-Tommy-

Tommy strained hopelessly against the grasp of the man who had his arms pinned behind his back as he struggled to peer around the legs of the men surrounding Maddie, who had just collapsed to the floor. She was facing away from him so he couldn't see her face, but her head was bowed, her hair enveloping her face like a curtain, shielding her from her attackers as she clutched her arms to her chest. His ears were still ringing from the gut wrenching screams that she had been making just a few seconds earlier, but he was sure that he'd just heard the leader of the group of men say that her powers were gone. And this man was now leering evilly at her and Tommy strained again to free himself, grunting angrily as he did so.

'Let me go!' he shouted, making the men all turn to him as if they'd forgotten he was there, laughing again cruelly.

Judging from the men's accents and the fact they knew who Maddie was, Tommy had figured fairly quickly that they were from the Watcher's Council. He should have known that they would be planning something after the train job. Mr Travers' warning to her a few months ago should have been enough of a clue to make them all wary of their imminent return. Although, Tommy admitted this attack was not what he expected.

Their leader looked over to him, a maliciously smug grin on his face. 'Get the girl in the truck,' he ordered. As he said the words, a loud ringing sound like the previous ones pierced the air and a small truck which could have only just been big enough to accommodate the group of men appeared out of thin air on the other side of the road. 'Kill her boyfriend,' he instructed before turning away.

Tommy's eyes widened and he began to struggle desperately, and he heard Maddie cry out again and he looked over to see her being lifted to her feet as she struggled helplessly like before against them.

'No! Please, leave him alone!' she screamed as one of the men held her arm in one hand whilst she threw her weight away from him to try and free herself. She looked over to Tommy in terror as the man began to drag her toward the truck, her face wet with tears that was making her hair stick to her face.

Tommy struggled harder against the man pinning him down, but it was like fighting against a brick wall. One of the men turned to approach them and Tommy paused his struggling to watch him step toward him and pull a pistol out of a holster beneath his jacket. Was this it? Would this be his end? He gritted his teeth hard and looked up at the man, staring him in the eye with a fiery fury as he heard Maddie continue to scream and yell for them to stop. The man stopped a couple of feet away, cocked the pistol and aimed at his head as he heard the truck doors being opened.

Tommy struggled to keep his breathing steady as he watched his executor stare down at him, preparing to pull the trigger. This is it, he thought, I'm going to die. I'm going to die and leave Maddie in the hands of these bastards. The thought of what might happen to her after this made his gut twist and bile rise up his throat. But there was nothing he could do about it; there was no-one else in the street and no-one in any of the houses would dare come out. They were alone.

He looked over to Maddie one last time and he betrayed a look of despair as she looked back at him desperately, her face red from screaming and crying. He finally shut his eyes, unable to bear the sight of her any longer as he heard the man with the gun inhale deeply. The shot sounded, echoing through the street, but Tommy's world didn't go black. Next thing he heard was the sound of his executioner's body hitting the cobbles and he whipped his head up to see the man now dead on the ground, his head popped open like a grape.

'Fuck!' yelled the man who was holding onto Tommy as the two of them looked up frantically to see who fired. The other men who were dragging Maddie to the truck also looked around and eventually Tommy spotted the silhouette of Arthur emerging from one of the small alleyways between the houses several yards away, his pistol still raised. The leader of the group also spotted him and hastily threw Maddie into the back of the truck making her squeal in pain. Then another shot followed the first and Tommy felt the grip on his arms go slack as the man also fell to the ground dead and he stood up quickly, retrieving his own gun from the ground as the remaining two men took cover behind the truck.

'Don't let them go!' screamed Tommy as both Arthur and John ran through the darkness towards him. He pointed in the direction of the truck and the three of them automatically began to flank it on either side with their guns raised.

As Tommy rounded toward the front of the truck, the leader of the group came up from behind cover and fired a shot toward him which he narrowly managed to duck behind the truck to avoid. Another shot fired on the other side of the truck followed by a thump and a yell of anger from the leader. Tommy peered over the bonnet of the truck and saw the leader was beginning to back away from it, his gun raised as he switched from pointing it in Tommy's direction and to the other side of the truck to where he assumed Arthur and John were. He waited until the man pointed his gun away from him before standing up and aiming a kill shot at the bastard's head. The bullet hit him in the temple, his gun flying out of his hand as his body hit the cobbles to join his friends'.

'John? Arthur?' called Tommy, rounding the truck to see them both emerge from the rear of the vehicle.

'We're fine,' said John, holstering his gun. 'But you need to get back here… Mads… she's-.'

Tommy silenced John by shoving past him to throw the doors to the back of the truck fully open. Maddie was lying in a foetal position on the floor of the truck, her legs tucked up as she clutched her right arm to her chest with the left, shielding it from view. Her face was facing the floor, her hair hiding it somewhat as she shook slightly as she sobbed. He paused for a second as he took in the sight, trying not to let panic set in. After a second he leant forward and placed his hand gently on her leg making her body freeze immediately with the contact.

'Hey, it's alright, they're gone-,' began Tommy as he climbed into the truck and began to grab Maddie's shoulders to lift her up.

'No! Leave me alone!' she screamed suddenly, throwing herself away from him. He wrapped his arms around her to stop her as she pushed frantically against his chest with her arm with what felt like barely any force. Tommy pinned her to him easily as she struggled and patiently attempted to calm her.

'Maddie it's alright!' he called to her over her screams. 'It's me, it's Tommy.'

Maddie continued to struggle for a few more seconds, feeling like she had the strength of a child rather than an adult woman. Her powers really must be gone, he thought. Eventually she stopped fighting him and relaxed into his chest, crying uncontrollably into his jacket as he relaxed his grip on her slightly. He closed his eyes for a moment, tensing his jaw tightly before opening them again and turning to face John and Arthur who were looking at him aghast at what they had just witnessed.

'What happened Tom?' asked Arthur quietly, stepping forward. 'Who the fuck were those men?'

Tommy sighed and cleared his throat before replying. 'They were from the Watcher's Council. They tried to take Maddie away. They injected her with something… I don't know what.'

Arthur and John looked at each other with worried expressions as Maddie shifted in his arms and she looked up at them, her eyes red and wet from crying.

'They took my powers,' she whispered croakily. John and Arthur stared back at her gormlessly, like they were trying to process what she'd said.

'They… they took your-?' stammered Arthur stupidly.

'How is that even possible?' asked John. Maddie's eyes maintained a blank expression before she suddenly let out a yelp of pain and clutched her arm closer to her chest before she could reply, fresh tears spilling over her cheeks.

'You're hurt,' stated Tommy brushing her hair back from her face. 'Let me see.' Tommy gently put his hand on Maddie's good arm and began to coax her to release her right one.

'No. Please Tommy don't!' she begged, recoiling slightly from him. 'It hurts.'

'I know but I need to see it,' he whispered gently.

'I don't want you to!' pleaded Maddie as she continued to shield her arm from him, so Tommy had no choice but to force her arm away as she resisted. She tried her best to fight against him, but it was no use as he overpowered her laughably easily, finally unfolding her arms from around her chest.

Maddie's one remaining sleeve still covered the arm but despite that Tommy could already tell that the damage was catastrophic. Her hand that was emerging from the sleeve was barely recognisable as a hand. It was completely black with bruising, none of her knuckles were in the right place and were instead up by her wrist as all the bones in her hand had broken. Her thumb and a couple of her fingers were broken in the middle and pointed in the wrong direction. Tommy could feel and hear his heart begin to pick up pace in his chest before he looked up at her to see her looking down at her hand with a panicked expression.

Letting out a worried puff of air from his nose, Tommy slowly began to pull Maddie's sleeve up her arm, and she flinched violently and yelped again with pain, but he managed to get the sleeve up to her elbow. Her entire forearm was also bruised, her wrist and forearm also looking broken to the point that her whole arm looked like it had been crushed under a car. Whatever magic those men had used had obviously made them hard like iron. Although luckily not hard enough to be bulletproof. Her last punch must also have been hard enough to cause this amount of damage as her fist connected with the man's face before all her strength went completely.

'Shit,' muttered John, running his hand over his head nervously.

'I need to get her home,' said Tommy, turning now to his brothers with urgency. 'I need you to clear up the street and get rid of this truck.' Arthur and John nodded and stepped back as Tommy began to climb out of the truck with Maddie who had gone back to clutching her arm to her chest. 'Get Finn and tell him to ring for a doctor to meet us at Arrow House,' he ordered as he walked her to his car.

'Alright Tom,' said Arthur as he followed them to the car. 'But what the hell is going on?'

'I don't know Arthur,' responded Tommy before looking down at Maddie who looked away from them, evidently not ready to speak. Tommy sighed and turned back to him, 'Meet us back at Arrow House when the work is done.'

Tommy helped Maddie into the car before taking off his coat and laying it over her to keep her warm, noticing a chill entering the night air. He got into the driver's seat and without hesitation started the engine and sped off down Watery Lane, watching John and Arthur begin to pick up the bodies off the street in his rear-view mirror.

Maddie remained silent for the entire journey back to Arrow House, cradling her arm to her chest as Tommy listened to her trying her best not to cry with the pain or shake uncontrollably with shock. He looked over at her constantly, wanting to say something to ease her pain but came up with nothing. To be honest, his mind was still reeling from the attack, the fact he was nearly shot, and he was trying to get his head around the fact that her powers were gone. When she had struggled against him in the truck it took no effort for him to restrain her, and he now realised how much he had taken her strength and skill for granted and how uneasy her current state of vulnerability was making him feel. Tommy quickly began to build up a list of questions in his head he wanted to ask her. What did they inject her with? How did they know how to take her powers away? Did they always know? But he knew that asking these questions now probably wasn't the best course of action as he could still see that Maddie was still shaken and in too much pain to answer. He knew however he needed to say something to break the eerie silence in the car and at least know that she also hadn't lost her voice.

'Hey,' he said, turning to Maddie and putting his hand on her leg soothingly. 'You alright?' It was a stupid question, but it was the only thing he could think of to ask. She wiped a tear from her eye and turned to face him with a hollow expression.

'I feel weak,' she muttered. 'My strength it's… it's gone and I don't…' Her sentence trailed off as she shut her eyes tightly to ward off yet more tears and shook her head.

'It'll be alright Maddie, we'll fix it,' reassured Tommy, although he wasn't certain that there was anything that could be done. Maddie had certainly recognised what the men were going to do to her judging by her reaction to the syringe which meant she likely knew the solution to her problem. However, her arm was the current priority and as she went back to silently staring out of the window, he put his foot down to cover the rest of the journey to Arrow House in rapid fashion.

When they finally pulled up the driveway, Maddie gathered Tommy's coat around herself and got out of the car before he could say anything, covering herself completely with it. He followed her up the steps where Frances came out to meet them looking flustered. However, she proceeded to march past her without acknowledging her, pulling the coat tightly around herself and scurrying inside. Frances looked at Maddie with confusion before looking back at Tommy.

'Sir, I've been told to expect a doctor to visit the house in the next hour,' she began, and Tommy sighed and nodded to her as she spoke again. 'Are you injured?'

'No, it's for Maddie,' corrected Tommy as he walked past Frances, waving her off in order to follow Maddie inside. 'Send him to me when he arrives.'

As he stepped into the foyer, Tommy saw Maddie hurrying up the stairs without looking back and he quickly made to follow her. He took the stairs two at a time in an attempt to catch up with her but despite her current state she still managed to reach the bedroom before he caught up and she disappeared inside.

