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Chapter Text

Death was not as cold and embracing as Wednesday had expected it to be. It was warm, in a cloyingly unpleasant way, and she had the distinct impression of something sticky clinging to her skin, though she could not see what it was. In the ink-black darkness, she couldn't see her hand right in front of her face, nor hear a sound, except her own ragged breathing as her chest heaved.

It was unnatural. It was unnerving.

If this was death, then it certainly was not something to look forward to, like Wednesday had always assumed it would be.

The dying part hadn't exactly been fun either.

Wednesday had always known that she would perish in some horrifically grizzly way, but death by Hyde was not the way she would have chosen to go. For all that it would be a memorable death, it was not at all unique. Tyler had killed at least twenty-five other people that Wednesday knew about. There was no great achievement in being the twenty-sixth.

And if she absolutely had to be killed by a Hyde, then Wednesday would have preferred that he actually maul her to death. Being ripped to shreds would have at least been interesting, if not unique.

Being tossed out a window was so… pedestrian.

The disappointment had almost hurt worse than her bones snapping when she had hit the ground.

Almost.

Truthfully, Wednesday would have much preferred that Tyler had killed her in his human form. She wanted him to tear her apart with his bare hands. She wanted to look into his eyes as her blood splattered across his face, which was somehow even more disgustingly handsome than before despite his nearly year-long incarceration in the loony bin. (Or, perhaps, because of it.) It was personal between them. Her death ought to have been an intimate thing they shared. Like their kiss. Like the kisses (and other things) they'd never had the opportunity to experience.

It was nauseatingly predictable of her to fall for a boy whose hidden darkness turned out to be a literal serial killing monster. It was even worse that she had only been able to admit to herself that she loved Tyler after he had killed her. She had not believed that it had been real for him until now. He was a creature under the control of a madwoman who had intended to use Wednesday in a resurrection ritual since the moment she had heard that Wednesday was coming to Nevermore, and Tyler had deceived her and manipulated her on his master's orders. How could any of it have been real? He had all but confirmed that he had been pretending all along when he taunted her in the police station.

But Wednesday knew better now. Her murder had been the ultimate declaration of his love. After all, the opposite of love was indifference, not hate. And when he was acting of his own free will, completely free of Laurel's influence, Tyler hated Wednesday enough to kill her.

Who could blame him? He had expressly told her that he wanted them to be together, during the single time she had visited him at Willow Hill, and Wednesday had thrown his declaration back in his face. She had deliberately hurt him with the cruelest words she could think of in the moment—and some she had been rehearsing in her head for nearly a year, during her angriest moments.

It was not exactly well-adjusted for Tyler to decide that if he could not have her then he would kill her. Then again, it was not exactly the epitome of mental health for Wednesday to like it.

Besides, she was in no position to judge. In hindsight (or maybe just with the clear eyes of death), it was obvious to Wednesday that she felt the same way about him. She had never had an emotional response when anyone else had betrayed her, other than members of her own family… and the feelings she had for Tyler were decidedly not familial in nature. She would never have admitted it in the waking world, but her intractable hatred and insatiable thirst for vengeance against him had been because she had allowed herself to care for him and he had thrown her feelings back in her face with his betrayal.

Wednesday prided herself on her rational mind and her ability to withstand pain in order to uncover the truth, but she realized now that she had deliberately blinded herself to her own feelings in order to avoid the discomfort of feeling them.

Her last living thought was that her mother had been right—she had made everything worse—and she wouldn't even be alive to set things right, not for herself or Enid or Tyler or anyone else.

"Wednesday Addams," said a familiar voice from behind her.

Wednesday turned to face it, struggling against the thick ether pressing in around her on all sides, and there she was. Goody Addams, a streak of white in the dark, her pale braids and white dress so bright that they hurt Wednesday's eyes. At the sight of her, the truth slammed into Wednesday all at once. She had known, of course. Intellectually. Rationally. But she had not fully processed it until that moment.

"I really am dead."

Wednesday felt the hot, unwelcome sting of tears behind her eyes, no matter how ruthlessly she tried to suppress them.

She had never feared death; she had always thought that she would welcome it when her time came. But it had come too soon. She did not want to die now, at sixteen, before she had time to live. Before she had time to publish her novel, to finish school, to carve a path for herself outside of her mother's shadow. Her parents would be devastated. Pugsley would not survive long without her. There would be no one there to save Enid, either. What if Enid died because Wednesday was not there to protect her from Tyler's wrath?

And Tyler—there would be no closure between them. Wednesday would never have a chance to come to terms with the things he had made her feel, and Tyler would have to live with having killed her.

"Yes, you are dead," Goody confirmed placidly, either unaware or uncaring of Wednesday's inner turmoil. "When I gave my soul to save yours, I expected you to sacrifice yourself to defeat Crackstone. I expected your death to free my spirit."

Wednesday blinked, once, to banish the tears from her traitorous eyes.

"Free your spirit? I thought you had sacrificed your spirit to heal me."

"So I did, but healing you was not only a matter of restoring your physical body. You died and ought to have stayed dead. My soul acts as the bridge between your soul and your body, the tether that lashes them together. So long as you live, I persist in this state."

She gestured broadly to encompass the black space around them.

"If I'm dead now, why are you still here?" Wednesday wondered aloud, her mind racing with the implications.

"Your body is not beyond repair," replied Goody. "They are rendering you aid even now, and you may yet recover. Or you may not, and your soul will leave the mortal plane forever."

Wednesday felt both hope and dread well up in her chest. It was not an uncommon combination for her but was wholly unwelcome in this instance.

She leveled a glare at her erstwhile spirit guide. "So you're here to make sure I die so that you can be free."

"No. I have no power over what happens to your body now," denied Goody. "I yearn for your death, but there is no guarantee it will happen. That is why I am here: To offer you another path, one that guarantees my freedom."

"What path?" Wednesday demanded sharply.

The other girl's eyes, two dark pits in her white face, bore into Wednesday's, unblinking, but her expression remained impassive, as though she were not discussing something miraculous and perilous.

"To return to the last time you died, when I bound my soul to your body. I could, perhaps, bind you to your past body instead."

Wednesday was beginning to suspect that this was a trick. Likely she was in hell, and as soon as she accepted Goody's offer it would all be revealed to be an elaborate illusion designed to torment her. Or maybe her dying brain was misfiring and hallucinating this entire scenario due to her desperate desire to live. Either way, it was too insane to be true.

She had been raised at the breast of a gifted witch and weaned on tales of sorcery, and one of the most fundamental lessons she had learned was that you did not lightly interrupt the cycle of life and death. Necromancy was a powerful and potentially useful branch of magic, as members of the Addams family well knew, but it had the capacity to go terribly wrong. Especially when the witch's intentions were selfish. Goody's own missteps with Crackstone were testament to that.

And trying to transfer a person's soul across time? Unthinkable.

"Time is somewhat more fluid in the spirit realm than in the mortal realm," Goody explained, as if she had read Wednesday's mind and sought to alleviate her suspicions. "That is why you can see visions of events both past and future. While it is true that we spirits cannot move freely through time, our situation is unique. We are tied together, body and soul, and the act of saving you tore the fabric of reality and left a scar behind. I should be able to revisit that point in time, and I may yet have enough power to send your present soul into your past body."

"You may?" The corners of Wednesday's mouth pulled into a frown.

Goody's chin dipped in acknowledgement. "I may. Or I may not. If I fail, the attempt will prevent me from saving you at all. In that case, you would die in Crackstone's crypt. If I succeed, you would wake there with all the memories you have accumulated since. The past would be changed either way, whether for good or ill."

"And either way you will never tie your soul to me. You would go on as if that never happened."

Wednesday would have admired the unfettered selfishness of the proposal, if not for the fact that Goody was willing to risk Crackstone succeeding in his mission to kill all outcasts in order to save herself. So much for taking accountability for her own actions in having cursed the pilgrim in the first place. So much for her grand act of self-sacrifice.

"Yes, now that I have had to endure the consequences of my decision to save you, I am willing to risk the consequences of not saving you in order to free myself from this purgatory."

Well, that confirmed that Goody could read her mind.

"I can," she said immediately, "and therefore I know that you, Wednesday Addams, also regret many of your choices. I am offering you a chance to correct your mistakes."

Sure, but at the risk that I die a year ago, thought Wednesday.

"And if you refuse, there is a risk that you will die now and leave your loved ones to deal with the consequences of your mistakes." Goody's voice had risen half an octave in her impatience, and her frown matched Wednesday's. "Times runs short. If you are revived or if your body expires before you choose, it will be too late. What is your decision?"

It should have been an easy decision to make. Who in their right mind would pass up the opportunity to repeat the past with full knowledge of their mistakes and missteps? Wednesday would have a leg up on Laurel. And on Judi Stonehearst. She would be able to save Donovan Galpin's life. (Not that she cared overmuch that he had died, but he had proven himself not entirely incompetent, in the end. Her desire to save him definitely didn't have anything to do with Tyler.) Tyler—she would be able to prevent his fight with Enid from happening altogether and prevent his incarceration at Willow Hill. And if it turned out that Tyler was not the one fated to kill Enid and Wednesday's vision of her death remained the same, she would have more time to solve that mystery and save her friend's life.

Yet Wednesday hesitated. As she had recently learned, to her everlasting chagrin, it was also possible that her interference could make things worse. What if the confrontation with Crackstone went differently than before? What if Tyler and Enid still fought, but Tyler killed her this time?

What if Enid killed Tyler?

That thought was too unbearable to contemplate, for reasons that Wednesday would have happily and vehemently denied before her untimely death at his hands.

Suddenly, there was a terrible ringing in her ears, which was made all the worse because the space they were in had been devoid of any sound other than Wednesday's and Goody's voices. If she weren't currently a disembodied spirit, her eardrums would have ruptured. At the same time, the formerly impenetrable darkness around them began fading to gray, as though they were on a page that had gotten wet and the ink was bleeding around them.

"We're out of time!" cried Goody. "Choose!"

And Wednesday, mind racing with the possibilities and heart pounding as it never had before, chose.

Chapter Text

It was much more disorientating to wake up in Crackstone's crypt the second time than it had been the first time, even though this time around Wednesday knew it was going to happen. The first time, she had seemingly only blacked out for a second. She had never been sure whether she had actually died, until Goody had confirmed it. The second time, Goody had seized her hand, and Wednesday had felt like she was being stretched apart in all directions, as though even the very atoms that made up the cells of her body were unraveling. Just as suddenly, she had snapped back together as if a rubber band had broken… then kept compressing inwards, until her body had been forced through a tunnel the size of a straw.

Last time, she had woken up gasping for air.

This time, she woke up screaming.

When Wednesday was finally able to sit up and take in the ghoulish jars full of body parts and the stone sarcophagus looming over her, she didn't know how long she had lain there writhing against the cold stone floor where she had been left for dead.

That was a problem.

If she wanted a chance to change as many things as possible for the better, then she had to keep as many things as possible the same. Eventually, inevitably, she would no longer be able to predict what would happen next or how people would react, and her knowledge of the future would be rendered entirely worthless. If she were not careful, that could happen as soon as tonight, before she had corrected anything she wanted to correct. She could not afford to introduce unknown variables into the equation. It would be difficult enough to mitigate the unforeseen consequences of changing those things she actually wanted to change.

How long had it taken her to cross paths with Tyler the first time? Usually Wednesday had an impeccable sense of timing, but there was something about dying (or, in this case, being sent back in time) that destroyed her equilibrium. If she mistimed it, would she miss encountering Tyler entirely? Or would she find him just the same, but Enid would be too late to save her?

The possibilities were endless, and they cycled through her mind like the most grotesque picture book imaginable as she ran through the woods, dry leaves crunching underneath her platform boots and brittle branches breaking in her wake.

Wednesday was beginning to think that she had stayed in the crypt too long—that she had already messed up the timeline—when Tyler stepped into her path.

"Laurel said you were dead."

Last time, she had made a quip about feeling much better, and things had devolved into an attempt on her life within five seconds flat.

This time, she could do nothing more than stare at him, relieved beyond measure to see him alive and so healthy.

It was difficult to reconcile this boy she had fallen for with the unhinged man she had met in Willow Hill. Wednesday thought she might prefer the Tyler she had seen at Willow Hill, whose masks had been stripped (or shocked) away until there was nothing left but raw emotion and brutal honesty, but she also preferred to see him like this, hale and whole. His mop of honey-brown curls was shorter than the last time she had seen him, and she was currently experiencing a love-hate relationship with his usual jacket layered over flannel. (She preferred the bare chest he had sported at Willow Hill... and the sinfully thin linen pants that had hardly preserved his modesty. But she would have rather died again than admit that she was no better than any other hormonal teenager.) The subtle golden undertone of his skin and the glow in his cheeks was a welcome sight, though, if only because they were signs of health. Even if Wednesday had not exactly minded the sickly pallor that had resulted from his incarceration... Perhaps she could convince him to stay indoors for a year to replicate it?

She stared at him for so long that the silence became uncomfortable even for her. And still, completely uncharacteristically, Wednesday could not find the right words to say.

"Oh well," Tyler broke the silence instead, inadvertently changing the script from their first encounter. "Laurel says a lot of things."

His tone implied that was a heavy criticism, master or no.

"I can imagine," said Wednesday bitterly. "She called herself your mother. It's sick, and not in a good way."

Tyler had clearly not been expecting that. He stopped mid-step, lips parted as if he wanted to respond but the words had become stuck in his throat. It gave Wednesday a few moments to think. Despite coming back to the past in large part to prevent the fight between Tyler and Enid, she simply had not had enough time to plan this encounter.

He was the primary threat against Enid, the only person who had actively threatened her friend's life and had the strength to carry out that threat. Wednesday had read Enid's and Sheriff Galpin's statements and knew now that, despite her friend's element of surprise, Tyler had won their fight. Enid had gotten lucky. Tyler would have killed her if his father had not tracked him using his mobile phone and shot him multiple times. That distraction had been enough for Enid to get in a couple of good blows and, ultimately, to defeat him.

There was a good chance that things had already changed too much for it to happen the exact same way again, which left Wednesday in the unenviable position of not knowing what to expect. And now that she was here, in the past, with Tyler standing in front of her, she didn't know where to start to change anything. How was she supposed to go about convincing a Hyde that she was on his side, despite all appearances to the contrary?

Luckily for her, Tyler himself gave her the perfect opening when he hissed, "Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about."

Wednesday Addams had never been known to show mercy when an opponent revealed his weak spots.

"I have good idea. When you kissed me, I had a vision of what she did to you," Wednesday informed him coldly, determined to insert herself into the crack he had revealed in his defenses. "She fed you bits and pieces of information about your mother to make you trust her, until you saw her as some twisted version of a mother figure. Although, I also saw the way she looked at you, the way she touched you, and it was definitely not maternal."

He let out a growl, a warning, but Wednesday did not heed it.

"Tell me: Did she also use sex to ensnare you in her twisted web? The endorphins your body released during intercourse would have promoted emotional bonding with her."

"Stop," demanded Tyler, but no matter how forceful he sounded, his eyes told a different story.

"No," Wednesday continued relentlessly. "Even if the Hyde views Laurel as a liberator, you and I know the truth: She enslaved you. And when you resisted, she imprisoned you in that cave and used drugs and torture until you became compliant. I doubt she engaged in sexual intercourse with you after she released the Hyde, though—even Laurel wouldn't stoop low enough to sleep with a Hyde just because it was the easiest way to control him."

Tyler scoffed as if he were amused by her summary, as if he didn't care, but Wednesday could see the hurt flash across his face and the way his hands trembled.

"You'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" he challenged, the grit in his voice betraying his true feelings. "About falling for the sweet, innocent Normie boy, then running away scared once you met the monster. Let's just say I had already been taught to expect that."

Wednesday felt nausea roil through her body. She had suspected that Laurel had groomed him in more ways than one, that she had used sex to attach him to her emotionally, but she had hoped that he would deny it. It was not exactly surprising that he had not, of course; what easier way was there to manipulate a teenage boy than with sex? But having it confirmed still made her feel ill.

She swallowed heavily. Once. Twice.

Then, when she felt as though she could speak around the lump in her throat, she clarified, "You misunderstand me. Laurel is an Outcast-hating bigot who only used your body's responses to control you. I would not consider it a degradation to engage in a physical relationship with a Hyde."

The muscles in Tyler's jaw visibly tightened.

"Don't do that."

"Do what? Tell the truth?" retorted Wednesday.

He finally closed the distance between them and grabbed the front of her uniform, just like he had the first time, except not at all like that. Enid should have been there by now. Wednesday must have mistimed events, after all. The first time around, had she been in the crypt longer than it had seemed to her in the moment? This time, in her panic that she had stayed for too long, had she left too early and run too quickly through the woods? Tyler ought to have transformed by now, too. But he didn't.

Instead, he snarled into her face, "Your little games aren't going to save you."

"My games?" Wednesday spat back at him. "I'm not the one playing games."

"Don't lie!" he roared. Wednesday could see the beginning of the transformation just shimmering beneath his skin. "You wanted nothing to do with me when you found out what I am, and you're only pretending to care now because I'm still useful to you. You'll drop me without a backwards glance as soon as I don't have anything else you want!"

A surge of white-hot fury shot up Wednesday's spine.

"Is that something else Laurel said?" she mocked him, letting the full measure of her contempt color her voice. "That sounds like projection to me: She's the one who is only using you, and as soon as she's done with you, she'll kill you. And you know it."

A vicious growl rumbled through his chest and seemed to vibrate Wednesday's very bones. He lifted her fully off the ground and pulled her into him, so close they were nearly touching.

She craned her neck to glare defiantly up at him, fully intending to continue to press her point, even if it killed her (again), but her breath caught in her chest when they locked eyes. His eyes and the Hyde's were not entirely dissimilar, and Wednesday could see the same rage and anguish simmering behind them as she had seen in that empty corridor in Willow Hill, if a little less intense now than they had been then. The entire scene—the way he looked at her, the way he held her—was too reminiscent of the moments preceding her death. Her own pain and the despondency she had experienced at realizing she was dead came rushing back to the forefront of her mind. Her facial muscles twitched unpleasantly as she fought to control herself, to not let her reaction show on her face, but she could tell by the curious tilt of Tyler's head that she had failed.

It was humiliating to feel so vulnerable in front of anyone, even Tyler (especially Tyler), but whatever he saw in her expression at least had the benefit of stymying his rage.

He stared down at her with completely human features now, no hint of the Hyde behind his wide hazel eyes, and lowered her enough that her feet found purchase on the forest floor, though he did not release his grip on her.

Wednesday's own anger ebbed along with his, and she was left with a bone-deep exhaustion.

Emotions, especially her own, were not her forte. And it had been a long day. Both the one her physical body had endured and the one her soul had.

"I never played games with you," she confessed, finally, into the narrow gap between them. "I may have taken advantage of your knowledge and your car a time or two to help with my investigation, but I was never playing about… about... Do you think I go around kissing people as part of some game? Just to manipulate them? For your information, that was my first kiss. I trusted you. I, I…"

She couldn't force herself to say the words. No matter if she had admitted her feelings to herself, she could not bring herself to admit them aloud. The only reason she had been able to say even as much as she had was that she knew, now, that parts of it—the most important parts—had been real for Tyler, too. Even if he had manipulated her and lied to her to protect himself and his master.

Tyler glared down at her. "You what? Cared about me? Is that why you tortured me and tried to turn me in?"

"Yes, actually, it is," she snapped.

He blinked, obviously baffled by that response.

"You hurt me," Wednesday managed to bite out between gritted teeth, "so I hurt you back."

He let out a nearly hysterical laugh. "Is that what we're doing? I pulled your pigtails, so you hit me with a hammer?"

"Your father interrupted us before I could hit you with the hammer," Wednesday helpfully reminded him. "And yes. In fact, I'd say that you are gunning for the ultimate escalation of our little tit for tat. I find it… edifying… that you love me enough to kill me."

Any ordinary (sane) person would not have understood that sentiment. And if they had, they would have run screaming for the hills. It was a wildly unhealthy basis for a relationship, after all, for normal people. But neither of them was remotely normal. And she knew that Tyler would understand. She knew that he did love her that much, enough for it to turn into unadulterated hatred at her rejection, because he had killed her before. And, although Wednesday was constitutionally incapable of giving voice to her feelings, she hoped he would realize that she loved him enough to torture him for his betrayal.

A peculiar expression crossed his handsome face, one that Wednesday could not read. But before he could respond, a howl rang out across the woods, and Wednesday's attention was thoroughly diverted. Enid sounded further away than Wednesday had expected but still too close for comfort.

She reached up with one hand to wrap her fingers around Tyler's wrist, where his sleeve had ridden up and exposed a sliver of skin. A shiver ran through his body at the contact.

"We have to move," she announced as she took a step back. He let her go, her uniform falling from his limp fingers with no resistance or fanfare, which was a good sign. Wednesday tugged on his arm. "That was Enid. If she finds us like this, I don't think she will stop to ask questions. Last she heard, you're a homicidal monster."

"I am a homicidal monster."

"Yes," Wednesday acknowledged simply.

She had made no headway at all moving them out of the clearing, and it had become obvious to her that she would not be able to force him to take a single step if he did not want to. Clearly his inability to open the garage door at the Gates mansion had been a ruse, just like gouging his own chest had been. She wondered exactly how much of his powers he had access to while in human form, then quickly pushed that thought aside to analyze at a more appropriate time.

Wednesday would never normally lower herself to beg for anything. But these were not normal circumstances, and it made no sense to stand on pride when her entire trip back to the past was in jeopardy. And when he had already seen her visibly struggle with her emotions, anyway.

"Tyler, please," she beseeched him. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I don't want to test whether I can forgive you for killing my only friend."

He took far too long to consider that for Wednesday's comfort. She presumed that he was having an internal debate about whether risking Wednesday's further enmity would be worth it for the chance to really, truly stretch his Hyde's muscles by fighting a werewolf. Or at least that's what she would have been weighing, if she were him.

But, ultimately, he allowed himself to be pulled forward by the insistent pressure of her hand on his arm. And when Wednesday took off at a run, he followed, easily keeping pace with her as she darted around trees and hurdled over fallen logs. Wednesday did not want to stop. She couldn't. She had never asked Enid how she had found them the first time, whether it had been happenstance or she had deliberately tracked them. But surely the ruckus she and Tyler were making now, their footsteps thundering across the ground, would lead her right to them. Would Enid be enough in her right mind to notice that Wednesday was the one leading Tyler, not the other way around?

The low stone wall surrounding Nevermore's cemetery was just visible in the distance when Tyler finally came to a halt, and Wednesday was forced to stop with him since she had not suddenly developed superhuman strength of her own.

Sometime during their wild pell-mell through the trees, Wednesday's grasp had slipped from his wrist to his hand, and their fingers had become intertwined. She could not have said which of them was responsible for such a revolting display, but she found that she did not mind it as much as she ought to have.

At that unwanted thought, she tried to yank her hand away from his, but he only wrapped his fingers tighter around hers, so hard it was nearly painful.

Wednesday clenched her jaw but stopped her futile struggle against his much greater strength.

"We shouldn't be out in the open," she stressed, masking her fear with irritation. "If we can get to the cemetery, you can hide in one of the sarcophagi, and the odor should help mask your scent so that Enid can't track you."

Tyler's nose wrinkled at the suggestion. Evidently, though he reveled in being splattered head to toe with blood and draped in viscera, lying on some moldering old bones was a step too far for his delicate sensibilities.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly. "Your little friend isn't anywhere around. There's something small moving around about twenty yards southeast of us, maybe a raccoon. Definitely no werewolves, though."

It was a mystery how Enid had been able to sneak up on him the first time, when he had been transformed, if his senses were that sharp even in his human form. (That was another thing Wednesday was eager to explore later.) She supposed the easiest explanation was that he had been so focused on killing her that he had been oblivious to all else, but that seemed too convenient and sentimental, even for a lovesick teenager bent on revenge.

"Then you should go home, Tyler," she decided, her mind quickly leaping from one plan to another. "No one knows for sure that you're involved. There's no evidence linking you to any of the crimes, or at least none that your father has let see the light of day. I can deal with Enid and the Nightshades after I defeat Crackstone and Laurel."

"But—" he began, but he sucked in an audible breath and stopped talking when Wednesday's other hand, the one not held hostage in his bear-trap grip, cupped his cheek.

Feeling Tyler's skin underneath her hand was… not an unpleasant sensation. Wednesday realized with a jolt that, before tonight, she had never really touched him, except to tend to his self-inflicted wounds after their misadventure at the Gates mansion, and that had been too clinical, too sterile, to register in her mind. Every other time, there had always been a layer of fabric between them—when he had caught her after her vision at the harvest festival, when they had danced at the Rave'N, during their date in the crypt. Even when they had kissed at the Weathervane, Wednesday had buried her fingers in his excessive layers of clothing rather than touch his skin, not purposely, but the result had been the same.

His cheek was surprisingly soft, despite the hint of stubble just beginning to grow in, and he radiated heat, so much so that she would have presumed he had a fever if she had not known he was a Hyde. His stare was no less heated. He looked like he wanted to consume her, and she was not referring to what he did to his victims.

Only years of practice and her sheer force of will allowed her to keep her tone even as she told him, "If anyone finds out for sure that you are the monster in the woods, I will have to break you out of Willow Hill. And as enticing as I would normally find being courted by a criminally insane felon, I don't trust any of the other baristas to make my quads."

She had hoped to elicit at least the barest of smiles from him, but Tyler only continued to watch her intently, as if he could find the answers to all his questions in her face. He couldn't, of course. Despite the terrifying, wild, uncharted emotions he invoked in her, Wednesday would always be herself: self-contained, non-emotive, corpselike.

After several interminable seconds, he asked, "Courted?"

In her surprise, Wednesday actually blinked.

"That's what you're focused on?" she chastised him, her voice rising with each word until it bordered on shrill, by her standards. "There's a werewolf, who happens to be my best friend, who will attack you if she finds you, a genocidal zombie who was resurrected from the dead to finish what he started four hundred years ago, and, in case that's not enough, your bitch of a master who will order you to kill me as soon as she lays eyes on us. And you're worried about—"

"Wednesday," he breathed out, and she stopped abruptly.

It was the first time she had heard him say her name since she had visited him in Willow Hill. And he had not said it nearly so sweetly then.

"I don't care about any of them," he declared, steadily holding her gaze. "Enid isn't here. Crackstone can burn down Nevermore and everyone in it for all I care. They rejected my mother and pretended like I didn't exist, so why should I care what happens to them? And Laurel… Well, fuck her."

"Apparently you already have," Wednesday couldn't help but snipe at him.

His eyes gleamed, nearly green in the light of the blood moon, as he wrapped his large hand around Wednesday's throat and forced her to tilt her chin up, his thumb digging painfully underneath her jawbone on one side and his fingertips pressing divots into her skin on the other. Despite the borderline violence of his actions, he did not apply pressure to her larynx or otherwise restrict her breathing in any way.

"I only care about you," he insisted, very nearly pleading with her now. "You sensed the monster in me. I know you did, even though I was forbidden from telling you or showing you. And I thought you could care for it—for me. But then you ran away, and you tried to hurt me, and I was so… so angry."

"I felt betrayed," she interjected.

"I know. I'm sorry."

It should absolutely not be that easy for him to earn her forgiveness. It should not. This man had betrayed her, whatever his reasons had been. He had lied to her, and manipulated her, and made her out to be the world's biggest fool. He had killed her.

Wednesday had traveled across time and space for another chance. To right the wrongs between them. To pull him from the clutches of his duplicitous master and tie him to herself instead.

She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to peel his flesh from his bones and force him to apologize for having murdered her. She wanted, inexplicably, to bury herself into his chest and permit him to wrap her in his embrace. She wanted to wrap a chain around his pretty throat and force him to heel.

He was hers.

Her own monster.

He leaned in so close that Wednesday could feel his breath as it washed across her face, but he did not close the final distance between them.

The pressure of his hand around her throat increased to a bruising level when Wednesday arched into it to seek out his mouth with hers. His lips were soft, just like the first time, with a few rough patches that had been chapped by the autumn air. He tasted faintly of coffee and smelled like the white pines so common in the woods around them and, underneath that, like blood and damp soil. There was no time for this. Crackstone would not wait for Wednesday to finish reconciling with her erstwhile beau. But she did not want to stop. And she was terrified that if she pulled away from him now, then whatever emotional spell she had managed to weave around him tonight would shatter, and he would interpret it as another rejection.

Hydes were such volatile creatures. Tyler was such a volatile creature.

Fortunately, he pulled back first, before she had to push him away.

He rested his forehead against hers and leaned into her hand, where her palm was still cupping his cheek. Wednesday distantly noted that, sometime in the midst of their kiss, she had begun to dig crescents into his skin with her fingernails. She had not been aware of it while it was happening. He did not seem to mind.

"Let me help you," he said, his tone still pleading. "Every bone in my body is screaming at me not to let you face Crackstone alone."

"You can't come with me," she shot him down, not ungently. "Wherever Crackstone is, Laurel won't be far behind, and we can't risk her getting close enough to give you a command."

"I don't think she'd have any power over me right now," he claimed. A storm cloud crossed over his face and he seemed to be looking past Wednesday rather than at her, as if he were seeing something else in his mind's eye. "If she were standing right in front of me, I'd kill her. I'd tell her to run just so I could chase her—so I could smell her fear—and then I'd rip her apart."

