Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with Wolfblood.

Episode Four, Part 2 - "Breaking Point"

"Mam? Dad?" Maddy questioned, her voice utterly confused. Her frown deepened.

Emma and Dan stepped inside wordlessly, their heads now hanging low. They weren't holding hands or looking at anything in particular. Maddy noticed that her mum's face had tear stains on it.

Maddy's mouth opened and closed as she tried to get a sentence out of her mouth, but she was totally lost for words. Her parents had been in Canada just over two weeks ago and they seemed to have their hearts pretty set on staying there and away from civilisation, so why had they come back so soon? And why did they look so…anxious?

"Why…why are you guys here? Not that I'm not happy to see you, I just…why?" She knew there was something wrong.

Maddy's parents turned to face her when they walked in to the kitchen, and they finally looked Maddy in the eyes. But they looked at her reluctantly; like it took everything in them to make eye contact with their daughter.

"Maddy, pet, we had to come back because we have some bad news we have to tell you…" Emma started, standing by the table.
Just at that moment, Rhydian came downstairs. Thankfully he had pulled on some sweatpants and a T-shirt, although his hair was still very tousled. Maddy's cheeks flushed red when she realised that the messiness of his hair was probably down to how she had run her hands through it repeatedly last night.

As soon as Rhydian lifted his head to see who was there, his brow furrowed in confusion and he pulled his head back slightly.

"Mr and Mrs. S? What are you guys doing here?" Rhydian asked, just as confused as Maddy by the bewildered looks on their faces. He walked over to Maddy who was standing by the table and watched as her parents sat down. They sat down opposite them.

"We…we have some bad news," Emma said again. Tears hit her eyes once more. Rhydian and Maddy both noticed.

Maddy looked from her mum to her dad, hoping to find that one of her parents was looking less distraught; unfortunately, Dan looked just as upset as her mum. Maybe even more.

Maddy gripped her chair uncomfortably. "Well? What is it?"

Emma took a deep breath. Her words were shaky. "Maddy, pet, we…um…someone from your aunt's pack down south called us up today. She…she told us that our family – your aunt, uncle and cousins – have all…" her voice cracked as a fresh wave of tears rose in her eyes.

Instinctively, Rhydian took a hold of Maddy's hand and held it tight.

Dan continued for Emma who was now crying again.
"They've been killed, Maddy," his voice was tiny and weak, and Maddy had never heard him like this before. She'd never heard either of them sound so…vulnerable. "Our family has been killed. The woman who told us is one of three in their pack that are left. They barely got away." He wasn't looking her in the eyes. Instead, his eyes were darting around as if the tears were about to fall, as if he was about to fall apart, but he wasn't letting himself.

"Wh...what?" Maddy stammered, a wave of different emotions passing over her in an instant. Rhydian moved his chair closer their arms were crossing as they held hands; he was looking back and forth from Maddy to her parents, a worried and confused look on his face. "How? W-When? Why?"

"It's…a little hard to explain," Dan watched his daughter carefully now. He didn't want to make her feel worse by explaining. "Our family of Wolfbloods goes back hundreds of years; our history, our culture, our values.… But, unfortunately…that means that some bad stuff goes back that far along with the good things.
"Our ancestors had some sort of ancient grudge with a pack of wild Wolfbloods hundreds of years ago, and we thought that they'd all died out centuries ago, but…it turns out there's one left."

"And…he killed our family on his own?" Maddy's eyes were filling with tears now; tears of confusion, grief, sadness…

Emma shrugged miserably. "He's a wild Wolfblood, pet. His family or pack must have been teaching him for years to do this. We're not sure if he had help for it, though. We're not sure on any of the details," she told her cub, leaning over and placing a hand over hers. "I'm so sorry, pet. We didn't want it to be this way."

And then things started to fit together.

The joke Katrina had made yesterday in the Kafe about the family in the south who had been reportedly killed by a wolf.

It wasn't just any family that had been killed. It was Maddy's family.

And it wasn't just a report. It was all true.

Maddy's eyes finally spilled over with tears. She turned her head to face Rhydian, eyes wide, lip quivering. He stared at her with a look on his face that was indescribable.

"Maddy…" he whispered, not really sure what to say as he watched his girlfriend begin to fall apart before his eyes.

Instead of saying anything, Maddy just let out a small sob noise and threw herself at Rhydian, burying her head in to his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as tightly as he could through his own shock and sadness.

