A/N: This one is from Finn's point of view. Tell me if you hate it, and I will totally scrap the random tangent my brain went on. :)

P.S. If you haven't read my other stories, then this one probably won't make much sense...


FINN

I'd been trying to reach Riley for the past four or five days, either getting sent straight to voicemail or only talking to whomever kept answering Riley's phone. I knew she was being hunted by vampires, which scared the crap out of me, and I knew she was purposefully screening my calls, which pissed the hell out of me. It wasn't a great combo. None of the nurses would even talk to me anymore.

So when Riley finally decided to stop stonewalling and actually call me, I picked up without hesitation. "Are you okay? Are you safe?" I demanded. "Where are you?"

There was silence on the other end, then, "I'm in Indiana. I found a job." Riley cleared her throat, stalling. "Remember when you told me not to do that thing?" she asked slowly. Oh thank God, she was fine. Something in my chest loosened, and I felt what seemed like a mountain of unease slide off my shoulders. She was okay. She was actually okay.

Pushing past the wild relief over her continued existence, I wracked my brain in an attempt to pinpoint the exact "thing" that she was referring to. I came up blank, but I wasn't about to let her know that. "Let me guess, you did the thing." I wasn't even surprised. Then I sighed, not wanting to even begin to imagine all the things she could be doing that I'd warned her against. "And please—tell me how that went, Riley?"

"Well, I haven't done it…yet. What kind of show do you think I'm running here?" She sounded slightly offended, and I relaxed a little. Then I heard a little hitch of breath from her. Oh no. That was patented Riley Stewart guilt. "What do you suppose the Indiana justice system's position is on first time residential breaking-and-entering offenders?" she asked casually.

I looked up at the ceiling, wondering where I'd gone so wrong. "Riley, why do you do this to me?" I asked, my voice pained.

"I do it because I care," she said sweetly, her tone ultimately promising shenanigans. "But first, what do you think?"

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my eyes. She wasn't a minor, but she had a clean record so far. "Maybe a warning," I said. "Unless they want to make an example of you. Then you might face some jail time."

"Ehhh, Imma risk it," she said cheerfully, and I heard a door creak open. Shrill beeping caught my attention. "Oh," Riley said, no longer cheerful. "She has a home security system. Is it the red wire I'm supposed to cut, or is it the blue? I never remember these things."

I gritted my teeth, panic shooting through me. "It's the black one," I snapped.

Riley was quiet for too long. "How inconvenient," she said. "They're all black." I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her. And she thought I was the reckless one.

The beeping went shrill, turning into a continuous stream of noise. "Oh no," she deadpanned, "the alarm went off. The police are probably on their way. How terrible." I heard a rustling and the creak of what sounded like furniture. Was she...was she sitting down?

"What the hell are you doing in Indiana?" I snarled, fear making my stomach hurt. I just wanted her safe. Wanted her here.

"I already told you. I found a job," she said back pleasantly. I was going to kill her. I was going to kill her the second I laid eyes on her.

"You're literally one state away, and you thought you'd just mosey in and take care of a monster before dropping by to see me? Is that it?" My anger was on the verge of forcing my throat into a tight knot.

"I'm not thrilled about the eventual face-to-face," Riley continued casually, sounding only half focused on our conversation. "I'm delaying the inevitable." Her words hit like an iron fist to the stomach, and for a second, I couldn't breathe.

"You don't...want to see me?" It came out a bare whisper, and I felt numb. She'd stayed, stayed longer than I could have ever hoped for. She'd stuck with me even when things had probably looked hopeless. And now that I was awake, was she simply cutting her losses and moving on?

"What?" Riley sounded confused. "What are you talking about? I stayed by your side for months, Finn. Months! But yeah, I'm totally dreading seeing you. That's must be it."

She snorted, plowing on without letting me get a word in edgewise."No, you idiot, I'm talking about seeing your psycho mom." Then she let out the breath. Her voice got softer, losing its sarcastic bite. "That errand I was doing for Jemma? I may have altered the details of the contract a teensy bit. Let's just say she's going to be royally pissed, and I'm not entirely sure she won't lose it altogether."

She sighed, sounding tired. "So excuse me if I don't want to deal with that just yet." I was about to reply when I heard faint sirens in the background. They got louder and louder, but with a tinny quality, and I heard another creak as Riley stood up. "I gotta go," she said quietly. "People to save, monsters to kill. Hey, did you know it takes an average of eight point two minutes for the Lafayette Police Department to send a squad car to check out a tripped burglar alarm?"

