Chapter Text
Cold air and a clinical smell did nothing to help Wednesday’s nerves. Generally, she was indifferent towards hospitals, but something about the atmosphere of the one she had just entered made the skin on the back of her neck feel prickly.
Maybe it was because she was about to see him again for the first time since...
“Galpin,” Wednesday said flatly.
The nurse she had spoken to, who was at that moment rifling through notes at a doctor's station, nodded soundlessly towards a long corridor. It was empty and bare, with only a single door at its end. Everything was icy white.
“Thank you.”
Wednesday veered off without a backward glance. The hospital was not what she had expected. She had assumed that mental health facilities would be less like morgues and somehow more warm. This idea existed despite the stories she had heard from her Uncle Fester regarding his various stays in different establishments over the years.
Perhaps, she thought, she just hadn’t wished to imagine Tyler in a place like this.
Not that he didn’t deserve it.
The conflict within her was adequately torturous and not in an enjoyable way. On the one hand, she was happy to see Tyler punished. Despite this, she kept wondering if he was okay. After a period of swithering back and forth, Wednesday had finally decided to end the confusion. She would face him. She entered his room, choosing not to knock first.
“What do you want?” Tyler enquired menacingly.
He stood as she approached. His eyes were stony, his mouth arranged in a slight sneer. He looked tired and pale.
Wednesday stopped in her tracks, feeling her heart skip a beat at his voice and appearance. He was clearly unhappy to see her. She fought to appear impassive. It shouldn’t matter to her what he felt.
“On suicide watch, I see,” Wednesday observed, looking Tyler up and down without moving her head. He wore only a bland beige hospital gown. It looked worse for wear, its edges fraying. “Strange that you’re allowed visitors if they won’t even let you wear actual clothing.”
Tyler shrugged nonchalantly. “I stopped trying to end it weeks ago. I suspect they’re keeping me in this sack in case I get ideas about being worthy of decent treatment. My dad asks them to give me my stuff back whenever he’s here, but they’re ignoring him...”
He trailed off. It was as if the spark of anger that had given him energy when Wednesday arrived had died out completely. He slumped down into a chair next to his bed.
“Why were you trying, and what made you stop?” Wednesday enquired.
She was mildly horrified to realise that the thought of a world without him seemed alarming. She immediately regretted questioning him as she didn’t wish to think about what he might have been doing to himself, even in a restricted hospital room in a psychiatric facility.
His eyes appeared to glitter dangerously for a moment as he observed her. She suddenly remembered what it felt like to come face to face with the Hyde and had to suppress a shudder.
“Why do you care?” he asked.
“Don’t answer a question with another question,” she responded sharply.
His short chuckle held no mirth.
Wednesday felt a pang as she recalled what his real laughter sounded like. “Never mind. I don’t care, I’m leaving.”
Just as she was about to cross the threshold into the bleak, cold corridor, she heard him quietly murmur, “See you soon.”
Feeling furious, she walked away as quickly as she could.
~
Wednesday wasn’t sure what kept bringing her back, but it was as though she couldn’t settle and couldn’t concentrate on anything until she’d checked in on Tyler. The relief she felt after a visit would last a day or so, and then she would force herself to wait until she could no longer stand it before returning.
Eventually, after a month of unplanned, frequent visits, the panicked urge to see him subsided a little, and she decided that once a week would be sufficient. She avoided Donovan, as she had no interest in encountering him. To begin with, Tyler was reluctant to talk, but she found that she didn’t need to speak to him to feel relief from being in his presence. Her mother had suggested to her that perhaps this new-found connection to him came from a bond which could have formed between them due to the events that took place on the night she nearly died. She actively tried to avoid overthinking about that night.
She didn’t raise the issue with Tyler, and he didn’t attempt to talk about the past. His only acknowledgement that something was going on between them was his assertion, at her second visit, that he'd been certain she’d come back. She didn’t want to consider the implications of potentially being his new master. A brief foray into Hyde research had pointed her in that direction, but she had avoided digging deeper. She wanted to reject the connection, as much as she felt, on a basic level, that they both somehow needed it.