'Maddie?' Tommy called after her as she left his sight into the bedroom. This odd behaviour was beginning to concern him more than he was comfortable with despite how understandable her reaction to her powers being stripped from her was. But how quiet Maddie was being, almost mute, was making the familiar butterflies of worry flutter in the pit of his stomach. He entered the bedroom just in time to see the bathroom door close firmly on the other side. Sighing, he approached the bathroom door and knocked as softly as he could manage with the anxiety that was now bubbling to the surface of his skin.

'Maddie, can I come in?' he asked gently as he tried desperately to get his jaw muscles to relax. A second's silence passed before an almost imperceptible sob followed by a sniff came from the other side of the wood but no reply to his question followed and he patiently swallowed the saliva in his mouth before taking another breath. 'Maddie, the doctor will be here soon, I need to have a closer look at your arm before he gets here,' continued Tommy, practising a more empathetic and tactful tone than he was used to using. There was still no reply and he let out a quiet sigh before grasping the doorknob in his hand and began to turn it and push the door open, 'I'm coming in.'

'No!' came Maddie's voice finally followed by a loud thud on the door as her good hand pressed against it, stopping him from opening the door more than an inch. 'Please, just… let me be alone for a while,' she choked out pleadingly.

Tommy knew that he could just force the door open with ease now that Maddie didn't have the strength to resist but he hesitated, the tone of her distressed voice stopping him a moment. However, if he didn't attend to her hand, he knew from what he'd seen in the war that there was a worrying possibility that she could lose it completely. Even more so now that her healing abilities might also be gone. It was almost as though she had been transformed into a tiny, fragile little mouse and it was becoming evident that neither of them knew how to deal with it.

'We don't have time Maddie,' coaxed Tommy. 'Let me in, eh?'

Tommy began to slowly push the door open more and immediately was pushing against what felt like Maddie's entire weight on the other side, which didn't feel particularly heavy and was hardly a challenge to resist as she begged to him again, 'Please, just five minutes!'

Tommy shut his eyes in frustration but huffed in defeat. After what she'd been through that evening, giving her a few minutes to calm down was probably what she needed.

'Alright. Five minutes,' he agreed before letting go of the door and letting Maddie shut it again.

'Thanks,' she replied quietly from the other side before going silent again.

Tommy turned away from the door and rubbed his hands over his face, now aware of how tense his body had become. He needed a drink he realised, a strong one. He was reluctant to leave Maddie alone but his sudden thirst for alcohol was too pressing for him to postpone. Making his decision to leave her be for the time being, he shrugged off his jacket, throwing it onto the bed as he marched out of the bedroom and down to his office, making a beeline for his decanter which was calling to him like some devilish succubus. He poured the whiskey to the rim of the glass and proceeded to take two large gulps, letting the burn of the liquid distract him from the confusion of the evening for a fraction of a moment. He contemplated how close he had come to losing his own life and to losing Maddie to the fate of the Watchers, whatever that might have been, all in one fell swoop. He could feel the nervous shakes of shock trying their best to make themselves known in his muscles and bones, but after fighting the worst war in history, he was well practiced in the methods to suppress them. He quickly finished his glass off before pouring another, this one he downed in one go, clearing his throat afterwards and abandoning the glass back on the table. He marched back out of his office again and back up the stairs, ready for the likely negotiation he would have to enter into to get her to let him into the bathroom.

However, as Tommy reached the top of the stairs, the sound of a shrill pained scream echoed down the corridor from the direction of the bedroom. Barely a fraction of a second passed before his feet took off at a sprint toward the bedroom, bursting into the room and heading straight for the bathroom.

'Maddie?!' he called as he closed in on the bathroom door again. He could hear the sound of the shower running on the inside as he reached the door, but this time didn't hesitate to burst inside.

The room was slightly steamy from the hot water that was running out of the shower, but Tommy's eyes quickly found Maddie and his stomach attempted to turn itself inside out with the sight. She was sat naked on the shower floor, her knees drawn up tightly to her chest as the stream of hot water showered over her making her shoulder length hair stick to her face as she looked down at her swollen and mutilated arm. She was grasping one of her broken fingers with her good hand and he realised that she was attempting to move it back into the correct position, a strained noised escaping her lips as she tried not to scream.

'Maddie no!' yelled Tommy, dashing forward to kneel next to her in the shower and grabbing her good arm, making her strain against him.

'Please just let me do it!' she protested followed by a sob. 'I can fix it!'

Tommy didn't reply to her hysteric pleading as he struggled to get a hold of Maddie's arm in a way to stop her from pulling away with her broken finger still in her grasp. He ended up under the stream of the shower and the hot water soaked into his clothes and splashed into his face. Nevertheless, he managed to pry her hands apart as gently as he could with wet hands and pulled her into him as she began to cry loudly, still trying to resist him.

'Maddie, stop!' he called over cries. 'You're going to make your hand worse.'

With this, Maddie went limp in his arms and sobbed hoarsely into his chest, the water of the shower still raining over them and filling Tommy's ears with the sound of rushing water. He held her tightly to him as she cried, closing his eyes and pressing his lips to the top of her head. The tell-tale sting began behind his eyes, and he felt the tear emerge before it was immediately washed away by the water. He couldn't bear seeing her this way. Her injuries were one thing, but her reaction to it, her erratic behaviour that was so out of character for her, was making him worry the most. Could she recover from this? Stripping her of her powers almost seemed to have stripped her of her entire being and had left a half-crazed shell behind.

They stayed like this for what felt like several minutes, Maddie gradually settling to a few small sniffs, before Tommy eventually seemed to become aware of time passing and gently shook her to rouse her.

'Come on, the doctor will be here soon,' he said soothingly before lifting them up to stand and turning the hot shower off.

His clothes were saturated, his thick woollen suit hanging off him heavily, dripping a bath's worth of water onto the bathroom floor as they stepped out of the shower. Tommy snatched one of the towels on the side and wrapped it around Maddie who had begun to shiver already as her wet skin cooled. He swaddled her carefully in the towel much like he did with Charlie after a bath and the similarity made his insides prickle uncomfortably. She hugged the towel around herself and began to use it to dry her face so he turned and stripped himself of his wet clothes, throwing them into the bathtub so they wouldn't soak water into the floor and wrapped another towel around his waist before turning back to Maddie. She was looking ahead of her blankly and blinking slowly, her eyes glossy and he took her face in his hands and made her look up at him.

'Hey, it's going to be alright, I promise,' he whispered as he caressed her cheeks with his thumbs, an action that always made her relax before now.

Maddie swallowed and pursed her lips, doubt and fear painting her features as she slowly gave a small nod. 'Okay,' she replied, any conviction in her voice absent.

Tommy could barely believe that this woman in front of him was the same Maddie he knew. She was more like a shadow, or poorly made replica of the woman he loved so much. He pondered if this was what she was like before she became a slayer, or what she would have been like if she never did. Then he realised that was a grossly unfair assessment. He could tell from the creases in her otherwise blank features that she was in a considerable amount of pain, and she had just experienced terror and shock like she had never experienced before and that was undoubtedly the cause of her current state. He sighed through his nose and released her face before leading her into the bedroom and sitting her on the edge of the bed. He quickly dug out some dry clothes for himself and dressed swiftly before finding her a set of nightclothes that would make her look decent for the doctor but were short on the sleeve, making it easy for them to get it over her now alarmingly swollen arm.

The doctor it seemed had impeccable timing as once Maddie was decent, there was a knock at the door and Frances opened it a second later, a well-dressed portly man with a large leather case in tow.

'Come in,' ordered Tommy sternly, ushering the doctor over to the bed where Maddie was still sitting with her head down.

'I imagine it must be an emergency to call me out here at this time,' said the doctor with a mixture of a friendly and annoyed tone in his voice. 'Dr Isaacs,' said the doctor as he reached Tommy, holding out his hand to him.

Tommy glanced fleeting at the hand that was offered to him before nodding his head toward Maddie sharply in response to the almost sarcastic tone of Dr Isaacs' voice, 'Yes. It is urgent.'

The low, menacing tone of voice that left his lips was enough to made Dr Isaacs freeze momentarily and nod stiffly. 'Of course,' he muttered before turning to Maddie and coming to stand in front of her. 'And what seems to be the –,' he began as his eyes widened as he spotted her injured arm. 'Oh, good heavens!' he exclaimed.

Dr Isaacs knelt down in front of her and held out his hands for her to present her arm to him. She paused reluctantly for a second before timidly stretching her arm out to him with a wince. Tommy came and stood by Maddie's side and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as the doctor carefully turned her arm over in his hands and bent his head down low to look at the bones of her hand through his glasses.

'What on earth happened to cause this?' he asked, looking up at Maddie and then to Tommy in bewilderment.

'That's not your concern,' stated Tommy flatly, piercing Dr Isaacs with his glare. It was entirely reasonable to tell a convenient lie in answer to his question, but it was likely that the doctor wouldn't believe it anyway. The broken bones were evidently from blunt force trauma; force applied from the arm itself and trying to convince the doctor it was an innocent accident would be a pointless waste of breath. 'You're here to fix it,' he followed sternly.

Dr Isaacs swallowed thickly before stuttering slightly, looking back down at Maddie's injuries and shaking his head, 'I'm not sure I can…'

'You can and you will,' ordered Tommy.

'Mr Shelby. It looks like all the bones in her hand apart from a few fingers are broken completely along with what feels like a significant fracture in the wrist and up the forearm. I can try to set the bones back to their proper place and cast the arm but the odds that she'll regain full use of this hand are very poor,' explained Dr Isaacs nervously, trying his best not to meet Tommy's eyes.

Tommy tensed his jaw hard to prevent a nervous expression crossing his face. He should have expected this prognosis. If Maddie's healing abilities didn't return, along with her other powers, then her right hand will remain almost unusable for the rest of her life. He didn't even know if there was hope that her powers would return. If there was a chance they might, then setting the bones now so they wouldn't heal in their current position was the best course of action if there were any hope for her to fully recover.

'Then let's do it,' he replied after a moment's thought and Dr Isaacs nodded nervously before turning to his leather medical case and opening it. Maddie swivelled her head up to look at Tommy with a fearful look, evident dread set in her features. 'Don't worry, I'll be here the whole time,' he reassured, gifting her with a small, rare smile of encouragement.

Maddie managed to return a tiny whisper of a smile to Tommy before turning back to face Dr Isaacs and breathing in nervously in preparation to speak, 'How much is this going to hurt?'

Dr Isaacs looked up at her with a rueful expression before flitting his eyes to Tommy and looking down to his case which he began to rifle through.

'A lot I'm afraid,' responded Dr Isaacs before pulling out a bottle of morphine. 'I'm going to give you some of this for the pain.' Maddie looked at the bottle apprehensively before nodding once and Dr Isaacs looked up at Tommy again. 'She could also use some strong alcohol to sedate her a bit more. The process will likely cause her to struggle.'

Tommy nodded and squeezed Maddie's shoulder before declaring he'd be back momentarily. He went downstairs back to his office and retrieved the still mostly full decanter. No doubt her previous constitution for alcohol was no longer a factor so he made a mental note not to give her too much for the procedure. He briskly made his way back to the bedroom and entered just as Dr Isaacs was setting the bottle of morphine on a small table he'd dragged over to the bedside and was setting up his equipment which included a bowl of water and plaster of Paris to make a cast once the work was done.

