The next few days were spent sulking and dying for Harry's attention.
He had not been happy about your antics the night he had hoped to spend with her and she had apparently been so turned off by the whole situation that she had not called your human back.
You saw this as a good thing.
He did not.
"I can't believe you!" He'd yelled that next morning after she had left.
"You have no idea how long it has been for me! I haven't been with someone in years! I finally built up the courage to have someone stay the night because I haven't had nightmares recently and you literally had to ruin it!" He was really angry with you but a small bit of you was happy to hear that he hadn't been having nightmares since you'd been staying with him in his bedroom.
Harry had looked down at you and pointed his finger at you in disappointment his eyes filled with a quiet rage.
"Bad girl Selene, bad." You had actually shrunk away from him as the waves of fury poured off of him towards you. You hadn't realized that he'd be this upset about not getting laid but you also didn't know about his past.
You didn't know that the nightmares kept him from living a normal life and that his ex girlfriend broke up with him because of it. You didn't know that Harry's relationship ended because he was so mentally and emotionally scarred from seeing his best friend, Blaze, blowing up in front of his eyes that he couldn't sleep without seeing it happen over and over again. You did not know that he hated himself for years for sending his companion into that village to sniff out bombs. He knew it was Blaze's job...but he'd hated himself just the same. You also didn't know that he had pains that ran through his leg from his hip where the bullet had hit him as he tried to run to his companion, who laid there unmoving, but was seen by the enemy and shot at Harry to kill him.
You didn't know that he chose you specifically because of the trauma to your own hip and that his therapist had asked him to get a dog to help him move on from the incident.
You had no idea.
So you laid out in the snow, glancing behind yourself to see that Harry was not in his usual spot by the window where he keeps an eye on you, wondering if this was it. Was he so mad at you that he didn't want you around anymore?
You could tell by the air that it was almost February. If you were going to leave, now would be the time to do it. There was possibly only a couple more snows left in this season and then it would begin to warm.
A part of you had hoped that you could make this work but the call of the wild was becoming something very hard to ignore. It pulled at your soul and made your paws ache for the feel of the pine needles and snowy ground. You could tell that the forest was screaming for you and it was so close.
You are trotting over to the pond by the time you even realize what it is you are doing. Your instincts are kicking in and you cannot stop yourself as you begin to step onto the solid water. The forest is just across it and you feel it's sturdiness as you continue forward.
A feeling of sadness creeps into you as you glance behind yourself to see no movement in the house. You truly adored Harry, the kindest human you had ever met, and you knew that a huge piece of your heart was reserved for only him. Had circumstances been different, had you met in summer, you are almost positive that he could have adored you too in your human form.
You envision that he would have practically drooled at your tanned skin, kissed by the sun even though you were born of winter, a trait passed down by your tribe throughout the centuries. You can see him staring into your amber eyes and pushing your long black hair back off of your shoulder as you tease him about his love for art and emerald green couches. You can see the look on his face after you kissed him, because of course you'd be the one to do it first, and he'd give you that charming, boyish smile that pulled away the tormented look that haunted his face more often than not. More importantly, you can see yourself being there for him in those nightmare filled evenings in a way that you couldn't be as a wolf, and that simply breaks your heart.
You are halfway across the expanse of the pond when you hear your name being echoed in the frigid air. You snap your eyes forward towards your destination but you do not see any of your pack there howling for you.
"Selene! Come back!" You swivel your head to look behind you and there he is, standing at the edge of the pond waving his arms at you to get you to come back to him. He whistles and shouts and you swear that you can hear his voice crack but you can't do it. You can't go back. You've stayed long enough and he was so mad at you. In the end, you'd only cause him pain and he deserves nothing but happiness and normalcy.
With a pained and heavy heart, you turn away from the brown haired beauty and continue to pad across the pond towards the tree line when suddenly, your ears pick up a sound that makes your entire body freeze.
There is a cracking that ripples underneath your paws that only you can feel and hear because of what you are. Your instincts are telling you to not move but then you hear it.
"Selene! Please, just stay there, I'm coming for you!" You turn around and your human is doing the one thing you never thought he would.
He is walking out onto the ice.
No!
You feel the shout inside of yourself but it comes out as a bark and your human is still walking purposefully towards you but is still a far ways away. The cracking underneath you is coming louder and you now realize that it is not you who is in danger.
It is Harry.
You growl and bark and do everything you can to scare him off but he is still coming, wrapped in too thin of a jacket to be out here like this. You are beginning to panic and look to the frozen surface of the pond when suddenly a huge crack rips through to the center where he is standing and then...
...he disappears.
You do not hesitate.
You run.
You can feel your paws pressing you forward, placing themselves instinctually in ways to avoiding making the ice fall apart more. You are almost to him when you see his arms flailing in the frozen water.
