Archive of Our Own

Two weeks.

Every day Enid stayed in that form, she moved further away from being the girl Wednesday knew. While the Sinclair brothers were out searching their assigned sectors, Wednesday stayed behind as the architect of the hunt, mapping out potential locations and gathering intel on Alpha-reversion. The werewolf elders were clearly hiding something again, but she was used to digging through their secrets.

She was alone in the cabin, surrounded by open books and marked maps, when the burner phone she kept for monitoring with her colleagues rang. It was Agnes.

“I found a lead on Capri. She’s in northern Vermont,” Agnes said.

“Good. I’m heading that way now,” Wednesday replied. Her voice was flat, but the words came out faster than usual. “She might have the answers I need to turn Enid back.”

“But Wednesday… I have something else,” Agnes said, her voice dropping.

“What is it?”

“It’s about the Hyde, Tyler Galpin.”

Wednesday felt a slight hitch in her chest. She had been so focused on Enid that she’d forced the monster into the back of her mind—the same monster she had chosen to save, even when he had begged her to end it.

She thought about Francoise, his mother—a woman who hadn’t been in her right mind. Watching Tyler as he nearly lost his Hyde powers had made Wednesday realize that mothers were a different breed of monsters; they always felt entitled to decide their children's fate. Tyler’s life was a wreck, but it was HIS wreck. If he wanted to be a serial killing monster, that was a choice he should be allowed to make. No one should dictate what he should be. Not her, and certainly not his mother.

And if they ever crossed paths again and he stood in her way, this time she promised herself that she wouldn't hesitate to give him the end he had begged for.

“What about Tyler?” Wednesday kept her voice as flat as possible, but there was a shift in her cadence that Agnes clearly noticed, in which she had the sense not to point it out.

“Someone saw Capri driving out of Jericho,” Agnes continued. “Apparently, she took Tyler with her.”

Wednesday felt the color drain from her face. She wasn’t even finished with the Enid situation, and now she was staring down another disaster. What was Isadora’s motive? Where were they going, and why would she take him?

Wednesday didn’t know Isadora Capri well enough, and that lack of data led her to one conclusion: Tyler was being used again. During their last conversation in the music room, Isadora had displayed a suspicious level of knowledge regarding Hydes—knowledge that likely went far deeper than she had let on.

And that stupid, fucking Hyde.

Wednesday still hadn't fully pinned down the logic of why she had let him live, but it certainly wasn't so he could be mastered by some suspicious old woman again. He should be on his own, finding his own answers, or at least finding a way to break the curse of the Master dynamic. She had even been prepared to use her family’s connections to help him—new identity, a fresh start, anything to get him out from under someone else’s thumb. Her grip tightened on the edge of the desk until her knuckles turned a ghostly white, her breath hitching with a sudden, sharp irritation she couldn't categorize.

Then her train of thought came to a sudden, jarring halt.

She realized that Enid and Tyler were exactly the same. They were both drifting, alone in their own distinct ways.

But Enid had a pack.

She had a family and friends who were currently tearing the world apart to find her. Enid has her.

Tyler had no one.

He had absolutely nothing.

He was a boy built on lies upon lies; a creature she may have spared, but ultimately left to his own ruins.

“Wednesday?” Agnes’s voice broke through the silence, sharp with concern. “Don’t worry, I’m finding out why she took Tyler with her. Hopefully, they won't interfere with the situation with Enid,” Agnes added, her tone turning decisive.

Wednesday finally drew a breath, the air hitting her lungs like a cold weight. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, and when she opened them, the conflict had been replaced by a singular, sharp resolve.

“I will deal with them myself,” Wednesday said. “The Sinclair family can handle the manual labor of the search. If Isadora has the answers to Enid’s case, I will extract them from her myself.”

She paused, her gaze fixing on the dark, jagged lines of the maps spread before her.

“And if Tyler becomes a threat again, I will not make the same mistake of letting him live.”

Wednesday did not expect the sight that greeted her when she finally tracked Capri’s coordinates. It wasn't a hideout; it was a refuge—a sprawling, hidden camp populated entirely by Hydes.

