Thanks again for the comments, let me know what you think of Chapter 10! Warning, this chapter may be on the mushy side, but it's still interesting if you have the stomach for it.

Disclaimer: Stephenie Meyer owns all the characters and the original Host. I only own the OC's and the plot.

Chapter 10:

At that moment, she looked Batman square in the eyes, "And look, I see you've added another to your little collection." She clapped her hands, "Doc, you know what to do."

Doc stared at her annoyed still holding on to Sharon.

"No!" Aimee shouted, "Don't change him back!" Everyone stared at her in shock. They saw that she was just as human as they were. Aimee started to walk towards Doc to explain to him, but got extremely pale and collapsed to the floor unconscious.

"Aimee!" Batman frantically ran over to Aimee and held her looking at Doc pleadingly. Everyone forgot about the interesting contacts and looked over to see what had happened.

Doc let go of Sharon and rushed over to Aimee, trying to bring her into consciousness. He glared at Maggie, "I'm afraid that's going to have to wait."

Maggie rolled her eyes, "Well, as long as it gets taken care of." Maggie then did a double take and looked at the figure on the floor again. There was something very familiar looking about the woman on the floor. "Wait a minute, that woman looks a lot like Aimee, your little friend who used to come over all the time," she said in a less hostile voice to Sharon.

Sharon nodded without so much as looking at her mother, "Yes she is, and the soul holding her is her husband Batman, formerly this douche bag named Billy who treated her poorly. Doc, you are to leave him as a soul. They are very happy together now."

Maggie was speechless, but before she could say anymore, Doc picked up Aimee and started walking in the direction of the hospital wing. He turned towards the group and announced, "Right now my main concern is getting Aimee over to the hospital wing so I can have a look at what may have caused this. Batman, I may need your assistance." Batman nodded and walked with him followed by Sharon and Melanie. Sunny and I looked at each other and decided to come to make sure she was ok.

While we were walking, Batman looked down sheepishly. "This has been happening pretty frequently lately." We all looked at him in alarm.

"How frequent?" Doc asked.

Batman shrugged, "At least once a day sometimes more."

Doc nodded and wrote it down on his clipboard, "And for how long has she been this way."

Batman had to think about it for awhile, "Well, I'm not sure exactly, at least a little over a month. I couldn't take her to a healer back home because then they would know she was still human. I didn't want them to implant her. I figured she would get better, but if anything, she's gotten worse. I'm not a healer, so I have been no use."

"I see," he said jotting down more notes. Sharon, and Melanie exchanged worried looks. Aimee couldn't die, not after they had just reconnected with her. It would be like losing their best friend all over again. I sighed, too bad there were no healers around. Things like this were trivial for our kind.

"Doc, will she be ok?" he pleaded desperately.

Doc shrugged, "I won't know until I have a look at her." We walked a few more steps and then he opened the hospital wing door. We followed him in as he placed Aimee on one of the beds. Candy was cleaning some of the equipment and smiled at us when we came inside.

Aimee stirred a little and opened her eyes weakly, "What's going on, where…" As soon as she saw Doc, she turned to him and grabbed his shirt roughly, "Don't you dare lay a finger on Batman or I'll—" Sharon shushed her, and pried her fingers off of him.

"It's ok, I told him not to change Batman. He's just going to make sure you're ok."

Aimee breathed a sigh of relief and lay back down on the bed. Doc looked at us and said, "You know, I think it might be better if you all just wait outside and I'll call you when I'm done."

Melanie, Sunny and I headed for the door, but Batman stayed behind, "Doc, do you might if I stay with her?"

Doc shook his head, "I don't think that would be a good idea. You're too close to her and I need to be able to examine her without her panicking. You're presence might make things harder."

"Come on Batman," Sharon waved for him to follow her as she blew a kiss at Doc and coldly nodded at Candy, as they walked towards the door. "Doc knows what he's doing, she'll be in good hands." Batman reluctantly followed her after giving Aimee a nice long kiss.

*****

It seemed like hours we were standing outside. Batman kept pacing back and forth, until Melanie had enough, "Batman, pacing isn't going to help things go faster."

"I know, but somehow I can't help but blame myself for all of this. I'm so worried about her. What if it's too late?"

Melanie stood in front of him, causing him to stop pacing, "Look, you can't keeping blaming yourself. You did the best that you could do. So stop torturing yourself."

Batman sighed and slumped down on a nearby rock. "To tell you the truth, Aimee and I have wrestled with the possibility that she may be dying," his voice choked as he said those last words. Sharon and Melanie looked concerned and tried comforting him.

