Disclaimer: I do not own Wolfblood.
Episode Two - "Home Comforts"
This chapter is a whole episode.
"Mam? Dad?" Maddy said tentatively, walking down the stairs and in to the kitchen. Her parents were sitting on the sofa reading together.
"Yeah?" Emma replied, not looking up from her book.
Maddy and Rhydian walked in front of them. Maddy perched herself on the edge of the sofa opposite her parents and Rhydian tentatively sat on the arm of the couch, not wanting to get too comfortable in case all hell broke loose when they suggested their idea of going home by themselves.
"So…we wanted to talk to you about going home," Maddy started, her voice quite hesitant. Emma looked up at her from above her reading glasses without moving her head and raised her eyebrows.
"We already made up our minds, Maddy. You know that." She said gently.
"I know, but…"
Emma nudged Dan to get his attention and he took the hint, removing his glasses and putting his book to the side. Emma did the same, and then Maddy continued. "I'm really missing home more than I ever thought I would, and I know you guys think it's safer for us out here but it's just…it's not home, you know? It's not where we belong…"
"We belong where it's safe, Madeline," Emma said, looking at her daughter pointedly.
"We belong in Stoneybridge."
"What exactly are you implying, Maddy?" Dan questioned.
Maddy took a deep breath, biting her bottom lip for a moment before letting the breath out. "If you want to stay out here, then we want to go back to Stoneybridge.… On our own. Just us."
An ominous silence came upon the room as Maddy's parents stared at her, glancing between her and Rhydian, their eyebrows raised incredulously.
From where Rhydian was sitting, his arms resting on his legs and his head hanging low, he sensed Emma's eyes settling on him for good. Tentatively, he looked up, barely moving his head.
"Was this your idea, Rhydian? Are you putting these ridiculous ideas in my daughter's head?" Emma asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.
Rhydian took a breath to speak but Maddy spoke before he had the chance, putting her hand on his leg as a defence.
"Oh no you don't, don't turn this around on Rhydian," Maddy exclaimed. "This was not Rhydian's decision—and even if it was him, what does that matter!? It's what I want to do too, so you should accept that. I knew you'd have this reaction! Why do you always blame it on Rhydian!?"
Rhydian suddenly felt ten times more awkward.
Dan tried to calm the situation down. "Maddy, it's not that we don't accept it, it's just that we don't think you guys are ready to live on your own…"
"You guys have paid the mortgage off, so all we'd have to worry about is bills. Rhydian can sell his drawings, I can get a job…we'll be fine!"
"No you won't, Maddy," Emma insisted. "You're still just a cub; you can't live on your own!"
"I'm not a cub!" Maddy exploded. "How many times do I have to tell you that!? And did you ever stop to think that Rhydian trekked all through the mountains by himself for weeks before he found us? And Jana practically babysat Ceri at our house whilst we were away. We can do this!"
"Mrs. Smith, if you'll just let us try this…" Rhydian tried to be the calm one, but Emma wasn't having any of it.
"Rhydian, this doesn't concern you."
"Well actually, mam, it kind of does," Maddy defended her boyfriend, her hand still on his leg. Rhydian's hand came down and put it on top of hers. "We're our own people now; we can do what we want."
"No, you can't. You will never make it work."
"Well, thanks so much for that faith."
"Stop being so snarky!" Emma exclaimed. "We are not letting you go back there on your own!"
For a moment, Maddy stared at her parents, her breathing slightly increased. Rhydian's grip on her hand tightened and she looked up at him for a moment. He nodded once, and that's when she knew what to do.
Follow her heart.
"Well, even if you don't want us to go, we're going. This is what we have to do; it's where we belong. I'm thinking about Rhydian here, too; we can't keep him away from his home like this either!"
"We gave Rhydian the offer of going back home and he didn't take it. That's not our responsibility!"
