Sorry for the super slow update! I have been away for a few weeks but I have managed to get a bit of writing done and I have a more solid plan for this story now so the updates should be much more frequent...please forgive me! Hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think :) xxx
Snow woke the next morning feeling like she'd slept for a century, something she hadn't felt for a long time. Probably all this fresh air she thought as she combed her hair roughly and eyed the opening of her tent. Poking her head out she found Bigby in his human form flicking through her textbooks. Crap! Why didn't I take it in the tent with me!?
She stumbled out of the tent with very little elegance and rushed over to where he was sitting, totally unsure of how mad he was going to be with her. He had watched her slowly plant herself on the floor in front of him and then pointedly went back to reading the chapter he was on. "This is pretty interesting reading" he said shortly and she wanted to cringe, "you would rather read a book about wolves than trust me to help you?" Her eyes widened in shock and she swore she could actually feel his hurt swirling around her head. "Of course not! I trust you more than anyone!" His featured softened a little from the stony wall he had put up and she leaned forward a little and took the offending book from his hands, snapping it shut and tossing it on top of the charred remains of last night's fire. "I'm sorry Bigby...it was inconsiderate of me. Can you forgive me?" She reached out and squeezed his hand with her cool fingers and he was unable to resist her smile. He nodded and they managed to pass the morning in higher spirits than they had started with.
Snow spent the morning firing questions at Bigby at an alarming rate as they hiked around the woods that surrounded their campsite. She was sure most of them didn't really apply to her as she had shown no sign of transformations but she felt his mood increase by the minute as he described the finer points of life as a wolf. After a few hours they stopped for rest by a river bank and refuelled. In between questions Bigby had been testing Snow's new senses, could she pick out certain scents, what she could hear in the distance and so on. As she drained a bottle of water he stared into the distance, seemingly lost in thought. "Something on your mind Wolf-man?" she said as she repacked her little rucksack which was much lighter now that lunch had been eaten. He snapped awake from his daze and looked at her for a moment. "I think you should try morphing" he said slowly, as if nervous about what she might think. She fiddled with the straps on her bag and folded her arms across her chest. "I really don't think it's going to work Bigby. I'm sure it would have happened by now..." Before he could respond she began marching down the hill and back towards the campsite. "Is there something wrong with being a wolf?" He said a little breathlessly as he had to run to catch up with her angry strides. "Of course not!" She huffed, "But it's not who I am! I don't want to live like this all the time. I like working and living in the city, and I'm certainly not the hunting type!" She kept marching, unaware that he had stopped trying to catch up with her until she was a good few meters away. He looked annoyed and she bit her tongue a little, she didn't want to offend him although from the looks of things she already had.
"So having to be a man and a wolf is good enough for me, but not good enough for you? Is that it?" he said walking towards her a little. She rolled her eyes at him and placed her hands on her hips. "Don't be ridiculous Bigby! You had the choice to be both remember? You were more than welcome to stay as you were but you wanted to come and live with us!" He reached her and they stood almost nose to nose, "I was attacked by some lunatic and now I have to face the possibility that everything about me is going to change." She was surprised to feel tears prickling at her eyes and she spun away from him as her face flushed. His scent filled her nose again and she closed her eyes feeling completely overwhelmed by him. He sighed heavily and walked around so they were face to face again, and she looked up into his amber eyes. "I'm sorry Bigby, I just feel so helpless...I'm not really used to that feeling." She felt a stray tear fall onto her cheek and he wiped it away with a rough thumb. "I get it Snow, honest. It took a long time for me to get used to this life. I don't know if I am even now. But what I do know is that you can't keep fighting it, it just makes it harder." He wiped a few more tears away and she gave him a watery smile. "I suppose you're right as usual..." she said and huffed a little to try and steady herself as his warm hands left her cheeks and he held on to her arms. "Can I get that in writing?" He said with a small smile and squeezed her elbows. She laughed and swatted his chest hoping he wasn't aware of how much she wanted to bury her nose in his chest and hide there for as long as possible. Instead she rested her hands on his strong forearms and gently pushed him away and began to walk more slowly this time back to camp. Before his hands slipped away however she locked her arm into his and they walked quietly together until they reached the familiar campsite again.
"Ok...I guess I should try this then" she said quietly as she let her bag drop to the floor with a heavy thud. She looked at Bigby expectantly waiting for some kind of instruction and was surprised to see him flush a little. "You might want to...undress" he said thickly and he began scratching the back of his neck. She felt herself flush a little but she couldn't help giggling at his discomfort and she kept chuckling until she was on the other side of the tent. "Turn around then!" She said as she began undressing, keeping both eyes on the back of the Sheriff's head ready to duck if he got any funny ideas. She felt a cool breeze float over her and she felt utterly moronic standing naked in the middle of a field so she held her shirt over her upper half. "Ok I'm ready; you can turn around but don't try peeking!" He chuckled but he seemed more uncomfortable about it that she did. His eyes cemented themselves on her face and she got the feeling he was trying very hard not to look anywhere else. Straightening the shirt a little more she shrugged her shoulders. "So what now? Is there a trick to this?" He thought for a moment and then started pacing around the blackened ash of the fire. He had obviously never had to explain what came so naturally to him before, but she was getting colder by the second. Finally he turned to her and said, "Close your eyes." She raised an eyebrow but relented, willing to give almost anything a try. "Try and imagine yourself as a wolf. Maybe imagine hunting something or just running through the woods. That normally works for me."