'Can you feel the morphine working?' asked Dr Isaacs to Maddie as Tommy came and sat beside her on the bed on her right-hand side. Maddie nodded in response and let herself sigh slightly with relief. He must have given her it via an injection for it to work so fast and Tommy felt a small sense of relief to see some of the agony leave her body.

'Here drink some of this,' said Tommy, holding up the whiskey decanter to Maddie who eyed it reluctantly. 'It'll help, trust me.'

She nodded with a sour look and took the decanter and gingerly took a sip and screwed up her face in protest. He encouraged her to take bigger mouthfuls and tipped the decanter up to help pour more into her mouth as she took about five glugs of the whiskey, making her splutter violently when he finally took the bottle away. She let out a groan to indicate that the alcohol was already beginning to make her woozy. The time had come, and Tommy set the decanter on the floor before wrapping one arm around Maddie to hold her to him and used his other hand to hold the elbow of her bad arm firmly to keep it in position. Dr Isaacs took a deep breath and sat on a chair he'd brought over before taking her hand in his own and looked up at her.

'I'm going to work fast so it'll be over quickly,' he explained, and Maddie nodded as he looked across to Tommy. 'You'll need to hold her tightly.'

Tommy swallowed and nodded silently, preparing himself for the next minute to unfold as Dr Isaacs looked back down at Maddie's hand, taking one of her broken fingers in his. With one quick motion, he pulled the finger into a straight position, a sickening crack sounding as the bones and cartilage moved under her skin. She screamed a piercingly torturous scream, reflexively trying to jerk her hand away but Tommy held her fast in his arms and pressed her against him, shushing her soothingly as his gut did somersaults. Dr Isaacs didn't hesitate to move onto the next finger and did the same thing, eliciting the same reaction from Maddie who turned her head to the side and buried her face into the crook of Tommy's neck. Agonised sobs began to leave her as Dr Isaacs prodded her knuckles briefly before pushing the first one back into place. Now she really wailed and tried to struggle against him, but he squeezed her tightly, all her strength still not enough to escape his grasp.

'It'll be over soon Maddie,' shushed Tommy. 'Try and sit still.'

Maddie tried to struggle for a little longer but soon ran out of energy and let Tommy hold her still and just conceded to cry into his shoulder, flinching with every adjustment Dr Isaacs made to the bones in her hand and wrist. Tommy gritted his teeth together painfully in order to distract himself from her sobs. He wanted nothing more to swap places with her in that moment and take the pain for her, but that wasn't possible and in his heart of hearts he knew that despite the fact she wasn't the slayer right now, she wouldn't want him to make her feel like she couldn't handle this.

After what felt like an hour rather than a couple of minutes, Dr Isaacs let out a loud huff of relief and sat back slightly. He must have been holding his breath the entire time, the procedure an obvious challenge for him. He turned to the plaster of Paris and began wetting a strip to begin the casting process.

'I've aligned the bones as best I can,' he said. 'I'll put a cast up to the elbow and then we hope for the best.'

Tommy nodded his agreement as Maddie finally lifted her head up upon hearing the torture was almost over. She looked up at him and he was met with her wet bloodshot eyes that told him she had reached her limit. He kissed her forehead and whispered softly again that it was nearly over. Dr Isaacs spent nearly fifteen minutes putting the cast on her arm, adopting a surprising amount of delicacy for someone with thick manly fingers. His gentler approach minimised the pain for her, and she was able to sit still without Tommy holding her. Instead, he watched her face as she watched the doctor make the cast, wiping away the lingering tears on her cheeks. When the doctor had finally finished, he got up and started to pack away his equipment, the plaster already dry from the warmth coming from the crackling fire in the room.

'That cast will need to be on for at least six weeks,' he said. 'Try to keep it clean and dry. I'll put a note in my diary to return six weeks on Monday to remove it and we can assess how successful we have been.'

Once Dr Isaacs had packed his belonging away and picked up his case, Tommy got up and held his hand out to him, 'Thank you for your help doctor.'

Dr Isaacs gave Tommy a humble smile and took his hand and shook it. The man may have started out nervous, but he had done what he set out do all the same and from what Tommy had observed, he had done it well enough to deserve his title. He released Tommy's hand and bowed his head respectfully before turning to Maddie.

'Rest up now Miss, I'll see you in a few weeks.'

'Thank you,' replied Maddie, managing another small smile. Dr Isaacs left the room, leaving Tommy and Maddie alone. He went back over to her and cupped her face in his hands again. She looked exhausted, now that the worst of the pain was over, her eyelids beginning to droop.

'You should get some sleep,' said Tommy.

'Yeah,' she agreed. 'I need to get away from this nightmare.'

Tommy sighed; he hoped that would be true. Maybe her powers would return, and her arm would heal fully in a matter of days. But his gut instinct was telling him that wouldn't be the case. He tucked Maddie under the covers of the bedsheets and sat next to her on the edge of the bed. He bent over and kissed her softly.

'I'll be downstairs if you need anything,' he said. 'I'll keep checking on you.'

'Aren't you going to sleep too?' she asked.

'I won't be able to sleep,' he replied, although he wanted to be able to sleep next to her for a while.

'Alright,' nodded Maddie, and she let her eyes close as she settled into her pillow.

Tommy gave her one last peck on the cheek before getting up and putting the chair the doctor had used back in its original place before turning to the small table to do the same when he noticed the small bottle of morphine still on its surface. It was odd the doctor hadn't mentioned he'd left it, perhaps he had assumed Tommy would know what to do with it. He turned back to Maddie and saw that she was already fast asleep, her deep rhythmic breathing giving it away. So instead, he placed the small bottle in his trouser pocket before putting the table back, picking up the whiskey decanter and leaving the room; looking back at her one final time to check she was asleep.

Once Tommy got downstairs, he couldn't fail to hear the loud obnoxious voices of John and Arthur coming from the sitting room. He made his way towards the voices and entered the room without announcement causing his brothers to both get up from their seats in unison.

'Is she going to be alright Tom?' asked Arthur as Tommy put the whiskey decanter on the side table with the sitting room one. 'We just saw the doctor leaving.'

'She'll live but… her hand might not heal fully.'

Arthur and John gave each other confused looks before turning back to him.

'But I thought she could heal from anything,' said John. 'Has that gone as well?'

Tommy nodded, 'It all has, her strength… even her bravery seems to have gone.'

'Motherfuckers,' muttered Arthur angrily after a silent pause, shaking his head. 'They'll pay for this.'

John nodded his agreement, that familiar determined look spreading over their faces and Tommy quickly put a hand on each of their arms to reel them in.

'They will,' agreed Tommy. 'But we need to regroup. They've taken Maddie's powers away with hardly any effort. We don't have the means to counter them now or even know enough about them to begin with.'

One thing was for sure, this attack on he and Maddie wouldn't go unavenged. The Watchers would pay severely for their decision, Tommy would see to that personally. But right now, he knew abysmally little about the inner workings of the Watcher's Council that going down to London and barging into their headquarters was unlikely to yield a good result His brothers looked unhappy but agreed to his words with a sigh and a huff. They sat themselves down on the sofa again as Tommy poured them all some drinks before lighting up a cigarette and sitting down in the armchair.

'What the hell even happened Tom?' asked Arthur, sitting forward in his seat. 'How were they even strong enough to beat her?'

'I'm not sure but I'm guessing it was some kind of magic.'

'Maddie didn't know? She didn't tell you?' enquired John, looking baffled.

'She hasn't told me anything that she knows, she was in too much shock she could barely speak,' informed Tommy. 'And her behaviour since we got back has been so erratic that I don't want to ask her until she's rested at least.'

John nodded his understanding before speaking again, 'I thought it would be best to tell Pol and Ada. Finn has gone to get Pol, they'll be here soon, and Ada said she'd leave as soon as she could.'

Tommy was for once glad at the initiative John had taken. The presence of Pol and Ada would no doubt help Maddie. Her relationship with his sister and aunt had become exceptionally close of late and they could probably talk to her and help her in ways that he could never understand.

'What did you do with the bodies?' asked Tommy after a moment's silence.

'We took them down to Charlie's yard in that truck they had,' began Arthur. 'Us and Curly put them on a boat and Curly has taken them a few miles upriver to weight and dump. Charlie will break the truck down for scrap and melt down the metal.'

Tommy nodded, satisfied. It was unlikely that the whole of Birmingham hadn't heard about the incident by now but hopefully the finer details had stayed only known amongst them. It wasn't uncommon for a racket like this to be made in Small Heath and he was relying on any gossip to have petered out by the end of the week. The three of them settled into a comfortable yet tense silence as they drank their drinks and smoked, each preoccupied with trying to understand what had happened that evening.

'Bloody bastards!' hissed Polly angrily before taking a long drag of her cigarette.

Tommy had just finished filling her and Finn in on what had happened outside the office that night and what had happened since they got back to Arrow House. Finn had listened with a flabbergasted expression, unable to believe that Maddie was no longer the indestructible figure he'd grown accustomed to. Polly had become increasingly tense and restless during the story, eventually getting up and pacing in front of the fire furiously.

'We need Maddie to tell us what she knows,' mumbled Arthur tiredly. 'So, we can go in there and cut the bastards to pieces.'

'Leave that poor girl be,' snapped Polly. 'She's been through enough for one lifetime let alone one night.'

Arthur held up his hands in defeat and slumped back in his chair. They had been talking now for a few hours. The time now approaching three in the morning; nearly eight hours since the attack. Tommy had checked on Maddie every hour since she went to bed, finding her sound asleep every time. He however couldn't turn his thoughts off no matter how hard he tried, his eyes feeling like there was some invisible force keeping them open. He finished his current cigarette and shot of whiskey and got up from his chair without a word and left the room to check on her again. The house's staff had long since retired for the night and a cold, solemn atmosphere had set in over the house like a veil without Maddie's laughter to light the place up.

Tommy reached the bedroom door and opened it as quietly as he had the previous times, only enough to peer through the gap so he could see Maddie in bed. This time it took him a second to register that she was not there and he pushed the door open fully to look into the room proper. He stepped into the room and called her name, walking to the bathroom and checking it but finding it empty as well. Where the hell is she? He marched back out of the room and down the stairs. Perhaps she had gone to make herself something to eat after waking up hungry. He was reminded of the incident in the shower earlier that night and picked up his pace on his way to the kitchen. He entered to find it empty and devoid of any activity since the cooks left. Now he was beginning to panic internally, had more watchers come back for her? Tommy went back to the living room hastily with this thought, now ready to gather a full search party.

'Maddie's gone,' he announced with urgency. 'Help me look for her.'

'Shit!' muttered Arthur as he leapt up along with the whole room who followed him out into the corridor and then the foyer. Tommy took a breath before starting to instruct his family to search the house room by room when he was soon interrupted by Polly.

'Thomas,' she interjected and pointed over to a point behind him.

Tommy looked over his shoulder to where she was pointing and saw the door to the basement was ajar, the smallest flicker of light peeking through it. He cursed himself for not noticing it when he walked past it earlier and began marching toward it as everyone followed. They hurried along the dark corridor toward the training room where the light was coming from, and as they got closer he could hear the sound of clattering on the other side of the door. He and his family marched into the room and came to a stop a few feet in as they spotted Maddie in the middle of the room. She was still in her nightdress and barefoot, her casted arm hanging at her side as she struggled to load her crossbow with one hand, the bolt falling out onto the floor each time she tried to get it into the notch. She growled with frustration and picked up the bolt again.