The sirens got louder across the phone, and I rubbed my forehead nervously. "Is there a point to this, or are you just trying to get yourself arrested?"

"We've only been talking for three minutes. There's a police car outside already. This lady has been on the first responder to the scenes of four different home invasions. All the victims were deceased through various methods, but they had one thing in common. Their pituitary glands had all been harvested before reaching the coroner's office."

"Pituitary glands?"

"Pituitary glands," she confirmed.

"Kitsune," I noted.

"Ding ding ding, somebody give the man a cookie," she said. "Straight shot to the heart, right?"

"With a knife," I told her. "It has to be a knife to the heart."

"Ten-four," she quipped. "Catch you on the flipside. Riley out."

"Ri—" I started, but the phone was already blinking "call ended." I fought the urge to fling it at the wall. God, that girl had the irritating ability to blast holes in my self-control until it was like swiss cheese. She drove me insane.

And yet, I couldn't wait to see her. Couldn't wait to talk to her face-to-face. Couldn't wait to spend time with her.

This was not how I imagined my life going. Not at all.

Of course, Riley had a way of waltzing in and kicking ordinary, day-to-day life in the face. It was kind of her thing, I'd gathered.

She was turning my life on its head. And I kind of liked it.

So I could wait one more day to see her. She was worth it.

One day passed. The next dragged by with maddening slowness. By the third, I was going practically insane. The nurses refused to even come into my room, except by necessity. Even Trixie, who I'd gathered was Riley's friend, didn't come in very often.

I sat up whenever I had the energy, practicing small core movements and exercising muscles I hadn't used in months. My stomach had four long gashes across it. They were long since healed, but sometimes they twinged. Wendigo. Riley had killed it. I didn't remember that part, but I remembered her driving the boat away from the island, trying to get me to a hospital. Clearly, she'd succeeded.

I sighed, settling back against the pillows, turning on the TV in a fit of boredom. And when Riley finally walked into my hospital room, I almost missed it.

She arrived silently, ghosting into the room with none of her usual fanfare. She moved stiffly, but silently nonetheless.

The room was empty. Then it wasn't.

And she stood there, perfectly quiet and motionless as she stared at me.

"Hi," I said softly, not quite sure what to make of this new silence.

"Hi," she said back, a small smile spreading across her face. It didn't last long, and it wasn't her usual goofy grin, but then I hardly expected it to be. I'd nearly died. I didn't expect her to just bounce back from that.

That wasn't just it, though. She looked different. A faded bruise stood out across one pale cheekbone, and I could see a hint of a bandage under the collar of her blue hoodie. Her face was harder, too. I couldn't put my finger on it, but she just seemed...off.

"How are you?" I asked cautiously, watching her carefully.

She shrugged, seemingly untroubled, and that's when it hit me. She was literally giving nothing away. No cheeky grin, no sparkling eyes, nothing. No fear, no anger. Riley, a girl who could communicate half a dozen different things with a single look, was currently being about as expressive as a rock.

"Are you okay?" I asked, alarm bells ringing in the back of my mind.

"Why wouldn't I be?" she returned calmly. I didn't know how to respond to that, if there even was a correct response. It felt like a loaded question, so I elected to remain silent.

After a minute, I cleared my throat. "I missed you," I said earnestly.

And that was it. That's all it took. Riley softened—visibly softened. Her shoulders slumped into a more comfortable slouch, and she dropped into the chair beside the bed, pulling her knees up and resting her chin on them. "Long week," she said with a soft sigh. There was an indirect apology in those words. I knew her well enough to hear it.

I nodded. "I'm getting out of here tomorrow."

"Cool," she said, but that was it. She was back in "rock" mode.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to figure out why she was being like this. Finally, because I was coming up blank, I said the first thing to come to mind. "So you met my mother."

"Yes, I did." Her face was neutral, but her eyes went flat, and that scared me more than her rock impression and monosyllables. One of the things I loved about Riley was her eyes. They were hazel, flecked with gold, and in the right light, they came to life. When she was happy, they sparkled. When she was mad, they sparked. When she saw coffee or bacon, they lit up.

Right now, they were cold and flat in a way I'd never seen before.

"Ri, what happened? What did she do?" My mother. God, I could write a book on her and still never really understand her. We didn't talk anymore, and for good reason. She'd raised me as Hunter in a borderline emotionally and verbally abusive lifestyle, and I'd never forgiven her for ruining any chance for a normal life. I'd left her the day I was eighteen and had never gone back.