She was letting out loud sobs now and Rhydian could feel a patch on his shirt begin to get slightly wet. He didn't know what to say or do; there really was nothing he could say or do to make this better.
Her hands were grabbing on to his shirt over his shoulders, failing to find grip there but not wanting to break Rhydian's touch. It was like she couldn't hold herself up but she was still trying to by holding on to Rhydian. Like, somehow, holding on to him would keep her together when everything around her was falling apart.

Emma and Dan watched as their daughter sobbed in to Rhydian's chest. Dan felt Emma tense; they weren't used to Maddy turning to anyone else for comfort except them. It was a weird feeling, and Emma started feeling slightly protective over her cub. As far as she was concerned, Rhydian had no place being her daughter's first port of call for comfort. They hadn't witnessed anything over the past two weeks of Maddy and Rhydian being by themselves; they weren't used to seeing their cub so attached to someone else.
And Emma couldn't help but notice that Maddy was wearing Rhydian's shirt, the buttons done up slightly off-centre. She had to resist the eyebrow that was threatening to raise.

"I'm so sorry, Mr and Mrs Smith," Rhydian said seriously as he pulled his head away from their daughter's neck, his eyebrows furrowed so deeply that you could barely see his blue eyes. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks, Rhydian," Emma smiled politely at him and then reached for her daughter. "Now, come here, pet. Give us a hug." When Maddy didn't move, Emma froze.

Rhydian didn't know what to do.

"Rhydian, let her go. She needs her mam." Emma said seriously. She didn't want to come across as being pushy, but she also didn't want to watch Rhydian comfort her cub anymore. This was a time of pain for the whole family, and she wasn't sure she was comfortable with Rhydian being in on everything.

Maddy's strained, tear-filled voice came up, muffled from Rhydian's chest. "I don't want to let him go."

"You need your mam," Emma insisted, "a cub always needs her mam in times of pain."

Maddy responded in a way no one thought she would. Instead of sobbing even more, her sadness and grief seemed to turn to anger.

Her eyes went yellow in an instant and she turned to face her mum, her head snapping around at an unbelievable speed.

"I'm not your cub anymore!" She yelled, her voice almost bubbly from the crying. "Stop calling us that!"

"Maddy, pet, I'm not trying to—"

"Stop it! What's so wrong with us turning to Rhydian for comfort!? Ugh!" In a flash, she pushed her chair back and started to storm up the stairs, her feet making a loud stomping noise as she went.

After last night, Maddy was more connected to Rhydian than ever, and he was the comfort she needed for now.

Rhydian watched until she was out of sight and then turned to her parents awkwardly. Maddy always was temperamental; he guessed that the grief of losing not just one family member, but several of them, had already begun taking its toll on Maddy and she was reacting with anger.
If he listened closely, he could hear her heart beating from upstairs. It was fast and irregular, like her breathing was jagged and unstable.

"I'll talk to her." Rhydian mumbled, beginning to get up from his seat.

"No, I'll talk to her." Emma started for the stairs before Rhydian, but then she heard the sound of her daughter's voice come down the stairs from her bedroom.

"No one but Rhydian is talking to us right now."

For a moment, Emma gave Rhydian a look. But he was looking at her so innocently – so worried for Maddy – that she couldn't stop him from going up to see her cub. Maddy needed someone, and if she wasn't going to turn to her own mother, then Emma would just have to let Maddy speak to Rhydian. Her protective instinct could wait.

"Tell her I'm sorry for getting too protective." Emma said quietly to Rhydian before sitting back down again.

Once Rhydian was up the stairs, he slowly pushed open the door to Maddy's room.

He found her lying on her bed on her side, her back to the door and her body jerking every few seconds from crying. A sense of déjà-vu came over him for a moment.

There were still clothes on the floor from last night and the sheets were still messed up, pushed to the bottom of the bed.

"Mads," Rhydian started, his voice soft as he closed the door behind him. "Maddy, come here." He climbed on to her bed and lay on his side. She didn't turn to face him just yet so instead he shuffled closer and put his arm around her waist from behind. "I'm sorry about your family." He left a chaste but slow kiss on her neck.

He heard Maddy sniff and watched as she moved to wipe her nose with her sleeve. Her hair was covering her face so he couldn't really see her expression, but he still lay close to her and kissed the back of her head.

"I didn't mean to storm out," she finally spoke, her voice tiny and weak. "It's just…mam and dad always hassled us about ya before we left Stoneybridge and now they're doing it again. They're not used to sharing us. I guess…they just didn't want to lose out on giving us comfort. They're used to being the ones I turn to."

Rhydian was quiet for a moment before he took a shaky breath and spoke. "I can go if you want. Just for a while. If that'll make it easier between you guys…"

Maddy's hand came down and took a hold of his, lacing their fingers together. "No. I want you to stay."