'Mads what are you doing?' asked John, the first person to speak as everyone, including Tommy had been struck silent.

Maddie turned to look at them now, looking slightly shocked to see them all there, then turned back to the crossbow again, 'What does it look like?'

Her tone sounded unusually bitter, and John gave Tommy a worried glance which he then passed onto Polly whose lips were pursed with concern. Tommy watched for a few more seconds as Maddie tried again to load the crossbow with her working hand unsuccessfully. The string was too taught for her to pull back one handed, maybe even to taught for her to do with both hands without her slayer strength. She eventually dropped the crossbow on the floor and kicked it away with a grunt which was when he finally managed to reconnect his brain to his feet and walked over to her.

'Hey, come on that's enough,' he said quietly, reaching out for her. 'Let's go upstairs, eh?'

As he got close to Maddie, she turned away from him and marched over to her weapons cabinet and picked up as many throwing knives as she could cradle with her casted arm. She carried them back over to where Tommy was stood, almost shoving him out of the way, and faced the target on the other side of the room. She took one of the knives and overarm threw it with a huff toward the target. The metal blade travelled a pitiful few feet through the air at completely the wrong angle, clattering loudly to the wooden floor.

'No, no, no,' she muttered to herself frantically.

Maddie took a shaky breath before taking another and lobbing it as well, this one she let go of too early and it flew up in a high arc, hitting the ceiling and dropping to the floor as well. She made a loud noise of frustration and then proceeded to quickly throw the rest of the knives at the target one after the other as she walked closer to the target. Tommy followed her and called to her again.

'Maddie, stop!' All the knives skidded across the floor, all miles away from the target and by the end Maddie was close to tears. Tommy grabbed her by the upper arms and turned her to face him. 'Stop, you're going to hurt yourself,' he pleaded. Maddie looked up at him with tear filled eyes, an angry look creasing her face at his words.

She pushed herself out of his grasp and marched over to the barbell which was loaded with what only looked like a hundred and fifty pounds. A weight that she could have easily lifted with her ususal slayer strength. She grasped the bar with her one hand and strained to try and pick it up, the thing not budging even and inch as she grunted in her effort to lift it. That was it; proof beyond a doubt that her powers had gone. Her strength had left her, her co-ordination was beyond poor, and her agility was also gone because she lost her grip of the bar and fell onto her backside with a thump panting. There was an awkward silence for a second before Maddie began to sob into her hand. Arthur was nearest to her and stepped forward to pick her up as Tommy stepped over to them and wrapped his arms around her as she broke down into another fit of tears.

Tommy looked at his family whose faces were all white from what they had witnessed. Not just the change in Maddie physically but from seeing the despair it was causing her. Polly was the first to move and walked over to Finn.

'Go upstairs and get her some socks and a cardigan,' ordered Polly into his ear. Finn paused another second to watch Maddie cry in Tommy's arms before nodding and hurrying off to do as he was told before Polly approached Maddie and placed her arms softly on her shoulders. She turned to look at Pol and let her pull her into her arms from Tommy's.

'It's alright,' whispered Polly, like a mother soothing her child. 'It's all going to be alright.'

Tommy watched stoically as the two women embraced for a few moments. He wished he could be everything Maddie needed, but now he realised that right now she needed a mother more than anything. Polly stroked Maddie's hair and slowly began to walk her toward the door as Tommy watched. Then he felt the hand of Arthur on his shoulder, and he turned to face his older brother, knowing his face was betraying signs of stress and fear.

'You alright brother?' asked Arthur. Tommy stared back at his brother for a brief moment before turning quickly away again.

'I'm fine,' he lied.

'I'm sorry you all had to see that,' apologised Maddie shakily as she wrapped the woollen cardigan Finn had fetched her tightly around herself. 'It's like I've been barely controlling my actions since…'

'It's alright love, you don't need to apologise,' said Polly softly as she approached Maddie who was sat with her legs underneath her on the sofa and handed her a small shot of whiskey. 'Drink this, it'll help.'

Maddie gave Polly a small smile and took the glass from her before taking a small sip. Tommy lit up a cigarette before pouring himself his own drink and sitting down next to her, the rest of the family doing the same. He brushed her hair behind her ear, and she turned to look at him apologetically.

'I'm sorry Tommy, I must have scared you to death today,' she said with a look of regret on her features. Hefelt his heart squeeze a little in his chest. She had been through enough that day, the last thing she needed was guilt at her actions added into the mix. He shook his head at her and caressed her cheek with his thumb.

'It's alright. It's been a hell of a day,' Tommy replied, and she gave him another small smile of thanks.

The room settled into an awkward silence for a couple of minutes, everyone sipping at their drinks with unnecessary focus for such a simple activity. Tommy however drew some comfort from Maddie letting herself lean into him slightly, like she was attracted to the warmth he was giving off. However, the silence didn't last long as Arthur cleared his throat in readiness to speak and Tommy threw him a warning look which unfortunately went unnoticed.

'What did they want with you Mads?' he asked cautiously. 'What did they do to make this happen to you?'

'Not now Arthur,' warned Polly, shooting Arthur a stern glare of her own.

'No Pol, it's okay,' interjected Maddie. 'I probably should make things a little clearer for everyone.'

'Are you sure?' probed Tommy taking her hand in his, drawing her attention to him. After what they had all just witnessed, he was surprised that she wanted to talk at all. The last thing he wanted was for the reliving of the event to make her near catatonic again.

'Yeah,' she replied with a nod. 'You guys should all know what I know at least.'

Maddie took a pause, taking another sip of her drink and inhaling a deep breath through her nostrils to prepare herself. Everyone in the room waited with bated breath, including Tommy. He had put his pressing questions aside since the attack, the distraction of her injuries preoccupying him, but now he realised how keen he was for an explanation as to what happened. She bit her lip as she took a few moments to gather her thoughts and finally addressed the waiting room.

'Before Buffy was the slayer, there was a common practice that the Watchers… I suppose… enforced? Called the cruciamentum,' she began.

'The criucia – what?' asked John, furrowing his brow at the odd word.

'Cruciamentum,' repeated Maddie.

'What is it? Some kind of ritual?' asked Finn

'Not really. More like some kind of sadistic rite of passage.'

'What for?' asked Arthur. Maddie licked her lips and let out a breath before replying.

'It's a rite of passage for every slayer that reached her eighteenth birthday,' she explained. 'They would… strip the slayer of her powers and put her through a test. Usually by locking her up with a vampire that they would want her to slay. The purpose was to separate the wheat from the chaff; only the most competent slayers would be able to use their wit to come out alive. The Watchers' excuse was that a slayer should be more than just brute strength and speed. Obviously, not many slayers ever survived the process.'

Maddie paused to let what she had said sink in, the room falling deathly silent with disbelief. This cruciamentum was a barbaric waste of life, anyone with any sense could conclude that. Even after all the horrors he had seen, Tommy thought this was one of the cruellest things he'd ever heard of. To take a slayer's defences away and throw her in the lion's den required a disturbing lack of compassion. He pictured all the young girls through history who had died terrified in the hands of the creatures they were called to fight. It didn't take much thought for him to put the pieces together and now understood why the amber liquid that they injected into Maddie existed.

'How do they take their powers away?' asked Finn who obviously hadn't made the same connection.

'The stuff they injected me with, it's some kind of mystical drug it… it's like a strong tranquiliser and muscle relaxant, I think. Which explains where my strength has gone. I recognised it from what Giles told me about it,' said Maddie.

'But if the slayer survived?' asked Tommy now, seeing a hole in the Watchers' logic. 'They would have a slayer with no strength after that.'

'Well… the effect of drug is supposed to be temporary.'

The room all paused for a moment. Temporary? So, Maddie's powers should come back! In unison, the entire room smiled widely at this news and let out a sigh of relief.

'That means you'll be back to normal soon then?' smiled John excitedly. 'The way you were acting we thought they were gone for good!'

Maddie didn't return John's smile and instead shuffled uncomfortably in her seat and Tommy could feel his heart sink as he realised they were all getting ahead of themselves.

'I don't know for sure,' said Maddie solemnly. 'The drug is usually given periodically over the space of a few days and gradually has an effect on the body and then wears off again. But it looked like they injected me with a huge dose in one go, which is why my powers went straight away. I have no idea if it's possible for my powers to return after a dose that size.'

Shit. So, it looked like it would be a waiting game to see if Maddie would ever get her powers back. If she didn't, Tommy couldn't imagine what life would be like for her. He sincerely hoped that they would, not only to ensure her hand would heal, but also so the old Maddie would come back. The strong and confident woman and not the meek, nervous shell that had appeared. The room all looked at their hands in despair as they realised the same thing Tommy had. However, the tense quiet was broken by a chuckle from Maddie which caused everyone to look at her confused.

'When I was first called as the slayer, those first two years I did nothing but wish I was a normal girl with a normal life,' she said. 'Now I… I realise how much being a slayer wasn't just a part of me but itwasme. And now I don't know what I am…'

Her words left a sinking feeling in Tommy's stomach as he realised why she had reacted in such a violent way to losing her powers. It was all she had known for the last decade of her life; how to fight and to slay. It was her purpose. A purpose which she now couldn't fulfil. All they could hope for now was that the amount of the drug they gave her wasn't too much, and that her powers would eventually return. Even if they had to wait weeks, maybe even months.

'It still is you,' said Polly, drawing everyone's attention. 'You were always more than just brute strength, and you always will be.'

The room all nodded along to Pol's words, offering Maddie their smiles as well.

'Yeah,' agreed John. 'You're our family now, no matter what.'

Tommy watched Maddie as the first big smile lit up her face since she was attacked, a happy tear forming in her eye as she looked at everyone in the room.

'Thank you,' she said, her voice hitching with emotion. Tommy wrapped his hand around her shoulders and kissed the side of her head tenderly as she wiped the tear away before lowering his lips to her ear.

'And I'll always love you. No matter what,' he whispered so only she could hear. Maddie let out another relieved breath and pressed her lips to his briefly before resting her head on his shoulder.

'I'll always love you too.'

'Sorry to sour the mood again but,' interrupted Arthur. 'Why did they try to take you away anyway?'

Maddie looked at Arthur with a thoughtful expression, 'I'm guessing because of everything that happened with the train and the jewels. It wouldn't take much for the Watchers to connect me to it after knowing my association with you all.'

Tommy nodded his agreement to this, having already figured this part out for himself. The Watchers didn't seem like the type to let a rogue slayer who was assisting a gang in blowing up trains and assassinate priests run wild.

'So, they would have just locked you up?' questioned Arthur.

'Maybe,' replied Maddie. 'I think they hold trials for slayers who do bad stuff to decide what to do with them.'

'It's hardly worth talking about now,' added Polly. 'They failed and your safe. We won't let them near this house.' Maddie gave a relieved understanding nod before suddenly wincing, grasping at her cast and holding her arm to her chest in pain.

'You alright?' asked Tommy.

'The pain… it's started again,' she hissed.

'Here,' said Tommy, pulling the small bottle of morphine out of his trouser pocket. 'The doctor left this.'

'Oh, good,' she sighed with relief as she took the bottle and took a small sip. 'I think I should try and get some more sleep too.'

Maddie suddenly looked exhausted again, her shoulders sagging and her eyelids drooping. Tommy got up from his seat and pulled her up by her good hand, 'We could all get some sleep.'

