Once he was back at the quote unquote guest house, Bobby had decided to do a little spring cleaning. Even though it all looked beyond saving, he thought he might aswell make an effort to turn it into more of a house than…whatever you could describe it as in its present state. Shit-shack was a phrase he had kept coming back to. So far it had been a case of using some air freshener to try and get rid of the smell of weed and meth, and propping some old books under a manky coffee table to stop it from tipping over. Now he was trying to work out the right layout, spinning round and round as he tried to figure out where everything should be, scanning each and every inch of the room. He also noted that he had to patch up that hole in the ceiling. The draught had been giving him goosebumps all week. Before he could come up with a design that satisfied him, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in" Bobby called.

"Hey, dude" Kenny came in "How was your first day?"

Bobby hadn't told him about the panic attack. For some reason he decided to gloss over it "Oh, the usual, go through the first few lessons, make no friends, have a panic attack, get saved by the only girl willing to talk to you. You know, same old, same old" He shrugged. Before Kenny could even think about questioning him further, Bobby asked "Could you give me a hand shifting this, please?" He indicated towards the mattress.

"Sure" They both took one end and lifted it up. Despite halving the weight between them, it was still rather heavy. And it still smelt like smoke and dead skin. You could only use so much air freshener unfortunately.

"Ok, follow my lead" Bobby began walking over towards the back wall.

"Oooh!" Kenny squealed before dropping his side of the mattress.

"Mate, what the hell?" Bobby demanded, throwing down the mattress in frustration. Literally two steps in and already there had been a cock-up. All he wanted was a little team effort. Kenny was bending over to pick something up. And then he proudly waved what he had seen; it was a roll of dollar bills. Now things made a lot more sense "How much is there?" Bobby asked.

Kenny counted it quickly before announcing "$30!"

Jackpot!

"The last guys we had in here were busted by the cops" Kenny explained "They must have left this behind" His eyes were bulging out with excitement. This was probably the most money he had held all year. Bobby was thinking of all the stuff they could do with $30. For a family as poor as Kenny's, this was like stumbling upon a goldmine. A very finite goldmine, but the point still stands.

"I'll take Karen out for ice cream" Kenny said, splitting the money. He handed Bobby a few bills, which totalled $10.

"Oh. Thanks, mate" Bobby shyly took the money and looked at it with glee. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with it. Tweek had mentioned something during lunch about his parents owning a coffee shop. He had been gasping for a cuppa since he'd arrived in South Park. He was British, he needed a hot drink.

But if Kenny was going to be busy taking Karen out, then who would he go with? Duh. Wendy. Bobby didn't want to go on his own but it was either that or her. After all, he hadn't really managed to make any new friends at school. But even then there was the possibility that she wouldn't come out anyway because bullshit. Still, he wouldn't know if he didn't try.

Pocketing the money, Bobby thanked Kenny again before asking him to pick the mattress back up.

At about 5:15pm, the sun was just setting on South Park, painting the sky with a wonderful burnt orange colour. Bobby strolled eagerly into Tweek Bros Coffeehouse. He could taste the Frappuccino already. He rubbed his hands excitedly and walked up to the till. There was no queue.

"Hello and welcome to Tweek Bros Coffeehouse, may I take your order?" The bloke behind the counter was tall with brown hair. Bobby had guessed that it might have been Tweek's Dad, given the resemblance. Minus the twitching. There was something blank about his expression though, which bothered Bobby slightly.

Nonetheless he ordered "One Frappuccino please" before fishing into his pocket and taking out the money. His order set him back $4, which seemed a bit of a rip-off. Best be worth it, he hoped.

After a moment of waiting, he had his drink in his hands and found himself a table beside the till. It was near the window, which gave him a nice view of the town. Now, it was just a case of waiting for…ah-ha. Right on cue. Wendy appeared, walked across and opened the door.

"Hi" She spotted him, came round the table and sat opposite.

