"Ash-"

"We'll talk later," The Monster cut her off, Its voice hard. "you need to reach somewhere so that you can sleep off that trauma. We may not be tied together," it would be hard for Netta to miss the barb in that word. "but there's little I can do to help you, if you're too weak."

"Ash," Netta turned to It then, happiness surging through her. "I thought that you died - were destroyed - I-"

"As I said," Ash snapped. "you need to find some place to sleep. We'll have plenty of time to talk with your Calliope, but you're in no condition to do anything, now."

In the cramped and somewhat mildewy interior of the motel room, Netta walked over to the bed and tore her coat off before she settled on the bed.   Only hesitantly did she turn to look back at Ash.

Still standing in front of the door where It had taken a silent, angry vigil, the Monster looked at her with something akin to tiredness, visible even underneath the layers of quiet, angry resolute energy.  Its clothes were wrinkled, seemed to hang off fo a frame that seemed somehow more wasted away, sickly, than the well-toned form It had taken before.

It was when Ash took a few steps further into the room, towards the minifridge, that Netta saw It limp as the Monster walked. "You're hurt -"

"I'm not physical, I can't be hurt. Unlike you." Ash snapped, throwing the tiny door open with more force than necessary.

For a moment, all was nearly quiet as the Monster rifled through the small off-white appliance until It returned to walk slowly to Netta's side, brandishing a bottled water.  "Drink this."

Netta accepted it and took a drink quickly. Looking back up at Ash, with a return of something akin to bravado, she said, "You certainly look hurt."  Netta didn't know what to say, do, or even what was happening.

How could Ash have done what It had done - let alone how had It returned to her?

Ash was quiet.    When It reached up to push Its flattened and askew hair back from where some of it had fallen into the Monster's purple eyes, Netta saw for the first time how bruised It looked - as though Ash had just gotten out of a brawl.

It closed Its eyes, sighing deeply. "I had a run in with something that tried to burn me alive.  I couldn't see the sonofabitch, but the little Monster got lucky."  Netta was quiet, choosing to not challenge Ash on Its assertion that it could go toe to toe with a Witch's Familiar.  It continued to speak, said, "I'm suffering, momentarily, from burning away some of my energy that quickly. I'll recover while you sleep.  No need to worry about your future parasite, no?" Ash paused then looked down at Netta. For a moment she saw something - some indecision - burning away in the Monster's eyes before it went away.

The Monster said, "I won't harass you while you sleep, so don't worry." It paused for a moment and then stared at her deeply before saying, "This has gone on far enough, don't you agree?"

Netta was silent, unable to answer It.

Ash continued, Its voice picking up an angry rhythm. "This is - foolish, and now you're in danger from your own kind. You cannot hope to tell me that you think that you can continue along, without my help. Not when you're being hunted."

Anger rose up in Netta, even as she looked down at her feet, a need to defend herself rose in her. "Who's to say I need your help?" 

The connotation - that she could have another Monster become her Familiar - was clear to the both of them.

Ash made a disgusted sound and began Its mad pace around the room. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. But for fuck's sake, let's be reasonable, for once. If you wanted someone else, you would have killed me long ago. Good luck to you on that front, if that's your wish.  But you haven't."

Again, Netta could only be silent.

The Monster continued. "At this point it's not even an issue of me succumbing to something I've wanted since you - you - kissed me.  You let it go on this long, now it's gonna be a fucking business transaction.  Hell," Ash threw his arms out, It's voice cracking with emotion. "if I was not in a better condition, I would insist we fuck and get it over with.  At this point, I don't know how much longer I can continue playing this game with you."

Netta spoke then, feeling her fingers tightening in the folds of the comforter. "This is hardly a game to me, I can assure you of that."  She swallowed, then found her mouth running before she could censor herself.  "Why have you kept doing this to me, why haven't you just turned your back on me?"

