Frank was kind of excited about this month. If the wolfsbane worked the same way on him as it did normal werewolves (and he saw no reason it shouldn’t), then he might be able to function outside of the ministry even during the full moon. He could be considered safe all the time, so long as he took it as scheduled. It was easier to think of the positives than dwell on the negatives. Tons of werewolves took wolfsbane. Usually. They were making sure it wasn’t tainted anymore. They would have stricter regulations with it, surely.

So he nodded enthusiastically, rubbing at his eye. He wasn’t aware of Maggie’s concerns. For him, he considered it just another way to help get his story out. Frank didn’t think he’d ever want his family to see him in that state… just knowing he had broken other families, torn apart someone who once lived—that was enough of a burden for them, he thought.

Grinning at her agreement, Frank nodded in agreement. With wolfsbane in him, he’d be able to keep himself there, keep himself from acting out and being a force to reckon with. He’d be like a potentially dangerous overgrown puppy. Nodding again, he felt a little excitement for the full moon. He hadn’t felt that way… well, since he started worrying about what day of the month it was. “That’ll be real cool, Maggie.”

Then she turned the questions back towards an interview, and his grin grew a little less cheerful. “Sure.” What happened in March? Running hands over the top of his head and ruffling up his hair unknowingly, he sighed and let them drop to his lap. He tried to focus his energy on talking about things he would prefer had happened to someone else. Or not at all.

“I tried different environments to wreck havoc in during the full moon, having had a few to learn the ins and outs of it.” Shrugging, he glanced down to his hands for a moment before looking back up at Maggie. “The sewers were good because very few people frequent them, and you can unleash your aggression on rats.” The stench after took a while to scrub off, but at least he wasn’t trying to clean human blood out from under his nails. Usually.

“Smells and sounds had drawn me before, but I’d always enclosed myself in to where it was difficult to get back to the surface. In March… there was a f-familiar smell.” Georgianne… “Ah, smell, like an aroma someone gives off. Parts are unique to someone, and parts are… made up of what they use to wash their hair or the perfume the put on.” Shrugging helplessly as he tried to explain it, he finally gave up. “It was intoxicating.” He frowned, wrestling with the memories in his head.

“So then the werewolf… direwolf instinct came out, and I found any way out of the sewers that I could find. It was like wanting that lollipop as a child that you were never allowed to have, and so you’d obsess over it and pine away for it, but then when you finally got it… didn’t you just want another lollipop?” He was very simple in his desires when in his were form. He was hungry and impatient. “Miss Sleeper was the smell I had stalked through the sewers. But it wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. Someone else was there…” Frowning in thought, he rubbed his hands together. “Mr. Ahmed. He does something with the Ministry.”

And suddenly his head was in his hands, and he fought to keep his feelings back, though they mingled heavily with his voice. “I ki-killed Georgianne.” His voice broke, and he took a few moments to compose himself. Frank couldn’t explain to Maggie how it had felt to eat her, how delicious she had tasted, the euphoria that had passed as he’d finally gotten what he’d searched for. All of that was very intimate and nauseating.

So instead, he shook his head and continued, his voice a little softer. “Then Mr. Ahmed attacked me. He lodged his silver dagger into the back of my left leg, before I threw him off of me.” Shrugging, he frowned suddenly. His leg still wasn’t the same, but those who examined it and cleaned it had been surprised at how well it had healed. Maybe that was something else… he wasn’t as sensitive to silver as other werewolves?

“It wasn’t long after that they caught me. And next thing I knew, I was in a cell.”

Frank's enthusiasm got a small smile out of her. She had to be there, Maggie decided. He needed someone there, and she'd probably never get a second chance to observe a transformation at the Ministry. Now was the time to bring back her foolhardy fearlessness!

But Frank's grin faded, and with it her gumption, as he described being led out of the sewers by someone's scent in March. It was the way he talked about it - there was no good way to talk about it, but he apologetically compared it to craving candy. Everyone had a smell, and to Frank in direwolf form, the familiar scent had been intoxicating and irresistible.

Maggie suddenly wondered what the hell she smelled like. Though she didn't wear perfume, she wore deodorant, washed her clothes, and showered daily. Did they sell garlic-based shampoo? Aw feck, that was for vampires. Maggie was jolted out of her paranoid thoughts when Frank put his head in his hands and said he'd killed Georgianne Sleeper.

Maggie sat still, quill loose in her hand, hearing his anguished voice with some strange degree of detachment. He went on, explaining that Kabir Ahmed had attacked him, and then the WCU had thrown him into a cell.

Silence hung for a few moments, heavy and horrible. Part of her wanted to reach out to him. But she didn't. She could barely meet his eyes.

"Frank," she paused, then reached for her glass and took a sip of water. "I have to ask," Maggie looked at him, making no move to write anything he'd just said down.

