Chapter Text
"I fear that we are falling for an insipid cliché. But it is indeed a situation where I am not stuck here with you. You are damnably stuck here WITH ME."
PART I
Six Weeks After the Accident.
If there was something Wednesday Addams abhorred more than life itself, it was Spring. The humidity, pollen and muddiness of the defrosting ground were absolutely insufferable. Or at least, insufferable to bear with a heavy cast over her left leg.
The bulky thing almost made Wednesday wish she had perished from blood loss on the night of her injury, as she had expressed on several occasions, to the dismay of her parents and the concern of her teachers. Although it was entertaining to see the adults in charge at loss for words, the remarks had to stop after some of said teachers expressed those concerns to the principal. She caught wind of discussions about wether or not she should be sent to the new therapist in town.
Of course she stopped, there was no way she would be submitting herself to another therapy circus like the one she had endured the year prior at the hands of the late Dr. Kinbott.
Wednesday felt a pang of regret at the thought.
Kinbott... another death that haunted the back of her mind. So many lives could have been spared if she had caught Tyler on time.
Wednesday scoffed the gloom away, fixing her hold on the crutch as she made her way out of her last class, already catching sight of Pugsley waiting for her just outside the door.
Ever since she had returned to school after the accident , Pugsley had taken it upon himself to assist her with carrying her book bag and walking her from class to class to guard her from any incidental contact or fall due to her state. At first she had been adamant against accepting the assistance , almost had been offended at the offer. But as the first day wore on and she discovered how hard it really was to maneuver herself, she grudgingly realized the boy's help was very much needed. In the end it was some solace that the help came from their familial bond and not pity.
They walked silently next to each other, Wednesday's eyes slowly going over the several stitches that adorned the boy's right forearm.
Six weeks ago, Nevermore had been debased by a group of Hydes brought together by a fugitive Tyler Galpin, and the group had murdered a handful of students.
After the incident , Wednesday, Pugsley and Mason Sinclair had decided to return the offensive and dive head first into a man hunt that had ended horribly wrong for all parties
On the night Wednesday had suffered her fractures, Pugsley had lost an arm.
The extremity had been crushed under falling rubble while they conducted their counter attack against the offending Hydes.
Now the middle Addams child sported a corpse arm that had been adapted with magic to become part of his body. The arm worked seamlessly, though it didn't look very seamless. It was a slightly paler color than the boy, and portrayed several gruesome stitched lines where their father had made cuts to ensure that every nerve and muscle was connected correctly. Wednesday had to admit she was wholly impressed at their father's ability and dexterity. But he was, after all, responsible for animating Thing many years ago. And he was, after all, also the inheritor of generations of Addams family magic, even if he presented to the world as a lovesick fool.
Wednesday flinched as she took a turn towards her room, the leg of her crutch slipping slightly over the moist stone floor. Pugsley quickly moved to assist but she dismissed him with a quick shake of her head.
She tried not to seem too eager to shed her school clothes and books. But the truth was that she could hardly wait any longer. After today's appointment with her Doctor, she was almost sure she would finally get the infernal cast removed. She couldn't wait to regain her full movement and set off in a second hunt.
Ever since she woke up in the hospital , she had obsessively read the news every single day for updates, from every surrounding state. The group of Hydes was still rampant. At least once a week, as sure as sunrise, she would find another gory murder. She had traced their routes, found they often skipped a town or two before killing. The trip had taken the Hydes across nearly 5 states, but as much as Wednesday compared the victims, she could not find a hint of a pattern. She had to reluctantly settle for the conclusion that the victims were no more than poor souls being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The conclusion made her grind her teeth in frustration. If the creatures murdered anytime their bloodlust flared, it was almost impossible to deduct who they might attack next.
The siblings stopped outside her room. Pugsley leaning against the wall in indication that he would wait there. She gave him a curt nod before unlocking her door and slipping inside to get ready for her long awaited visit to the hospital.
Darkness met her on the other side, and she indulged in it for a few seconds before flicking the lights on and beginning her preparations. This room was very different from her previous one. This one, for starters, she occupied alone.
The accommodation had been made the day she returned to Nevermore, to spare her from going up several flights of stairs in her current state. And this one, without the presence of natural light from a particular large window. She didn't know how to feel about that. The first day she had almost felt glad of the change, then it was only a matter of hours before she began to feel at an inexplicable loss. But returning to her previous room and roommate had turned out to be impossible.
One , because of her damned leg and the difficulty of maneuvering with crutches. Two because Enid Sinclair had seemed to be hell-bent on avoiding her like the plague.
Another change she had also been neutral about until, same as with the window, she began to feel an emptiness that threatened to eat her alive.