Even free of her, though, I'd been a bitter, lost kid back then. I'd had no friends, no family, no life outside of Hunting. I'd spent most of my nights drunk and angry. In fact, I'd given up any hope for any actual relationships, thinking those too were ruined by my stunted ability to connect to others.

Years had gone by, and I'd lost the bitter edge, stopped drinking so much. I'd turned back to Hunting, because I was good at it. I'd even managed to convince myself that I was happy.

Then I'd met Riley. The first time I'd seen her, I'd written her off as a blonde ditz. The Texan drawl, the pigtail braids. Then I'd discovered that not only was she a Hunter, but a damn good one. Somehow, even being new, she'd kept one step ahead of me for the entire hunt. And she'd done it in what I now knew was her completely unintimidated, caustic self.

Back then it'd rankled me, but now I loved that about her. She was smart, and she had great instincts. What she didn't know, she made up for with sheer spunk and skills.

Riley was a Hunter. I liked Hunting, and I liked Riley. It just seemed so weirdly perfect. Meeting Riley was definitely the best thing that'd happened to me in years, and now…

If that woman had messed this up for me, too, I was going to kill her.

"What did she do, Riley?" I grated out, feeling the familiar bitterness start to burn in my stomach like bile. My mother was manipulative and venomous, staining everything she touched like a cancer. She was everything Riley wasn't.

A scary thought occurred to me, and I went cold. "What did she say, Ri?" I could easily imagine a dozen different scenarios where my mother threatened Riley. There was nothing that woman wouldn't do.

Riley gazed at me with solemn eyes. They were more green than hazel right now, but there was no mistaking the seriousness in them. "Your father isn't dead," she said, chewing on her lip slightly.

I forgot how to breath for a second, reeling at the thought. "She said that?" I asked slowly, disbelief creeping in.

"No." Riley chewed on her lip some more, a sure sign that she was waging an enormous mental battle with herself, still watching me. Even looking at me, though, she wasn't really seeing me, lost somewhere inside her own head. "Your sister told me."

"I don't have a sister," I said automatically, feeling numb.

"Yeah. Just like you don't have a dad," she pointed out, tucking her hands under her chin.

"What are you saying?" I demanded, my head spinning.

Riley sat up, fire coming into her eyes. "I just spent the week slaughtering a nest of vampires. They had your sister. I took her, and then I had to kill the nine vampires that came to get her back. She's…" Riley waved a hand around helplessly, searching for the words. "She's psychic, Finn. Her dad...your dad...lives in New York somewhere. Mika said she ran away to find him."

Psychic? Father? What the Hell. I lay there silently, submersing into my own thoughts. This reeked of my mother, though, from start to finish. I trusted Riley. If she said I had a sister, then I did. That I had a father out there somewhere was an uncomfortable thought, but I still believed it nonetheless. Still, holy shit.

Riley stayed with me, and the hands on the clock crept forwards unceasingly. The lights on the floor turned off room by room. The nurses walked through, shooing off lingering visitors. No one even bothered trying to make Riley leave.

I thought about what she'd said until my brain hurt. Then I gave up and forced myself to go to sleep. "Hey, Ri?" I posed quietly. There was no response. I glanced over, realizing that she was completely out of it. "See you tomorrow," I said with a sigh. But at the same time, there was a warmth in my chest. She was here, and she was safe. Things were good again. I closed my eyes, blocking out the hospital noises, and fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was more than ready to get out of this hospital. Turning my head to the left, I sought out Riley with growing unease. But there she was, slumped fast asleep in the chair. My anxiety faded as I studied her. It couldn't have been comfortable, but if it bothered her, she gave no indication.

I eased my feet over the edge of the bed, taking things slow in order to not overtax myself and also not to wake Riley. She didn't even stir. There was a plastic bag beside her, and a cursory glance revealed mens' clothing. Damn, she was the best. I drew the items out, quietly getting dressed. Buttoning the last button on the plaid shirt, I ducking my head a little, trying to get a glance of Riley's face. Normally, she was a light sleeper. That she hadn't even twitched yet was an indication of how truly exhausted she must be.

More than ever, I wanted to know what had gone down during the last week.

There was a thin binder on her lap, nested under one limp arm. I eased it out curiously, wondering what it was for. Flipping it open, my eyebrows shot up. In typical Riley fashion, it was a detailed catalogue of the supernatural. Spirits, changelings, wendigos, vampires—they were all there under neatly labeled tabs. I skipped to the vampire section, noting how it was the thickest. Once there, my stomach twisted.

