Chapter Text
Wednesday Addams knows how her day begins, and she knows how it ends.
It’s in the nature of being trapped in a mindless and mocking time loop.
The first time this occurred, she hypothesized that it was her own psychic abilities infiltrating her subconscious. She took it as an opportunity to be more observant of her surroundings, a detective meticulously pouring over pivotal scenes preceding to the crime and any emerging suspects. She recited her previously spoken lines to her scene partners with accuracy and precision, but her intense gaze wandered beyond them to the background characters and the set dressing. She was certain that her answers lay beyond her initial perspective; there was something there, right in front of her - something that she missed.
Given her limited resources and vantage point, she knew she would not crack the case through this cerebral reenactment of prophecies, blood, and monsters in the woods. But she could resurface with some new leads. And she would simply resume her research in the present. She would unravel the thread of her destiny with the standing of the school, and she would capture the beast that preyed upon a gaggle of victims but seemingly spared her own life.
But the following day did not come.
And it continued not to come. Wednesday watched, repeatedly - like an imbecile, as Rowan’s intestines were exposed before her. No closer to her verdict. The monster threw a glance in her pathetic direction and hurried away into the blackened forest.
She knew this purgatory was not her doing.
It’s Saturday - the day of the Harvest Festival, again, and she finds herself in the Weathervane talking to its barista, again.
Having lived this day 11 times already, Wednesday is no further into her investigation than she was previously - she’s not even interested in it anymore. She’s just bored.
Murder and mayhem, it would appear, can indeed lose their sparkle.
But Wednesday goes through the motions, albeit with little to no enthusiasm. She speaks aloud to Tyler the timeline of her anticipated departure - only the parts that are relevant to him, anyway - as he is her pledged getaway driver. She is privately amused by the dramatic irony of it all, already keenly aware that, after everything, neither of them actually make the journey to the train station. She barely pays him any mind as they converse, speaking the words she knows she’s supposed to say once it’s her turn.
Right on cue, Sheriff Galpin storms into the Weathervane to shoo her from the vicinity, away from his precious son. She suppresses an urge to roll her eyes at the dramatics of it all, like Tyler is a blushing suburban Juliet and she his marauding Romeo.
It’s just that he has a car. And he’s the only one in this insipid town willing to drive her to Burlington. It’s nothing more than that.
But she has a part to play and so she does. She drawls to the Sheriff, once again, about how she is a paying customer, thank you, and Tyler moves out from behind the counter. Wednesday takes a beat.
…That’s not supposed to happen.
She continues her verbal assault against his father, like she’s supposed to, but this time her nerves are on edge, and there’s almost an electric quality to the air. An anticipation. Like she‘s suddenly in the presence of a loose cannon.
Despite her spreading goosebumps, she pushes forward. But then -
Her dialogue with the Sheriff is unceremoniously interrupted when Tyler lurches toward his father - that’s not supposed to happen - and seizes the handgun strapped to his father’s belt - that’s really not supposed to happen. The movement is so abrupt, so unprecedented, that no one - Wednesday included - has time to react.
Tyler places the barrel to his temple.
He pulls the trigger.
Everyone is positively shrieking - the Sheriff, the patrons. It’s utter pandemonium. Tyler’s body is lifeless on the ruined tiled floor, his cranium blown wide for all to see. Wednesday remains in place. She knows, based on her proximity and the wet feeling she now has, that she must be covered in blood and skin and brain matter.
But she isn’t paying attention to any of that. In fact, her lips curve upward into the smallest of smiles.
Tyler Galpin just became very interesting.
Once again, Wednesday approaches the Weathervane’s seemingly sole barista the morning of the Harvest Festival. Tyler is standing there behind the counter, tugging at his red apron and staring a hole into the coffee-stained wood of its surface. He shouldn’t be here, all things considered, but he is.
“So I guess that didn’t work,” she muses aloud dryly. The curls brushing against his forehead give a little bounce as he jerks his head in her direction. Wide blue-green eyes meet black.
“You…remember that?”
“I do.” She tilts her head. “Do you think anyone else does?”
He sighs and shifts his attention to the temperamental espresso machine, anticipating and preparing her order of a quad over ice. She instinctively reaches for her bag to pay for the beverage, but he waves her off.
“Wednesday,” he begins carefully, “I very publicly put a bullet through my head, and you’re the only person that’s mentioned it to me. So, I’d wager no.”
She gives a curt nod at the confirmation of her private assumption. “How long has it been like this for you? Reliving today?”
He gingerly slides the now-filled cup of her deliciously bitter caffeine across the counter. “This is the fourth time for me.”
Something inside Wednesday ticks and then it explodes. “Only four? And you’ve already killed yourself?”
Tyler, unperturbed by her bite, only shrugs. “It’s not really a good day.”
She takes a threatening step towards him, her torso now flush against the counter between them. “Try being stuck here for almost two weeks,” she spits, injecting venom into each syllable. “Maybe you’ll throw yourself into traffic next.”
She knows she’s finally struck a chord when he glares. “Yeah like that did me any good last time.”
