Disclaimer: I do not own Wolfblood.

A/N: [Please read my A/N at the bottom too!] This is a follow on from 2.06, "The Mottled Poppy" – how I think it should have turned out (after Maddy walks away at the end of the episode saying "Maybe I'm just tired of people doing things behind my back!")

Trust

Maddy was in a deep and dreamless sleep before she heard a light, irregular tapping at her window. Inhaling deeply, she smelled him straight away and rolled her eyes.

For a moment she chose to try and ignore the noises, but they were getting louder and the last thing she wanted was her parents waking up.

So she pushed her duvet back and begrudgingly climbed out of bed and in to the cold air of her bedroom. She didn't want to see or speak anyone right now, let alone Rhydian at 2am on a freezing cold night.

Maddy pushed the window open. "I don't want to talk to ya, Rhydian. Leave us alone."

"Maddy, please, just hear me out," He called up to her.

"No. And stop shouting, you'll wake me parents." She was whisper-shouting, her arms folded over her chest in both an attempt to keep herself warmer and to show him that she was not in the mood.

"Then come down, or let me come up. I'm not leaving until you let me speak."

Maddy stared at him for a moment, an eyebrow raised, and then she rolled her eyes when she realised he wasn't going to give in.

"Fine. Come up then; I'm not coming outside."

In a matter of seconds Rhydian had scaled the wall up to her bedroom window with the help of a nearby tree. He climbed in the window and Maddy stepped aside to let him in.

After he'd closed the window behind him, Maddy stared at him, her eyebrows still raised and arms still folded.

Rhydian took a deep breath and stepped towards her. She stepped back. "Look, Maddy, I don't know what happened today…"

"Oh, you mean us getting kidnapped by some creepy Wolfblood hunters? Not to mention me finding out that Shannon had been spying on us, me parents chucking you out without even telling me why, you and little miss Wild Wolfblood snooping around our house behind our backs...Yeah, you missed a lot today whilst you were dropping your phone in the river."

"Wait, what?" Rhydian managed to interject her rambling, his eyebrows coming together seriously. "You got kidnapped? How!? Why!?"

"Not important now, Buddy," she retorted sarcastically. "Listen, I'm not interested in whatever you came here to say. You might as well just go."

"I came to defend myself," he said incredulously. "I don't want you to feel like I'm going behind your back along with everyone else…"

"Well I already feel like that!" Maddy cried, still whispering. She would be yelling properly if it wasn't 2am and her parents were asleep. "Care to explain to me why you were snooping around the house earlier? Stealing our meat and chilling out in our den?"

Rhydian shrugged defensively, holding his hand out questioningly. "I didn't think you'd mind!"

"Well, I do!"

"Why!?"

"Oh, just because, Rhydian!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands to her sides for a moment before letting them fall back down again.

"That's not a good enough explanation." Rhydian muttered.

"Well maybe I don't need an explanation, Rhydian. I'm just tired of people going behind me back."

"What do you mean? Who's gone behind your back?" Rhydian stepped closer and, this time, she didn't step back again. He was only a foot or two away now.

"I just told you who! – Everyone!"

Rhydian stayed silent for a moment, looking her face all over. Her forehead was wrinkled and he could've sworn he saw some tears glassing over her brown eyes. He hadn't realised that she felt so betrayed by everyone; clearly her trust had been damaged in the past few days.

"Maddy, I…"

"Don't even try it. I don't trust you anymore. I don't trust anyone."

She turned away from him and sat down on the side of her bed, hands sitting limply in her lap.

"Go, Rhydian." Maddy said quietly.

Rhydian stayed silent for a moment before he decided to speak. "No."

"Go."

"NO!"

Maddy still didn't look up at him, but she knew he was still there. Silent moments passed. Neither of them were about to walk away.

"Maddy," Rhydian's soft voice came up after a few more long, silent minutes. "Do you really think, after all we've been through, that I would leave you just like that?"

She didn't respond. She just kept her eyes down on her lap as Rhydian watched her intently, just waiting for any kind of response.

And when he didn't get any, he continued. "Maddy, you've fought for me time after time and never let me push you away even when I've wanted to the most. Do you really think I'm about to walk out of this room right now and just leave it like this?"

Finally, Maddy shrugged her shoulders slowly, her eyes still down on the floor, and spoke. Her voice was almost a whisper. "I don't know."

"Well, I'm not," Rhydian said decisively. "You can't get rid of me that easily."

Maddy sighed. "I don't want to get rid of you, Rhydian."

"I know you don't."

"How do you know that?"

"Because," he shrugged, shoving his hands in to his coat pocket. "If you did, you wouldn't have kept me this long. You had plenty of opportunities to let me go, and you never did. That's my point."