"Babe! I've been looking all over for you!" Hearing Ian's voice I looked away from the group to see him running towards me, "I thought we were going to talk, next I heard that you were following Doc to the hospital wing."

I stroked the side of his face affectionately, "Sorry babe, I had to make sure that Aimee was alright, can we talk later?"

Ian sighed, and then smiled a little, "Sure thing." He started to walk away when Doc finally came out followed by Aimee. Ian decided to stay to find out what happened.

Aimee walked over Batman and they held each other. Aimee then planted the largest kiss on him. When they finally pulled away Batman asked, his voice cracking, "So what's the verdict? Is she dying? How much time do we have left together?"

Doc chuckled, "She's going to be just fine, but I think Aimee should be the one to tell you."

Aimee grabbed Batman's hands in her own, "Batman, I'm not dying, I'm pregnant! We're going to have a baby!" Aimee blurted out her face glowing.

"Your, your pregnant? I'm-I'm-I'm going to be a father?" He stammered.

Aimee nodded excitedly, "Apparently three months! And all of those times that I've been nauseous, that's just the morning sickness which is very common in pregnancy."

"That's wonderful!" He exclaimed scooping her up in her arms. Realizing that he needed to be careful, he put her back down, "Sorry babe, I hope I didn't hurt him or her."

Aimee laughed, "It's ok darling, picking me up isn't going to do anything. I can still do the same things I did before, I just have to be more careful when it comes to lifting things and overly strenuous exercises."

At that moment, Sharon, Melanie, Sunny and I all ran over to Aimee practically smothering her with our hugs.

"Oh my gosh! Thank God you're alright, and congratulations!" Melanie said.

"Yea, I'm very happy for you!" Sharon said excitedly, "Does this make us aunties?"

Aimee grinned, "Of course, you know I have always considered you and Mel my adopted sisters, but it also looks like I have two more," she said nodding to Sunny and I.

Sunny and I both beamed at her.

Doc then questioned the happy couple, "But didn't the thought of pregnancy ever occur to you in the months that Aimee felt this way?"

Aimee shook her head looking a little sheepish, "Well, Batman and I were both unfamiliar with how your kind and ours would be able to reproduce in this world. So I guess I just came to accept the possibility that Batman and I would never be able to have children." she shrugged, "After getting used to the idea, I realized that I was happy that we at least had each other and that was enough."

I laughed lightly, "Humans and Souls can reproduce just the same as when only humans reproduce. The reason for that is because when a soul takes on a human body, all of the natural body functions are the same and therefore act the same way. The only thing that is different is the mind and thought process, because we are implanted in the brain stem. Basically the only physical changes are the personalities and mannerisms of the individual. And the baby that Aimee will give birth to will most likely be a human."

"Now I feel dumb," Aimee said, but then smiled, "But I can't tell you how happy I am that I was wrong." She then looked at Batman and frowned slightly, "Babe, how come you didn't tell me this when I was grieving?"

Batman shrugged, "I'm sorry love, but I also didn't know. When I came to Earth and was implanted, I never really got much education about human interaction because they assumed that there were very few humans left to worry about." Aimee nodded, and then hugged her husband again.

Sharon grabbed Doc's hand as they watched the happy couple, "Well I guess somebody should tell Jeb. We ought to celebrate this wonderful news. And who knows, someday that will us," she said squeezing his hand.

Doc smiled at her with glee, "Is that what you want?" he asked.

Sharon smiled back, "I've always desired that. I just only hope that I can fix things with my mother before that happens. She's not too fond of you right now either."

"I'm ok with that," he said, "And she will eventually come to her senses, just like you finally did," he said nudging her a little. Sharon rolled her eyes and left to go find Jeb.

Ian and I also took this time as an opportunity to break away from the group. Everyone else was too busy gushing over Aimee and Batman that they wouldn't have noticed Ian and I had left.

When we finally made our way back to our room, I sat beside Ian on the bed, "Ok, you want me to tell you why I was angry earlier?" I always loathed using the word "angry," it just didn't feel like me.

"That would be nice," Ian said a little sarcastically but still pleasant.

"Ok, I felt you were incredibly rude to Burns during our visit and I didn't appreciate that especially after he's been nothing but kind to us," I said.

"Kind to you," Ian corrected me.

My eyes narrowed slightly, "And then your behavior the rest of the time there was unpleasant. You were very moody, and angry and I don't like that side of you because I don't understand your behavior."