The observation didn't last long. She was intercepted by a guard, blindsided by a blow that sent her spiraling back into consciousness only when she felt the rough bite of rope against her wrists. They had dragged her into a central hall, bound and masked by a fabric blindfold, though she noted with a mental sneer that the knots were amateur—the work of someone who understood brute strength but lacked the discipline of a true executioner. 

The sharp, rhythmic click of heels echoed against the stone floor. It was a familiar cadence, one she had memorized in the music room of Nevermore.

“It’s okay. Leave her to me,” Isadora commanded the two hulking adults whom she assumed were Hydes who stood guard.

“Wednesday? What the hell are you doing here?” Isadora’s voice was breathless as she rushed toward the center of the room where Wednesday sat.

“What. Are you doing here?” Wednesday’s voice was a low, dangerous vibration. “I believe the burden of explanation lies entirely with you.”

With a sharp, practiced flick of her wrists, Wednesday slipped the amateur knots. She didn't rush. She moved with the cold grace of a spider, reaching up to slowly peel the blindfold from her eyes. Capri stood frozen, watching the transformation from captive to judge.

“Why is a lone werewolf presiding over a den of Hydes?” Wednesday’s eyes were obsidian needles, pinning Isadora to the spot. Her bitterness was palpable, a cold frost creeping into her tone. “What is this? Are you playing at being a warlord? Building an army of monsters to compensate for your own inadequacies?”

Capri stood speechless, the weight of Wednesday’s accusations pinning her to the floor. She opened her mouth to defend herself, to dismantle the cold logic being thrown at her, but the words seemed to snag in her throat.

“Where is Tyler?” Wednesday continued. Her voice lost its low, vibrating quality, sharpening into something firm and commanding. The fire in her eyes was no longer a flicker; it was a focused, searing heat.

Isadora blinked, a flicker of realization crossing her face.

Oh. So this is what it is about.

“Wednesday, listen to me,” Capri began, regaining her footing. “Yes, I am a werewolf in a den of Hydes, but your assumptions are entirely wrong. This isn't a factory for an army. This is a sanctuary—a place of recluse for those who have nowhere—”

“Where. Is. He?” Wednesday interrupted.

The air in the hall seemed to drop several degrees. She didn't care about the logistics of the camp or Isadora’s humanitarian delusions. Her focus was singular and her patience was non-existent. She wasn't looking for a lecture on social reform; she was looking for the one Hyde she had left to his own, and the thought of him being under another's thumb—especially Isadora's—was an insult she could no longer tolerate.

“I believe he is in the woods. He is still finding his footing within this pack, and I would appreciate it if you left him alone,” Capri said, her voice taking on a commanding edge. “As I was saying, this place is a sanctuary. You know the Hydes are banned and ostracized; they are hated and have nowhere else to go.”

She took a step closer, her expression softening into something Wednesday found revolting. “…This was Alfie’s dying wish, and I am carrying it out.”

“I don’t care about your sob story,” Wednesday spat, the words cutting through the air like a blade. “Shouldn’t you be helping your fellow werewolves? Enid is missing. She wolfed out and she can’t transform back. You’re the one who identified her as an Alpha—if you are so brilliant at helping other species, then stop wasting my time and tell me how to turn her back.”

Wednesday stepped into Capri’s personal space, her eyes dark and unblinking. The air between them felt charged, brittle enough to snap.

“And Tyler, I am taking him back.”

Isadora looked at Wednesday, and she understood that the girl standing before her did not recognize limits. Wednesday Addams did not yield to obstacles, she erased them just like before. But this time was different.

For days, Tyler had drifted through the camp like something half-forgotten. He followed instructions, showed up where he was told, spoke when prompted—but there was nothing behind it. No resistance, no curiosity, not even defiance. Just… absence. The kind that settled into his bones and hollowed him out from the inside.

In counseling, he answered every question with the right words, in the right tone, like he had memorized how a person was supposed to sound. But it was all surface. There was no weight to it, no life. It felt like listening to someone narrate their own existence from a distance, already detached from whatever remained of it.

