Boom. Cold open. Though I think the description gives enough idea what the story is about. Please review if you're interested.

"Oh my god!"

"I mean, you're pretty for an angel, but I doubt this is heaven if hypocrites like these bastards are still around." The patient, Trevor, groaned and tried to roll over to push up off the floor. "Fuck."

Lisa quickly reached to assist. He tried to shrug her off, but couldn't hold back a pained groan. When he sucked in a breath through his teeth, Lisa chided, "No need to be a hero."

Trevor muttered something about old habits. As she helped him step around the corpses back to the stretcher in the clinic, he asked, "Where am I? How long have I been here? The last thing I remember is..."

He faded off and froze. He started shaking in her arms. Before she could get him to the bed, he fell sideways, reaching, but failing, to catch himself on the counter. Back on the floor, he wrapped his arms around his stomach and began hyperventilating. "Oh god, I killed them. It's all my fault."

With no answers to comfort him, Lisa did what any mother would and held Trevor while he cried against her chest. After a few minutes, he clung to her, holding his breath then gulping air like a dying fish. If he didn't calm down soon, she'd have to sedate him. Though now that he was conscious, she would prefer to keep him that way.

"Trevor, honey, I know it's difficult, but I need you to calm down. I can explain what I know, but you have to breathe for me, sweetie. Breathe." Lisa shifted so her back was against the cabinets and moved Trevor between her legs with his back to her chest. Clasping her hands over his on his heart, she instructed, "Breathe with me, Trevor. Eight seconds in, four seconds out."

He made several attempts before managing to sync with her. Each breath still held a choked sob or hiccup, but eventually Lisa put a hand on his forehead, pressing him into her shoulder. "Do you think we can get you back into bed? Or would you rather stay here?"

Trevor shook his head and muttered, "The floor is cold. Feels good."

"That would be your fever."

"Wolfsbane and silver will fix it."

Lisa sighed and admitted, "I found as much in your journal, though I didn't realize they were in combination. Would have been more helpful if you hadn't encrypted it."

"Heh," Trevor barely laughed. "Where's the fun in that?"

Unsure where she should start, Lisa admitted, "It was a welcome diversion. Now..." She glanced toward her home where the feet of a dead man were visible beneath the curtain.

Seeing the scene again made her glance away and stifle a gag. The clergymen had attempted to murder her and the broken boy in her arms had saved her. She'd seen it and yet still wished it were a dream so she could wake up and forget all about it.

"Do you have a sick horse?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

Trevor pushed away from her and groaned when he stood. His voice seemed to growl out, "Those bastards are going to come looking when they fail to return after their bishop sanctioned witch hunt. I'll take some of their clothes and blood to frame a wolf attack a few miles away. Then bury the bodies beneath a horse with its throat slashed open. They come round, I'm your alibi." He turned to offer her a defiant smirk. "And you'll be mine."

Then he leaned over the bed, hunched in pain. Horrified that someone so young could speak so simply of such terrible things, she faltered only a moment before moving to prepare another dose of pain blocker. "Please, lay down, Trevor."

He lifted his lip in derisive denial, but when she raised a stern eyebrow, he again muttered under his breath about the wiles of women before obediently settling on the bed. Lisa washed her hands, finally noticing the red on her overcoat. Closing her eyes, she mentally braced herself and returned to her patient with the syringe. "This will help manage your pain. You may feel light headed, so if you need to stand up or relieve yourself, allow me to assist. And if the pain isn't tolerable, I can adjust the dose or try a different medication."

"I suppose that's going in my bum then?"

Lisa examined the IV line that had miraculously somehow managed to stay in his arm during the attack. After considering placing a new line, she decided to use the current one. "This will be injected straight into your blood stream where it can directly affect the pain receivers all throughout your body."

"Painful?"

Lisa met Trevor's young eyes and rested a hand on the back of his. "Painless. I am a doctor, Trevor. I took an oath to do no harm and I live my life by that mantra. Do you trust me?"

The fear in his eyes told her this request betrayed everything he'd ever experienced. Biting her lip, Lisa stabilized the line and injected the morphine. If she needed to prove herself before Trevor trusted her, she'd do it. Just as expected, the drugs hit Trevor like a burst of adrenaline and he gasped lightly.

"That's... uh... wow. That's amazing really."

"You're welcome. If you need anything, let me know." She cleaned and replaced her syringe to dry, then placed his journal beside Trevor on the bed. "As for this wolfsbane and silver remedy, you'll have to refresh me. I don't remember such a medicine from my studies."

Trevor smiled dreamily and traced his fingers over the crest on the leather strap. "Family secret, I guess. Not that we ever intended to. Just... little people fearing what they don't understand."

