AN: SOOO! Hi. If any of you read my primeval stuff I HAVE NOT ABANDOND MY SEASON 4. I promise you that. For those of you who don't, please enjoy our favourite antagonistic teen romantics...Christa and Adam

Songs To Listen to While Reading

Corner Of Your Hear- Ingrid Michaelson- for some lovely lyrical dissonance over the conversation and Christa's transformation.

The Wolves (Act 1&2) - Bon Iver- yes its called the wolves, yes its a story about were wolfs, but this slow quiet feeling would go perfectly with the *ahem* morning after.

Becoming The Monster Takes This Hurt Away

He finds her huddled in the back of the equipment locker in the gym. She's staring at her fingers, picking away invisible grime when he walks in.

"How did you find me?"

"Sniffed you out didn't I. Nose like a bloodhound me. Get it, bloodhound" Typical Adam, trying to make a terrible joke out of everything. She lets herself chuckle slightly. Just to amuse him, she tells herself, not because he's actually funny. He waited for a minute, rocking backwards and forwards on his feet, trying to decide whether he was going to stay or not. Finally he sat down across from her. He was watching her intently, eyes boring into her forehead as she looked down at her knees.

"It's going to happen tonight isn't it?" god, is she crying. Jesus, get a grip Christa, way to be a little kid. But she can't help it, she's terrified. She looks up at him and can't help but think that maybe, he might be terrified to.

"Yeah." No jokes, no sugar coating, just straight up truth. Even if she won't admit it, she's happy he's here, in one of his calm quiet moods, without his usual bravado and humour. His simple understanding of what is about to come, It makes her feel safer somehow. She's only done this a couple of times, and all she has woken up with is a headache and no memory. It's not until he waltzed into her life that she started to consider the possibility she was something else. Now she terrified.

"Why are you in here?" he asks the question plain and simple. "Why not the forest or something?"

"I though it might be safe. You told me about your friend, the one who did it in hospital, in the basement. I thought..."

"Concrete walls, iron door, no windows... I see your logic" he smoothes his hands nervously down his legs, brushing out the creases in his jeans. They're both waiting.

'I'm going to have to leave soon. Natural predators and all that."

"NO DON'T GO... don't leave me please" she hated how desperate she sounded. He nodded though, understanding her need for company.

"Where's matt?'

"Science room, he didn't want to see"

"And you did? Is that why your here, you want to see me get my comeuppance, want to see me suffer karmically for being a colossal bitch?"

"No, I thought you might need a friend."

"And you're my friend? Since when?" he doesn't answer and she feel more like a bitch than ever. Here he is trying to help her and all she can do is strike out like a frightened animal, backed into a corner. That is what she is though, right now, a frightened little animal.

Then she screams. It's so sudden that he jumps back, startled. She topples forward, onto her hands and knees, gasping and clutching her ribs.

"It's happening"

Another scream, much louder this time as she feels her spine writhing under her skin, pulling and shredding the muscles of her back and shoulders like they are tissues connecting tectonic plates. She can feel the bones of her jaw breaking and she screams out again as they try and smash themselves back into a new shape, destroying blood vessels and popping teeth. Her heart is beating rapidly now and her lungs feel like they are closing in on her, slowly suffocating her. She looks up at him once and finds him staring back at her. It's one of those rare moments when she thinks she actually sees him, sees how sad he really is, how alone he really feels as he watches his only friend writhe in pain in the cold floor, knowing soon she will be gone, and he will be alone. He shuts his eyes and the moment is gone as her body jerks back up, bones crumbling in her legs and re-solidifying, organs crushing themselves in an effort to survive.

"I have to go now, I'm sorry" she nods as best she can. He makes a move to touch her, perhaps to reassure her but she shrinks back. He sighs and walks to the door. Heaving it shut is difficult to do by himself, he muses, but it's much harder to listen to her screams inside.

Once he's done he locks it up, resting his forehead on the cool surface for a second, hearing her crying out inside, then sits down in front of it, waiting for the morning.

-_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_--_-_-_-_-.-_-_-_-_-_-

She wakes in a daze on the floor. Her head is pounding and her fingers are covered in blood. Slowly she sits up, taking in her surroundings. The room is dark but she can make out red marks on the walls. Obviously she tried to claw her way out.

"Adam?" for some reason she finds herself whispering, almost like she's afraid the wolf will come back. Clearing her throat she tries again, louder this time

"Adam?"

The iron door starts to scrape open and light floods into the room. She squints, throwing up a hand to cover her eyes. All she can see is his black silhouette, outlined in the glaring white light of early morning

"sorry about the lights, when I turned them out by accident you got quieter, so I just left them of" she nodded mutely as he switched them back on, the fluorescents flickering back into life reviling the shredded footballs and sweaty jerseys that lay strewn in pieces around her. She noticed with embarrassment that she appeared to be naked.

Blushing, she attempted to cover up, waiting for him to make a snide remark or some stupid sex joke. Instead she was pleasantly surprised when he handed her a pair of pyjama bottoms and a lark grey plaid shirt. A pair of wellington boots and a black hoodie were dangling from the other hand.

"Sorry, they're mine. I didn't think it would be a good idea to break into your house our anything." She nodded again. She didn't trust herself with words. He turned around as she stood up, pulling on the pants and buttoning up the shirt. Wordlessly he handed her the boots and the sweater then turned around to face her. She stood, shivering in the cold damp room, looking for all the word like a scared little kid, his unfitted cloths swamping her, making her look even younger.

