#adrabbleaday

Chris was conscious by the time Melissa was ready to stitch the cuts.  She'd almost called an ambulance -- the three deep gouges across Chris' stomach screamed hospital -- but Chris had come here, had come to her, and there were a dozen reasons why he might be wary of Beacon Hills Memorial.

"How bad?" His voice as barely more than a whisper. His eyes followed the deft movements of her hands.

"Bad enough," she told him, the pulling the needle up to finish another stitch. "You should be in a hospital."

"She'd look there," Chris said. His voice had strengthened. "She won’t guess...she wouldn’t think I’d come here."  

She could have asked who’s she? Should have, perhaps. But she couldn’t shake the certainty that Chris wouldn’t have asked for her help if it would have put him in danger.

It would almost have been reassuring if he'd flinched or winced as she stitched up the gashes -- instead he lay perfectly still, his chest rising and falling.  

She realised they were breathing in time.  

"There," she said, tying off the last stitch and reaching for the gauze. "You're going to have to stay still for a couple of days."

Chris' exhalation was the closest she'd ever heard him come to laughter.

Three years ago Melissa would have missed the knock at the door. As she padded down the stairs she wondered if she'd dreamt it.  It wouldn't have been the first time she'd gone to the door or the window, only half-awake, called out of bed by a feeling, an unease, an unknowing of some kind.

Being the mother of a teenage werewolf had a way of honing both the senses and the nerves simultaneously.

The movement of trees outside sent shadows skittering in front of her bare feet.  She didn’t bother turning the light on. Her feet knew the stairs. The house was silent, the cold light of the full moon touching the furniture with greedy fingers.

Sometimes it felt like a house made of absences – Rafael, Isaac, the stillness of the air when she arrived home at 4am, fumbling with her keys, and knew, somehow, that Scott wasn’t in his bed. Can you make a home out of a battlefield, a way-station, a military encampment? She sighed, running fingers through her loose hair as though she could shake out the shadows.

She opened the door, half-expecting the porch to be empty.

Chris Argent was leaning against the doorjamb. His bare arms and hands were soaked with blood turned black by the darkness.  He was wet to the skin and covered in mud, one hand pressed to his stomach and the other wrapped around the handle of a knife . "I'm sorry," he managed, between gritted teeth, "I didn't..."

He crumpled at her feet.  

So, I just vanished into the ether. I didn’t intend to, but I got caught up in all sorts of things and just slowly drifted away from Tumblr and fic and writing more generally. First, I wanted to apologise to anyone who was waiting on a sequel or new chapters in any of my fics -- the daily AO3 kudos or comment notifications still made me inordinately happy even when I wasn’t writing or replying or checking my account.

Second, I missed fandom. I really did. Not always consciously, but I missed the sense of community and the enthusiasm and the love. I don’t want to not have that in my life. 

Third, I’m planning to dip my toe back into the water and try and get back into a routine with some drabble a day action. Also, let’s be real, the TW mid-season finale filled me with the need to write about a certain grizzled werewolf hunter and a certain badass single mother. And a snarky, sexy werewolf with antagonism problems. You know who I’m talking about. 

And also OMG so many Barduil stories I want to write after a Hobbit rewatch. So many. All the stories, all the time.