She’s about to twist the knife further when the Sheriff makes his long-awaited entrance, advancing on them with an all too familiar and feverish rage. “Addams,” he barks, no apparent recollection of what occurred the last time they did this song and dance, “I thought I told you to stay away-“
“This is so stupid,” Tyler interrupts, freeing myself of his apron before forcing it into a tight ball and throwing it to the floor. “None of this actually matters!” He pushes past his spluttering father and stomps to the exit. He’s facing forward as he calls back to Wednesday, “Are you coming or what?”
Now they’re in Tyler’s car, after just barely evading his father, and he’s driving them to who knows where. Maybe she’ll make it to the Burlington station after all.
After about twenty minutes of comfortable silence, he pulls off to the side of the road and puts the vehicle in park. She doesn’t recognize whatever small neighboring town they’re in or whether they’re far enough from Jericho to not to be located by a certain man of the law. But Tyler at least seems at ease. He leans back and faces her. “Okay…so you’ve been in here for almost two weeks…any idea of what’s going on?”
She purses her lips, unhappy at the prospect of having to admit to her greatest defeat, because no, she doesn’t know what’s “going on.” She hasn’t a single clue. And that’s not a weakness to be revealed to what is essentially a stranger - even though she is now rather intimately familiar with the interior of his skull.
Thankfully, Tyler seems to properly interpret the meaning behind her expression and doesn’t push any further.
They’re silent for another extended moment, each searching for something to look other than their associate, until Tyler finally clears his throat. “Maybe that’s why I’m here too.”
Wednesday’s eyes narrow in his direction. “Meaning?”
“Meaning if you were thrown into this and couldn’t figure anything out, and then I was thrown in here with you…maybe we’re supposed to work on this together.”
Affronted by the suggestion, Wednesday straightens in her seat. “I only work alone.”
“Okay, Batman, and how’s that working out for you?”
Gritting her teeth together, she looks through the windshield but doesn’t really see what’s in front of her. “But why…you?” She can’t imagine a Normie being of any particular use to her in a situation like this.
“I don’t know, Wednesday, why did you ask for my help in the first place?” He’s referencing that first day in the Weathervane, when she was a fugitive on the run from her therapist and Weems. A day she - gratefully - only ever had to live through once. After everything, it suddenly seems so far away.
“Because you offered and you’re…” she trails off but soon relents, “…competent enough.”
The admission seems to satisfy him as she sees the surfacing of a small smile in her peripheral vision. She sighs. Of course, it was only natural that it would be someone like him. Someone who can’t be bought but is still eager to lend a hand. Someone also looking to “get out” in the most physical and metaphorical of senses. Of course it would be Tyler.
Wednesday turns to meet his gaze once more and it’s so unnerving the way his doe eyes can make her feel so exposed. “When we got separated at the Harvest Festival -“
“You mean when you ran away from me and left me to be cornered by my dad - who was furious with me, by the way.”
“Yes, when I did that,” she snaps, not appreciating the interruption when she’s revealing herself to him like this. “It was because we were running and then I…had a vision.”
She’s unsure why it feels so Big to disclose this to him. He’s well aware that she’s an Outcast of some sort, as a student of Nevermore. Perhaps it’s because she’s kept her abilities close to the chest for so long now. Perhaps it’s because she’s always felt like she should have been something with claws and teeth.
If Tyler is at all stunned or disturbed by any of this, he makes no show of it. “So you’re a psychic.” It’s not a question. She nods anyway.
She wonders if he’s also thinking back to the Festival, to the moment when she collapsed into his arms like a choreographed dance. How he cradled her until she came to. She’s had to recreate that very instance nearly a dozen times now.
She almost shivers at the thought.
Wednesday next explains the murderous scene she’d predicted and how she’d run toward it in the hope to prevent it. She tells him the accusation Rowan hurled against her, about the drawing, about the school in flames around her. How Rowan’s attempt to kill her had been thwarted by his own death, at the hands of a clawed creature unlike anything she’d ever seen. How it saved her - only to disappear. How she’d tried to report what she’d seen that very evening, not to be believed.
When she finishes, Tyler stares ahead and digests the new information. She sees him swallow. “So you think that this…monster is the one responsible for all the deaths around here lately?”
“It has to be.”
She waits for the other shoe to drop, for him to dismiss her story as the ramblings of a disturbed teenage girl - it wouldn’t be the first time. But eventually he nods. “I believe you.”
Wednesday hesitates. While she’s grateful to have found an ally, she still can’t help but ask, “Why? Everyone else thinks I made it up.”
Tyler gifts her with one of his more crooked smiles. “Not that I know you super well, Wednesday, but I’ve picked up that brutal honesty is kinda more your thing.”
Not used to being understood in this manner, she doesn’t know how to feel about it and doesn’t know how to respond. So she doesn’t.
They sit in silence for a moment before he chuckles dryly. “So much for that bear.”
Just then approaching sirens blare in the distance, and, in no time, the Sheriff’s vehicle pulls up behind Tyler’s. Tyler groans, and his forehead hits the steering wheel with a small thud.
“Was he upset? After I did it?” His voice is small, and she knows he’s referring to what he did in the Weathervane.
Wednesday hears the Sheriff exit his squad car and begin to meander toward them. She smirks. “He was devastated.”
Tyler raises his head and nods at her, satisfied.
“Good.”