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I'll Catch You
by A.N.D.

~a missing scene~

"I'll catch you. And if I miss for any reason, I'll stay by your bedside and nurse you back to health." -- Wolf.

All around them kings and queens and emperors were cheering madly, welcoming Wendell. But Wolf barely noticed them as he focused on the most important person in the room.

Virginia was no longer wailing and trying to call her mother back; Wolf remembered with grim clarity how much it hurt to call after a parent who could no longer answer. After the third or fourth howl your broken heart realizes that their silence is just another reminder of their death, and that's just too much to handle.

So Virginia buried her face in her mother's shoulder, letting out her pain in long, racking, silent sobs. Wolf knew there was nothing he could say, so he just huddled as close as he could. If the only comfort he could offer was his presence, then he would stay by her side as long as it took, rubbing her shoulder and letting her crush his hand in hers.

Then the whispers and questions started.

"Who is that? Why hasn't she woken up?"

"It's the Queen! The Evil Queen!"

"It can't be! How did she get out of prison?"

"What's going on?"

Someone nudged Wolf, trying to part him from Virginia. Wolf growled without looking up.

"What happened?" Tony shoved again, and Wolf, startled, moved out of his way. He'd forgotten about Tony.

"Oh, Christine..." Tony dropped to his knees on the other side of the Queen, reaching up to stroke her cheek as his tears started to fall. "Oh, Christine. I'm so sorry it had to end this way." His hand came away with blood on it, and he held it out to Wolf, confused.

Wolf nodded to Virginia, still buried in her mother's shoulder. "She saved us all. She used Snow White's poisoned comb and saved us all."

Tony stared at him, dully, then started shaking his head. "No. No! There had to be some other way! And Christine... no, there had to be another way. Maybe I could have talked to her, reasoned with her..."

"You still loved her." Wolf blinked in surprise. People feared the Queen, hated her, fawned on her for power, avoided her -- nobody loved her. But Tony... Tony didn't know the Queen, did he? He'd just known whoever she had been in his world. Whoever she had been before she turned evil.

Before Wolf could even think of what to say to comfort him, Queen Hood the Third marched over, pointed at them all, and snapped "Wendell, arrest these people! They tried to kill us!"

That got Virginia's attention. "No!" She lifted her head, but didn't turn away from her mother's body, nor loosen her grip on Wolf's hand. "No!"

"Yes!" Queen Hood snapped back. "I heard you! I heard you ask him," and now the finger pointed at Wolf like an arrow, "why we weren't all dead. And then she said something about poison."

"I heard her too!" said Leaffall, fighting her way to the front of the crowd.

"I didn't mean... I tried to stop..." Virginia gulped on a sob and Tony stepped up to her defense.

"Leave my daughter alone! She just saved you!"

"Who are you?" Queen Hood snapped. "One of the Queen's minions, apparently. Who else would mourn that woman?"

"He is Anthony. And he is right." Wendell silenced the rising noises of confusion and anger with a lifted hand. "My fellow kings and queens, I have a tale to tell you. A tale of a quest, of treachery, of bravery and great sacrifice. The tale of how this young woman has become the Sixth Woman to Change History." He walked over to them and laid his hand on Virginia's head for a moment, smiling down at her. She sniffled, and did not return the smile.

"But first," he said quietly, "I think my stepmother should be removed from here." He snapped his fingers and guards pushed through the crowd. "Take her away..."

Wolf pulled Virginia close and held her as they lifted the body. One limp arm dropped and dangled as they juggled the Queen's remains, and Virginia started whimpering again. Tony stepped forward to take his wife's hand and tuck it gently back up.

"Where do we take her?" one guard asked, eyeing Tony warily. "Shall we throw her in a hanging cage outside the prison as a warning?"

Virginia and Tony made identical incoherent noises of protest, almost lost in the loud roar of enthusiastic agreement from the royals.

Once again, Wendell's voice cut through the babble, although he didn't raise it.