"Are you sure you want your name attached to this story? That you want it printed at all? 'Cause I'll write it, I'll do it, that's fine," she tried to reassure him, face troubled. "But there are people out there who are angry and scared. They haven't caught Dugan MacCrazy yet, so that leaves you. People might not see the difference between you and him no matter how I word things. It's a risk. You've already been through a lot. You don't need a mob with pitchforks burning down your flat."

Maggie didn't know how much he'd thought about the possibility of consequences, even worse than what he was facing now.

"So," she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Just so you know, you don't have to prove anything. I can always write about the differences between a direwolf and werewolf and leave you out of it. Or I can write up your story and submit it later, when things have calmed down."

Perhaps it had been a bad idea, talking to Maggie. She knew him... How was she supposed to be unbiased? How would she look at him now? Frank wasn't even sure if his family could think of him the same, knowing what he had done. He couldn't tell his mum... What if she started to look at him with disdain, or sympathy, or disappointment? Frank wasn't sure if he could handle that.

Her thought about what she asked. A mob was the last thing he needed, but at the same time... It wasn't as if the ministry had to keep quiet about what he'd been charged with. There had been enough in the papers all ready for Laney to know what he was.

Frank stared at his hands, wringing them together. He wanted nothing else than to bury all he had done, to put his head in the sand and carry on like normal. but Frank knew that was wishful thinking, and that it wasn't going to happen. So, instead... "If I don't find a way to tel my story, someone else will. They won't know me, they'll just know my crimes. But if you do it, I'm... Confident. That it'll be kinder." With his last few words, he glanced up at her, staring with determination. "I have to hope my private residence will stay private."

Leaning over, he picked up a few paper clippings he had been able to find, photos and Georgianne's obituary. Then he stood up, walked over to Maggie, and sat down next to her. Frank offered them to her. "I just need them back, after you're done." He gave her a small smile, nudging her with the side of his knee. "It's going to turn out all right. The wolfsbane will make me house broken."

Maggie accepted the paper clippings and photos with an uncertain air, looking at them like she didn't know what to do with them. She frowned at the smiling girl in the photo for a few moments, absently smoothing out a crease in the corner, and then abruptly stacking the clippings and setting them down on the cushion beside her. She glanced at him, half-smiled in response to the nudge on her knee. He was trusting her to write his story, he was the reassuring her things would be alright. All she'd done so far was spook him about mobs and stare at him like he was a stranger. Something was wrong with this picture.

"I know," she said with more confidence. "Can't have you tearing up your own flat. It's messy enough already," Maggie attempted joking around with him like they'd used to. Something he'd said was still niggling at her, about keeping his location private. Maybe she'd talk to the RCMC about how they could help ensure his safety and privacy now that he was out on his own.

"They treat you ok in the cells?" Maggie studied his face, asking as both a friend and a journalist.

A laugh slipped out, sudden and loud and true in its humor. “That it is.” Smirking as he glanced around, Frank wondered why he didn’t learn more cleaning spells. Or why he didn’t use them more often. It was more clutter than mess (though some people didn’t see the difference between the two). There were days Frank didn’t even know his own way through it—and that was when it became a problem.

“Maybe a couple chew toys would help too.” Finally he turned his attention back to her, still feeling rather amused, a smaller smile on his lips. Humor was the best medicine, and laughter the cure for negativity.

He shrugged at her question, glancing down at his hands in his lap, turning them over to look at his palms. “Yeah, mate. It’s not a five star hotel, but it’s decent.” Frank was a criminal, after all, even if he hadn’t meant to be. He wasn’t necessarily due all courtesies and lap dog treatment that he might have wanted. “The entertainment isn’t the best, and the bed you have isn’t the most comfortable, but it definitely deters you from wanting to go back.”

And Frank was certainly discouraged from going back for any longer than a couple nights a month. Even that was almost too much. Some people were not made for jail and confined cells. Frank missed his freedom, but also realized there was little he could do about it.

Hearing Frank laugh and joke around brought a smile to her face. She relaxed on the couch, relieved that he didn't have any horror stories about the cells, though that certainly would have made for an interesting angle.

"Are you required to check in at the Ministry every full moon - well, the entirety of the moon cycle, until they sort out why direwolves are popping up?"

Maggie assumed so. She paused. "And have you heard anything about how close they are to knowing what caused it?"

She wondered for a brief moment if she should ask him how he felt about killing someone, becoming a werewolf, and being cursed, rather than sticking to facts and speculation. But she'd seen the pain written on his face earlier. Mags didn't want to go that route yet.

He nodded. “Until they can find a way for me to be harmless to the community.” Which, even with Wolfsbane, werewolves were still a danger. But they were allowed to be a danger in their own home, not behind bars. “Probably have to submit to some more tests… And hopefully they’ll figure out more about this… curse.”

And with that aside, her next question came. This time he glanced away, a pained look on his face until he was able to hide it. He shook his head. It was a hard case all around. How was he supposed to get registered if he had no visible mark to show he was a werewolf? How couldn’t he have registered for the safety of the public? All the questions that came up… they all turned around on themselves. In the end, fear seemed to have a big hold on his imprisonment. That and the murder charges…

“I think they can only speculate right now.” And with no visible mark, that lead to the idea that he somehow took it in, whether it was something he swallowed, or… well. There were a few ways to administer things.

