Morning came too early for Hansel, who woke up to Red's hands shaking his shoulder.

"Hansel? Hey, Hansel?"

"Urgh… Stop it… I'm so tired…" Hansel curled up, shuddering under his blankets.

"Hansel? Please wake up… Did you hear the Wolf go out last night? He's not here."

"Probably went to hunt innocent, little children… Now, let me sleep." Hansel turned from her, pulled the cover over himself.

"Wake up!" Red poked him angrily.

Angrily, Hansel sat up, blinked in an attempt to rid his eyes of the blurriness that plagued them. With a small snort, he stood, scratched at his chest, and then pulled his shirt off with a hiss of annoyance. "Well, well… Let's see. Wolf's gone, you have to make me lose sleep. Why? How does that work?"

"Peter's crying."

Hansel stiffened before sniffing, "What's he saying?"

"Nothing… He's just… crying."

"Does that automatically make me a suspect?" Hansel crossed his arms, grimacing.

"No, but-"

Marquis and Jhonen peered in from the door, where they had been listening in. With narrowed eyes, Jhonen growled, "Well, papa did have an argument with you."

"And you did cut a big part off of his back…"

"I didn't do anything!"

"Papa just doesn't disappear like that!" hissed Jhonen. "He says 'goodbye, I'm going to hunt' or something!"

"I didn't do a thing! Now stop it! I was the first one to bed last night, and, apparently, the last one to wake up. I was too tired to wake up and do anything… And how could I do anything anyways? Bullets don't hurt him." Hansel frowned, bared his teeth.

"Never asked you if you shot him, stupid. I asked you if you know what happened to him."

"I have no idea!"

Red was about to stop the escalating argument when Peter's cracking voice called from the other room, "Marquis! Jhonen! Please! Come here!"

Marquis and Jhonen disappeared, racing to see Peter.

Hansel was halfway through eating his breakfast when a furious knock came at the door. When Red opened it, Pinocchio shoved in, shedding snow from his coat. Slamming the door behind him, he hissed, "What happened?"

"Huh?" Red stared up at him.

"Last night! What happened? Did the Wolf anger you somehow? Why was he out there?" Pinocchio shivered in fury, fingers clenched into his palms.

"What? The Wolf? He was out there?"

"You don't know? This morning, we respond to a little riot going uptown, and we find the Wolf in the middle of the street, tied up and nearly beaten to death by a mob of people! We had to threaten to shoot the people before they'd let him go!"

"What?" Red's face paled.

"As it is, he's on his way to the big city now, sentenced to De Lille! It's 'too dangerous' here for a prisoner awaiting trial, but who are they joking? De Lille? That's a pure death sentence if I ever heard one! Anyways, Miller even came to the jail this morning, tried to shoot him while he was behind bars, so we had to give up bliddy jurisdiction! I hate it! I warned him what would happen, but no! No! No! No!" Pinocchio took off his cap, threw it to the ground before glaring at her. "You really didn't know?"

Before Red could answer, Hansel appeared at her back, face pale with rage, "What are you doing here?"

"Did you have something to do with this Hansel? The Wolf, tied up and beaten?"

"No, I di-" Hansel stopped when he heard soft growls from behind him. Turning, he saw Jhonen and Marquis, lips raised to bare their sharp canine teeth.

"Peter told us, Hansel." Hissed Jhonen, his paws shuddering in anger.

Hansel stared before backing up slowly, "Bloody brat…"

Jhonen and Marquis, consumed with rage, chased Hansel out into the streets. Hansel would have died if the citizens, still riled by the police's rescue of the Wolf, turned their hatred upon these two new ones. In the end, Marquis and Jhonen ran for their lives, fearful of the guns and swords and other sharp instruments.

When Hansel returned to Red's house, proudly wiping off his shirt, he was met with a surprising amount of rage. Red swore she would never let him in again, not as long as she lived, and screamed at him through the door that she would never be his sister again. Shocked, Hansel took it rather badly. He staggered off, sobbing into his hands.

Pinocchio had left to quell the furious citizens' anger, leaving Red and Peter to sort out what had happened that day and the night before.

Peter recounted the whole story to her, sobbing the whole while, and then cried himself to sleep on her lap. As he slept, Red fingered the necklace, fuming. This necklace had caused everything to go wrong. The Wolf was right to want to get rid of it, but why hadn't he just asked her? She would have given it back if it had meant so much to him, if he had just asked.

With a small sigh, she stroked Peter's head softly, watched his trembling slowly calm to a little twitch, and then gently pushed him from her lap. Arranging him on the bed, she pulled the covers up over him before slipping underneath herself and putting a reassuring arm over Peter.

Peter cuddled up to her in his sleep, squeaking, and pressed his head against her chest with a mumbled, "…Papa…"

Red smiled sadly, resumed her stroking of Peter's ears.

The next day passed slowly with only Peter and Red in the house. Peter was miserable, curling up in bed the whole day, refusing to eat, and only moving to call her when he needed to relieve himself in the restroom. That night, Red finally snapped, dragged the wailing Peter to the kitchen so he could eat.

Sniffling at the table, eyes sad, Peter turned the little slice of bread in his hands before dropping it to the floor, "I'm not hungry…"

Red glared at him, "You need to eat."

"…I'm not hungry…" repeated Peter sullenly.

"I don't want you to starve, Peter."

Peter's ears twitched towards her voice before he slowly turned his head towards her. Eyes filling with tears, he whispered, "I could've helped papa…"

Sensing an imminent wave of tears, Red sighed, put down the little bowl of sugared milk she had been preparing for him and wandered over to embrace him. Peter buried his head in the front of her dress, his little fingers curling up in her back, and started to bawl, "I could've stopped the Hansel man and I couldn't! I hate being blind and useless!"

Red traced the fur of his ears and neck softly and cooed, "You're not useless, Peter. You're a good, little boy."

"But I can't do anything!" Peter let his face drift out of the cloth, turn up towards her. The fur under his eyes was a soaked brown from the tears.

Red bent, kissed the tip of his nose, "But you can be my best friend."

Peter let out a new wave of sobs, buried his face into her dress again.

For the next five minutes, Red was obliged to stand there, becoming the handkerchief for the little wolf. Finally, she reached down, gently extracted herself from his grasp, and whispered, "Are you sure you don't want anything to eat?"

Peter snuffled, wiping at his face furiously. With a little moan, he nodded, "Milk."

"No bread? Or cake? I could make you cake."

"Just milk…" mumbled Peter, downcast and choked.