Ash stared at her for a moment, one of his eyes obscured by the mess of blond hair that had fallen over it.  Finally, It looked away, snapped out, "Someone's got to care about you, right?  Else you'd lay down with a wimper, after everything your family put you through."  Ash continued, the Monster's voice at the window to the far left of the room. "I'll tell you - I can't abide much more of this. It's too bad I'm in no condition for binding - as a man, I can't present myself to you for the first time in the shape I am in, now."

Netta looked up at Ash then, saw the way that It looked at her from where the Monster was positioned. It leaned against the window, Its arms drawn across Its chest. The carefree playboy persona was gone.  Even Its hair had lost luster, looked less like Human hair, reminding Netta more of corn silk. 

Here was the closest that Netta had seen of the Ashwood that she knew all too well - bruised and barely keeping to Its false form - but here.  Seemingly no games, no glamour.

Why did the sight of a creature that Netta had once loved so much that she had been willing to give her future away anger her so much, even as tired and shocked as she felt?  

Allowing a fluttering, poisonous smile to cross her lips, Netta said, "You're no man, Ashwood."

Ash paused, Its gaze faltering from her face.   "You're right. I may be no man," It sneered, the soft lines of his lips looking ill-fitting, wrong, as the right side rose up. "but neither am I some damned pet. Maybe," Ash looked up at her, and as had happened before, Its purple eyes had vanished, replaced with vibrantly - red - irises. "someday you'll come to understand that all too well."  

Ash sighed, lowering Its head, thrusting a hand through thick, messy blond hair. It was as though all of the air had been let out of the Monster.

She almost felt bad for It.

When Ash rose Its gaze back to hers, Its eyes were purple once more.  "I only have one thing to ask of you. When you wake up, you need to wait for me before you go anywhere out of this room. Do you understand me?"

Netta nodded, then finished up the bottle of water in silence before she handed the empty bottle to Ash willingly and laid back on the bed.

Netta awoke wrapped in the blanket and unaware totally of what time it was. When she found her phone, she discovered that she had slept through past the next afternoon.

Sitting up underneath the blanket, Netta glanced around her, trying to find Ash.  When she didn't see the Monster, Netta called out, hoping that Ash would appear, healed and back with Its twisted sense of humor intact.  Netta uneasily set about getting ready to go back to her car. She remembered, vaguely, promising to not leave the bedroom, but found that she could not bear to stay in that room, alone.

After she got in the car and was not greeted by Ash, she felt a sick sense of worry begin in her gut.  She drove for a bit and stopped when she came across a local restaurant. Sitting down to a quick lunch, she looked out of the window after she had placed her order.

Netta glanced at the lazy procession of cars down the road in front of the tiny restaurant. She may have looked as though she were looking out of the window, but she could not pass a moment without thinking about Ash.

It was the dull sound of her phone's vibrator ringing shook Netta out of her reverie. She picked it up and answered it without thinking.  "Callie, we need to talk -"

When the voice on the other end of the phone turned out, instead, to belong to a male voice that she recognized all too well, Netta thought that her heart was about to fall through her.

"Netta? Oh, Babes, it is you." He took in a deep breath.

Netta exhaled the breath that she had been holding in. Her heart was beating erratically in her chest, and she raised her left hand up as though she meant to capture her thumping heart in her grasp. "Wallace. I can't-" 

She clenched her eyes shut, and was only saved from vocalizing something that she did not think that she had the heart to finish saying when Wallace hurriedly spoke, in that excitable manner of his.

"Babes, Babes - it's fine, it doesn't matter to me what you're doing, I just want you to know that I can return to the city, but I would much rather be with you, no matter where you are now." His voice - belonging to a young man who was bold in his passions, his determination - rang through the speaker like a ghost. "I want you to tell me where you are, so I can get a ticket and be there as quickly as I can."