His gaze refocused on Wednesday's immediately when she trailed the pad of her thumb from his cheekbone, across his nose, and down to his lips. He parted them obligingly, but Wednesday only traced the outside and pressed down gently on his lower lip.

"I wish I could take the risk," she said, utterly enthralled by the way her touch seemed to nearly hypnotize him. She mentally added that development to her list of experimental observations to be confirmed later. "I would very much enjoy watching you hunt Laurel down and rend her limb from limb."

Then he parted his lips wider and his tongue darted out to taste her skin, and she pulled the digit away before he could draw it into his mouth.

That was enough to break the spell. He jerked his face out of her reach as he took a large step back, dropping his hand from her neck as he went. For a moment, Wednesday was left suspended in a state of unknowing, wondering what his reaction portended.

"Fuck!" he swore, then pinned her with a ferocious glare. "If you die, I swear I will tear apart this miserable town and your snotty school brick by brick and slaughter everyone in them. Normie, Outcast, I don't care."

That pronouncement made Wednesday's cold blood turn to pure ice in her veins. He was being a tad hyperbolic, perhaps, but in essentials she knew he meant it. The threat should have repulsed her or at least made her angry, but on the contrary, the chill that ran down her spine exhilarated her. Maybe if she had not known that she would survive (or at least very confidently expected it, given that she had defeated Crackstone once before), then the idea of Tyler going on a mad, grief-filled, fully premeditated rampage through the town would have been a turn off for her. It was monstrous, without a doubt. But she did know that she would survive, so the idea of him willingly losing his mind to his monster due to her demise only made her want him more.

She wondered if, somewhere in an alternative reality where she had not chosen to come back in time and had died on the front steps of the psychiatric hospital, he had gone on a murderous rampage after he realized what he had done.

"If you get caught out here tonight," she returned seriously, "I will leave you in Willow Hill to slowly go insane on a steady diet of electroshock therapy and fruit cups."

Tyler raised his eyebrows. "Sounds tempting. For how long?"

"Until I miss you," she deadpanned.

He did smile, then, and Wednesday rewarded him with a slight softening of her expression. For the first time in their entire acquaintance, Wednesday felt like they fully understood one another.

Chapter Text

Wednesday approached the school directly from the cemetery, judging that it would take too long to walk around the grounds and enter the castle from the gallery like she had the first time. She had dragged Tyler from one side of campus nearly all the way to the opposite end of the grounds in her need to get him away from Enid, and she had already lost too much time. Not that she regretted a moment of it.

When she arrived, at long last, the flames had risen higher than they had during her last confrontation with Crackstone, and several students' bodies were strewn around the quad that hadn't been there before. Wednesday felt a pang of guilt at their unnecessary deaths, clear casualties of her prolonged interlude with Tyler, but she did not allow herself to dwell on it. Some people would die this time around due to the different choices she made, but others would survive who had perished the first time. If she let herself think too hard about it, then she would never think about anything else.

The universe had a way of balancing the scales, and magic always had consequences.

She had not known that these students specifically would die due to her dalliance with her Hyde, but she knew herself well enough to know that, even if she had known, she would have sacrificed them to ensure that Tyler was safe. She would not have let them die to save herself, of course. That would be barbaric. But to keep Tyler safe? She would sacrifice the entire student body, except for Enid and Eugene.

She would not do it lightly, but she would do it nonetheless.

The world would soon come to understand that, far from tempering her dark heart and sadistic soul, falling in love had made Wednesday far more dangerous than she had ever been before.

Xavier did not appear out of nowhere to make a useless attempt to save her. Wednesday took that as evidence that her plan to waylay the sheriff had worked, and Thing had not had the opportunity to free Xavier from the back of the patrol car.

That was for the best, really. She would prefer to avoid fighting Crackstone with an arrowhead lodged in her shoulder.

Bianca may have appreciated Xavier's help, though, as little as it was worth. In Wednesday's absence, the siren had taken her place confronting the undead pilgrim to allow the other students—the ones whose dead bodies were not already strewn around the quad—to escape. She was not holding her own against Crackstone any better than Wednesday had. It really was the height of hypocrisy that a man whose entire life and legacy and been built on exterminating Outcasts would use magic against them.

With their roles reversed, it was Bianca whose sword was shattered by Crackstone's staff, and it was Bianca who ended up prone on the ground, moaning as the pilgrim's evil magic surged through her body.

"An Outcast and a servant doth presume to rise against me?" hissed Crackstone. "Verily, thou shalt be taught the station which the Lord hath appointed thee."

"Wrong century," said Wednesday as she closed the remaining distance between them, the very dagger he had used to kill her lofted high above her head.

She struck with the precision of a viper when he turned, sinking the blade into his black heart before he could raise his staff against her. It went in too easily, just like it had the first time, as though she had stabbed a lump of clay and not a human body. There was no sternum to penetrate, no resistance from muscle and bone, just a sickening squelch and an astonished gasp. At least this time she had not had to resort to using her broken blade, with her bare hand. Things were improving already.

"Demon!" he cried. "How canst thy heart still beat?"

Then he shrieked as his unnatural body lit with hellfire from within, and Wednesday watched for the second time as he went up in flames.

This time, Laurel did not even wait for her ghoulish ancestor to fully disintegrate before she revealed herself by cocking her gun. Fortunately, one thing had not changed: She was as melodramatic as ever and felt the need to confront Wednesday before killing her, instead of just shooting her outright as any rational person should have done.

"You brought a gun to a sword fight," Wednesday faithfully recited her line. Then she gave the loathsome woman a wicked smirk. "Too bad it won't do you any—"

The breath was knocked out of her before she could finish. She thought, at first, that it was another arrow lodged in her shoulder, and she was just beginning to work through the nonsensicalness of that thought (no one had a bow and arrow, Crackstone was already dead) when it registered in her mind that the crack she had heard had been a gunshot.

The pain, when she finally felt it, was not limited to just her shoulder but bloomed across her clavicle and up her neck and down her arm.

So Laurel had changed after all. It seemed that it was much harder to avoid changing things than Wednesday had allowed for. And she had, yet again, managed to make things much worse. If there was one thing Wednesday hated more than anything—more than being compared to her mother or physical touch or even pastels—it was being wrong. It was unpleasant to lose in general, of course, but if she merely lost then she could learn from the experience and become better and win the next time. If she lost because she had analyzed a situation and thought through all the possibilities and been wrong, that was an entirely different kettle of fish altogether. It was an unforgivable personal failure.

It took a monumental effort, and Wednesday barely managed to suppress a whimper at the frisson of electricity that seemed to fry the nerve endings from her shoulder to her fingertips with every slight movement, but she rolled over to face a pair of familiar red boots. Laurel's gun was pointed directly at her head and, when Wednesday focused beyond that, she saw the woman's blazing eyes and maniacal grin.

"I might not get to kill all the Outcasts, but at least I'll get to kill you, Wednesday."

Some bees were buzzing around erratically, but only a few landed on the end of the barrel or on Laurel or anywhere else. Certainly not enough to stop her. Wednesday didn't know what had happened to Eugene, but it was clear that he was not going to be able to save her this time.

Had the extra time Wednesday had taken with Tyler made all the difference? They had spoken for much longer than they had the first time, to be sure, but if Wednesday only counted from the time she had heard Enid howl, then their mad dash through the woods and their conversation and their kiss had only added a few minutes to Wednesday's arrival at the school. Still, maybe watching Crackstone kill those additional students had changed Laurel's mood? Or perhaps it had been that Wednesday hadn't said the same thing to the woman as she had the first time? Her initial loss for words had certainly changed the entire trajectory of her confrontation with Tyler.

Tyler. Wednesday sighed, though doing so sent torturous bolts of pain shooting through her upper body. She deserved it.

He was going to earn himself the death penalty when he heard that Laurel, of all people, had killed her. Vermont had abolished capital punishment in 1972 and hadn't had an execution prior to that since 1954, but Wednesday was certain that Tyler—her beautiful, unstable, remarkable, homicidal boy—would convince them to reinstate the death penalty just for him. He would commit atrocities so unspeakable, and prove himself so impossible to confine in any kind of safety, that they would have no choice but to put him down like a rabid dog. And that was only if he permitted himself to be taken alive.

Wednesday was not usually a fan of romantic gestures, but if he had become so unhinged at the sight of his father that they'd had to shock him for a solid five minutes before he had returned to his human form, then how much more uncontrollable would he be when he learned that the girl he loved had been killed? By someone other than himself? By Laurel?

The first time around, he had only avoided being tried as an adult and sent to a maximum-security penitentiary for Outcasts because his lawyer had successfully argued that Laurel had been the mastermind and Tyler merely her unwilling co-conspirator. To the extent that he had any agency over his own actions at all, he had been a minor when Laurel had unlocked him and when many of the crimes had been committed.

There would be no arguing that systematically and brutally slaughtering as many people in Jericho and Nevermore as he could sink his claws into before he was stopped was the act of a pitiable child manipulated by an older authority figure. And Tyler had turned eighteen two months ago.

Truly, Wednesday had managed to screw things up on such an epic scale that it would have been impressive, had she been trying.

"What, no witty comeback?" Laurel's snide, unpleasant voice broke through Wednesday's spiraling thoughts. "No creative threats? No empty last words?"

Wednesday forced herself not to flinch, though every muscle in her body wanted to.

"None. I look forward to watching what happens from the afterlife. This will not end well for you."

Laurel's eyebrows creased together in the middle, and she tilted her head as if getting a better angle from which to observe Wednesday's face would help her solve the puzzle of Wednesday's ominous words.

Before either of them could find out what the deranged woman would have said in response, a menacing growl filled the quad, echoing and multiplying off the high stone walls. Laurel reacted much quicker than Wednesday did, whipping her head around and, moments later, bringing the gun around to point at the new threat. By the time Wednesday was able to get her spasming neck to cooperate enough to turn her head, she had heard a scream, a gunshot, and a high-pitched yelp.

Despite being hurt, Enid pulled back her foreleg and decisively swiped it forward, backhanding Laurel across the midsection and sending her careening through the air in a way that might have been comical, had Wednesday had the capacity to feel amused in that moment. The wolf stalked forward, teeth bared and a continuous growl still rumbling from her throat, to stand over their former teacher's prone form. But it was clear, even from where Wednesday was lying a good twenty-five feet away, that Laurel was not going to get up. She was breathing, but a visible pool of blood was already forming on the flagstones beneath her head, and her body was slumped at an odd angle across the stairs.

Enid seemed to come to the same conclusion only a few moments after Wednesday did. She let out a powerful huff of breath right over the unconscious woman's face, as if to say So there! Take that!, then turned and loped towards Wednesday, covering the distance in only a handful of steps. She bent to sniff at Wednesday's shoulder, causing the shock of pink hair on her head, surprisingly soft, to brush Wednesday's face. She began to whine, not stopping as her bones cracked and her muscles popped, until she was kneeling next to Wednesday in her human form.

"Oh my god, Wednesday! You're hurt!"

"So are you," Wednesday observed, looking at the bullet hole in the other girl's external oblique muscle.

Enid looked down, as if she had forgotten all about it, and brought her hand up to prod at the bleeding wound with gentle fingers.

"It's nothing, just a flesh wound," she dismissed, then her blue eyes went wide. "But oh-em-gee, I am totally naked right now."

"Yes, that tends to happen when you wolf out and shred all your clothes."

Wednesday supposed that her friend would object if she were to suggest taking a jacket off one of the bodies littering the courtyard, or even off Bianca's unconscious form. (Wednesday presumed the girl was still alive, but she hadn't had the chance to check before Laurel had shown herself.)

"The nurse's office isn't far," she suggested instead. "You can purloin a blanket or maybe even a t-shirt and some sweatpants."

Enid shook her head. "I can't leave you here!"

"I'll be fine. And the sheriff will be here soon."

"How do you know that?" demanded Enid.

"I just do," replied Wednesday, who was losing the energy to say much else.

Her injury was decidedly not just a flesh wound, though the stabbing pain and shocks of agony had subsided into a dull ache.

She never did find out whether Enid took her advice before she fell victim to the impending darkness she had been struggling to avoid.

Wednesday woke slowly, which was not her wont, to the steady beeping of an electrocardiograph heart monitor and the irritating smell of industrial-strength disinfectants. Normally, during those rare times she floated gently out of Morpheus's embrace rather than being shot to wakefulness out of a canon, she endeavored to hang on to sleep a little longer. Her nightmares were always horrific and her sleep marvelously disturbed, and it was the closest she could get to death until the day she finally shuffled off her mortal coil.

She had no such luxury now, with the shrill beeping and the buzz of voices and the feeling of someone touching her.

It was no great loss. She had recently learned that death was not all it was cracked up to be, anyway.

"Ah, Miss Addams!" a revoltingly chipper voice greeted her as soon as she opened her eyes. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Wednesday looked down at the person touching her right hand, fully intending to eviscerate whoever it was, but found that it was only a nurse adjusting the tape on the intravenous line that was sticking out of her skin. He would be permitted to live, after all. Though he could have done with some revision of his technique—his ministrations were not at all painful, unfortunately.

Next, she turned her attention to the person who had spoken from the foot of her bed, a tall, dark-haired woman who was clearly a doctor, judging by her air of confidence, though she was wearing nauseatingly bright lilac scrubs instead of a white coat.

"I'm Dr. Greer," the woman introduced herself, "the attending emergency room physician on duty tonight. You've been badly hurt, but you're going to be fine."

"I know," Wednesday told her, nearly bored except for the irritation she felt at having to be there. And at allowing herself to be shot by Laurel Gates in the first place.

The woman blinked several times, taken aback by that response and Wednesday's demeanor. There was a snort from the other side of the room, and Wednesday cut her eyes in that direction in time to see Sheriff Galpin pretend that he hadn't been watching her.

The doctor seemed to decide that carrying on was the best strategy, because she said, "Yes, well, specifically, you suffered a small caliber gunshot wound to your left shoulder. The bullet nicked an artery, which caused you to lose a significant amount of blood, but we repaired the damage and gave you a transfusion. You will need surgery to repair a broken bone and any damaged nerves, but those are not emergencies, so your parents can discuss it with the surgeons when they get here."

That was not at all specific. It was a watered down summary using words small enough to make sense even to someone as half-witted as Pugsley. Wednesday did not appreciate anyone treating her like an ignorant child. And her mood was not improved by finding out that her parents were on their way.

"Fine," she said, dismissing the doctor as she turned to look at the sheriff. "We'd better get this interrogation over with before my father gets here and puts a stop to it."

"You're a victim, not a suspect," he said sourly. "This time."

Dr. Greer swung around to look at him. "Sheriff, you know that I can't permit you to question a child without the consent of her parents."

He opened his mouth to answer, but Wednesday beat him to it.

"What are you, my doctor or my lawyer? I'm giving my consent, and that should be good enough for you and for my parents."

It did not speak well for the doctor's strength of character that she gave up so easily, but soon enough Wednesday found herself alone with Galpin. He seemed even more on edge than usual, even more than one would have expected from someone who had just responded to the scene of an attempted genocide by zombie.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded, sounding already very much at the end of his rope.

"Laurel Gates survived her supposed drowning and got hired at Nevermore under an assumed identity, where she has spent the past year and a half planning and orchestrating the mass murder of all the students and professors therein," Wednesday summarized darkly. "But I'm sure Enid and the others already explained that during my involuntary respite, so why don't you cut to the chase? Ask me what you really want to ask me."

He stared at her, frowning, while she counted six beeps of her heart monitor, then pulled an older model iPhone in a scratched up navy-blue case from his pocket and held it up in the air, as though she needed a better look to know what it was.

"Where did you get this?"

Wednesday raised one eyebrow. "You mean 'Where's Tyler'? He's safe and snug at home. Given that you are never home and avoid him when you are, I suppose I should not be surprised that it didn't occur to you to check there first before assuming the worst."

"Of course I assumed the worst!" he snapped. Obviously, she had struck a nerve. "My son is missing on the night of whatever the hell just happened at Nevermore, and I found you with his phone! Twenty-four hours ago you kidnapped him, tased him to within an inch of his life, and would have kneecapped him with a hammer if I hadn't showed up when I did!"

"Calm down, sheriff. That was just a lovers' tiff."

He spluttered, face turning an unattractive shade of vermillion.

"Tyler met me at the station when Principal Weems took me to catch the five o'clock train," she continued, not giving him time to recover and expecting him to keep up. "He heard that I had been expelled and wanted to make sure we had a way to keep in touch, so he let me borrow his phone until I could get settled in at home and procure one of my own. I brought it back to Nevermore with me, and I had it with me when Laurel murdered Weems and kidnapped me—"

"Weems is dead?" interjected the sheriff, nonplussed.

Wednesday was momentarily surprised. It seemed like, with all the chaos going on at Nevermore and Galpin's desperation to know what Wednesday had done to his son, no one had gotten around to giving him that piece of information. Presumably his deputies had finally figured out a way to travel the two miles to the school without their squad cars and were interviewing her classmates even now.

"Yes," she answered. "Off the record, we should probably ask Tyler where the body is so that we can give her a proper burial."

Galpin's entire expression went blank. No doubt it was some sort of automatic defense mechanism to keep his face as neutral as possible whenever the subject came up, lest he give away the very personal nature of his connection to the "bear attacks." It was eerily similar to the way Tyler had been able to entirely change his demeanor on a dime and then back again when he had confronted Wednesday in the police station, all those months ago (or yesterday, depending on one's perspective). Wednesday might have found it believable, if she hadn't known the truth, and if all the color had not drained from Galpin's face at the mention of his son.

"You can't go around making accusations like that," he gritted out, and he probably would have even intimidated some other girl who was not Wednesday.

Wednesday rolled her eyes, a terrible habit but one that was fully warranted in this situation.

"Spare me, sheriff. We both know what Tyler is. Unofficially, I'm betting he helped Laurel dispose of Weems's body. You've seen Principal Weems; no normal Normie woman could have carried her body out of the school without a trace, or even your average man, for that matter. No, she made Tyler do it."

"Tyler's not—" he began to deny, but Wednesday spoke over him.

"After I escaped, Tyler found me in the woods and we… worked out our differences. I asked him to give me his phone, knowing you would track it, so that he could make his way home undetected and you would follow me to Nevermore."

"Goddammit," he cursed and squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could block out the truth that way.

Wednesday was not one to avoid unpleasant truths (only pleasant ones… and really only a specific one), but she understood the impulse in this case. She and the sheriff had been at loggerheads since Wednesday had arrived at Nevermore, and she doubted they would ever agree on much or get along well. But they were perfectly aligned on one thing: protecting Tyler.

It took the man far less time than Wednesday had expected to pull himself together. Given that he had just received confirmation that his son was a serial killing monster, it was actually fairly impressive, even by Wednesday's exacting standards. When he opened his blue eyes (nothing like his son's wonderful hazel ones), they roved over Wednesday's face, carefully cataloguing every square inch of it.

"She's the one who, who…?" he trailed off, whether because he was unsure or just could not bring himself to say the words, Wednesday could not determine.

"Unlocked him?" Wednesday supplied calmly. "Yes."

"Jesus," he rasped.

"Yes, I agree. It's repulsive."

Galpin wheezed out an uncomfortable breath and tore his gaze away from Wednesday, looking down at the phone he was holding as if it were the only thing holding him to the ground.

"Okay. Okay, fuck… And… officially?"

Wednesday couldn't fully suppress her almost-smile, really just a slight quirk at the corners of her mouth. She had known that he would go along with the cover up. He had, after all, either been deliberately covering for Tyler or doing the best job of burying his head in the sand that Wednesday had ever witnessed, for months on end. Why would he stop now, if he had the opportunity to continue? He had not actually seen the Hyde, unlike last time, or been backed into a corner by Enid's and Wednesday's testimony.

And Wednesday had the advantage of knowing how much he had still loved and wanted to protect his son even after Tyler's incarceration. Even after Tyler had stopped hiding how much he loathed his father.

"Officially, I've had the phone on me since approximately four thirty today, including when I escaped my captivity in Crackstone's crypt and ran back to the school," Wednesday went on calmly. "As far as I know, Tyler went straight home from the train station and is waiting with bated breath for my call. Speaking of which—again, off the record—you should probably call him and tell him that I'm alright, unless you want him going on a murder spree through the town looking for me. I saw that you have a home telephone."

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, voice hard and glare even harder.

Ah, thought Wednesday, hostility to mask uncertainty and fear. A classic fight response.

She didn't take it personally. Still, she was not going to reveal all of her feelings to the sheriff.

"That is between Tyler and me."

He took a deep breath and released it sharply, clearly frustrated.

"Whatever you think is in it for you, get that thought out of your head right now," he advised harshly. "You don't know what you're dealing with. You'll wind up dead or heartbroken, and Tyler will just end up dead."

Wednesday pinned him with a pitying look.

"Sheriff Galpin, what, exactly, gave you the impression that the risk of being mauled to death by an unpredictable, violent monster would be a turn off for me?"

Galpin clenched his jaw, a habit he shared with his son, and spun around on his heel without another word to her, yanking the door open so hard that the hinges squeaked in protest.

"I knew they couldn't keep you in there for long."

Tyler stepped out of the shadows cast by the redbrick column he'd been leaning against as Wednesday neared the end of the poorly lit covered walkway that lead from the employee entrance of Jericho General Hospital to the parking garage. She had been growing concerned with each step that he would not show up, after all. Was it too much to expect that he would know she would escape and take the initiative to come for her? Probably yes. Was it too much to expect him to intuitively figure out which door she would use to exit the hospital? Definitely.

But he had met all her unspoken expectations. Inwardly, her stomach seemed to do a flip inside her abdominal cavity, although she knew that to be physiologically impossible.

Outwardly, her expression did not flicker as she primly informed him, "Security here is even more lacking than at the morgue."

He gave her a look, half amusement and half incredulity and all affection, that made Wednesday feel like her skin was both too tight and too hot. It made her want to say something soul crushing, just to make him stop, but also to command him to never look at her any other way but that way ever again.

Wednesday was beginning to suspect that her relationship with Tyler was going to kill her, even if he didn't. But she needed more data points to be certain.

"Although, you did take"—he looked at his watch—"twenty-five, no… twenty-six minutes longer than I expected."

Correction. She was going to kill him. Right after she wiped that smug expression off his face.

She stared at him coldly, her face completely still except for her mouth.

"Is that any way to speak to the walking wounded?"

In her haste to sneak out of the emergency ward between the nurses' rounds, Wednesday had opted to leave on the sling they had fitted to immobilize her arm, due to the necessities of both speed and comfort. Her clothes had been nowhere to be found (likely cut off when she had been brought in and then handed over to the police as evidence), so she'd had no choice but to escape in her hospital gown. She had taken the first opportunity to nab an overcoat that a woman had left unattended on a waiting room chair while obtaining unhealthy snacks from a vending machine, and had drawn it over her injured shoulder without putting her arm through the sleeve.

When she used her good arm to push aside the coat so that Tyler could see the sling, every trace of amusement drained out of his face. It was replaced by an expression full of so much unadulterated rage that even Wednesday's first instinct was to run (though she mastered herself in two seconds flat).

"Tyler, enough!" she barked at him as his face began to shift, hoping beyond hope that he would listen to her.

Tyler drew in a sharp breath and screwed his eyes shut, grimacing as if he were in pain. Which she presumed he was. His internal battle was visible in the tortured lines of his face and the tension in every line of his body. For the space of several heartbeats, Wednesday was certain it hadn't worked and that the Hyde was about to make a very public and very inconvenient appearance.

Then, gradually, as if every single inch were a war, the Hyde receded back behind the man, leaving him trembling and gasping for air.

He reached for her blindly, and Wednesday caught his hand with her good one and drew it to her chest. Somehow, with Tyler, her aversion to physical touch seemed to disappear. She found herself wanting to touch him. Which was fortuitous, in this instance, given that he was clinging to her hand as if the physical connection between them was anchoring him to his human body.

After tortuous seconds, he murmured, "I'm sorry. He—I don't like to see you hurt."

The slip did not go unnoticed, but Wednesday filed it away to discuss with him later.

"Never apologize to me for the Hyde," she said instead, in a tone that brooked no argument. "It is who and what you are. It would be like me apologizing to you for my visions."

Tyler shot her a weak smile, but he did not respond. He remained silent as he led her through the parking garage, past sleek European sports cars clearly driven by doctors and well-worn sedans and minivans likely belonging to nurses and technicians, until he pushed open a heavy door leading to a side street on the opposite side of the structure. He had not dropped her hand, merely readjusted his hold so that they could walk side-by-side. Wednesday had not objected.

When they emerged into the open air, he finally spoke again to explain, "I didn't want to park on the grounds, since my dad ordered me to stay away from you. He's probably got people keeping an eye out for me to show up."

The explanation was unnecessary. She had already surmised as much.

"He warned me away from you as well," disclosed Wednesday. "He thinks you're going to kill me."

Tyler sneered. "So he did know."

"I would say that he strongly suspected but deliberately ignored or suppressed any evidence pointing to you," Wednesday corrected him matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, well, maybe if he'd acknowledged, you know, any part of it at all, at some point before Laurel fucked me, I wouldn't have been such easy prey for her," he seethed.

Wednesday could not disagree, so she said nothing.

Tyler drew in a long, deep breath as they approached his car, and released it with an audible sigh as he opened Wednesday's door for her (a completely ridiculous move born of misplaced ideas of chivalry). By the time he had walked around the vehicle and settled into the driver's seat, he seemed calm again, at least to all outward appearances.

"So, where to?" he asked. "Nevermore's on lockdown and still crawling with police, so that's out. Unless you want them to bring you right back here."

Wednesday was tempted to tell him to just drive and keep on driving until they needed to stop for fuel or human necessity, whichever came first. But she had gone too far out of her way (and across space and time) to create a new life for them (most particularly him) to throw it away by becoming a pair of teenage runaways. As indulgent and permissive as her parents were, they would not allow her to just disappear into the wind without consequences. And Tyler having reached the age of majority would only be a hindrance to them if he took her across state lines without permission.

"Your house, then," she decided aloud.

He quirked his eyebrows up and an attractive smirk covered his full lips.

"I dunno, Wednesday, that sounds super forbidden," he said, his typical teasing tone returning to his voice.

"It isn't my fault your father thought warning me of my impending doom would deter me from seeing you." Wednesday looked at him through her eyelashes. "Anyone who knows me would have known that would only make me want you more."

That was as close to a heartfelt confession as she was ever likely to get. Well, that and the way she let him keep all his fingers when he put his hand on her lower thigh after putting the car into gear.

Chapter Text

Wednesday had not completely thought through the implications and ramifications of being completely alone in a house with the boy she was both romantically and sexually attracted to. It was an issue that she had never thought she would need to think about. She had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would ever fall in love with someone. And although her aversion to touch was a preference, not a result of haphephobia, she had still thought (on the rare occasions she had given it any thought at all) that she would never enter into a sexual relationship.

In fact, she had believed that she was both aromantic and asexual, up until the moment she had started experiencing unpleasant and intrusive thoughts about kissing Tyler Galpin.

At this point, she was not prepared to say whether she wanted to thank him or murder him for that.

She had not asked him to bring her back to his house so they could engage in a sexual liaison, and she did not think Tyler expected that of her. But, somehow, it was still awkward to be together in his private space, to see the pictures and bric-a-brac he had collected over the years, the calculus textbook open on his desk, the plaid comforter thrown haphazardly across his childhood bed. One of his bedroom walls was covered with wallpaper depicting various types of ships and sailboats; he had probably chosen it as a young boy and never changed it, due to either apathy or lack of funds.

Wednesday had not anticipated the intimacy of merely being with him in the room where he had grown up.

"Um," said Tyler, imminently helpful as always. He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head, as if clearing out cobwebs. "Okay, so you can borrow one of my t-shirts."

Wednesday stared up at him impassively, although internally she felt anything but detached.

"I…" she swallowed. "I… will need…"

He observed her, his eyes growing wider in astonishment with every passing second that she was unable to get the words out.

Wednesday forced herself to say, in a rush, "I need underwear."

His eyes got impossibly bigger, for a few moments. Then they narrowed as an expression Wednesday could not read flashed across his face, his nostrils flaring as though he could detect her lack of panties by scent alone. Almost as soon as it had come over him, it seemed to pass. He looked her over with affected dispassion, his features arranged in a carefully neutral expression, as if he were trying to take her measurements through the baggy coat she was still wearing.

"I mean, it's not like any of mine will fit you, but I, uh, guess it's better than… nothing."

Wednesday got the impression that he thought nothing would, in fact, have been better.

He was correct that she swam in his clothes. Wednesday had to gather the excess fabric of the boxer briefs he lent her into a knot at her waist and use the hair tie from one of her braids to hold it in place, just to keep them from sliding off her hips. His shirt swallowed her whole; if she'd had a belt, it would have made a serviceable dress, if an unattractive one.

The dull glow from the fixture above the bathroom sink was wholly inadequate for any purpose Wednesday could think of. It had probably been fitted with the cheapest bulbs the Galpin men could find. However, even the yellowish tint of the weak light did nothing to hide the deathly white cast to Wednesday's skin or the deep, black circles underneath her eyes.

It had been a long day. Night. Year.

She was glad that she'd had the forethought to permit one of the nurses to help her bathe and wash her hair before she had absconded from the hospital. It had been excruciating to allow the woman to touch her, even in the most clinical of ways, but it had been necessary to rid herself of the blood and sweat. Heaven forbid she'd had to ask Tyler to enter the bath with her and help wash her hair, which she couldn't do by herself with one hand while keeping the stitches in her other shoulder dry.

