What happened

Sticking away from Bigby was all just a careful process of avoidance. Very simple. Every time they'd had the opportunity to be together in the same room, she'd made sure she'd had somewhere else to be. She'd gone shopping on that first day, and had returned with enough clothes to last her for a little while. Or at least until she'd found herself her own apartment, with which she could fill with clothing and her own furniture and all sorts of things like that.

Today, she'd decided to have a talk to Kristy, or Kirsty or whatever her name was that Charming was so intent on wooing this week. There were some apartments free in the building, on the top few floors, but she wasn't the one who controlled the rental situation. Snow was given a card with contact details, and a quick phonecall later, Snow had set up an appointment with the realtor in charge of the Woodlands.

After that, she'd put on her finest business suit, a nice checkered ensemble, and some comfortable flats, and had begun the short walk from the Woodlands to the Realtor's office. Normally she would've taken a Taxi, but the more she relied on other methods to get herself around the city, the less likely she was to heal properly.

Besides, it meant that getting to and from her appointment would take longer, which would mean she'd be avoiding Bigby for longer.

It was a win-win situation.

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She was running through a forest. It was thick and dark, and the air was cold and moist as she breathed heavily, panting and puffing as she tried to get as much air into her lungs as possible. She ducked under low-hanging vines, and leaped over logs that lay across the path. Occasionally, she'd frantically glance behind her, where she saw flashes of something menacing. It was chasing her, and she knew the minute that she stopped running, whatever it was would waste no time in devouring her whole.

One shoe-less foot landed in a shallow puddle, and the slime and goop squished between her toes disgustingly. She powered on, though, ignoring the discomfort, until her slippery foot landed on a strangely smooth rock. Between the rock and her wet toes, she lost her balance, and flipped head over heels, landing on her stomach, face planted in the thick mouldy leaf-litter of the forest floor. Whatever it was that was chasing her was only a few seconds away from her, but when she tried to push herself off the ground, she found her legs weak and unresponsive, barely able to move by themselves.

It was like a horrible flashback to her rehabilitation. The disgusting amount of effort it took her to do the simplest things, like walking, or even rotating her ankles, had returned, and she was just as crippled as she'd been before. Her hands moved wildly, trying to press herself up into a crawling position, but by then the monster was looming over her. Sharp wolf teeth glistened inches from her eyes, before the huge mouth opened wide and took her head off with one bite.

Snow thrashed out frantically, kicking out through the tangled bed sheets, and hitting something particularly solid, snapping her out of the dream instantly. Her eyes opened wide, and she looked around disorientated-- she was lying on her stomach, in the room Charming had provided her with...

And she wasn't alone.

She let out a quick shriek.

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It was quite possible that this would be the last thing Bigby Wolf ever saw. It was possible that after this act of what humans would call voyeurism, that he would end up looking like the rug he refused to sleep on in the living room. The rug with the head still attached. Bigby didn't think though, that Snow would be that callous. And she wouldn't have a chance to. Not if she didn't wake up. Hence his extreme aura of quiet as he sat curled up on the foot of her bed.

The foot of her bed was a very risky place to be sitting, he was perfectly aware. But once he'd gotten up, jostling the bed as little as possible, he'd settled down and had successfully not moved for the entire three hours that Snow had slumbered so far.

Humans called this voyeurism and they usually had people arrested for it. Bigby called it protecting his pack, a deed he would do, even if Snow didn't yet realize that she was his.

Bigby couldn't help the possessive mentality. It came with the territory and having spent the last week and change in his large and furry form hadn’t helped shake it. It had only been a week and a half since he'd been home and everything had been right with the world. Well, with Snow, rather. Their world had actually been a mess, what with the soldiers attacking and Baba Yaga's infiltration, but Snow –his Snow—had been alright. He missed that; the way she'd looked, smelled, and sounded had all become so familiar.

To have it all ripped away after the nine months was some incredibly cruel twist of fate. Which, shouldn't have surprised him for the most part. A very familiar story, that was. The story of his life.

Adjusting his head slightly, Bigby watched Snow sleep. Watching a person sleep wasn't the most stimulating activity one could do, but he didn't it when it came to Snow. Especially not here, where it seemed this would be the only time he could spend alone with her; the time when she was most defenseless and most in need of a protector, even if she would have denied it to her death bed. He'd sit with her nights until he was discovered and she ordered him to stop. Because that was something this Snow would do.

