Chapter Twenty-One: Nightmare Noon
Thanks to my beta, Blythechild!
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It was nothing like the ground-eating lope her and Spencer had managed with the pups in her belly, or even the racing sprint she'd possessed when she was younger. The pups tired fast, and every two hours of travel was broken by a whining no from at least one of them and a bevy of sad eyes and drooping tails from the rest. Emily and Spencer took turns carrying them, especially in places where the snow grew deeper and they couldn't struggle across without dropping through the icy crust and vanishing with excited squeaks. Felicity, after some coaxing by her father, was persuaded into balancing on his back, paws spread on the coat that had survived the months since its removal from the lighthouse. Smug on her perch high above her siblings and eerily cat-like in her balance, Felicity refused to climb down and the sight of her staring happily around at the passing world became commonplace enough that Spencer began to look weird without the pup between his narrow shoulderblades.
The other two, they carried. Spencer with Oliver—who'd fret if he wasn't near his sister, just as she'd fret at his absence—and Emily with the kicking, complaining Riley. Riley wanted to walk. Riley did not want to be carried. Emily took to reciting various songs to the child just to keep her quiet, until she ran out of songs and Spencer took over with a weirdly diverse selection of sea shanties.
Our anchor's aweigh and our sails are all set, he sung—badly—on this day, lifting his feet in a high-stepping trot through the thick snow they were pushing through. Where's my sailors? I'm not hearing my sailors.
Bo Rilly, Felicity added in her piping voice, the song having become a favourite. Emily groaned. Bo Rilly!
Rilly? Oliver asked, looking at his sister. Riley just glowered, dangling once more from her mama's jaws.
Bold Riley, oh, boom-a-lay! howled Spencer, jauntily swinging his flanks as he went. The folks we are leaving, we'll never forget; Bold Riley, oh, gone away!
Bo Rilly! hollered Felicity, yapping with her little mouth turned to the sky above. Awwwoo Rilly!
I hate it here, Emily said to no one in particular, folding her ears back against the noise that, unfortunately, was in her head and fucking inescapable. I wish we were back at the den.
Oh, boom-a-lay! continued Spencer happily.
Endless snowbound forests passed under their already-weary paws; the arctic sun turned slowly around the rim of the sky above. And time passed with them on the road. First one week. Then two.
They walked. They sang. Spencer kept up a litany of one pine tree, two pine trees, three pine trees, how many pine trees now? that was strangely comforting. Not that their pups were counting all that well; Oliver never answered, Riley was always adamant that there were only two pine trees in existence in the whole world, and Felicity just kept singing the Bo Riley song. Emily hunted because Spencer wasn't exactly good at hunting at the dens, where he knew the grounds and the wildlife, let alone in the slowly shifting landscapes around them. Even in the warming winter, she kept them fed on hares and mice and sleepy birds—and once, a fox that Oliver had balked at and declared it a, Yuck Rilly. They drank from puddles of icy meltwater, the pups fed on her still-flowing milk, and they kept moving unerringly onwards. Slowly. So fucking slowly.
The pups, exhausting easily, slept constantly. Once they'd managed to rig up the coat and saddlebag so Felicity wouldn't tumble off her dad's shoulders, they slept while they walked. It both made the journey easier, and so much harder. Emily was finding that now they had the time to talk, unaccosted by demanding teeth and paws and the chores of keeping a den from falling apart, she didn't know how to talk anymore. What could they say that they hadn't both already been there for?
We have to discuss it you know, he said quietly one day, three weeks after leaving the den, as they picked their way across a marshy bog that was more mud than ice as spring settled in. The pups, murky and bedraggled, slept in their jaws, Felicity a fluffy growth tangled in the straps of the saddlebag on his back.
Discuss what? she asked, knowing damn well what he was going to bring up.
You. You're struggling.
I'm fine.
But she wasn't. When they slept, the nightmares returned. And they were ignorable at first, driven away by a bone-deep fatigue as her muscles protested the steady demand she was placing on them, the painful weeks before their bodies adjusted to constant travelling. Vague whispers of unsettling images, frightening scents. She'd snap awake, check that all her family was accounted for, and then fall asleep once more with Spencer's flanks moving sedately under her chin. But then their bodies adjusted, no longer dropping into the deep sleep of the truly exhausted.
And then they found the tracks.