"No. She was once a great Queen, and my stepmother. Take her to the royal crypt, and lay her in state. For the evil she has done, she has died. For what good she has done, she shall be honored."

The guards nodded and exited. Wolf felt Virginia try to follow them and tightened his grip.

She didn't fight him; instead, she turned and leaned against him, whispering, "Wolf, let's get out of here."

"Good idea," he whispered back.

Wendell heard them anyway, and nodded. Another snap of his fingers and they were swept away by maids and footmen and the Royal Physician, who clucked over Tony's injuries.

They were put into separate rooms, all near the royal apartments. Wolf stayed in his just long enough to strip off the uncomfortable livery and put on the robe and nightshirt someone had left on the bed. Then he snuck back down the hall, discretely sniffing at doors until he found Virginia's.

He knocked quietly. There was no answer. He knocked again, a little louder. Virginia? It's me, Wolf." There was still no answer, so Wolf quietly tried the doorknob. It turned in his hand, so he slipped in.

The room was dark, lit by only one small candle on the verge of guttering out. He followed the light and Virginia's scent, both of which took him to a huge feather bed. He could see the tracks of drying tears glittering on her cheeks in the last of the candle flame, but her breathing was slow and steady. She must have cried herself to sleep already.

Wolf touched her cheek very softly, then turned to go. As he was about to open the door, a thought struck him. All of the servants in this castle had served the Queen these last few weeks, and some of them may have done so willingly. Now that Virginia had killed the Queen... huff puff, there might still be treachery in the air! Only one way to keep her safe now.

Wolf gave a longing look to the comfortable bed, stole a pillow from a chair, stretched out protectively across the doorway, and fell asleep.

~*~*~

He was awakened the next morning by the door bumping his ribs. Wolf jumped up and wrenched the door open, snarling.

The chambermaid dropped her armload of towels and shrieked, or tried to. Wolf slapped his hand over her mouth just before she could make the sound and wake Virginia up. Unfortunately, Wolf had not noticed the second maid, who squealed and threw a basinful of water all over him before bolting off.

Well, at least it was warm water. Wolf looked down at his dripping clothes, the wide eyes of the maid he was holding, and the wreckage of the ceramic basin. "You were coming to bring Virginia something to wash up with, weren't you?"

She nodded timidly. Wolf sighed and let go. "I'm sorry. I won't..." She was backing away rapidly, and he sighed again. "I won't hurt you. I thought... never mind. Go get her some more things and I won't bother you."

She didn't even bother to nod; as soon as she reached a bend in the hall, she turned and ran.

Wolf trotted back down to his room and exchanged the soaking robe and shirt for his travelling clothes. It was a nice room; he'd really have to sleep in it sometime. The maids had already been by there and left him towels and water; he used one towel himself, but carefully carried the water back to Virginia.

This time he didn't even bother to knock; he just bumped the door open with his hip and was talking before he even turned around. "Sorry about all the fuss, my sweet lambkin, but there was a little misunderstanding with the maids. And may I add that they gave you a particularly fetching little nightgown. I look forward to taking it...off..."

His voice tailed off as he glanced over at the big bed and realized she was still in it. He set the water down carefully, then scooted over to take a closer look.

Her breathing was still deep and steady; he couldn't smell troll dust or anything else funny. He briefly thought about splashing some of the water on her face, then decided she probably just needed a little more sleep. Yesterday had been a rather draining day.

When she woke up she was going to want breakfast. And considering what had last been brewed in that kitchen, he thought he'd better supervise whatever she was going to be served.

"Don't worry about a thing, my creamy love," he told the still form on the bed. "Wolf's going to take care of everything for you."

~*~*~

Someone was frying bacon; Wolf liberated a few pieces from the pan as he passed through. The slugs and bones and cauldron of poison had been cleared out, he was relieved to notice, but the big fat cook was still there, none the worse for his almost demise. Wolf snuck up close behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hello," Wolf said, letting his eyes flare yellow and baring all his teeth in a false smile.

