"Chloé," Jean-Jacques called, walking into the alteration device chamber. "It's about time you take a break today, you've been in here for hours."

"No," Chloé answered, furiously flipping through the pages she'd spread haphazardly on the ground beside her and scribbling on them as she tinkered with her machine.

"You look tired."

"I'm frustrated, that's not the same thing," Chloé said, paying him barely any more attention than she needed to. "I made a mess of something and I must figure out what it was and fix it now. If I wait it will be impossible to find the mistake later."

"You don't seem to be having much luck as it is. Even an hour's break might help you see it with fresh eyes."

"Will you just shut up, Jean-Jacques!?" Chloé cried, throwing her tools down and standing, scowling at him.

"Chloé, that's enough. You've had a long day and you're irritated, leave it for now and clear your head."

"I don't need to clear my head!" she snarled, turning her back on Jean-Jacques, embittered.

"It was your choice to devote yourself to this, you knew it wasn't going to be easy. I'm still here to support you no matter how tough it gets. I'm only looking out for you, Chloé."

"If it weren't for you we wouldn't be in this situation at all!" Chloé yelled, baring her teeth as she kicked the alteration device in front of her. "The godforsaken Beast of Gévaudan," she spat.

Silence reigned for long enough that Chloé whirled to look at Jean-Jacques. He was standing there, staring at her, eyes glowing red beneath his hair, and mouth twisted as tightly as the fists clenched at his sides. He was shaking with some uncontrollable emotion, she assumed rage, as his eyes burned into her.

"What?" She snapped. "Out with it."

Jean-Jacques didn't reply. He took a shaky breath, turned on his heel and left, taking long, angry strides. Chloé clicked her tongue. If he wanted to sulk like a child that was up to him. She returned to her work.

After they fought Jean-Jacques was always the first to apologise, even when it wasn't his fault. Chloé would have expected things to play out like that this time as well, except he hadn't made dinner. Chloé had sat, waiting, in the dining hall for a good half an hour after the time they usually ate together and he hadn't turned up. He'd left her alone, to sit with her family of clicking and screeching automatons. Chloé dragged herself down to the kitchen, irritable and hungry, only to find he wasn't there either. But the stove was warm. He had cooked something. And left nothing for her. This had never happened before.

Even when they were on bad terms Jean-Jacques could muster the will to cook for her, because despite being angry there were some things that they did for each other no matter what. Or so she'd thought. Jean-Jacques abandoning her to this degree was unprecedented. The coldness in general was unprecedented. Their fights were always hot and loud, quick to spark out after the initial yelling match ended. A heavy dread washed over Chloé momentarily, before she quickly buried it with a searing flash of anger. Jean-Jacques was being petulant beyond all reason, she had no reason to be swayed by it.

He'd made it clear he wanted to be alone, but Chloé had no desire to respect such a wish. He couldn't avoid her for long in this world, and certainly not when she was actively searching for him. Oh, she was most definitely going to give him a piece of her mind for leaving her in the lurch.

She stopped by her room first, though she wasn't surprised to find he wasn't there, even if it had become as much his room as hers over the years. It wouldn't be especially logical if he had chosen to sulk in a room she returned to every night. Still, the tiny hope that he would be there getting snuffed out felt sickening and Chloé was quick to move on.

Chloé checked Jean-Jacques's room, the library, the drawing room, the undercroft, on and on, opening doors to countless rooms they never used long after she'd run out of the small number that still saw any footfall. The longer she spent patrolling her castle the more her temper shrank, replaced by a cold loneliness. Being apart from Jean-Jacques made Chloé anxious, she'd never forgive herself if anything happened to him. And she certainly didn't need to add to the pile of unforgivable things she'd done in her lifetime. Whatever it was they were fighting about didn't matter to her any longer - and maybe that was part of the problem. To her the argument hadn't mattered, not really, not even at the beginning, but it had clearly been important to Jean-Jacques.

She'd been blowing off steam, not paying attention, saying anything at all without letting it pass through any filters, not even comprehending her own words properly. Until that very moment she hadn't thought to dissect what had actually caused Jean-Jacques to get so angry. And thinking back it was so obvious, it was staring her in the face. Of course Jean-Jacques had been upset.

It had grown completely dark and she returned to her chambers to collect a cloak and a chamberstick to continue her trudging through the halls. Chloé toiled up the steps to one of the castle's tallest turrets, coming to a stop and peering out across the horizon. The dark shapes of the forest seemed to twist and distort at night uncannily, almost entirely unrecognisable from how it looked in the daytime.

Chloé squinted into the treeline and then she saw it. The briefest flash of red. She didn't wait to confirm it hadn't been a figment of her imagination, already flying down the stairs and out of the castle entirely, into the blank white landscape of Gévaudan.

