Fate & Fur

@ BearGirl

Aiden sat down next to her, making sure not to sit too close, although once she was seated next to him he did put his arm around the back of the bench behind her protectively, wanting to make sure she knew he would keep her safe. He could barely resist the urge to roll his eyes when Sandra refused to dismiss the claims, cursing softly under his breath. She was no better than the rest of them, and he thought she should be ashamed for ignoring Bailey's concerns, but at least she'd agreed to tell them to leave her alone for a little while so she could have some space.

"That's better than nothing.. You can insist if you want to, but having a few weeks of peace seems pretty reasonable given the fact that they haven't been listening to you up until now." He murmured softly as he looked down at her.

@ katahdin

Bailey let out a small sigh as she ran her fingers through her hair. It really wasn't the answer that she wanted to hear, but Aiden was right. It was better than nothing. She would have a few weeks of peace before she had to deal with it all again. The woman was looking forward to being able to having her normal life back for some time. Though, she looked up at the man gently. "And they will listen to her?" Bailey asked softly. "They don't have a choice not to do they?"

Leaning back against the seat, Bailey laid her head down against his arm. She let out a small sigh. "It doesn't seem fair, that I have to do all of this because they have a claim on me."

@ BearGirl

Aiden shook his head a little at her questions, wrapping his arm securely around her shoulder as she laid her head back. "They don't have a choice. If they do bother you they would be punished, although considering Sandra didn't really listen to you in the first place, she might be a little lax on the rules.." he sighed, giving her arm a little squeeze as he rubbed her shoulder soothingly.

"It's alright though. If they do keep bothering you, just tell Sandra. And you can always come to my pack's side of town. We won't bother you, and your friends can't follow you here, so you'll be able to have all the peace and quiet you want. I can even give you a key to my apartment if you want. I'm never there cause I'm usually at the pack's house most of the time, so you'd have the place to yourself." He offered with a little smile, although he hoped his offer didn't seem like he was pressuring her into anything. He knew she was stressed and upset, and just wanted to help her, and if he could give her a private space for her to escape to where her friends couldn't follow he would.

@ katahdin

"I almost feel like I should just move to this side." Bailey whispered to him before she let out a sigh. Even though she wasn't totally comfortable with Aiden, at least she knew he wasn't going to hurt her. Nor would he do anything that made her uncomfortable. The man had made that pretty clear and had, so far, been respectful of her decisions and her space. Though she was curious as to how much of that had to do with the boarders.

The woman closed her eyes as she turned her head, pressing it against his arms. She took a moment to think about his offer. Did she love the idea of being alone in a wolves apartment? No. But she did love the idea of being able to go somewhere to hide from the others. And she believed Aiden when he said that they would leave her alone. "Actually, that would be really nice if you wouldn't mind." Bailey whispered softly. She was unsure she would ever use it but it was nice to have the option.

@ BearGirl

"You'd be more than welcome here. I can tell you all of the apartment buildings without wolf tenants, as there aren't that many, and the places we frequent most, so you don't have go worry about running into any of us if you don't want to. Plus, if you keep using the sage, we'll never bother you." He laughed a little, looking down at her as she pressed her head into his arm, smiling a little. He knew she still didn't like the idea of what he was, but he was glad that she at least trusted him enough to see him and ask for his advice, and he was trying his best to give her advice that wasn't just what he wanted her to do.

When she agreed to take the keys to his apartment he nodded, shifting a little to pull the key out and hand it to her. "I'll text you the address. Just let me know if or when you decide to go over there so no one shows up to bother you... and if you do use it, maybe leave the sage at home? I'd hate for my landlady to evict me for stinking up the building." He said teasingly, grinning down at her a little.

@ katahdin

Bailey took the key from him, looking down at it for a moment before putting it onto her own key chain. She gave him a little nod as he spoke, even managing to give the man a small smile. "I promise I won't bring any sage if I use your apartment. And I will text you to let you know." She ran her fingers through her hair before sitting up slightly. The woman turned to him a bit more before slowly moving into Aiden and hugging him tightly.

"Thank you, Aiden." She whispered to him. "You have been so helpful through all of this and I can't thank you enough." Bailey tightened her hug slightly, really glad that he was helping her at all. "I know you didn't have to do any of this. Especially since it probably doesn't help you much that I might smell like Sage."

@ BearGirl

Aiden chuckled a little as she promised not to bring any sage in. "I really appreciate it, thank you." He said as he sat up when she did, assuming that she was going to get up to leave, although he was pleasantly surprised when she hugged him. He smiled softly, wrapping his arms securely in a hug, pressing s gentle kiss to the top of her head as he rubbed her back gently

"You don't have to thank me for anything, Bailey, I'm just happy to help. I hate knowing you're unhappy, and if I can do anything to help you be happy again just say the word. Hell, you can fill my apartment in sage if you wanted, and I'd put up with it." He smiled down at her. "If you ever need anything don't hesitate to ask, ok?"