"You!" The cook tried to step back, but Wolf had him trapped right by a table. "You switched the poison with troll dust! You tricked the Queen!"

"I know," Wolf said smoothly. "And I also know that you were serving the Queen of your own choice. You were the only one willing to brew her poison."

"No!" The cook looked fearfully around and raised his voice. "I would never do the Queen's bidding! She tried to kill me!"

"Yeah, well, she did that kind of thing," Wolf pointed out, casually eating his stolen bacon. He leaned in, giving the cook a very close look at his teeth in action. "That's the problem with working with evil people. They do evil things." He crunched the bacon loudly, then snapped at the cook's nose to make his point.

The cook swallowed hard. "Wha...what do you want from me?"

"I'm sure that a person as smart as yourself will realize that whatever deal you had with the Queen ended when she ordered you to commit suicide. That is why you will do absolutely nothing to Virginia and Anthony Lewis to, shall we say, show your appreciation for what they did to the Queen. Because if I catch the slightest scent of any little 'special seasonings,' if there is even so much as one extra grain of salt in their food, I will come down here and personally make sure that the Queen's last wishes regarding you are fulfilled." Wolf picked up a piece of sausage and ripped off a huge piece in one bite. "I hope we understand each other."

The cook nodded mutely.

"Good. Now have somebody else make me a few bacon sandwiches and a couple glasses of warm milk and send them up to Miss Virginia's room."

~*~*~

Tony knocked on the door a few hours later, and wasn't very pleased when Wolf opened it.

"What are you doing with my daughter?" Tony demanded. He started to push his way through, then grimaced and reached for his ribs.

"Nothin'." Wolf stepped back, holding the door open.

Tony have him a disgusted look. "Riiiiight. The same kind of 'nothing' you were up to in the woods?"

"Believe me, I wish I was, but, as you see, she's still asleep."

"That's not like her, to sleep in this late," Tony said, going to the bed to pat Virginia's hand. "Honey? Are you okay?"

"Shhh!" Wolf pulled him away as Virginia muttered and rolled over. "Don't wake her up!"

Tony let Wolf drag him to the far corner of the room, but he kept looking at back at his daughter. "I'm worried about her."

"So am I."

Tony did a double-take, and for a moment the two men stared silently at each other.

'You really care about her." Tony sounded surprised. "You weren't just looking for a little love-her-and-leave-her action."

"I am her mate for life." For once, he said it without a flourish. It was a simple statement of fact.

"Yeah, well, Virginia's going to be the judge of that," Tony pointed out practically.

"That won't make a difference to me." Wolf cocked his head. "Did it make a difference to you? You still love her, don't you?"

"Of course I love her, she's my daughter!"

"Not Virginia! The Queen."

"Christine. Her name was Christine." Tony looked down and away. "And yes. I didn't think about her for years. But when I saw her again, it all came flooding back, y'know? For a moment, for one tiny moment, I wondered if I could find the right words that would make it all go away, make her come back, make it be good again." Tony took a deep breath. "But it was only a moment. She tried to kill Virginia, you know."

"I was there. I would've helped, but I was kinda trapped at the time."

"Not now. Right before she left us, before she somehow came to this crazy place. Christine was giving Virginia a bath, and tried to drown her. I stopped her just in time. Christine ran out of the house, and I never saw her again... until last night."

Tony stepped towards the bed. "I stayed awake a long time last night, thinking about things." He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "There's a lot to sort through when your daughter kills your wife, y'know?"

"Are you mad at 'Ginia?"

"I was, for a couple of hours. But then I thought about how it would have been if it had gone the other way. When Christine tried to drown Virginia, it broke my heart. If she'd hurt her now..." Tony grabbed Wolf's shoulder with his good arm and shook him. "Understand this. No matter how much you love her, I'm her father. I love her more. If anything ever happened to her, I'd die. I would die."

Wolf looked at the bed, then met Tony's gaze straight on. "They would have to bury us together."