Rabbit, Spencer was teaching Riley and Felicity, his voice a distant whisper. He was projecting for her as she hunted, knowing it cut her concentration slightly but feeling it was worth it to reassure her they were okay. Scent this, my loves. Smell the rabbit? Emily smiled, trotting back to them with one of the rabbit's unfortunate family members hanging limp from her mouth. Oliver showed a complete disdain for tracking or hunting. Which was probably a boon… they already had to have Riley holding Spencer's tail whenever her four paws were on the ground just to stop her from—
A sharp shock thrummed through her. Surprise. Seconds later, raw fear.
She ran. She knew that fear. And she surged down on top of her family with her hackles up and a snarl already building, right on the shore of the churning river where she'd left them. Upstream slightly, meandering along with the tracks of animals come to drink. The pups wrestled together, a safe distance from the frothy water. Spencer stood hunched at the riverside, his head lowered.
There was no immediate danger. She relaxed and dropped the rabbit to attract the voracious horde's attention, before joining him on the bank and following his worried eyes.
Across the river. A small pier, built solid. A rope reached across, vanishing behind a spray of overhanging trees to what she was sure would be another pier. Despite being aware that there were settlements out here, few and far between, it was bizarre to see something so…
Human, Spencer sent quietly, padding away. Emily stayed with the pups, well aware of the sticky fear cloying that word. After seventeen months in exile, even more for her, neither of them felt safe around those machine-hewn logs. Felicity choked on a bone, requiring Emily to tear her attention away from Spencer's exploration. Miserable and spluttering, Emily soothed the coughing pup by taking her on her paws and grooming her thoroughly with a savage tongue, quietly projecting firm feelings of unconditional love down onto her delicate tan daughter. Felicity, unaware that this love wasn't something that every child was allowed, merely took it as her due and basked happily in it. Even returned a touch of it, in a clumsy puppy trace that Emily savoured nonetheless.
Emily, said Spencer huskily, breaking the moment. Emily looked up, into hazel eyes over a muzzle that was faded with strain, and felt her hackles rise again. Not accompanied by the snarl this time; like a lone wolf facing a foreign pack, she kept silent. It's them. I recognise their scents. They've been here recently.
How recently? She couldn't keep the fear from her voice. Couldn't pull it back.
Within a week. His hackles were up too, making him look rangy and dark and frightening, the black ridge of fur almost mane-like.
And just like that, the nightmare returned.
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Night after night, the room visited her dreams. The doors closed. The snow fell. The glassy black wolf stared down accusingly on her as she cowered below, ass to the floor and almost pissing herself with fear.
Night after night, she woke to Spencer's paws on her, his muzzle brushing her throat, his thoughts frantic and lined with her pain: Emily, he called her, summoning her out of her traumatised mind, you're not there, you're safe! With me, and the pups, you're here.
Mama's here, here! the pups added, their own minds shrill as they fed from her anxiety. They didn't understand it. They knew there was a danger, a terrible room. They sensed the nightmares she couldn't help but accost them with. But they didn't know it was distant, a memory. No Mama, Mama stop!
And Oliver cried and cried and howled no for fear he'd be taken to that room too.
I'm fine, she said desperately when Spencer voiced concern, pacing to keep herself awake. They'd fled that river, veering sharply north-east to avoid any chance of stumbling across their captors again. It would take them far, far away from their home, from the trail that would lead them back to DC, but Emily was haunted and Spencer was desperate to outrun her nightmares. But the nightmares followed; they couldn't escape them.
She tried to stop sleeping but sleep always came. She withdrew from her pack's minds to shelter them from her, but they barged in and refused to be pushed away. And she ran, at Spencer's heels with a pup in her mouth, back up into the snowy north. They moved swiftly enough that for a while it was a bizarre reversal of the changing seasons. Heading south, they'd been walking into spring. The snow had melted quickly, leaving marshy bogs to trek through. Going back north-east was running towards a narrow line of mountains that were still snow-capped and frost-bound, the earth under their paws refreezing over once more and game becoming scarce as they re-entered the arctic circle.
We're hungry, whined the pups as one voice, and every moment she stood still while they suckled was another moment she could imagine the compound wolves sneaking up and the deadly ka-thunk of a dart taking out her first, Spencer next, and then rough hands scooping their pups up and taking them away. We're tired, was next, but there was no time to rest.
They ran like they hadn't run since the night of the blizzard, and it still wasn't enough.