Likely he would have spontaneously combusted at the thought, and then where would she have been? In the past without even a Tyler-shaped prize to show for it.

Wednesday emerged from the bathroom to find her raison d'être sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees and face cradled in his own hands. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, weary eyes shining out of a wan face. He stopped short, his entire demeanor shifting, at the sight of her. Apparently, he was transfixed by the sight of her bare legs sticking out of the black t-shirt he had given her. His eyes, pupils visibly dilated, roved over the pale skin of her calves and thighs as if he were running his hands over them. Or his teeth. Then his gaze traveled up her body and landed on her breasts. Despite their small size, they were clearly free from the confines of a bra and not covered particularly well by the thin, mass-produced cotton. When he was able to drag his eyes away from the peaks of her nipples showing through his shirt, his lips parted at the sight of her hair, which hung loose down her back.

"It's still damp from being washed," she inexplicably felt the need to explain. "Ideally, I don't braid it until it's completely dry."

"It's beautiful," he said, voice rough with an emotion that Wednesday could not bring herself to define.

So was he, in his loose gray pajama pants and threadbare shirt, despite having 'JERICHO BASEBALL' emblazoned across his chest in obnoxious red letters.

He stayed frozen in place as Wednesday approached him, watching with rapt attention as she reached out to place the tips of her fingers on his forearm. His skin was warm and his body hair was coarser than Wednesday's own, but not unpleasantly so. She trailed her fingers up his arm slowly, feeling his skin shift and his muscles tense and relax as she went, gradually growing more accustomed to touching him. It was such a simple thing, for most people, but Wednesday's heart was hammering against her sternum almost as hard as it had after their mad dash through the woods.

When she reached his bicep, she finally lowered her palm until her entire hand was resting against his skin, just underneath the hem of his sleeve.

"Is it just skin-on-skin contact that you object to?" he inquired, voice lower than usual. "If I did this…"

He placed his large hand around her waist and used it to pull her against him, between the vee of his legs, until his chest was pressed into her abdomen. Wednesday stilled, taking in the new sensations. They had never been his close before. They had never been anywhere near this close without at least two or three more layers of clothing between them. Thick ones. High quality, at least on Wednesday's part.

It felt like the heat of his body was going to scald her through their thin t-shirts.

"Oh," she let out breathlessly.

She slid her hand up over his strong shoulder and around the back of his neck, threading her fingers through the curls there. She liked the novelty of being taller than him, of looming over him as he sat below her. Of looking down at him as he tilted his head back just to see her face. She used the hand tangled in his hair to pull his head back even further, until his throat was exposed to her in a clear sign of submission, then leaned down to press her mouth to his.

Yes, she definitely enjoyed this switch in their usual roles.

Wednesday was hesitant about whether she would feel similarly magnanimous about having his tongue in her mouth. On paper, she did not understand the purpose of such an act. It seemed unhygienic and unnecessary and unappealing. But when Tyler swept the offending appendage along the seam of her lips, silently asking for permission, Wednesday found herself parting her lips despite her misgivings.

She had expected an intrusion, blunt and moist and unrefined. But either she had been wrong about how this worked or Tyler was being deliberately cautious in his approach. He traced her lips almost delicately, then pressed the tip of his tongue against hers and held it there for a heartbeat, before pulling it back to lick at her lips again. It was strange but not wholly objectionable. When he did it again, then a third time, Wednesday followed his retreating tongue with her own, curious despite herself. He withdrew his tongue back into his own mouth, pulling hers with it.

His lips tasted of strong black coffee and copper and him. The inside of his mouth tasted the same, only more and better.

He let out a ragged exhalation, not quite a groan, that vibrated through Wednesday's tongue and lips. She released her grip on his neck to move her hand higher on the back of his head, raking her fingers through his messy curls for a few seconds before seizing them in a punishing grip and pulling him further against her mouth so that she could delve deeper. He had one hand splayed across her back from mid-spine to just above the crest of her buttocks, nearly burning her. The other was wrapped around her hip so tightly that she was sure to bruise. The subtle pain and the delicious thought of being marked by him, underneath her clothes like a secret, were nearly enough to make Wednesday whimper into his mouth.

When he shifted his legs and hauled her even closer to his body, Wednesday felt the telltale evidence of his interest pressing against her, uncomfortably (titillatingly) close to the juncture of her thighs.

He did groan, then, and used his grip on her to readjust her position against him, rubbing her against his erection.

Wednesday broke their kiss and shifted her body away from his, enough to break the contact. Other than an initial resistance against the sudden movement, he did not try to hold her in place.

"I'm not…" she began, then trailed off with a scowl, frustrated with her suddenly inability to articulate her thoughts.

Why was it so difficult to tell him that she was not ready to engage in sexual activity with him beyond what they had already been doing?

"No, I know," he said apologetically, staring up at her with faintly pink cheeks but no other sign of embarrassment. "It's a reaction, not an obligation."

That was reassuring and spoke highly of his respect for her boundaries. Still, the mood had been somewhat dampened, just enough for Wednesday's mind to clear of the intoxicating, inconvenient fog of arousal that plagued her when she was in his presence.

She took another step back, repressing a shudder at the sudden chill that enveloped her when his hands fell from her body, and then another just for good measure. For his benefit, of course. To protect him from the temptation she presented. Wednesday obviously did not need any help denying her own desire to dive back into his space and his mouth.

"We need to talk, anyway," she announced stiffly, straightening her spine and assuming her usual dead expression. "We need to have our stories straight when the police question us, which will probably be later today. I need to know everything you did for Laurel so that I can ensure there are no loose ends to come back and haunt us. We should also discuss how we are going to navigate our partnership going forward."

Tyler's face went through more emotions during her short speech than Wednesday typically experienced over the course of a full calendar month. Disappointment, dread, disgust, dismay, delight. He seemed to settle on desire, though not the smoldering sexual desire they had been swept up in half a minute prior. It was more hopeful. Bashful, almost.

He ducked his head to watch his fingers as they picked at a loose string in his cotton pants.

"Can we just go to sleep and talk when we wake up? I don't think either of us is at our best right now—I know I'm not."

Wednesday studied him, a frown pulling at her mouth.

"What's wrong?" It was a demand, not a question. "You would not be embarrassed if you were only tired."

He let out a huff, half laughter and half exasperation.

"I just… I'm hanging on by a thread over here, Wednesday. You're the only thing holding me together right now, and you're hurt, and I kind of just want to strip you and examine every square inch of your body and catalogue all your wounds and lick them clean and, uh… I think, maybe… smell them to make sure they aren't infected? It was better when you were close to me."

"That sounds like a pretext to see me nude."

He let out a proper laugh, then, and finally met her eyes with his through his fringe.

"I mean, I'm not denying that I'd kill to see you naked, but no, this isn't about that," he denied, offering a helpless shrug. "I know it doesn't make sense. It isn't really, you know, me. Tyler. It's the Hyde."

After taking a few long seconds to process what he had said, she told him, "We will have to explore the dichotomy between the man and the monster."

"But not tonight."

"Not tonight," she conceded reluctantly. "Would it be easier for you if I slept downstairs?"

"No!" he protested, shooting to his feet in a sudden burst of energy.

He caught himself almost immediately and stood, panting, between Wednesday and the bed, his muscles visibly straining with the effort to hold himself still.

Wednesday tilted her head and ran her eyes over his form objectively, assessing.

"What would you do if I left this room?"

"Don't," he growled in a voice that did not sound fully human. Then he took in a violent breath as a shiver ran down his spine. "Seriously, Wednesday, I don't know what I'd do."

"You would try to stop me," she pressed relentlessly.

He gave her a chilling look that conveyed there would be no try.

However, when he answered, he attempted to conceal his true thoughts with a weak, "I would want to."

She pinned him with a merciless stare. The narrowing of her eyes and the downturn at the corners of her mouth would probably have been imperceptible to anyone else (just how Wednesday preferred it), but Tyler saw it all. He swallowed uncomfortably at the sight of her displeasure.

"I… would," he admitted. Then, like his confession had broken a dam inside his mind, he continued, nearly gleefully, "I would drag you back to my den—my bed—and hold you down so you couldn't leave again. I would pin you underneath me, and every time you struggled, I would press you down harder, until the only thing in your world was me. I want you to do it, Wednesday. I want you to try to leave."

"Good." She nodded, once, sharply. "Then I will stay. But there will be no nudity. Or licking."

He blinked rapidly, as though his mind were short circuiting as he tried to process her response.

Finally, completely at odds with his former attitude, he shyly offered, "I, uh, think I'd be okay with just being close to you. Touching you. Scenting you."

His rapidly changing emotions would be enough to give a lesser opponent whiplash.

No, Wednesday chastised herself firmly. We are not opponents. Tyler is my…

Would what they had done thus far be enough to qualify him as her lover? The word did not seem wholly correct, but she could not immediately think of a more appropriate one. Her vocabulary always seemed to fail her when thinking about their… relationship. Regardless, the volatility of his moods and the threat of brutality at his hands were wholly expected. Inevitable. Right. Judging by the worshipful way he looked at her as she moved towards the bed, Tyler thought he was lucky to have a companion who was so accommodating of his darkness. Wednesday thought she was lucky to be the object of his obsession.

They were both fortunate that her aversion to touch seemed to have exactly one exception.

They settled onto his too-plush mattress, Wednesday on her back with her arms crossed over her chest and Tyler on his side next to her. He curled around her form and spread his hand out possessively between her navel and pubic bone. When he buried his face in the juncture between her neck and shoulder, she concluded that she liked his nearness.

When he inhaled her scent and let out a contented sigh that steamed hot and heavy across the delicate skin of her throat, Wednesday concluded that she needed it.

Wednesday must have been more exhausted than she had realized. This was the second consecutive time she had risen gradually from sleep to a state of wakefulness, rather than becoming fully conscious in the space of one breath. This time, she woke to the dulcet tones of Tyler and his father whisper-arguing in the doorway mere feet from her head.

"There's a whole manhunt going on!" hissed the sheriff. "No one knew whether she left on her own—which would be bad enough, since she's a goddamn minor who just underwent life-saving surgery—or if she was kidnapped by some unknown accomplice of Gates we didn't know about."

"Well, no one knew except for you," Tyler pointed out wryly.

"I could hardly tell my deputies 'Oh, no, call off the hounds. I am ninety-nine percent sure that my adult son took the underage girl from the hospital'."

The sheriff sounded like he was truly half a step away from completely losing it. Tyler, on the other hand, sounded darkly amused.

"At least you can tell them they were right about the unknown accomplice angle."

There was a pause as his father worked through the meaning of that. He'd only had—Wednesday looked at the angle of the sunlight shining in through Tyler's window—approximately eight hours to process the fact that his son was the monster in the woods. It had taken Wednesday almost a full year to work through her feelings on the matter. Although, to be fair to herself, it probably only would have taken her about twelve seconds to process the information about Tyler's true nature, not twelve months, if the knowledge had not been served to her with a heaping helping of heartbreak and betrayal.

She had not had the benefit of having Tyler safe and sound and standing there in front of her to make off-color jokes about it.

"You're not funny," the sheriff groused, sounding closer to the door now, as if he had taken a step towards his son. "You're in a world of trouble if anyone finds out about this. And you didn't even have the common sense not to sleep with her!"

"She is the only thing keeping me human right now," Tyler snapped, no trace of her sweet boy left now, "so unless you'd prefer to have a discussion about common sense with the Hyde, you will back the hell off about Wednesday."

Wednesday would have soon decided to put an end to their futile argument, regardless, but Tyler's declaration roused her spirit and motivated her to rise from bed without further delay. The movement jostled her shoulder enough to feel like she had driven a railroad spike through it and pulled terribly at her stitches, but she ignored it. She only had space in her mind for Tyler, whose head had snapped around to watch her approach with intense hazel eyes and a look of rapture on his face.

She stopped inches before her body would have collided with his and reached her good hand up to cup his face. He tentatively looped his arms around her waist, studying her for any sign that she objected.

"I left the hospital of my own accord, sheriff. He only picked me up after the fact," she addressed the man, who she could see in her peripheral vision was gaping at them like a fish out of water, but her eyes remained locked with Tyler's. "As to the other, we only slept. But when we do decide to engage in sexual intercourse, it will comfort you to know that I turned sixteen last month."

He muttered something underneath his breath that Wednesday could not quite make out, but she could tell by his general tone that it was not happy or flattering.

Tyler rubbed his cheek against her hand in a decidedly feline fashion. Wednesday had been predisposed to think of the Hyde as being more canine than anything, but perhaps that was only a byproduct of her close proximity to Enid and the fact that werewolves were among the more well-studied Outcasts. It would make a certain amount of sense, from a biological perspective, if Hydes shared more traits in common with felines. After all, cats—big cats, small cats, and domestic cats alike—were the ultimate predator, more so than any canine species. Obligate carnivores, incredible athleticism, lightning-fast reflexes, massive power per pound. And most species were loners or, less frequently, pair bonded.

"I was sure you would threaten to start removing limbs if I engaged in PDA," Tyler's voice broke into her thoughts.

His tone with her was night and day compared to how he had spoken to his father.

Wednesday traced her thumb underneath his eye, along his prominent cheekbone, and luxuriated in the way it made his eyes flutter shut.

"Your father is hardly the public."

Still, the older man's stare was uncomfortable, and it was embarrassing to Wednesday that she had lost control to such an extent that she had not been able to stop herself from touching Tyler just because he had made a declaration of love in her presence. Not even to her. Just about her. This could become a problem. She would have to keep herself under strict regulation when they were around anyone else. Especially her parents; their reaction would be disgusting enough without witnessing Wednesday and Tyler engage in physical acts of affection.

"Call off the search for the Addams girl," Sheriff Galpin's voice filled the narrow hallway. "I've got her. She's fine."

Wednesday turned to see him with his cellphone pressed to his ear, an expression of such resignation on his tired face that it almost made her feel pity for him.

"Yes, she left on her own…. I'll fill you in later…. I said later, Santiago! I'll bring her down to the station…. Got it. Bye." He hung up and shot another disapproving look at them. "You heard. Get dressed and let's get a move on."

He stomped down the hallway and down the stairs without staying to make sure they obeyed. Normally Wednesday would have bucked his orders on pure principle alone, but in this case she had an incentive to talk to the police. She needed to know what had happened after she had lost consciousness, particularly if her friends were alright. And she needed to know whether anyone had mentioned Tyler.

She was less enthusiastic after seeing her family's car parked alongside the curb outside the police station.

"Fantastic," she deadpanned.

Tyler, who had been unabashedly staring at the side of her face for almost the entire ten-minute drive into town, shifted his gaze in the direction she was looking.

"You're not happy to see your parents? They seemed pretty cool."

She turned a venomous glare on him, but he responded with a fond smile instead of the remorseful terror she was accustomed to inspiring in others.

"They are meddling, optimistic, embarrassing busybodies who are determined to mold me in their own image—or, specifically, in the image of my mother—and wouldn't freely offer me the truth if their lives depended on it."

Sheriff Galpin snorted from the driver's seat.

His son blinked and raised his eyebrows.

"Well, at least they care about you. They did go to therapy with you."

The sheriff remained conspicuously silent at that.

"A complete disaster," averred Wednesday. "Have I thanked you for killing Dr. Kinbott?"

A choking sound came from the front of the truck.

Tyler shrugged and looked down at their hands entwined on his lap.

"I kind of liked her," he admitted quietly. "Obviously I couldn't tell her the whole truth, but she still helped me. More than she probably knew. Some days she was the only thing that kept me from drowning myself in the bathtub or putting a bullet in my own brain. I mean, you know, other than the fact that Laurel had ordered me not to kill myself."

"I am hopeful that the court will neglect to assign me another therapist," Wednesday said matter-of-factly, but she squeezed his hand in silent apology for her brash question.

The additional information about his state of mind and about the lengths Laurel had gone to in order to keep him, Wednesday filed away in her mind to add to the list of topics for later discussion.

"We're here," the sheriff announced gruffly as he flung his door open and all but threw himself out of the truck.

But Wednesday saw the ruined look on his face and the shine of unshed tears in his blue eyes.

The sheriff's office was abuzz with activity when they walked in. Sheriff Galpin was immediately met by a slew of deputies who followed him down the hall towards his office, trying to talk over each other all at once. Wednesday, who had walked in the door half a dozen steps behind him, was immediately accosted by her father, who threw all caution and well-established boundaries to the wind as he wrapped her in his embrace.

"¡Ay, dios mío!" he cried loudly enough for the entire building to hear. "My little viper, you had your mother and I so worried!"

On top of being generally unwanted and unwelcome, his hug was truly bone-crushing. The pieces of Wednesday's broken clavicle ground together with tortuous efficiency, so unexpected that it caused her to sway on her feet. She would have been at risk of falling, if her father had not been holding her up, which would have easily been in the top two most humiliating things that had ever happened to her. She would have had to ask Tyler to slaughter everyone in the building and then raze it to the ground, just to be completely certain that no one who might have possibly witnessed her weakness would live to tell anyone about it.

A low growl came from directly behind her, just before Tyler's hand appeared over her injured shoulder, seizing her father by the arm to shove him backwards.

"You're hurting her!"

He was standing so close to Wednesday's back that she could feel the snarl rumble through his chest. She could well imagine the monstrous expression on his face, his handsome features twisted with fury and the promise of vengeance. She leaned backwards into him, just slightly, and his hands landed on her hips to support her. Clearly she was unwell, if a bit of pain nearly sent her over the edge, and if she was permitting Tyler such an obvious display of affection in front of her parents.

Perhaps it had not been a good idea to leave the hospital, after all.

"Who's this?" asked her mother, entirely predictably, even as her father apologized profusely.

Morticia knew who Tyler was, of course, from Parents' Day a few weeks prior. What she really wanted to know was who he was to Wednesday. Her dark eyes lingered on his hands on Wednesday's hips, her elegant eyebrows rising delicately as she took in the oversized hoodie her daughter was wearing as if it were a dress, obviously borrowed from the boy who was defending her. Then her knowing stare traveled up to take in the mutinous expression on Wednesday's face and the lethal threat on Tyler's.

"Miss Addams?" Deputy Santiago had stuck her head out of a doorway halfway down the hall. "I'm ready for you."

Wednesday turned warning eyes on her mother.

"He's none of your concern," she bit out harshly. To Tyler, she instructed, "Do not let her trick you into talking about things that are none of her business. In fact, try to refrain from acknowledging her at all."

Morticia looked absolutely thrilled. Tyler, when Wednesday turned to glance back at him as she made her way into Santiago's office, looked like she had just left him alone with something even more terrifying than he was. She supposed that she had. The Hyde was no match for her mother's brand of emotional manipulation, at least not unless Tyler resorted to transforming and knocking her head off just to get her to shut up. Wednesday might not be entirely opposed to the idea, but only because she knew he wouldn't actually do it.

Santiago's office was neat and orderly, much more so than Sheriff Galpin's. She was obviously a woman who took her job seriously. She had a voice recorder ready to go, which she spoke into for a few seconds, noting the date and time and the parties who were present, before placing it in front of Wednesday, who was sitting rigidly in an uncomfortable chair in front of the desk.

"Sheriff Galpin tells me that part of your testimony involves his son, Tyler Galpin," the woman opened in a no-nonsense tone, explaining the relationship for the benefit of the recorder. "That's why I will be conducting this interview alone, because of the conflict of interest."

Neither Wednesday nor Gomez replied. Wednesday could have pointed out half a dozen other ways they were breaking standard police procedure, but it was in her best interests not to.

The deputy pursed her lips but gamely continued, "Why don't you explain what happened from the time you left the police station on Tuesday through coming back here today?"

Wednesday folded her hands demurely in her lap and calmly met Deputy Santiago's eyes.

"Principal Weems drove me back to school and took me to her office, where she informed me that I had been expelled. I spoke to my roommate, Enid Sinclair, then went to bed a little after midnight. The next day, I was confined to my room, so I used the time to pack my things until it was time for Principal Weems to drive me to the train station."

"Did you go straight to the station?"

"No. I asked Principal Weems to take me to the hospital to see my friend, Eugene Ottinger, who had just woken up from a coma."

The deputy nodded, and Wednesday deduced that she had already known that.

"Did Eugene tell you anything about his attack?" she asked, which confirmed Wednesday's conclusions.

"Yes. He told me that he thought the person he had seen in the woods before he was attacked had been wearing red boots." Wednesday preempted the next question by volunteering, "I immediately suspected Ms. Thornhill, because she customarily wears red boots. I have never noticed anyone else in Jericho or at Nevermore with that type and color of footwear. However, I was reluctant to make any accusations, given that I had originally thought Dr. Kinbott had been behind the attacks and she had been murdered shortly after I shared my suspicions. Therefore, we proceeded from the hospital to the train station as planned. Tyler unexpectedly met us there."

"Tyler Galpin?" clarified Santiago. At Wednesday's acknowledgement, she frowned, her forehead creasing in the middle. "Why would Tyler Galpin have met you at the train station when you had been expelled for kidnapping and torturing him less than twenty-four hours prior?"

"That entire incident was blown out of proportion, officer. It was merely a disagreement between partners."

The woman's eyes narrowed as her frown deepened even more. "Partners?"

"Yes. Romantic partners."

"You are dating Tyler Galpin?"

"I don't know why you sound surprised, Deputy Santiago," said Wednesday, ignoring her father's gasp of astonished pleasure. "Half of Jericho's police force burst in on us kissing in Joseph Crackstone's crypt three days prior to the alleged kidnapping incident. They can confirm that Tyler and I are dating, if you don't believe me."

That was a bit of a stretch, but Wednesday was confident that the sheriff and the deputies who had been with him when he had entered the crypt would confirm her account, if asked. She and Tyler had been a hairsbreadth away from kissing when they had been interrupted, and the fairy lights, picnic basket, and movie projector Tyler had set up had been clearly visible. None of the officers would have seen enough to contradict her claim that they had interrupted more than they actually had.

It was too bad that this particular deputy had not been there to witness the scene for herself.

"Do you normally handle arguments with your boyfriends by kidnapping them, tying them to a chair, and torturing them?" she demanded incredulously.

Wednesday blinked and drew her eyebrows together, affecting confusion. "Of course."

"Ah! Young love!" exclaimed Gomez, clapping his hands together delightedly. He leaned forward in his chair and lowered his voice conspiratorially, as if they were not in a tiny office sitting three feet away from one another. "Tish once locked me in an iron maiden for hours when we were still at Nevermore. It was excruciating."

Under any other circumstance, Wednesday would have objected to her father's repulsive habit of sharing every last detail of his and Morticia's sex life with anyone who so much as existed in his general vicinity. In this case, it was helpful to bolster her story, so she kept her face smooth, completely hiding her revulsion.

Deputy Santiago looked like she did not know whether it would be worse if the story were true or false. On the one hand, if it were true then there was no way she would ever be able to bleach that image out of her mind. On the other hand, if it were false then she would have no reason to believe Wednesday's story that she had electrocuted Tyler in some bizarre Addams family version of dispute resolution. Wednesday could well imagine her dilemma.

"Then it would surprise you to learn that Xavier Thorpe claims you visited him in jail and confessed that Tyler is something called a Hyde," the woman challenged coolly.

"Not at all. Xavier is a pathetic lovesick nobody who has been suffering from the delusion that I will return his feelings since I arrived at Nevermore. It would only make sense that he would choose Tyler as his scapegoat."

Xavier had once said that Wednesday was toxic and only ever made things worse. During the very conversation Santiago had referenced, in fact. Wednesday was of the opinion that if a person was willing to throw around accusations and labels such as that, then they should be willing to live with the consequences of them being true. She could amply demonstrate what it looked like when she was being toxic and made things worse.

It wasn't that Xavier's words had hurt her, or that she felt the need a year later to punish him for his opinions. He had not been entirely wrong. Besides, she could admit that he had amply deserved at least one free shot at her in exchange for her having helped to frame him as the killer, even inadvertently.

But if Wednesday had to sacrifice Xavier on the altar of Tyler's freedom, she had no problem with that.

His wealthy father would probably get him off, anyway. And even if not, he was a minor.

Santiago tilted her head and fixed Wednesday with a skeptical look. Wednesday focused on her heartrate and respiration, and on making sure that her own expression did not give away a millimeter of feeling she did not want it to. She would have to tread carefully.

"You're saying that Xavier lied because he is jealous of Tyler?" asked the older woman.

Wednesday carefully lifted one eyebrow and let her eyes say how ridiculous she found the question.

Verbally, she said, "I am saying that Xavier is desperate to pin the blame on anyone other than himself, and he is also motivated to get revenge on me for being the one who ensured he was captured in the first place."

"And it would hurt you if Tyler were arrested."

It would hurt them far worse when she broke him out.

"It would be devastating," she said truthfully. If anyone assumed that Wednesday meant it would be devastating for herself, then that was their mistake. "And Xavier is obsessed with my relationship with Tyler. He has been trying to convince me to stop talking to Tyler since my first few days at Nevermore. He mistreated his own date to the Rave'N because he was upset that I brought Tyler instead of him. Just the day before his arrest, Xavier tried to convince me that I was making a mistake to dismiss his overtures."

The deputy seemed to be chewing on that. Her face crinkled as she looked down at her desk, shifting a few papers around until she found what she was looking for. It appeared to be a page of handwritten notes, but Wednesday could not make them out from where she was seated on the other side of the desk.

"Several of your classmates told me that the reason you kidnapped Tyler was because you were attempting to prove that he is a Hyde."

"And by classmates you mean Xavier's friends? His ex-girlfriend who has been trying to get back together with him all semester?" Wednesday dismissed with a roll of her eyes.

"Is Enid Sinclair Xavier's friend or yours?"

That gave Wednesday pause, but not long enough for Santiago to notice her hesitation.

"Mine. But Enid would have received her information from the same classmates you interviewed. If you are under the impression that she has firsthand knowledge about any of this, then you should reevaluate your assumptions."

If Wednesday could only get to Enid before she was questioned further, then she was certain she would be able to get her friend on side. The werewolf was a bleeding heart and a hopeless romantic. Wednesday could see clearly in her mind's eye how Enid would react to their story of star-crossed love and vanquishing the evil witch so that they could be together. And while usually it would make Wednesday sick to her stomach to contemplate leaning into such a ridiculous trope, in this case it would be useful. And not even, necessarily, wholly untrue.

"And you are confident that when Laurel Gates wakes up, she will say that Xavier was the person she was controlling, not Tyler?"

Wednesday could not help her outward reaction to that. She could only hope that Deputy Santiago interpreted her sharp intake of breath and wide eyes as a natural trauma response by a victim who had just learned that her kidnapper and attempted murderer was alive and well, rather than what it really was: the realization that she had not accounted for a rather important variable that could bring all her carefully constructed deceptions crashing down.

Chapter Text

Wednesday barely made it through the rest of Santiago's questioning. She recited her lines adequately, telling the deputy the same story she had told the sheriff the night prior, but her mind was racing with the news that Laurel Gates was alive. She had assumed that the woman's injuries had been too severe to survive, but she had not actually examined Laurel's body for herself. It was an unforgiveable oversight. If the loathsome bitch woke up and outed Tyler as the Hyde—or, worse, if she got him back under her control—then it wouldn't make it any better for him if Wednesday explained that she'd been too worried about her own injury to make sure Laurel was dead.

What was worse, Wednesday may have inadvertently caused Laurel's survival by having the sheriff track Tyler's phone to the school rather than into the woods like last time. Laurel had received medical attention long before she had in the original timeline.

Wednesday had also assumed that Tyler's newfound freedom and openness with her had been because his master had died and, therefore, any standing orders she had given him were null and void. But she had never asked him. What if Laurel had simply never given any orders that applied to this situation, so there was nothing for him to follow?

Or what if, the horrific thought crossed her mind, Tyler's behavior had been because Laurel had ordered him to get close to her? What if Laurel had simply never cancelled that order, because she thought Crackstone had killed Wednesday? What if everything that had happened between them last night had only been because he was still following that order in Laurel's absence?

Wednesday had rarely experienced genuine nausea. It had only happened a handful of times in her life. This was one of them.

When she passed Tyler in the corridor, under the watchful gaze of her parents, his father, and Deputy Santiago, she pulled her arm away to avoid him grabbing her hand. No one else batted an eyelash at her behavior. To them, it likely just seemed like her natural abhorrence of both touch and physical displays of affection. But Tyler looked genuinely hurt by her refusal, his brows drawn low over concerned eyes.

He lifted his hand to scratch the side of his face, tugging briefly on his own earlobe as he held Wednesday's gaze. It was a subtle confirmation that he had been able to hear every word she and the deputy had spoken to each other, even from yards away and through closed doors. They had discussed it beforehand, through the bathroom door as she had struggled to zip his hoodie using one hand and he had hastily dug a pair of blue jeans out of the pile of clothes on his floor that he had insisted were clean. They hadn't had the chance to discuss their story in any detail before climbing into the back of the sheriff's police truck, but Tyler had assured her that, if he focused, he should be able to hear her answers as she gave them.

But Wednesday did not have the mental space to fret about whether Tyler thought that she didn't trust him to perform as promised, about whether his feelings were hurt.

If he had heard it all, then he had heard Santiago say that Laurel was alive.

He knew, and he did not seem remotely affected by the information, as if it had not been news to him.

Wednesday had been sloppy. She had let Tyler distract her from what was important, from what needed to be done. The question was only whether he had done it purposely to impede her, on his master's orders.