Isadora had seen fragile Hyde minds before, had studied them, treated them—but this was different. This was not something that could be labeled and managed. Tyler was not breaking.

He was fading.

And the most terrifying part was how quietly he was letting it happen, as if he had already made peace with the idea that one day, there would be nothing left of him at all.

"No, you will not," Isadora said, her voice dropping the command for a tone of grim reality.

"Tyler is in a critical situation. He is dying, Wednesday."

Wednesday stilled. The sharp, biting retort she had ready died in her throat.

"The purpose of this sanctuary is to cure the biological enslavement to a Master," Capri continued, stepping closer. "Right now, Tyler is experiencing a violent withdrawal. He is grieving the loss of a mother who broke him and a Master who owned him. He is caught in between the two."

Wednesday didn't blink, but her silence was heavy, almost suffocating.

"If you enter the picture now, you become the trigger," Capri said in a final, desperate attempt to reach her. "You are the link to his trauma. Seeing you won't save him—it will only force him to remember the leash. It will accelerate his decline. If you truly care about his survival, you will let him find a reason to live that isn't tied to a command."

Wednesday was not sure how she would reply to that. The air in the hall felt too still, pressing against her skin like a physical weight.

“You are underestimating him,” Wednesday said, her voice like a cold blade.

“Tyler is cunning. He may just be faking the entirety of it again. Don’t treat him like fragile glass. He is evil, calculating, and strong. I know it firsthand.”

She wasn't sure if she was trying to convince Capri or herself at this stage. She refused to believe a single word of Isadora's narrative until she saw the evidence with her own eyes. To Wednesday, vulnerability was often just another layer of armor, a trap set for the unsuspecting.

But then, memories of him began to surface, unbidden and broken.

“What does it feel like? To lose.” 

“We’re two black-hearted souls, ready to pillage the world together.”

And finally, the memory that haunted her the most. The one that didn't fit the profile of a predator. The way his voice had broken, stripped of all malice and filled only with a desperate, hollow exhaustion.

“…Kill me.”

The echo of that last line sent a shiver through her body, a cold ripple she couldn't suppress. It wasn't the threat of the monster that unsettled her; it was the realization that Tyler’s plea for death had been a decision he claimed for himself, not by any master. It was a final piece of autonomy he’d wrested back from the world, a choice they had pushed him to make—only for her to refuse him.

“I missed,” she whispered, the lie tasting like iron.

She had wanted him to own his fate, but she hadn't accounted for the sting of being the one he chose to be his executioner, or the fact that, for the first time, her hand had intentionally faltered.

Capri sighed, her shoulders dropping as she realized that no amount of logic would deter the girl in front of her. She looked at Wednesday—really looked at her—and saw past the cold, analytical mask. There was an intensity there, a frantic undercurrent of concern for Tyler that Wednesday would likely rather die than name. It was a lingering resonance between two broken things, an echo of a past that neither of them seemed able to fully bury.

“Tyler knows you are here,” Capri said quietly, her voice heavy with the truth. “And he told me he doesn't want to do anything with you. But I know you, Wednesday. I know you will insist on having your way regardless of his wishes.”

She paused, searching Wednesday’s unblinking eyes.

“Fine. Have it your way,” Capri conceded, though the words tasted like a warning.

“But you are not allowed to conscript him into whatever dark plans you are brewing in that mind of yours. He is not a tool for your investigations. As for Enid, I will help in every way I can. I give you my word on that.”

Isadora took a step forward, her expression hardening one last time.

“And please, Wednesday. For once in your life, stop being so self-centered. This isn't a game of chess, and he isn't a piece you can just move back onto the board.”

Wednesday had been navigating the dense, shifting shadows of the Vermont woods for hours. The sun was bleeding out into a bruised purple horizon, yet there was no sign of him. Still, the back of her neck prickled with a familiar, electric heat. He was there, a ghost woven into the treeline, watching her with the piercing stillness she knew by heart.