Everyone got up and bade each other goodnight, all giving Maddie a tight hug before disappearing to their rooms. Tommy had already made the decision to remain home the next day and rely on John, Arthur and Michael to see to everything at the office. He wanted to watch over her for a bit longer, even if to at least keep her company. There was a chance the Watchers, although they had suffered a defeat, could try to kidnap her again so the safest place for her was in the walls of Arrow House. At least for now.

-Maddie-

'Open damn it!'

Maddie grunted angrily as she grasped the lid of the jam jar in a frustrated struggle to open it. She grasped the jar between her knees as she twisted the lid with her good hand. Not being able to lift heavy things was one thing, but this was just taking the biscuit. All she wanted was some jam and bread, was that too much to ask?

Eventually, after a minute of fighting with the evil jam jar, the lid popped off and Maddie huffed audibly, the effort she just exerted making her out of breath. She slammed the jar back on the table in frustration before snatching a knife to scoop a dollop of jam onto a slice of bread, knocking the jar over in the process. She used her casted hand to try hold the bread still as she spread the jam with her left hand, making a dogs dinner of it and ripping holes in the bread. It just had to be her right hand that got broken didn't it, she thought, just a cherry on top of the worst few days of her life. It had now been three days since she had lost her powers and there was so far no sign of her strength returning. She had gotten so used to being strong that she had forgotten what it was like to be normal, and it was proving to be unbearably frustrating thus far. Made worse by the fact that she was forced to be left-handed so she couldn't even write or draw either.

Tommy had stayed with Maddie the day after the incident. He read a book to her most of the day as she listened silently, trying to let the plot of the novel take her away from reality. However, her mind could do nothing but fret that her powers would never return and that she'd have to figure out what to do with her life if she was no longer the slayer. It shouldn't be that difficult, she thought, everyone else gets on with it. If her powers were gone for good, she'll just have to deal. She knew in truth that this was a lie she was trying to tell herself. She'd seen too much as the slayer; too much evil and suffering. It would be impossible to not try and fight evil somehow, even with a broken arm. She couldn't stand idly by knowing what she knew about the demon world and that there might be a small chance she could do something to help. The Shelby's had ordered Maddie to stay indoors until they knew the Watchers weren't coming for her again, not that she needed much convincing. The thought of going outside made her nervous and the pain her arm often still gave her meant she spent a lot of time sitting down or in bed. Tommy regrettably had to go back to the office after that day; business not waiting for her to return to normal. If she ever would. She hated that she missed him so much, even more so than any other previous occasion. He made her feel safe and him not being there made her skin feel cold and twitchy.

Maddie took all of two bites out of her bread and jam before throwing the rest away, her appetite disappearing as soon as she swallowed the first mouthful. She hadn't been able to eat much since losing her powers, something that was worrying Tommy more than her broken arm. She had refused most meals, only letting Ada feed her some soup when she made it down to Arrow House the previous day. Maddie had promised Tommy that morning that she'd eat something; as far as he would be concerned, she'd eaten a full jam sandwich. She had gone through the whole story again with Ada during her visit who had listened quietly as she held her hand soothingly. Her presence had made Maddie feel significantly better. She and Polly had helped Maddie change her clothes and washed her hair for her with her being one handed and all. However, Maddie soon insisted that she'd be fine by herself and that they get back home, not wanting to become dependent on them. Since then, she had insisted on struggling alone with everything, much to Tommy's frustration.

It was currently only midday and Maddie squirmed realising she needed to try and keep her mind busy until Tommy got home. She considered going to spend time with Charlie but since losing her powers, she had found that she lacked the energy to play with him the way she used to. She trudged through the corridor towards the stairs, pondering whether to have a nap instead. She passed the door to the basement and picked up her pace, not wanting to think about her training room after her last visit there. As she walked up the stairs, she felt and itch under her cast and attempted to try and scratch the skin underneath by squeezing a finger under the edge. A sharp shooting pain rippled up her arm causing her to hiss and withdraw her finger.

Maddie remembered the agony of that first night after breaking her hand and arm and shivered, a nauseous feeling making her stomach roll. The pain had been so blinding that it had made her delirious and frantic, barely in control of her own actions. She sincerely hoped that she would never have to feel pain like that again as she was sure she wouldn't be able to survive it a second time. It was a type of agony that she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy. She knew she shouldn't feel responsible, but she knew that night had frightened Tommy more than he let on and she felt an unintentional sense of guilt for it. The pain was still constant now, but tolerable; sleep seeming like the only thing that eased it somewhat.

As she walked into the bedroom, she spotted the large pile of demon books she had left on the dressing table that Tommy had brought home from the office the previous day. Both of them had forgotten about the cultists in the graveyard and the books she had left in his office. She had been reluctant to continue her research without her powers but seeing the pile of books inspired her to try wearing Giles' shoes for a change. Picking up one of the books, a pencil and her notes from the pile, she made her way to the bed and sat cross-legged in the middle of it and opened the book to the last page she had been reading. She tried to scribble some notes left-handed for a while, but they were barely legible and took too long to write and she could soon feel her patience waning with the activity and fatigue begin to set in. Maddie initially resisted this feeling, conscious of the fact that she had done not much more than sleep for days, but despite her reluctance she eventually dropped the pencil on the bed and curled up on her side, falling asleep instantly.

'Hey, wake up.'

Maddie let her eyes open to slits as she felt a hand softly stroking her hair to coax her awake. She sighed with the comforting feeling it was giving her before turning over to look up at Tommy's face looking down at her. Did she sleep all afternoon? Letting out a small groan she sat herself up and yawned deeply.

'You're sleeping a lot,' stated Tommy flatly.

'I know,' she agreed, rubbing her eyes. 'I tried to do some research into those cultists but no luck. I think that drug they injected me with is making me like a zombie.'

Tommy nodded, pulling a cigarette out of his silver case and lighting it, 'You eat today?'

'A little.'

'Come on,' he coaxed, taking her hand and pulling her up from the bed. 'Let's have some dinner.'

Maddie forced as much of her plate of food down her as she could to appease Tommy. It didn't help that it had already been cut up for her so she didn't have to struggle herself. It was starting to feel like she was regressing into a toddler form of herself recently, and she was beginning to get sick and tired of it. Forcing the food down was a battle; glancing over to Tommy to see if he was satisfied with her efforts. She could tell from his expression that her drastic change in appetite was not sitting well with him. She wasn't sure, but she was suspecting that she was starting to lose weight as a result of her poor appetite, her clothes already feeling ever so slightly bigger than normal. If she had noticed then Tommy would have undoubtedly noticed too and would have added it to his long list of current concerns. When they went to bed that night, he hugged her close to him as he usually did, even though her bulky cast made it difficult to get comfortable. He ran his hand over her back and around her side and she knew he was feeling if her ribs were more pronounced but thankfully, he didn't say anything if they were, and she fell asleep quickly in his arms.

The week drew on tediously, still no sign of Maddie's strength returning. By the end of the week she now noticed a significant loss of weight that was more than noticeable which all the Shelby's commented on with concern. She brushed them off as nonchalantly as possible, not wanting them to pester her to eat like they would a child. Tommy became increasingly tense with this change, smoking more than ususal and an anxious expression permanently plastered on his face. She tried her best, but as soon as she ate, she felt full, the thought of swallowing more starting to make her stomach turn. Her arm continued to ache incessantly as well, itching like mad under her cast. At one point it seemed to swell causing the cast to constrict it causing so much pain that it reduced her to tears and she had no choice but to use the morphine which made her sleepier and her appetite even worse. At this point, Maddie was beginning to truly fear that her powers had gone for good and when Tommy returned home the following Monday night, she broke down in his arms.

'My powers aren't coming back Tommy,' she whimpered. 'I'm going to be helpless forever.'

'You're not helpless,' he soothed with a shake of his head, stroking her hair as she cried into his vest.

'I am,' she admitted through choked sobs. 'I can't even cut my food by myself.'

Tommy sighed and held her tightly to him, not saying anything else to reassure her. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. Waiting and hoping, feeling like she'd be stuck in this form forever. Then she remembered something Giles had said about slayers. That it was their strength of character and courage that defines them, not their bodily strength. He was right, admitted Maddie, I'm better than this. She wiped her nose and released herself from Tommy's embrace, rubbing her eyes determinedly.

'I'm done with crying,' she said with a huff. Tommy let a small smile pass his lips before planting a kiss to her forehead.

'I'm glad to hear it.'

The following handful of days were still a struggle but nevertheless a slight improvement to the previous couple of weeks of misery. Maddie pushed herself to eat more and as a result felt like she had more energy although it didn't stop her from losing a bit more weight. Tommy didn't fail to notice the slight improvement and it proved to ease the tension between them. Even the other Shelby's noticed, and they took it as a good sign that she was recovering; maybe even that her power's might soon return. Her arm still throbbed most of the time however which meant that she still avoided leaving the house most of the time as there wasn't much else she could do outside other than walk around the gardens and envy the fact she couldn't go riding. Her arm aside, she doubted that without her slayer agility she'd even be able to stay sat on Luna for long without falling off. At least she could play with Charlie now, an activity which never failed to make her feel better.

The thing that was bothering Maddie the most however was how the pain and lingering fatigue had affected her libido. Her and Tommy hadn't been sexual with each other since that fateful night; the pain in her arm being one reason, the other being that neither of them felt like it. It was a weird feeling, missing sex yet not wanting it at the same time. Hopefully once her arm had healed at bit more, the desire would return. He hadn't pressured her about it at all, not even drawing attention to it and she was grateful for it. But Maddie knew Tommy well enough that he would soon start to desire sex, if he didn't already, and she wanted more than anything for her sexual desire to return before he became too sexually frustrated.

Despite these setbacks, Maddie was able to get through most of the day without sleeping, so she managed to make better progress with her research into the cultists, determined not to waste any more time. If she couldn't go out and fight them right now, then she could certainly find out as much as she could about them. The dilemma of figuring out what to do about them when the time came would just have to be a bridge to cross once she came to it. On the Friday, Tommy announced that he and the Shelby's would be working late at the office, various trade and racetrack deadlines had caught up to them in the aftermath of the Watcher's attack and they now had to make up for any slack.

'I'll try not to be back too late,' said Tommy as he put on his hat ready to leave.

'Don't worry,' said Maddie, waving him off. 'I think I'm onto a lead with my research anyway.'

It was true. Maddie had found reference to similar rituals being performed a few hundred years ago in one of her books and was planning on looking into it further. Tommy smiled, a hopeful look in his eye at seeing some of her old motivation returning. He stepped forward and cupped her face in his hands, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.

'I love you,' he whispered heavily. She noticed a new tone of hopefulness in his voice, like a light at the end of this dark tunnel they had been plunged into had suddenly appeared.

'I love you too,' replied Maddie with a chuckle. 'Now go before Polly gives you hell for being late.'

Tommy let out a humoured huff before picking up his briefcase and clearing his throat before walking out of the door as Maddie watched the back of his head disappear down the front steps. She sighed and turned around, ready to make her way to the sitting room where she had left her books when the door to the basement caught her eye. She still hadn't plucked up the courage to go down there despite feeling better over the past few days. Part of her feared that being around her weapons but not being able to wield them would cause her to crash back into her previous state of shock and helplessness. She knew she needed to face the room sooner or later; but as she looked at it for a moment, her heart beginning to pound anxiously, she knew today wouldn't be the day. Turning away abruptly, she made her way into the sitting room and settled near to the fire with her research books. Even though the weather was still mild outside, she had found that she was cold most of the time, no doubt as a result of her now crappy metabolism and weight loss and had to sit near a fire with thick clothes on just to keep warm.

