Hello hello.

I'm sorry, I've been distracted. :(

To much is going on in the world of me. I'm remembering with fondness the days in which I didn't have a social life. Planning and organising is hard and frustrating. And then there's been the new Glee episodes, and the end of True Blood season four, (any other fans reading this, know it took me days to get over!)

On the plus side, longer chapter! Kinda filler, but with bits and pieces of plot! I know, shock and surprise!

Anyway, thanks for reading guys. :) Hugs for all!

I don't own Glee, and I have no beta. Please tell me about any mistakes.

Friendship and Instincts

"Wren! Are you alright?" I glanced up to find Kurt and Mercedes rushing down the hallway towards me.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I smiled, confused "Why?"

The divas glanced at each other, then back to me. Okay, what was going on?

"Santana overheard the football jocks talking about giving you a Dumpster Dive, so Finn, Puck, Mike, Sam and Artie headed out there to protect you, or kick their asses if they were too late. But when they got there, the meatheads where leaving, muttering something about a ninja and Azimo Adams was helping Travis Furlo to the nurse. What happened?" Kurt finished his explanation and they both crossed their arms.

I felt my face flush. "Oh… well… that. I… um, yeah." I chuckled nervously, pushing my fingers through my loose hair.

What I'd done had been really stupid, and if Devlin found out about it, I was in trouble. Big trouble. I knew that, but I'd still acted with all the impulse control of an amateur hunter. Just because it had been fun to burst the bubbles of those bullying butt-faces.

I internally winced. Did I really just think that? How immature was I? What had this place done to me? Oh well, it had been fun, and I'd probably do it again…even though it had been really dumb.

"I… well, about that..."

"Spit it out, girl!" Mercedes snapped.

"I didn't get thrown in the dumpster." I shrugged, grinning guiltily. They didn't stop glaring. Darn.

"Okay, they surrounded me and I fought my way out. Furlo was an unfortunate casualty of my frantic fighting. I don't know about 'ninja', but I like to think I held my own." I smiled. Buy it. Please buy it.

Their stares didn't waver for a moment, and I briefly considered legging it.

"Did they hurt you?" They screeched together. "Fighting against them is almost always a sure way to get killed! What were you thinking? Are you alright?"

I sighed in relief. They bought it. With any luck, I could discredit any tales the footballers would spread and my cover would be safe. And no one would call Z with complaints. And he wouldn't redirect those calls to Dev. And my ass would remain un-verbally-kicked. Win-win-win-win.

"I'm fine, Furlo was the only one who got close to me. I don't think the others wanted to get within range of my spastic-flying fists."

"Wren, we know you like to play the hero, but you've got to choose your fights better. Those guys are huge and don't have much going on in the brain area. They could really hurt you." Kurt just sounded so concerned. It really hurt to lie to him like this. I hated it.

"I'm fine, Kurt. Really. Look at me." I spread my arms wide, letting him see I was unhurt. And look they did, their eyes flying wide.

"What are you wearing?"

I glanced down. "The clothes we bought." I said, confused.

"That is not an outfit we picked out. What have you done? Come on!" They started to frog march me away, assumingly to undo whatever mishap I had committed to my clothes.

Glancing skyward, I mentally begged for a way out. Quickly.

"Excuse me?"

Thank you, unknown sky entity.

We turned, Kurt and Mercedes tensing, me relaxing.

Dave Karofsky stood behind us, nervously shuffling his feet and looking anywhere but at Kurt. I had to smile. It was really cute.

"Do you think I could talk to you?" He said, eyes locking on mine.

I nodded, making to pull away from my friends, when Mercedes stepped in front of us, pushing both Kurt and me behind her.

"Hell. No. Meathead. There's no way you're getting near them. After all the stuff you've pulled on Kurt, and with Santana over hearing you this morning talking about Dumpstering Wren? I don't think so."

Dave was the one overheard? That was odd. Dave was seasoned at this sort of thing and certainly not stupid enough to let his plans get out like that. The only explanation that came to mind made me smile.

"Mercy," I put my hand on her shoulder, stepping around her. "It's okay. I'll talk to him."

"Are you crazy?" She hissed.

"I'm not scared of him, and I'd rather know if anything was going down. I'll be fine, I promise. You two go to class and I'll catch up. Okay?" I smiled reassuringly, pulling away towards David.

Kurt stared at me, questions swimming in his eyes. I nodded to him and he nodded back. "Come on, Mercedes. We should go."

"But Kurt–"

"I think Wren can look after herself. I trust her. Come on." And with that, he pulled the reluctant singer away, though he did glance over his shoulder. Once to clench his jaw in worry at me, and once to glare threateningly at Dave. To be honest, I didn't blame Dave for biting his lip and avoiding Kurt's eye. That boy can glare.

Shaking my head slightly, I turned to face the uncomfortable teenager. He shifted from foot to foot, glancing around the hallway until Kurt was out of sight, and even then, he only relaxed slightly.

"So, what's up?" I asked.

"Listen, I'm sorry. For this morning. I told them it was a stupid idea, but they didn't exactly listen to me, and I know I shouldn't have been there anyway, but when I said we shouldn't do it, Harrison called me out on it and Az looked at me, like something was up, and I couldn't let them suspect anything, and they told me they were just going to threaten you, and I figured that, it was you. You didn't even blink when I threatened you, and I was all up in your face, so I thought you wouldn't be phased by a bit of grandstanding. You'd probably just laugh it off. But then they went further, and I'm sorry." He gushed. Very quickly.