Rhydian waited patiently as a few more silent moments passed. And then her head slowly rose so that her eyes were finding his, and he noticed her forehead was totally wrinkled.

"I'm just sick of being lied to," Maddy admitted hesitantly, her voice merely a whisper.

"I haven't lied to you."

"Yeah, well…you haven't exactly told me the entire truth, either."

Rhydian frowned ruefully, a sigh escaping his nose, and let his left hand come out of his pocket as he sat down beside Maddy on her bed. Her right arm brushed with his left and their eyes didn't break contact.

"What do you want to know?" He asked quietly.

"What did you do in the wild that was so bad? And why were you here yesterday, in the den and snooping around our house?"

Rhydian broke their eye contact by looking down at his lap, fiddling with his fingers nervously. He didn't want to tell her.

"I…" he begun, but his voice fell short and his mouth was left opening and closing for a moment. He wasn't used to telling people things like this; normally people left him to himself.

"See, this is what I'm talking about!" Maddy exclaimed. "You always hide things from me! And I'm tired of it!" And then she reached out, taking his nervous hands in both of hers and looking him in the eyes. "Rhydian, please just let us in for once. Tell me stuff."

Rhydian's eyebrows were still thoroughly furrowed together and Maddy could see a sadness behind his eyes that she had never seen before. It was a regretful sadness, almost; regret, sadness and fear all in one.

"I took Jana in to the human world," he finally admitted regretfully. "It was forbidden, but…Jana begged me, and we did it behind Alric's back.
When he found out, he sent me off with no food or water for three weeks. But…my mum came and let me go so I could run here. He was going to kill me, Maddy. He was going to kill me until my mum convinced him to keep me alive for just a little longer. It's one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made. It was a stupid rule, but I was even more stupid for breaking it."

Maddy was still holding his eye contact firmly, their hands still together on Rhydian's lap. For a moment she searched his face all over with her eyes and then met his again.

"I regret it every day because, well…I know it's put you guys in danger now, too." Rhydian continued.

"Don't say that," Maddy said softly, giving his hands a squeeze. "You did the right thing. And…to be honest with yous, Rhydian…I'm glad you did it. Because it brought you back to us. Back to Stoneybridge.… Back to me."

Rhydian gave her bittersweet smile. His eyes glanced down to her lips for a split second before he made eye contact with her again. In this light, her dark brown eyes seemed to sparkle and he couldn't stop staring in to them.

Rhydian bit his lip before continuing his explanations. "And…about the den thing today, I just…I don't really have an excuse for that. I kind of wanted to show Jana how you guys live, because she was intrigued; but I realise now that I was out of line. I'm sorry, Mads. I won't go behind your back again."

Maddy offered him a small smile now, too, and she let go of his hands so she could hug him tightly.

He hugged her back, his arms coming tightly around her waist, and he had to resist the urge to bury his head in to her neck. He could smell the shower gel she had used in the shower a few hours ago: vanilla and raspberry. It made him want to be near her even more than usual.

"Do you trust me again now?" He mumbled over her shoulder.

"To be honest, I think you're the only one I do trust now."

Pulling away, Rhydian shook his head. "That's not true. You trust Shannon. And your mum. You're just angry at them right now, but…it'll pass."

"Maybe," Maddy shrugged. "I don't even know anymore."

"You can always trust me, though. You know that, right?" Rhydian raised his eyebrows and his tone was serious.

"With me life," she smiled lightly. "And you can trust me, right?"

Rhydian didn't respond with words. Instead, he took a hold of her left hand and brought it up so that it was sitting against his heart through the fabric of his shirt. He was warm, so warm, and Maddy had to fight to keep her eyes on Rhydian's.

Their eye contact remained steady for a few moments. Maddy looked slightly hesitant and Rhydian was still frowning, but less intensely now.

"I trust you." He whispered then, and Maddy's lips broke out in to a tiny smile once more.

A/N: Hi again! Wow, I'm posting so much Wolfblood at the moment, oh my goodness. I just can never get enough of this show.

Just a note that I appreciate I wrote "me" instead of "my" and "us" instead of "me" a couple times, but that's just because of Maddy's dialect.

Anyway, I just need to explain what this story is. It's pretty much going to be where I publish all my short-ish one-shots (most of them will be around this length), unrelated drabbles and re-writes of scenes based on how I would've wanted them to go. I don't know how long it will go on or how much inspiration I'll have, but here goes nothing. I hope you enjoy joining me with this story!

Do let me know what you thought of this?

There will be a lot more Maddian in other chapters; a lot more of them actually being a couple, too.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a review of your thoughts:)

Love :* xxx