Shooting Stars And Chemistry

It had been a while now.
Alyssa and Joe had been living in the same apartment long enough that Joe had paid the rent four times. That is at least seven weeks of existence under the same roof.

Stepping out of the shower Alyssa felt no more relaxed than she did before. Living with Joe made her...uncomfortable.
Not because he did anything bad, of course not, it was simply that they had spoken nary a word to one another since he moved in.
Christ, Alyssa did not even know where the man worked.
He walked out of the apartment every day at six in the morning to return at six in the evening. She did not even want to ask what it was that he did in those twelve hours, as the extent of their conversations only went as far as, "Did you feed the cat?" or "Can you pass the ketchup please?"

It was a sad thing, Alyssa knew. It was not easy for her to live like that. She had always been a conversationalist, ever since she was small. She had a family to talk to and friends to call, but now that she was living in the city she realised she was more alone than ever.
Becca was always with Aiden and Joe was always out.
She had had no luck job hunting and she felt like each and every new day brought her nothing but stress. Her unwilling flat mate was not helping her state of mind.

She dried herself and after hanging up her towel,she dashed across the hall to her room to get dressed. As she was making her nude run across the hall, she heard a strange strangled sound. She stopped in her tracks to listen in to the source of the sound. It was coming from Joe's room.

She realised only as she pressed her ear to the door that she was still naked. Luckily, whatever Joe was doing in his room was enough to keep him in there for at least a few minutes. Alyssa ran into her room and threw her dressing gown about her. She walked slowly back to Joe's room where she proceeded to knock gently on the door.

"Um, Joe? Its...it's me Alyssa. Um, are you okay?"

"Please, go away."

"Are you sure? I mean, if you wanna talk I'm here?"

"Please..."

Alyssa had never been one to take no for an answer so she stepped boldly into the strange man's room.
He was standing facing the only window in his room, he was bent over double with his back to her, still making the strangulated noises.

Tentatively she took a step forward, she didn't want to make him angry, and she would consider herself a coward if she were to turn away from the sight now.

"Joe, are you- Oh my God! What happened?!"

As she was about to run out of the door screaming she collected herself together to look at the sight before her. The reason that Joe was doubled over was because he had blood seeping out from his muddy green colored shirt.
It had blossomed into a hideous flower across his lower abdomen, she was surprised at herself for not screaming and even more surprised at what she did next,

"Stay still, I am going to go into the bathroom and grab a towel, we'll figure out what to do from there okay?"

Joe simply nodded his head, his face was starting to resemble the same green of his shirt. Alyssa ran back to the bathroom where she had hung up her towel not two minutes ago, and then back to his bedroom.

"Can I get you to just, um, lie down on the bed? I don't want you to pass out because you aren't getting enough blood to your head."

Joe dozily complied, groaning as he made contact with the surface of the bed. Alyssa strode over to him and after folding the towel into a compress, she lifted the bottom of his shirt to see the damage.
It was worse than she had imagined.
We need not go into detail here readers of what she saw, but rest assured that she cleaned the wound and pressed the towel to his stomach to staunch the bleeding until the paramedics arrived.

*

"Joe, you are one lucky guy. If your girlfriend weren't there to help you out you would be in one tricky situation."

The doctor chuckled easily holding a clipboard over Joe's head. He was still feeling a little fuzzy as the morphine dripped into his arm, but he was sure that he heard the doctor say that Alyssa was his girlfriend.

"I no wif er"

"Pardon?"

"I'm not with her. She is my room mate."

"Oh well my apologies. She was very worried about you, so I assumed she was with you. She hasn't left this hospital since you arrived. Excuse me."

And the doctor ducked out of the room. Joe was left to look up at the never-ending white that was his ceiling. Before he was able to start counting the panels, somebody burst into his room.

"Joe thank God you are okay!"

And with that, Alyssa flopped down onto the bed where he was propped up and laid her head down. From her face-down position she began to mumble,

"I thought I screwed it up, I was worried I didn't get to you in time, the doctors were hopeless, not at fixing you up of course, but at telling me what was going on. I have been here three days for goodness sake, still in my bloody bathrobe, and all they could tell me was "He'll be fine"

That was all he managed to catch out of the enitre conversation she had with herself and out of sheer pity for the sleepless nights she must have had, Joe put his hand on her head to show his gratitude.
Alyssa stiffened and Joe retracted his hand quickly, hoping he hadn't offended her in any way.
She raised her head, tears sparkling in her eyes and said,

"Don't do that again. You are my saviour remember? I can't lose you."

"I don't understand?"

"Well, remember the day that you helped me on the train?"

"Yes?"

"I wan't to keep you around incase it happens again okay?"

"Okay."

"Oh, one more thing?"

"Yes?"

"Will you actually talk to me now?"

"I think so."

"Good."