"... Hullo? I s'pose I've mislaid my 'phone,' if you're hearing this. If you meant to call Daine, leave a message."

Daine probably could have begged the day off, if she'd really wanted to. Mithros knows Saturday night had been awful, and the weeks leading up to it hadn't been much better. It's left everyone in the farmhouse shaken -- especially Lyall and Biffy. Maybe she ought to be there when they wake. It wouldn't hurt their peace of mind.

But neither of them will be up until only a little after her shift ends, anyway. And part of her likes the idea of just having a normal day, even if they still have to force the normalcy a bit. It'll do her good to work. More importantly, it'll do the People good. They need her, too, and she can't justify letting them down on little more than a whim.

It ends up being a busy shift. There are a few cases that they've held onto until she could get there, the better to have them sorted instead of merely patched up and rescheduled for a handful of check-ups. She mends a bone or two and clears up a handful of infections, and before she knows it, four hours have gone by and Dr. Molina is insisting she head home before she gives herself a migraine. Daine could probably argue that point, but the sun has gone down. Best to head home.

She's nearing the Park when she hears a distant screech of tires and a thud. She barely registers the sound before a sympathetic flare of agony burns through her hip, and she stumbles with a gasp. It's only thanks to a well-placed rubbish bin that she's able to stay mostly upright, and she clings to it, her head spinning. Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith, she's dislocated her hip.

No, she realizes a beat later. Someone else has. The car struck a dog; it's his pain she's feeling, loud enough that her mind can scarcely tell the difference.

She grunts quietly as she forces herself to straighten, then starts to limp towards the accident.

Daine awakes to a strange, rumbling groan. Her eyes snap open, then blink in bewilderment. There's a canvas roof over her head. For a disorienting moment, she thinks she must be on the road again, that she'll leave the tent and find Numair and the Riders, that Darrow has given her back -- or that it was all a strange dream in the first place. But when she reaches up to brush her fingers over the material, she finds it warm beneath her fingers.

It twitches. And as another low sound fills the room, she realizes it's not canvas, it's alive. It's a membrane, like a bat's wing, but so much larger...

And then its familiar blue color registers, and Daine bolts upright with a gasp. "Kitten??"

Neither the dragon nor the bedroom are recognizable. The weight on her legs that Daine had originally taken for Kit's whole body is really just one scaly forepaw. Kitten's torso fills the room; one wing is pinned shut against the far wall, the other, half-unfurled, covers most of the ceiling before running up against the wall above Daine's head. Her shoulders are butting up against the window, out of which her neck and head have completely disappeared.

And her hindquarters are spilling out into the hallway and Goddess knows what beyond. The doorframe has been all but obliterated.

"Hang on, Kit," Daine says, patting her forepaw before extricating herself from the bedclothes and stumbling towards where the door used to be. The rats' cage, fortunately, is tucked beside her bed in a spot that Kitten's growing body hasn't reached, and she takes a moment to silently reassure them before picking her way out into the hallway. It's almost entirely filled by Kitten's hindquarters and tail, which spills down over the edge of the staircase. The floor groans ominously as Daine makes her way down the hall, having to crawl on poor Kitten's body for a good portion of the distance. It's a little easier to get down the stairs, and by the time she nears the back door, she's broken into a run.

Kitten's neck and head are hanging out the second story window, her neck so long and her head so large that her nose is nearly brushing the ground. She starts to lift her head as Daine approaches, prompting another groan of the farmhouse's timbers, and Daine hurries forward. "Hold still," she begs, taking Kit's head in her hands -- it's nearly the size of a hippo's, too big for Daine to really support, but she has to at least try. "Hold still, and we'll..." she trails off, looking helplessly up at the house, her vision blurring. How in Mithros's name are they supposed to fix this?

She can't stay at the farmhouse. That much is clear. Whatever... thing she has, she can't control it the way she did her own magic, and it's making all the new werewolves antsy. Ten seconds was all it took to figure that out, when she'd ventured into the barn earlier in the evening. Biffy and Lyall will have a hard enough time handling them without her making it harder. And that's all she can do, make it harder. The best thing she could do, really, is just get out of the way.

She feels like she's coming apart at the seams. She hates this. And she knows the Pack has more important things to do than try to make her feel better, as if it even matters. What would happen if she lost her temper, now? She'd just embarrass herself.

It's not full dark by the time she starts to shove things into her backpack. Everyone else is in the barn for the night, and she knows it's cowardly to sneak out like this, but it's not like she can discuss it with anyone. They'll just try to talk her out of it, or insist it's not a problem when she knows she is. So she packs, ignoring Poppy and Thistle's inquiring stares. Can't talk to them. Can't explain things.