When evening came and Virginia still hadn't woken up, everyone was worried. Tony and Wolf, both tossed out of the room while the Royal Physician had a look, paced nervously in opposite directions up and down the hall. Wendell stood still opposite the door, somehow managing to radiate royal reserve and deep concern simultaneously. And Lord Rupert had a complete fit of hysterics at the thought that the biggest guest of honor might not be ready for the medal ceremony in two days. Wendell finally sent him back to his own room to lie down with a cold compress.

Wolf caught the scent of the Physician approaching, and so beat Tony and Wendell to the door as the old elf came out. Before any of them could say a word, the Physician put his fingers to his lips and led them a little ways away.

"First thing you need to know, is she's all right." But he met their smiles and exclamations of relief with a frown. "Second thing you need to know is that she's still asleep."

"How can you say she's all right if she's still sleeping?" Tony wailed.

"Yeah!" Wolf growled. "How can you say that?" He turned to go check the room and got a faceful of gossamer wing as the Physician blocked the hallway.

"This young woman has suffered through weeks of fear, adventure,irregular meals, and exertion, culminating in a huge emotional shock. She is exhausted, nothing more. She needs to sleep herself out, no matter how long it takes, and then to be fed a decent meal. She'll be right as rain after that."

"Oh, thank God," Tony said, slumping back against the wall.

"I'll make sure nobody disturbs her," Wolf promised, trying to dodge around the Physician's outstretched wings.

"If you are who I think you are, you've done quite enough," the Physician said cryptically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Wolf demanded.

The Physician merely smirked at him and repeated, "You. Let. Her. Sleep," bonking Wolf on the nose with a wing at every word.

~*~*~

Of course, Wolf snuck back to Virginia's room. It had taken several hours to shake the others, and Tony had even hauled him off for dinner. But for once in his life Wolf couldn't concentrate on a plateful of lamb chops. Oh, he ate them all, but he didn't taste any of them.

When he got there, he found Virginia still peacefully sleeping and a note addressed to him propped on the candleholder beside her bed. Wolf snatched it and tried to unfold it quietly.

"Wolf. She is fine. She will need more sleep than normal now. Let her wake up on her own. -- Treemoss, Royal Physician."

Wolf puzzled over that for a while, then gave up and turned back to the bed. Even more than last night he wanted to curl up beside her, but between Tony and the Physician he thought he probably shouldn't. So he settled for taking a few reassuring sniffs of her delicious scent.

Virginia smelled funny. Oh, she still smelled like Virginia, and they must have put rose petals in her bath water, because she smelled like flowers too. But underneath it all, she smelled... different. Wolf reread the Physician's note a few times to be sure that the words wouldn't suddenly change into something else, like "she is dying," or "the Queen poisoned her." No. Still said there was nothing wrong.

He was too upset to leave her, not even to sleep by the door. He started to crawl on top of the bed anyway, thought about what Tony would do to him if he caught them together, and lay down beside the bed instead. This night, he dreamed.

~*~*~

He was six, and running through the woods, crying. His first day of school had been an unmitigated disaster. His father had lied! Papa had said that school was fun, that he'd hear all sorts of stories about the history of the Kingdoms, he'd learn about distant lands, and make all sorts of new friends.

Instead, he was forced to sit all day at a little table, and was yelled at for fidgeting and looking out the window when he was bored. During lunch and recess, nobody else would sit with him or play with him. The human boys called him an animal and pushed him, and the wolf cubs called him a human and snapped at him.

Papa was back of the house chopping wood when Wolf ran up and started shouting at him. "You lied! You lied to me!"

Papa put the hatchet down and gathered Wolf up in a hug. "What went wrong, son?"

"Everything! Everyone was mean to me and said I didn't belong and nobody would eat with me and Rufus bit my tail and Teacher said she'd cane me if I didn't learn to sit still and nobody likes me and I'm not going back!"

"What about Jeremy? You know, the storekeep's son? He always plays with you when I go into town to trade."