"I think you're in shock, come on. Don't worry about school. I got a friend of mine to call in sick for you. She told me that you'd need the day of" he put his arm around her, squeezing her shoulder and slowly leading her from the room.

"Don't worry, there's no one in school yet, it's still early. "He led her through the empty corridors and outside. They walked in silence to his little flat. He unlocked the door and led her inside, shutting and locking the door behind him

"The showers just through there if you want to take one. I haven't got any smelly lady stuff but there's shampoo and soap so you should be sorted. I have a spare towel too. Georges packing tips I swear. I'm not one of those knobs who carries around a guest set of everything" it sounded like it was meant to be a joke but it fell flat when she didn't laugh. She slowly moved toward the bathroom and shut the door. Once he was gone he turned back to his room and started trying to make an effort to clean it up. It was a tiny flat really. Closet and bathroom on the right wall, way too close to the doorway, then the bed taking up most of the space in the middle. His old TV sat on top of a broken table at the foot of the bed, leaving about 4 inches of room to shimmy past to the 'kitchen' which was really just a microwave and a minifridge. Which reminded him, food. He didn't have anything sufficient, or anything at all, and he imagined she would be hungry.

"I'm just going to go out and get some food ok?" no answer. It was going to be a long day he could tell. He left a note anyway and left the flat as quietly as he could

Christa heard him go and let out the breath she had been holding. She could feel the tickling sensation of crying starting in the corners of her eyes and she couldn't break down while he was here, no matter how nice he was deciding to be today. She got up, slowly peeling of Adams cloths and turning on the shower till it was scorching hot. She checked at the bags under her eyes in the dirty cracked mirror. Slowly he stepped into the shower, every muscle seeming to protest the idea.

She winced as the hot water hit her, then finally, she let herself cry. So cliché, she thought to herself, breaking down in the shower.

She emerged in a cloud of steam, wrapping the faded blue towel around herself. She checked the room to make sure the cost was clear, and found herself slightly disappointed when she saw that he wasn't there, as irrational as that may seem. Opening to doors to his closet, she began rooting around for cloths. She borrowed a pair of his cleanest looking underwear, not really caring at this point at the type of boundary that crossed. Next she pulled out a pair of faded grey sweat pants and a worn out brown tank top, the type that she supposed he used as an undershirt. Finally she grabbed the plaid shirt from the bathroom floor, haphazardly re-buttoning it. Carefully she sat down on the bed. She still felt as though her body had been ripped apart and kept staring at her hands, flexing and unflexing them, imagining them turning into claws.

The door opened again and Adam came in carrying a plastic bag and a small jug of milk. He stood stock still in the door for a moment, staring at her unsure of what to do. Then he smiled.

"There you go then, see. Nice hot shower and it's like your becoming human again" she allowed herself a small smile and that made him grin even wider. He tripped his way over to the microwave and pulled a mug from the cupboard. He filled it with water from the tap and then stuck it in the microwave.

"Sorry, don't have kettle or anything, but I though you could use a cup of tea. A Nina suggestion. Nina's one of my werewolf friends up in Barry. I called her this morning. Well actually I called Mitchell, but Nina was human by then. You were still asleep. Annie was the one who called in sick for you. Somehow she is audible over the phone but don't ask me how that works. She's been dead longer than Matt has." he was rambling and it was sort of comforting, him allowing her the wallow silently while he let her in to a slice of supernatural normalcy. He pulled out a pack of mini cereals, opening the cocoa puffs and depositing them into another mug with a splash of milk.

"Sorry again, no bowls or anything, just tons of mugs. But I have got a couple of spoons somewhere... I think" he started digging through his fairly empty cupboard, pausing drop a tea bag in the freshly microwaved hot water. Finally he found a small selection of cutlery in his fridge.

"There" he triumphantly handed her the cocoa puffs and the spoon, looking incredibly pleased with himself

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

"I think you deserve it, you know. And who else is going to come close to understanding?" she smiled. He was right she supposed, who else even could begin to understand. Not matt. He didn't know what it was like, being a monster, having a beast lurking under your skin. He didn't know how painful it was to meet that killer.

"Why is your mirror broken" he looked uncomfortable, shifting nervously from foot to foot.

"It's easy to get frustrated with mirrors when you can't see yourself in them. I would have taken it of but it's nailed to the wall."

"oh" they lapsed into silence once more, Christa slowly eating coca puffs, Adam watching the tea slowly bleed its color into the water. When it was done steeping he handed it to her and sat down on the bed, switching on the TV, only to be met with the blurry snowstorm of static.

"Looks like the TV's out"

"That's ok." She leant against him, head on his shoulder and sighed. She could feel her strained muscles slowly starting to relaxed and somewhere in the back of her mind, she attributed it more to his presence than to the tea and the hot shower.

"We can just sit here" she murmured sleepily "you and me." Her eyes slowly drifted shut as he took the tea from her. Her breathing slowed and exhaustion finally over took her, but not before she noticed Adam looking down at her, a slight smile playing across his lips. He slowly bent down toward her and kissed her on the forehead. She couldn't help thinking, in that dazed moment before sleep, resting up against his shoulder.

'he has the most beautiful smile'.