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[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

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[allgotrabies]

Even with the death toll, even with the sense of loss and failure, she's soothed by his fingers in her hair. "I've let everyone I love be killed. And I guess I've realized all the training with Sariss, and talking to Callisto, isn't going to change that."

[loveisall]

"Change what? Change the past? No, Annie. No amount of training is going to change what's happened. And weakness isn't in training muscles and techniques," he explains.

[allgotrabies]

She tips her face up to look at him. "So how do I become strong like you?"

[loveisall]

"Sometimes I'm not strong. I'm strongest when - when I let people help me," he admits. "I'm weakest when I won't. Annie, I - I didn't tell you what I did to Quentin. In the woods."

He frowns.

[allgotrabies]

Listening closer now. "I didn't know you even saw him."

[loveisall]

"Briefly. I couldn't travel in the day but he wouldn't leave me. So when I saw him that evening, I told him that he would have to go on in the morning without me. Let me stay. He refused. So I helped him build a fire that night. Ensured he would be alright and then - " He shudders. "I left him there."

[allgotrabies]

She doesn't know Quentin well, but she can imagine what he must have felt. She can imagine Quentin trying to find Godric again; it's what she would have done.

"Why did you feel like you needed to go?"

[loveisall]

He's already talked to Quentin so he knows that he's not in trouble any longer. But it was a shit move and he knows it.

"Because he threatened to stay. He said he would risk hypothermia and a death toll for me. I didn't want him to."

[allgotrabies]

Her terror at being alone makes it hard to know what she would do. The part of her that wants to be stronger, to take a stand instead of cowering, wants to believe she'd do what Godric had done. It was the less wrong thing, in her eyes.

"That's an impossible decision, Godric. No matter what you did it would have been hard. Have you seen him since?"

[loveisall]

"We spoke. He was angry at first, but I think he forgives me. I apologized," he explains. "I think he was more worried than he lets on."

Which, naturally, makes him feel worse.

[allgotrabies]

"Did he make it out?" Alive, she means.

[loveisall]

"He says he did. He said he just got hurt on the road," he explains. "And he sounded energetic enough to be...very upset with me. So I assume he wasn't death tolling."

[allgotrabies]

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, holding him a little tighter. "It might take a little while but I think he'll forgive you." Godric is someone worth forgiving.

"Was he upset you left him alone, or upset you didn't let him die for you?"

[loveisall]

"Oh he is well past forgiving me. He even tried to apologize for calling me an asshole and a jackass. Which I told him I very much was." He sighs. "He was upset, I think, that I left him alone there. And was worried because I died."

[allgotrabies]

A soft, amused scoff. "I'm pretty mad we died, too. You probably would've been better off with him than me."

[loveisall]

"No," he tells her softly, pulling the blankets off of them and blinking at the light. "I would have been better with everyone. We all would. There was no way to win."

[allgotrabies]

"Okay. That's true. Except for the rage people." She squirms like the light is a physical thing on her, which is about how she always reacts to getting out of her blanket best.

"How many people died?"

[loveisall]

"Too many," he answers, apologizing for the blanket breach by stroking her hair. "Come on. Out of bed. At least walk with me to the couch."

[allgotrabies]

The same groan she always gives when she wakes up, but it's always playful. Even now. Equally playful is the light bite just under his ribs, before she gets up and throws on a long shirt.

"Let's watch something. I think it helps get us healthy faster."

[loveisall]

He smiles. "You didn't need to get dressed," he tells her. "I'm not." He crawls out of the bed and wraps himself in a blanket, heading out to the living room.

[allgotrabies]

"In that case," she happily tears it off again and pads after him, trailing another blanket even though she's going to try to sneak into his anyway.

Walking is painful with her spine still remembering it isn't severed, and her head remembering it isn't crushed. She's very glad to curl back up with him. "I wish we could order in food. And blood. Y'know, I like blood, too? Not as much as you. But. Blood desserts can totally be shared."

[loveisall]

"I'm certain Connor wouldn't mind making double," he tells her. And there's no sneaking involved. He wraps her up in his blanket. The television still has The Godfather in from earlier, when he had it on, and so he just starts it back up again because he likes the sounds of their voices.

"And Annie, about your offer earlier? About changing me once we're both home and settled? I think I would like that."

[allgotrabies]

She sits up so fast it makes her head swim and she barely notices. "Really?"

It was an honest offer, but one she was sure he would take as just a gesture of affection. And then she's hugging him as tight as their death tolling bodies will tolerate.

[loveisall]

He winces a bit but tolerates it. "I have been like this for so long, being human felt so odd. I cannot be a vampire, but being a wolf. With you? I think I can do that."

He wraps an arm around her.

[allgotrabies]

Her mind is flooded with such images, with the thought of him getting to experience it. He knows power--he's in fact more powerful than she or any other wolf is. But wolves get to have depths of emotion she has never seen in any other living being. The joy, the safety.

"I think you'll love it. We can still run through the storms, and we can play in the sun. We can cry at the moon. And we never have to hurt anyone."