Shifting a bit, he forced himself to rest back, to try and appear comfortable. After a moment in his well worn in couch, his shoulders loosened up and he relaxed. “It’s been like...” He struggled a moment, frowning in thought as he closed his eyes, smirking as he came to a reasonable comparison. “It’s like they found out I have a new form of unknown STD, and no one wants to touch me to find out what it’s about.” Though even that wasn’t the entire truth. The fools at St. Mungo’s wanted to poke and prod (at a safe distance, of course).

But he’d had it since November, and as far as they could find, he hadn’t transferred his form of the curse on. He worried briefly about Laney, but quickly shook that off. No, it’s always been passed on by a bite. Well... this time aside.

Maggie nodded when he confirmed that he'd be checking into the Ministry every full moon cycle from now on. She'd be surprised (and secretly troubled) if they'd required anything less.

The pain that flickered across his face was apparent even to her, and for a second she regretted the question. Frank had to be feeling discouraged after everything that had happened to him, but he offered his opinion anyway, letting her know the Ministry could only speculate.

When Frank compared being a direwolf to a new STD, she let out a snort of a laugh and shook her head. Awkward comparison, but apt.

"That sucks," she said bluntly, her expression sympathetic but slightly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."

Maggie looked at him a moment longer, then let out a breath and glanced over her notes. "Anything I'm missing? Anything you want to talk about?"

She felt like she had a lot of information to work with, but wanted to double check before she wrapped things up.

Frank gave her a half smirk and shrugged. It did suck, but there was no use being sorry. It’d happened (though he wasn’t sure how or why), and he just had to keep going forward. Either that, or let it drown him. Some days might seem easier to do that… but it wasn’t an option. He knew that. He just speculated on it very sparingly.

Her next couple of questions made him pause, frowning in thought. He shrugged subconsciously, as if he wanted to rid himself of the nuisance of his curse. “There is a rather big, unexplained hole in all of this, but it’s nothing either of us will figure out.”

Rubbing the back of his head, he shrugged again (it seemed to be one of his favorite gestures) before leaning back against the couch. What else was there to talk about? Frank wasn’t sure if he could talk about the people he’d killed in any sort of detail, though he was sure it would eventually help. And he wasn’t sure if she wanted to talk about anything more normal than his story life.

“Not that I can think of.” Frank raised an eyebrow as he looked at her. “You?”

"I don't think so," Mags returned the shrug with one of her own, putting her notes and quill away, and standing up from the couch. "I'll work on writing the article, and send you a copy before anything goes to print, okay? And I'll drop by or owl if I have other questions."

She paused, slinging her bag on her shoulder. "Thanks for the interview. If they let me, I'll be there at the Ministry on... what is it, the ninth? Yeah. So, I'm sure everything will go fine," she added with an awkward nod. What did she know?

Another pause, then she leaned forward and gave him a quick hug. "I've gotta run around like a hippogriff with its head cut off today, but I'll see you around, yeah?"

It was half true. She did have plans for the day, but Maggie could have easily set things aside to hang out with him at his flat. She just couldn't deny that the interview and the things she'd learned had freaked her out more than a little, and she felt like she needed some time to adjust. It was either make an exit, or make awkward small talk for the next few hours, and Maggie was terrible at small talk!

Frank watched her picking up her stuff, absentmindedly fiddling with the end of his shirt. Blinking, he forced himself to his feet, giving her as easy a grin as he could. There wasn’t going to be any hanging out today, it seemed. “Yeah…” It was the ninth. It was coming up too fast. He’d enjoyed his couple weeks of freedom and didn’t fancy giving it back up. Frank knew he had to, though, and maybe it would make it easier, knowing Maggie was going to be there.

“Oh, of course.” Why wouldn’t it go fine? He would be locked behind some tried and tested bars. Plus, according to everything he had read, the Wolfsbane would make him tolerable. Accepting the hug, he had time to pat her back before she pulled away. Raising an eyebrow at her sudden attempt at a getaway, he merely nodded, feigning a smile. “Yeah. I’m not very far away.”

Frank wanted to say ‘don’t be a stranger,’ but wasn’t sure how that would pan out. What if she didn’t stay one? What if she did? He supposed an upside to her leaving early meant he could go pester Laney. Or stay inside and catch up on more of his reading. Work was becoming more manageable, now that he’d caught up on a lot of the things he hadn’t been able to deal with while in jail.

Walking her to the door, Frank rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Stay safe. See you the ninth.” His attempts to not put the hopeful questioning in his voice were half successful. Free hand stuffed into his trouser pocket. "And hey, Mags, it was really good to see you." Giving her a goofy grin, he reached over and gave her an awkward half hug before waving her out, shutting the door gently behind her. Right. He had some things to start setting in order.