@ katahdin

Bailey gave him a small nod and a light smile. "Thank you but I wouldn't do that to you, fill your apartment up with sage that is. But knowing that makes me glad." She said, leaning back before she poked him a little. "I should get going now, but I promise I'll message you later this week to let you know how everything is going."

With that, Bailey headed on her way towards home.

@ BearGirl

Aiden chuckled a little as she poked him, standing with her and nodding as she said she should get going. "Alright, be careful once you cross the border, if you run into trouble just call, ok?" He said before watching her head off, lingering for a few minutes before he headed back to his apartment to tidy up and make sure it was clean in case she decided to use it.

@ katahdin

With that done, Bailey pulled her the hood up on her rain jacket before she started to make her way home. Since where Aiden asked her to meet wasn't far from her house, she had just decided to walk there. Though, she was beginning to think that was a bit of a mistake as it had been raining off and on today.

As it started to drizzle once again, Bailey was making her way across the boarder. She was a couple of minutes in before she saw Val starting to head towards her down the sidewalk. The woman started to tense up, feeling unsafe as she no longer had the sage on her. Though as she moved to cross the street, Bailey could see a few others from the pack, people she used to call friends coming her way. Soon enough, Bailey was surrounded by 5 wolves.

"I fucking knew it!" Val yelled out, grabbing onto Bailey's upper arm as she started to growl. "That you were going to see that fucker! You'll see him but not us? Not your friends?" She snapped.

Bailey tensed up, trying to pull away but being unable to. "You and everyone else has been so scaring me! I only saw him to get advice on how to get everyone to stop following me."

One of the other wolves came closer, smelling Bailey before letting out a scoff. "I can smell him on you Bailey. You two have been doing more than talking."

"He was just comforting me, that's all! Let go of me Val! I just want space from all of you. Can't you see that you're scaring me, that you're hurting me?!" Bailey said, pulling away harder. Though she was unable to do so, but Val threw her down onto the ground.

"We're scaring you but not him? We're hurting you?! Bailey we just want to talk! We just want to make it better but you keep hiding from us! Don't you see what is happening here? He is manipulating you so he doesn't have to fight with us over you. And God you're so naive that you're letting him." As Val continued to get angrier, she started to shift slowly. Bailey pushed herself while still on the ground, trying to scramble on her hands and knees. Though two of the wolves were quick to grab onto her, forcing her back down.

"Stay and listen to us, damnit!" One of them yelled out.

@ BearGirl

One of the young wolves who had been with Aiden the day they'd gone to the diner had happened to be walking back from school, minding his own business when he spotted Val and the others heading toward Bailey. He thought it looked a little suspicious, so he had lingered on the sidewalk in order to keep an eye on Bailey, not wanting Aiden to find out that anything had happened to her when he could have prevented it, so when Val threw Bailey to the ground he was already on the phone with his Alpha, speaking quietly so that Val and the others wouldn't hear, before he took off to the pack home to get backup in case Aiden needed help.

Aiden was there in a matter of minutes, having shifted into a large brown wolf and sprinted all the way there, knocking into the two holding Bailey down in order to force them away, growling angrily as he stood between her and the other wolves. Luckily, they were practically standing right on the border between the territories, and so getting into a fight here was by far the best place to do it, as the ten yards or so on either side of the border were considered a sort of neutral zone.

@ katahdin

Before Bailey knew what was going on, a large brown wolf was in the middle of the others, standing over her. And, in a blink of an eye, the other five had turned into their own wolves. Two were brown, one was white and the last was a dark gray. A deep sinking dread dropped into Bailey's chest as an all out wolf fight essentially started on top of her. Growls, teeth, claws came from all different directions, all aimed at the brown wolf that was now in the middle of the circle with her.

At first the woman screamed out as the fight started, cowering down as pure fear ran through her body. She didn't know what to do, didn't know where to go. There were wolves in all directions of her and the fight was a complete mess. Though, soon, Bailey started to scramble, trying to find her way out of the fur and the blood once she realized that those teeth weren't aiming for her. But once she started to leave, sharp claws ran down her back, pushing deep into her skin. Bailey didn't know who did it, or why. It could have been on purpose, to stop her from running, or to hurt her. Or an accidental hit, but the woman didn't want to find out.

She started to run back towards Aiden's border, wanting to get away from the chaos. Though as she did, one of the wolves started chasing after Bailey, tackling her to the ground with it's large paws. Bailey hit the ground hard, crying out as she did so. But before the wolf was able to do anything else, it was suddenly thrown off of her by a large black wolf. Bailey looked up, seeing more wolves running from Aiden's side into the fight.