She would find out.

She avoided his eyes and skirted around the sheriff and her own father, who were discussing Gomez becoming Tyler's attorney, and made her way to the lavatory at a brisk pace. She had to exert considerable self-control not to run until after the heavy wooden door had swung shut behind her. Then she flew across the room to the nearest toilet, barely making it before the contents of her stomach made an encore appearance.

Not that there was much there. The Galpins did not have an espresso machine at home, and the only thing she'd eaten had been a protein bar that Tyler had tossed her as they had walked out the door.

Moments later, there was a commotion in the hallway just outside the bathroom.

"Tyler, if Wednesday is ill then I'm sure she would not want you to witness her in such a state," her mother's voice filtered through the door. Wednesday did not hear his response, but a few beats later, Morticia chastised, "None of that, dear. Why don't you go have your interview with the nice deputy? The sooner you finish, the sooner you can check on Wednesday."

If she had not been so disgusted with herself, Wednesday might have had more energy to think about how much she hated that her mother expertly conducted every male who had a remote interest in women like they were members of a well-tuned orchestra and she was their maestro. She was a gifted seer and an even more gifted witch, but Wednesday was convinced that there must also be some succubus somewhere in their family tree. She had never mentioned her hypothesis to her mother, as she had not wanted it to seem like she was giving the woman a compliment.

Morticia glided into the bathroom stall with a sympathetic tut and an air of concern about her. She reached for one of Wednesday's braids and gently pulled it behind her shoulder, careful not to let her fingers brush Wednesday's body.

"Oh, darling, is this affliction physical or spiritual?"

"Both," Wednesday wheezed, hating how weak she sounded.

Morticia hummed in understanding. "Possession?"

"Worse. Emotion."

"Ah, well, that is unfortunate," lamented Morticia. "I may have been able to help if you were possessed."

Her mother hovered while Wednesday vomited again, then while she coughed and dry heaved and trembled, but she only maintained a vigilant watch and did not touch or try to comfort her daughter in any way, which Wednesday appreciated. It was only when Wednesday was splashing water across her face at the bathroom sink, several minutes later, that Morticia saw fit to speak again.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing with that boy?"

Wednesday looked past her own reflection (more half-dead than usual, and not in a flattering way) to catch her mother's eyes in the mirror.

"I know perfectly well what I'm doing with Tyler," Wednesday defended, although her heart was still sick at the idea that he had played her again. "And he can hear every word you say."

"Can he? How fascinating. His mother was always so secretive."

Wednesday's first instinct was to say that, in that case, Morticia and Francoise must have gotten along famously. She stopped herself, the words burning like more acid in her already-raw throat. It went against her very nature not to use whatever weapon presented itself to her, especially against her mother, but like she had told Morticia, Tyler could hear everything they said. And Wednesday was not going to drag his mother into her ongoing war with her own.

Instead, she said, "I told Sheriff Galpin this and now I am telling you: Tyler's and my relationship is between the two of us."

And Laurel Gates, she added silently to herself.

"Have you claimed him?" probed Morticia, evidently content to completely ignore what Wednesday had said. "You know that I endeavor to let you have your independence, Wednesday, but as your mother it is my duty to warn you that if you go down this road, it will be a lifelong commitment. The only way to break the bond will be through death. Historically it would be yours, at his hands."

Wednesday turned to face her, her patented glare on her face and her arms crossed over her borrowed sweater.

"If you have information about Hydes, then you will give it to me. All of it," she demanded fiercely.

"Of course, dear," replied Morticia, her chiding tone grating against Wednesday's already-frayed nerves. "All you ever had to do was ask."

Wednesday almost rolled her eyes at that load of absolute shit.

The girl she had been a year ago would have been easily manipulated by it. She would have been furious with herself that her own stubborn refusal to tell her mother anything about her life, much less to ask her for help, had led her to miss information that would have been critical to her investigation.

The older, more experienced Wednesday inhabiting her younger body knew that her parents would never have given her a single shred of information more than they deemed it necessary for her to have, even if she had known what she needed and had outright asked them for it.

They, like Principal Weems, had known all along that there was a high likelihood Tyler was the monster in the woods and exactly what kind of monster he was, because they had known his mother. They had said nothing. Weems had lied to Wednesday's face, claiming that she had not been aware of Francoise's Outcast designation. Wednesday had learned from her father, who had always been too loose lipped for his own good, that Sheriff Galpin had told him during their visit to Jericho that Tyler and Wednesday had become close, but her parents had never seen fit to warn their only daughter that she was becoming involved with a Hyde. And following Tyler's incarceration, her parents had watched her obsess for months on end, researching Hydes and trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle she felt she had not fully solved. They had watched her spend weeks meticulously gathering documents and filling out paperwork so that she could visit Tyler in Willow Hill, even when she'd had no reason to visit him and no concrete plans to do so. And still Morticia and Gomez had not said a word on the subject.

Wednesday could only speculate as to why. The only reasonable conclusion was that they had not wanted her to become involved with Tyler, and they had known that any attempt on their part to warn her off would have only fanned the ember of her interest into a raging flame.

Well, the joke was on them. Wednesday had become obsessed regardless. And now she had changed the past and was wise to all their games and manipulations.

It was clear to Wednesday that Morticia thought she would abandon the idea of entering into a relationship with Tyler once she found out what it would entail. It was a logical supposition on her mother's part. If she had been told that she was at risk of being tied for life to anyone else, she would have run in the opposite direction. But it only made Wednesday more determined to bond with Tyler.

Nothing and no one was going to take him away from her, not again. Not their parents, not law enforcement, not Laurel Gates, not even Tyler himself.

Wednesday stalked out of the bathroom without another word to Morticia, not fully trusting herself not to say something she would regret. Not that she would be bothered about hurting her mother's feelings; she would not have regretted that, since her mother deserved to be called out. But she was concerned that she would give away more than she was willing to disclose.

There was a deputy loitering outside the sheriff's office, clearly waiting his turn to speak to the man. He opened his mouth to say something when Wednesday walked past him and reached for the closed door—probably to object, or to tell her the sheriff was busy, or to tell her to wait her turn—but he lifted his hands in surrender and took a big step back when she pinned him with a glare. Given the turmoil and anger she was feeling, Wednesday could only imagine what she was projecting to the outside world.

The sheriff was already occupied with another officer when Wednesday stormed inside, but she barely spared the man a glance before locking eyes with the person she wanted to see. Galpin did not even have the decency to look surprised or upset by her intrusion. He only rolled his eyes.

"Addams, you do realize that being Tyler's girlfriend doesn't mean I have to give you special treatment?"

"I'm aware you don't have to," Wednesday replied, ignoring the sputtering deputy who had apparently not yet heard that bit of gossip through the office grapevine. "What about as a… victim?"

She nearly choked on the word. There was no way in which she was a victim. She had dived into her investigation of her own free will, deliberately inserting her nose into Laurel's business and disrupting her plans. She had defeated Joseph Crackstone (twice, not that anyone else knew that) and proven herself a worthy and equal adversary for the deranged woman. The fact that Laurel had cheated by bringing a gun to a sword fight did not change the facts—Wednesday was an opponent who had found herself on the losing end of a bullet, not a hapless victim.

Still, needs must. Framing it using terminology that the sheriff and his deputies could appreciate was an evil she could live with in exchange for information.

The sheriff sighed.

"Porter, give us the room. Tell Ryken I'll be with him when I'm done with… whatever this is."

Wednesday made a beeline for the desk as the deputy turned to leave, forcing him to go around her to get to the door. If she did not know better, she would have thought that the sheriff's lips quirked up into an aborted smile.

"Laurel Gates," she said without preamble. "She's alive."

Galpin raised his eyebrows. "You would've found that out last night if you'd stayed where you were supposed to be. I came to tell you myself and found an empty room."

Wednesday narrowed her eyes at him. "And you failed to inform me this morning, why, exactly? To punish me for escaping from that medical detention center?"

"Does that sound like something a professional law enforcement officer would do?" His tone was serious, but his eyes were gleaming with amusement.

"I'm glad that you're able to find so much happiness in your work, sheriff," Wednesday fumed, voice dripping with disdain. "I hope you're able to laugh about it when Laurel wakes up and takes back her slave."

It was a low blow, but Wednesday was a master of those. She only felt grim satisfaction when every ounce of mirth drained from his expression.

"Look, I can't tell you anything more than what I'm going to release in a public statement later today," he said somberly, cutting his eyes meaningfully towards his closed door as he spoke. "Thornhill or Gates or whoever the hell she is took a nasty blow to the head and is in a coma. We're running tests to confirm her identity. Based on interviews with all the witnesses up at Nevermore, it seems pretty cut and dry that she was the aggressor and all of you were acting in self-defense, but we've still got to process the scenes and wait for forensics to come back before we can close the case. I'll be able to let your friend go once ballistics and fingerprints are in."

"My friend? Enid?"

Galpin grimaced. "I had to follow procedure. A werewolf attacked someone."

"But you know she only did it to save me!" insisted Wednesday, her voice rising.

"I do, and as soon as the tests come back and confirm it, I'll sign off on her release," he reiterated. He dropped his voice to a near-whisper, looking towards his office door again before meeting her eyes. "Addams—Wednesday—I have got to go by the book on this one. It's already enough of a shitshow that we're lucky the state police haven't swooped in, and that's before I tell them that my son and his girlfriend are involved. I don't want to give them any reason to question my work or to take over the investigation."

Wednesday could have powered a small city with the strength of her rage. But she understood.

The last thing they needed was to have independent, unbiased investigators sniffing around. Santiago was bad enough, but she'd been working for Galpin for decades and had some loyalty to him. And Wednesday had not been particularly impressed with her skills during the short time she had witnessed the woman helm the ship after Tyler's father had been fired, so she was not worried about outmaneuvering her. Especially with the sheriff's help.

Her ire was better directed at the prejudiced system that required all werewolves who attacked people to be quarantined pending investigation. Enid hadn't been jailed last time, but last time she had attacked a Hyde, and the authorities did not care about Outcast-on-Outcast violence. This time, she had attacked a Normie. Even if it was a crazed, serial killing, genocidal psycho of a Normie, the law presumed that the werewolf must be the dangerous one.

Wednesday wanted to scream.

Instead, she asked, "Where is she?"

"The lupin cages at Nevermore."

"And Eugene?"

The sheriff's forehead creased in confusion. "The Ottinger boy? What about him?"

"He was there," Wednesday told him.

Galpin frowned. "In the courtyard? He wasn't there when I got there, and he never came forward as a witness."

"I saw his bees," insisted Wednesday. At the sheriff's quizzical look, she added, "Eugene can control bees. There were bees there, trying to incapacitate Laurel when she was standing over me with the gun. Are you saying that no one has seen Eugene?"

She could not help the panic that had crept into her voice. Indeed, it was so evident in her words and expression that Galpin rose from his chair and actually reached across his desk as though to comfort her.

"Hey, hey, no," he started placatingly, letting his arms drop back to his sides when Wednesday stepped backwards out of his reach. "He wasn't on the list of the dead and wounded. I would have recognized his name if he were, after… you know. All the Nevermore students were accounted for, and his moms haven't been beating down my door, so I'm sure he's fine."

"I just—" Wednesday swallowed and looked down at name placard on the front of the sheriff's desk. "I thought he was there."

There was a pause as the man tried to work out how to respond to such a heretofore unimaginable circumstance as Wednesday Addams expressing concern. Or anything other than annoyance or curiosity, probably. She would never admit it to anyone, least of all to Sheriff Galpin or to Tyler, but for a moment Wednesday saw a flash of Tyler in his father's face. She had always been at odds with the man, so she had never had an opportunity to notice what positive traits he may have shared with his son. But surely there were some, and it seemed like she had found one.

"Wednesday?" came from the doorway.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

She turned on her heel and made her way to Tyler's side, feeling a flicker of guilt at the apprehension spread across his handsome face and the way he held his arms stiffly by his sides. Wednesday took the initiative and reached for his hand, lacing her fingers through his.

"I need to get out of here," she said firmly. At the obvious confusion in his eyes, she clarified, "With you. Will you drive me to Nevermore?"

"You can't go back to Nevermore," the sheriff butted in as he retook his seat. "It's still on lockdown. No one goes in or out without a good reason and a police escort."

That had not happened last time. Wednesday had been free to roam the campus, or to leave it and return, to her heart's content. Then again, Sheriff Galpin had been dealing with the fallout of the world finding out that Tyler was the monster who had been offing people and stealing body parts, the public and his deputies alike had been clamoring for his removal, and Jericho as a whole had made a point of ignoring what had happened at the school and focusing on what had happened to the Normies instead.

"I'll take her back to the house, then," stated Tyler, clearly telling and not asking.

But the sheriff seemed disinclined to argue, anyway. Perhaps he had taken Tyler's warning to heart and had accepted the inevitability of their relationship, which was certainly a sight better than Wednesday's own mother.

He tossed something small and fast to Tyler, who snatched it out of midair with one hand, quick as a snake strike. The sheriff blinked, then shook his head wryly.

"My truck's in the visitors' lot. Now that the tires have been replaced on the police truck, you'd be doing me a favor to drive mine home."

Right. Tyler had slashed the tires on all the police cars.

"Addams," called the sheriff as they made their way out of his office.

Wednesday stopped walking but did not turn around to look at him, partly because the movement would hurt her shoulder and partly because she did not want to face him again so soon after her display of weakness.

"Don't worry about Gates," he said to her back. "She's got twenty-four seven security—an officer posted outside her door, cameras, handcuffs, the whole works. She's not going anywhere. And Thorpe is still in lockup, so he can't get to you either."

Wednesday heard the message loud and clear: There was no way to get to Laurel right now without circumventing the police, and even if she managed it, the police would then know that Xavier wasn't the person working with her. Or at least not the only one.

That was unfortunate. But Wednesday had never met an obstacle she couldn't overcome with enough skill and planning. Or explosives.

Morticia and Gomez were lingering in the vestibule, like mold on rotting fruit.

"There's my little storm cloud! Why don't we go see if we can get some of your things from Nevermore?"

Wednesday took them in with her usual stony expression, noting the way that her father stroked his mustache and her mother clasped her hands in front of her body, both tells that they were anxious about something.

"I neither need nor want your help," she sternly rebuffed the offer. "If you want to help someone, help Enid. She has been unjustly imprisoned in the lupin cages for attacking Laurel Gates."

She marched on, pulling Tyler along behind her despite his attempt to give her parents a polite farewell. There was no need for him to treat her parents with courtesy or respect, given their obvious disdain for him and their relationship.

The visitors' parking lot that served city hall, the sheriff's department, and the nearby courthouse was down the block and around the corner from the front entrance to the police station. They covered a distance of no greater than five hundred feet from the steps of the station to the sheriff's personal vehicle, a hunter-green pickup truck that was a few years old but obviously well-maintained. In that short distance, they attracted the attention of no fewer than half a dozen townsfolk, including a gaggle of students who appeared to be from Tyler's high school and a secretary who Wednesday recognized from the mayor's office. Tyler's hand was tense in hers the entire way.

"Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?" Wednesday demanded to know as soon as he had pulled the driver's door shut behind him. "Would you have preferred to keep our relationship status a secret?"

Tyler's mouth fell open, and he stammered for several seconds before managing to say, "What? No! Why would you—"

"I've seen corpses in full rigor mortis that were more relaxed than you were just now," she interrupted him.

"Yeah, because I was worried that you were going to yank your hand away when other people could see us," he snapped, tone accusatory and noticeably annoyed.

His argument was effective. And correct. It brought Wednesday up short, a feat that few people had ever accomplished. He let out a puff of breath, somewhere between a scoff and a dismissal, and turned away from her to violently jam the key into the ignition. Wednesday watched him quietly as he drove, taking in the angry set of his jaw and the way his hands gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary, and wondered if she was always going to feel this miserable when he was upset with her. She hoped not, because she knew that it was likely to be a common occurrence, taking into account her independence and insensitivity and inability to accurately judge social situations or other peoples' emotions.

"I'm sorry," she apologized as they turned into the driveway of the Galpin house. "I am… out of sorts. Learning that Laurel is still alive brought up some unpleasant feelings for me."

Wednesday had never understood the difference between a reason and an excuse. She did not see that there was a difference, but she had been informed by various principals, counselors, therapists, and peers at various times over the years that there was one, so she presumed that it was something normal people understood that she did not. She had considered only saying that she was sorry and not offering any commentary on her actions, to avoid the risk of Tyler saying that she was making excuses for her bad behavior. But she thought that he deserved an explanation.

He did not respond as he expertly navigated the truck through the narrow garage door opening, nor when he shut off the engine, and Wednesday was beginning to think that she had messed up more seriously than she had previously thought. Then he turned to face her, his face tense.

"I always knew she was still alive, so I guess I just assumed that you knew, too."

"How could you know?" she questioned, unable to fully mask the suspicion in her voice.

He dragged his hands down his face and released a long breath. "I just… know. It's like I've got a sixth sense always pointing me in her direction, like psychic GPS or something."

That was concerning in more ways than one. Wednesday twisted the hem of Tyler's borrowed hoodie between her fingers, needing some outlet for her nervous energy in the stillness of the truck.

"Can you sense her physical state? Her state of mind?"

"No, but I think if she died then I'd just not feel anything, you know?"

"Can she speak to you or give you commands telepathically?"

"Not that I know of," he answered wearily.

They fell back into silence, though neither of them made a move to exit the vehicle. The atmosphere was tense between them, and inescapably fragile, and Wednesday did not want it to follow them inside the house. She did not want to sit in Tyler's living room, surrounded by the trappings of his daily life and pictures of him as a little boy, and talk about another woman controlling his mind. She did not want to taint the sanctuary of his bedroom (messy and imperfect as it was) with words that would undoubtedly break her heart. But she did need to know, no matter how painful it would be.

"I need you to tell me what orders she gave you about me," she requested solemnly. "I need to know how much of us is you and how much of us is her."

"Wednesday!" he objected and twisted in his seat to face her fully. "It's all real. It's all me."

The muscles in her face spasmed with the effort not to let him see her doubt and fear.

"I don't believe that she never gave you a single order to get close to me."

Tyler made an aborted movement to reach across the console, his hand hanging suspended in the air between them for several seconds before he pulled it back into his lap, fisted so tightly that his knuckles looked painfully white.

"It wasn't like that. Not the way you're thinking. Laurel had never mentioned you the first time you came into the Weathervane or when I agreed to give you a ride into Burlington. I don't think she ever would have, if I hadn't killed Rowan to protect you."

"So she didn't order you to sabotage my escape?"

Tyler gave her a puzzled look. "No. Did she even know you were trying to escape?"

That gave Wednesday pause. She had always thought that Tyler had been in on Laurel's plan from the beginning, and that he had reported her attempted escape to his master. But if what he was saying was true—if Laurel had not mentioned Wednesday's part in the plot to him that early on—then all her assumptions were wrong.

Her brain and her heart were at war. Was it possible that she had jumped to the absolute worst conclusions, because she had needed to make the betrayal as big as possible in her mind in order to justify her feelings of rage? To avoid having to admit to herself the true reason Tyler's betrayal had hurt her?

"And she didn't tell you to keep me safe so that I could be used later in her ritual?" she pressed, needing to be sure. "That's not why you killed Rowan?"

"After I killed Rowan," he emphasized, "Laurel was pretty pissed at me, because I had shown myself to you and got Weems involved in the investigation and hadn't even collected a body part to show for it. She ordered me to keep what I was and who she was a secret and to do what I could to throw a wrench in your investigation without making you suspicious of me."

"That's all?"

He nodded earnestly. "Yes. I mean, until later. She did tell me to keep you out of your dorm the night she stole the book, and obviously she ordered me to chain you up in the crypt. And I told her about you going to the Gates mansion, because by that point I was afraid of you ever finding out the truth."

Wednesday remained silent as she thought back through all of their interactions. Were all of them, or at least most of them, really Tyler's own actions?

Tyler tentatively reached for her again, moving slowly, as if she might spook and run away. Or bite his hand off. She tracked it with her eyes but did not pull away, permitting him to cover her hand with his.

"I always liked you, Wednesday. None of that was Laurel. She didn't make me want to go to the Rave'N with you. She ordered me to 'take care of' Eugene"—here he used the fingers of his free hand to make quotation marks in the air—"which I deliberately misinterpreted as 'stop for now' instead of 'stop forever' so that I wouldn't have to kill him, even though I knew full well what she meant. Because I knew he was your friend. And she beat the shit out of me for that."

Wednesday sucked in a breath, but he continued before she could think of what to say.

"She didn't make me go out of my way to find ninety-eight percent chocolate and bake you a birthday cake, and God knows she didn't make me spend hours practicing writing 'happy birthday' in latte art. She didn't make me ask you out for a birthday dinner, which would have had exactly nothing to do with her if you hadn't lied to me and dragged me into your investigation, by the way. Nothing she ever said compelled me to spend hours setting up a date in Crackstone's crypt, or even to make it a date at all. She definitely didn't order me to kiss you. She also didn't order me to warn you that something big was coming, after you found out what I was."

Wednesday had rarely ever felt this wretched. In fact, she wasn't sure she had ever felt this way, not even when Nero had died. She had spent a year hating Tyler and believing that he had tricked her. She had let him rot in Willow Hill out of a misplaced sense that he deserved to be punished, not for killing twenty-five people and almost killing Eugene, but for breaking her heart. Even when he had demonstrated his feelings by throwing her out that window and she had realized that some part of him truly loved her, she had still thought the worst of him and assumed that he had accidentally developed feelings for her while carrying out Laurel's orders.

She had never allowed herself to believe that he had sought her out purely from his own desire to be near her. It had never crossed her mind that he would have looked at her twice if he hadn't been under orders to do so.

"Tyler…" she said his name like a prayer, because it was.

The stinging, humiliating, unwanted pressure of tears made her sinus cavities burn.

"Hey, c'mon, it's okay," he soothed her, thought she didn't deserve it.

He cupped her face in both of his hands and swept his thumbs across her cheeks, wiping away the few traitorous tears that had managed to escape. Wednesday wrapped her good hand around his wrist and stared up into his hazel eyes, seeking the truth there and finding it. His kiss, when it came, was a balm to Wednesday's soul that she had not realized she needed, firm and gentle and sweet.

But then he pulled back, too soon, to study her face.

"I don't understand you, Wednesday. If you thought that I was playing you the whole time, then why the hell have you done any of this? Like, I can understand if you were just saying what you had to say to survive out in the woods, but why keep me from being found out? Why come home with me last night? Why not get in the car with your parents and leave?"

And she knew that he deserved the truth from her.

Chapter Text

"This is going to sound insane."

Tyler gave her the same bemused expression he had so often sported in the beginning of their acquaintance, when he had not been sure whether she was joking about something.

"I hate to tell you this, Wednesday, but you're a psychic witch who's dating a guy who can turn into a ten-foot tall monster, and we're sitting here right now because a zombie pilgrim we both helped resurrect tried to massacre your school. I don't think you can surprise me."

Wednesday pursed her lips. "We'll see."

It was unfortunate that Wednesday's death and the decision to take over her younger body had been such a whirlwind. Wednesday liked to think that she was imminently adaptable; flexibility and the ability to follow events as they unfolded were crucial skills for any investigator. But Wednesday's strength was her ability to quickly analyze data, deduce what was likely to be the most helpful, and change her plans to suit changing conditions. She had never been very good at flying blind, without a plan entirely. Only with quickly adapting and forming new plans and revisions of plans. Going back in time was not something she could have predicted, and it was becoming clear to her that things were changing too much and too rapidly for her to try to plan her actions based on what had happened the first time she'd lived through this.

That left her in the tortuous position of knowing too much of what would happen if she did not act (assuming that she hadn't already changed everything) but not knowing how much worse her interference might make things or what unintended consequences she might unleash.

Wednesday thrived on control.

It turned out that she felt even more out of control reliving her past than she had when living through it the first time.

One thing she could control was whether and how much she shared with Tyler. She could not predict or control how he would react, of course, and that was frightening beyond measure. But she could be honest with him, as he had been honest with her, and deal with the consequences, whatever they were.

As she had observed one too many times with her parents, secrets had a way of rising from the grave to haunt you. She did not want to keep secrets from Tyler, at least not ones of any consequence.

"In the crypt, after you left, Crackstone stabbed me and I died," she began, throwing them both directly into the deep end to get it over with.

Tyler's eyes widened, but every other part of his face went slack, his mouth falling open in a soundless gasp. His hand, though, tightened painfully around hers.

"My spirit guide, Goody Addams, was a powerful witch. She is the one who cursed Crackstone four centuries ago and had been sending me visions of him ever since I came to Nevermore, which is one of the reasons I was so invested in my investigation, other than having seen you for myself when you killed Rowan. Goody sacrificed her soul to save my life so that I could defeat Crackstone."

"You died?" he demanded as soon as he was able so speak.

There was a strange lilt to his voice that she had never heard before, as if it were on the verge of cracking. If he was already this upset at hearing about her first death, that did not bode well for the rest of the story.

"I feel much better now," Wednesday told him the same thing she had the first time he had asked her a similar question, in the other timeline.

Tyler did not appear to be anymore amused by it now than he had been then. Wednesday would have preferred the seething anger he'd demonstrated then over the stunned anguish covering his face now.

"Can you let me get through this without interrupting?" she asked, softening her tone as much as she was able, which, when it came to Tyler, was a great deal. "Like I told you, it's going to sound crazy. You're going to have a lot of questions. But they'll all get answered."

The muscles in his jaw and neck visibly tightened as he clenched his teeth, but he nodded.

Wednesday looked down at their clasped hands, suspecting that she would not be able to get through what she had to say if she could see his reaction to every word. It would have been easier to turn away entirely, but that would have required pulling her uninjured right hand from his so that she could sit straight in the passenger seat instead of sideways facing him.

"After I woke up, I left the crypt and ran for the school to stop Laurel and Crackstone, but I met you in the woods… where you transformed and pinned me up against a tree to kill me."

Tyler made a noise in the back of his throat, half confusion and half protest, but snapped his mouth closed without saying anything when Wednesday looked up long enough to glare at him.

"Enid stopped you. You fought each other. I didn't see it, but I found out later that you won the fight and were about to kill her when your father shot you twice to stop you. That distracted you enough that she was able to get in a couple of good blows and beat you."

Wednesday trained her eyes back on their joined hands. She had considered not telling him that it had been his father who shot him, but if she were going to tell him any part of the truth then she was going to tell him everything. There was no way she was going to spend the rest of their lives walking on eggshells around him trying to keep a bunch of half-truths straight in her own mind. She could summarize some of the key points, though, to get through the story faster, lest they be there all week.

"I defeated Crackstone and Laurel pretty much the same way as I did this time, except I got shot with an arrow instead of a bullet and Eugene stopped Laurel instead of Enid, since she was busy with you. Laurel ended up in prison, and you got sent to Willow Hill. I didn't see you for nearly a year… but I thought about you. Obsessed about you. I hated you, because I thought you had been pretending the whole time and played me for a fool."

She risked a glance up at Tyler's face and was met with a look of such confusion that it might have been amusing if she hadn't been so worried about how he would take the rest of what she had to tell him. His hazel eyes were narrowed at her, nearly squinting, as though she were some obscure handwritten manuscript that he was trying to make out by candlelight, and his full lips were parted as though he had forgotten how to breathe in the middle of taking a breath.

Wednesday ran her thumb across his knuckles, which were white from holding her hand so tightly.

"Life moved on, as much as it could. I spent months learning how to control my visions and filling my time with… other things. But as soon as the new term started at Nevermore, weird things started happening again. Your father said that I am drawn to mysteries like a moth to the flame, and I can't argue with that. He asked me to help him with his investigation into strange deaths at Willow Hill. He thought you were in danger being locked up there. I decided to take him up on his offer, but he was murdered before I could tell him."

Tyler did make a noise, then, a strangled thing that he clearly could not have held in even if he had wanted to.

It was somewhat surprising. If there was one thing Wednesday thought she knew about Tyler, it was that he loathed his father. But maybe that implacable rage had only set in after Galpin had shot him and turned him over to the authorities. It wouldn't be rational, but these things rarely were.

"I'm the one who told you he was dead. I visited you in Willow Hill to ask if you knew anything about his death," she pressed on, wanting to get it all out as quickly as possible, before she lost her nerve or he lost his patience. "Really it was just an excuse to see you, but I hadn't admitted that to myself yet. I was still telling myself that all I felt for you was hate. I told you that you were deluded if you thought I had come just to see you, and you told me I was lying to myself if I couldn't admit that I had fallen in love with you. With the monster in you. 'Two black-hearted souls ready to pillage the world together'—that's how you described us."

He snorted out something that probably would have been a laugh if he hadn't been so tense.

"Yes, well," she continued, "you can imagine how I reacted to being confronted with an unwanted truth that I was not ready to admit. I was… cruel. Deliberately hurtful. And you were hurt and so, so angry when you realized that I had only come looking for information. I don't know why I thought it would turn out any differently."

"Wednesday…" he began, and she realized that she was out of time.

She would have to end this now and fill in the details later. She shifted in her seat to face him head on and saw that he was pale and looked like he might be ill. Actually, it was not entirely unlike how he had looked during her disastrous visit to the psychiatric hospital, except that he did not have the cadaverous complexion of somehow who had been deprived of sunlight and fresh air for who knew how long.

She gave him a pleading look.

"Just let me get this out."