The day dragged on torturously. The book Maddie needed to read more tedious than the others she'd read. If that were even possible. And she found herself migrating upstairs for a nap, the first one for a couple of days, after lunch in order to give her eyes a rest and rid herself of the headache that was building in her temples. Thankfully, she didn't remain asleep all afternoon and woke after a couple of hours feeling somewhat rejuvenated and continued to read through the lengthy text as she was sat in bed.

Maddie intermittently read out loud to herself every so often to fill the silent air with some kind of sound and managed to get through a good chunk of the book over the next few hours, surprising herself with her current level of concentration and patience. However, the actual information that she was looking for remained a mystery, only a few relevant passages grabbing her attention which ultimately yielded no new information. Nevertheless, Maddie was determined not to give up for the night just yet, even if the sky had just finished going dark, the last orange rays of sunlight for the day disappearing. She leant over the book more purposefully, as if it would encourage the book to speak what she needed to know.

Then the sound of the house's loud doorbell sounded, the clanging startling Maddie slightly and she looked up in the direction of the sound momentarily. It wasn't unusual for visitors to turn up unexpectedly at the house, sometimes it was delivery men or couriers delivering important mail for Tommy. Sometimes it was even Blinder members who had been sent to the house for one reason or another. She heard the faint sound of the huge wood and iron front door open downstairs, she assumed by Frances, and went back to reading her book. She remembered Frances mentioning earlier that she had let the rest of the staff go home early for the weekend and then realised they were the only two people in the house as Charlie had gone to stay at John and Esme's house for a few days with the other children. Maddie imagined Frances bustling about in the kitchens alone and how annoyed she probably now was at having to answer the door when it was starting to get late. She chuckled to herself at the thought as she read over a small paragraph at the bottom of the page, not really taking it in properly, and turned the page to the next one before she realised what she had just read. Hang on, that's it! Flicking the page back again roughly, she re-read the last paragraph again slowly, a silent cheer building in her head.

'The rituals of Hallandoch require the sacrifice of one already dead upon an altar. The ritual words must be repeated, and the sacrifice offered fully in order to earn the favour of the demon, Hallan. If his favour is earned, then he shall be summoned forth in his full form.'

'One already dead,' echoed Maddie. 'This must be it.'

The ritual seemed to match the one she saw at the cemetery, the woman vampire on the altar being the dead one they were going to sacrifice. Now, the only question was, who was Hallan? He sounded pretty intimidating that was for sure. Excited at her discovery, Maddie went to turn the page again to read the next paragraph in the hopes that it would provide more information when suddenly there was a click and the room plunged into darkness. She gasped loudly and looked around her into the dark, seeing no light coming from under the door and figured that the whole house's lights had gone out.

'What the-?' she muttered to herself.

Did the fuse box just go? Do fuse boxes even exist in this time? Maddie pondered this for a moment, wondering why she hadn't learnt something this basic about the 1920's when she had been here for months now. Whatever it was, she doubted that Frances would know how to fix it herself although she would no doubt have candles, so she decided she'd better go and find her.

Maddie slid off the bed and held her good arm out ahead of her, feeling the air as she walked toward the door, the room completely pitch black. Once she reached it, she fumbled for the doorhandle and opened it before carefully stepping out into hallway. There was slightly better light out in the hall coming from the moonlight that shone in through the windows in the upstairs and downstairs corridors. As a result, she was able to at least make out the faint silhouettes of the walls and furniture along the corridor. She carefully walked along it toward the foyer and the balcony that overlooked it, sliding her fingers along the wall so she wouldn't walk into anything, and stopped at the top of the large staircase.

'Frances?' she called, hoping the old housekeeper was somewhere nearby.

Maddie squinted into the darkness below to see if there was any sign of Frances but was met with silence. Looking down from the balcony was like looking into a bottomless pit from where she stood, still not enough light to illuminate more than a couple of feet in front of her face. She's probably in the kitchen, thought Maddie. She began to descend the stairs carefully, feeling the edges of each step with her toes as she gripped the banister. When she had her powers, the darkness had felt so comforting and secure, but now she knew how everyone else felt in the dark. Blind, scared and directionless. Nevertheless, Maddie got to the bottom of the immense staircase as quick as she could and felt her bare feet touch the cool stone floor of the foyer. She could tell that her eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness slightly as she could see a little bit more again.

Then she felt the faint caress of a breeze blow past her face and her skirt, making it flap slightly around her shins. It had come from the direction of the front door and Maddie furrowed her brow confused, wondering why Frances had left it open. Shivering slightly, she began to walk in the direction of the door; perhaps Frances had gone outside to fix the lights. She walked about ten paces forward, still squinting into the darkness when her foot connected with something heavy on the floor and she felt her weight thrown forward. She tumbled over the object onto the stone tiles heavily, landing on her broken arm and yelping loudly as a shooting pain rippled up her arm to her shoulder.

'Ah fuck!' she hissed, immediately clutching at her arm and groaning.

Maddie's feet and legs were still touching the object she had tripped on, and it took her a few seconds to realise as the pain receded that the object was soft and cold. Almost as cold as the stone floor. She could feel her muscles tense instinctively, her breath shaking in her chest as she slowly looked down her body to what was at her feet. Blinking through the still present darkness, the outline of what was unmistakably a body came into view and she immediately drew her feet away from it, a small gasping squeak leaving her lips. Oh no… No, no…

Maddie sat up quickly and crouched next to the person, placing her hand on their shoulder and giving it a small shake. They didn't respond and she suddenly felt her heart and stomach trying to climb up her throat. She slowly moved her hand up towards their head which was facing away from her, her hand shaking violently, and touched her fingers to their icy cold skin and swallowed. She turned their face toward her and was met by the blank eyes of Frances staring at her through the darkness.

'Frances!' gasped Maddie, immediately moving her hand down to her neck to feel for a pulse, not wanting to admit the worst.

There was no pulse, she was dead. But Maddie also felt something else, a wet sticky substance that was stuck to Frances' neck and that's when she finally caught the metallic scent of blood. Her heart now drumming violently in her chest, Maddie turned Frances' head further and peered down at her neck and just about made out the two tell-tale puncture holes decorating the tender crook of her neck. Shit…

Maddie threw herself away from Frances' body, fighting the urge to scream but let out a strained squeal despite her best efforts. She whipped her head around her, searching and listening in the darkness for the vampire that was no doubt still in the building. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly making her pant loudly in terror. A vampire had gotten into the house, and she didn't have her powers. Frances must have invited it in, not knowing who they were and had paid the price with her life. She wrestled with her mind to calm down as she tried to figure out what to do. I need a weapon, she thought, or I'll have no chance.

Scrambling to her feet, Maddie ran in the direction of the basement as fast as possible in the dark, missing the door by few feet and having to trace the wall until she felt the door and wrenched it open. She stumbled down the steps into the cold musty corridor and ran down it, her scared breathing echoing off the stone walls. She had been so sure this morning that she wouldn't be setting foot down in the basement that day; oh, how wrong she had been.

Keep calm. Keep calm. Keep calm.

Maddie repeated these words in her head as she hurried toward the training room, hoping that it would help stop her from shaking. She could feel her muscles shaking so violently that she was shocked that she was able to stand, let alone run. Eventually, she reached the door to the training room and burst in. The room was pitch black, with no widows to provide even a sliver of light, and she shuffled over to where her weapon cabinet was, every breath coming out as a terrified gasp that was making more noise than she wanted. When she reached the cabinet, she wrenched it open and felt around inside with her good hand, knocking her crossbow and sword off their hooks causing them to crash out of the cabinet onto the floor loudly, making her yelp with the sound. She continued to feel around for her crosses, specifically the one with the sharpened point when eventually she felt her fingertips brush the rough wood and she snatched it out of the cabinet and tucked it under her arm. She then found the small drawers at the bottom of the cabinet and opened them, pulling out a large bottle of holy water and putting it in her pocket.

Turning back to face the pitch-black room, Maddie listened for a second in the silence. Her whole body shaking still as she thought about what she was going to do. If I stay in the house I can hide until Tommy gets home, but it'll probably find me before then, she thought. Maybe if I go outside and hide in the gardens, I'll be safer, and I can stop Tommy's car before he makes it to the house. Making her decision, she hurried back toward the basement corridor and began to backtrack along it as fast as she could, now feeling out of breath from all the running she was doing.

'Poor little mouse…'

Maddie froze on the spot as the sound of the ominous whisper echoed menacingly down the corridor toward her. She swallowed the scream that wanted to erupt from her throat, widening her eyes more as she looked ahead to try and spot where the voice came from. Then another whisper came from up ahead, a high-pitched hissing sound that seemed almost like laughter. She grasped her cross and held it up in front of her, her hand shaking uncontrollably. The sound gradually disappeared, and she remained where she was for a few seconds before continuing forward at a creep, trying to keep as quiet as possible. With each step, Maddie's legs felt as though they were ready to collapse underneath her, making her stumble every other step and nearly fall. Once she reached the stairs, she climbed each step one at a time, scared that she would trip and fall down them if she didn't.

When she reached the door, she carefully peered out of the small gap, still seeing no sign of the vampire, however she could make out the outline of the archway that led to the front door. She knew the vampire was nearby from the voice that she heard, if she wanted to make it to the door, she'd have to run. Maddie sucked in a deep breath through her nose, readying herself for the dash, before pushing the door open and sprinting toward the door. Every hair on her body stood up on end as she emerged into the open and she knew that the vampire could see her, even if she still couldn't see it. She kept her eye on the door and continued toward it without stopping, avoiding Frances' body and finally reaching it and wrapping her hand around the handle and pulling. The door didn't budge, and she pulled again desperately, grunting in her effort but the door remained closed. It had been shut and locked since she went downstairs, of course it wouldn't let her leave.

It's shut us in, realised Maddie. Suddenly her mind flashed to the memory of all the slayers before her who had been in this same situation, locked inside a tomb like building with a vicious vampire, defenceless and terrified. Then the laugh pierced the air again, this time from immediately behind her and Maddie whipped around to see the vampire stood under the archway. He was tall and slim, wearing what looked like a suit similar to what the Shelby's wore, his hair however was long and touched his shoulders. She quickly lifted her cross in front of her and the vampire growled and backed off slightly; enough so that she could get away from the front door back into the foyer, so she wasn't trapped.

'So,' hummed the vampire malevolently, making Maddie shake even more. 'You're the slayer.'

Maddie swallowed, unable to reply as she continued to hold the cross in front of her protectively. The vampire looked down at her and laughed again, the hissing sounding like a pit of snakes, as he stepped toward her. She wanted to back away but was instead fixed to the spot with fear. He walked right up to her, pausing for a second before suddenly lifting his hand up and wrapping his fingers around the cross in her hand. The sizzling sound of his skin burning against the wood filled the air as he continued to laugh with no sign of pain. Maddie felt her insides jump and she tried to take the cross back from his grasp, desperately pulling on it as hard as she could but with no success.

'So, it is true,' laughed the vampire. 'The slayer has no more strength than a pathetic little mouse.' Maddie could feel her organs begin to twist into knots as what he said sunk in. 'Tonight, you'll pay for killing my brothers and sisters of Hallan,' he hissed.