"Oh, would you stop going on about responsibility!" Maddy almost yelled. "Rhydian is my boyfriend; my best friend, my Alpha and I have to consider him too. Isn't that the mature thing to do?"
Emma took a deep breath, watching her now worked up daughter. Maddy's eyes were on the verge of turning yellow; clearly she felt really strongly about this.
"So? Are you going to let us go?" Maddy questioned, eyebrows raised.
"Well, it seems you're going to go anyway, whether we let you or not." Dan said.
"We are."
Maddy's parents both took deep breaths and looked at each other warily, Emma chewing her lip and Dan's eyebrows furrowed slightly. And then they turned back to their daughter and Emma shrugged lightly.
"I guess we can't stop you, can we?" She said. A tiny smile tugged on Maddy's lips. "Just make sure you say hi to your friends for us, won't you?"
Maddy grinned and so did Rhydian, and Maddy shot up from the sofa to bring her parents in to a large group hug.
"We'll come visit," she said over their shoulders. "And you can visit us."
Rhydian smiled nostalgically at the last words he had said to the pack back in Stoneybridge and watched as Maddy let her parents go, all of them smiling bittersweetly.
Maddy turned to Rhydian and broke out in to a grin. Rhydian laughed, accepting her hug when she came over.
Rhydian and Maddy took the first flight out of Canada and to London the next day. Her parents had supplied them with a bit of extra money and permission to use their savings bank account from back home if it was absolutely needed. Turns out the mortgage had been paid off for years and over that time they'd been saving the money they would have spent on it and put it in the bank, meaning there was quite a lot in there in case Maddy and Rhydian should need it.
Rhydian didn't know where Jana was now – whether she was still in Stoneybridge, where she was living, things like that – but he hoped that Ceri and his dad might be willing to stay with them for a while. It would look weird, Maddy coming back to live on her own without her parents, but if Rhydian stayed with her and Ceri or Gerwin was their legal guardian, it might just work out. He knew he was old enough to make his own decisions now, but he just wanted to be sure that social services wouldn't be tempted to intervene.
Rhydian hoped that things would work in their favour.
Maddy seemed quite nervous about returning. Rhydian noticed her palms getting a little sweaty as the aeroplane's engines started up on the runway, and her breathing increased a bit. At first he thought it was just nerves of being back in civilisation and heading back to old ways, but once the plane was in the sky, Maddy seemed to worsen.
It was like she was about to faint, but she never did, and Rhydian was only able to let this happen for a short while before finally saying something.
"Maddy, are you alright?" Rhydian asked quietly, hoping people couldn't hear him over the loud breaths she was taking.
Maddy's head snapped up and she stared at him with wild eyes, her breathing heavy. "We've made a huge mistake," she breathed.
"What? Why?"
"I can't do this, Rhydian; we have to go back,"
"We can't go back; the plane is in the sky, like, right now."
"We have to!"
"Why!?"
Maddy hesitated before exploding quietly. "Because I've never done anything or gone anywhere without my parents, okay!?" She admitted, clearly a bit embarrassed by how anxious this was making her. And then she exhaled loudly, letting her head fall back on to the seat.
Rhydian watched as her chest rose and fell quickly, her eyes open and staring up at the roof of the aeroplane. His forehead was wrinkled, his whole face intense as he sat up and away from the seat.
"I've never done anything like this before," she said, breaking the tense silence between the two. "What if something goes wrong? We can't call them because they have no phones, and even if they did, it would be no good anyway! We can't do this, Rhydian, we have to go back."
Rhydian watched her for another few moments. He sighed through his nose, leaning back against the seat and reaching over to take her hand in his. Her palms were still sweating.
"We've worked a million things out on our own before," he reminded her softly, smoothing his thumb over the top of her hand.
Maddy sighed. "I know, but I'm just scared that something really bad will happen and I won't be able to save the situation. This is such a huge step in to something so unknown…"
"It'll be alright, Maddy," Rhydian smiled very softly, giving her hand a squeeze. "I'll look after you."