"Relatable. I have encountered few people who comprehend what I'm trying to do here in this clinic." Sitting in the chair with a notepad, she asked, "How do I cure you?"

"Wolfsbane, bane of wolves. Silver crown. Crown of thorns. Crown the wolf." He said it almost with a singsong quality before taking a deep relaxed breath and clarifying, "It's nursery bull, but it's stuck with me this long. The larvae, have they undergone metamorphosis?"

Lisa glanced at the tray with the pupa. "They have changed, but not into flies."

"Good. Take them and grind them with the wolfsbane and equal parts silver dust. It's nasty, but I just have to swallow it."

Lisa wrote his exact instructions and answered, "That sounds like a good way to poison yourself."

Trevor rolled onto his side to face her, eyes drifting closed. "Turning blue is better than succumbing to werewolf influenza." Then he started snoring gently.

Lisa smiled and reached out to brush his hair back. Then froze. "Werewolf?"

With sudden determination, she went to her sewing drawer and removed a small gold key. Stepping around the bodies in the house, she went to a bedside locked cabinet. Taking a steady breath, she unlocked it and removed half a dozen old tomes. Returning to the clinic, she cast a curious glance at the murderous teenager sleeping soundly before settling back into her chair for some light reading.

After scanning through three books, she finally found what she was looking for. "Contracted viruses and their sources. Creatures of the night. Threats posed on the hunt. Known cures. Terminal diseases." Swallowing hard, she gently turned the brittle pages until she found a beautifully drawn picture of a howling wolf surrounded by calligraphy that led into the paragraphs describing a condition known as canine lupus.

"Canine Lupus. Contracted through body fluid coming into contact with permeable membranes such as those located in the mouth, nose, and eyes. Alternative routes are also puncture wounds such as those from tooth and claw." Lisa grabbed her notepad and made notes, glancing at her patient again as symptoms and wounds matched word for word with what Trevor experienced.

The list of ingredients Trevor named was also in the book with exact measurements including a scale for increasing the dosage by patient weight and severity. Taking her recipe to a small table podium, she gathered the wolfsbane and silver from Trevor's pack and her mortar and pestle. Grabbing the wriggling pupa, she weighed and dumped them into the mortar, ending them with three solid presses of the pestle.

Then she weighed the wolfsbane and silver powder. Reading the instructions in the book and Trevor's oral edition, she muttered, "Here goes," and did her best to follow them to the letter. In the end, she had what resembled a thick paste or poultice. Her instincts were to place it on the wound, yet the book and Trevor concurred that it was to be swallowed. Covering it to keep from spoiling, she finally left the clinic and glanced around the house.

Trevor's words were a haunting memory. More men like these murderous clergy would arrive. It could be hours or days and the evidence was drying on her floor. Alright. She could do this. There was nothing else to be done.

Walking out the backdoor, she went to the well and uncoiled the rope and chain around the winch. Disconnecting the bucket, she pulled the rope inside the house. Going to the closest body, she tied the rope around the dead man's feet and went back outside to wind the winch.

With the larger gear, dragging the body outside proved easier than she'd ever thought such a gruesome task could be. Removing the rope, she continued the process again and again, moving furniture out of the way as needed. Then she shut the door and locked the gruesome sight away for the moment.

With the furniture still out of the way, Lisa stared morbidly at the stains crossing her floor. Rubbing her temples, she went first to her cleaning agents. Peroxide would remove blood best as long as it hadn't seeped into the wood. Though the varnish should have prevented that.

First the mop and water. She could do this. She'd have to. Mop away the gore. Erase the memory. At last she could take the sloshing no longer and went to play one of her documentary reels. Her own voice covered the noise of the bristles over the wood while the peroxide bubbled and removed the blood the water couldn't. Then her voice faded away and only gentle noises of sleeping bodies could be heard. Frowning, she hated that she'd wasted a whole reel for that. Until there was a disturbance once more.

"D...don't... stay... stay back... fuck..."

Lisa immediately dropped the brush and ran through the curtain back to her patient's side. Only to find Trevor completely at rest. She gently rested a hand on his neck, fingers on his pulse. Fifteen seconds and normal resting rate.

"Hurts... it hurts... gah..."

The voice came from the gramophone. Trevor's night terrors while she'd slept that first night. When Trevor's voice rose in fear and pain, she reached to turn it off. Her heart could only handle so much. Before she passed through the curtain once more, she paused beside Trevor, sleeping with his journal softly clutched close to his heart. As much as she wanted to wait beside him as she had with Adrian during his childhood sicknesses, she needed to finish cleaning.

