There, collapsed in front of her door, shivering in the winter cold, naked, bruised, bleeding, covered in dirt and mud and debris, and curled up in a ball to preserve what little warmth he could, was William.

"Oh my goodness, Willy!" Helena exclaimed. "What happened to you?"

She didn't wait for his response, squatting down in her black bathrobe, tossing her coffee cup aside and gently scooping the sixty millimeter man into her hands, taking care not to let her black-painted nails scratch him as she did.

"Oh you look terrible! We need to get you inside and warmed up!" She said.

Even as her hands wrapped around him, she could see a bit of life return to the shrunken man. He uncurled, crawled over to and wrapped his arms around one of her thumbs, hugging her tightly.

“You poor thing! Let’s get you cleaned up.” Helena said.

William hadn’t responded, but she was at least relieved to see him conscious and moving. It was the middle of winter, and he had decided to be independent a week earlier, declaring himself a member of an independent shrunken community. He had packed up his things, small in number and nature though they were, and set off, with that shrunken woman he’d met.

With grace and care, not to jostle or drop William, Helena moved swiftly to her master bathroom and began procuring things from her cabinet; her favorite soap, a few fluffy washrags, and a special basin that would let water through, but allow Helena to bathe William effectively. It was a bit difficult doing all of that with one hand, the other lovingly cradling the still shivering William, but Helena had practice.

She started the water running, not too hot, but enough to steam, and set the basin, then one of the more comfortable cloths into it. She squirted a healthy amount of the liquid soap on it and set it into the water, almost immediately the bathroom began to fill with the warm, comforting rose-water scent she so adored.

As soon as the cloth had been soaked through, and the water came up to temperature, Helena gently set William down on the cloth, out of the stream of water, and almost immediately began using her finger to divert a comfortable stream of water onto the shivering shrunken man.

Even before the dirt and grime began to wash away, she could see his body slow its shivering. His breathing, before ragged and shallow, deepened and steadied. But he hadn’t stopped weeping.

“There, isn’t that better, Willy?” She asked, guiding the water over him with one index finger and beginning to rub some of the soap over his naked form with the other. “Come on and tell me what happened.”

It took some time, but the warm water, the soothing scent of rose-water, and Helena’s gentle massaging eventually seemed to coax William back to a semblance of life. It was enough to set him crying again and he grabbed Helena’s finger as he spoke.

“She’s dead!” William screamed. “She’s dead and I couldn’t do anything to save her!”

“Oh, there, there, Willy…” Helena cooed. “Who’s dead?”

“Sybil!” William bawled. “We had barely made it out of the street with our lives! A dog nearly got us both, and we were left naked and running!”

As he spoke, Helena dutifully tended to him, making sure to rinse away the dirty water and keep him warm.

“We had just made it off the sidewalk, we were headed back to the community when… when…” William couldn’t find the strength to finish. He began sobbing uncontrollably into Helena’s finger.

“Come on, now, you can tell me.” Helena offered. “What happened?”

“O…out of n…nowhere…” William struggled to say. “A j…jogger just came out of nowhere! Sybil didn’t even have time to see it coming!”

“Willy, baby, what didn’t she see coming?” Helena asked.

“The jogger deliberately crushed her!” William screamed and broke down sobbing in Helena’s hands.

“There, there, Willy.” Helena soothed. “It’s behind you now. You’re safe with me.”

Helena began to gently stroke William’s back, her fingertips only just caressing his skin as she had before he had abandoned her. She was relieved to see that most of his injuries appeared to be superficial, nothing crippling or life-threatening, still, she would need to treat them appropriately.

“Surely it was an accident?” Helena said, moving a finger to guide the water to wash over William in a final rinse.

“No!” William shouted through the deluge. “We weren’t even on a sidewalk! And she even stomped on Sybil a second time just to be sure!”

Having finished rinsing William off, Helena brought a fresh, fluffy towel over and scooped him out of the basin, cradling him gently as she patted him dry.

“How horrible, did you get a good look at who did it?” Helena asked, more concerned with drying than asking.

“No.” William sniffled, his tears finally stemmed by exhaustion. “It happened so quickly, just a flash of bright colors and then gone. I got lost trying to make it back to the community.”

“Well it’s all behind you now, Willy.” Helena said, picking up William in the fluffiest of towels she could find. “You need to rest now, let’s get you into bed.”

“Okay.” William said with a sorrow that stung Helena.

The trip back into the bedroom, and over to the glass enclosure Helena had made for William was brief and uneventful. The enclosure was a thing of awe, at least to Helena, an aquarium like set of walls, a locking lid, comfortable, hand-made furniture, including the bed she had fashioned from an old memory foam slipper of hers, as well as fixtures for running water, and a food dispenser if William got hungry. Everything William could ever want, in Helena’s mind, except for Helena herself, who slept next to the enclosure on her own bed. She used the key to unlock the enclosure and then slipped the key into her robe pocket before lowering William in.

“Here you go, Willy. I made sure everything was ready for you, in case you came back to me.” Helena said, depositing him right on the bed, oversized for him, but still a source of comfort.

