THERE'S A FIRE STARTING IN MY HEART

People had a knack for showing up just when she needed them. Well, they were showing up now. But Xander had always had perfect timing. It was like in his blood or something. When she first met him, it had been fate almost, the way he swooped in. He had been the rescue she had been dying for.

Rosemary knew full well how her brother felt about the vampire. It wasn't that he hated the vampire ... not exactly. Or at least, didn't hate him enough to want him dead. Royce just didn't want to have anything to do with Crowne. There wasn't enough distance the Royce could put between him and the crafty fang. Before they had even become friends (yes, there had been such a time that she hadn't known the King's boy), there had been deep resentment for the vampire. Rosemary only knew part of the story herself, only the part that Royce had told her and Xander had been stoically mum on the subject, but what she knew she could understand.

Alexander Crowne was not to be trusted. That was the one rule Royce had when they first became friends. He was insistent on Crowne's dark nature, sure that his manipulations were endless. For the longest time, she took him at his word. But it was hard to not trust the man who had saved her life. Whatever his past sins, whatever wrongs he had committed, he had at least never treated her with anything less than gentle affection. It was redeeming enough in her eyes. But not her friend's. Royce had been pissed that Crowne had approached Charlie for a second time. Immediately after he found out, they fought.

She insisted that he had been nice to Charlie. He insisted that it was only because the fang had a dark ulterior motive. She argued that they give Crowne a chance, to hear what he had to say. He argued back, saying that there was no trusting a fang. Especially not Crowne. When the shouting was done, emotions were high and hearts bruised. Royce still refused to go anywhere near Crowne so it was up to Rosemary to see what the vampire wanted from them. Clearly he was trying to get a hold of them. Why he was using Charlie, she didn't know. Why he didn't just approach them confused her. He obviously knew where they were, probably knew the exact apartment so why the game? Royce didn't care. But she did.

So off she had gone. Charlie had passed on the address that Crowne had left and so it was easy to find him. Quite the nice part of the town. The nicest actually. His 'house' was more like a mansion, large and grand. So much more than any of the other houses on the same block. Crowne had never been humble with his finances.

The vampire was more than surprised when he opened his door and saw her dirty blonde self. Not that she was there but that she was there without her male counterpart. Yeah, she had snuck behind Royce's back but only to find out what Crowne was up to. Xander loved to play games and sometimes, one had to play and entertain him if they wanted to get anything worthwhile out of him. Except, she was rusty and had forgotten the rules of the game. Xander was as sweet as ever, of course, but getting a straight answer out of him was like trying to fit a square into a circle. Impossible and frustrating. The only helpful thing that came out of her visit with the vampire was that he managed to help her out with her little job problem.

Papers. She had a bunch of them. All of them were fabricated, of course but were real enough to pass her new boss' inspection. O'Connelly was a kind man who barely gave her so-called papers a second-glance before once again claiming that the job was her's. A uniform and hat was tossed her way and before she could let out a hooplah of joy, she was sent off to wipe up a ketsup spill.

Alexander Crowne to the rescue. But if score were being taken, Royce had come to her rescue far more times than Crowne.

Working at the Golden Burger was a lot more work than Rosemary had anticipated. She was determined to prove herself however and took every task without question. Except maybe the time when Caleb had her clean up the bathrooms. It was a disgusting first for the blonde. Never had she ever been asked to clean a bathroom and she had hoped to get through her entire life without ever having to do so. She had started to protest but one eyebrow quirk from Hamburger Boy got her to shut up, suit up and clean up. That damn bathroom freakin' sparkled when she was done with it. The make-shift hazmat suit she had made for the occasion was torn up and dirty but there was enough paper and plastic bags to make another one. Other than that, Rosemary was sure that she had been doing a good job. She was sure of it because she was doing everything asked of her. Not a burger touched her mouth. Not even one little burnt fry. Pfft, she hadn't broken anything either. And she was getting pretty good with the mop too! She must have been doing a real good job if O'Connelly was sending her out with Caleb to help with the deliveries. It sounded like a great idea, just another way to prove her self-control and redeem herself in her co-worker's eyes.

If only there was a day to deliver the food on foot.

Rosemary stared at Caleb's truck from inside the Golden Burger, her stomach starting to knot. She had never been in a car before and she wasn't looking forward to having to be in one. Hearing Caleb behind her with the food hot and packed up, she turned and swallowed nervously. "Are you sure we can't just walk?"

A week later and Royce was sure that the world was out conspiring against him. Life had been so simple in the past handful of years. Just him and Rosey, that was it. As soon as others got added into the mix, things started to get complicated. First, he couldn't share the fact that he and Rosemary were werewolves. That alone was a big enough problem. Next, because that wasn't enough, an old 'friend' decided to pop his bloody head in and stir the pot. Crowne was nothing but a thorn in his side. At the very least, the vampire had been keeping a low profile, not yet coming out to meet either of them since the incident with Charlie. But since one vampire wasn't enough to light a fire under his fishy, fate decided to throw in another one. Not just another one but one that was child-size and also decided to pay Charlie a visit. That visit became permanent and now the thing was living with her! Shit on a stick, that was enough to send any guy into a stressed out fit. But Royce kept his cool. A whole week went by since meeting Noah and he had yet to blow his top.

Probably had something to do with the extreme lack of sleep he had going on. Yeah, he had been keeping tabs on the vampire, watching him pretty much every second that he could get away with. Even at night, he kept a vigilant watch from the trees behind the complex. Maybe it was becoming stalker-ish but he couldn't focus on anything else until either this vampire left or died.