Your heart is pounding as you skid to a halt next to the small opening and dive your head into the freezing water to latch onto his jacket.
You do not care if you have bitten him, your bite is the least of your worries.
You are far too worried about his heart stopping.
You finally grasp onto his jacket and pull his submerged body up out of the water and his lips are turning a violent shade of purple already and he has only been in the water for maybe forty seconds. He is cognizant enough to help you pull himself out of the water as you tug and heave him out of it.
His body is convulsing, trying desperately to reheat itself and you are still dragging him as he does so. The shivers are wracking his body and you do not think.
You just pull.
When you finally manage to get him up off of the bank and into the snow you realize that you maybe only have a few more minutes until heart failure.
He has to get inside.
Harry is doing is best to help you and he is trying, he really is, but his entire body is frozen and he can hardly think. He is just trying to focus on your eyes and your warm breath because every time your breath fans against his neck, as you drag him up to the steps of his home, it feels like you are breathing life into him.
Your hip is on fire but you do not care. You wrestle him up the stairs and his teeth are chattering so hard you are afraid they are going to break.
In Harry's haste to get you back from off of the pond, he left the door wide open, which is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because he does not have to try to open it making it easy for him to be dragged into the house and for you to nudge it shut while he tries to pry his jacket off. It is a curse because now, the entire front living space is freezing cold and what Harry needs now, more than ever, is warmth.
With the front door shut you bound over to him again and see that he is still turning purple and his poor fingers cannot get the jacket off of himself. He managed to get it halfway so you just claw at it and bite at it until it is mostly open so he can shrug it off as best as he can. You sit and watch in panic as he tries to blow his cupped hands with warm air from his lungs but it is not enough.
He is going to die.
His chocolate locks are plastered to his forehead, the greens of his irises are so bright compared to the red coloring of the whites of his eyes, and his cheeks are a horrible red mixed with purple and his poor lips are even worse off.
You have to think fast.
Your body temperature rests at a perfect 105 degrees and you realize that you are the only warmth he has as he struggles to climb onto the couch where you usually lay. He manages to lay on his back and pulls the thin blanket off of the back of it, still horribly convulsing as he does so, and you decide to act.
You jump up onto the couch with him, his breathing erratic, his teeth chattering, his body still shivering and trying to warm itself on its own, and lay down on top of him.
"Se-Se-lene. Wh-what are y-you..."he tries to ask but just stretch your entire body on top of his letting your head rest so that your nose is just at his chin, your paws are on either side of his head, and your back legs are resting on either side of him. At least, you think to yourself, his torso is covered by my warmth.
His eyes shut as his body continues to wrack and he buries his fingers into your fur, trying to create some kind of friction to bring life back into them and it seems to do the trick because several minutes later, his fingers are actually beginning to bend and you can hear the joints cracking from the strain they had been under.
The spasms of his body begin to finally subside after twenty minutes or so, so you begin to inch your way down his body to try and bring some life back to his legs but you keep your eyes on his face as the pink coloring of his cheeks gives you hope that he will be okay.
You can't help but feel incredibly guilty as you nestle back in, your tail moving from each of his feet every so often so that they are getting warmth as well. This is all your fault. If you hadn't been so selfish. If you had just come back to him when he'd first called his stupid ass wouldn't have walked out onto that ice. Your human was so kind and smart and yet so fucking stupid.
He had to have known that the ice was not stable enough for his tall frame to be out on it. He had to have known.
And yet, he went out there for you anyways.
Harry begins to blink his eyes open for the first time in over half an hour and you sit your head up and whine to get his attention.
His forest eyes blink down at you before he is pulling you up by the scruff of your neck so that he can embrace you.
"Don't ever leave me again. Pl-please don't ever le-leave me again." His body shakes gently as the shivers have mostly subsided and you feel your heart ache at his pleas. You just whine in understanding and give him a small lick on his cheek before he hugs you tighter against his body.
You keep an ever watchful eye on him throughout the entire night. You listen intently for his heart which you are so proud of because it is beating strongly in the chest of the man you never want to risk losing again.
You continue to shift throughout the night between warming his upper body and his lower body, taking shifts so that you ensure not a single precious part of your human's body is cold for long. More often than not, though, Harry's hands are reaching for you and pulling you back up to his chest so that he can hold onto you and you cannot stop the pounding of your own heart in response.
This human needs you, he never wants you to leave, and even though you swore you had heard your true name being called earlier, you don't care to find out if you had or not.
Because your heart beats here.
It beats for him.
And you aren't sure the wilderness has your love anymore.
It might just belong to your Harry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's Note:
Did I shed a single tear writing this????
Nah..........
never.......
-Balletclutz