Wolf sniffled and rubbed his nose on his sleeve. "He was gonna sit with me at lunch, and then one of the other human boys said you aren't gonna sit with that dirty animal and he said no and he sat with them instead. I hate Jeremy! I'm gonna bite him next time we go to town!"

"No you aren't! You are going to behave so well that everyone is going to be ashamed that they ever said anything bad about you. C'mon, son. Let's go get you something to eat. You'll feel better after a little lamb, won't you? Your mama's caught you a nice tender one."

Wolf sniffed again, not quite ready to give up his grievances, but also wanting that lamb. "Yes, Papa."

They went hand-in-hand into the house, where Mama was in her human form, skinning a very tender little lamb indeed. Wolf wriggled out of his father's hold and threw himself into his mother's arms.

But something was wrong. Right when Wolf needed his mama most, she smelled funny. Like Mama, but like something else too. It was bad enough that his friends had turned to enemies, now Mama was turning into something new! Was she gonna start hating him too? It was too much for such a little boy. After one incredulous sniff, Wolf threw back his head and howled in despair.

"He's had a bad day at school." Papa gave Mama a meaningful look as he shut the door behind him.

"That's not all, I think," she replied, hugging Wolf tightly. "You smell it don't you, baby?"

"Uh, huh," Wolf gulped as best he could with his face buried in her neck. "What's it mean, Mama? Don't be different. Don't change."

She chuckled and rubbed her cheek against his hair. "I am changing, but not into something different. I have a little cub growing in me, sweetie. Just like you did before you were born. I'm going to get bigger and bigger, and then when spring comes, you're going to have a little brother or sister to help me take care of. But I won't ever change towards you, baby mine. I'll always love you and take care of you and watch over you." She licked his forehead reassuringly and put him down. "Now let's have this nice dinner and we'll all feel more cheerful."

~*~*~

Wolf woke with a start. What had brought that old memory up? He rubbed his forehead, still feeling his mother's wolfie kiss, but nothing was there. He shook his head, then pulled himself up by the edge of the bed to check on Virginia.

She was still sleeping peacefully, but he caught it as he bent over her, that brief tickle of a difference. Only this time, it seemed vaguely familiar. He breathed deeper to be sure, then ever-so-gently touched her stomach. Virginia didn't move, but he felt his heart stop, then start again double-time. Goodness gracious! Virginia was... He was gonna be a... They'd... Cripes!

He slapped both hands over his mouth to keep from howling with joy, then padded over to the window. Outside the sun was just coming up. Surely she would wake up this morning. She would wake up and he would tell her, and she would be happy and agree to marry him. Maybe right after the medal ceremony. That would be nice.

But Virginia just rolled over and kept right on sleeping.

~*~*~

By lunchtime, his initial elation had turned to worry, and by dinnertime he was too frantic to eat. What if she didn't want to be pregnant? Her mother had said some terrible things to her. But Virginia wouldn't be like that to her own child, would she? She couldn't!

Well, he hoped she couldn't.

And on top of it, she still showed no signs of waking up. Everyone else had recovered, and Virginia hadn't done anything more than roll over every now and then. What if the pregnancy was taking all her energy? What if something was wrong? What if the Physician had missed something?

What if she didn't want to wake up because she couldn't deal with what she had done? Poor little sausage, all she wanted was to talk to her mama, and she ended up killing her instead. It changed something inside when you killed a person. Wolf knew exactly how it felt, even if he didn't want to talk about that part of his life anymore.

Virginia once told him she was afraid to jump unless someone was there to catch her. Well, she hadn't jumped, but she'd sure been pushed by her mama, and now she was falling into despair.

And so he was waiting with open arms to catch her. He knew what it was like to lose a parent. He knew what it was like to kill, even when you didn't mean to. He could help her, comfort her, dry her tears, let her know that she would never be alone. He would catch her.

And until then, he was staying right by her bedside until she woke up.

-end-

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