Time passed. Wolfsbane wasn't sure how much, and she didn't care. Her world revolved around regular feedings and patrolling the barren moors of Muir Island. She was aware that there were a number of people that lived there that she'd learned to identify, and occasionally she had a vaguely nagging feeling that there was something important about them, but it usually faded. After all, she was a wolf – why would people be important? Mostly, it was easy to ignore them.

Today though, two of them were standing outside the room which was serving as her lair. She recognised them as the alpha-female, the short one with red hair, and the one who was pack leader, the large sandy one who was usually absent. They were having a conversation; quietly, but not too quietly for the super-sensitive ears of the wolf.

"She's been like this for nearly three weeks," said the female. The words meant next to nothing to Wolfsbane, but the tone was concerned. "At first I thought it was a good thing – she heals faster in this form, and it seemed to help her deal with the grief, but now…."
"What?" asked the male. "She seems t' be well, Moira, and reasonably cheery."

"She also appears to be a wolf, Sean, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Well, it doesn't appear t' be doing her any harm…."

"She isn't responding to human contact anymore," the woman replied, her voice sounding almost frantic. "She barely acknowledges me when I'm there."

"Maybe that's her way o' dealing with what's happened."

"But that's the thing, Sean – she isn't dealing with it. The wolf form made it easier to cope with the emotional aspects of grieving, but it's allowed her to avoid the other part of the process – dealing rationally with what happened to her. The way I understand it, the wolf form to some extent replaces reason with instinct – so that one never has to think about anything."

"Sounds good t' me. Where's the problem?"

"Men!" there was exasperation in that word, but also an obvious underlying affection. "The problem is that she's getting worse. At the start you could tell that Rahne was in there somewhere, inside the wolf. But the instincts are taking over, and now I'm if she's still there, she's locked herself away so tightly that she might as well be gone – it may only be Wolfsbane in there now, not Rahne."

With that they stopped talking for a while, leaving Wolfsbane to consider the pair. The male was often away from the island, but she could tell that he was a natural leader – his large stature merely reinforced the self-assured posture and confident manner that was a part of him.

The woman was less obvious about her position, but Wolfsbane had noticed that although she was always warm toward the other people she would not tolerate being either disobeyed or pandered to. She was the one that spent the most time around Wolfsbane, bringing her food and had occasionally inspecting the state of her injuries. She always talked to the wolf, and sometimes appeared to be expecting an answer. Wolfsbane sometimes had an urge to do something at these times, but she wasn't sure what, exactly. It was especially strong when the woman used that word, the one that she always seemed to be addressing her with – Rahne. Hearing it stirred some kind of feeling in the wolf, a mixture of familiarity and distress that she both welcomed and dreaded. There was something important in it, but she had no idea what – she had begun to try to ignore it, in the hope of resolving the anxiety.

"Does Charles know about this?" the male asked eventually. "He should be able t' work his thought trick stuff on the girl, naw? Talk to her, get her back in the land o' reason? Wasn't there that little girl in a coma because of her powers that he helped a few years back?"

"Jean was rather a different case," said the female. "I've had Betsy in a couple of times to try and get in touch with Rahne, but she hasn't had any luck. At the beginning she said she could sense something that was listening, but not responding, but she can't find it anymore. She said today that she might as well try telepathy on her mother's pet cat…."

There had been another visitor today, Wolfsbane remembered. A younger female, who turned up now and then on the island and sometimes tried to get close to her. The wolf had been wary of the unfamiliar person intruding on her territory and had acted defensively, snarling and raising her hackles. Eventually the intruder had gone away again. Satisfied that she had driven off the intruder, she'd paid it little more attention.

"…She thinks it might be possible that Charles would be able to reach her – he's stronger, and is more familiar with her, but I remember him telling me that they've always had trouble communicating telepathically with Rahne when she was in wolf form – her lupine mind is structured quite differently."

"So why isn't Old Shiny over here trying to sort this out? I'd ha' thought he'd be rushing over t' help if he thought one o' his students was in trouble."

"They've had a lot to deal with back in Bayville, from what I can gather. Something to do with SHIELD and Logan and a break-in and now there's some kind of immensely powerful mutant that they are trying to contain. Charles is just too busy to take the time away for a trip across the Atlantic for a non-emergency…."

"Auch, like he was too busy t' prevent the girl's parents from taking her back here. He must ha' known what she was heading back to, and he let her go…," the male's tone sounded disapproving, as though censuring a misbehaving member of the pack.

"He tried to tell them, but Rahne was their daughter – he couldn't force them to let her stay. They believed they could protect her better if she was with them."

The man snorted sadly. "They were fools then. I would ha' thought Ian Sinclair knew better than t' try and keep his daughter's secret from that Craig creature."

"They were good people, Sean. Ian had lived here all his life – I think he truly believed that the rest of the community would support him. And surely you'd understand a parent feeling safer with their children close by…."

"Auch, but I can protect Teresa – what did the Sinclair's think they could do? It didn't turn out so well fer them…."

"No."

They fell silent again. There had been another word in that snatch that had alerted something in Wolfsbane. What was it? Sinclair? It meant something, she was sure of that, but she couldn't quite work out what. It was something painful though, something she wished she could drown out by running through the moors or howling at the moon. But why the two people were mentioning it, she had no idea.

Then an insistent ringing noise sounded throughout the building. Brriiinnnng… brriinngg… brrriinnng… it stopped, and a few seconds later a third person joined the couple outside her lair.

"It's those people from the Institute for you Moira." This speaker was the youngest person on the island – the female who was the offspring of the male leader, with the long blonde hair. There was a pause, and then the red-haired female started speaking softly, without any reply as far as Wolfsbane could make out. The younger female joined the male in watching the wolf.

"So there's still no change," she said.

"Naw, cagaran. She's still stuck as a wolf. But I still don't understand why she'd want t' do it."

"Well, it sort of makes sense if you think about it, da: I mean, think about what she's had to go through – hunted by people who were her friends, her parents killed, almost dying herself… If I had to deal with that, I'd be wanting to find any way out of it that I could – I'd be trying to block it out, distance myself from it – so that it happened to someone else, not me. Most of us can't escape from ourselves without going completely crazy – but she's got this escape route, see? As a wolf she's disengaged – the things sort of happened to someone else. She's found away of getting away from it."

"That's quite right, Teresa," said the red-haired female, who'd rejoined the other two. "Dissociation is a common reaction to traumatic events – both from other people and from yourself – it's easiest to withdraw from other people, even withdraw from your own thoughts instead of coping. I think that Rahne has a rather acute case of PTSD."

"So why can't we help her then?" the girl asked.

"The treatments tend to rely on cognitive therapy methods, unfortunately. Talking it over is important – and we're having no luck even with making ourselves understood to her at the moment. And they also tend to involve direct exposure to the traumatic stimulus, and I don't think that we can safely let her see any of the people from her home just yet without putting their lives in danger."

"T'is as much as they deserve," the male muttered.

"Perhaps, but I refuse to have their blood on my hands. And I don't think that it would help Rahne to rediscover her human side at all."

"Naw, yer right. What did Charles have t' say then?"

"He said that the situation over there is as stable as it's going to be for the moment. He agrees with Betsy that telepathy isn't going to be much use in this situation, but he told me he's sending over a team that he thinks may be able to help us. They should be here by tomorrow morning."

"What team?"

"He didn't say very much – only that they had some experience with dealing with this sort of problem…."

NB: Betsy is indeed another canon character, but I'll hold off on my little explanation about her until I actually introduce her properly in a couple of chapters.

cagaran: darling, or dear in Irish Gaelic.