Chloé's boots crunched into the thick snow, water seeping through her stockings as she sank into a particularly deep snowdrift. Her candle blew out almost immediately and she felt incredibly dim-witted for ever believing it might stay alight while outside. Even without it she was a vampire, her superior eyesight would have to be enough to serve her in her mission. She carried on undeterred, clutching her cloak against the biting cold. She needed to bring Jean-Jacques home and the frigid conditions were barely worth pausing for. After so long spent in her self-inflicted icy prison a bit of discomfort with the chill was unimportant.

She spotted him quite quickly, even from far away a giant black and red wolf stood out quite a lot, especially when you knew the general area to search for him. Chloé cupped her hands over her mouth, "Jean-Jacques!"

His head snapped towards her, six shining eyes fixed on her for a moment before he turned and raced in the opposite direction. Chloé gave chase immediately, able to keep close behind as the bending and breaking trees constantly advertised his position to her. Chloé hadn't been prepared for a sprint through the forest in the least, nevertheless she was strong and quick, able to leap between the trees and dart across the ground with little trouble, though Jean-Jacques was undeniably faster and more used to the terrain.

Soon enough Jean-Jacques gave up on trying to lose her, stopping amid the wreckage he had created during his mad dash, watching her approach with hackles raised. Chloé paused at a distance, looking up at him. For all intents and purposes he was a cornered wild animal, a wrong move could have dire consequences.

"Did I make you cry?" Was the first thing she said. Jean-Jacques didn't answer, he only stiffened slightly and Chloé assumed she was right, or if she wasn't he'd probably had to choke them back. Right or no Jean-Jacques wouldn't admit it, he wasn't the type to show weakness to her if he could help it. He wanted to be her protector, breaking down over getting yelled at didn't quite fit with that image. "Come here."

"NooOOo," he growled, shaking his massive shaggy head.

"I know I deserve this, but you don't deserve to be out here alone in the cold. Please listen to me, my darling Beast of Gévaudan."

Jean-Jacques lowered his head a little to look at her more directly, something like a whine thrumming at the back of his throat.

"I'm sorry, Jean-Jacques. I didn't mean it, I really didn't. I know that the one keeping us here is me, you have nothing to do with it. You have every right to hate me for it. Still, I'm going to selfishly ask your forgiveness. Being without you is unbearable to me, hurting you is the last thing I ever want to do. Even if you're still upset come back to the castle at least, don't freeze out here because a foolish old woman said something ghastly to you."

Chloé reached out to him, hands finding their way into the soft fur of his snout as he bent towards her. He shut his eyes as she brushed the snow from his fur, rumbling in contentment, Chloé taking in his warmth as she pressed closer.

"My beautiful beast," she hummed softly, pressing a kiss to his nose. "Let's go home."

It took a moment but Jean-Jacques shrank back to himself, bones cracking, fur shrivelling back into warping flesh, claws and teeth returning to their blunt, innocuous states. Once he was standing before her as a normal vampire Chloé removed her cloak and stood on her tiptoes to sling it around his shoulders.

"Chloé!" He protested immediately. "You'll get cold without this! I don't need it!"

Chloé grabbed his hands to stop him from pulling the cloak off. "You've been in the snow far longer. Let me do this for you at least."

Jean-Jacques bit down on further objections seeing the guilt in Chloé's face. Even so, after securing her cloak properly, he picked Chloé up as he always did, a compromise that she didn't raise any complaints about. He carried her all the way back to the castle and up to her room.

When he finally set her down he instantly moved to the fireplace, Chloé coming to crouch beside him as he coaxed a fire to life. They stared into the flickering flames for a while, letting their warmth and the warmth of their reconciliation wash over them.

"We need to change out of these clothes, they're soaked," Jean-Jacques said after a long moment.

"It's late, we should change into our nightclothes," Chloé agreed with a yawn. "You know where they are."

Jean-Jacques did as she asked, gathering their nightclothes after he shrugged out of his jacket and Chloé's cloak. He placed them to the side and assisted Chloé in removing her dress. She insisted he needed to help her, though since the d'Apchier servants had disappeared from the castle he had sewn her dresses that didn't require anyone else and were easy to get in and out of. He suspected she just wanted to keep him close, still feeling restless after their fight.

After they had both slipped on their nightclothes they found themselves in a plush armchair, moved close to the fire so they could soak up its heat. Chloé had claimed Jean-Jacques's lap, curling up against his chest and idly drumming her fingers against him in some complicated rhythm that he couldn't quite puzzle out. Jean-Jacques had one arm resting against Chloé's back and the other rubbing circles into her knee. Chloé yawned and he could see her eyes beginning to flutter, struggling to stay open.

"'M sorry," she muttered, hand clutching tight to the fabric of his shirt.

"I know." Jean-Jacques leaned forward to kiss her forehead as she drifted off.