He swallowed but offered another reluctant nod.

"I continued my investigation. I found your father's hunting cabin down in Pine Crest, discovered that some of the Outcasts who had been reported dead had never actually been buried or cremated, and got my Uncle Fester to get himself committed to Willow Hill to gather inside information. We discovered a secret research lab in the basement and, well… It's a lot to explain, and I don't know all the details myself, but things went sideways and somehow all the prisoners escaped, including you. You found me as I was trying to lead one of the other Outcasts to safety."

She stopped there, to prepare herself for what she had to say next. Or, rather, for his probable reaction to it.

After what seemed like minutes had passed, though it had only been a few seconds, he demanded, "What, Wednesday? This whole thing is fucked up and fucking, just, crazy, but you're holding back now?"

"You killed me," she blurted out.

He went deathly still. Not a breath, not a flinch. Wednesday would not have been surprised if his heart had stopped beating.

"You threw me out a fourth-story window. And all I could think was 'That was too impersonal. I mean something to him. The least he could have done was change back to his human form and tear me apart with his bare hands,' and then I realized… I did mean something to you. You hated me so much that you delayed your own escape to hunt me down and kill me."

She had intended to explain about Goody's offer and her acceptance and waking up back in Crackstone's crypt. About how seeing him again had struck her dumb (about how she would personally murder him in the most painful way she could think of if he ever repeated that to anyone else) and how her initial awestruck silence during their confrontation and her newfound willingness to accept her own feelings for him had completely changed the outcome. But she did not have the chance.

Tyler was breathing heavily, nearly panting, and his grip had tightened so much that Wednesday felt her delicate metacarpals bending under the pressure. Wednesday realized that he was fighting not to transform. And it was not a fight he was going to win.

One moment he was hunched forward, eyes screwed shut, forehead nearly touching the steering wheel, and the next he had flung open the truck door and leapt out in one movement, ripping his hand painfully away from hers.

"Tyler!" she cried his name as she scrambled out of the tall truck after him.

She landed hard on her feet, a stinging sensation buzzing up one of her calves at the contact, but she ignored it and ran out of the wide-open garage door after him. Of course, she stood no chance in a sprint against Tyler even in his human form, much less as a Hyde. She only caught a glimpse of him, fully transformed, disappearing into the woods as she rounded the corner of the house into the backyard.

"Tyler!" she screamed again, but she already knew that it was no use.

If he wanted to get away, there was nothing she could do to stop him. She had read that Hydes at top speed were only a blur to human eyes. Nobody knew how long they could maintain that speed (anyone who had ever tried to research Hydes had been killed before they could learn much… or had just decided not to publish their results), but she had to guess that it would be for long enough that he'd be miles away before she could even start to track his path through the trees.

Pieces of his clothing were scattered in a trail from the middle of the backyard just into the treeline. Wednesday supposed that no matter what she did, some things were fated to remain the same, like the destruction of the brown corduroy jacket she had so often seen him wear. Last time he had shredded it when he had transformed in the woods to kill her; this time he had done it because she had told him about the past. In a certain sense, it was darkly amusing. In another, very real, sense, it was terrifying to think that there were some things she just could not stop from happening. She only hoped that Tyler being identified as the Hyde and thrown into the loony bin was not one of them.

It would be just her luck to find out that, after she had gone to so much trouble to establish that the Hyde was locked up safe and sound while Tyler was running around free, he had ended up slaughtering some boy scouts in the woods and being found out anyway, just because she had been foolish enough to tell him the truth.

Or selfish enough to unburden myself to him, because I wasn't strong enough to handle this on my own, chimed in her inner choice.

Never let it be said that Wednesday Addams did not criticize herself just as much as she criticized everybody else.

She sighed and stooped down to gather the remains of his tattered clothing, resigning herself to the fact that she had no choice but to wait for him to come home. Then they would deal with the fallout, whatever it was, together.

By dinnertime, Tyler was still in the wind, and Wednesday was starving. The Galpin men appeared to survive on frozen dinners, protein bars, and an enormous box of garish orange crackers that were, bizarrely, in the shape of cartoonish goldfish. None of it had been very appetizing, but Wednesday had not been willing to leave the house to seek out sustenance elsewhere, lest Tyler return home and find her gone.

She had scrounged up a physics textbook from Tyler's bookbag (Wednesday had not finished her physics course before she had been expelled from Nancy Reagan) and found a comfortable seat on a sofa next to the window overlooking the backyard, presuming that Tyler would come back the way he had gone.

The family dog had initially been wary of her. She had wanted to soothe him but couldn't remember his name, though she knew she had heard Tyler say it before, that day in the woods when he had covered her face with his hand and pulled her back against his body. (In retrospect, she should have known even then. Anybody else would have found himself flipped over her shoulder with her boot in his neck.) At some point, the dog had decided that he liked her regardless and had demanded attention, like a very big, very hairy toddler. But even he had been curled up asleep on the other end of the couch for an hour by the time he popped up and started barking at the front door, startling Wednesday before she even heard the sound of footsteps on the porch.

The door opened a few seconds later, just long enough for Wednesday to wonder why Tyler would have walked around to the front of the house, in full view of the road, to come in the front door, and the sheriff stepped through.

"Hey, buddy!" he crooned at the dog and bent to lavish its head with affection, dropping a heavy plastic bag and his keys carelessly on a sideboard just inside the door.

He had been talking nonsense to the animal for several moments when he looked up and noticed Wednesday standing at the threshold between the living room and the kitchen. He straightened hastily, leaving the dog whining and prancing at his feet.

"Addams," he greeted stiffly and made a sweep of the living room with his eyes. "Where's Tyler?"

"You have asked me that a lot lately."

He shrugged. "Because whatever trouble he's been involved in lately, it always seems to come back to you."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, sheriff."

The deflection came to her lips automatically and without much thought. But when she did consider it, perhaps some measure of openness with the man would not go completely amiss. He was Tyler's father and the head of local law enforcement, and he had proven himself a willing and somewhat helpful ally over the last twenty-four hours. She—they, she reminded herself—would need his help to keep tabs on Laurel and ultimately to deal with her without getting caught at worst or, at best, creating inconvenient questions.

He had rolled his eyes at her response and scooped up the bag he had dropped earlier to take it to the dining room table, the dog on his heels, obviously not expecting to get a straight response from her. When Wednesday spoke again, he froze mid-motion and slowly turned toward her.

"I gave him some… unexpected news, and he transformed and ran into the woods. I don't know where he went."

"What?" he exclaimed as he spun to face her fully. "When? What news would have made him…?"

He trailed off as he eyed her up and down, the color draining from his face.

"Are you pregnant?"

Wednesday actually blinked.

"Sheriff, I told you this morning that Tyler and I have not engaged in sexual intercourse."

"Well, yeah," he defended, clearly still skeptical, "but I thought you only meant last night when you broke out of the hospital."

"No wonder the unsolved crime rate is so high around here. I meant ever," she clarified harshly, "and for the record, when I do feel ready to have sex, I will not be foolish enough to become a statistic."

A myriad of emotions played across the sheriff's face, and he appeared like he was going to speak several times but stopped himself just before proceeding. Wednesday could well imagine the things he thought she needed to hear (Even the most responsible people can get caught up in the heat of the moment. No method of contraception is foolproof. Et cetera.) and the reasons why he decided not to speak (She was not his daughter to speak to about such things, even if his son was the other half of that specific two-variable equation. Even if she were, the likelihood of her listening to him about anything was slim to none. Et cetera.).

The sheriff finally seemed to settle on worry for his son.

"How long ago did this happen?"

"About three hours ago, just after we arrived here from the police station," she informed him, glad for the change of subject.

"Jesus Christ, Wednesday! And it didn't occur to you to call me?"

Wednesday levelled a flat look at him. "No. What could you have done, other than make your deputies suspicious with your anxiety while you sat around pretending nothing was wrong and waiting for news, just like I've been doing. Neither one of us can track him. And if he had attacked someone, you'd have heard about it without my help."

The sheriff did not appear to like that response, if his grimace was anything to go by, but he only nodded and let out a heavy sigh.

"Fine. You're right."

"I usually am."

"Except when you're not," he pointed out wryly. "Ask Xavier Thorpe."

Score one point for Sheriff Galpin.

"What about Xavier?" Wednesday asked his back as he turned back around and started pulling steaming plastic containers out of the bag and arranging them on the kitchen table. "You were transporting him to Willow Hill last night, correct? Obviously, that didn't happen."

The sheriff's shoulders slumped. "I took him back to the station last night, but Willow Hill sent a transport for him a few hours ago. He was spouting off to anyone who walked by his cell that Tyler is the real monster and that you helped Tyler frame him. It won't be long until that story gets spread around now that it isn't contained to me and my deputies, especially once he goes to trial. And, fuck, I was still happy to send him away. I felt like shit every time I saw him in those shackles."

"Xavier's father is one of the wealthiest and most well-connected Outcasts in the country. He'll probably get his son off entirely or, at worst, Xavier will have to spend a few years at Willow Hill until the doctors opine that he is safe to walk among us. That shouldn't take long, since he is not actually a Hyde."

"That doesn't make me feel much better, Addams," the sheriff told her, and he did sound truly sorry. He sat in one of the kitchen chairs and gestured towards the one across from him. "Sit down and eat. I didn't know what you wanted, so when Tyler didn't answer his phone I decided to just get a bit of everything we like. You should be able to find something."

"His phone is probably still in the truck," Wednesday thought aloud as she sat and eyed the offerings. "I didn't see it in the yard when I was picking up his clothes."

The sheriff had brought home Chinese food, probably from the place on the outskirts of town that Wednesday had noticed in passing but never visited. She briefly considered asking whether they ate takeout every night, since their fridge and pantry were devoid of anything edible, but she thought that might be a bit too rude even for her. And she had other things to worry about besides, such as the fact that Tyler's father was feeling guilty about what they were doing to Xavier. Wednesday could not really understand it. She was completely unapologetic in her decision to throw Xavier under the proverbial bus in order to save Tyler, and she would have thought that his father would be even more willing than she was. She was not naïve enough to think that all parents actually loved their children unconditionally, but Sheriff Galpin certainly seemed to fall into the category of those who did.

Wednesday knew it was not her place to share the details of Tyler's ordeal with his father, but she also knew without a shadow of a doubt that Tyler so deeply hated his father that he was more likely to let the man think the worst of him for the rest of their lives than to correct the record. Perhaps it was not yet the level of deep, undiluted loathing that had forced Dr. Fairburn to shock Tyler for a full five minutes to get him to return to human form the one and only time the man had visited him at the hospital. But he certainly resented the man.

She also knew without a shadow of a doubt that Donovan Galpin loved his son and had tried to protect him even when he had believed that Tyler had acted of his own free will. How much harder would he fight for his son—how much more willing would he be to do whatever was necessary to protect Tyler—if he knew the truth?

Decision made, she carefully set her plastic fork and knife on either side of her paper plate and focused on the man sitting across the dining room table from her.

"She forced him, you know. She manipulated him by promising that she would tell him the truth about his mother, that she would show him how to unlock his own power. He didn't know that it would enslave him to her."

The sheriff froze with his fork halfway between his plate and his mouth, his blue eyes widening as he stared at her.

Wednesday took a fortifying breath and let it out slowly through her nose.

"When her promises didn't fully persuade him, she used sex to seal the deal."

Galpin expelled a breath as if he had been punched in the solar plexus.

"And then," Wednesday continued ruthlessly, before he could interrupt, "even after she turned him, he still fought her. The cave where I got that claw I gave you? She shackled him to the wall and injected him with drugs and beat him until he disassociated. The Hyde part of him followed her orders blindly; the part that was still Tyler didn't remember any of it. He only knew that he was blacking out, losing time. Waking up covered in blood."

Galpin looked like he was about to be sick. He would probably truly be ill if Wednesday were to disclose that, over time, Tyler and the Hyde had slowly merged into one and that now he not only remembered what he did but enjoyed it. That was one secret she planned to take to the grave. Nobody would understand, other than her.

"So don't waste your time feeling sorry for Xavier," she concluded fiercely. "Worry about protecting your son, because if he gets thrown into Willow Hill, the thing you get back won't be the Tyler you remember."

The sheriff swallowed and looked down at his half-empty plate of sesame chicken and vegetable fried rice, needing to pull himself together. When he looked back up his expression was resolute and his eyes were shining with emotion and unshed tears.

"Protecting Tyler will always be my first priority," he declared, the vehemence clear in his tone for all that it was quiet.

"Well, isn't this cozy?" came a familiar taunting voice from behind her.

"Tyler!"

Wednesday had called his name and leapt from her chair before she had even consciously registered that it was him. Even the sight of him, when she processed it, didn't stop her flight across the small kitchen. He was naked as a jaybird and covered head to toe in blood. It was thicker around his mouth and on his hands and had flowed down his neck and chest and forearms, but it was also generously splattered up into his hair and across his abdomen and down his thighs and legs, even on his feet. She didn't care what state he was in. She didn't care what he had done. She didn't even care that his father was witnessing her reaction. She crashed into him at full speed, her chest colliding with his torso and her good arm wrapping around his waist.

He didn't speak, but he did wrap his arms around her in return, so she considered that to be a good sign. If he were truly angry with her, he could have easily avoided her embrace or pushed her away.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" the sheriff summarized, as loquacious as ever. "What the hell did you do, Ty?"

"Just some moose. I wanted a bear but couldn't find one that wasn't already in its den. Don't worry; I didn't do anything to complicate your life more than I already do."

Wednesday's face was pressed into his chest, so she didn't see it, but she could hear the sneer in his voice. The casual cruelty. He was still more Hyde than man, she realized, despite his very human appearance.

She leaned back, but he tightened his arms and pulled her tighter into him, a warning just beginning to rumble in his chest. The vibration and the possessiveness and the look in his eyes triggered something visceral deep inside of her, like she should be afraid but the wires in her brain had been recrossed so that she felt excitement instead. She ignored the arousal coursing through her body and offered him an unimpressed look.

"Stop that," she ordered sharply, jabbing him hard enough in the ribcage to drop a lesser man. "You do not growl at me."

He did not loosen his hold and did not apologize, nor did he seem the least bit physically phased by her actions. But he did stop the nonsense and peered down at her somewhat sheepishly, a few drops of blood falling from his hair onto her face. She took that as a win.

"Now let me go so that you can go upstairs and shower," she directed imperiously.

Tyler frowned. "You come with me."

"I sat here all afternoon waiting for you to come back, Tyler. Do you think I'm going to disappear now?"

His head tilted in a familiar way as he considered her words. It was a habit she recognized from nearly all their confrontations when the Hyde was simmering just underneath the surface.

"No, but I still want you to come with me."

"I don't think—" the sheriff began to object, but Tyler's glower brought him up short.

It made sense why the man was concerned. Most parents would probably object to their teenage son showing up stark naked covered in blood and then taking his teenage girlfriend upstairs to help him shower. Wednesday would have said that her own parents would be thrilled at the prospect, except that she now suspected they disliked Tyler specifically, so even they would probably have objected in this instance.

"We'll be fine, sheriff," she assured him, although she kept her eyes locked on Tyler's.

This time when she pulled away, he let her go, although he watched her through narrowed eyes, as though he suspected it were some sort of trick. Like she might make a break for it at any moment, as futile as running would be. Wednesday recognized the uncertainty—the fear—for what it was and cursed Laurel and the sheriff and Tyler's mother and his ex-friends and everyone else who had ever made him feel abandoned. She had literally come back in time after he had killed her and had still chosen to be with him when she could have destroyed him, but his abandonment issues ran so deep that he was still afraid she was going to leave too.

During the entire climb up the long, narrow staircase to the second floor, Wednesday could feel Tyler tracking her every movement and could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck. Her survival instincts were going haywire warning her that danger was nearby. She had always been the most dominant person in any room she had cared to enter, the most dangerous predator, the biggest fish. So it made very little sense to her that her body would react to being stalked like prey by sending a spike of anticipatory pleasure down her spine.

But here she was, her body flush with arousal and aching for something she didn't fully understand.

She had intended to wait in his bedroom while he showered, but Tyler pulled her into the bathroom with him. He closed the door behind them and leaned back against it, just staring at her, and Wednesday sighed. He was still behaving animalistically, not really back to being Tyler yet.

"You're covered in blood," he announced, as though she were unaware.

"Pot. Kettle," Wednesday scoffed as she turned her back on him, determined not to show any fear.

She could hear him inhale.

Then he said, "You like it."

By the time she turned around after adjusting the knobs in the shower, he had crossed the bathroom and was standing inches away, looming over her. She had noticed before, of course (How could she not have?), but in this proximity, in an enclosed small space, it settled heavily in her mind that he was nude. And, a mostly involuntarily glance downward revealed, aroused. Very aroused. Monstrously aroused.

He looped one arm around her waist and pulled her against him, his erection pressing into her lower stomach as his free hand toyed with the end of one of her braids, pulling the hairband free.

"You're so little," he observed hoarsely. "I didn't realize how little, with the shoes."

She was barefoot, having kicked her platform boots off by the backdoor when she had entered the house.

She splayed her hand against his chest and pushed as she commanded, "Tyler, let me go and get in the shower."

His lower lip ran out in a pout that should have been completely revolting to Wednesday but, underneath his predatory gaze and blood-covered face, somehow managed to seem almost cute.

"But you want me," he reiterated. "I can smell that you do. I can smell you."

He leaned down and captured her lips in a bruising kiss.

He was right. Wednesday certainly could not deny it. She could feel the blood rushing between her legs, accompanied by the telltale ache and the uncomfortable slickness. The sight of his body was aesthetically pleasing, especially streaked with blood, and the brief glimpse she'd seen of his erect penis had been… intriguing. Apparently, though inexplicably, the feeling of being hunted turned her on. And his body pressed against hers as he kissed her, the taste of blood filling her mouth…

Wednesday shivered and forcefully pulled her lips away from his, turning her head sharply sideways to avoid his mouth seeking hers out again. His lips landed on her jaw instead, and he kissed his way down her neck, completely undeterred.

"I do want you," she confirmed bluntly, "but that doesn't mean I'm ready for this. Turn me loose."

It took a few seconds, but once the words penetrated the fog of his Hyde brain, he froze mid-nibble along her jugular and slowly, carefully, pulled his teeth and his lips away from her skin. His arms followed, then the rest of him, as he took a cautious step backwards. His pupils were blown wide as he looked at her, and he clenched his fists tightly by his sides, trembling.

"Sorry," he croaked. "I'm sorry. You should go."

Wednesday did, despite his heated stare searing into her back as she went, only stopping long enough to run a washcloth under the faucet to deal with the mess he had made of her. Was she tempting fate by lingering in his presence? Probably. Was she testing his patience? His ability to follow her orders even when he didn't want to and didn't have to? Yes and yes. Definitely. Would she have minded if he hadn't been able to hold himself in check? Unknown.

She didn't go far, of course. Just to his adjoining bedroom, where she took the opportunity to dig through the drawers of his flimsy particleboard dresser and find a fresh t-shirt to exchange for her borrowed hoodie, which was now stained with blood as if she had been the one to bathe in it.

When he came out of the bathroom almost fifteen minutes later, he seemed surprised to see her sitting on the edge of his bed. His hand flew to the towel he had loosely wrapped around his waist, clutching it tightly closed as though she hadn't already seen everything underneath it.

"Aren't you going to get dressed?" she asked, her tone very nearly teasing.

His eyes—fully hazel and fully him, now—widened almost comically when he worked out her meaning. Still, he gamely went along with it. She made no move to leave the room or to look away as he dug through his drawers and bashfully dropped the towel to step into his underwear. She observed him openly, unabashedly, and could admit to herself that she was disappointed when his muscular legs were covered with sweatpants and his chiseled torso was hidden underneath a t-shirt that proclaimed him to be a 2021 state champion.

"I don't object to the idea," she informed him primly. "I just need to work my way up to it. And I certainly don't want my first time to be with the Hyde at the forefront of your mind."

He coughed. "Yeah. Um. Yeah."

"I can see how that would be fun, though. Later."

"Fuck, Wednesday. I'm going to need another shower if you're not careful." He shook his head ruefully and pulled his desk chair around to sit facing her, rather than placing himself on the bed next to her. "I am really sorry for how I behaved just now. I hope you know that."

"I do know," she could easily affirm.

He nodded and sighed in relief. "Good. I'm glad. I—we—would never want to hurt you."

"Hopefully not never," she could not resist saying, and shot him a smirk when he seemed to choke on his own saliva. When he had recovered enough to send her a reproachful look in return, she added, "Besides, you've already murdered me in an act of hot-blooded passion, so what's the worst you could do to me at this point?"

His breath hitched again.

"So… time travel. I didn't just lose my mind and hallucinate all of that, then?"

"Unfortunately not. If it makes you feel any better, I have experience with feeling like I've lost my mind, and it isn't as fun as it sounds."

Chapter Text

Telling Tyler that she was a time-traveling ghost who had possessed her own younger body had been more anti-climactic than Wednesday had expected it to be. At least after he had disappeared for hours to work out his initial feelings about having been the one to kill her, anyway. He was curious about what had happened and the differences between the two timelines, and slightly perturbed by some of the answers she gave him, but, overall, he seemed calm about the whole thing. Too calm. Disturbingly calm.

"Wednesday, baby, I spent the better part of a year thinking I was either going insane or about to die from a brain tumor because I was losing so much time, while I slowly came to the realization that I was a homicidal monster and all of my nightmares were real," he had told her, as if it explained his relative ease in accepting her story.

She supposed it did.

She had been more concerned about his use of that atrocious pet name in reference to her, and the fact that he had only grinned impishly when she had expressed her desire to string him up by his toenails and recreate his blackouts.

The next morning, after a surprisingly good night's sleep, Tyler flipped through the contents of his closet as if he were looking for the entrance to Narnia, having already exhausted the contents of the pile of laundry that resided on his bedroom floor.

"Shit. Between all the blood and transforming, I'm running out of clothes. I'll have to go shopping soon unless I want to wear my letterman jacket."

"Why don't you want to wear it?" she asked, only half listening.

"It would be weird since I'm not on the team anymore."

Wednesday idly flipped a page in the physics textbook she had purloined from his book bag.

"Well, that's what you get for transforming while fully clothed. Maybe you should learn better self-control."

Tyler snorted. "If you're going to be that way, then give me back my shirt. And my underwear."

When Wednesday looked up, he was leering at her, clearly joking but also clearly painting himself a mental image of what it would look like if she were to capitulate. She was half tempted to get up and start stripping his clothes off her body, if only to see his reaction. But she would not give him the satisfaction that easily. And he did have a point.

She was saved from having to respond by a knock on the bedroom door.

"Kids? You up?"

"Come in, dad," Tyler called distractedly as he examined two equally atrocious jackets he was holding up side by side.

The sheriff opened the door wide enough to stick his head inside. And he did that cautiously, as if he half-expected to find them going at it, despite the fact that Tyler had invited him to enter the room.

"Uh, good morning," he began, every ounce of the awkwardness he felt seeping into his tone. "I just wanted to make sure you were getting ready for school, Ty. Didn't want you thinking I was going to let you skip again just because Addams spent the night. And damn, that's a weird thing to say."

Tyler discarded both jackets carelessly onto the growing pile on the floor as he turned to face his father.

"Yeah, I've got tests in calculus and English lit today. Last day before Thanksgiving break and all."

"Right. Good," replied his father.

They stared at each other for several moments, the sheriff with a flush just beginning to creep up his cheeks from underneath his thick stubble and Tyler with his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. Then the sheriff turned to look at Wednesday, who was lounging against Tyler's headboard as if she belonged there, and cleared his throat.

"Uh, Addams, your parents sent their, um… man? I think…"

"Lurch?" she surmised.

He shrugged helplessly.

"The point is you've got a doctor's appointment."

Wednesday closed the physics book with a snap and accepted the note from his outstretched hand, briefly taking in the thick stationary and her mother's elegant handwriting before tossing it aside.

"Thank you, sheriff. Can I visit Nevermore today?"

"You can visit," he allowed, "so long as you don't go into any areas still roped off with police tape."

"Does that mean I can visit the lupin cages?" she wanted to know.

"No. But is me saying no going to stop you?" His voice sounded resigned but only a little annoyed. At Wednesday's blank stare, he sighed. "I'll give you a ride, then. I'm heading out in ten minutes."

Wednesday had not expected her relationship with Sheriff Galpin to progress to a point where he would be offering her rides. Then again, she also had not expected to be sleeping in his house or eating dinner with him. She probably would never have done either of those things, whether she was seeing Tyler or not, if Nevermore had not been locked down for the last two nights so that the police could conduct their investigation. She supposed it was for the best that they seemed to have come to some sort of ceasefire, though, even if it had been unintentional. Neither of them was going anywhere anytime soon. At least, not if she could prevent Judi Stonehearst from sending her crows after him.

Not that Wednesday would ever allow herself to become codependent on Tyler. She would not be like her own parents, who had not spent more than a few hours away from each other since they were teenagers. It wasn't that she needed to be around Tyler or to spend her nights with him; it was that she wanted to.

She would have a chance to test that theory today. Tyler only had to attend school for half a day, but he had an afternoon shift at the Weathervane. Wednesday had to be at the hospital at two thirty. It would be the longest time they'd spent apart since he had picked her up from the hospital.

Wednesday had suspected that the sheriff's motivation in offering her a ride was so that they could talk outside of Tyler's presence, but he surprised her by remaining silent throughout the short drive to Nevermore. In fact, if she were any good at reading facial expressions and body language, she would have guessed that he was nervous during their ride and relieved when they stepped out of the car. He was acting like he had actively hoped she would not initiate conversation. If anyone could respect that, it was Wednesday. But, in this case, it still confounded her.

Still, she had never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and she had no intention of starting now. They went their separate ways with only a brief goodbye from the sheriff and a returning nod from Wednesday.

The campus was emptier than Wednesday had ever seen it, even after the first fight with Crackstone. No students had actually died the first time, though, and no students had been imprisoned afterwards. The atmosphere had been downright celebratory, and no one had been in a particular rush to leave.

Evidently, this time everyone had been eager to leave as soon as possible.

Her side of the room was exactly the same as it had been when she had left it, but there were a few things missing from Enid's side—her bedding, her rug, a few of her stuffed animals. It felt even emptier than it actually was, somehow, for the knowledge that Enid had not been able to sleep there for the past two nights.

Wednesday only stayed long enough to pack her trunks and fill a backpack with some essentials to take back to Tyler's house. As appealing as he found the sight of her wearing his clothes, she was glad to have access to her own wardrobe again. It felt almost like putting on armor and shedding a certain vulnerability that had been lingering around her since waking in the hospital. If she chose to put on an oversized sweater dress that resembled the sweater she had borrowed from Tyler that morning, well… there was no harm in occasionally dressing in a way that she thought would please her boyfriend, was there? It wasn't like she was changing herself for him; she had bought the dress before she'd ever met him.

When she finally entered the lupin cages just after lunchtime, Enid was sitting crossed-legged on the rug that Wednesday recognized from their dormitory, painting Thing's fingernails.

"And here I had imagined you languishing away in drafty gulag," said Wednesday as she approached the heavy iron door of the cage they were in.

Enid's head swung around, and there was a moment of stunned silence as she registered Wednesday's presence. Then she scrambled to her feet and let out a high-pitched squeal that made Wednesday wince.

"Wednesday! Oh my god!"

"Enid," she greeted her friend, then focused on the appendage that had crawled up the other girl's body to sit on her shoulder. "Thing. I didn't realize you were here."

"Thing's been with me nearly the whole time," revealed Enid. "He did try to visit you in the hospital, but you'd already left by the time he got there."

"I didn't think you'd escape so soon. It was impressive, even for you," signed Thing.

The inevitable question would be where had she gone after leaving the hospital, but Wednesday was not prepared to explain all of it yet. It would be a long and probably difficult conversation, one that she did not want to have without gathering more intelligence.

"I'm sorry that you got locked in here," she changed the subject. "It's ridiculous that they're treating you like a rabid wolf because you saved my life from a crazed murderer."

Enid sighed dramatically and gestured at the cell behind her, which looked like a unicorn had vomited a rainbow all over it. The quilt from her bed, an intricate pattern of bright pinks and blues and yellows and purples, was spread across the cot, and multiple flower-shaped rugs woven in various shades of pink were spread across the floor, Enid's manicure kit strewn across the largest one. To top it off, garlands of artificially bright flowers were strung up across the bars and along the stone walls.

"It's not so bad. Sheriff Galpin brought my things from our room, and he let me keep my phone. And I've had Thing."

Wednesday's estimation of the sheriff ticked up another notch. Maybe two.

"Still," she declared, "it's wrong. Laurel is the only monster here."

Enid grinned and practically skipped across the cell to the door.

"I love your sense of justice, bestie, but the sheriff is just doing what he has to do," she stated, far more cheerfully than the situation warranted. "Anyway, do you have any idea how much this has boosted my pack cred? I may be a late bloomer, but how many of the other furs can say that they wolfed out on a blood moon and heroically took down a serial killing psychopath? Even my mom seems proud, for once."

No matter how Enid framed it, Wednesday was not willing to let it go so easily.

"What did my father say?" she pressed. "I told him to help you."

"He's going to file some kind of petition for a court to let me out early because of the circumstances, but it's really just a backup plan in case there's a delay with the investigation. I'll probably be out of here before we even get a court date. Thank you, by the way. For sending him." Here the other girl looked down, uncharacteristically bashful. "My parents do okay, but there are five of us kids, and my youngest brother hasn't even started Nevermore yet. They were going to have to ask the pack for help to pay for a lawyer, and they wouldn't have been able to get one as good as your dad."