His refusal to show himself was an insult to her patience. If he wouldn’t step into the light of his own volition, she would give him a reason he couldn't ignore.

“Tyler, enough hiding,” she called out, her voice cutting through the damp air like a scalpel. “You’ve been trailing me for three kilometers. Your stealth is deteriorating.”

Silence. Only the rhythmic creak of old pines and the soft, indifferent sigh of the wind answered her.

Wednesday reached into the folds of her skirt, her fingers finding the cold weight of her obsidian dagger. The blade was etched with intricate filigree, its edge honed to a lethal, glass-like sharpness. Without a flicker of hesitation, she pressed the steel against the pale map of veins on her wrist.

She sliced.

It was deeper than she had intended—a violent opening that pulsed with immediate heat. The copper tang of her blood filled the air, thick and sweet, spilling onto the forest floor in a dark, spreading stain. It was a dinner bell for the local predators, a crimson provocation.

"Let's inconvenience each other then," she whispered to the shadows. She watched the blood fall, faster and faster, the stinging pain a welcome tether to the moment. It was a familiar, grounding ache.

Seconds stretched. Then, the brush exploded.

A long, clawed hand, grey and lethal, lunged from the woods. It clamped around her injured arm, his grip broad enough to wrap entirely around the wound, staunching the flow with a frantic, bruising pressure.

“Are you that desperate for my attention, Wednesday?” Tyler’s voice was a guttural growl, vibrating with a raw, broken edge.

He was a portrait of beautiful, violent chaos. His hair had grown long and unkempt, tangling around a face that looked hollowed out. The scars she remembered were there, but they looked angry—reddened and fresh, as if his body were rejecting its own healing. Dark, bruised circles hung heavy beneath his eyes, making them look like sunken pits of amber.

He wore nothing but a pair of loose, tattered khaki pants that hung dangerously low on his hips, revealing the sharp, skeletal jut of his hipbones. He was significantly thinner, his ribs tracing prominent lines beneath skin that looked as pale as parchment. New wounds—angry, raw claw marks—crisscrossed his chest and torso, some still weeping.

“Why are you here?” Tyler’s hand was still mid-shift, the claws retracting into human fingers as he maintained a bruising grip on her wrist. He was squeezing hard enough to hurt, a frantic internal pressure that acted as a tourniquet against the blood. It was a grounding pain, the only proof Wednesday had that he was actually standing there.

“You can’t stay away from me, can you?” Wednesday taunted, her voice a low, cold challenge.

“Answer me first. You’re not supposed to be here.” Tyler’s gaze was fixed on her, dark and uncompromising.

“Enid is in trouble. I am finding answers on how to turn her back.”

Tyler flinched at the name, a brief flicker of something like guilt crossing his face.

“And why does that concern me? Why are you looking for me?” His voice dropped an octave, his look deepening into something unreadable.

“Capri has the answers I need,” she said, avoiding his second question entirely.

Tyler slowly closed and open his eyes, his shoulders slumping as if the very act of standing was a chore. He began to release her wrist, his touch lingering just long enough for the pressure to have sealed the worst of the flow. The blood was already drying, dark and tacky against her pale skin.

He pulled away from her, the space between them suddenly feeling vast and freezing. Without another word, he turned and began to drift back toward the density of the trees.

Wednesday watched him, her mind cataloging the wrongness of his movements. The Tyler she knew would have pressed her for more, would have taunted her or threatened Enid just to see her reaction. He would have fought to keep the conversation alive, even if only through spite.

But the fire was gone. There had been a spark of the old Tyler when he first grabbed her, a flash of genuine anger, but it had collapsed back into that unfamiliar void. He was moving like a man who had already accepted his own ghosthood.

“Come with me, Tyler.”

He stopped for a heartbeat, his back to her, but then he continued to walk away. Wednesday followed, her boots crunching over the fallen needles as she trailed his retreating form.

“This place is a joke,” she said to his back. “This is not where you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”

Tyler didn’t respond. He didn't even turn around.

“If you want to remove the Hyde's curse, I am willing to assist you.”