I smiled softly. "Feel better?" I asked.

He blinked. "Yeah, a little."

"Good." I touched his arm, pulling back a bit when he tensed. "Dave, I'm not mad at you. No, I don't think you should have been there, but it was clear you didn't want to be, and, while I don't approve of peer pressure, you are under a lot of it. It's up to you break the hold it has on you, but I get that you're not quite there yet. And it's not like those idiots posed any threat to me." I smiled darkly to myself.

No, bad Wren. Showing them up was not okay and will get you in trouble with His Royal Pain-in-the-Butt.

"So, no, I'm not mad at you."

He sighed and gave me a relieved grin. "That was pretty bad-ass though. I mean, you where like flying!"

"Shhh!" I waved my hands at him in a 'shut up' motion, glancing quickly down the deserted hallway. "Don't tell anyone! It was really stupid of me to do that and it can't get out that I can fight. I have to spread a different story and discredit the original account."

"Why? It was seriously cool, and it'll be good for them to know it's on their heads to mess with you."

"Let's just say, I'm not supposed to fight at school, and I'll get in a lot of trouble with my bro–…family if I do."

"Oh." He noticed my slip. Crap. "You'll get grounded or something?"

Bah! I'm already grounded. Grounded and tortured for a year and a half.

"Yeah, something like that." I smiled.

"That's cool. I'll back up your story." He shrugged. "We can say you're a gymnast or something, if they spread the flipping story around before yours, which is likely. For 'manly men' they gossip like old ladies. Though, Az and Travis won't want it known to much that they were beaten by a little slip of a girl, no offence" He smirked. "So they'll probably back up your story as well, once they hear it."

I laughed. "Yeah, they seem overly concerned with reputation, which could work out well for me here."

Dave lowered his gaze, glancing at the floor. "Yeah, they are." He said.

I winced. Damnit. "How are you holding up, anyway?"

"I'm fine. Pretty good." He brightened a bit. "I stopped bullying people. Especially…" Trailing off he bit his lip again.

"Yeah… I noticed. That's good." I smiled at him again. God, awkward silences suck. "You know, if you ever want to talk about it… or anything, really…"

"Yeah, that's cool." He met my eyes head on. "Thank you."

"It's alright." I said.

"Anyway, we should get to class. What do you have now?" Dave asked.

"Umm, Math, I think." Gesturing blindly down the hallway. He nodded.

"I'll walk you there."

And off we went. Possibly the strange start of a friendship. Maybe. To be honest, I was just going with my instincts, this social thing was still eluding me for the most part. Maybe I could get someone to explain it to me at some point. But for now, I glanced at the boy walking beside me, silent and slightly brooding. His aura twitched and changed every which way with emotions he was feeling, and ones so deep he wasn't even aware of them. He'd made a start, and for that, I was thankful.

~o0O.O0o~

Kurt didn't press me for too many details when I got to class. He asked if I was alright, what had happened and if I was sure I knew what I was doing, talking with Karofsky. I think he trusted me though when I told him I was fine, we just talked and I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted his help, but I didn't want to betray Dave's confidence by telling Kurt everything. I think, for the first time, I realised the position I had put myself in. Crap. Anyway, I told Kurt that I thought Dave wasn't that bad a guy, that he's just made some bad choices and did some stupid things, and I thought he was going through some major stuff right now.

Although, I did notice that Kurt's aura changed when I spoke about Dave. Fear and worry where still the reigning champions, mixed in with anger and bitterness, but underneath it all, I saw swirls of understanding. And a little pity.

I decided then and there, Dave didn't need to know that. The last thing he would want to hear was that Kurt Hummel pitied him. That one, I was defiantly keeping to myself.

That night I hunted, my mind open to the world around me, searching for signs of Vampire activity. And there was none. Not even a hint.

It unnerved me. Even if there where no vamps in the area, there would have been signs. They had passed through here in the past, not often, but it had happened. Old indications I'd noticed days ago, where now missing. The town had been scrubbed clean, I realised.

Shit.

Something was going down.

But there were no vamps. I couldn't feel any. Not even a twinge.

And it pissed me off.

I reported in to Z when I got home, keeping my suspicions to myself. Just in case it was him, or Dev that had cleaned the town to test/mess with me. If it was, I swore, I was going to nail their feet to the ground and go nuts on them with a battle-axe.

But I was uneasy. I'd been trained to trust my instincts and they were screaming at me that something was happening. I just didn't know what. So I settled down to sleep.

As I closed my eyes, I knew, on some level, I was in for a rough night.

Memories I hated responded to my nerves and, as I drifted off, my ears rang with a little girl's screams.

~o0O.O0o~

Okay, so there's that.

The next chapter is where we learn about what happened to Wren's parents! (mostly)

I'm not going to lie, the majority of the M rating so far is in the next chapter, and that's mostly because I'm really paranoid. I will not be writing sexy times, I'm sorry, I've tried and I'm just really, really bad at them. Really bad.

(Paranoid) Warning: Next chapter might contain slight triggers for abuse. I don't know, I'm just-in-case warning. It's certainly not the worst I've ever written, violence wise, but again, I'm paranoid.

Putting up the next chapter right after this!

Anyways, Reviews are love!

And you guys rock! *hugs*