Little Bird

|six| time of death

Her hands crack, the dried blood separating with threads of her skin peaking through. Above her, the Alpha hovers, unsure what to do other than to stare at his daughter, who keeps her attention tethered to the dead body laying limp on his dining room table. 

"Water," Murdock whispers, offering the glass as a symbol of peace. "Drink somethin', sweetheart," he wants to peel the sodden robe off of her body, wash away all the blood, make her forget the Wanderer as his blood disappears down the sink. Instead, he hopes his offering will be enough.

She doesn't say anything, just holds the cold glass in between her trembling hands, her knuckles turning white from the force. Beyond the man, a pair of windows with their curtains tucked back show the beginning of dawn. Sunlight begins to crawl up the wall, breathing life back into the dark room. 

He wipes a hand down his tired face, fingers dragging along the roughness of his five o'clock shadow; he moves towards the refrigerator for a beverage of his own. He pulls out a can of beer, his nose curling as the thick scent of alcohol splits the air in half. 

Murdock doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know if he should call her grandmother. Doesn't know if he should slip a blanket over her shoulder. Doesn't know if he should take her hands, blow hot breath in between them to remind her that she's still here, and he's still here, and the man on the table would be easy enough to forget if she would just drink her water and look away.

He doesn't do any of that. Just stares at her, at this person he doesn't recognize, distraught in a way he's never seen. He sits down next to her, doesn't think too hard about it, because if he did, he'd change his mind. Wander off to the next room, turn the television down low enough to listen to her cry, hold his breath and drink until his mind became fuzzy enough to warrant sleep. And then, she'd be better in the morning. They'd both wake up underneath a new sun, pulled out of the strange tangles of the night and reminded that life is safe and ordinary underneath the light.

She freezes as he slides down next to her, as if he's a stranger. Then, slowly, just barely, she flickers her stormy eyes up to her father. Her lips tremble as he opens his mouth, as if Murdock had anything to say-- he didn't. He doesn't have to say anything, though. 

Without hesitation, she buries herself into the shoulder of her father. 

*

They stay like that for only a few minutes, but it settles over time like hours. Murdock can't remember the last time Dove even held a conversation with him for anything more than small talk. 

The weight of her is heavy in a way that he feels in his heart. Her hands wrap around his neck, reeling him in, giving him no air to breath, simply sobbing into his t-shirt. When the tears hit his skin, he feels himself rearrange inside, his own heart mimicking his daughter's, broken and torn and terrified, helpless because of his daughter's own helplessness.

"Hey, little Bird, it's gonna be okay," You're lying to her. Everything about this is the opposite of okay.  From the dining room table carrying his daughter's dead mate, to the bullets riddled into the man's skin. "Everything is gonna turn out all right," he runs on, hopelessly. Things like this don't happen to ordinary people, and wolves or not, seeing your child's fate dead in front of your eyes isn't normal.

The knock on the door causes both of them to jump. From where they are sitting, collapsed on the ground in the dining room, the door is down a hallway to the left. 

He doesn't do anything but shout, "Come in!", inviting any beast to play.

In comes Lynnie, a tiny thing with glasses half the size of her face who brings the smell of sterilized hospitals with her. She carries a bag half hidden by her yellow sundress, heavy with medical supplies, as if she could bring anything back to life. Her eyebrows raise at the scene on the floor, watching her Alpha surrender himself to his daughter, combing his fingers through her knotted hair.

"I've come to examine the body," Lynnie announces, wrinkled hands a finger short from an amputation accident. 

"Yeah, um--" he can't unstick himself from his daughter. "Just--" he nods to the man on the table top. "Uh... dead, yeah," Murdock attempts, dumbly. 

She only snorts and continues to the man, stopping to pull blue gloves over her hands. She works as the children's doctor in town half the week, and the other, she's elbow's deep into a cadaver's chest. This doesn't seem any different to her. 

"Time of death?" She asks, fingers wrapping around the collar of the man's shirt, tightening as she preparing herself to rip it in half. It was practically shreds anyway, not any use to her now. 

"Uh-- around one, maybe? I was on the ordinary patrol," and there's that word again. Ordinary. "And I heard my daughter screaming, and then- then I found her. And then, I found him." 

"Mhmm," is the only thing that she offers, as if she merely asked the question to fill up the air with something other than the soft sobs of his crying daughter.

He watches her, the woman moving around the table in a quick blur. Her dark curly hair is pulled back haphazardly. Clearly, Murdock had interrupted her morning ritual. 

"She's getting older," amber eyes flicker over his daughter as latex fingers crawl over the body's chest. 

Lynnie wasn't born Wolf, she mated into it. And only in emergencies did they use something as traditional as a Pack Doctor-- but she fit it. Quick as they come and the smartest person in any room, Lynnie thankfully took pity on her wife's Pack and helped when asked. 

The last time she saw Dove had been a bad day. A day Murdock spent most of his time dwelling on, unable to shake the moment his worst fears came to light. 

"Yeah," he soothes the word into Dove's hair. "Almost 12 years," he didn't say anything else, didn't want to think about it more than he had to. Just simply clutched Dove, who began to untangle herself from the Alpha. 

Lynnie doesn't push anymore, seeing the way Murdock's icy eyes have settled on hers, commanding she stop talking, or in the very least, stop talking about that night. 

"Young man," she tuts as the pads of her fingers trace his jawline and tilt his mouth open. "Good teeth, probably in his early twenties... and," she stares; at what, he doesn't know. For a moment, the room is completely silent. The older woman pauses to press both palms around his neck, until they leak onto his chest, where she digs into the skin beneath the shirt. 

"What the--" the woman freezes, before ripping her gloves off of her hands, trembling from whatever she described. She places them back on top of his left breast, brows drawn together tightly, terrified and clueless. 

"I--" her words have become nothing but garbled nonsense. She gives Murdock a hard stare before she brings her ear down to the man's chest, cheek to skin, fingers splayed on the table surrounding him, getting as close to him as possible.

"What in the good Lord's--" She scrambles for purchase, abruptly launching herself off of the body, away from the counter. Her chest heaves, all attention from both Murdock and Dove caught on the doctor. 

"What is it--" Murdock attempts to ask, eyebrows drawn in confusion. 

He doesn't have the chance to complete his question. 

One moment, the lifeless body on the table lays flat and still. The next, a blur of life violently sits up right, chest heaving as air zipped back into his lungs, hands caught on his torn short as he reaches to find a purpose.

The Wolf is alive. 

Author's Note

Most difficult chapter to write so far. Please enjoy. Updates will be sparse. I'm a freshman in college now!

Tell me what you liked, what you didn't, what you think of it!