"Okay now, Willy, I'm going to let you get some rest." Helena said sweetly. "Oh, I almost forgot!"

She leaned down and procured from under the nightstand with the enclosure a, to her, small teddy bear. It was truthfully a crude facsimile, even as teddy bears go, but it was also a much more personal comfort. Helena had sewn 'Mr. Bear' herself from an old, brown, flannel shirt that she had worn around the house when it was cold. ‘Mr. Bear’ was likewise stuffed with the scraps of some wool socks of hers that she could no longer justify wearing for the holes in them. Even the buttons that made up ‘Mr. Bear’s eyes had come off her own clothing. Every night William had been away, she had slept with ‘Mr. Bear’ clutched to her chest, just to make sure that when she got her Willy back, ‘Mr. Bear’ would be ready.

The stuffed animal was small by teddy bear standards, but to William, ‘Mr. Bear’ was massive, many times larger than William himself. Helena deftly reached down, and with one finger, lifted Willy up just far enough to slip ‘Mr. Bear’s arm under him as an impromptu pillow, and then lay William back down wrapped in ‘Mr. Bear’s embrace. With cautious care, she pulled the sheets and comforter, what had been one of her old t-shirts and another sock respectively, of the tiny bed up to William’s neck, and draped it over him, tucking in the sides and making for a very snug fit.

“There we go.” She said quietly, not wanting to disturb the serene scene. “Everything the way it should be.”

Helena stood up and began to lower the lid to the enclosure.

“Okay now, Willy, I’m going to lock your enclosure for…” She trailed off, letting William vocalize the sentiment for her.

“For my safety.” William said through closed eyes, with a mixture of pure exhaustion, defeat, resignation, relief, and acceptance.

“For your safety.” Helena confirmed.

The lid came down and clicked shut, with Helena sliding the locking mechanism into place and sealing it against unwanted access or exodus. She backed slowly away, until she reached the door to her bedroom, and stood for a moment in the doorway, one hand on the light switch.

“Goodnight Willy, I love you.” She said.

“I love you too.” He said. It was muffled by ‘Mr. Bear’s chest, the distance between them, and his size, but still, Helena heard it.

Gently, so as to make as little noise as possible, she dropped the light switch and pulled the door closed.

For a moment, Helena stood outside her bedroom. Standing in the hallway, she could almost still feel William shivering in her hands, his arms clinging to her in desperation, fear, and pain. Her hands could still almost feel him finally relax, his breathing normalized as her fingertips rubbed away the dirt, grime, and exhaustion with love and hot water. She could even still feel him as she clutched him to her chest when she carried him to bed. Everything was finally right.

But she only allowed herself a moment. There would be more time to savor William's return, and enjoy his presence later on. She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out her cellphone, quickly getting to the application she wanted. Immediately the phone screen lit up with a night-vision of her own bedroom. The first image was a wide-shot, showing her almost the entire bedroom, but she quickly swiped through with her fingertip and got to the desired image. Mounted discreetly in the lid of the enclosure, a camera looked down on William's sleeping form. It showed her shrunken boyfriend in stark clarity, tucked into bed, and sleeping. She clicked a button, and the microphone inside 'Mr. Bear' relayed the soft sounds of William's breathing as he slept.

Happy to see William sleeping so peacefully, Helena turned off her phone, replaced it in her robe, and set about her work. It was only mid-day, but she now had things to do.

After cleaning up the bathroom where she had bathed William, and checking to make sure there was nothing left outside where he had arrived at her door, Helena made her way to her garage, closing the door behind her. She checked her phone one last time. The cameras she had installed in her bedroom confirmed that William was still safely tucked into bed, wrapped in ‘Mr. Bear’ arms. Even though she had no worries at this stage, Helena didn’t get what she wanted by being careless.

The garage was colder than the rest of the house, but Helena only planned to be outside for a few moments. Still in her slippers and her bathrobe, she grabbed an empty trashbag from the shelf near the door as she made her way to the trunk of her car and popped it open using her keys. Inside the trunk she quickly retrieved the gaudy neon pink sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt, the similarly neon green balaclava, and of course, the blue trail runner shoes, stuffing each article into the trashbag as she pulled it from the trunk.

She paused for a moment as she got to the right shoe. Both were dirty, mud and soil clinging to them, but the red stain on the right shoe’s sole caught her eye. She checked the trunk lining to make sure that it hadn’t also stained the inside of her car, and satisfied that it hadn’t lamented the amount of money she had spent on the outfit, so very much not in keeping with her preferred monochromatic color palette, almost bothered her. But checking her phone again, seeing William tucked into bed, locked safely in his enclosure, wrapped in her love, she decided the expenditure had been more than worth the price paid.

"Sorry," Helena said to the stain. "But it had to be this way."

She stuffed the shoe into the trashbag, and tied a knot in it, sealing it, and tossed it, with the rest of the garbage, into the garbage can to be wheeled out to the street for collection the next morning.