Ian looked thoughtful and sighed, "I guess Souls find it very difficult to understand negative feelings, particularly anger and jealousy."

"Jealousy?" I asked. "Are you jealous of me?"

Ian shook his head, "Of course not, I have no reason to be." Ian looked down, "I'm jealous of Burns," he admitted.

"Of Burns? What for?"

Ian sighed again, "Because… well he's a Soul."

"I don't understand. You want to be a Soul?" I asked puzzled.

"No, what I mean is, he's another one of your kind," he said looking into my eyes, and Ian continued, "It just seems like you would have more in common. It's like you both have this connection that I could never have because I'm a human. Then I see Burns paying you a lot of attention, more than everyone else, even Sunny. I think he may have developed a crush on you."

"So what?" I asked, "Are you afraid that I'm going to leave you for him?" realization finally dawning on me.

I saw pain in Ian's eyes as he nodded slowly, "That's it exactly. I guess I'm afraid of losing you."

I sighed, and rolled my eyes and figured I needed to clarify things once and for all. "One thing I have noticed from my experiences as a human, is that humans have such shallow views of love. To you all, feelings are fickle, constantly changing. Your relationships are just as disposable as changing a light bulb or a battery. Things aren't going well and you have disagreements, you all feel they may not be the right person, so I'm going to find someone better. Maybe you loved the person at one time, but feelings have changed and you know longer feel the same way about them. Instead of working through those tough patches, people leave and try to find better, and in the end they are still unhappy with themselves. With this knowledge, I'm probably more worried about losing you than you realize," I said looking at him pointedly.

Ian's mouth had dropped, probably because he underestimated how much Souls understand about human nature. Snapping out of it he said defensively, "Well, that's not true of me. My feelings about some things may be fickle, but I would never leave you."

I smiled, "I know you won't. You can also trust that I will never leave you and here's why, Souls do not act on pure emotion. We are extremely monogamous creatures in the sense that we strongly believe in keeping one mate for the remainder of the host's lifetime. Once we find someone that we are in love with, our love for them never goes away. We are devoted one hundred percent, it's like we imprint on them and nobody else can get in the way."

Ian looked at me incredulously, "But what about Jared? You seemed pretty gung-ho about him not too long ago, remember?"

I nodded, "Fair enough, I was in love with him, but I was also in Melanie's body and I only loved Jared because she loved him. Melanie was also very active in my mind, so our thought would mirror one another. I also had all of Melanie's memories with Jared. Left to my own freewill, I would have probably not given Jared a second look. I would have completely fallen head over heals for you the minute you showed interest in me." I could see that Ian still looked skeptical. "Look, to prove my point, as soon I was placed in Pet's body all past feelings of love for Jared were gone. True I still had Melanie's memories of him, but that was all they were. I was finally able to appreciate Jared in a healthy light. I knew that he was Mel's not mine. His feelings for me were also unreturned. He only kissed me because I was in Melanie's body and Mel was still inside. When I had a body of my own, I could finally be free to love you the way you loved me. You proved your devotion to me because you still held my container with my true form, while they were looking for a new host for me. I would have expected you to be disgusted or even try to kill me, but you didn't. Doc said that you held me tenderly and protectively of anyone who came near me."

Ian smiled, "Of course I did, because I loved the soul inside the body. I wasn't in love with Melanie's body. In fact, I didn't particularly care to know her because I knew she would never be you."

"See? Another factor is that love for us has to go both ways, which means our mates have to return our feelings, otherwise we have to keep searching. One-sided relationships never work. Now do you see why nothing could ever happen between Burns and I?"

Ian thought for a minute, then a genuine smile spread across his face, "It wouldn't be a two sided relationship because you don't return his feelings. You can't because you're with me and that means if he chooses to, he has to keep searching."

Beaming at Ian, I pounced on him so that I was straddling him. In that position we kissed passionately and soon we were proving our love for each other in the physical way.

*****

We would have lost track of time, if Melanie hadn't knocked on our door to remind us that supper was almost ready and we needed to start heading to the kitchens. Scary how it seemed like we still knew what the other person was doing. Looked like the showers would have to wait till after. Ian and I quickly changed into clean clothes. I brushed my hair a few times over and then we headed in the direction of the dining hall.

10th chapter up! So based on what Stephenie Meyer had revealed about love in the Host, I decided to write my understanding of how Souls would view love and soul mates according to that. Ha! Ha! No pun intended. Should be an interesting read, would love to know what you think about it.

Again please read and review!