What are you so afraid of? he asked her as they paced themselves, night stealing in around them. The mountains loomed closer. A week, she thought it might have been, since that river and their terrible flight. Emily, they're moving in the other direction. We're far away from them—there's no need to panic.
Puffing out foggy air around Riley's limp form, Emily lowered her head and kept padding grimly on. Frost crunched under her paws and an owl called overhead, lonely and wild on the wind. She didn't answer because she didn't know how.
We can't keep this pace up, Spencer said finally, letting her evade his previous question. Your milk will run dry if you don't feed properly soon, and the pups need time to play and run.
You're worried about them playing when we're running for our lives? she snapped, whirling on him. What? They not wolves, Spencer, they're children and they need to be home where they can be children—what good is learning to wrestle and bark then?
He stared at her, frozen with one paw lifted. In the silver moonlight, that paw glinted white under a muddy sock. Where did that come from? he said, lowering his rump gently as he laid down in the snow without dislodging the sleeping Felicity huddled on his back. That's not you, Em. We've always been in agreement that we need to raise them normally, to facilitate their inclusion when we do get them home. Play is integral to that—as children and as wolves. We don't stop being therian when we shed our fur.
Emily shivered. She felt sick and tired and stretched as thin as a well-worn sheet left for too long out to the elements. Too threadbare to do more than focus on one goal: escape.
I'm going to hunt, she said instead, laying Riley on Spencer's paws and bounding into the night before he could shake himself free of daughters and son in time to chase her. And in hunting, she could lose herself and all her demons, just for a little while.
She found water as night turned to morning and lapped thirstily at the chilled stream. It ran happily below her tongue, and she watched her reflection ripple and twist in the image displayed to her. A dark-coated wolf with dark, dark eyes. Nothing human in them at all. She wondered what Agent Prentiss of the BAU would have done if faced with those hard eyes over the curling muzzle.
Wild wolf, she imagined Prentiss declaring her. Not to be trusted.
We need a profile, Hotch replied, pacing around her sedate form on the creek-bed. Emily hunkered lower, hunching her body inward to hide, and closed her eyes. Any kind of escape. "What kind of a woman is this?
"Hardly a girl at all," said Elizabeth Prentiss, leaning down to run her hands along Emily's flank. Emily twitched and whined in response, huffing at her mom to go away, leave me alone. "Too doggy to be a Prentiss."
"Too monstrous to be a member of my pack," said Hotch sadly, and turned away.
Don't go, Emily begged him.
"Too human to know who she is. Sef leaned back against a tree with his floury hands and gentle frown. "There's really only one place she belongs."
No, said Emily with no real force. They were right.
"Sorry, love," said the final voice, and she stood on wobbly legs and turned to find Spencer holding open a familiar door. No handle. A door with no handle. By his side, the pups stood, but pups no longer. Children with dark eyes, all three of them; dark and cold. "You know I'm only doing this because I love you, right? Just like my mother… I wouldn't trust her with my children, and I don't trust you. It's just biology."
Emily walked into the room. The door closed behind her and he smiled before he turned away.
I belong here, she told the dark wolf in the windowed wall. It's okay. I belong here. And they'll find me eventually, because some part of me calls to them—
—stop it!
She jerked up. Spencer stared at her, hazel eyes inches from her. Stop it, he cried again, and she shuddered when she realized his mind was in agony. Bare inches from sobbing and his eyes were dangerously glassy.
Wha'? she asked groggily, sitting upright and shaking mud from her chin. Spence, where are the kids?
Sleeping. He was inching closer, hunched up as though in his fright he'd become more cat than wolf. Nearby. What the fuck was that?
His mind was laced with fear and anger, a twisting, bubbling mix that burned her to touch.
Nightmare. She stood, whimpering as her joints complained about her damp nap in the mud. What she would give to be clean again, to wash the gritty sand and grime from her fur, to bathe the paws that had long blistered and split and healed over as hard, rough skin, to brush her teeth and taste mint and clean instead of carrion and copper… Shit, I was hunting. I can go again. I'll go again, I just need to—
Emily, he whispered, and inched closer. Pressed against her, leaning hard against her body and trembling into her. Helpless in the face of that wordless need, she leaned back and felt a whine twist itself out of her throat. He wound his mind around hers, wrapping tight, until she felt like she was losing herself in the wash of lovefearlovehungerlovelovelovelove he was bathing her in. That's not true. It's not true.