Wednesday felt a sharp pang of irritation, her pride screaming at her to leave him to his ruins. She wasn't used to offering help twice, especially to someone who treated her presence like a burden. But something deep in her core refused to let him go. 

She wouldn’t leave this forest without him. Isadora’s sanctuary was a ticking clock; housing a collection of Hydes in one place was a catastrophe waiting for a match, a volatile circus of impending slaughter. She refused to let Tyler be the one to burn for it. It was too dangerous, a reckless gamble with lives already hollowed out, and she would not allow him to be a pawn in this clownery again. If his destruction was to be decided, it would be by her hand, not by the whim of another self-appointed master.

Tyler stopped. He turned slowly, the movement heavy, his gaze finally locking onto hers.

“I don’t want answers,” he said, his voice a hollow rasp. “I don’t want to remove some curse, either.”

“Then you will help me find Enid,” Wednesday countered, her voice sharp. “You owe me your life, after all.”

The void in his expression finally fractured. The dullness vanished, replaced by a slow-burning, familiar rage. It was perfect—exactly the reaction she had been fishing for.

“I didn't ask to be saved, Wednesday,” he snarled, taking an angry step toward her. His eyes began to bulge, the gold of the Hyde fighting to surface.

“I asked you to kill me.”

He closed the distance between them until he was looming over her, his breath hot against her face. 

“I hate you,” he hissed, the words dripping with genuine venom. “Every fiber of you angers me.”

Wednesday didn’t flinch. She met his gaze with a cold, matching intensity.

“Hate me all you want. I contempt you just as much, Tyler. Your presence alone is enough to make me puke.”

Tyler’s gaze dropped to her other hand—the one still gripping the obsidian dagger. Before she could react, his hand shot out with a speed that caught her completely off guard. He didn't disarm her. Instead, his large hand covered hers, his fingers locking over her knuckles in a crushing grip.

With a violent, sudden motion, he forced her hand upward, pressing the edge of the blade against the pulse of his own neck.

“If you hate me that much, then do it yourself. Now.”

He didn't wait for her to move. He leaned into the blade, pulling her hand with him. The sharp obsidian bit into his skin, and a thin, dark line of red began to bloom, the blood dripping down the column of his neck and pooling at his collarbone.

Wednesday’s eyes widened. She was at a total loss.

Tyler was smiling at her—a broken, terrifying expression—as he forced the dagger deeper. But his eyes remained empty, two black holes that sucked the light out of the forest. Wednesday tried to wrench her hand away, to break his grip, but even in his emaciated state, the Hyde’s strength was absolute. He held her there, a silent executioner forcing her to become his own.

Wednesday used her injured hand to seize Tyler’s hair, her fingers tangling in the unkempt strands as she yanked his head back, forcing his throat away from the obsidian edge. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon, leaving them in a bruised, twilight haze. They were both breathing hard, chest to chest—to an outsider, they might have looked like lovers hidden in the woods, consumed by a feverish heat, but the reality was far more twisted.

“Tyler, stop this instant,” she commanded, her voice vibrating with a rare, unstable edge.

“Why?” he gasped, a dark, mocking grin stretching across his face. “Afraid of finally getting your hands dirty?”

Wednesday felt her control slipping. Acting on instinct, she gathered what remained of her strength and delivered a sharp, violent kick to his midsection. The force was enough to break his grip. He tumbled backward, his body hitting the soil and dead leaves with a dull thud. He didn't fight back. He just sat there.

Wednesday stood over him, her lungs burning as she fought to catch her breath. The hand clutching the dagger was shivering—a physical betrayal she tried and failed to suppress. The blade was a slick, dark mess, both their blood  finally mingling on the steel.

Tyler didn’t move to get up. He lay there, staring at the canopy above. “Go away. Just... let me be.”

Wednesday’s composure finally shattered, her face contorted with fury. “I will not let you—”

“I’m tired, Wednesday,” he interrupted, his voice dropping into a hollow, exhausted flatline.

“I’m tired of everything. Nothing in this shitty life–“ he breaths. Hard.

