Katherine feels mildly hungover as she stirs to consciousness. A throbbing head, dry mouth, general fogginess. It certainly takes her a second to remember the events she experienced before her fitful sleep.

With the smell of burning wendigo in her nostrils, her eyes fly open, and she sits up with a racing heart.

She's in a hotel room. Generic beige walls, a television, a corner lamp behind a chair, an AC unit blasting a wet-cold air. She's tucked under sheets and the fluffy duvet, covered in sweat, with hair sticking all over. She's too hot, too panicked, too faint. And she hurts.

Russell sits in the chair on the other side of the room. Watching her in the shadows, just beyond the reach of the lamp's soft glow.

Tears fill her eyes. "It wasn't just a bad dream, was it?" She asks. Her voice is soft and broken.

Russell's face is confirmation, but she can't decipher much of it, what emotions are swirling around that set brow.

Katherine doesn't know what to say, and so they're staring at each other for what feels like hours. Anxiety rolls over his face, fingers twitch into light fists on the arm rest. 

"How could you?" Katherine spits.

"How could I what? Save your life?" Russell retorts. This is the most angry he's been with her all summer. There's real rage brewing on his face, storms in his dark eyes that she can see all the way across the room. Fingers dimple the fabric in the arms of the chair. "You were gonna let that wendigo get you."

"I fucking deserved it!" She shouts, voice hoarse and straining. "And you took it away!"

"Goddammit, Katherine!" Russell bellows, shoving himself to his feet, and throws the phone off the dresser. "You want to die that badly?!" She just stares at him, almost proud. Didn't know you had it in you. "I took it away?" He looks at her with narrowed eyes. He's digusted with her. Good. "Like it's a fucking reward?! What, being with me all this time is just so fucking bad, Katherine?!"

"Don't you dare make this about yourself!" She shouts, still sitting in that bed. "This isn't about you and you know it! And you—" Her voice dies off, tears fill her eyes. If it's her high emotions or the rawness of her throat, she isn't sure. "You lied to me!"

His face screws up in obvious confusion. "What?!"

"You're a goddamn shifter! And you—" She sobs. "You parade around like these creatures are so much worse than you, but you're them!"

It hit a nerve. She saw the color drain from his face. A sick part of her felt satisfaction, watching his face fall. And she just has to keep fucking going. Who knows why. A defense mechanism...to drill it into her own brain, to get as much space between the two of them before he winds up dead, too, like the others who loved her.

"But it was all a fucking act, wasn't it?!" She asks. "Some monster brought it up at the Creature Convention?" She drops her hands into her lap. "One big mind fuck, right?" No response. Her hoarse voice is like venom, eyes like daggers as she spits, "I never want to see you again."

Russell feels something in his chest shatter, and it constricts. There's no air. It's unlike anything he's ever felt before. Anything. He's suddenly breathless, lightheaded. The room is spinning. "No," he whispers. "No, you don't understand—"

"I understand perfectly," she snarls. "You're a monster. I'm Katherine Fucking Donovan. And I'm letting you walk out of this room with your life."

He's never seen someone so angry.

Russell swallows nothing, his throat works against its own dryness. "Katherine," he breathes, clutching the dresser. "No, it's not..." He shakes his head, feeling his body go cold. "It's not what you think."

"It's not what I think?" She retorts, voice full of venom, the way a woman's can get when she's wound up tight. "Then what the fuck is it?!"

"It's never happened before!" Russell says. "Please! Please, you have to believe me."

She pushes herself up from the bed, teeth mashed together. Her shoulder stings as she hauls her bag up onto her bed and unzips it.

It's then she realizes she's in one of Russell's t-shirts. Boxy, off-white, soft, reaching to the middle of her thighs, 'LONGHORNS' printed in cracked orange letters across the chest.

Because she didn't pack any pajamas, and Russell found out. Because she wasn't planning on breathing still.

She can feel bandages against her skin, and she thinks she might cry. If it's mourning, if it's being touched by such a tender action, if it's rage, she doesn't know.

"Where's my knife?" She asks without looking up.

"In your tac belt." He gestures to the folded pile of clothes on the other side of the dresser. "I'm not a shifter, Katherine, I've got silver all over the damn house." His voice, a desperate plea, cracks. He rubs his mouth. She knows he's right.

Katherine storms to her clothes, pops the button of the leather flap, and draws her silver dagger out.

She had it in her hand, the last she remembered. So he must've put it back.

Katherine turns to Russell, keeping her tear-filled eyes low, and holds her hand out. He crosses the room in three large, quick, desperate steps, and extends his arm, palm up. His skin slides against hers, and part of her...a very large part...settles. Her breathing evens out. Her heart slows. She wants to cry, sob into his chest. I'm an idiot.