And finally, after a few more minutes, she slowly turned around so that she was facing him. Pressing her head in to the pillow, she closed her eyes, feeling a few tears spill out as she got herself comfortable (as comfortable as she could on this small bed, anyway).

Rhydian wished he could say something to make it all go away. He'd only just got her back, only just seen her smile again, and now something else from her world was being ripped out from underneath her. He hated seeing her hurting, and he hated that he couldn't make it better.

So instead, he settled for putting his arm around her and letting her bury her head in to his chest. She clenched her fist around his shirt and held on to it as if it were a lifeline.

Maddy sobbed for a while. Rhydian felt the shaking and jerking of her body against his, and after another half hour or so her breathing slowed down, flooding Rhydian with a tiny bit of relief.

"Do you want me to tell your parents that they can come up now?" Rhydian asked quietly in to her ear.

"They're probably listening anyway." Maddy grumbled.

"Do you want to see them?"

"No."

"Are you okay?"

Maddy hesitated. A fresh wave of tears came over her. "No."

Rhydian and Maddy wished now more than ever that she had a bigger bed.

Last night had been bearable, sharing a bed together for the majority of the night, but tonight it wasn't going to be possible. Maddy had the strangest feeling of being closed in – it had been there since about a half hour after she got the news – and as much as she wanted to be near Rhydian, she didn't want to share a tiny bed with him.

And anyway, they didn't exactly want to highlight to Emma and Dan what they had done last night. So they decided to try and keep as low of a profile as possible.

Emma and Dan had been okay with the couple sharing a bed in Canada, but mainly just because Rhydian had nowhere else to sleep, and the bed was big enough. But here, Maddy and Rhydian got the strangest feeling that her parents might suddenly not be okay with it; especially after the way Emma had been with Rhydian earlier that day.

So instead, he went through to his own room at about midnight, after having comforted Maddy as much as he could.

Maddy didn't want him to leave her alone. She was already hurting enough and not having Rhydian near her made her miss him and his comfort. But it was something they had to deal with for a number of reasons.

She sat up in bed after he'd left the room and put her head against the wall. Their rooms were connected by this wall and both of the heads of their beds were up against each other behind the wall. For a while she listened as he got ready for bed, waiting until she could tell he was in bed and the light was off.

"Rhydian," Maddy whispered. "Rhydian, can ya hear me?"

"Yeah," she heard him whisper back. He sat up in bed and leaned the side of his head against the bedroom wall. "Are you okay?"

"Not really. I want to be with ya."

"I know," Rhydian sighed and folded his arms over his chest. "I want to be with you too."

"Especially after last night," Maddy couldn't hold back a small grin and she bit her bottom lip.

Rhydian chuckled. "Definitely after last night."

"Too bad me parents had to come and ruin it. Mam is driving me up the wall."

"They had no choice, Mads. They had to come... They had to tell you."

"I know." She sighed.

"I can sneak through if you want."

Maddy shook her head, even though he couldn't see her, and she leaned her forehead on the cold wall. "Me parents will know. Somehow they always do. And anyway, I don't feel so well."

"What's wrong?"

"I just feel closed in. It's weird, especially because it's the full moon really soon."

"That is weird," he agreed, "maybe you're just tired though."

"Maybe."

For a moment Rhydian stayed silent. His eyes were closed as he turned so it was his forehead against the wall, and somehow he could feel that she was doing the same on the other side.

"I want to kiss you right now," Rhydian said out of the blue, his voice low and serious. He just suddenly felt the need to kiss her.

"I want to kiss you too." She breathed.

A beat of silence passed over them before Rhydian spoke again. "School starts tomorrow."

"I know,"

"Do you think you should go? After the news you just got?"

"I don't know. I'll wait and see what me parents think."

And they went on like this for a while, just talking. Soon they both fell asleep, but it was all Maddy needed, just to hear his voice for a while. It calmed her down.

But the pain in her chest was still there, and the feeling of being closed in had worsened.

A/N: SEASON FOUR. SEASON FOUR. THERE IS A SEASON FOUR. THERE IS GOING TO BE A SEASON FOUR. I AM NOT CALM.

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. I keep remembering at random moments that it's actually happening and then get all excited all over again. :') Are you guys excited for it!?

Anyway, thank you for your amazing, amazing reviews on the last chapter. I hope this chapter didn't disappoint! Please do leave a review to let me know what you thought. And also what you hope to see in the actual season four that IS HAPPENING. :D

Love :* xxx