Maddie's eyes widened as she recognised the name she had not long just discovered and the realisation that this vampire was another cultist dawned on her as she felt her cross being ripped from her grasp. It clattered across the floor as he threw it and before she could react, she felt his hand strike her face hard and she flew a few feet through the air and collapsed onto the floor. The scream she had been holding in finally came out as more pain shot up her arm like electricity and a new throbbing pain radiate over her face where he'd hit her. It had never felt like this before when a vampire struck her, and she was reminded again of just how much she had taken her powers for granted.

Clutching her face with her good hand, Maddie scrambled to her feet and started to flee toward the stairs, the hissing laugh filling the air again. As she got to the steps, she began to scramble up them, constantly tripping in the dark and squealing with terror as she struggled.

'Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock,' came the taunting voice of the vampire behind her.

Maddie whimpered in terror but continued to flee up the stairs, not daring to look back. Once at the top she took off down the corridor, her only hope now to hide and hope Tommy and the other Shelby's came home in time. She sprinted along the corridors, turning several corners before finally slipping into one of the rooms and squeezing into a dark corner between a large cabinet and the wall. She tried her best to catch her breath without panting loudly, the constant shaking making it extremely difficult. Finally, she managed to catch her breath and stood stock still, listening to see if the vampire was still close by. All she heard was silence for a good minute before she eventually heard the words of the nursery rhyme reverberating up the corridor and into the room through the walls. Maddie shut her eyes and concentrated on breathing steadily as she heard the light footsteps of the vamp walking up the corridor, past the door to the room, and further on up the corridor. She still didn't dare move, feeling fairly sure the vamp didn't know where she was and was sure it was finding great pleasure in looking for her. Afterall there was only so many places she could be.

Maddie waited in her hiding place for several minutes, flinching every time she heard a creak or other noise in the darkness. Until suddenly a bright light appeared from the window, moving across the room making the shadows glide across the walls and she realised that it was from car headlights. Finally making a move, she dashed over to the window and looked out to see two cars trundling up the driveway, its drivers blissfully unaware of what was happening inside the house ahead of them. She put her hand up on the window, debating whether to bang on the glass to get their attention but realised that the vampire would get to her first if she did. She couldn't wait here, if she did the vamp would kill them all first whilst they were all unaware. She needed to warn them which meant she would have to leave this room. Swallowing down the bile in her throat, Maddie turned and ran for the door, opening it an inch to peek out first to check the coast was clear, before making a run for it.

She ran back the way she came toward the stairs, trying to keep her footsteps as quiet as possible whilst listening for signs of the vamp. Soon she could see the top of the stairs in the distance, halfway down the corridor and dashed toward it. However, once she was a few feet away, the figure of the vampire rounded the corner at the other end of the corridor and Maddie skidded to a halt with a gasp.

'There you are little mouse,' he chuckled before beginning a calm yet quick march toward her.

Maddie took off again and reached the stairs as the vamp was halfway down the corridor. She began to run down the steps as fast as possible, barely stopping herself form falling down them in the dark. Then the headlights from the cars became brighter and shone through the foyer windows, finally illuminating the gloom, followed soon by the soft thudding of car doors being closed as she reached the last flight of stairs. She looked to her right to see how close the vamp was just in time to see him jump onto the balcony banister before leaping through the air, crossing the large gap between them to land directly in front of her on the steps. Maddie had no chance to retreat because as soon as his feet touched the ground, he snatched her up by the throat and lifted her off her feet, her airway immediately cut off. She gasped for air desperately as she clawed at the vamp's arm, even attempting to whack it with her cast which caused her searing pain. He laughed maliciously again and pinned her against the wall as the sound of a loud banging on the door and Tommy's voice rattled the air.

'Maddie?!' came Tommy's confused shout followed by the same shout from the other Shelby's. 'Maddie are you in there?!'

Maddie tried to shout back but it was no use, his grip was too tight. Her head started to go fuzzy, and the vampire cackled again.

'They can't help you,' he sneered. 'They're going to watch as I drain the blood from you and then I'll kill them all as well.'

No, no you won't. This defiant thought flashed through Maddie's head as she felt the heavy weight of a glass bottle in her pocket, her memory returning as she reached down and grasped the bottle tightly in her fingers before pulling it out and with all her strength smashing it into the side of the vampire's face. The bottle shattered and holy water sprayed over them both, making the vampire howl in pain as the water burnt his skin like hot acid. However, the vampire did not release her like she hoped but instead grasped her neck tighter before swivelling and throwing her into the banister that was between them and a six-foot drop to the foyer floor below. She collided with it with a crash, the wooden structure buckling with the force of her body hitting it and splintering into bits as she tumbled over the edge of the steps onto the foyer floor. She let out an agonising scream as she hit the floor, luckily not on her arm but on her side, her left hip bone and leg smacking the stone harshly. Maddie coiled up in agony and gasped for air for a second, coughing and spluttering as the vampire continued to screech above her and clutch at his face, momentarily distracted.

'Maddie?!' came the shouts of the Shelby's who undoubtedly had heard the screams from inside the house.

Maddie heaved her head up to look toward the door before sucking in a desperate breath to scream, 'TOMMY!'

'Maddie?!' came Tommy's voice, followed quickly by forceful banging on the door. 'Get the fucking door open now!'

Then a loud bang made Maddie roll onto her back and turn her attention back to the vampire who had just jumped down from the steps to loom over her, an angry snarl contorting its already twisted features. She scrambled backwards on her elbows in panic, dragging her left leg as her bare foot slipped on the smooth stone floor as the vamp advance on her, closing the small gap in a second and grabbing her by the ankle.

'No!' she screamed as the vamp dragged her toward him before straddling her, pinning her to the floor as she struggled against his weight. She could hear the Shelby's throwing all their weight against the door in an effort to open it, but it was a hopeless endeavour, the old wooden structure built to withstand heavier than that.

The vamp quickly got a hold of Maddie's wrists and pinned them down above her head and she screamed as she tried to wrestle her way out. A victorious smile crept onto the vamp's face as he slowly began to lower his head down toward her neck and she shut her eyes in preparation for the sting of the bite, a tear spilling over her cheek when the sound of deafening gunfire ripped through her eardrums.

The vampire growled and sat up, releasing Maddie's hands as he turned to look in the direction of the door as she followed suit. Bullet holes were being ripped into the wood around the door latch, slinters of wood scattering everywhere. They're shooting the lock off, she realised. Just then she moved her left arm out a bit and felt a chunk of splintered wood against her hand from the broken banister. Thinking fast, she snatched the piece of wood and whilst the vampire was still distracted and plunged the pointed end of the wood into his chest as hard as she could.

The vamp screeched in pain and clutched at his chest, but he didn't dust. The stake hadn't gone in deep enough, his sternum feeling more like steel to Maddie now without her strength. The vamp growled and drew back his arm ready to strike her across the face again when a thunderous crash sounded, and they both looked to see the front door fly open and the Shelby's dash in with their guns raised, the light of the car's headlamps illuminating them from behind.

'Maddie?!' called Tommy, his figure coming into view. The vamp growled again, like a wild animal ready to pounce and rip them all to pieces. Before he could stand though, Maddie quickly and desperately lifted her right arm encased in its solid cast and smacked it with as much force as she possessed against the stake still sticking out the vamp's chest, an angry scream leaving her mouth as she did so.

'Die you fucking bastard!' she screamed.

The force was enough to push the stake in the remaining distance it needed to reach the heart and the vampire let out one last hell-like screech as he exploded into dust on top of her. He's dead, I killed him. A split-second delay passed before the searing pain, as bad as when the doctor set Maddie's bones, ripped through her hand and arm again, making her squeal in agony. The pain was distracting enough that the shouts and screams of the Shelby's that followed were muffled in her ears as she clutched her arm to her, tears filling her eyes.

Then she felt herself being pulled into someone's warm strong arms and sitting her up, arms which she quickly recognised as Tommy's. Maddie instinctively coiled up into him, the frightened and pained tears finally spilling out as she began to wail uncontrollably into his arms quickly followed by more violent shaking. She closed her eyes and buried herself into the familiar scent of his jacket, the smell of cigarettes and whiskey giving her something to concentrate on. She had nearly just died at the hands of a vampire. Frances had lost her life to him. If she'd had her powers, she could have stopped all this.

'Get the fucking lights back on!' barked Tommy, finally rousing Maddie from her catatonia.

'T-tommy,' she sobbed. 'He – he killed Frances. I – I t-tripped over her body and I couldn't -.'

'Shhh, stop it's alright, it's over now,' he soothed, hugging her closer to him.

Maddie let herself cry more into Tommy's shoulder. The shock of the past what felt like hours of being chased through the house overwhelming her. After a couple of minutes, the lights came back on, blinding her so she had to shield her eyes from it after they had adapted to the pitch dark.

'Fuck, she's dead Tom,' came John's voice from a few feet away. Maddie forced herself to peer over Tommy's arm to where John was knelt next to Frances' body, her pale dead skin reflecting the light in a way that made her look grey. Regretting her decision to look, she closed her eyes and buried her face back into Tommy's coat and choked on her sobs in an attempt to stop them.

'Get her body out,' ordered Tommy and Maddie listened as she heard John and someone else lift Frances' body and shuffle out the front door. 'Hey,' he whispered, pushing her away slightly and forcing her eyes up to look at him. 'Are you hurt?'

Tommy's face was creased with panic, the impact of what he had just witnessed clearly etched on his face. His eyes immediately shifted to her cheek where a lump and a matching ugly bruise had certainly appeared, and his fingers were immediately there, brushing the skin softly which was enough to make it sting and she recoiled away. She nodded in answer to his question, grimacing as her whole body now started to throb.

'I fell on my hip and my arm. And I smashed the stake into his chest with my arm too,' Maddie said. Tommy nodded; his jaw tensed so tight that the muscles in it were rippling angrily.

'Can you stand?' he asked, and she shifted her legs underneath her, causing a shooting pain to ripple up her leg making her whimper.

'I don't think so,' she replied through gritted teeth, shaking her head. Tommy didn't say another word and instead scooped Maddie up into his arms swiftly yet gently and began to make his way toward the stairs.

'Tom,' called Arthur from behind them, causing Tommy to turn to face him. 'What do you want us to do?'

'Put her body somewhere safe for now, I'll deal with it in the morning,' instructed Tommy as Maddie clenched her eyes shut at the thought. 'And secure the front door for the night.'

He turned to continue up the stairs without another word as Arthur nodded and marched off back into the night. He carried Maddie up to the bedroom and gently sat her onto the bed as she rubbed her sore hip with her hand to try and alleviate the stabbing sensation. Then she remembered the small amount of morphine left in the draw of the bedside table and quickly leaned over to find it. She took a small sip and sighed, clenching her teeth more as the unsufferable throbbing around her body continued.

'What happened?' asked Tommy who was removing his hat and coat, throwing them onto the end of the bed before sitting down. Maddie took a moment to breathe and to gather her thoughts as coherently as she could, the chaos of the last hour seemingly impossible to rationalise into words.