Maddy turned her head to look at her boyfriend. He was looking at her so sincerely, so supportively, and it made her feel at peace for a moment.
"I know you will." She breathed, squeezing his hand back before leaning over and giving him a tight one-armed hug.
Rhydian buried his head in to her shoulder and kissed her neck lightly.
"We can do this, okay?" He said. Maddy felt his voice against her skin. "I won't let anything bad happen to you."
Ten hours later, the aeroplane finally touched down in London Heathrow. Maddy's grip on Rhydian's hand was extremely tight for the rest of the day as they called for a taxi to take them to the train station, got a train to Newcastle and then another to Stoneybridge. She didn't let his hand go the whole time; luckily they didn't have much luggage to carry at all.
When they finally arrived in to the familiar town and made their way through the woods towards Maddy's house, it was 10pm. Rhydian's phone was on and working for the first time in weeks; he had a few texts from his friends but not many because they all knew he didn't have signal in Canada.
Maddy unlocked the front door to her old house. When she stepped inside, she took a huge breath in and finally let go of Rhydian's hand. She was home again. Finally.
It still smelled the same (if not scented slightly from Ceri and Jana) and it was surprisingly warm inside considering no one had been in the house for a good few weeks.
"Home," Maddy whispered, inhaling the familiar scents and grinning at all of the home comforts sitting right in front of her. "Home."
"It was never the same without you here." Rhydian commented, smiling and watching as she frantically walked around the room, a huge grin on her face. She seemed to be exploring every single part of the downstairs of the house, inhaling every scent and touching every surface. She'd missed it so much.
The next place Maddy visited was upstairs; she practically charged up the stairs and burst in to the bathroom.
"We have a bath again," she said happily. "A bath!"
Rhydian chuckled, leaning against the door frame. "You can bath to your hearts content."
"I will."
Maddy pushed past Rhydian and ran to her bedroom door, the excitement overtaking her as she stood there for a moment before pushing it open. Her room looked just the same as it always had; her pictures were still just as she had left them and the duvet cover was the same as it was the last time she'd slept in it.
The first light she turned on was the lamp by her bed, leaving the room in a dim light but light enough to see everything she needed to.
She turned to Rhydian, who was biting his lip.
"You know what we need to do, right?" Rhydian asked.
Maddy grinned, stepping towards him and snaking her arms around his neck. "Kiss for a while to celebrate coming home?"
Rhydian chuckled and pressed a quick kiss to her lips before pulling away again. "Yes, but not yet. We need to tell Shan and Tom that we're here."
"Oh my gosh," her smile widened. "I can't wait to see them. This is so exciting."
"Shall I text them?"
Maddy nodded quickly and watched as Rhydian pulled his phone out from his pocket.
Shannon and Tom were sitting in Shannon's living room watching a movie when Shannon's phone went off. Lazily she pulled it out from her pocket and was just about to put it back again uninterestedly before she realised who the text was from.
"Tom," Shannon said quietly, nudging him slightly. He must have drifted off during the movie. "Tom."
Tom awoke with a jolt and looked irritated that she had woken him up, but when he saw the strange and wary look in her eye, he frowned and leaned forward.
"What is it?" He asked.
"It's a text…from Rhydian," her eyes were slightly wide behind her glasses.
Tom was instantly confused. "But Rhydian doesn't have phone signal in Canada…"
Shannon nodded once. "Exactly."
And then she turned back to her phone and opened the text, anticipation rising in her stomach. Neither her nor Tom wanted to get their hopes up about this; for all they knew, Rhydian could still be in Canada after just finding some random phone signal. But still, both of them had the tiniest glint of hope in their eyes, wishing for all the world that this text would say what they wanted it to say.
It did.
We're home.
Shannon nearly dropped the phone as she gasped and stood up excitedly.