“…I’m done with being used, over and over, by everyone who thinks they can own me.”

He turned his head away, his voice barely a whisper.

“…I’ve had enough of you.”

Wednesday’s eyes flinched. She tried to ignore the sharp, stinging sensation in her chest, but she was hurt. She wasn't sure if the ache was a reaction to his words, or the sight of her mortal enemy—the object of her exquisite hate—reduced to this. He was no longer the cunning monster she hated; he was just a pathetic, hollowed-out boy, fading into the dirt.

“I will not allow you to die,” she said, her voice regaining its cold authority.

“Your life is mine, Tyler. I will decide when, where, and how you should die. Not without my permission...

You will never get enough of me.”

She paused, the wind dying down until the only sound was the faint rhythm of their breathing.

"You don't get to choose an easy exit. Not when I still have a use for you. Stand up, Tyler. Recover your strength so that when the end finally comes, it’s by my hand and at my timing. I’ll be waiting for the day you’re healthy enough to try and kill me again."

The way she held his gaze was a promise. It was a purpose as twisted and black as their own hearts, a pact between two souls too fractured for a normal world. In their shared madness, she was tethering his will to survive to the very threat of their mutual ruin. If they were both crazy enough to prefer a violent end over a peaceful surrender, then she would make his recovery the prerequisite for their final, lethal encounter. She was turning their future destruction into his only reason to draw breath, ensuring that his will to live was fueled by the same dark fire that promised to eventually consume them both.

Tyler stilled. His fingers curled, clutching the damp soil of the forest floor. A single tear escaped, tracing a slow path down his cheek before falling onto the back of his palm. His mind was in chaos, but his heart recognized the weight of her words.

Wednesday wanted him alive.

Even if it was her. Even if she was the one who had unmasked him and nearly destroyed him. He knew he loathed her entire being; he had told himself that every inch of her angers him.

But there was something in her—the way his name sounded when she called him—that made him forget.

Maybe he did love her before.

The thought was more agonizing than any physical blow. If he had convinced himself his love was a lie in the sunlight of Jericho, what was this haunting, violent thing currently pulse-throbbing in the bleeding shadows of the woods? It was deeper than affection and more jagged than desire. He looked at her, his vision blurred by the tears he couldn't stop, and felt the horrific truth settle into his bones.

He hadn’t been lying to her back then. He had been lying to himself ever since.

Did he even stop loving her?

The two remained absorbed in their quiet truce. Wednesday eventually approached him, holding out her hand in a stiff, silent offer to help him stand. Tyler’s eyes were bloodshot and raw, while Wednesday kept her gaze fixed on a distant point in the tree line. She wasn't entirely sure why she had said those words, but if they served to pull him back from the void, she would allow the confession to stand.

Tyler hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't want to touch her; it was the fear of his own weight dragging her down into the dirt with him. After a moment, he reached out, intending to use her hand only as a steadying point to find his own footing.

But the second their skin met, the air was sucked out of the clearing.

Wednesday’s spine snapped backward, her body contorting in a violent, familiar arc. A gasp died in her throat as a vision hit her with the force of a physical blow.

Tyler’s heart hammered against his ribs in a blind panic. He dropped back to his knees, moving instinctively to catch her before she could slam into the forest floor. He pulled her against him, holding her tightly as her limbs continued to convulse in his arms.

A cold horror surged through him when he saw it—dark, ink-like tears beginning to spill from her wide, unseeing eyes, staining her pale cheeks.

Tyler pulled her into a desperate hug, cradling her head against his chest. He reached up, his fingers trembling as he tried to wipe the black stains from her face, but his movements were clumsy and frantic. He looked down at her, his expression shattering into helplessness.

Wednesday on the other hand, drifted into the most lucid, terrifyingly linear vision she had ever experienced.

She saw Ophelia again, alive, concealed within the bowels of the Frump household. Her aunt was staring at a wall covered in frantic, scrawled text, her lips moving in a silent plea Wednesday couldn't fully hear. She caught fragments—destruction, Hyde, death—words that tasted like ash.