"Of course," replied Wednesday. What else could she say to that?

Enid leaned forward against the bars, her eyes sparkling and serious.

"Now you have to answer my questions. Like why the hell is Tyler Galpin walking free while Xavier is still in jail?"

Damn the sheriff and his soft heart, thought Wednesday, completely changing her prior assessment.

She had to fight to maintain her customarily flat expression. Fortunately, she had a lot of practice, and Enid's question was not entirely unexpected, since she had been permitted to keep her phone while in custody. To be fair, if she hadn't, then they would have found her dead in her cell ages ago from the withdrawal.

"Because there is no evidence that Tyler was involved, and there is quite a bit of evidence that Xavier was involved," she explained stiffly, lowering her voice to ensure that the guard outside the lupin facility could not hear her (at least not unless he was secretly a Hyde).

"But your vision," Enid near-whispered, taking Wednesday's cue.

"My visions would never be admitted as evidence in court. Besides, as I have been told by multiple people, including Xavier himself, they are unreliable and open to interpretation."

Enid's face had fallen as Wednesday had spoken, until there was no trace left of her usual cheerfulness.

"Xavier says that you planted the things the police found in his shed."

Wednesday wasn't sure how Enid had heard that. Perhaps Ajax or another friend had visited Xavier and relayed what he had said to Enid. She guessed it didn't really matter.

"I didn't," she assured the other girl, and that was the complete truth.

Tyler had planted the evidence, knowing that Wednesday suspected Xavier and would find it. If Xavier's defense was still that Wednesday had done it and he hadn't worked out the truth, then he was definitely behind the eight ball, though it explained his hostility when she had visited him in jail. Honestly, Wednesday was insulted that he would seriously entertain the idea that she would do such a thing. It would be a complete abdication of her intellectual integrity to frame someone whom she could not prove had committed the crime. But she was also relieved that he still thought that, because it kept some of the suspicion off Tyler.

"So he's just going to get convicted of murder even though he's innocent?" cried Enid, her voice rising again.

"I doubt he'll get convicted of murder," deflected Wednesday. "He's a minor with the best lawyers money can buy, and he was being mind controlled by a psychopath."

"Seriously, Wednesday?" Enid protested, her tone openly and deeply critical. "You're acting like you think Xavier really did it!"

And now they had come to the crux of the matter. Wednesday had not decided, before she had come to the lupin cages, exactly what she would tell Enid. Would it be better to pretend like Wednesday had been mistaken and really thought Tyler was innocent after all? Would it be better to be upfront and risk that Enid would betray the truth to the authorities, out of a sense of either justice or guilt over Xavier? It was clear, now, that Enid already knew too much to allow for anything but honesty.

Wednesday leaned closer to the iron bars of the cage and lowered her voice even more.

"I think that there is no way to free Xavier without throwing Tyler under the bus, and I'm not willing to do that."

Enid's mouth fell open. Thing signed furiously from his perch on her shoulder, asking what in the hell Wednesday was thinking.

"Laurel is a predator," she continued urgently, needing them both to understand. But particularly Enid, since she was the one who would feel the need to tell the authorities the truth. "She groomed him and abused him and unlocked the Hyde without telling him that he would be her slave, then she ordered him to do her bidding and tortured him when he tried to resist. He doesn't deserve to be locked up forever when he isn't the real monster."

"And I'm sure the prosecutor and the judge and whoever else will understand that," Enid insisted sharply. "But we can't let Xavier take the fall for something he had nothing to do with!"

Wednesday shook her head.

"I'm not willing to risk it. Look what they did to you just because you saved me from a Normie who had already shot me once and had her gun literally pointed at my face. And you're a werewolf—a well understood type of Outcast. He's a Hyde, Enid. Most Normies won't care that he was being controlled by Laurel, and even if they do care, they'll still think he needs to be locked up because that's what he is. Do you understand? All they'll see is a weapon of mass destruction that needs to be neutralized to keep him from being used by anyone else."

"Maybe he needs to be!" her friend snapped, wrapping her hands around the bars. "He killed dozens of people! Did you forget what he did to Eugene?"

"I haven't forgotten. It's one of the things that persuaded me that he doesn't deserve to be left to the mercy of the Normie authorities. He knew that Laurel wanted him to kill Eugene, but he twisted her orders and only wounded him."

"How do you kn—" began Enid as she leaned closer, but she stopped abruptly and reared backwards, nostrils flaring. "Is that who you smell like? He's all over you!"

That should probably have grossed her out, but Wednesday felt a spike of pleasure settle low in her belly. Which was completely inappropriate, given the circumstances. And inconvenient. She carefully did not allow her expression to change, but something of her thoughts must have been visible in her eyes, because Enid was staring at her as if she had lost her mind. Even Thing seemed too gobsmacked to speak, which was an occurrence so rare that Wednesday could have counted them all on one hand.

She made a decision, then, and let her uncaring façade crack, just a bit. Just enough for them to see a glimmer of the deep well of feelings inside her.

"Enid, please," she beseeched her friend. "They will throw him into a solitary cell with no windows or natural light, and chain him to a wall and put a shock collar around his neck like an animal. He really will start to lose his humanity and become the monster they think he is, and they will never let him out. I—I've seen it. And even if my vision is wrong and he gets out someday, his life will be essentially over. He wasn't raised as an Outcast. He doesn't have a community that will accept him back or the money to rebuild his life somewhere else."

When she stopped talking, there was only silence, the kind that felt like it was teetering on the edge of a knife. She could only hope that pretending she'd had a vision of the future she had lived through would be enough to convince her kind-hearted friend to take up her cause.

Wednesday could practically see the different thoughts and emotions work their way through Enid's mind, in her shifting muscles and expressive eyes. She wished that she was able to read them better, so that she would have some idea that Enid was thinking.

After what seemed like forever, the other girl finally ventured, "I've never seen you like this. You care about him."

Wednesday did not immediately know what to say. She could hardly tell Enid and Thing that she loved Tyler, when she had not said so to the man himself in as many words. But she had to acknowledge Enid's observation.

"I… He, he is… important to me," she managed to stammer out.

Thing signed, "You've been with him since you left the hospital."

"Yes."

"I thought he would be there the night of the attack," said Enid. "I was ready to confront him, maybe even fight him."

Don't I know it, thought Wednesday.

Aloud, she said, "He was there. He caught me in the woods on my way back to the school. We talked."

"Some talk," remarked Thing.

Enid snorted in a way that Wednesday was sure would have mortified her if anyone else had been around to hear it. But her amusement was short-lived. She pinned Wednesday with a hard stare.

"You care about him enough to let Xavier take the fall for him."

Wednesday could not decide whether that was a question, a summary, or an accusation. Maybe it was all three. Not that it mattered. Her answer would be the same regardless.

"Yes," she confirmed easily. "I do."

Enid's eyes narrowed. "And you care about him enough to ask me to lie for him."

"I'm not really asking you to lie," insisted Wednesday. "I'm just asking you not to alert the authorities to the fact that I'm lying."

"Lying by omission is lying, Wednesday."

"Normally I would applaud your pedanticism, Enid, but in this case I am asking you, as my friend—maybe my only friend—to let this go." At Enid's sharp look and Thing's offended posture, she added, "You're not a friend, Thing. You're family…. And as family, you are already bound by pain of death to keep my secrets."

Thing trembled on Enid's shoulder.

"Is that an Addams family thing?" she asked. "Is there a curse or do you all have to take a magical oath or something?"

"No. It's a me thing. If he snitches, I will dismember him and make him watch as I feed him bit by bit to my mother's carnivorous pet plant. I'd do the same to any family member who betrayed me. I'd do it to Pugsley for fun."

Enid wrinkled her nose, but her face smoothed into a look of pure surprise when Wednesday reached through the bars to grab one of her hands.

"Enid, I know you don't care about Tyler, but I'm not asking you to do this for him. I'm asking you to do it for me. If I have to, I will take him and run, and you'll never see me again unless it's on America's Most Wanted. But I want to stay."

It might have been manipulative if it were not entirely the truth. Maybe it was still manipulative despite being the truth. Wednesday was not the best person to judge the intricacies of interpersonal relationships.

"You're really serious about him," marveled her friend, her big blue eyes widening in a mixture of shock and excitement and, still, a bit of guilt. "What if he Hydes out and hurts someone else?"

"He won't, at least not on purpose," Wednesday told her. To herself, she added, Unless they deserve it.

"What if he hurts you? Even if it's by accident, there's always a risk. It's a risk with werewolves, too, but Hydes… from what I understand, they're an apex predator and completely controlled by their emotions."

Wednesday found her mind involuntarily cast back to the feeling of his hands on her. Restraining her. Manhandling her. Bruising her. Of his teeth on the delicate skin of her throat, and the feral look in his eyes as he growled at her. She had to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine.

"I'm not worried about him hurting me," she deflected.

It had the benefit of being true while obfuscating her actual thoughts, which she did not think Enid was ready to hear. If talk of a little light dismemberment had disgusted her, then she was hardly going to understand that Wednesday found the idea of being under Tyler's power, of him potentially hurting her, to be utterly erotic.

She barely understood it herself, given that the idea of being under anyone else's power was enough to make her break out in hives.

The other girl's worried voice broke through her thoughts, "So you think you can control him? Like Ms. Thorn—I mean, like Laurel Gates?"

That idea made Wednesday shiver again, but not in a good way.

"I would never control him like Laurel did," she vowed, to herself more than to Enid. "But, yes, I think that I can master the Hyde."

"Well, I hope so," mused Enid, "because if you can't, then we'll all have blood on our hands."

Wednesday had always hated hospitals. She respected medical professionals, of course, and the work they did. But she had always thought the pale, sterile environment of a hospital was counterproductive to healing. She understood why it was necessary. Understanding did not make it anymore pleasant. The stark white walls and floors of Jericho General gave off a cold feeling, and not the inviting cold of an autumn evening or a mortuary cabinet.

They had tried to brighten up the small exam room she was in with mint-colored chairs and bright pictures, but it came across like a particularly bad makeup job on a corpse that should have stayed in a closed casket.

Then again, maybe some of the chill was emanating from herself and was no fault of the environment at all.

"Wednesday, I don't know what I've done to warrant this cold shoulder," lamented her mother, "but I wish you would tell me so that we can put it behind us before we return home."

What could Wednesday tell her? She had good reason to be angry with her parents, but most of it either hadn't happened yet or else Wednesday should not know enough yet to be upset. It had never been a serious consideration to tell her parents the truth about who she was, particularly not her mother. Morticia would only chastise her for being so reckless and dabbling in such dark magic. But failing that option, there was truthfully very little to rationalize her anger.

After an internal debate, Wednesday settled on saying, "I'm surprised that you thought I would tolerate your blatant attempt to interfere in my relationship with Tyler."

"Interfere?" echoed Morticia, who had the gall to sound affronted. "I merely laid out the facts, darling. Given your longstanding, vehement aversion to emotions in general and relationships specifically, I assumed that you did not know what it would mean to bond with him."

Wednesday glared, unimpressed with her mother's explanation.

"You had your chance to warn me weeks ago," she pointed out, tone as hard and as cold as ice. "You relinquished any right you may have had to an opinion when you decided to stay silent after Parents' Weekend. Now it's too late."

"So you have bonded?" interjected Gomez, leaning forward slightly in his chair, his eyebrows raised expectantly.

"I don't know what is involved in forming a bond, thanks in part to your failure to share information. But rest assured that if we haven't yet, we will as soon as I know how."

The way her parents looked at each other did not bode well for Morticia's promise to share all the information she had about Hydes, and Wednesday realized that she may have shared more of her cards than was wise. It was clear that she would not be able to depend on them for help. They would likely send her cherry-picked information that they deemed safe for her to have, which would almost certainly omit anything useful about bonding with a Hyde.

Hopefully her newfound emotions would settle into some sort of equilibrium soon and she would be able to stop and think again, instead of jumping to the defense of Tyler and their relationship at every slight provocation.

The neurologist entered the room, then, after a brief knock at the door, and saved Wednesday from having to continue the conversation.

However, she was still ruminating on it later, as she completed the thirty-minute walk from the hospital into the center of town. She had flatly refused her parents' offer to give her a ride, knowing that they only wanted to trap her in the confines of the family car so that they could have their say. The ache in her good shoulder from carrying her heavy backpack for two miles with one strap was well worth it to avoid that waking nightmare. Still, the sight of the Weathervane was a welcome relief for more than one reason.

It was more crowded than usual when she entered, with a line half a dozen deep. Wednesday did not bother entering the queue, though, having caught Tyler's eye as he helped another customer.

She was sure that she would eventually grow used to the trill of excitement that ran through her body at the wide smile he gave her, but she hoped she never lost that feeling entirely. No matter how silly it was, it was hers.

If she watched him as he worked, enjoying every time he glanced up and caught her looking, it was only because she had nothing else to occupy her time. She hadn't been able to rescue any of her books or her typewriter on today's trip to Nevermore, after all, with only one functioning arm.

And if she ran her fingers across his hand and up his arm when he set her quad down in front of her, well, who could blame her? It had been nearly ten hours since she'd had the chance to touch him, and he was the only person she had ever wanted to touch in her entire life.

Then he greeted her with a smirk and an impertinent, "Hey, baby."

"I am going to introduce you to the finer points of waterboarding and see how long you last before asphyxiation sets in," she promised darkly.

He reached out and playfully tugged one of her pigtails. "I can't wait."

Wednesday was fully prepared to strike him down where he stood. She was actively considering whether beating him to death with the metal napkin holder or stabbing him in the throat with a dull teaspoon would be more painful, but they would never find out how close he had actually come to death that day, because another group of customers chose that moment to walk into the shop. He winked (another strike against him) as he turned to head back to the register.

"Hi, Tyler," chirped the girl who walked at the head of a trio of them, and Wednesday immediately disliked her. "I'm glad it's you today. No one else knows how I like it."

The Weathervane was not a particularly large establishment, and it was not empty, so Wednesday might have assumed that she was reading too much into it and the girl had not intended the double entendre, if the two others flanking her had not begun giggling at the remark. And if a muscle in Tyler's haw hadn't clenched.

"The usual?" he asked shortly, his customer service tone fraying at the edges.

The girl flicked a stray golden curl over her shoulder and pouted her full, pink-glazed lips.

"The usual," she replied, then she briefly met Wednesday's eyes before turning back to him. "Is that the girl everyone is talking about? The one you took to the dance up at Nevermore and were holding hands with yesterday?"

It was slightly disconcerting to hear that they were a topic of conversation at Jericho High, though Wednesday supposed it was not too surprising. Teenagers were notorious gossips. Her own roommate authored the foremost blog on the social goings on of the younger denizens of Nevermore and Jericho. Come to think of it, she would need to have a conversation with Enid about boundaries, now that her friend would be privy to intimate information about Wednesday's love life.

Tyler did not respond to her inquiry, turning instead to begin working on the three girls' drinks. But his lack of response did not deter them.

"She's pretty, I guess, but I didn't think she was your type."

After several seconds of his continued silence, one of the friends chimed in, "So what is she? She looks like a vampire."

"She looks like a corpse," tittered the third one.

The first girl, the one who had been flirting with Tyler and seemed so interested in who Wednesday was, asked, "Is that what you're into, Ty? The undead? Was I too warm and alive for you?"

"Nah, you were just too easy and boring," he finally answered, his tone carefully neutral despite the cutting words he had uttered. "Are you paying separately or together?"

This time, the three girls were the ones who remained deafeningly silent. The one in the center had turned an alarming shade of pink, and her two friends were staring between her and Tyler with wide eyes. Wednesday did not know what, exactly, the girl had expected to gain from this confrontation she had engineered, if not having exactly the type of casual cruelty she had inflicted turned back on her with full force. Wednesday would have been even crueler than Tyler had been—in fact, she considered intervening and decided against it only because she refused to be drawn into stereotypical teen drama.

Tyler seemed to have it well in hand, anyway.

"Separately or together?" he repeated, enunciating each word as if they hadn't heard him.

"You know what?" fumed the ringleader. "Fuck you, Tyler Galpin. You and your little freak deserve each other."

She turned on her heel and stalked out of the coffee shop without her drink or her dignity, her friends trailing behind her like the little lemmings they obviously were. Tyler poured the one drink he had finished and the other he had started working on down the drain as the other patrons besides Wednesday studiously pretended like they had not been listening. Wednesday had no such compunctions. She openly watched him as he finished his work and rounded the counter, heading in her direction with a thunderous expression on his face.

He slid into the booth directly next to her rather than into the opposite bench, as he usually would have done before… everything.

"I just need to touch you," he murmured low enough that the other customers, who were sitting near the door, could not hear. "I can feel him, like my head is a cage and he's throwing himself against the bars. I want to run after her and tear her head off her shoulders."

It was not lost on Wednesday the way he had switched between referring to the Hyde and to himself, seemingly without realizing that he had started out describing the Hyde as a separate being that wanted to kill the girl but had ended by owning it as his own desire.

"Who is she?" Wednesday wanted to know.

"Heather. My ex," he explained. "From before the mural and bootcamp and everything. She broke up with me the day after I got arrested and hasn't given me the time of day since, but for some reason she's been jealous ever since Lucas told everyone that I took you to the Rave'N."

Wednesday hummed in understanding. "She wanted you to pine after her. Classic adolescent narcissism."

He shrugged against her body and leaned down to press his nose into her hair, inhaling her scent.

"I guess she thought I was, since I never chased after anyone else. She couldn't have known that had nothing to do with her."

Because he'd been caught up with Laurel and then dealing with his Hyde being unlocked, Wednesday completed the thought that he hadn't said aloud. The now-familiar lurch in her gut came like clockwork.

Tyler sighed when the bell above the door chimed again, announcing a new customer. He took another deep breath before lifting his face from her hair and straightening his spine.

"I get off in half an hour," he reminded her, speaking at a normal volume now. "Do you want another quad while you wait?"

Wednesday had, uncommonly for her, not wanted to consume more caffeine. She already felt jittery enough without adding fuel to the fire.

The rest of Tyler's shift seemed to crawl by, with a slowing but still steady stream of customers preventing him from visiting her booth again. When he was chatting with the coworker who had come to relieve him, Wednesday thought that he must have been taking his time on purpose just to torture her. It was certainly an effective method. She commended him for the creativity.

But when they finally escaped into the biting, late-autumn evening, her words seemed to escape her. She would have been embarrassed by the way she clung to his hand as they walked down the sidewalk, if he hadn't seemed just as eager as she was. And when he opened the passenger door for her and released her hand so that she could enter the car, Wednesday gave into her impulse to shove him roughly backwards against the vehicle and force her way into his space.

He went willingly (He had to, for Wednesday to be able to shove him anywhere, especially with only one arm), letting his back slam against the metal frame with a thump and Wednesday's backpack, which he had been carrying for her, hit the pavement with a muffled thud. He immediately widened his stance so that she slid into the vee between his legs and he could comfortably lean down to kiss her. Wednesday melted into him without thought, without second-guessing it. She had not even realized how tense she had been until she felt all the tension drain out of her body as his arms wrapped around her and his lips covered hers.

This time, Wednesday opened her lips eagerly to the inquisitive press of Tyler's tongue. She was overwhelmed, in the best way, by the sensation of his tongue sweeping against hers, then deeply exploring every nook and cranny of her mouth, and by the taste of him, all coffee and copper and Tyler. Despite not having understood the appeal of French kissing less than forty-eight hours prior, now a tiny moan escaped unbidden from her throat.

They continued that way, outside of space and time, as if they were the only two things that existed in the universe, until someone whistled and yelled at them to get a room.

Tyler pulled back, laughing, but Wednesday leaned her head into his chest and closed her eyes, not yet ready to let the moment end completely.

At some point, she had worked her hand underneath his (ridiculous) layers of clothing and around his waist, so she was stroking the bare skin of his back. She could feel the scars there, raised ridges crisscrossing his body, souvenirs from his time with Laurel. Wednesday desperately wished, for a moment, that she was the one who could transform into a Hyde, because she doubted that any level of brutality she could mete out as a human would be enough to satisfy her need for blood and vengeance.

Tyler cradled her head with one hand, but he left his other cupped around her backside, which she found that she did not mind as much as she had always imagined she would (on those few and far between occasions when she had tried to picture herself engaging in physical congress).

"Not that I'm complaining," he rasped, "but is there any special reason you can't keep your hands off me tonight?"

"Don't flatter yourself," she replied acerbically, although her words were belied by the way she squeezed her arm around his waist in a hard embrace. "You're just here for stress relief."

"Uh huh. And what stress needs relieving?"

"I need surgery, after all," she confided into his chest. He tensed, his fingers digging briefly and painfully into the globe of her ass before he seemed to force himself to relax. "They'll have to use a plate to hold together all the pieces of my clavicle, but fortunately the neurosurgeon said none of the nerves were severed. One of them is being pinched, but the surgery should take care of that."

"So you'll make a full recovery?" he questioned warily.

"Yes, but I'll probably need months of physical therapy."

He let out a long exhalation, presumably out of relief. For her part, Wednesday could not fully relax just yet, because she had more worries on her mind.

"My parents are talking about taking me home," she told him.

He went completely rigid, as if she had hit him with another taser to the neck.

"I know," acknowledged Wednesday. "There's no way I can leave Jericho for nearly ten months, not when Laurel is still a threat and we don't know what will happen with the investigation. And we still need to deal with Willow Hill; we can't just leave those people to rot in the basement."

Tyler tugged her pigtail again.

Wednesday pinched his side in retaliation.

"Fine," she conceded. "As much as it pains me to admit it—and believe me, I have rarely experienced such exquisite torment—it seems that I can barely go ten hours without craving your presence, much less ten months."

He pressed a nearly chaste kiss to the top of her head. "I can barely go ten hours without turning into a murderous monster so that I can hunt you down and destroy whatever it is that's keeping us apart."

Wednesday pulled back, finally, so that she could study his face. He was staring at her earnestly, evidently completely serious about his urges. That was crazy. It was wildly dangerous. It should have terrified her. Instead, it made a newly familiar heat begin to pool between her legs.

"Well, if I am going to become disgustingly codependent on someone else, it will have to be as insanely unhealthy as possible. I will accept no less," she concluded wryly, only half joking. "Homicidal rampages are a good start."

He let out a bark of delighted laughter and leaned down to kiss her again. It would be a while before they finally managed to drive back to the house.

Chapter Text

If Wednesday had set out intentionally to annoy Tyler, she could not have come up with a more effective way to do it than by having him move her things from Nevermore to his house. He had eagerly agreed to help, of course, excited at the prospect of her moving in with him more permanently. But she may have conveniently forgotten to mention that she had six heavy trunks of various sizes. And a cello. And that they all needed to be carried down thirteen flights of stairs. And then across the school to the parking lot.

"Holy shit" he said the first time he stepped into the room, having stopped in his tracks just inside the doorway. "Did you bring your entire house to school?"

"Just the essentials," she replied. "Clothes, toiletries, lab equipment, medieval weapons, a set of cast iron cauldrons. Lurch never complains."

"Isn't Lurch a mindless zombie?"

"Of course not. He's a Frankenstein's monster. They're completely different things."

Tyler shot her a glare so withering that even she thought it was impressive.

"You'll be fine," she dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. "I suggest starting with the heaviest and working your way down by weight."

Tyler's enhanced strength was more than equal to the task at hand, even in his human form, but even a Hyde could not carry a couple hundred pounds down thirteen flights of stairs and clear across campus without showing some physical effects. When he returned from carrying down the third trunk, he was covered in a sheen of sweat from the effort, and his hair was clinging to his forehead in a way that made Wednesday's fingers twitch with the impulse to push it out of his face. When he returned after the fourth trip, he had shed his outermost layers and was down to only a thin t-shirt, which was soaked through in places and plastered to his torso in an unfairly attractive manner.

By the time he came back for the last trunk, the sight of Wednesday sprawled out comfortably, lounging across her mattress as if she didn't have a care in the world, caused him to suck in a breath that almost sounded like the hiss of an angry cat.

"Really, Wednesday?"

She stared up at him with wide eyes, affecting an air of innocence.

"What? I'm injured. I don't want to strain myself." She reached down with her good arm and plucked a small case from the floor right next to the bed. "I'll be in charge of the crystal ball."

Tyler gave her a look that she had not seen on his face since their confrontation in his cell at Willow Hill, like he was trying to decide whether he wanted to strangle her with his bare hands, transform and rip her limb from limb, or just fuck her until she screamed like she was dying.

A rush of desire flooded Wednesday's body, hot and irrepressible and physically tangible in the excessive amount of lubricant that was suddenly between her legs. Before she'd had time to fully process the still-novel physical sensations, Tyler was there, the mattress dipping underneath his weight as he stretched out next to her.

Their mouths came together in a clash of tongues and lips and teeth, rougher than any kiss they had shared before. The coppery tang of blood sang on her tongue, though she could not have said who had drawn blood from whom. His fingers dug bruises into her hip, until he skimmed his hand up her ribcage and seized her breast in a punishing grip. When he rolled her nipple between his fingers, Wednesday wondered what his hands would feel like on her bare skin, if he were to rip her sweater and bralette off her body. She lamented the fact that her damnable sling only permitted him access to one of her breasts.

She raked her fingers through his damp curls and pulled him harder against her, unsure exactly what she was asking for but needing to feel him closer and harder and more.

He carefully balanced the weight of his upper body on his forearm to avoid her injured shoulder, still kneading her breast with his other hand, and rolled his body on top of hers. She instinctively opened her legs to make room for him in the cradle of her thighs, her bent knees framing his hips on either side. Her dress rode up with the movement and bunched around her hips, until she could feel the denim of his jeans through the thin material of her tights, pressing roughly into her sensitive skin. Wednesday arched into him as he rubbed his erection against her core. The added friction sent an entirely new and unexpected bolt of electricity through her body, radiating from her clitoris to seemingly the tips of her toes.

She gasped, pulling her mouth away from his and clawing at his back as he ground his hips harder into hers.

He ran his lips and tongue across her jaw and down the side of her neck, like he had done before during their encounter in his bathroom, but this time he did not waste time nibbling at her. As soon as he found the spot he wanted, he sank his teeth into her skin, biting down harder than he ever had before. The spike of pain was a sharp contrast to the unrelenting pressure building between her legs. It drew a breathy moan from her throat. Tyler's responding rumble vibrated out from his chest and pleasantly through her body.

Wednesday did not have the time to think about what she was doing or to be embarrassed by the way she was desperately rolling her hips up to meet his or by the whimpers that were pouring out of her mouth, which she would have found utterly unacceptable in any other context. She would have literally died before giving a torturer the satisfaction of making a single sound, but this? This was a new kind of torture seemingly designed for the purpose of making her beg. And it was working.

The pressure kept building, more and more, until she was throbbing, and her brain was having trouble categorizing it as either pleasure or pain.

"Tyler." She didn't even care that she had said his name like a prayer. "I, I can't…"

She didn't know how to finish the sentence. Didn't know what it was that she was begging for. She only knew that it was too much, too intense, and she wanted it to go on forever but also to stop.

She squeezed her thighs around his hips, unsure whether she was trying to draw him in closer or to prevent him from grinding his denim-covered erection so deeply against the delicate folds of her body. She needed both things from him all at once.

He squeezed her breast again, testing the weight of it in his palm one last time before he trailed his fingers down her stomach. It seemed like he was giving her time to protest, to tell him to stop, but Wednesday did no such thing. She would have happily sacrificed a thousand other virgins if it would have made him continue.

She bucked her hips and nearly screamed at the first touch of his fingers through the soft fabric of her wool tights. He rubbed two of them firmly against her, through the thin barrier. First down to tease along her opening and then up to focus on her apex, increasing the intractable pressure with every stroke until it reached a nearly unbearable point. Then he pinched her clitoris, hard. The sudden flash of pain sent her over the edge, releasing the pressure in a sudden torrent, as though a dam had broken.

Wednesday sobbed with relief as the involuntary shudders racked her body, her inner walls fluttering uncontrollably at first and then clenching rhythmically as if he were inside of her and not separated by several layers of fabric.

When it was over, with only an occasional pulse of remembered pleasure assaulting her, she opened her eyes to find Tyler hovering above her, watching. She might have let herself feel the humiliation of her behavior, of her loss of control, but the feeling of his hand still cupping her sex and his erection still pressed against her thigh spurred her down a much more productive path.

She slid her hand from his back and across his ribcage and traced the contours of his firm abdominal muscles with her fingertips on her way down his body. He groaned when she pressed her hand against the front of his jeans. Wednesday briefly toyed with the button, but the angle was all wrong.

"Open them for me," she all-but whispered, as if the spell might break if she spoke too loudly.

The entire length of Tyler's body, and of hers, was completely visible when she looked down. He lifted his hand from between her legs, and she shivered at the sudden, unpleasant feeling of the cool air meeting her sopping tights. But it was worth it to watch as his penis, flushed pink and proud, bobbed out of his pants as he lowered the zipper. It was strange that the sight of an appendage that had never once piqued her interest in any other context could cause another frisson of arousal to run through her already overstimulated body, just because it was attached to Tyler.

But that was always the way with him, wasn't it? She ought to have been used to him inducing unexpected emotions and sensations in her by now.