@ BearGirl

Aiden's primary target was Val, as she seemed to be the ringleader in all of this. She was the one who'd hurt Bailey, the one who had a claim on her, the one who wouldn't respect her wishes. He wanted nothing more than to beat her to a pulp, but he had to protect Bailey, first and foremost. So he did his best to fend off the five of them so that Bailey could escape, but he was overwhelmed, and one of them managed to keep Bailey from getting to safety.

He was really feeling the pain, his body all scratched up, and he was pretty sure he had a few broken ribs, so he was very grateful when a handful of other wolves from his pack came to the rescue. It was another five minutes before Val and her friends ran off, and it was only once he was sure that they were gone that he shifted back and stumbled toward Bailey, wanting to make sure that she was unhurt. He was all bruised and cut up, and he was holding his ribs as he limped toward her, wincing with each step. His pack mates tried to get him to sit down, or get into the car that someone had arrived with to get him back to the pack's house, but he insisted on checking on Bailey first, frowning as he looked her over, seeing the scratches and bruises from where the other had roughed her up.

"Bailey... I'm... I'm so sorry.. Are you alright? Someone will be here with a first aid kit in a few minutes, they can check up on your injuries.. But.. But I understand if you never want to see me again.." He panted out, groaning in pain as he sat down on the pavement.

@ katahdin

Bailey rubbed some of the tears from her eyes as Aiden came over and slowly plopped himself down on the ground besides her. She winched as her fingers brushed against the large bruise forming on her cheek from where hit when thrown on the ground. There were small bruises and scratches all over her body but the biggest bruise was the one on her face. Besides that, the only true injury that Bailey really received were the large bleeding claw marks that had ripped through her jacket and shirt and made deep cuts in the skin on her back.

Without saying a word, Bailey slowly and carefully leaned over and wrapped her arms around Aiden, burying her face into his neck as she sobbed. She wrapped her arms around him tightly but tried not to squeeze down on him, knowing that he was probably quite injured from the fight. It took her a few moments before she started to speak, still sobbing into him as she did so. "I-I-I'm so sorry. It-'s my fault. It's m-my fault that you're hurt." She held on a bit tighter. "Than-k you. I-I was so scared. I thought they we're going to - we're going to." Bailey started to cry a bit harder.

Aiden's pack mates, who had waited to give there alpha a few moments with Bailey were now coming back up and trying to urge both of them into the car. They figured Bailey should come along to, both for protection but to also get their alpha into the car with them so their injuries could be checked out.

@ BearGirl

Aiden winced as she hugged him, but did his best to wrap his good arm loosely around her, holding her as tight and close as he could without injuring either of them further, his face tucked into her hair. "Sshh.. You're alright, Bailey. This isn't your fault. You're safe now, I'm not going to let them hurt you again. I promise." He murmured softly into her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before finally agreeing to go with his pack mates, keeping Bailey's hand in his tightly as he was helped into the car.

After a short ride and a few very painful flights of stairs they were in Aiden's apartment, his pack members rushing about the place like ants as they spread a clean sheet over the couch so it wouldn't get dirty before having Aiden and Bailey sit down, the wolf with the first aid kit arriving shortly after to treat her Alpha's wounds. Aiden of course refused treatment until Bailey's injuries were addressed, and the wolf reluctantly agreed, carefully helping her out of her shirt and jacket in order to clean and stitch up the worse wounds on her back before putting bandages around them.

Once Bailey was taken care of Bailey was asked to move so Aiden's many injuries could be addressed, which took much longer than Bailey's. It was almost an hour before Aiden had been properly taken care of, and he was helped to his bed, where he promptly passed out from the pain medication they had forced him to take. Most of the wolves had left by then, the last one left being the wolf who had called Aiden to Bailey's aid.

"He's asleep now, but Aiden wanted me to let you know that you're welcome to stay here at the apartment if you don't want to go back.. Plus he told us to do whatever you ask, so if you need anything from your apartment, or want some pizza or ice cream or something, just let me know. My phone number is on the counter, don't hesitate to call if you need anything, or if you think Aiden needs anything." He explained before leaving, making sure the door was securely locked, leaving Bailey alone in the apartment with Aiden.

@ katahdin

Bailey tried her best to get Aiden to stop being silly and get first aid first. Though when that plan quickly failed, she went along with getting fixed up before him. As they started to pull off her jacket and shirt off, Bailey managed to get someone to give her a blanket to cover the front of her body and her arms. Her nails buried into the blanket as they stitched up the worst of the deep cuts. Once she was taken cared of, Bailey was quick to move out of the way so Aiden could be tended to.