Netta blinked, feeling an unexpected tear slip down her face. "I don't want you to do that." She looked up, feeling the gaze of other people in this small-town restaurant on her. What must she look like - a well-dressed woman who looked to be rapidly passing the middle of thirty, getting teary-eyed in a phone conversation?

Wallace sighed and it sounded like deflation, sadness. "Why not?"

Netta closed her eyes. She had been making herself believe that her inability to speak to Wallace was because of Ash. She knew, however, then, that what she felt was caused by simple truths.  She was a species beyond his, and the burden she seemed to have found herself with precluded her from romance.  Perhaps, also, from happiness.

"Wallace - you need to move on. I am no good for someone like you." She swallowed, the felt the only words, there, that could do the damage that she needed, to cause a permanent severance. "I'm too old for you," oh, if only he knew how true that admission was. "I don't want you anymore."

A pause, then she heard him breathe, ragged and fast. "Oh, no - no, you don't understand - we need to... talk, you can't just-"

The pain welled up too heavily in Netta until she found that she had ended the call with an unceremonious hit of her finger. Shaking, Netta sat the phone on the table in front of her.

Closing her eyes, Netta wrapped her head up in her arms and allowed the tears to come, to feel as the lonely, confused pain took her over.

It felt odd, wrong. It was as though Wallace was some last aspect of her game - of pretending to be Human - that she had been loath to give up. It seemed, now, as though it lay severed in front of her.

It was something I had to do, she silently reasoned. I am not a Human anymore. I was only hurting him.

No - she felt, then, that she was closer, perhaps to the creature that she was not even certain if she should await the return of.  She did not entertain the thought that It would not return to her - Ash, after all, always returned.

Always had.

Pulling up in front of the Tarot Cafe, Netta took a deep breath in before she pushed it out of her lungs.  With that breath, she wished that she could push her every worry and fear out.    Inside she found Calliope, who was straightening up what looked like a tarot reading that she had narrowly missed.

"Netta," Calliope said in a breathless, relieved voice as she climbed to her feet away from the short table.

Walking over to her, the older Witch said, "I had grown worried after you didn't show up sooner. What happened?"

She bit her lip and allowed Calliope to envelop her in a hug.  "How was seeing Saorise?"

Netta found that she was holding just as tightly to her coven member as she was holding onto her back.

Netta's words were muffled by the thick fabric of Calliope's thick pastel pink sweater. "Sia - she doesn't have any idea of what's going on. Oh, Callie, what am I supposed to do next?"

"Oh, dear, all's not lost -"

Whatever it was that Calliope was about to say was cut off by an all-too familiar, imperious voice ringing out from the entrance of the cafe.  "For starters, we need to become real about our relationship."

At the sight of Ash - back, finally, to Its proud and nearly perfect demeanor, but with a certain edge to Its frown that seemed decidedly un-Ash-like - Netta found herself wanting to launch herself at the Monster.

The urge, even after admitting to herself in the car that she missed the Monster, shocked her.  "You're okay - I thought that you were hurt..." Netta trailed off, not wanting to say the other possibility aloud.

Ash looked between them, crossing Its arms. "I thought I told you to wait until I returned before you left. What luck, that whoever ambushed us apparently wasn't capable of taking advantage of the chance that you presented them with by traveling, alone."

"Netta?" Calliope's voice called out, hesitant. "Is this what I think it is? Do you have a Familiar that you wish to introduce me to?"

Netta stared down at her feet and suddenly wanted to be anywhere but there at the moment. "Ash, I'm sorry. Okay? It was - it was nearly noon, and I, and you hadn't returned and I couldn't stay in that room, alone."

She closed her eyes, then turned to Calliope, unable to continue looking at that tight, angry face. "Callie, this is - that is to say - Ash is my... friend."   The term friend weighed on her tongue like a foreign body.

When she looked up, she saw the both of them staring at her as though she had a foot growing from her stomach.

"Seriously?" They both asked simultaneously, one without being able to possibly see the other.