'I'm not sure who the vampire was but Frances must have invited him in for some reason, I heard the doorbell earlier and the front door open as I was sat here reading,' she began. 'Then a few minutes later the lights went out all over the house, I couldn't see a thing. I went downstairs to find Frances to see what was going on when I -.' Maddie stuttered for a moment at the memory. 'I tripped over her body in the dark and I looked and saw a vamp bite on her neck.' Maddie continued the rest of the account of what happened, right down to the details the vampire let slip about being a cultist and the creepy way he had taunted her with the nursery rhyme. He sat and listened silently whist she spoke, only moving to light a cigarette and pinch the bridge of his nose as she got to the part where the vampire nearly choked her to death. 'I don't know how he knew where I was or if there are any more like him,' she finished with a fearful shudder. Tommy sighed and covered his face with his hands for a second before turning to face her with a resolved expression.

'I'm not leaving you alone in this house again,' he said sternly. 'At least one of us who knows about vampires will be in the house at all times.'

Maddie shut her eyes and pursed her lips, part of her old self wanting to protest but sighed instead in defeated agreement. If that vamp wasn't the only one and another were to turn up, then she was certain she wouldn't survive another incident like that. But she had survived this one, and the realisation that she had in a sense passed her own cruciamentum made a sad laugh escape her lips followed by an oddly proud smile. She had managed to slay a vampire without her ususal powers and proved to herself that she was more than her supernatural gifts. That wasn't to say that she didn't still desperately wanted her powers back or that the cruciamentum itself wasn't still a barbaric practice. Courage and luck could only get her so far after all. Tommy looked over to her perplexed as she chuckled to herself.

'What's so funny?'

'I guess I passed the cruciamentum,' she smiled ironically.

Tommy huffed and shook his head in disbelief but then gave Maddie a small smile, 'See, you aren't helpless, eh?'

As Tommy and Maddie assessed her injuries, she found it difficult to look at herself in the mirror and realised she had been unconsciously avoiding it since she lost her powers. Not only was it staggeringly obvious how skinny she had become, but it proved to make her bruises more purple and boggier. Her new list of problems included bruising around her neck, across her cheek and down and around her left side. She was also sure the bruising which had started to heal under her cast had also been refreshed back to its original black colour judging from the colour of her skin around the edge of the cast. There were also some nasty cuts to the palm of her hand when she had smashed the bottle of holy water which required a small amount of bandaging, now leaving her with zero healthy hands.

Maddie had survived the night from hell, but it had come with price it seemed.

The week following the vampire attack was one that seemed like it would never end. Maddie's hip thankfully wasn't broken but it was badly bruised enough that she couldn't put all her weight on it and had to use a crutch John had made for her out of an old broom. Her old routine of sleeping and not eating returned with a vengeance and yet more weight seemed to drop off her body.

Most of the time, Maddie was plagued by grief and guilt around Frances. She had never gotten along with the woman, but she never deserved to die the way she had. Tommy told her that Frances had no close family left alive in the country, had never married and therefore had no children. The only relative she had was a distant cousin who lived in America and he wrote a letter personally to them to inform them that Frances had unfortunately died of a heart attack. The knowledge that Frances had no family constantly brought tears to Maddie's eyes whenever she was reminded of it and wished dearly that she had tried harder to befriend the housekeeper when she was alive.

The damage to the stairs and the door had been repaired before the rest of house's staff returned on Monday, which was when Tommy informed them all about Frances' 'heart attack'personally and informed them that he would be looking for a new head housekeeper as soon as possible. They buried Frances in the church yard in the village, Maddie and the Shelby's the only people in attendance, and went back to normal life once her grave had been filled.

Maddie struggled to sleep the first couple of nights following the attack, but it soon became apparent that there were no more vampires waiting to attack the house, at least not yet. Still, there was always at least one Blinder member in the house, most of the family staying at Arrow House through the week meaning there was often more than one. Even Ada came and stayed for most of the week after hearing about the attack and her company kept Maddie from falling into a complete pit of despair. The ordeals of the last couple of weeks were testing her character more than any apocalyptic demon she'd ever faced, and she realised that she still had some way to go before she could really get over it.

Sunday soon rolled along, an autumnal chill sneaking into the air as September began to creep up around the corner. Tommy was yet again out of the house having been called out on a Sunday to help John deal with some problems at the racetracks that happened over the weekend. He assured Maddie he'd be home before too long, looking decidedly frustrated that he needed to drive all the way to Cheltenham to sort out what John should be able to handle himself. This made her giggle as she watched him pull on his coat with a huff, the same way a child who had just been told he had to do his chores would. This left Maddie in the house with just Isiah as her current bodyguard, along with the houses staff all bustling about as ususal despite the recent loss of their head housekeeper. She and Isiah sat in the kitchen for the first part of the afternoon together playing chess, a game which she was doing a pitifully poor job at. Not that it mattered much as they had fallen into an amusing conversation as they played, which was making Maddie laugh more than she had for the past three weeks combined.

'Honest to god,' laughed Isiah. 'Finn really didn't know that cheese was made from milk!'

'So where did he think it came from?' asked Maddie through a fit of laughter and wiping the happy tears from her eyes.

'He said he thought it came from the ground like potatoes,' snorted Isiah causing them to descend into another fit of uncontrolled laughter. It was a stupid conversation that wasn't even very funny, but it had tickled them enough to the point of hysterics.

The constant gut-wrenching laughter however soon began to make Maddie's bruises ache and she winced whilst trying to stop her laughter, rubbing her bruised side with her better hand. Isiah stopped laughing and furrowed his brow at her concerned.

'You alright?' he asked.

'Just a bit of pain, as ususal,' she responded when all of a sudden a wash of nausea swept through her from head to toe making her bend forward over the table and groan.

'Mads?' asked Isiah, getting up and coming around to put a hand on her shoulder.

'It's – It's nothing, just feel a bit sick,' grumbled Maddie, lifting her head back up and clutching her belly as the familiar need to sleep followed the nausea. 'I just need to rest a while.'

He nodded and helped her up, passing her the crutch before supporting her broken arm and walking with her into the sitting room when she dropped onto the sofa with relief. That was odd, she thought, the last time she felt like that was when she had been injected with the amber drug.

'Do you want me to call the racetrack and tell Tommy you're not feeling well?' asked Isiah with concern.

'Bloody hell no,' said Maddie, shaking her head. 'The last thing he needs is more reason to stress about me. I'll be fine by the time he gets home.'

Isiah gave her an unsure look but eventually nodded, 'Alright, I'll leave you to sleep.'

Maddie thanked him and immediately let herself collapse onto the sofa on her side, curling up her legs and closing her eyes. She felt Isiah lay a thick woollen blanket over her protectively as sleep quickly pulled her under.

The visions that Maddie could see before her were in no sense unfamiliar. In fact, they were too familiar, too frighteningly familiar. She recognised her memories instantly, the memories of all her worst battles complied into a terrifying slide show that whizzed past her eyes in a blinding flash that made her stomach swirl like a maelstrom. She named them all as they passed; her first fight with a vampire, her first apocalypse, her first experience of tragic loss, right up to her almost defeat at the hands of the vampire just a few nights ago. The racket of all the memories filled herears to the point where they felt like they were bleeding and she wanted nothing more than to cover them up to drown out the deafening cacophony of the past.

'Maddie.'

She could clearly make out the iteration of her name drifting to her through the chaos and felt herself tense as she recognised it.

'Maddie, wake up you're dreaming.'

Then the sensation of something touching her arm grounded Maddie back to reality and the dream stopped. Her eyes flew open wide, and her arm instinctively flew out from under her blanket to grasp the neck of whoever was currently shaking her. She was met by the face of Tommy looking back at her startled as he grabbed at her wrist with his hand urgently and she suddenly realised how hard she was squeezing his throat and released him. He fell back onto his heels and coughed, rubbing his neck as Maddie's eyes widened, realisation suddenly dawning on her.

She sat herself bolt upright with a shocked intake of breath and looked down at her left hand, flexing it and feeling a rippling warmth surging through her body in waves. She remembered this feeling; it was the same sensation that she had felt when she was seventeen. Maddie removed the bandage on her palm with her teeth and checked it, the cuts that were there had closed up and almost healed. Oh my god, can it be? She then realised that the constant pain she had been in was in fact gone and lifted her casted arm up in front of her as Tommy finally came around from his coughing fit.

'Maddie?' he asked, kneeling back up in front of her. She ignored him as she tried to move the fingers of her right hand under the cast and found she could feel them again. Excited, she grasped the edge of the plaster cast near her elbow and began to pull it, the plaster cracking and buckling under the strain, causing flecks of white dust to sprinkle onto her lap. 'Maddie, wait hold on,' said Tommy, putting a hand on her arm to stop her but she shrugged him off.

After she had made a long crack all the way down the cast, Maddie gave one last sharp tug on it and ripped the accursed thing apart, throwing it across the room dramatically. Her arm was finally free of its prison and the air felt blissfully cool on her skin as she lifted her arm up curiously in front of her. One by one she bent and stretched her fingers out before balling her hand into a fist, the act feeling strong and importantly not painful, the bones looking and feeling normal again. The skin of her arm was still bruised but almost all yellow and she finally looked away from it in shock to meet Tommy's eyes. He was frozen to the spot in shock, staring up at her with his icy blue eyes wide as he looked from her eyes to her arm and back again. A second passed before a smile stretched across her face and like a coiled spring she leapt up and vaulted over the back of the sofa with the agility of a cat and sprinted toward the door.

'Maddie, wait!' called Tommy after her as she heard his footsteps hurry to follow her.

She burst out into the corridor and sprinted toward the foyer, her leg feeling like it had never been bruised. She ran into the foyer at full speed and failed to see Arthur before she collided with him, startling him and almost knocking them both to the floor and he grasped her arms to stop them from doing so.

'Mads are you-?' he started before stopping, realising that she had just ran into him. 'You're walking…' he muttered in astoundment, looking down at her legs just as Finn, Isiah and John all walked into the foyer through the front door and approached curiously. Tommy appeared then, finally catching up to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

'Maddie, slow down, we don't know if-,' he began but he was cut off as Maddie pulled away from them and made toward the basement door with an excited smile.

She flew down the steps and along the corridor as all the Shelby's chased after her, calling for her to hold her horses, but she had no intention of doing that. She practically dived through the door into the training room, taking a few steps in before pausing and looking around with elated excitement. As her followers made it into the room behind her, Maddie made a beeline for the barbell and felt herself hold her breath for the moment of truth. She paused next to it for a second and heard the Shelby's all fall silent as the positioned themselves to watch in anticipation. Looking at her right hand again, she crouched down before wrapping her fingers of her right hand around the bar and took and deep breath before straightening her legs. The barbell lifted off the floor with ease and she couldn't contain her excited laugh as she flexed her arm up in a curl before lifting the weight above her head. A stunned silence covered the room before a joyous guffaw of shouts echoed around the room as the Shelby's began to cheer behind her. Maddie dropped the weight on the floor with a bang and turned to grin happily at them.

'You're back Mads!' shouted John happily. 'About bloody time!'

Maddie laughed a shocked and disbelieved laugh before catching the glint of her weapon's cabinet and walking over to it. She opened the glass panelled doors and her eyes immediately fell onto the crossbow and she quickly took it out, feeling the smooth wood and weight of it in her hands. Pulling out a bolt from the cabinet as well, she loaded the crossbow and walked over to the centre of the room and aimed the crossbow at the target at the other end. She pulled the trigger and watched almost in slow motion as the bolt cut through the air and buried itself in the very centre of the target and she finally let herself say out loud what she now knew to be true.

'I'm the slayer again.'