Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, Wednesday.”
She hated how easily he said that. Hated this version of herself for getting those words out of him with such little effort. Tyler in her timeline had never done the courtesy of apologizing to her. Not when she’d tortured him, not when she was hanging from the chains about to be sacrificed, not when she’d visited him at Willow Hill. Not even when he’d asked her to kill him.
He was apologizing for throwing her out of the window. Apparently it was the best he could do to circumvent his master’s orders. Wednesday wondered how much of it was true. Tyler had thrown her out of the window in her timeline too.
Yet here she was, trapped between the Hyde and the hospital wall. This time, she had managed to avoid Mistress Arlene’s cultural appropriation army and find Tyler after chasing him through the hospital crowd. Or rather, Tyler found her, pulling her into a half-hidden storeroom within the hospital in a way that reminded her of when he had pulled her out of his father’s way while investigating the woods after Rowan’s death.
“And I killed her,” Tyler said. “I wanted to tell you myself. I’m all yours now.”
All hers. Wednesday’s throat went dry. She did want a pet monster. And she would have liked to have Tyler all for herself. Except, this monster was not hers to keep. Even if she managed to inject him with the potion on time before their mothers interfered, she had no plans to stay in this universe a moment longer than it was required, and she didn’t know what would happen to any Hyde-master bond forged between her and this Tyler when she returned to her own timeline.
“What do you want, Tyler?” she asked. His note accompanying the flowers had simply said “Meet tonight?”, with no death threats towards her or Enid.
He narrowed his eyes, looking suspiciously at her for the first time. “I don’t know, maybe a more affectionate response – you do know how hard it is for a Hyde to kill its master? Or did the fall affect your brain so much?” he asked.
The coma. That was a good excuse, thankfully, to explain away her lack of affection. But Wednesday had standards to maintain. “You threw me out of the window, Tyler. I could have died,” she said.
“It was a second-story window, I would have thought Addamses were built hardier than that. And don’t try to fool me – I overheard your dad saying this was the vacation you always dreamt of,” he said with a cheeky smile.
“So I should thank for you for gifting me a vacation, do I?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I said sorry. And I am relieved you’re alright. Though I wish you were more understanding. It wasn’t easy sneaking in here and checking on you daily while being Jericho’s most wanted, you know.”
“Very romantic,” she intoned drily. It sort of was, she had to admit. Wednesday wondered if Tyler in her world had visited her daily, too. He sure found a scrubs disguise and had the note and flowers ready to deliver within minutes of her waking up from the coma, she recalled.
He smiled, then looked grave. “I need your help, Wednesday. I don’t have anyone else to turn to, what with dad gone too – not that he would have been much help if he was alive, but I’ve been hiding in the sewers when not sneaking in here to see you.”
Dad gone too… he still had his mother left, but Tyler doesn’t know it yet, she remembered. Neither should Wednesday, so she couldn’t tell him that. If she kept him away from his mother and Isaac, would that keep Thing and Pugsley safe, and stop Enid from getting stuck in her werewolf form?
She could hide him away in the Addams mansion. Her own mother forbade her from courting this monster, what did her parents in this timeline think of her relationship with Tyler? The fact that he had to sneak in to visit her did not bode well for her plans, but that could be him mistakenly applying normie values to the Addams family. Or she could ask Fester to help find a refuge for Tyler. Her alternate version won’t like it when she woke up and found her burden of a boyfriend gone, but Goody can make her understand it was for the best.
Before she could come up with a plan, however, Tyler proposed one of his own. “Half the time I’m going mad with hallucinations. Sometimes it’s my dad crawling out of hell to scold me further, sometimes it’s the people I killed. One day I thought I saw your bee boy, even though he’s not dead. The worst ones have you in them – from our bait encounter from the blood moon you planned to catch Laurel red-handed. Except Enid never turns up and I kill you. I’m scared to close my eyes and even more scared to open them, not knowing what I’ll see. I thought Laurel was lying when she said Hydes can’t survive without a master. Maybe it’s true. If so, will you be my master, Wednesday? I don’t want to be a slave, but if it’s you, well, I’m already yours. I don’t think it would make a difference.”
She did not have to fake the conflict in her tone. “Tyler, I can’t…”
“You don’t want me?” Suddenly there was fire in his eyes. She would have taken a step back if she wasn’t already pressed to the wall.
“Planning to leave me, are you?” He wasn’t lying about going mad.
Wednesday had to act fast, before he did something stupid and transformed right here. “It’s not that, of course not. I do not intend to lose you again,” she lied. “But I need to do gather more information on Hydes before we take such a step.” She had to visit Capri and ask more questions this time.
“You said you found Laurel’s notebooks at your mother’s new living quarters,” he reminded her. “Surely you had enough time to study that?”
Maybe his Wednesday did, but she hadn’t. And she did not trust her memory to remake such a complicated recipe. That posed a new problem – where to find the notebook, if she had already taken it from Rotwood Cottage? She had to visit her dorm as soon as possible and search for it. Then she remembered that she wasn’t planning to make it.
Though she did need to calm Tyler with something. “I’ve been busy with the LOIS investigation that your father put me onto,” she said.
“Lois?” Tyler looked lost.
So she did not share the details of that investigation with him. Makes sense, given he was constantly monitored. Wednesday briefly explained the details of the investigation and how it led to his father’s death and the breakout at Willow Hill.
“I thought you just wanted to break out your uncle. Kinda annoyed you didn’t break me out, but I guess that was to help reduce my sentence? Not that any of it matters now, I’m back to square one where the legal troubles are concerned,” he was mostly talking to himself.
“Square minus one, more like,” she could help but add. “It’s el Día de los Muertos. There will be a procession of Nevermore students. Use it as a cover and meet me tonight at the chapel next to the old cemetery. I’ll bring some supplies and figure out a plan to help you.”
“Is that a no? To becoming my master? I thought you liked control.” Of course, he saw right through her evasion and asked about the one thing she wished he would forget.
“I do like control,” she asserted. “But I need more time to make sure we do this the right way.” That much was true.