She was detailed and methodical. She had their strengths, their weaknesses. She had a sketch of their extra set of teeth. Methods of disposal, hunting patterns and what to look for. Dead man's blood. She had everything. It was thorough and clinical, which it both worried and impressed me. I closed the binder, setting it back in her lap. Then I shook her shoulder slightly. "Ri, wake up," I said softly. Nothing. "Ri," I repeated, louder this time.

She exploded into action. One hand flashed out, shoving me away as she shot up. The binder dropped to the floor with a slap as she did, and out of nowhere, there was a big-ass knife in her hand.

"Woah, woah. It's just me. Just me," I said quickly, showing her my hands. Riley stared at me unblinkingly, breathing hard. Then her knife lowered, dipping behind her back and disappearing into what I guessed was a belt sheath.

She scrubbed a hand over her face, bending down and picking up the binder. Then she noticed the clothes I was wearing. A small grin eked across her face. "Ready to go, then?" she asked, voice still rough with sleep.

That was it. No apology, no explanation. The old Riley would have been falling all over herself to apologize and probably blushing up a storm the whole time. It was weird. Not bad, necessarily, just...different.

"Just have to fill out the paperwork, then we're out of here," I confirmed.

The paperwork didn't take very long. Riley waited patiently by my side as I signed myself out. I don't think the floor nurses were sad to see me go. Trixie came by and hugged Riley. They talked in hushed tones for a few minutes, their heads bent together. Then they said their goodbyes, and Riley walked out with me, her face as cool and blank as I'd ever seen it.

It was so different from her cheerful banter on the phone that I was once again forced to consider what my mother could have said to her. But the farther we got from the hospital, the looser Riley got.

It was dark outside, winter hours having cut the sunlight short. I followed Riley to her car, wondering vaguely where my stuff was. I didn't ask her, though. I didn't want to break the quiet peace between us.

By the time we walked into a motel room, Riley almost seemed to be herself. Tossing her bag on the floor, she sat on the edge of the bed. I sat opposite of her, on the edge of my bed. We looked at each other for a long minute, just breathing. "Hey," I said softly.

A little smile grew. "Hey," she said back, just as softly. She put her hand up and I pushed my palm against it, lacing our fingers together. Hers were cold and banged up, mine were long and scarred. "I'm glad you're awake," she admitted.

"I'm glad you're not dead," I admitted, just as candidly. That made her grin, actually grin. Then she freed her hand and lay back on the bed, folding her hands over her stomach. She squinted at the ceiling, like the light was too bright, and I eased upwards, flipping the switch to turn it off. Then I lay back on my bed, wondering what was going through her mind right now.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked, finally working up enough courage to just ask.

She laughed softly, in that quiet, thoughtful way of hers. I turned my head and stared at her dark form, taking in the curve of her mouth and nose in the darkness. She was beautiful, and she didn't even know it. Here we were, lying only two feet apart, but it might as well have been miles.

I pulled my eyes off her and looked up at the ceiling. "What's so funny?"

She sighed. "I was thinking about you asking me out over the phone."

I winced. "Yeah. Not my brightest moment."

"I don't know how to be a girlfriend," she said with just a tinge of nervousness.

"I suppose you could start by cooking me something," I replied thoughtfully. I'd seen Riley try and cook. It was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. She could make pancakes and bacon, but that was about it. Anything more complicated usually ended up black or unrecognizable. "Maybe giving me a shoulder massage. Clean my motel room."

She laughed again, which made my chest warm up. I loved that sound. It was authentic and soft and just so Riley. "Mh-hmm," she said. "And you might as well just give me full access to your wallet, because I need to go shopping for shoes and stuff."

We fell into an easy silence, and it was quiet for long enough that I wondered if she'd fallen asleep. If the bags under her eyes were any indication, then she could definitely use it. But after another minute, she snorted softly. "Do you think we should get matching tattoos?" she proposed.

It was my turn to laugh. "I think that comes after our relationship montage. You know, laughing in the rain. Snuggling on the couch together. All the quirky relationship stuff in the movies." Then I hesitated, becoming serious. "Can I tell you a secret?"

Riley turned her head to me, light reflecting off her teeth as she smiled. "Always," she answered.

"You're my first girlfriend. I don't...I've never had success with the whole relationship thing." I waited, and she turned her face back up towards the ceiling.

"Me neither," she said finally. "I guess we'll figure it out together then?"

"Together," I confirmed.