Wednesday could name every anatomical feature and, if asked, could have given a thorough and clinical assessment of it, but none of her theoretical knowledge mattered as she watched Tyler wrap his hand around himself and stroke twice from root to tip.

She reached for him, eager but unsure, and Tyler let go so that she could touch him instead. It felt nothing like she had imagined it would. His skin was surprisingly hot. And soft, although the member underneath was rigid and unyielding. Her still-sensitive body spasmed weakly with renewed interest—Wednesday had never really wondered what sex would feel like before, but now all she could think about was how it would feel to have him inside her.

Tyler let out a little moan, really more of a heavy exhalation, when she pressed her thumb not-gently into his frenulum. Taking that as encouragement, on the next upward stroke she scraped her thumbnail against the same spot.

"Fuck!" he cursed into her neck and jerked roughly into her hand.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise that Tyler liked a bit of pain. Hadn't he just made her orgasm using the same method? It would make sense that they were just as well matched in this as in everything else.

Wednesday tightened her grip several degrees more than she had initially guessed that he would find pleasurable. The results were... acceptable. He was rocking his hips in time with her fist now, meeting her on every downstroke and panting heavily into her neck. His hand found its way back to her hip, pressing the bruises he had already left there even deeper into her skin. And when Wednesday sank her teeth into the straining muscle of his shoulder, through his t-shirt and skin until she could taste blood, he groaned, long and low, and his fingers dug so deeply into her flesh that she almost lost her grip on him.

Instead, she squeezed his penis even harder, until he made a keening sound into the pillow next to her head.

His hips stuttered, and she was somewhat taken by surprise when he ejaculated. Not only because it seemed to happen without warning, or because he had been pushed to it by yet more pain, but also because she had not expected there to be so much of it. His semen splattered between her legs and across her opposite thigh, adding to her already soaked tights.

Tyler collapsed next to her, rolling to the side so that he didn't put all his weight on her. Although she would not have minded if he had, if not for her shattered clavicle. Wednesday closed her eyes and catalogued the feeling of him next to her, and of his arm slung across her waist, and of the slight strain in her thighs when she straightened her knees and let her legs rest against the mattress, and of the way her tender flesh still ached with remembered arousal. None of it had been what she expected. She could not, for the life of her, remember now why she had ever thought physical congress was a waste of time.

Wednesday had not even realized that she had dozed off until she was thrust into consciousness.

Tyler had suddenly shot into a sitting position, depriving her of the weight of his arm across her stomach and the heat of his body pressed alongside hers. It was annoying, which was weird—she had never thought she'd be annoyed to not be touched—but Tyler's body language was a more pressing concern at the moment. He was coiled with tension, as if he was a moment away from leaping out of the bed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied, after a pause long enough for her to conclude that was a lie. "Just a bad dream."

Wednesday was generally a fan of nightmares and tended to think poorly of people who were afraid of their own thoughts. But there were few things she feared and few memories that caused her real distress. It had been years since she had dreamed of Nero's death, and she had never permitted herself to become vulnerable to any other weaknesses after Nero… until she came to Nevermore. If even feeling the whip lashes crisscrossing Tyler's back had made her want to vomit, then she could only imagine how she would feel if she had a nightmare about him being hurt.

Her vision that Enid would die was bad enough, and she was not in love with Enid and hadn't even seen her actually die in the vision.

She sat up, running her hand up his spine as she went. The way he flinched at the contact made her blood boil inside her veins, but she pretended not to notice, for his sake, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade.

"What was it about?"

"It's… I… "He hesitated. "I just don't want you to… take it the wrong way."

"Why? Was I torturing you? Murdering you? Because I would be flattered you think of me that way."

He huffed out a laugh. "Noted. But no. You weren't the bad part. It's… Well, we were having sex, and then you… changed. Into… someone else."

"Into Laurel," she said, a statement and not a question.

"Yeah," he confirmed, then rushed to add, "but it's not because I want her. I don't. God, I don't. I haven't even been interested in sex, at all, for months, not until I met you. But it's like my brain doesn't know that and is punishing me for betraying her."

Far from being offended, Wednesday was intrigued.

"What do you mean by not being interested in sex?"

A tinge of pink rose in his cheeks. "I, uh… just wasn't interested. I didn't think about it. If for some reason I did think about it, the thought didn't do anything for me."

"So you did not have erections?"

"Christ," he complained and turned his head so he didn't have to see her (or, perhaps, so that she could not see his face). Still, he answered, "Not, you know, spontaneously, but I could touch myself and make it happen. It wasn't a physical problem. I checked."

"And would you say that started as soon as your Hyde was unlocked?"

Tyler sucked in a breath and held it, clearly surprised by the question. It was obvious that he had never thought about the connection before. After the space of several heartbeats, which Wednesday could feel from where her forehead rested against his back, he released the breath in a low whistle.

"Shit. Yeah."

"Interesting. What if the bond between master and Hyde is not purely a mental one?" Wednesday mused aloud. "What if your lack of sexual interest in others was because the Hyde felt physically—sexually—bonded to Laurel?"

He shuddered. She could understand his disgust.

"Well, if it did, I think it's broken now. All the Hyde is interested in is you."

He turned to face her suddenly, twisting around so quickly that Wednesday nearly lost her balance. He hardly seemed to notice. His focus was intently on the side of her throat. He reached up to trace a circular pattern with the tip of his finger, and she realized, although she had not seen it for herself yet, that it must be the bite mark he had given her.

"I think that was the Hyde," he confessed. His eyebrows were drawn together in concern. "I didn't mean to bite so hard. I just couldn't stop. I had to mark you. It was all I could do not to rip your pantyhose apart and put my dick in you."

Well, she was certainly glad that he hadn't. Wednesday was not entirely sure that she would have been able to stop him. Not just in a physical sense (she knew that she would not have been able to physically stop him), but in the sense that she was not sure that she would have wanted to stop him, in the moment. Or that it even would have occurred to her that it would have been a good idea to stop him. And she'd be damned if she proved the sheriff correct and became another teenage statistic.

To Tyler, she only said, "I'm not sure you can blame the Hyde for that. Unless I am secretly also a Hyde."

He blinked, as though he had forgotten what she had done, then looked down at the hole she had left in his shirt. He pushed the tattered remains of cheap cotton aside and prodded at the teeth marks for a few seconds, then shot her a satisfied smirk.

"I like that you marked me," he nearly purred. "Almost as much as that I marked you."

Wednesday was sure that she would have blushed, if she were anyone else.

Instead, she drawled, "Next time I'll be sure to do it somewhere visible."

She lightly smacked his hand away when he began to trail it from her wound down towards her breasts, as if he were a naughty child trying to steal from the cookie jar.

"Not now. We've still got to finish moving my things, and I promised Enid I would visit her today."

Tyler let out an exasperated groan, not at all like the ones he had made in the midst of his pleasure.

Wednesday felt like doing the same as she assessed the state of her tights, after having sent Tyler on his way with the final trunk. They were disagreeably damp with her bodily emissions and his, except for the semen that had landed on the top of her thigh and had been exposed to the autumn air, which had dried into the fabric. Tyler had taken all her clothes downstairs several trips past, so her only choices were to salvage whatever she could or to go without wearing anything under her relatively short dress. Besides the fact that it was cold, she was not excited about the idea of going without underwear in public, even if that was prudish of her.

Washing them in the bathroom sink was not ideal, especially because all she had available was Enid's coconut-scented hand soap. Wednesday could only hope that it would not irritate the delicate skin of her pubic area. She washed the gusset as best she could, carefully avoiding getting any other areas wet, and left the hose hanging over the towel rack to dry as she went to use the toilet. And to mop up some of the slick fluid that had accumulated between her legs.

The clinical explanations in her science books had not adequately described how messy sex would be.

When she went to wash her hands, Wednesday finally looked at herself in the mirror. Nothing about her appearance had changed, aside from the fact that her hair was a disaster, and her lips were swollen and split in places, and she had a deep imprint of Tyler's teeth in her neck, crusted with a bit of dried blood but not actively bleeding any longer. Wednesday leaned forward and studied her face. Even up close, her dark eyes and pale skin looked the same as ever. There was nothing telling in her expression.

Even though she knew it was completely irrational, she felt like there should have been some external change to match the way things had seemed to shift in her mind.

As they had approached the lupin cages, Tyler had suggested that it might be better for him to wait outside, but Wednesday had not listened. She had expected that it would probably be awkward, given that Enid was aware that Tyler was a monster with a body count well into the double digits, and he was aware that Enid had been the primary reason he'd been captured in the other timeline, but she had thought they could both be mature about it. And she had wanted to rip off the band-aid in one go, and as soon as possible, so that they could get it over with and move on.

She had underestimated the predatory instincts of both werewolves and Hydes.

As soon as Enid saw Tyler, her hackles rose—both metaphorically and, as much as she could manage it in human form, physically—and her claws extended with a loud snick.

Wednesday did not need to look behind her to know that Tyler's entire demeanor and even the way he carried himself had entirely changed from the sweet Normie boy he usually portrayed. She could sense it. In this case, not metaphorically at all. She could literally, physically feel it. That completely unexpected revelation was enough to make her miss a step on the flat ground.

Tyler steadied her by wrapping a hand around her upper arm, surprisingly gently, considering the fact that his muscles were straining with the effort not to transform and he was audibly growling.

"Okay?" he managed to get out.

His eyes never left Enid.

"I'm fine," Wednesday assured him. "Do not transform."

That was the last thing they needed, with one of his father's deputies standing just outside the facility.

His grip tightened painfully on her arm, but he reluctantly let her pull away from him after she sent him a glare over her good shoulder. He stayed standing perfectly in place where she left him, but his muscles were taut and ready to spring into action at any moment.

"Put those away," she ordered Enid. "Tyler's not going to attack you."

The werewolf dragged her eyes away from Tyler to give Wednesday an astonished look.

"Yeah, sure, he seems super chill."

It would not have done any good to point out that Enid had started it by extending her claws. No doubt it had been an involuntary response to his presence, now that she recognized him as a threat. The other alternative was probably cruel in its honesty, but Wednesday was at the end of her limited patience.

"Enid, if he wanted to attack you, there would be nothing you could do about it. He can transform at will, whereas you are stuck in your human form," she pointed out starkly. "In fact, even if there were a full moon and you were able to wolf out—which there isn't, and you aren't—you would still be no match for the Hyde physically in a one-on-one fight. So, unless you want to test his self-control and my ability to persuade him to stop, put away your claws and stop antagonizing him."

It was a marvel, truly. Hydes could transform at any time and, as far as she could tell, were stronger, faster, and had better senses than werewolves. However, they had a profound weakness in their need to have a master to control when and how they could use their power. On the other hand, werewolves could only transform on the nights of a full moon and were not as powerful as Hydes, but there was no chance of them being controlled by anyone but themselves.

She supposed it made sense that something as powerful as a Hyde could not exist in nature without constraints. It was similar to her own brand of magic. As she had learned, to her chagrin, she could not bend it to her will without consequences.

There was always a give and take.

"Ugh, fine!" exclaimed Enid. She made a big production of sheathing her claws. "Happy?"

"Rarely, and only against my will," Wednesday answered, "but thank you."

The other girl frowned. "You know, this makes me feel even worse for not telling anyone about… this."

Wednesday didn't see why. If anything, seeing that Tyler had been able to control himself even in the face of a clear provocation should have made Enid more confident in her decision. Now, she did not have to rely solely on Wednesday's word that he wasn't going to fly off the handle and murder anyone unnecessarily. She had seen for herself that he had at least some semblance of control over the Hyde.

"You have been gathering information, though?" pressed Wednesday.

Enid let out an overly dramatic sigh and flounced towards the gate of her cage.

"As much as I could since I'm not a Nightshade. Ajax—I can't believe you're making me lie to Ajax!—is convinced that Xavier isn't the monster, but he doesn't think Tyler is either since he didn't transform when you tortured him. Did you really torture him?"

Before Wednesday could answer, Enid held up her hand.

"No, never mind. I don't want to know. Anyway, Bianca wouldn't tell me anything even if I asked her, but I can't because she's been M.I.A. since she left campus. Which is totally sus, by the way. Outside the Nightshades, opinions are split. Most people think there's no way Xavier was the killer and that the Normie police are using him as a scapegoat because they just want to sweep this whole thing under the rug. Some of them even think it's some kind of Normie conspiracy to bring down Vincent Thorpe. But other people think Xavier totally fits the profile with that whole brooding tortured artist thing he's got going on and his creepy art shed and the way he was obsessed over you all semester and you rejected him and then suddenly you were shot by his supposed accomplice."

She paused for a moment, then added, "A lot of people are skeptical about the whole resurrected founding father of Jericho thing, by the way. They just know you got shot by Ms. Thornhill. Or Laurel Gates or whoever."

It took Wednesday several seconds to process that tidal wave of information and irrelevant asides. Once she had, it seemed like relatively good news. If people were debating whether Xavier was guilty and weren't even sure of the underlying facts, then they had not honed in on any other potential suspects. It obviously would have been better if there had been a general consensus that Xavier was the murderer, but given that he was, in fact, innocent, confusion and speculation were acceptable outcomes.

Still, Wednesday had to be sure.

"Tyler's name isn't being bandied about by the insipid gossips that comprise the student body?"

"Outside the Nightshades, by which I just mean Ajax since he's the only one who will talk to me? No. I don't think you have to worry about anyone randomly accusing Tyler of being a Hyde. It goes against his reputation as an asshole Normie who hates Outcasts."

"Only ones like Thorpe," the man in question muttered from behind her.

Both girls turned to look at him, but he was not inclined to say more. He stared back at Wednesday with an expression that she could not immediately read, although she could feel, in the back of her mind, that he was absolutely seething about something.

She turned back to Enid, determined to deal with Tyler's mercurial moods later.

"What about Eugene?"

Enid seemed happy enough to go back to pretending like Tyler did not exist.

"I found Eugene's Insta and DMed him," she explained. "So I can say that he is definitely alive, but he was pretty tight-lipped about the night of the attack. Said he wanted to talk to you."

Wednesday narrowed her eyes, knowing where her friend was going with that.

"He can send me a letter. I'll give you my address to pass along."

Enid rolled her eyes. "Or you could join the twenty-first century."

"I will not be tethered to technology," Wednesday reiterated for what felt like the thousandth time. "The United Stated Postal Service can deliver anything within a matter of days. I will pay the postage, if it is an issue."

"Or you could just give him my phone number," Tyler spoke up. "It doesn't have to be complicated. You'll be with me anyway."

Despite the fact that Wednesday did not appreciate his tone, it was a good idea. Wednesday was so used to relying on only herself that she had not considered Tyler's resources. It would be strange to ask the boy who had barely survived Tyler's attack to communicate with his attacker, but Eugene wouldn't know that's what he was doing. Wednesday had absolutely no intention of ever telling him the truth.

Before she could agree to Tyler's suggestion, Enid's squeal assaulted her eardrums.

"ARE YOU STAYING IN JERICHO?"

She could feel Tyler wince at the pitch and volume of Enid's voice, although she wasn't looking at him. It was another data point to add to her growing list of evidence that something had changed between them. Forged between them.

"I am moving into Tyler's house," she confirmed stiffly, even though she didn't want to invite all the questions that would undoubtedly bring. "I can't leave Jericho when the investigation is still up in the air, and it hardly seems like a good investment to purchase a separate home here when Tyler and I would end up in the same bed regardless."

Enid's eyes widened at that, but she did not seem entirely startled at the revelation.

"Your parents are okay with that?"

Wednesday frowned. "Undoubtedly not, but I did not plan to ask for their opinion. They can either agree to my terms or Tyler and I will disappear."

She had not discussed that ultimatum with Tyler yet, and she could sense his shock and trepidation. But he, smartly, said nothing to question or contradict her in front of her friend.

Her friend who was staring at her with such worry and anxiety on her normally happy face that Wednesday would not have found it out of place if Enid had to tell her that someone (else) had died.

"Wednesday, can I talk to you?" Though it was entirely unnecessary, Enid added, "Alone."

It should have been nothing to ask Tyler to wait outside. Wednesday was in no danger from Enid. And although she was not sure of the extent of his enhanced senses, she was fairly certain that he would know about it in the entirely inconceivable event that she was in danger. But he hesitated, clearly reluctant to leave, until Wednesday turned a dark look on him and told him to go. Even then, he trudged his feet, and his expression could have curdled milk.

As soon as the large wooden door to the facility had closed behind him, Enid declared, "Oh my god, Wednesday, he's like the poster boy for an abusive boyfriend! You come in here with visible bruises and a friggin' bitemark on your neck, he hovers over you the entire time we're talking, all brooding and mad and mean, and then he doesn't want to leave you alone with me. And he's got you thinking about cutting off everyone else in your life just to be with him!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Wednesday denied, more sharply than she had intended due to her surprise at the accusation. "Do you really think I would let Tyler, or anyone else for that matter, abuse me? He would be in a pine box before he had time to regret it."

"I'm just calling it like I see it," Enid insisted stubbornly. "He bit you!"

"And I loved it," retorted Wednesday. "Not that it's any of your business, but he has a matching wound from me. Just not anywhere visible. At least not when he's got his clothes on."

It was amusing to watch Enid work through the implications of that statement. Let the werewolf come up with whatever lascivious location she could imagine. Wednesday had no intention of elaborating further. She deserved it after having jumped to such a patently absurd conclusion about Tyler's and Wednesday's relationship.

"Also, I'm the one who is considering dragging him away from everything and everyone he knows so that I don't have to research Willow Hill's policy on conjugal visits. And you of all people should know that I am usually mean to him, not the other way around."

After a few long moments, Enid's expression softened.

"You're really okay?"

"Yes," she replied flatly.

"I guess I can't deny that it's on brand for you to fall for a violent monster," her friend finally decided. "Even if I think it's super weird and messed up and probably totally unhealthy."

Wednesday was in no position to opine on what was healthy or not, and she did not care to measure her relationship against whatever standards normal people might use. Doing so was pointless.

"Is that the only reason you wanted to talk to me alone?" she wanted to know.

"Well, yeah. I was worried about you. I still am, honestly." A shiver visibly ran up the other girl's spine. "I know that you're, well, you, but I don't know how you can be so comfortable with a Hyde at your back or at your throat. I mean, I get it, but I don't get it."

"Fortunately, you don't have to get it. You just have to accept it."

Enid had the good sense to look somewhat abashed.

"Yeah, I know," she conceded. Then her face brightened and she bounced in place, clearly having moved on from their prior conversation. "Did I tell you that the sheriff said I should be out of here in time to be home for Thanksgiving next week?"

Wednesday had never understood why Enid insisted on imparting information in the form of rhetorical questions. If anyone would know whether she had told Wednesday something, surely it was Enid herself. It was one of the many irksome quirks that she'd had to learn to live with in order to be Enid's friend. This time, as usual, she bit down the sarcastic response she wanted to give.

"I'm glad to hear it," she said instead. "Is that why Thing isn't here, because you are going to be released soon?"

Enid shook her head. "Oh, no. He said he wanted to visit with your parents before they leave. I thought it was weird, since obviously he'd be going home with them, but I guess it makes sense now. Thing knew that you were going to stay before you had to tell him."

That probably should have been a heartwarming revelation, but it only filled Wednesday with dread at the idea that Thing and her parents were discussing her. No doubt they were conspiring against her. Not that their machinations would change the outcome, but it was an unwelcome variable nonetheless.

When Wednesday left Enid a few minutes later, it was with the promise that Enid would not leave town without seeing Wednesday again. The other girl had magnanimously agreed to visit Wednesday at the Galpins' house if she was released from lockup before Wednesday had recovered from surgery. If Wednesday had recovered, then they planned to enjoy a meal together before Enid departed Jericho.

Tyler was uncharacteristically quiet as they trekked back towards the student lot where his father's pickup truck was parked. She normally would have chalked it up to any number of innocuous reasons, but there was nothing normal about their situation now. Wednesday could still sense him, like a niggling thought at the edge of her mind.

When they reached the halfway point between the school and the lupin cages, Tyler pulled her to a sudden stop and jerked her body around to face him.

"Take it back," he bit out.

His quiet fury was new to her and more frightening than the exuberant rage of his monstrous form had ever been.

"Take what back?" she questioned uncertainly.

A muscle in his neck bulged as his rage boiled over.

"The order not to transform!" he nearly yelled into her face, as close to hysterical as she had ever seen him. "Take it back right now!"

She pulled in a sharp breath of the chilly autumn air as all the pieces clicked into place in her mind. She wondered if he had fully realized it for himself yet, or if he was too caught up in his instinctual fear and anger to have consciously registered what had happened.

Wednesday reached up to cup his face and lightly massaged her fingers into his skin.

"Tyler, listen to me," she began, firmly but gently. "I promise that I will, but we need to talk first. Do you feel like you are going to transform when I do?"

His skin was scorching hot, and he was huffing out heavy breaths, his nostrils flaring like an angry bull's. His lips parted, but he did not answer.

"Okay. That's okay. Look at me," she ordered softly. His eyes met hers, wide and wild, and Wednesday ran her fingers up into his curls, petting him in what she hoped was a soothing manner. "You need to calm down, baby. I'm going to let you change, but we can't do it here."

If someone had tried to tell Wednesday even a few days ago that she would refer to him (or anyone else) by that inane, nauseating nickname, she would have said that she would rather carve out her tongue with a rusty butter knife. Now, it slipped off her tongue naturally, as she judged that it would get his attention better than his name could. It appeared that she was correct, as his gaze became slightly more lucid and he managed to breathe slightly more evenly.

"Nod if you understand me," she directed.

There was a slight pause, but then he dipped his chin once.

Wednesday ran her fingers down his neck and bicep and finally down to his hand, where she laced her fingers through his. She led him off the well-beaten path that had been trodden into the earth by dozens of generations of werewolf students and deeper into the woods, where there was little to no chance of any lingering students or professors or sheriff's deputies witnessing them.

Her heart was hammering against her breastbone as they trudged over soft dirt and leaves damp with the prior night's rain, and her mind was spinning with the possibilities.

There did not seem to be any question that she was now Tyler's master, but the big question was how, while Laurel was still alive. Or at least no one had informed them that she was dead. They'd had breakfast with Tyler's father that morning, so if she had died then it had to have been sometime in the last few hours. The timeline seemed to work out, on the face of things, assuming that her becoming Tyler's master had only happened today.

The problem was that Wednesday could not just assume that it had happened today. She was sure that she must have phrased something to him in the form of a command before today, but the issue would be in determining when he had become compelled to follow her orders. Unless they could identify an earlier instance when she had asked something of him that he had not been inclined to do anyway, it would be impossible to pinpoint when, exactly, the switch had occurred.

In his current state, Tyler was hardly going to be helpful. Or even a reliable source of information.

She had not done it consciously, but Wednesday had led them to the very clearing where they had met the night that she had come back in time. It was fitting.

She dropped Tyler's hand and turned to face him, taking a big step backwards. He did not attempt to hold onto her or to follow her. She did not know whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

"Take off your clothes," she ordered without preamble.

The fact that he complied without sending her any suggestive looks or making any flirtatious remarks was a very bad sign. He stripped efficiently and silently, then stood, his spine ramrod straight as if he were a soldier waiting at attention.

Wednesday felt her own spine stiffen with the implications of his behavior. She hoped that Laurel was not dead, after all, because it would be a pain in the ass to trap her soul on the mortal plane so that Wednesday could mete out the level of torture she deserved, and it would never be as satisfying as physically torturing her.

She approached Tyler carefully but confidently, not letting any of her emotions or weakness show in her expression or her posture, but she stopped a foot away from him. She did not touch him.

"I am your master," she stated matter-of-factly.

It was not a question, but he nodded anyway.

Wednesday tilted her head to study his face. She hated every single part of his carefully neutral expression.

"I'm sorry that I ordered you not to transform," she apologized as she stared into his eyes. "If I had realized that you would feel compelled to obey me, I would have phrased it as a suggestion and not a command. I have no interest in repressing the Hyde, other than for your own safety. I hope you know that."

He blinked slowly, and when his eyes opened, there was more of Tyler there and less of the beast.

He nodded again.

Wednesday cursed. She had told him to nod if he understood her.

"This is going to be more difficult than I had anticipated," she observed heavily. He nodded. "Okay, how about this: I order you to disregard any orders I gave you prior to right now. Going forward, do not consider anything I say to you to be an order unless I tell you it is an order."

His body relaxed all at once, as though he were being held in place by invisible restraints that had suddenly disappeared. Her relief was short-lived as the change began to take him, his eyes bulging and his back hunching forward to accommodate his lengthening arms. She had not witnessed it happen since the first time they had ever been in this clearing. It was truly a horrifying, hideous thing to behold. For all that Wednesday found the fact that Tyler was a monster to be one of his more attractive qualities, the physical appearance of the Hyde did not exactly inspire her thighs to quiver.

Or at least not in a good way. The sight of his long, razor-sharp teeth inches from her face did bring back unwelcome memories of the last time she had been this close to the Hyde, just before he had picked her up like a ragdoll and thrown her through a plateglass window four stories in the air.

She ignored the whisper of fear that crept up her spine and reached out to place her hand on his cheek, just as she had done when he had been human. Tyler's skin was soft and warm and supple; the Hyde's skin had a leathery quality and was stretched tight over his bones and so hot it nearly scalded her hand. Although their eyes were nothing alike, Wednesday fancied that she could see some of the same emotion behind them. Devotion. Fear. A desire to consume.

"Sit," she told him, and he let out a growl. She smirked back at him. "Heel."

Tyler's reverse transformation was just as grotesque as the change into a monster, all snapping bones and ripping skin, except that it ended with an angelic human man standing over her with an irritated expression plastered across his handsome face. And left Wednesday with an eyeful of his broad shoulders and the expanse of his toned chest, which she reached out to touch, finally.

"I'm not a dog," he reminded her.

"Well, you're certainly not as loyal as one, but I can hardly blame you for that, given what you had to work with before."

At the mention of Laurel, a snarl curled his lips as though he were still in his other form, but it quickly smoothed into a frown.

"It feels different with you," he pronounced, sounding at once relieved and confused. "It's… easy. He wants to please you. He wants to give you everything you want. When you said not to transform, I knew rationally that you only meant not right then and there, but the Hyde… He was determined to do what you said exactly, even though it hurt him and made him furious. If you hadn't reversed it, I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to convince him that you hadn't meant to never transform again."

Though she already knew the answer, Wednesday clarified, "You never wanted to please Laurel."

He shook his head emphatically.

"No! I mean… I did want to please her, at first. I thought that I must have done something wrong to make her start hurting me. But after I figured out the truth, I only wanted to keep her happy to avoid what would happen whenever she wasn't happy. The Hyde felt like he owed her his life because she had freed him, but that was obligation, not love. I never had much trouble convincing him to exploit any loopholes I found in her orders, whenever I didn't want to do something."

Wednesday turned that over in her mind, examining it from every angle.

There was something there, something important, about binding the Hyde through coercion and force versus binding him through… whatever Wednesday had done. The point was that he must have been willing to submit to her, because Wednesday had not done anything purposely to compel his surrender. She hadn't even known that she had become his master. Whereas Laurel had manipulated his emotions, tricked him into letting her unlock him when he hadn't known what it would mean, and used torture and near-lethal doses of poison to ensure his continued compliance.

It would make perfect sense if a master's relationship with her Hyde was a reflection of how she had gained his submission in the first place. But Wednesday did not know enough about Hydes in general, or about binding a Hyde specifically, to draw any concrete conclusions just yet.

She wondered whether the police had found any of Laurel's notes when they had searched her house. Surely she would have kept some. She may have been certifiably insane, but she was meticulous and methodical. At least Wednesday could safely say that if the police had found Laurel's notes, then she hadn't identified Tyler in them. Otherwise, they would have found themselves surrounded by a SWAT team long before now.

Evidently her prolonged silence had made Tyler uncomfortable, judging by the feeling she had in the back of her mind, like impressions of ants crawling and gnawed lips.

"Relax," she tried to soothe him, but it came out more demanding than reassuring.

It was a good thing that she had ordered him not to take anything she said as a command unless she told him to, given her habit of saying nearly everything like she expected immediate obedience. Although, it would be interesting to study the physiological and emotional effects of giving him an order to calm down when he was clearly stressed…

Tyler is not a test subject, she reminded herself crossly.

Oh, but what a good subject he would make…

"I prefer uncomfortable silences," she tried again. "But your metaphorical hands wringing in the back of my mind are ruining the effect."

His mouth dropped open for a moment, before he recovered enough to choke out, "What?"

Chapter Text

Moving Wednesday's things into the Galpins' house was infinitely easier than removing them from her attic room at Nevermore had been. Or so it appeared, since Tyler was not sweating this time and only seemed mildly irked, if she was reading his emotions correctly. Wednesday, of course, limited herself to carrying her crystal ball, then settled herself into the spare bedroom and set about unpacking her trunks as he brought them in. Her things would not fit in his room. Besides, as much as Wednesday enjoyed spending time with him, she did still need her own space.

"Everything okay?"

Wednesday's body turned instinctively towards the sound of his voice, even though there was still a voice inside her own head chastising her for being so reactive to his presence. He was leaning against the door jamb with his arms crossed over his chest, looking entirely too delectable for her own good.

"Fine," she answered, a bit more sharply than she had intended. "I will need to purchase some freestanding racks for my clothing."

Tyler raised an eyebrow as he took in the open trunks overflowing with black and white fabric.