"Evening" Bobby was feeling a little nervous about this, and presumably she was too. Still, it felt good to be out of the house without meth wafting up his nose every five seconds. Although saying that, he could have sworn he had smelt some earlier when the door to the back of the shop was opened…

"So what would you like? It's on me" He'd said that far too quickly for his liking. Smooth, Tethway, real smooth…

"Just an Espresso thanks" She looked at the window and frowned. Maybe she was a little worried about being seen. After raising his finger as if to say 'Back in a mo', Bobby got up and went back to the till to order her drink. He swerved back and forth on his feet to try and cool his nerves. Somehow, he just felt that something was bound to go wrong. Well, try this on for size, something; the day surely couldn't get any worse after the panic attack. And while he may have been tempting fate thinking that, he had deliberately done it ironically so hopefully he would be safe. He glanced back at Wendy, who was still looking out of the window and tapping her fingers anxiously on the table. Now he felt guilty for putting her in this position. Had he asked a bit too much of her?

"One Espresso" Bobby was brought back to Earth by Tweek's Dad, who handed over the drink and took another $4. As he went back over with her drink, Bobby took a deep breath in a further effort to reassure himself that this was not going to go wrong. It didn't really work. She thanked him as he set her drink down in front of her and plonked himself down back in his seat. After a couple of seconds of awkward silence, Bobby broke the ice "Didn't miss much at school today did I?"

"Not really, no. Although Butters decided to bring out his wiener again" She looked like she wanted to be sick as she said that. He didn't blame her, frankly. She looked out the window again before taking a sip of her drink.

"Well, let's just put the whole gender war malarkey to the side for the time being" Bobby wanted to focus on positives rather than negatives as much as possible "Tell me a bit about yourself, Wendy"

"What's there to say?" She ummed for a moment before deciding to be humble "I'm just your everyday girl"

Bobby realised he was going to struggle to find ways of making conversation "What do you do for fun?" He asked.

"Oh, I hang out with my friends; go to the movies, have sleepovers and all that. I do cheerleading and volleyball aswell. I don't really have much me-time though" She considered what she had said for a moment "Actually that's a lie, I do have more of that these days because of…" She stopped in her tracks and sighed "What about you?"

"Gotta be honest, still trying to work all that out. I would say hanging out with friends aswell, but I only really have two so far; Kenny and you" He lifted his fingers off his cup "That is if you don't mind being friends with a nerd like me"

"You haven't given me a reason not to yet" She responded.

"What, not even my gender?" That just slipped out. So much for putting it all to one side. Bloody idiot.

She rolled her eyes. He felt her pupils scratching at him as they rose "We both know that doesn't concern you. Like I said, you just got here. Don't get me wrong, I think some guys are absolute scum…"

"President Twatface for instance?" He cut her off, hoping a dash of political humour would set things right.

She nodded in agreement "He was our teacher"

Bobby's eyebrows shot up in surprise "Seriously?!"

"Yup"

"How did you cope?"

"Barely. It's probably where a lot of the guys in our class got it from. That's why I don't think you'd be the kind of person who would act like that"

"Watch me get my memories back and it turns out I was a she-hater before all this thanks to some pillock in the British education system" He muttered cynically, remembering the existence of Michael Gove.

"So, what else have you been doing since you got here?"

Bobby was about to tell her about the incident with the Corpas but, sensing that she would laugh at him for claiming aliens do exist, instead simply said "Tried skydiving with Kenny, but it didn't work out that well. Apart from that, quite a bit of swearing"

She shrugged "Everyone does that in this town"

"What, the skydiving, or the swearing?"

"The swearing, silly!" That could have gone worse, he supposed. She took another sip of her drink. So did he. Mm-mm! He was beginning to relax and feel comfy. They were over the hill now and in full swing. Marvellous. As she was drinking however, her face went red and she gasped as she swallowed her coffee. Bobby immediately reached over and asked if she was OK. He realised she was looking past him, out of the window again. He turned round to see what had caught her eye.

It was Stan. And he looked pissed off. Oh. Was he about to get a bollocking for hanging out with a girl? Oh. Oh, wait a minute…surely not…no.

"Excuse me" Wendy got down and went out.

No, no, no…

They began talking to each other. Stan now looked upset. In fact, they both did. When they met briefly at the school he had been a bit down because of his girlfriend breaking up with him…it was Wendy wasn't it? He'd just taken out Stan's ex-girlfriend.

As a pit slowly formed in his stomach, Bobby watched them talk for a solid seven seconds before taking his glasses off and headbutting the table. His and Wendy's cups erupted with coffee and stained the table's white surface. Unbelievable. He knew something was going to go wrong but he thought it was going to be something along the lines of him saying the wrong thing and her discovering that he was a complete charm vacuum. Not getting interrupted by her bloody ex!