What isn't true? Spencer, it was a nightmare. I know it wasn't true, now let me go, I need to go—
But he didn't. You don't belong with them, he snarled, his hate to them billowing up and out in her mind. His hate for them all wound up with an almost-longing for the acceptance they'd offered him, even more twisted with his bitter adoration for his brother and the family he knew was still bound there. You don't belong with them. He repeated it and kept repeating it. You're not wild, you're not vicious, you're not theirs. Emily—you're gorgeous and strong, don't you see?
Stop, she asked him, her head aching. He pushed the truth of what he was feeling onto her, bearing her down. For once, refusing to listen to the dominance in her voice. In this moment, she lowered herself to him and let him command her. And he showed her what he knew, a frail spider-web of memories and feelings that were almost impossible for her to discern and yet, somehow, completely understandable. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't easy. But she listened.
You're still this, he murmured, following her down and laying half atop her, licking at her ears. And in her mind, he sent a vivid picture: him watching her from the kitchen door as she spilled spaghetti sauced down her front and laughed instead of shouting, flicking it at him in a playful prompt to join in. An easy smile, human and alive and happy.
You're still you.
Walking into a shapeless building at her back, she was the only vivid thing in his view. And he felt so, so safe with her at his front, and she looked stronger and more powerful to his eye in that moment than she'd ever looked when staring into the mirror.
See? You're exhibiting learned helplessness—your capture was so extended, so… dehumanizing… to protect itself, your mind has adapted to aversive or painful stimuli rather than repeatedly trying and failing to escape the situation. It's… He paused, and the image changed again. Running through the woods with her, giddy with friendship. Green woods in the brisk air of home. In the distance, wolves howled joyously because spring was there and they were loved. But the whole image was melancholy, laced with shock and dismay. Emily, he mewled, his voice turning thin, and the image shattered. Leaving behind a black wolf curled on a cement floor, forelegs bloodied and swollen sides heaving. Foam laced its mouth, panic burned in its eyes, and Emily gasped because its pain was so vivid she hurt with it.
I did this, he said blankly, and withdrew from her. So suddenly that she was left cold, panting on the bank. I did this to you.
Spencer, no, she breathed, struggling up. In the distance, wolves still howled, and they both turned momentarily to try and ascertain if they were approaching or moving away.
I left you there. He backed away from her, paws skittering in the mud. The wolves howled again, coquettishly. Werewolf, but far away and unfamiliar.
You did what you had to.
He turned enough that he could only watch her with one white-ringed hazel eye, staring and frightened. You don't know what you feel like right now, he said with a groan that sounded like it tore deep from his chest. You're so frightened and small; they took you, Emily, and they made you small. And I didn't think that was possible for anyone to do. You could never be small to me.
The wolves howled again. They shivered. The voices weren't approaching, but Emily could hear them clearly enough now that she knew what they were announcing.
Spring was here, but neither of the mud-covered wolves on that bank welcomed it. The strain of nursing would keep the season from visiting them. Their minds remained clear.
Mating will distract them from hunting us, she said briskly, trying to turn away from his guilt and her hurts.
They're not hunting us, he replied. Blunt and pensive. They haven't been hunting us for months, Emily. We're free and you know it.
That doesn't mean we stop running! she snarled, whirling on him with her fur on end. They could cross our tracks, realize we're still out here, come looking—
He cut her off, rudely. His mind tortured but his tone determined. I can't atone for what I did to you, he told her, and finally stopped backing away. She saw the shift on his posture, from scared to sure, and he moved back towards her and rested his jaw on her shoulder, breathing in her scent. After a tense few moments, she relaxed into his touch, and listened. I can't make up for the room, or the compound, or leaving you there… There is nothing in this world that will give me penance for those cruelties. But I swear, I'm not going to rest until you believe me: you do not belong with those mutts at the compound. You belong with me and our children, you belong with Aaron. You're not small and you're not broken and you'll never be caged again. I won't allow it. I'll die before I let you be caged again.
She looked at him, stunned by the surety of his words. It wasn't your fault, she said, but that didn't work because some small part of her did still blame him for leaving her alone, and likely always would. So she tried, I'm not your responsibility.
You are, he said quietly. And sent one last memory, this one bright and sharply defined. Well remembered, cherished. He was human with the charcoal drawing in his hands, and she was a wolf and looking down at it. They were in their den. The first den. The pups were barely conscious, three little potato beings who only thought of food and sleep and love.