"You didn't strike me as the type of girl who'd be into clothes," he observed mildly. "Maybe that's just because I usually see you in uniform."

Wednesday pinned him with a flat look.

"I hardly think that a boy whose idea of fashion is wearing mismatched flannel over a rotation of the same four cotton t-shirts has room to be judgmental about anyone else's clothes." The sight of his palms held up in surrender and the half-smile on his lips caused her to soften, just slightly. The feeling of affection bleeding into her brain from his was enough to cause her to explain, "I have no interest in following fashion trends, but I will not permit myself to be limited in my expression merely because I have an allergy to color."

"Wait. You're allergic to color?"

"Yes. I thought that was common knowledge. Why else did you think Principal Weems permitted me to wear a special uniform?"

He blinked at her. "I dunno. I hadn't really thought about it. It's just so… you."

As Wednesday was unpacking that statement in her mind, the sound of the front door slamming shut echoed up the stairs, followed by the sheriff's heavy footsteps a few moments later. Tyler turned his head and leaned backwards so that he could see around the doorframe. The spike of anger was so consuming that it almost felt like her own, for a few confusing moments.

Wednesday could see the benefits of a Hyde's master being in tune with what her monster was feeling, but she was not sure that she was going to survive the experience with her sanity intact.

"Ty? What are you doing in there?" The sheriff's voice sounded closer with each word as he traversed the short hallway, until he peered into the guest room around his son's shoulder. "What the hell's this?"

"My things," snipped Wednesday.

The sheriff rolled his eyes. "I mean why are they here?"

"Because they wouldn't all fit in Tyler's room."

Wednesday derived some small pleasure from riling the sheriff up, but she would have enjoyed it even more had Tyler not been constitutionally incapable of relaxing in his father's presence. She had hoped, at the very least, to feel a flicker of amusement from him, even if he didn't let it show on his face, but the only things she got were simmering resentment and tightly leashed rage. She had not fully appreciated, until now, how good an actor Tyler was. The placid mask plastered across his face was a performance worthy of primetime awards, given what he was actually feeling.

Not that the sheriff would have noticed had some of Tyler's emotions shown through. He was focused on Wednesday, staring at her with mixed incredulity and irritation so clear in his expression that even she could read them.

"So, what, you're moving in?"

"Yes," she responded in a tone that made it clear how stupid she thought the question was.

The sheriff tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at her, like he was studying a particularly difficult puzzle.

"Did it ever occur to you," he enunciated each word slowly, as if he could not believe it was something he had to ask, "that you should ask me whether you can move into my house?"

Actually, it had not. Under the circumstances, she thought it was a given that she would stay in Jericho. In the first place, she needed to be on hand to handle Laurel or any other complications that might arise. It was simply unacceptable to risk her being hours away in New Jersey should Laurel show signs of waking. Secondly, as Tyler had explained to his father and as the man had witnessed for himself a couple of nights prior in his own kitchen, Wednesday's presence was currently the only thing helping Tyler maintain his tenuous control on the Hyde. And not that the sheriff knew it, but now that she was Tyler's master, she presumed that his tolerance for being separated from her had only eroded further.

Before she could answer, Tyler said, "I told her she could. If you have a problem with it, then when I go in tonight I'll tell Greg that I want to rent the empty apartment above the Weathervane."

The sheriff looked at him like he had sprouted a second nose in the middle of his face.

"You can't do that."

"I'm eighteen, so I can sign the lease. And she's rich, so she can pay for it."

Galpin pinched the bridge of his nose and released a long-suffering sigh.

"For fuck's sake, Tyler, I meant that you can't just move your sixteen-year-old girlfriend in with you. You may be eighteen, but she's not. I doubt that her parents are going to let her stay here."

"If your only objection is my parents' lack of consent, I can assure you that they won't be a problem," Wednesday stepped in before things could devolve into a true disagreement. At the man's skeptical look, she added, "It would be the height of hypocrisy for them to deny me this, given that they have not spent a night apart since they were my age. Other than the night you threw my father in jail for a murder he did not commit."

She did not feel the need to mention that she did not intend on giving her parents a choice in the matter.

He peered at her over his fingers, which were now digging into either side of his eyes as if to relieve a migraine.

"That isn't my only objection, but it sounds like neither of you is interested in what I think."

Wednesday did not want to reveal more to Tyler's father than Tyler himself was willing to tell him. Especially not with Tyler standing right there glaring at the man, his hatred roiling through his mind and into hers. Still, it could only redound to their benefit if Galpin had some idea of what was going on. And they did need his help.

"Sheriff, it is in all of our best interests for Tyler stay in close physical proximity to me," she explained as broadly as she could, relying on his ability to put the pieces together based on what he had already learned and seen. Or at least enough of the pieces to be getting on with. "Speaking of which, I need you to tell me whether the police found any notes or other materials among Laurel's things that may be helpful to understanding the nature of Hydes or of her bond with Tyler."

The man's entire demeanor changed, his shoulders sagging and his head drooping until his chin nearly touched his chest.

"There were notes," he confirmed gruffly. "A notebook. I only saw enough of it to confirm what it was. Couldn't bring myself to read the rest."

She could well imagine why Tyler's own father would not be able to stomach reading about what Laurel Gates had done to him. Wednesday was not looking forward to reading about it herself, no matter how invaluable the knowledge turned out to be.

She pursed her lips and spun in her desk chair to face him fully.

"I need a copy of it."

He lifted his gaze to look at her, perhaps to gauge her emotions or to measure her intentions, but then he went still, his eyes going as wide as saucers and his face going alarmingly white.

"What. Is. That?" he hissed.

It turned out that sporting a perfect impression of your partner's teeth on your throat drew a lot of unwanted attention. The sheriff had been beside himself at the sight. Surprisingly, even Wednesday's assurances that she had greatly enjoyed receiving it and that Tyler had an open invitation to bite her during sex had not calmed him down. Annoyingly, his overreaction was a bellwether of those she would encounter from others.

When she entered the Weathervane later that night, an hour before closing, she could practically feel the eyes on the side of her neck and knew that the gasps and whispers of the other patrons were about her. Or, more specifically, about the bitemark. Not that she was unfamiliar with being the subject of speculation and gossip, and not that it bothered her for her own sake. But the way Tyler's bright smile and bubbling happiness when he caught sight of her was quickly diminished by the harsh censure of his peers was unforgivable.

She was of half a mind to take him far away from these small-minded, judgmental people—whether that meant taking him to her family home or disappearing into the wind together, she had not yet decided.

The next morning at the hospital, her father clasped his hands in delight at the sight of the wound, less than twenty-four hours old and still bright red against her white skin.

"¡Qué bonito! ¡Eso dejará una cicatriz hermosa!" [How lovely! That will leave a beautiful scar!]

He was an exception. Her mother eyed it with the same air with which she might examine a pink milkweed blooming amongst her roses, and the nurses were uniformly horrified.

Wednesday was glad that she had asked Tyler to stay home during her surgery. She had done it because he was sick with terror at the thought of losing her, and his fear had been feeding into her own anxiety about going under general anesthesia and being completely at the mercy of others. She had not been sure that he would be able to control himself when the nurses rolled her away from him and into the operating room, and he had not been able to disagree with her that there was a significant risk he would absolutely lose his mind.

Though she had not mentioned it to him, she had also been curious about whether putting some distance between them might lower the volume of his emotions inside her head.

It had, but only slightly. They would need to experiment with greater distances. If they could ever stand to do so.

Fortuitously, even if Wednesday's decision to leave Tyler at home had not greatly improved the effect his anxiety was having on her own, it had the unforeseen benefit of Tyler not seeing the disgusted and pitying expressions on the nurses' faces, or hearing their inane questions about whether anyone had hurt her or their persistent need to give her information about resources for domestic violence victims.

At least her mounting frustration distracted her from thinking about what was going to happen (and from Tyler's emotions scratching at the back of her mind) enough that she permitted them to place the mask over her nose and mouth. She refused to count backwards from ten, knowing that it did not matter whether she did or not.

Waking from surgery was not as unpleasant as Wednesday had expected it to be. There was no mental confusion from the lingering effects of the anesthesia, nor physical pain where they had sliced her open and drilled into her bone. Just as surprisingly, there was no crush of medical staff surrounding her, prodding at her and demanding that she answer their questions. Everything was peaceful. Quiet.

In fact, it was too quiet. Eerily so.

Wednesday opened her eyes and sat up in one motion.

She nearly tumbled backwards again, not from any physical discomfort, but from pure, unadulterated shock at seeing who was standing at the foot of her bed.

"Your connection with the Hyde has taken over your psyche and blocked any other spiritual connections from manifesting," Goody Addams told her without preamble, a frown pulling down the corners of her pale lips. "Even when you sleep, he is there, guarding the boundaries of your mind and soul. Now, when you are under the influence of your modern medicine, is the first time I have been able to break through."

Wednesday did not speak. She could not.

After a few long seconds, the ghost continued, "The beast is interfering with your abilities. With your purpose. If I had known that you intended to reciprocate the bond, I would have warned you to avoid such a mistake."

"What purpose?" Wednesday forced out, though she felt like she could not breathe. "It can't be anything too important, since you didn't bother to visit me at any point before I bonded with Tyler yesterday."

"You are mistaken. Your bond with the Hyde began almost as soon as you returned to this time."

"But I couldn't feel him until yesterday," objected Wednesday, "and he wasn't compelled to obey me until then."

"Much knowledge has been lost these past centuries," Goody criticized. Her expression did not change, but disappointment was clear in her tone. "Such bonds are not instantaneous. They demand ritual and steady progression. And your beast had been tampered with by malevolent forces before you got your hands on him."

"Then tell me about the bond," demanded Wednesday.

"I have told you all that you need to know. You must strangle this connection down to the root and expel it from your mind."

Wednesday did not have to think about her response.

"I will not."

Her spirit guide glared at her, then, her dark eyes shining with anger and judgment.

"Do not be so foolish. A Hyde can be useful tool, if a witch can capture the beast and subjugate it to her will, but she must never permit it to claim her in return. If you do not end this now, then your ignorance and childish infatuation will be your undoing."

Goody looked to the side, and Wednesday mutely followed her gaze towards the door of the hospital room, which swung open of its own accord to reveal Tyler walking past. He continued without looking their way, seeming not to notice the open door or his girlfriend inside the room.

"You will see," Goody continued darkly. "If you continue down this path, then the Hyde will consume everything you have to offer, and then it will betray you, for it is in a Hyde's nature to do so."

The spectral girl disappeared in a flash of unnatural light, which left Wednesday with spots dancing in her eyes as she scrambled to untangle herself from her bedding. As soon as her bare feet landed on the cold tile floor, she stumbled for the open door.

Tyler was halfway down the corridor. He was facing away from her, walking in the opposite direction, and was, inexplicably, wearing scrubs, including a cap hiding his hair. But she would have recognized the outline of his body and the way he carried himself anywhere.

Wednesday felt no qualms about running, since this was clearly a vision and none of the nurses and visitors bustling about could see or hear her. Still, she might not have caught up with Tyler in time, had he not stopped and plucked a clipboard from the wall outside a patient's door. He turned towards the door and pretended to be engrossed in the chart just as a sheriff's deputy skidded around the corner and into the hall at a dead sprint. Wednesday recognized him; it was the same deputy she had interrupted in the sheriff's office on the day she had given her statement to Deputy Santiago. As soon as he had run past, Tyler stuck the chart back where it belonged and, after a quick glance around himself, hurried around the corner and down the hallway the man had just come from.

She followed him into a room near the end of the hall and was stopped in her tracks at the scene that awaited her.

"Tyler! I knew you'd come," cooed Laurel Gates, her tone sickly sweet. "As soon as I heard that they had arrested Thorpe and that you were still free, I knew that you would come for me, my sweet boy."

"Shh," Tyler shushed her as he approached the bed. "We don't have much time. I set up a distraction for the guard, but it won't last long."

Both Wednesday and Laurel watched as he examined the handcuffs that were wrapped around the bedframe and Laurel's thin wrist. Laurel was almost as pale as the white pillows that were propping her up, and her large hazel eyes seemed bigger than ever, since her auburn hair had been shorn close to her scalp. Wednesday was sure that she must look almost as sickly as the other woman. She certainly felt like it.

It was the work of a moment for Tyler to pry open the end of the handcuffs encasing Laurel's wrist.

"You'll have to carry me, honey," she told him, voice trembling as she pulled the IV out of her hand and began detaching wires from the electrodes stuck to her skin at various points.

Tyler put his fist through the machine nearest him, which had started shrilling beeping a warning.

"C'mon then," he muttered as he stooped to put one arm underneath her knees and the other around her back. "Let's get you out of here."

As they always did, the vision ended abruptly and with all the tenderness of a high-speed crash. Wednesday felt like she had been thrown through a metaphorical windshield and had hit reality where the ground should have been. She sucked in a lungful of air and tried to sit up, but this time the pain was agonizing.

"Easy, darling," her mother's soothing voice broke through her screaming senses. The woman went so far as to place her hand on Wednesday's good shoulder and firmly press her back down. "Just relax. I'll call the nurse."

Wednesday collapsed back onto the mattress, panting as though she had just run a marathon.

"No. Don't," she managed to say.

When her eyes came back into focus, Morticia was leaning over her, her face as perfect as ever, save for the expression of concern creasing her brows and the frown marring her darkly painted lips. As soon as Wednesday had settled, her mother mercifully removed her hand from her shoulder, though she remained sitting on the bed disconcertingly close to Wednesday's body.

"Are you sure? There is no need to suffer."

"You know that I enjoy suffering."

"Of course, dear," acknowledged Morticia. "But there is no shame in admitting if it becomes too much. It would be our little secret."

Wednesday could not immediately decide whether to be offended by her mother's presumption that she might not be able to handle a bit of pain or sentimental about her mother's offer to hide her supposed weakness from her father. That nauseating sentimentality was purely Tyler's influence, she was sure. She had only been conscious for ten seconds and could already feel his emotions in her head, like mold growing on fruit. He was uneasy and itching with an intoxicating mixture of impatience, fear, and dread.

Is that what Goody had meant? That his mind would overwhelm hers? That she would become a slave to his emotions, even as he became a slave to her will?

She turned her head, ignoring the shooting pain it sent across her shoulder and up her neck, and assessed the distance between herself and her backpack, where she had stashed Tyler's cell phone that morning. It was still sitting on a chair against the wall, where she had left it prior to undressing and donning her hospital gown.

"Will you hand me my backpack, Mother?"

She did, then sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair next to the bed rather than retaking her seat on the mattress next to Wednesday's hip.

Tyler answered the call on the first ring. His worried face came into focus on the screen, looking just as haggard as Wednesday had expected he would, given the turmoil he was projecting.

"Wednesday," he said her name reverently, nearly worshipfully.

The unfettered relief that flooded his mind and spilled over into hers could have floored her, had she let it. But she would not let it. It was true that she was not used to feeling all the things that Tyler felt; compared to his, her own emotional landscape was practically a desert. However, her mind was strong, and her will was even stronger. She was growing more used to feeling him in the back of her mind with every passing hour. Given enough time and meditation, she was sure that she would become proficient in separating his mind from hers.

"Wednesday?" Tyler asked again, his voice cracking this time.

"I'm fine," she assured him.

At the sound of her voice, his shoulders immediately slumped as the tension drained from his mind and body.

"Jesus Christ. That was the longest four hours of my life."

Wednesday's eyes roved over every square inch of him that she could see on the small screen. He had dark circles underneath his eyes from their restless night, which were worse now than they had been that morning before she had left. His exhaustion did nothing to diminish the naked affection in his eyes as he looked at her. And his hair was an utter disaster, as though he had ridden a motorcycle without a helmet. Or spent the last four hours repeatedly running his fingers through it.

How could he possibly betray her, when she could feel his every emotion and see for herself that they matched his outward demeanor?

No, Goody must be wrong. Visions were unreliable and could be interpreted in any number of different ways. Everybody had always told her so.

She forcefully shoved what she had seen and what Goody had said out of her mind and gifted Tyler with the slightest quirk of her lips.

"I'm the one who had surgery, yet somehow you're making it about you."

He scoffed. "Next time, you should just knock me out before you go."

Wednesday wanted to say that his suggestion sounded like fun, that she would love to test how hardy his constitution really was and whether he had higher tolerance to substances than other Outcasts did. But the words caught in her throat as she remembered the visions she had seen of what Laurel had done to him, and the ill effects he was still obviously suffering as a result.

And Morticia was unabashedly listening to the conversation. Her intrusive presence and the peculiar expression on her porcelain face was off putting. Wednesday's glare had no effect on her. Certainly it did not inspire her to give them any privacy.

Tyler did not seem perturbed by Wednesday's lack of response.

"How long until they let you go?" he wanted to know. "Can I come sit with you until then?"

"I wish you could, but they wouldn't let you in," she explained regretfully. "They made me choose one person to sit with me while I recover, and they only permitted that much because I am a minor."

Wednesday had initially intended to say that she did not want anyone to sit with her, but her nerves at the prospect of being unconscious and unable to protect herself had won out over her anger with her parents. She had chosen her mother because, whatever Wednesday might think about her choices and however angry she may be with her, there was no denying that her mother was cool under pressure and more than willing to run people through with swords if necessary. Her father decidedly was not.

Tyler let out a mournful sigh. "I could sneak in? I would kill to touch you right now."

"You will just have to endure it, Tyler. You will survive another couple of hours without touching me," she reassured him, not unkindly. She did not want to do it in front of her mother, but at the look on Tyler's face, she felt that she had no choice—she lowered her voice so that no one outside the room could hear and inquired, "Do you need me to order you not to transform?"

Morticia's eyebrows rose high on her forehead.

For his part, Tyler tilted his head, obviously giving serious consideration to her question. After a full five seconds had passed, he shook his head.

"No thanks, baby. I'll be okay."

Wednesday found that she did not mind that he had called her that infernal pet name as much as that her mother was there to hear him say it. She briefly felt the urge to chastise Tyler for having done it, but the love and open wonder he felt stayed her tongue. Her desire to save face in front of her mother could not justify hurting him unnecessarily.

She settled on demanding, "You will call me back at the first sign that you need me to."

"Of course, Wednesday," he agreed easily.

It had not been a command, as she had not expressly told him that it was one per the terms of her standing order, but she trusted that he would obey her nonetheless. Firstly, because he was determined to please her in all things, as he had admitted to her the day prior, and him Hyding out right then would greatly displease her. Secondly, because he was not stupid. He would not unnecessarily risk exposure when he had the opportunity to be ordered not to. And lastly, even though those reasons would not have been enough for Wednesday to implicitly trust anyone else (people were, if nothing else, unreliable), because she had a direct line to Tyler's emotions, and she could feel his eagerness and his earnestness.

Those feelings should have been disgusting to her. However, just as with having his tongue in her mouth and his fingers on her genitals, she found that having his soft thoughts in her head were surprisingly, irritatingly pleasant, no matter how much they should have revolted her.

"The surgeon is coming in," she informed Tyler as she watched the man step into the room and run his hands underneath the dispenser of hand sanitizer situated on the wall just inside the door. "I will call you when they discharge me."

"I'll be waiting," he promised.

The surgeon was pleased with how the surgery had gone. He had been able to put the pieces of her collarbone back together and hold them in place using screws and a metal plate. Her prognosis was good, although she would need to use the sling for several more weeks and begin doing rehabilitative exercises, before attending a follow-up appointment to ensure that everything was healing as it should and to determine whether she needed formal physical therapy. More immediately, he insisted that Wednesday remain in the recovery room for at least another hour before he would sign off on her release.

As soon as the door had closed behind the doctor, Morticia burst out, "You said that you had not bonded with him!"

"Well, now I have," responded Wednesday, simply and without inflection.

Morticia's face was full of all the horror and fear she felt.

"Wednesday, I know that you enjoy exerting control in all things, but taking advantage of a boy who loves you so that you can enslave him to your will is beyond the pale, even for you. And, as your mother, the worst part is that you do not seem to understand how dangerous this is. In the end, once he realizes that you do not reciprocate his feelings, you will lose control of him just like Laurel did."

Wednesday was not offended by her mother's assumption that she was just using Tyler. After all, hadn't Wednesday herself told the woman that she would never fall in love? In fact, it came as something of a relief (though a bittersweet one) to realize that this had been her mother's concern all along. She had assumed that her mother's focus had been on her emotional entanglement with Tyler and that her objection had been to Tyler himself (or, rather, to the Hyde itself), when, in retrospect, the woman had only ever wanted to discuss whether Wednesday had bonded with the Hyde and whether she understood the dangers inherent in doing so. If she had not been so angry with her parents, she might have realized that from the start.

There were few things Wednesday loathed more than being wrong, particularly when Morticia was involved, and especially when her own biases were the reason for her error. But there was no time to dwell on it now, not when her mother's accusation was uncomfortably like Goody's assumption that Wednesday had intended to become Tyler's master so that she could use him.

If there was anything she did hate more than being wrong, being ignorant would be pretty high on the list.

"Goody said the opposite," she revealed, not caring whether her mother assumed that she agreed with her spirit guide. "She said that Hydes can be useful tools, but a witch should only ever master them and not allow herself to be mastered by them in return."

She kept her voice low, due to their semi-public location. Anyone loitering outside the door would only hear an indistinct murmur of voices, unless they were a Hyde or a werewolf on the full moon.

Morticia narrowed her eyes in evident aggravation.

"Do not make the mistake of conflating Goody's power and knowledge with sound judgment, Wednesday. She had the knowledge to curse Crackstone and the power to see it through, but not the sense to realize that she should not."

Wednesday could only agree with that. She nodded, once, in acknowledgment, and her mother's expression softened slightly.

"Our fore-sisters, even the most insightful and progressive of them, were still products of the times in which they lived," Morticia continued, calmer now and noticeably less strident. "Many of them viewed certain types of Outcasts, such as Hydes, as little better than common animals to be mastered, the same way one might own a familiar. I do not know about Hyde bonds specifically, but I do know about magical bonds in general, and a bond formed by perverting a creature's natural instincts will always be unstable and prone to shattering."

"That's what Laurel did," Wednesday whispered, barely loud enough for Morticia to hear when she leaned forward in her chair. "Hydes instinctually bond with the person who frees them, but she used poison and physical torture to unlock him and then to keep him in line."

Her mother let out a little humming sound of agreement, but she was eyeing the wound on Wednesday's throat as if it were a grenade with a faulty pin.

"And evidently her Hyde has thrown her over for a new master. Do you see, Wednesday? If you can only offer the same one-sided, selfish bond as his old master, then he will eventually betray you, too. I doubt that you will be as lucky as she was to avoid being torn apart by him."

The situation with Laurel had been uniquely strange, but if they had carried on much longer without other circumstances intervening then Tyler undoubtedly would have reached a breaking point and killed her.

Wednesday allowed herself to sigh, commanding her muscles to relax through the long exhalation, as though she intended to meditate. Instead of slipping into a meditative state, though, she opened her eyes and met her mother's concerned gaze.

Although it pained her to do so, Wednesday had to admit that her mother was a formidable and knowledgeable witch. Like it or not, she was the most talented one Wednesday had access to. And she did, Wednesday had to acknowledge, care, though her way of showing it through being overprotective and hiding vital information was unhelpful and enraging. Still, the fact remained that Morticia was currently Wednesday's best resource for learning more about the bond.

"It is not one-sided," she admitted reluctantly.

"Really?" Delight transformed the older woman's features, and she crowed, "Oh, darling, that's wonderful!"

Wednesday scowled.

"I don't know that I would describe it as wonderful, given that I can feel his emotions in my mind and it is threatening to overwhelm me, and I cannot spend more than a few hours away from him without the compulsion to see him taking over my every thought. Which is unproblematic, in the grand scheme, since he can't spend a few hours away from me without having the urge to transform and come looking for me, destroying anything in his path. And then, as if that were not enough, Goody appeared to me when I was under the effects of anesthesia to complain that our connection is preventing her from communicating with me and to warn me that I am going to lose my powers."

She felt slightly better for having been able to put it all into words. It remained to be seen whether that slight feeling of relief was worth it in exchange for her mother's interference.

Morticia's eyes had widened with every revelation, until she was staring at Wednesday in open astonishment.

Wednesday glared sullenly back at her.

Finally, the woman was able to say, "I'm sure that is all difficult for you to process."

"Difficult to process," Wednesday echoed incredulously. "I tell you that a monster's emotions are taking over my head and causing me to lose my powers, and all you can say is that it must be difficult for me to process?"

Her mother gave her a small smile tinged with amusement.

"Well, it is difficult for me to process." Then, in the face of her daughter's ever-deepening glare, she sighed and offered, "I am sorry if I seem unsupportive, Wednesday. This is a lot to take in, even for me. But maybe we can narrow it down to your biggest concern and start there. Tell me: Are you truly worried that his emotions will overwhelm you, or is your true concern that you will lose your powers?"

Wednesday did not need to think about it.

"I can control my own mind," she declared. "I can't control whether I continue to receive visions."

Her mother nodded in understanding.

"Well then, if you were willing to take my advice, I would advise you to take Goody's words with a grain of salt. She is meant to guide you on the journey to develop and understand your power, but so far she has only guided you to fix her own mistakes."

That was true. And Wednesday had since learned exactly how self-interested Goody was. Even saving Wednesday's life had only ever been because she wanted something for herself, first for Wednesday to finish what Goody had started with Crackstone and then to save herself from a kind of purgatory.

"Regardless of her intentions, if she cannot connect with me then she cannot send me visions," Wednesday voiced her concern.

"A spirit guide can only influence which visions you see. She is not the source of your power. You had visions before Goody appeared to you, did you not?"

"Yes," Wednesday affirmed that she had.

"And you will still have them without her," her mother assured her, using the same tone she had used when Wednesday had been a small child who had not yet thrown off the yoke of dependency.

"I haven't had a vision since the first time I kissed Tyler, other than the one Goody gave me today while I was under the influence of propofol."

At least not in this timeline. But she could hardly tell her mother that she hadn't had a vision for weeks before coming back in time.

"When was that? The day before you were expelled for torturing him?" her mother asked. After Wednesday nodded in confirmation, she said, "Then it has been barely more than a week, and in that time you have undergone a tremendous amount of changes. Being kidnapped and used in a resurrection ritual against your will, being shot and nearly dying of blood loss, bonding with a Hyde, and, based on that mark on your throat, experiencing sexual intimacy for the first time."

Wednesday stared at her flatly, refusing to say or do anything to confirm or deny that assumption.

Morticia's smiled again, this time with an infuriatingly smug knowingness.

"The point is that it is not unusual to have some periods free of visions, especially during times of turmoil and change. You should give it more time before you begin to worry. But, since I know that you cannot leave well enough alone, once we return home there are some things I could show you that might help strengthen your connection with the other side."

Wednesday, who had never been one not to take advantage of an opening, said, "I'm not going home. I am staying in Jericho."

Morticia's face had always been far too expressive. It had always been embarrassing to her daughter. Right now, her surprise was obvious for anyone to see, though fortunately they were alone.

"I never thought I would say this," began the older woman, "but it hardly seems appropriate to allow my sixteen-year-old daughter to live with her boyfriend."

Wednesday was unimpressed.

"Spare me the histrionics, Mother. You practically lived in Father's dormitory when you were at Nevermore. I have had to hear the disgusting stories."

"Sneaking into your boyfriend's bed at boarding school is a rite of passage. Moving in together is something entirely different," her mother retorted, her exasperation evident.

Wednesday gritted her teeth. "We cannot be apart, and I am not being histrionic when I say that. Like you said, magical bonds are volatile."

If Wednesday had been planning to stay in Jericho even before the bond had manifested, well, there was nothing to be gained by pointing that out.

Her mother pursed her lips, obviously seriously displeased but unable to argue that point.

Instead, she insisted, "Then he will come stay at the mansion."

Wednesday shook her head in the negative.

"I have unfinished business in Jericho, and we planned on me being away from home until summer anyway, so all my things are already here. Besides, there is no high school within commuting distance of home that will take me back, so we will have to hire a private tutor regardless of where I am. Tyler, on the other hand, is in the middle of his senior year at Jericho High. It makes sense for me to stay here rather than to have him relocate to Westfield."

"I am not worried about the logistics, Wednesday. I am worried about leaving you here alone to explore a dangerous magical bond without my guidance."

"Mother, even if we were living in the same house, I would not tolerate you hovering. But," she allowed, holding up a hand to forestall her mother's next objection, "I will agree to us staying at the manor for half of Tyler's winter break, so long as you promise not to cross any of our boundaries. You will have the opportunity to observe us together then."

Wednesday only offered such a compromise because she knew that she truly had nothing to lose by doing so—there would be nothing for Morticia to see, and even if there were, her mother would not be able to persuade her to stay.

If her mother realized that as well, she chose not to press the issue, probably because she also realized that it would be futile to do so, unless she was actually willing to report Wednesday as a runaway. Which she was not, because she had to realize that Wednesday would actually become a runaway before she would allow them to take her, and Tyler would murder anyone who came after them until they managed to put him down. And if that happened, Wednesday would make them all wish that they had only been killed by a Hyde, and she would never forgive her mother in this life or the next.

Capitulation or annihilation, those were her mother's only options.

"Fine," Morticia agreed, though she was clearly unhappy about it. For a moment, Wednesday thought that was the end of the matter, until the woman added, "In that case, since you will not be coming home, we should take this opportunity to discuss contraceptive methods and safe sexual practices."

Wednesday would rather have the ground open up and pull her into hell.