Hours later and satisfied with her work, Lisa lit a fire beneath the copper water vessel to warm her bath. As the water bubbled, she turned the valves for both cold and hot water. The water mixed and she dipped a hand in trying to find the correct temperature. When she was comfortable with its heat, she stripped and entered the bath, desperate to wash her labor off of her skin.

Now that she couldn't focus on a task, everything threatened to suffocate her once more. How could she have done that? She was a doctor. She'd sworn never to hurt anyone. And yet, the instant they'd been in danger, she'd... Lisa covered her mouth and stifled a cry. Her own tears, hot on her cheeks, mingled with the bathwater.

"I would have cleaned up after myself."

In surprise, Lisa immediately submerged until only her head was visible, but when she looked at him, Trevor faced away. "You really shouldn't be up and about."

Trevor shrugged. "This is nothing."

I know, Lisa wanted to say. Your night terrors and the scars on your body shouldn't belong to someone so young. Instead, Lisa asked, "Did you take the wolfsbane?"

"Yeah," Trevor answered. "Tasted slightly better than I expected. Minty, almost."

Lisa noted that Trevor kept his gaze averted and reached for her towel. "The water is still warm if you want to bathe." Stepping behind her changing panel, she wrapped herself in her comfortable bathrobe and emerged to find Trevor was gone. Tying the robe around her waist, she called, "Trevor? Trevor, honey?"

Then she noticed the open door. Trevor stood outside in the snow by the well. Following, she stepped lightly to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him away, tearing his gaze from the bodies. "It's not your fault. It's neither of our fault."

She tried to bring him back inside, but he pulled to a stop just outside the door. With a determined grimace, he said, "I need a shovel. It'll take time to dig a hole deep enough."

Again, she opened her mouth to try to convince him to stay in bed, but that dark look in his eye told her nothing she could say would keep him safe inside. Biting her lip, she reached out and tried to touch his cheek. He flinched away, but not before she saw the fear and anger in his eyes. Folding her arms instead, she said, "Take frequent breaks. I'll have food ready whenever you want it."

"Don't drain the water. Wouldn't want to waste it. I don't mind that it'll be cold by the time I'm ready."

With that, he grabbed a shovel and paced to the edge of the garden patch. Lisa watched him for a couple minutes before turning to make tea. And soup. And anything she could think of that Adrian liked to eat when he was unwell.

At first she waited for him to come inside, but once it became apparent that he wouldn't, she went to him. She'd stop him every half hour, give him something hot to drink and monitor him for frostbite. It was late winter, practically spring, but if he pushed himself too hard now, his recovery would suffer.

By mid-afternoon, his fever had spiked again and he wouldn't stop shaking. Lisa finally couldn't take any more and approached him with another syringe of morphine. "Trevor, as your doctor, I need you to come inside now. You're going to hurt yourself."

"Don't touch me!"

Lisa flinched and withdrew her outstretched hand. Hearing the words of his terrors in the daylight made them all too real. He leaned heavily on the handle of the shovel where it was firmly planted in the half frozen soil. His breathing was harsh through his throat, tearing from the cold. "Trevor... you're not well."

"It's just... that substance you gave me... I can't... I can't function under its influence. Those bastards could be here any minute and if we don't put those fucks in the ground, I don't know what I'll do." Trevor's voice trembled and he wiped at his eyes. "Please, doctor."

Lisa gently wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and hugged him. Slumped as he was, he simply leaned into her chest, barely taller than her. "Let me help. Rest a moment."

Trevor simply moaned and relinquished the shovel. Lisa placed a soft kiss on his temple and settled him against the well. Then she began digging. The metal shovel bit into the permafrost. Again. Again. Unused to the labor, she could feel her hands blister. She kept digging.

Then she heard horses. Glancing up in sudden confusion, she saw Trevor had saddled two horses and had taken the bloody clothes of the clergymen. He offered her a hand and she reached out to take it, clambering from the hole. She paced inside, grabbing bandages to wrap her bloodied hands. Taking an extra cloak, she strode back outside and took the reins of one of the horses.

"Where do you want to stage this?" Lisa asked.

Trevor mounted with a line holding the horses the clergy had ridden. "A clearing. Somewhere off the road but not too far."

With that in mind, Lisa took the lead. The main road was about a half league ahead. Half that distance, Lisa urged her horse into the brush following a deer trail. Another few minutes brought them to a large clearing with massive trees at its perimeter. Shifting in the saddle, she watched as Trevor dismounted and tied his horse to a tree.

With confidence, he pulled the horses into the clearing and spread out the torn clothes from the clergy. Cutting the bridles and saddles with his knife, he released all but one horse to meander in the clearing. With the last horse, he gently calmed it and whispered to it.