Enid Sinclair left school a week after Wednesday returned. And Wednesday almost felt melancholic to think of their shared room now abandoned, with its half rainbow, half clear window. Full of memories that Wednesday was unable to unveil.
The room and the whole school seemed to be full of unsaid stories. Sometimes Wednesday would catch herself looking longingly at the empty Medieval Chemistry classroom on her way to her Botanical lessons. Or staring at a particular chair in a far , hidden corner of the library, the taste of something indescribable haunting her. Sometimes it would be a whiff of oddly familiar perfume that distracted her, or it would be a giggle that would almost have her turning in eagerness to find the source of the sound. The result was always disappointment, whoever she was expecting to find was not there.
Wednesday fought hard against these inexplicable impulses. But the fact of the matter was that she was increasingly frustrated at herself for not being able to remember. Angry that her impairment was not only physical. Her fight with the Hydes had left her with a fractured femur and a concussion that had affected her recent memories. As a result , Wednesday was now unable to remember the last few months of her life leading up to the attack.
She could hardly blame the werewolf for leaving.
If Wednesday, in her crippled state of mind was constantly haunted by the ghosts of foggy memories, she could only imagine what it would be like for her previous roommate to stay at Nevermore.
Enid had almost been one of the murder victims on that damned night. From what Wednesday had gathered , the blonde had been injured with a silver knife and had barely made it out alive. But that had not been the worst of it all. And Wednesday was almost sure she herself was responsible for that part.
That would explain why she had fallen into spiraling panic attacks the only two times Enid had visited her during her recovery. And why Enid had looked at her with a gut wrenching sadness through the hospital room window the same two times the blonde had been gently guided out by Morticia Addams.
Wednesday berated herself endlessly in the first weeks, trying to remember. She would force her mind until headaches pulsed against her temples, but nothing changed.
Unlike her leg that had been aided with magic to heal faster, her mind was it's own entity, capriciously withholding the information just out of reach. Taunting her with glimpses and scents and distant voices , but never quite giving her what she needed. Like trying to remember a word that's on the tip of your tongue.
There was nothing to do but wait. Every expert she had seen gave them the same advice. Wait it out, try to follow a routine, keep close to friends and family in hopes the memories will slowly come back. The damage would slowly heal and her brain would repair itself.
It worked to some extent. At the moment of waking she had not recalled Pugsley assisting Nevermore already, but once she saw him in his uniform, the slow recollection began. Other parts of her early months at the school, however, still evaded her. The complication was that she had only one friend that she could remember, a friend that had risked their life to save hers months ago, and that friend was no longer at Nevermore.
Wednesday remembered with vivid detail her fight with Crackstone. She remembered her encounter with Tyler when Enid had bravely faced the bloodthirsty creature. She remembered seeing Enid in her fluffy pink coat and succumbing to her hug. She remembered parting ways at the end of the school term.
It was in the middle of summer where her memories became hazy. By the start of her second year at Nevermore, almost everything was blank. She knew that she and Enid had resumed their shared living in the attic room, at least until Wednesday had been moved to the first floor after the attack. She didn't know, however, if they were still amicable by the time the intrusion happened.
They hadn't been together when the Hydes broke in and this raised a slight alarm in her because she was almost sure she and Enid had taken to having dinner together almost every night. A detail that she had been able to verify with Pugsley. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to exchange a single word with her former roomate to clear her doubts. And she was too proud to ask any of Enid's friends for details.
Wednesday let out a slow breath and finally stepped out of her room, dressed in loose pants and her comfortable checkered sweater. She felt taken with annoyance and utterly useless at the moment.
"Let's get this over with. I have a Hyde to kill." She said gravely.
Pugsley hesitated, but only nodded. "I have contacted Yoko. She will be receiving you at six. Do... do you have to? "
They looked at each other, of course she felt she had to do this. Pugsley had given her reluctant details about that horrible night. Stating that after the monsters attacked the students at Nevermore, she and Mason Sinclair had joined forces to return the aggression, quickly managing to track the group in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Jericho. The elder Sinclair's wolf senses granted an easy advantage for tracing the smell of blood.
Pugsley was unable to tell her just how that unlikely team had come to be. Only that when Pugsley joined them, Mason and Wednesday were deaf to any reasoning, so the middle Addams child had no option but to follow and try to at least be the lookout.
That was where it all went wrong.
As always, Tyler had been an infuriating step ahead of her. Had counted on her recklessness. They walked head first into an ambush. It had been the beginning of the end for her.
On the night Wednesday had suffered her fractures and Pugsley had lost an arm, Enid Sinclair had lost a brother.