Katherine knows the answer before she even rests the knife in his palm.

Nothing happens.

The tears in her eyes flow over, run down her hot cheeks. She sways a little, and grabs onto the dresser to steady herself. Russell hasn't moved an inch.

She rests both hands on the dresser, hanging her head.

You're so selfish. You're having a meltdown, and there's Russell. Holding it together. Always fucking holding it together.

Katherine lifts her head to find familiar, soft brown eyes laser-focused on her. His hand is at his side, fingers curled into loose fists. Twitching, itching to reach for her. Small patches on her right side darken the forest green t-shirt he wears.

She steps towards him, lip quivering, and reaches up around his neck. His arms circle her waist, and he sobs into her shoulder. One short, choked sound.

"I'm so scared," he whispers. Katherine's fingers weave in his soft hair, brush the back of his neck.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She kisses the side of his head, and his fingers fist the back of her shirt. "I'm so sorry."

"Ever since I saw you with the torch..." He sucks in a ragged breath. "I knew what you were gonna do, and I just...God, I was so scared."

"I'm sorry."

It's the only thing rattling in her head.

Russell sits on the edge of the bed, dragging her with him. Legs straddling his lap, she tucks his head underneath the angle of her jaw and runs her fingers down his scalp, through his hair.

I'm sorry I'msorry I'msorryI'msorry

"We're done hunting," he says. He can hear it in his head. I'm sorry. Feel it in his bones, warmth in his chest. He can breathe again.

Katherine nods. There isn't even a hestitation. "We're done."

"God...what's happening to me?"

"We'll find out." She pulls away from him, vision still a little tear-blurred. His eyes don't meet hers. He stares at the base of her throat, cheeks and eyes reddened. "We're gonna find out."

"Okay," he whispers.

"Are you okay? What's this?" Her fingers reach for the hem of his t-shirt.

"No, 'm fine."

Her eyebrows furrow, and her hands reach still. "Russell." He lifts his hands in surrender. Katherine plants her feet in the ground and fits his shirt. "Jesus, Russ."

A bloody patchwork of gauze is taped to his skin. It seems to be mostly dried.

"What..."

Russell's eyes move to the other side of the room, and his jaw flexes in discomfort. "When I, uh...I dunno, shifted. It got me."

She vaguely remembers seeing a black mass move through the shadows, a yelp.

Katherine gently lifts the tape from his skin, ignoring his wincing and tightening stomach.

Four claw marks. The middle two are deeper than the others.

"How aren't you still bleeding? These are deep, Russell." He doesn't say anything. She's genuinely surprised just how deep the wounds are. She can see peeps of muscle in some places. He shouldn't be...well, she doesn't think he'd be walking around without extreme pain, severe bleeding...is this part of whatever supernatural creature he is? Is he healing? "Why didn't you try to close this?"

"I couldn't leave you." He won't look at her. Can't.

Katherine swallows, shifting her eyes back to his wound. He brought me here after I pointed my knife at him. Cared for me before him. Again. "Is your kit in here?" He tilts his head towards his bag in response. She pads over to his bag and sifts through the various clothes he packed. Hiking boots, a pair of jeans, some shorts, t-shirts...it makes her heart twist.

He packed with every intention of doing everything he said in the car, and she packed with no intention of seeing the next day.

He lies on his side and Katherine sits behind him. He doesn't so much as wince as she goes to work, bringing deep tissue together and holding it with nylon. He's fancy—he has the dissolving kind, and xeroform.

"We should get you on antibiotics," Katherine absently murmurs, eyes running over the angry folds of his skin. "And a damn rabies shot. Fuckin' wendigo." She rips open the first pack of xeroform and starts to place the wet, yellow strips over his stitches. "We'll say you got attacked by a bear."

Russell snorts. "Close enough." He looks down and sighs before shaking his head. "Man, you've got magic hands or somethin. It looks so much better."

She smiles a little. "Not so much magic as extensive training."

Russell clicks his tongue, dark eyes softening as they meet hers. The way he looks at her...like that...it makes her stomach flip, her heart swell. All the things that shouldn't be happening, that can't be happening. "Right. Doctor Donovan."

She chuckles, looking back down at his stitches. "They do look pretty frikken pretty," she says. Russell grins. It's hard to believe just twn minutes ago, they were screaming at each other. Maybe this is shock.

Something's rattling around in her brain, though, brushing some corner of her mind she hasn't gone to in a while. Magic...

Katherine blinks, staring at his wound with furrowed brows. Not magic...

"Oh, fuck," she breathes. It's like she's been punched in the stomach.

Russell lifts his eyes, baffled and alarmed. "What?"

There's an odd, hollow panic in her blue eyes. Dilated pupils, pale cheeks, tight lips.

"Russell...I think you're a familiar."