Kitten's whistle is harder to ignore, and Daine swallows heavily. "I'm just... just going somewhere else for a bit. You don't have to come." The dragonet snorts, and when Daine opens her mouth to argue, Kitten yawns wide as well, deliberately exposing her rows of sharp, silver teeth. Daine huffs, then shakes her head. "There's no room in my pack. You'll have to ride in my coat." As deterrents go, it isn't much of one, and Kitten's only response is to start gathering Daine's cold weather things into a tidy pile.

It isn't until they've made it a quarter mile from the farmhouse that Daine realizes she has no idea where they're going. The list of people she wants to impose upon is blank; no one deserves to deal with her when she's like this. But it's too cold for dithering, and after a few faltering steps, she heads for Candlewood. Thomas is one of the two-leggers she's closest to. And if she's going to embarrass herself no matter who she speaks to, at least Thomas is too well-mannered to shame her for it.

That doesn't keep her from feeling rather wretched as she stands on the building's doorstep, shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she buzzes his apartment.

If they wanted to keep things secret, Daine figures, they would've done a better job of it. Early morning is a busy time of day, not least of all because Daine's own internal clock has gone a bit weird since she moved out here. Her hours at the clinic never start before 4 PM unless there's some sort of emergency, and that's the only time she has to strictly be anywhere. Since Biffy's up at night -- and since she tries to stay up all night during the full moon, especially -- she's as likely to catch naps in the morning and evening as she is to sleep properly through the night.

She's trying to get back on a more normal schedule since the last full moon, but ends up rising around four in the morning. It's an absurd time to be awake, and Kitten grumbles at her for moving about, so Daine takes owl shape and goes for a lengthy flight through the forest. By the time she returns at a more reasonable hour, Lyall is there. She can hear them from her perch on her windowsill (can hear rather more than she wants to, in fact, and she resumes human shape so quickly she stumbles a little). Cheeks flushing, convinced that they'll hear her if she tries to tiptoe past Biffy's door, she ends up just stuffing what she needs for the day in her bag and dropping it out the window. After following it down in bird shape and dressing hastily on the lawn, she heads out on her rounds, determined to take her time.

The farmhouse is silent when she eventually returns, with the exceptions of Kitten and Pawvus, who greet her as if they've been bored witless (as opposed to playing with one another, or with the toys Thomas has made).

"Did Professor Lyall sneak out?" she asks the dragonet, who shakes her head in response. Daine arches an eyebrow. "Did they even leave Biffy's room?" Chortling, Kitten shakes her head again.

Daine snorts, then refills the kettle. It looks as if an earlier attempt at tea was abruptly abandoned, and she rolls her eyes as she puts the old cups by the sink and fetches down fresh ones. "You may as well go wake them," she says, selecting a more bracing tea for them and a milder one for her. "Nicely," she hastens to add as Kitten immediately tears off toward the staircase, Pawvus in bewildered, habitual pursuit. She listens for a moment, turning her ears bat-shaped long enough to make sure Kitten isn't whistling open a locked door. But there's only the click of the knob turning, so she lets her ears lapse back into their usual shape. If they're not even going to try to keep folk out, they can't object too much to an eventual interruption.

Kitten steps into the room, then sits up on her haunches and takes stock for a moment before waddling over to the stranger's side of the bed. Stretching her neck to peer over the edge of the mattress, she lets out a soft, inquiring cheep.

It's been a hard week for Kitten.

Which isn't to say it's been all bad. There are plenty of things around the apartment that appeal to her, and she's shown even more fascination with the laptop than Daine had. The rats have almost stopped being afraid of her. And Daine's just about finished modifying a backpack into a cozy, secure means of transportation that'll keep her well-hidden. Once that's done, it'll be much easier to at least take Kitten to meet folk, even if she can't romp around in the open.

But there are still times when Daine has to leave her alone at the apartment. There's her job, and her more unofficial (but still important) rounds, and errands. It seems like every time Daine leaves her behind, Kitten turns an even more sullen shade of gray before crawling beneath the bed to sulk. Daine's explained the gravity of the situation as best she can, but that doesn't make the reality of it any less frustrating.

Part of her half-expects Kitten to act out in some way. When it does eventually happen, there's at least one small mercy: Daine's still in the building. In fact, she's still in bed. She's woken by tiny paws on her cheek and the concerned squeaks of Thistle and Poppy. Daine lifts her head groggily, wondering what the fuss is about, and the rats' explanations sink in just as Daine catches sight of the light spilling into her hallway.

Kitten is gone, and the apartment door's been opened.

Daine sits up sharply, reshaping her ears, and her heart sinks when she hears a familiar whistle and the click of someone's lock giving way. "Curse it!" she hisses, scrambling out of bed as quickly as she can without hurting the rats and dashing for the outer hallway. "Curse it, curse it..." She swings out into the hall, glancing both ways, and just spots the tip of Kitten's tail disappearing into her next-door neighbor's apartment.

She presses her lips together, swallowing the several things she'd like to say, and tiptoes down the hall as quickly as she can. "Kitten!" she whispers as loudly as she dares. "Get back here!"