He had to give it to the kid though. Noah was certainly playing right into Charlie's motherly instincts. Not exactly intentionally. Sometimes, it almost seemed like the fang was embarrassed by all the attention Charlie was showering him with. Almost made the kid seem human. But Royce wasn't going to lower his guard. Not until he knew for sure. Maybe the kid was a good vampire. That would be nice. He could get some sleep that didn't involve him falling out of trees.

Noah, unfortunately, was not the icing on the cake however. No. Because life wasn't about to bake him a crap-filled cake and not put the crap frosting on it. Psh, life. It couldn't be that easy.

Rosemary had neglected until that morning to tell him about a certain incident that had been reoccurring for the past seven days. An incident involving a hunter, of all the stupid and irresponsible things. Instead of trying to avoid said hunter, Rosemary had actually started to attack the hunter. Not viciously or really very physically (unless sticking one's wolf snout up another one's sweater counted as physical) but more annoying and stupid than anything. She'd been stealing Doc's delivery boy's hamburgers. Of all the things.

So here he was, heading out to this burger joint to get a look at this so-called hunter. He'd briefly talked about it with the Doc. The old guy was both irritated by Rosemary's stupidity and the delivery boy's inability to get past her to the freaking door. In retrospect, Royce would have loved to see this in action but with everything else going on, it was too much of a liability. He had to see if this hunter was going to cause real trouble or if maybe he could just this thing on the back-burner.

Except, Rosemary hadn't told him what the guy's name was. Just what he looked like. Brown hair. Tall. Smells like hamburgers. How was he gonna identify the guy on that? It wasn't until he was at the burger place, standing in line, that Royce realized he could have asked the Doc what the guy's name was. Why was he even standing in line for a burger anyway? Oh. Right. Because he was starting to look like some creep just standing in front of the place, staring in.

Come the short hours before dusk, Rosemary was attempting to solve her new dilemma.

Royce was on his date. Charlie was part of that date. There went everyone she knew. What in the world was she going to do by herself? She had already slept as much as she could. And then took a nice jog through the back woods, chased a couple squirrels and even tried staring up at the waning clouds as they passed. Which was actually difficult since they were mostly long and wispy and hard to tell apart from each other so really what she ended up doing was just staring at stupid clouds.

And all of that only took a couple hours. There was still the rest of the night to do something. No doubt Royce would soak up as much alone time with Charlie as she would allow him to. She had already planned on crashing their date later if she got too lonely. But she would honestly try to hold out as long as she could. Royce was her best friend (kind of her only friend until Charlie, who she guessed was now her friend) and she wanted him to be happy. After everything he had done for her, he deserved it.

She just wished doing the right thing for someone didn't cause her to be so bored.

Royce had suggested she go into town, maybe make some new friends, but she didn't like that idea at all. Mostly because she wasn't very good at meeting people. Not in her human form, anyhow. As a wolf, it was easy to act nonchalant. She could do whatever she wanted (mostly whatever) and no one cared. Except for other wolves. That was another reason she didn't like going into town. Too many other beasties roaming around. To be fair, she had been approached by a couple of them but they had all been so chatty about joining their pack.

No, she had done that before. Being part of a pack might have meant more security from the fangs and the humans but there was no right to protection from the inside. Nope, she was just fine and dandy with her own pack of two. Even if it was crushingly lonely when that two became one, even for only a night.

There was no helping it now. With her two friends out of the picture, there really was only one person left in town that she could find some company in. Whether that person was fond of her company or not, that didn't matter. So Rosemary jogged her way over to the clinic, taking her usual path through the woods. It was still light out so it couldn't have been that late in the afternoon. Rosey wasn't hip with clocks and such. When it was bright out, it was day. When it was dark out, it was night. Simple. Things like 'time' had no meaning. That was Royce's job.

It would be weird going to the clinic without Charlie or Royce there and just the Doc. Rosey often let the two of them do their work while she hung out with the old man. He tolerated her as long as she didn't make a mess or bother the other animals or bother his customers and really, as long as she didn't move or make a sound or do anything at all, he was fine with her. It wasn't much of company but it was all she had at the moment. At the end of the woods, she poked her head out and checked the dusty road for cars. Not seeing any, she popped out from the trees and casually made her way across.

Cars parked out front was not unusual. By now, she had come to recognize most of them. A lot of people came to the Doc, for whatever their needs were, so again, it wasn't unusual to see someone walking up to the front door. It was normal if there was something in their hands, like a wallet or some kind of little tasty animal (that she wasn't allowed to eat) but when there was a bag that smelled an awful lot like those burgers the Doc usually went out to get, that was something new.

She automatically went into stalk mode, head low and paws silent in the dirt. No, she wasn't after the person. She was after the burger-smelling bag in their hands. There wasn't much in her stomach other than junk food. Royce had someone cooking for him tonight, otherwise he would have been in the same boat as her. She could have gone into town, she guessed, and gotten her own food but why bother when they were delivering it right to her door?

Okay. Technically not her door but hey, she was claiming that bag. She came a little closer and then stopped five feet behind the human (definitely human), raising her head for another sniff. Oh yeah. There was a burger in that bag alright. Burger, fries and juicy juicy greasey goodness in between. Now that she had confirmation of the contents, her next problem was getting the human to drop the bag. Easy. The human still had his back to her so the element of surprise was on her side.

She waited a moment for good measure and then let out a sharp, quick bark.