He knew her sleeping patterns well. Knew that like most people, she would up in a completely difference position than she'd fallen asleep in. She tossed and turned like no one else he'd ever seen before, but it was alright. She wouldn't be falling out or hurting herself on his watch. Never.

His tail twitched and flicked out slightly when Snow rolled over in bed for the umpteenth time so far that night. He scooted upwards ever so slightly, just enough to nudge the blankets back up over her body. It was innocent, all of it. It wasn't as if he was seeing anything new, and he didn't particularly care about that right now. Just watching, protecting.

His actions were innocent, but he wouldn't be surprised on the night when he slipped up and suddenly he was faced with a very awake, and very angry Snow.

But until then? Bigby settled back in at the foot of her bed. He wasn't going anywhere.

Usually it wasn't a good idea to leave injured people alone, but Bigby was a grown man- or wolf, which would probably sound better in an argument- and he could definitely take care of himself. There was food in the fridge, wood on the fire and a first aid kit Charming had managed to dig out lying on the sofa. Whoever said the Prince didn't take good care of his guests?

Charming wanted to explore The City, find out as much as he could about it. It was definitely, unabashedly American; it had a lot of Starbucks, where horrible American popular music was played very loudly.

He had wandered for an hour, not looking for anything in particular, just observing. There were definitely some interesting people around here, but it seemed a civilised city. A casual walk around a park, and he was ready to head back home. Passing a small diner, he thought he saw someone familiar sitting at the window, but the glint was too strong to make out who it was.

Oh well, Charming thought with a shrug, and walked straight onto a wad on gum.

Oh yes, an unabashedly American city.

Sometimes you just couldn't say no. When you were as hungry and as low on energy as Snow was, polite manners eventually went their way out the window, and standards such as "always insisting on paying for your meal" were lowered, just a little. Still. She'd only ordered a small meal of pancakes with fruit-salad, but it was tasty enough, and by the time she was halfway through the meal, she was already feeling better, and more energised, and was almost ready to go searching once again for her car.

Smiling positively, she looked out the window, and that was when her eyes popped right out of her skull. Literally.

Or maybe not so literally, but when she saw her ex-husband picking gum off his shoe, she didn't know whether she should laugh or cry. Eventually, she did neither, and satisfied herself with frantically tapping her nails against the window and saying "Charming!" loudly through the glass, in order to get his attention.

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Bigby looked up at the sky. He didn't believe in any higher beings, he considered most of that as being for Mundies, but if they did exist? Then today he was cursing them. "When I said I'd take Charming," He muttered to himself, staring up at the tall apartment complex. "I didn't mean it. I really didn't mean it."

He'd picked up Charming's scent this morning after finally feeling up to exploring the city. Charming's and Bluebeard's, but Beard's was much fainter. Almost gone in fact. Charming's was strong. He'd walked the sidewalks within a two block radius of the complex he stood before now several times, and Bigby could smell the man's cologne all over the front doors. No sign of Hobbs though, which was odd. The man never traveled without his porter.

But then, so many things were off about this city.

Bigby knocked the button provided to open the doors for those who were handicapped. The doorman standing there seemed surprisingly unconcerned as to the fact that a wolf was limping into the building. He ignored Bigby, and Bigby ignored him, walking as quickly as he could over to the list of names that sat on the wall to the side. There was a listing for Bluebeard, but none for Charming. He'd make do with that.

After a bit of awkward navigating in the elevator, Bigby stepped out on the top floor where there were only three doors and quite spread out. He headed straight for number two and batted one of his good paws against it.

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i_huffandpuff

At least it was only a forest, Bigby was thankful for that. It would've been nice if it had been a forest that he recognized, but it didn't seem like he had much of a choice in this situation. Forests as a whole at least were similar and negotiable when it came to traveling. It was simply a matter of getting up, catching his bearings, and searching for something that smelled familiar. Preferably something that smelled like home.

He could smell a city to the North, but it wasn't New York, something told him that. But it was a city, so Bigby got up and shook himself before turning to the North. If it wasn't New York it'd be someplace else, but any city would be good enough as long as there was a phone. And perhaps if he was lucky, it would be a city he'd actually been to before. Though, in these sorts of situations he was never that lucky.

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