It had been three weeks of sombre visits. Wednesday was sitting in a chair near the bed watching the rain pour outside when Tyler returned from a therapy session. She usually stayed for a few minutes to gauge his mood after he’d spoken to his psychologist, then left him to his own devices. As he settled on the bed, Wednesday noticed he seemed a little brighter than usual. She admonished herself inwardly for feeling pleased.
As she stood up to leave, Tyler spoke. “How’s school?”
She glared at him, suspicious and surprised. What had prompted the query, and why was he suddenly interested in her life?
“School is… school.”
Tyler smirked at her. “So not great then?”
Wednesday watched him, trying to decide whether or not to engage. “It’s fine,” she lied.
In truth, she was not enjoying her current stint at Nevermore. She couldn’t quite place what was wrong. Other than the threatening texts she had received at the end of the previous year, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. It was safe to assume that the strange messages were from someone she had wronged in the past, but nothing had come of them thus far. The idea that Xavier could have enlisted someone to help him scare her and enact some sad revenge fantasy had crossed her mind more than once. The theory had merit, but he appeared uninterested in her now, so she left him alone.
“Still sharing a room with Enid?“ Tyler’s voice broke Wednesday out of her reverie.
“Yes, if you can call it that. I’m mostly alone now. Thing is back home, and Enid spends all her time with Ajax. Frankly, I’m surprised I haven’t had to participate against my will in a rainbow-themed shotgun wedding.”
Tyler grinned at her, and it seemed genuine. It struck her that she hadn’t seen him smile that way for a distressingly long while.
“I’m happy by myself,” she asserted.
“I know you are,” he nodded. “Still, we all need a friend now and again.”
“Is that what you are? My friend?”
She instantly felt regret at speaking so harshly when he was at least attempting a conversation. She had gotten out of the habit of being nice to him.
“I guess I was at one point,” he replied. “More than friends, I thought.”
Wednesday couldn’t bring herself to respond. Of course, he had been more than a friend. He was her first kiss. She had believed she was falling in love with him.
“But it was all fake, right?” she replied bitterly.
“Don’t answer a question with another question,” he said. His voice was quiet, and he looked up at her sadly.
Wednesday felt warmth rush to her cheeks. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t want to be a part of it.”
She stormed out of the room. Tyler didn’t protest.
~
For a whole month, Wednesday avoided visiting him. It was agonising. She felt as if the thread between them had turned into a spiked metal chain. She began to find herself sneaking away from school to venture near his house or The Weathervane, and the tension would ease a little even though he was in neither of those places. On one such occasion, she bumped into his dad.
“Addams,” he said by way of greeting. “You should be in school.”
She scrutinised him but did not respond. She was aware that she must have appeared unnerving. It was raining heavily. She was completely soaked and stood, staring into the café endlessly at nothing and no one.
Donovan sighed and rolled his eyes. “Do you need a ride back?”
“No. Thank you.”
He observed her, his expression somewhat curious. “Tyler misses you.”
She felt a stabbing pain in the region of her chest but tried her best not to let on.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to see each other,” she stated.
“Well.” He paused. “That’s your decision. He’s trying. That's all I know. He hopes to make amends.”
“Amends!?” Wednesday almost laughed. “He savaged one of my best friends. He would have killed the other if you hadn’t stopped him. He was about to kill me.”
“That was the Hyde, Wednesday. Trust me, I know more about this than you do. Surely you accept deep down that it wasn’t Tyler.”
Wednesday felt trapped and unsure of what to say. The fact was that she recalled, very clearly, a gloating monologue from Tyler, during which he informed her that he had enjoyed harming and killing the people she had grudgingly come to care for. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Without a word, she turned and stalked away from Donovan as fast as the sodden fabric of her skirt would allow.