He lifted his head back up and half-heartedly sipped again at his Frappuccino while he waited for one or both of them to come back in. It was turning cold.

Then Bobby's phone went off. Kenny. What fresh hell was this?

"Yeah?" He answered, trying and failing to not sound aggravated.

"Dude, wfasdjpjnilnbsauihp" That's pretty much what it sounded like Kenny just said. The muffle didn't help.

Bobby groaned loudly "Kenny, can you slow down and repeat that, please?"

"The police were round asking for you"

"…You what?"

"I don't know why, but I think they're looking for you. What have you done?!"

"I haven't done anything" He looked back out the window. Stan was coming in. Wendy was behind him "Look, mate, I've got other things on my mind right now, I'll call you back" He tossed his phone onto the table and buried his head in his hands. Why in God's name would the police be looking for him? At this point in time, he didn't really care. The door opened behind him. He didn't look up.

"Dude, what's the big idea?!" Stan shouted. Bobby still didn't look up.

"It wasn't his fault, Stan…"

"Wendy, I poured my heart out to you" Now it sounded like Stan was fighting back tears "You broke up with me, but you knew I wasn't the troll. I still tried to 'fix myself', I sat on my ass for days trying to work out what was wrong with me and then when I think I've got it worked out, you've already started going out with a Brit, again!"

Now Bobby looked up, putting his glasses back on "For the record, mate, I didn't realise you two were going out. And I also didn't arrange this as if I wanted to score with her in the end because apparently the concept of people of the opposite sex going out as friends, if at all, seems to be lost on people these days!" He did try to say this as innocently as he could but the effort required to mask his frustration was too great. He almost spat out the last sentence.

"Oh, so you're not attracted to her?" Stan asked.

"Stan, I told you" Wendy said before Bobby could respond "Once this was all over and everyone had forgot about it, I said I would get back with you, didn't I?"

Stan sighed "I know what you're like, Wendy. You have gone out with a lot of boys before"

She hesitated for a moment "Yeah, like three"

"Five" He held up his fingers to emphasise it. Bobby swallowed.

"If you mean Cartman, then that did not count!"

Bobby wanted to end this situation ASAP. Climbing down from his seat, Bobby said "Mate, look at me" He stretched out his arms and stood right in front of Stan "I'm a nerd wearing plaid trousers and a long coat. Do I honestly seem like the kind of guy that Wendy would date? Seriously"

Stan scanned him for a moment before conceding "I guess not. I'm sorry, I just…" He turned back to Wendy "I don't want to lose you again, Wendy. I know we've broken up a whole bunch of times but this last one hurt the most. You and I both know that I didn't do anything wrong, or at least I thought I didn't do anything. I…" He stopped in his tracks. Poor sod, he really had taken this one rather hard. "Like I said, I miss you"

Wendy cradled Stan's cheek "I know. I miss you too. You just need to be patient" Then she sniffed "Is that…?" She sniffed again "Have you been drinking?!"

Stan's expression turned into one of guilt "…A bit, yeah"

"Oh my God!" Wendy and Bobby said in unison.

But they didn't have time to take it further. Flashing blue lights started shining through the windows. Trouble in the neighbourhood? But then Bobby remembered Kenny's phone call and began praying it wasn't his trouble. They all stopped and stared as three police cars pulled up, and officers sprung out of them. Kenny appeared in front of them and dashed inside the shop.

He grabbed Bobby by the shoulders "I told you they were after you, dude!"

Bobby's blood ran cold, and the pit in his stomach from earlier further opened up again. He hadn't done anything wrong…had he? He felt himself becoming short of breath again.

Two officers flanked their superior, a ginger guy in suspenders with two caterpillars on his upper lip forming a moustache. The rest of the squad remained outside. The three of them entered and the ginger spoke up, gaze fixed on the Brit

"Bobby Tethway, I am Detective Sergeant Yates of the South Park police force. I am placing you under arrest on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant"

Bobby went completely dead inside, as everyone in the shop stared at him. This night had gone from potentially great to complete shite in less than five minutes. So much for tempting fate ironically.