Keeping a wide birth from the living room, Bailey made her way into the kitchen. The blanket was still wrapped around her body, the clothes that had been covering her upper body were now mostly scraps, dirt and blood. Soon she found a spot to sit as she iced the darkening bruise on her face. Her eyes shifted back and forth between her phone and the area that was being used to tend to Aiden. The frown on her face seemed to continuously deepen as she looked over at him. Aiden was definitely in bad shape and she was rather surprised that they didn't bring him to a hospital. Though, Bailey kept her mouth closed as they went about their business.

Once the wolf came up and spoke, Bailey just gave the man little nods, showing him that she understood that he was saying. She didn't have a lot to say. And, despite that they came to their rescue, Bailey felt unsure of them. Yes, they were Aiden's pack but they were still wolves. Aiden was the only wolf that she really felt like she could trust at this point.

As the door was locked, Bailey moved onto her feet and made her way into Aiden's bedroom. She looked down at him, seeing that he was completely knocked out because of the pain killers. Bailey ran a hand through his hair gently before making her way into his closet to borrow some spare clothes. She changed into one of his old tank tops and shorts. The scratches and bruises on her body were, for the most part, exposed. Though, surprisingly, the worst of the bruising were on her arms which occurred before the fight. Almost her entire lower arms were black and blue from Bailey pinching herself from pure anxiety.

Bailey made her way back out into the living room, cleaning up after the mess before setting up a place for her to sleep on the couch. Once things were settled, she laid down and fell asleep.

@ BearGirl

Aiden was out cold until well past nightfall, when his painkillers started to wear off and he started to grow hungry. His pack mates had practically stripped him to treat his wounds, and because he didn't expect Bailey to still be here and because he was too out of it to catch her scent, he didn't bother to get dressed as he limped from his bedroom out to the kitchen in only his boxers, wincing and cursing under his breath every few steps. He was rather muscular and athletic, as he sort of had to be, but that was mostly hidden by the bruised and cuts littering his chest, back and arms, leaving him looking rather awful.

After digging around in the fridge for a few minutes he poured himself a glass of water and downed some more pain medicine before making himself a peanut butter sandwich, too out of it to really do anything else. Although, as he limped back through the living room with the plate he finally spotted Bailey when she made a noise, which only startled him into dropping the plate he was carrying to have it shatter on the floor.

"Oh, fuck." He cursed softly, groaning as he started to kneel down to pick up the pieces, mostly bummed about his sandwich.

@ katahdin

As she heard something shatter, Bailey's eyes opened up. The girl was quiet as she slowly looked around, her eyes stopping as she saw Aiden on the floor picking up the pieces of a broken plate. Bailey slowly pushed the blanket down as she sat up, rubbing her eyes a bit. "Morning." She murmured before getting up and heading over to Aiden, helping him pick up the broken pieces. "I hope you don't mind that I borrowed some of your clothes." Bailey said, looking up at him as she took a moment to look over him, seeing how messed up Aiden really looked.

Once all of the pieces were picked up, Bailey threw it into the trash before going back to Aiden. The woman was gentle as she took his hand, wanting to help him back into bed. "You should be laying down and resting." She told Aiden softly, looking up at him with worried eyes. "I can make you something to eat. What would you like?" Without waiting for him to agree, Bailey started to lead Aiden back to the bedroom to get him back into bed. Today, it was her turn to take care of him. "I am a pretty good cook, so whatever you want."

@ BearGirl

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.. go back to sleep, I can take care of this." He murmured as she helped him, shaking his head a little when she mentioned the clothes. "Take whatever you want, keep it, I don't care. I'll crash on the couch so you can sleep somewhere comfortable." He said as he stood with a little groan, heading toward the couch when she took his hand and began to lead him back to his room.

"Bailey, I'll take the couch, it's fine." He said, but was in no position to really fight so he shuffled along with her back to his room, sinking into the matress with a little sigh, closing his eyes for a few moments as he thought over her offer for food. "I'd kill for one of those burgers from the diner you work at, but that's not very realistic. Peanut butter sandwich works for me, I don't think I really have much else."

@ katahdin

Bailey gave Aiden a small smile once he laid back down in bed. "You need to take care of yourself." She told him softly. "I know you want to take care of me but I am not the one who has broken ribs and is messed up on pain medication." Reaching up, Bailey lightly pushed his hair off of his forehead before running her fingers through the strands slowly. "I am going to take care of you for a bit. And I need you to be okay with that while you are still getting better."

"First rule of getting better, you sleep on the bed. I'll go get you some breakfast." With that, Bailey headed into the kitchen and started to go through the fridge and the cupboards. It was true that Aiden didn't have much in the apartment. He much not have been kidding when he said he didn't spend a lot of time there. So, Bailey ended up making him that peanut butter sandwich before coming back to Aiden's room and handing it to him. At which point Bailey pulled up a chair and sat down next to him.