She jammed her eyes shut tighter and did as he said but she felt nothing except the growing cold and the odd prickling sensation that washed over her skin. She suddenly felt an ache in her legs and she crouched slowly down to the ground, trying to relieve the tension in her muscles. She let the shirt fall and rested her hands on the ground and tried to focus on the image and her breathing. She suddenly felt a wave of heat wash over her and her head felt like it was swimming. She was vaguely aware of Bigby talking to her but she couldn't process what he was saying. She tried to open her eyes again but her vision was just white until she felt herself come into contact with the soft earth beneath her and suddenly it was over.
When she woke the sky above her was a soft purple, and completely clear of clouds. She must have been asleep for hours! Bigby suddenly appeared next to her, his face full of concern although he seemed relieved that she was awake at least. "Did it work?" she said with a groggy voice as she slowly tried to sit up, remembering at the last moment that she was naked under the blanket he had wrapped around her and she held it tightly to her chest. "Yes. But not particularly well as you can probably gather" he said and handed her bottle of water as she inspected her arms which were still as pale and human-looking as before. "So what happened?" She said after a long gulp and he began scratching the back of his neck again, which he normally reserved for when he had to tell her bad news at work. "Spill it wolf-man" she said and readjusted her blanket so she could sit up straight. He got up and collected her clothes and began to describe how she had passed out and the following hours she had spent morphing between wolf and human form and how he had been unable to wake her the entire time. She felt so guilty for making him worry, but even more concerned at the state she had been in. "I can't believe it...Did that happen to you ever?" He shook his head and began working on the fire as she slowly dressed herself. "Not that I'm aware of. Although if it only happens during sleep, who knows..." She slowly got to her feet and took a few wobbly steps around the fire and stretched her aching muscles. "Was I as big as you?" she said, grinning a little and he couldn't help but chuckle at her. "It takes a lot of eating to get as big as the Big Bad Wolf...but you had much prettier fur." She smiled and sat next to him watching the fire grow slowly larger as it engulfed her little book that she had thrown on their earlier that morning. She ran her hands through her hair and sighed as she looked at her sheriff, clearly lost in thought. "We have to leave tomorrow...I don't know how much I've learnt about being a wolf but it's been nice to have a break." He smiled a little and began cooking another meal for her, which he had obviously hunted and prepared all the time she had been asleep. "I can't say it's been the most relaxing..." he started and she whacked his arm gently, "but anything is better than those stale Chinese takeout boxes." She nodded and nudged him a little, "You know, if you cleaned your apartment that would probably go away Bigby..."
They spent another pleasant evening chatting and eating, and Snow was surprised to find herself dreading going home the next day. She had never spent this much time alone with the sheriff and she would never have expected to become so comfortable with him. She knew it would have to stop when they got home, the pressures of work kept her safe from having to deal with relationships and she was sure Bigby felt the same. She often thought about his outburst after he thought she had died, and even her own feelings at nearly losing him seem to have propelled them closer together, but it would just be too complicated she was sure. She suddenly felt compelled to ask him what she had been holding back on for the past few weeks. "Bigby? Why can I smell you more than others?" He raised his eyebrows suddenly in surprise, but quickly lowered them as if to feign confusion. "It's probably just my cigarettes" he said with a non-committal shrug, but if she had looked at him properly, she would have noticed his eyes brightening a little and a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Instead she stared more intently at the flames and shook her head. "No it's not that. It's like I can tell how you can feel just through your smell...is that insane?" She finally looked at him and he just smiled at her. "It's just a wolf thing. If there is another wolf or person even that you have an affinity with...or whatever then their scent is sometimes a bit stronger." She stared at him in disbelief and suddenly wished she had kept her stupid mouth shut. I have an affinity or whatever with Bigby? She eyed him suspiciously as he began chewing on a hunk of meat, obviously trying to avoid her glare. "What about you?" He looked around as if she could have been talking to anyone else and he brushed the air trying to wave off her question. "I don't know Snow, it's hard to say." She was getting mad now. "Bigby, don't leave me sitting here feeling like a fool. Tell me the truth or I'll make you suffer." She could tell he wasn't too sure whether she was joking or not so he chucked the last of his dinner into the fire and wiped his hands on his shorts, trying to ignore how nervous he clearly was. "Jesus Christ Snow..." he muttered but she just waited for his answer, trying to ignore the odd feeling in her stomach like a balloon was being inflated and this pressure was going to make her burst. He took and deep breath and looked at her with quite a fierce stare that took her by surprise, but not as much as his answer did.
"It's you, Snow. From the minute we met it was always you."