"What did it say!?" Tom exclaimed, even more confused now. He stood up and tried to look over his girlfriend's shoulder, but she was jumping up and down slightly. "You didn't let me read it!"
Handing him the phone forcefully, she watched as his face straightened out as he read the text. And then he grinned widely, dropping the phone on the sofa behind him.
He stared at Shannon excitedly. "Did he say…'we're home'? Who's we?"
"Maddy! He must be home with Maddy!" Shannon laughed, ecstatic, and threw herself at Tom, wrapping her arms around him in an excited hug. "I can't believe it! Tom, they're home!"
And straight away after pulling out of her boyfriend's arms, she lunged for her phone and pressed the 'call' button on her screen next to Rhydian's name.
Rhydian finished the text and threw his phone down on Maddy's bed.
"Where were we?" He smirked before leaning in and kissing Maddy softly. Maddy brought her hands down to sit on his chest and his found their way around her waist. Their lips were moving together slowly, softly; the kind of kiss that made both of them want to melt in to this moment forever and never leave.
Rhydian brought Maddy as close as he could to him and she sighed happily, a grin working its way on to her lips. Finally she was home; back where she belonged. And the best part of it all was that she was here with her Alpha.
Just as Rhydian's hands were finding their way to her lower back, his phone rung suddenly on the bed beside them, making Maddy jump. She pulled away from Rhydian a little, slightly out of breath as she stared at the phone.
"It's Shannon," she said. Her lips were slightly swollen. "She'll want to talk to me."
Just as Maddy was about to reach for the phone, Rhydian put his arms around her waist again and pulled her back in, arms and all.
"She can wait," he whispered. "For now, I just want to do this…"
Maddy only had a second to smile before he kissed her again.
His lips came away from hers and he kissed along her jaw line, up her neck and just under her earlobe.
"I'm glad we came back," he murmured, his nose nuzzling her warm skin.
Maddy's hands came up to the back of his neck. Her hands tangled in his hair tightly and her eyes were closed as he kissed her neck again.
"Me too." She whispered just before his lips connected with hers once more.
And soon, the ringing phone on the bed beside them was long forgotten.
Maddy awoke in the middle of the night. Looking at the clock, she realised it was 4am; she'd been in bed for three hours now.
Initially the plan had been to come home and go to bed straight away, but she and Rhydian were just so happy to be back here together that they couldn't leave each others sides. They would have slept in the same bed if they could but Maddy's bed was far too narrow.
So instead they'd kissed for a while and then stayed up talking, holding each other as close as possible on top of Maddy's bed. In Canada they hadn't had as much time to talk as they would have liked; things were weirdly busy out there, what with finding food and preparing it and trying to keep the house in a remotely good state. Not to mention having Maddy's parents around all the time; never giving them a chance for a private conversation.
Rhydian had gone in to the spare room at about 1am, leaving Maddy to head to sleep. She was exhausted.
And the minute her head hit the pillow, she had fallen asleep right away.
Being awake at 4am was definitely not a part of the plan, though. She hoped she'd be able to get back to sleep, but a lot of things were going through her head, so it didn't seem very likely.
But oh boy was she glad to be back home again.
A/N: Hi hi :)
You guys are amazing, thank you so, so much for reading and for all your wonderful reviews. Just...thank you. I can't tell you how happy it makes me!
I hope you liked this chapter. As always, thoughts are appreciated!
Oh, and to answer one of the guests' questions from last week (I would reply privately but can't reply to guest reviewers:():
How often do you think you'll update? Once a week? - Probably once a week, yes. I try not to go over a week between chapters! Hopefully I'll come up with some kind of routine eventually :)
How old are Rhydian and Maddy now? - Rhydian would have been 16 when he left for Canada in the show. But Idk, I feel like he should be 17 now at least :/ So for this story let's just say he's 16/17 and Maddy, being a few months younger in my head, will still be 16. They would be older if it weren't for the actual ages on the show; I want it to be as accurate as possible. :)
Love :* xxx