running, she pressed forward! He was so startled that he didn't have time to react as she stepped right over him, and threw him a towel, which quickly covered him. "What the heck am I doing?! What about you?!" He quickly scrambled into his bathroom and shut the door behind him, sitting with his back against it. What was he gonna do? He now had a seemingly angry woman, and an even more pissed off pig in his room. He'd never had his home invaded by someone he couldn't punch before... this was so strange.

"What do you want, anyhow?" He could only think of one thing... Verdy and himself were only linked together by one thing. Maybe she'd come to yell at him for Andrea leaving... He didn't even know what he'd done wrong. He'd saved her, and then she just... disappeared. Was it something he'd said? He tried to shake the thoughts out of his head. It hurt him to think of her; more than any thug with a baseball bat ever could. Maybe she just wanted the pig back; that, he would gladly accept. "Mrs. Piggy" had been nothing but a thorn in his now bare derriere from day one. He doubted it, though... He'd been around enough to know that anything and everything that ever happened to him was rooted more in the bad side of luck. He'd thought that meeting Andrea and getting to know her meant life was throwing him a bone, but even that turned out to be a wrench just like everything else.

What was she doing? Storming into the bedroom of the man who had impregnated her best friend wouldn’t take back his action, wouldn’t solve anything, and probably wouldn’t be enough of a disturbing experience to frighten him away from doing it again. Perhaps, however, he knew where Andrea was. The note she had left had mentioned him, and so she had come to confront him about it. Plopping onto the side of his bed she ran a hand through her hair and frowned at the pig who was snuffling the splatters of dog food on the floor. His question prompted a sigh, and she glanced up at the door that was shielding him from her. She wasn’t so mad now, simply confused, and worried for her friend.

“I’m looking for Andrea. She left me a note saying you knew what happened.”

Of course he knew what happened, since he was the father then it was undoubtedly clear what his role had been in getting her friend into a situation that meant she had to flee the mansion’s safety. Why Andrea couldn’t stay in the mansion puzzled her, she wouldn’t have judged, and it was sure to be alright with the higher-ups, after all these things do happen, and Andrea was an adult. Perhaps Andy had taken it upon herself to leave, thinking she would have been a bad example for the children of the mansion. Verdy sighed again, it was frustrating, but now that her anger had gone all she felt was guilt for not noticing her friend’s absence for so long. Boyfriend or no, Andrea had never seemed the type to stay long-term in someone elses’ bed. Perhaps her friend had gotten too sick of her sleep-rants, and sought shelter with Saphirus since she had nowhere else to turn. This was undoubtedly as much her fault as his, and she felt a little bad for storming in and yelling at the poor guy when he was in such a vulnerable state.

Saph sighed as she stated why she was here... She was looking for Andrea? "Yeah? You and me both... I don't know where she is... I don't even know why she left." The frown could be heard in clearly in his voice.

The would-be hero looked down at his dog food covered foot, and shook his head a little... It felt gross... He decided it could wait a second, but not much more. "Look... If you haven't heard from her, then there's some stuff you don't know... Something happened the night before she left... I think it scared her. Just give me a second, and I'll tell you... Alright?"

There was a moment of silence, and then the sound of the bathroom door locking. A few seconds later, the shower could be heard. It was a relatively quick shower; he didn't want to leave her waiting for too long. After it ended, he paused just inside the door, and mumbled. "Still there? Could you grab me some clothes?"

Part of him hoped she wouldn't reply; that she'd left while he was in the shower, and he wouldn't have to explain to her what had happened to her friend. He knew better, though... He just hoped she wouldn't blame him too.

He didn’t know where she was. He didn’t know why she had left. The note had lied, the one person she could run to couldn’t help her. It felt like someone had pulled her plug from somewhere the region of her belly-button and everything just drained away. She plopped down onto the bed and cradled her head in her hands.

She was gone, and the lead she had led nowhere.

She knew as well as anyone, if not better, New York was a perfect place to loose a person. True, a green person might stick a little longer in the minds of strangers, but her friend had been gone so long… She glanced up as Saph continued, and nodded hopefully though weakly. He knew something else, he would tell her what he knew.

After he disappeared into the bathroom she leant over and scritched the pig snuffling around the edge of the bed. It seemed a long wait, but couldn’t have been more than five minutes until he was gently and slightly nervously asking for her to find clothes.

“Um, yeah, hang on a sec.”

Where would a boy keep clothes? She dare not rummage in the piles of clothes on the floor, so she flung open some draws, praying she wouldn’t find anything she didn’t want to see. Thankfully she managed to escape any further awkwardness as she procured a set of clothes; t-shirt, pants, underpants. She couldn’t see socks, so she neglected them. Holding the pile towards the connection between door and wall she turned her head and averted her eyes. Not that she would see anything she hadn’t seen, but now she was in a different mindset. More awkward and less rage.

“Here you go.”

Any information was better than none, and she would absorb as much as she could before she left him to his undisturbed rest.