Then the scene shifted. She saw Enid, human again, pulling her and Agnes into a crushing, tearful embrace. Behind them, Ajax and Bianca were smiling, the sun finally breaking through the clouds. Wednesday felt a surge of relief so profound it should have been enough. But there was a hollow space in the center of the frame.

Then the vision changed again, it dragged her deeper, pulling her toward the Crackstone crypt. It was a ruin now, the stone blackened and crumbling.

And that was when she saw him.

The vision became eerily real, the cold air of the crypt filling her lungs as if she were standing there in the flesh. Her heartbeat turned erratic. Tyler was leaning against the cold stone, looking as though he hadn't touched water in days. His eyes were hollowed out, sunken into his skull, but they were fixed directly on her. And he was smiling—the sweet, unassuming smile from the Weathervane.

“I could not really get away from you, could I…” he chuckled, the sound weak and rattling.

He looked in her direction, but his gaze was empty, as if the light had already left him. Wednesday knelt beside him, her voice cracking as she leaned in.

“Why did you leave?? We were supposed to find the cure after we saved Enid. We had a plan...”

“All you do is lie,” she continued, quieter now, more dangerous.

“Lie, manipulate, pretend. That is all you have ever been.” Wednesday continued.

“I know,” he said simply.

No defense. Just… acceptance.

“I’m good at it,” he added after a pause, voice faint. “Lying. Deceiving."

A flicker of something softer passed through his face. “Making your coffee.”

Wednesday flinched.

“Don’t speak. Come. Uncle Fester is outside waiting for us. He’ll transport you to our estate. Mother agreed to hide you while you recover, so—”

“Wednesday…”

She stopped.

“I thought I hated you. Turns out it wasn't that.” He coughed, a wet, agonizing sound.

“I’m sorry I won’t be able to live long enough to repent to the people I murdered... just as you said.”

She reached for his twitching hand, her fingers tightened around him.

“Save it,” she snapped, too fast. “Whatever delusion you are forming, I am not interested in hearing it.”

“Even after everything… I did not stop thinking of you,” he whispered, his head lolling back against the stone. “I kept thinking... if I could just get rid of you... it’d stop.”

A long, suffocating silence fell between them. 

“I think I really did love you after all,” he said, his voice growing quieter, drifting.

“Doesn’t matter, though.”

His eyes began to glaze over, the light retreating into the shadows.

“It’s a bit late for that.”

“…Stay.” Her voice finally broke.

He smiled one last time.

Tyler didn't even have the strength to close his eyes. The spark simply vanished. His body went limp, sliding away from the stone where he had been leaning, falling heavily against her side.

Her fingers dug into his arm, as if force alone could reverse what had already happened.

It didn’t.

The silence that followed was absolute.

The transition back to reality was violent. Wednesday’s eyes snapped open, the world of the crypt dissolving into the damp, dark reality of the Vermont woods. The black, ink-like tears of the vision continued to spill from her eyes, now mingling with the hot, salt-sting of her own genuine grief.

Tyler was there. He was alive.

He was holding her with a desperate, crushing intensity, his arms locked around her as if letting her go would cause her to shatter. His face was a mask of raw concern, his breath coming in ragged hitches. To him, she had just been convulsing in his arms; to her, she had just watched him die.

Wednesday’s limbs felt like lead, her energy drained by the lucidity of the sight, but she forced her hand upward. Her fingers, still stained with blood, trembled as she reached for his face. She traced the line of his jaw, her touch lingering on the skin she had just seen turn cold and grey in her mind.

He was warm. He was breathing.

The pain from the vision still burned in her chest, a phantom heartbreak that refused to fade. She looked into his hollowed eyes, seeing the boy who was ready to let go and the monster who had been beaten into submission.

She wouldn't allow it.

The image of the ruined crypt and his final, weak smile burned behind her eyelids. It was a future she refused to accept. She would find the lead in the Frump household; she would bring Enid back from the edge; and she would drag Tyler out of his own ruins, whether he wanted to be saved or not.

She would save everyone—even if the price was herself.