"I can't do it," he'd said, so softly she'd been glad of her canine ears. "I can't watch you with our children and hide it from you."
I've known for months, she'd replied.
The sun had been rising outside, the end of their first winter as a family. A single beam laid a line across her tail. He stared at it as he said, "If I admit to loving you, could you still accept me?" and this time, in his version of the memory, she could see how the sun caught her fur and brought it to life, how beautiful and strong and infinite she'd looked in that moment. And she knew how his heart hadn't beat properly, how his breath had caught, and how scared he'd been of her rejection.
Always, she'd said, and stepped out of the sun and into the shadows by his side. The puppies had squeaked. She'd brushed his face with her muzzle and his cheek had been cold and damp. Always, she'd repeated, and he was a wolf against her and shaking because he hadn't expected acceptance.
You'll always be my responsibility, he said now, and stole the memory back to greedily hoard to himself. But you're your own wolf, Emily Prentiss. No slave to the compound or your mother or biology or to me.
What does this mean? she asked him, sensing the pups waking nearby and their voracious hunger. She felt thin and weak, and knew she'd have to eat before she could feed them. They'd have to hunt. But that would mean staying still, with the wolves behind them… What do we do now?
His eyes watched her warily, his heartbeat strong in his chest as he breathed slowly. We can keep running, he said carefully, making sure to veil his thoughts from her for this moment. If you need that to stop this spiral you're trapped in. Or…
Or?
We can stop. Find a den and settle the pups in and we can… hunt. He paused on the word 'hunt' and she twitched her nose and scented lilac on the breeze. A hated scent. She hated the flower. Doyle had loved them; he'd loved the spring and they were the first flower to bloom at winter's end. We're hungry, we're exhausted. We can keep heading north-east after a few days' rest, but we need to recuperate first. But you have to trust me, Em—if we stay, I will protect you. I wouldn't offer this if it wasn't safe. And I can't help you if you won't let me, if you don't stop holding me at arm's length. I gave myself to you, that morning in the first den. You accepted me then, but not completely, and it's crippling us now because you're trying to run from what we could stop and face together.
She hated this, that he was talking to her like a victim. Like she was in need of help, of being cossetted, of…
But he wasn't wrong. She did need help.
Always, she'd said back then, but then she'd placed conditions on his love. Always, but not too completely because she wasn't sure it was real. Always, but not when alone because, really, he only loved her because of the pups. Always, but she'd never returned it because some part of her had broken back in that room and she'd worried it was the part of her that knew how to love him in return.
Always, but only with the thought of Aaron hanging over them like a knife edged with sharp betrayal. But it had been over two years since she'd seen him last. He probably thought them both dead, nothing but desiccated bones in the bottom of a mass-grave somewhere hidden. He'd have long grieved and moved on, maybe found a new mate. Added her to the dark part of his mind where he kept Haley and everyone else in his life he'd loved and lost.
And she wouldn't begrudge him finding love in another's arms in the time they'd been gone, just as he wouldn't hold this against her.
Do I love you? she thought privately, looking at Spencer and thinking of his patience with the pups, his steadfast loyalty once they'd been out of the compound, his optimism, his determination to return home no matter what that meant for his heart. Kindness and tenderness and his body tucked against hers in the darkest hours of the endless winter nights.
She thought of all these and more and her heart thumped and hurt. A bone-deep ache that stabbed and prickled and refused to let her ignore it.
Love, she decided, was made of hurting. And she did hurt for him. Just as she'd die for him. Just as she'd carry him if he fell, or as she'd follow him without pause wherever he chose to lead her. Absolute trust.
Her turn to prove that.
Hunt with me, she breathed, and let a little bit of that hurting warmth out to brush against his mind. He shivered. He returned it.
Yes, he said. They found a den. The pups complained, but were dutifully tucked inside. Even Riley, they knew, would stay here—the unfamiliarity of the outside world kept her timid. And the two wolves, still who they'd always been but somehow now more on top of that, moved together out into the morning to find something they'd been running from. Under the weak spring sun, they found in succession: the tracks of an injured doe; the doe herself; a release from the fear of the past few weeks in the form of a hunt; and then they found each other. The season didn't move them as he moved inside her. They kept their minds. It was entirely their decision, and she gloried in the freedom of it.
It both was and wasn't a first, and Emily knew to cherish it in case it turned out to also be a last.