Then before Lisa could blink, he slit the throat of the remaining horse, backing up as it reared and tried to run, only making it a short distance before falling and bleeding out. In fear, the rest of the horses bolted into the woods. Lisa's own mount threatened to buck her off, but she maintained her seat and brought it back under control. Trevor then paced back to his own unsettled horse and remounted, a confident hand bringing the nervous animal to his command.

Their deed done, Trevor turned his horse back the way they'd come and Lisa followed him back to her clinic. He dismounted near the well and drew a bucket of water from its depths. Cleaning his hands, he took a moment before slowly saying, "The wildlife will find the carcass before long, covering up our cover up. As for the grave..."

Lisa dismounted and walked to him. "I have medicine that can humanely euthanize one of the horses. It'll be safer for us here."

Trevor nodded and leaned back on the well. "Let's do it now then."

Lisa searched his expression. If she noted any sign of weakness, she'd put this off until morning. Yet he seemed determined. And maybe if they finished this last task, he'd finally take her advice seriously and rest. "Just a moment. Please choose the animal and bring it to the hole."

Lisa entered the house and chose her strongest sedatives. After glancing at them, she chose one and multiplied a dose she deemed effective for what she needed. Then doubled it. She intended for this to go smoothly if only to ease Trevor's conscience. The whole ride back from the clearing he'd been more subdued than normal and she suspected it had to do with slaughtering the animal.

Back in the yard, she felt her suspicions validated when Trevor gently rubbed the frail creature's neck, whispering to it where it stood quite literally at death's door. Lisa crossed the yard and noted that the dead men were no longer in sight. Trevor had already buried them in the bottom of the horse's grave beneath a layer of dirt.

Going to Trevor's side, she gently ran a hand over the animal's neck and said, "I used this drug on a farmer's ox when they asked me to help. When I administer the drug, hold the halter and gently lift it's head. It will go down on it's hindquarters first, then roll. With any luck, we won't have to do any heavy lifting. Ready?"

Trevor nodded. "Go."

With her thumb, Lisa blocked the jugular on the horse's neck with a thumb and pierced its thick hide with her needle. Then she injected, moving swiftly to help Trevor. As expected, the horse's back legs shook and Trevor lifted up on the animal's chin. The horse gave a small resigned whiney and fell, rolling exactly where Lisa had predicted.

"See the way it's pupils dilated? Dead before it even hit the ground."

"Yes," Lisa whispered. Do no harm. Do no harm. Repeating her mantra, she paced inside hugging herself and desperate for her words to be true.

An hour later, a second pair of boots landed on her doormat. Lisa looked over before hurriedly rubbing the tears off her cheeks. Trevor stared at the floor. Then his dirty hands. After a moment, he began to strip out of his clothes setting them in a pile on a wooden chair.

Lisa returned to her clinic and started cleaning up and preparing the room for Trevor's return. When she heard him climb from the tub, she filled a bowl with fish stew and set it beside Trevor's journal. Taking her heavy tomes back to the bedroom, she noted the shadows moving behind her changing panel. After locking her books for safe keeping, she stole Trevor's clothes and laid out the clean clothes she'd found in a trunk.

Rapping her knuckles on the door, she called, "I'll be waiting with supper in the clinic."

Trevor emerged in the soft doeskin trousers and loose blouse laced up at the throat. Adrian's clothes were tight and loose in unexpected ways. Though they were at least of a similar height. Trevor examined the wide sleeve and asked, "Are these your husband's?"

"Adrian, my son, actually. If you like them, you can keep them," Lisa suggested en route back to the clinic.

"A bit fancier than I'm used to recently."

Lisa gestured to where Trevor's clothes were drying on a rack. "I would have thought otherwise. Such a crest... How'd you end up here in my clinic?"

Trevor sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the soup. "I'm a hunter. It's in my blood. Though not all monsters walk on four legs."

The way he said that made Lisa drop the topic. Instead, she chose her prepared pain killer. "You mentioned the morphine effected you too strongly. This is a bit weaker, so hopefully it doesn't make you so spacey." Stirring the powder into a glass of water, she set it on the bed tray. "Until you wish to leave, this space is yours', Trevor."

A hand on her's stopped her from leaving. She looked at him, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. "You shouldn't stay here much longer. What we did... it will only delay their intent. My family... I don't want you to suffer like we did. You don't deserve it."

"And you did?"

Trevor let go and took the glass, drinking its contents in one go. Lisa reached out and gently rested her hand on Trevor's head. "Get some food and rest. I'll be in the other room if you need me." Then Trevor pulled away from her touch and leaned sideways turned away from her, his soup tucked close. Lisa sighed and left, content to sleep in her own bed tonight.