I can't believe I've just finished my first story. I may cry.
Thank you SO MUCH to islandofdreams, littledhampir13, O'SheaFan, Separate Entity, WhiteCamellia, anoek013, iamnicolecullen, kimmitwilight, HockeeChica, ladaane, sweettara10, MissNAJones, aleex9530, Karen Mc N, RawSugarX23, brokenfromthepast and vampfan11 for your reviews. I have to especially thank everyone who has been with me from the very beginning and also a big thanks to everyone who is still reading and reviewing. You guys are all incredible and I never would have been able to continue this fic without you! Xxx
Well, here we go...
Disclaimer: I do not own The Host or any of its characters; they belong to the lovely Stephenie Meyer. I do however, own the plot.
Kyle POV
It was the middle of the night and I was lying in the little bed with Sunny just watching her sleep. I had to go outside to take over the lookout for the night, as it was basically the only time that I could get away from Sunny without her knowing that I had left her alone. I knew that she was getting better with being left alone in places, though she would always come running back to me in the end. I thought that it was funny that she still didn't really trust even Ian or Jared; even after all we'd been through together.
I sighed, propped myself up on my right elbow and watched as her chest rose and fell while she still slept on. I reached over and gently traced my fingers along her face, just gently so that I didn't wake her up, but enough so that I could still feel the electricity flow between my finger tips and her skin.
I still couldn't help but to hold onto the hope that Jodi was going to come back to me, even though it had been months since I had brought Sunny back to the caves; and years since she'd been inserted into her. Wanda had talked about the ratio or whatever, and I figured that it didn't seem good that Sunny had been in there so long, but I could still hope.
"Kyle," a voice whispered to me from the doorway and I lifted my head to see over Sunny's sleeping body.
"What?" I asked, noticing Aaron when he stepped into the room.
"You do know that it's about our time to go out, eh?" he whispered and I nodded, touching Sunny's face one last time before I hoisted myself out of the bed, ducking so that I didn't smack my head off of the ceiling.
"Yeah, I know. I'm coming," I whispered back, making my way out of the room and I moved the curtain out of place, stepping into the hallway.
"You ready bro?" Aaron asked, slapping me on the back as we walked down the hall towards the fork in the tunnels.
"Guess so. I hate midnight duty though; nothing happens," I complained and he nodded.
"I hear you. Though nothing really happens when we're on patrol at
"Guess so. I hate midnight duty though; nothing happens," I complained and he nodded.
"I hear you. Though nothing really happens when we're on patrol at any time of day," he pointed out. "At least at night it's a little easier to sleep. I can take the first shift if you'd like," Aaron offered.
"No, I will. I'm too awake to fall back asleep right now," I rejected his offer as we rounded the tunnel and headed towards one of the secret entrances in the caves. In no time at all we were relieving the people who were already up there of their duty and settled in. Aaron leaned back against the rock at once and I could tell that he was asleep within seconds by the sounds of his obnoxious snoring.
I sighed and sat down, grabbing the binoculars to look through and do a quick scan before I settled in for awhile. There was nothing out there from what I could see, just a few plants moving in the gentle breeze; there wasn't even the sign of a coyote or anything. It was going to be a boring night out there, I had decided. I ran my hands through my hair before yawning, making the mental note to ask Sunny if she could give my hair a trim. I didn't know if she could actually cut hair, but if she declined Lily or someone could do it then.
I leaned back in my spot, resting my feet on a notch in the wall that surrounded our little spot. I kind of disliked being out in the open in light of everything that had happened, but I knew that we were well covered and that nobody could see us; not that there was anybody out there anyways. I let my thoughts drift as I stared up at the sky and they automatically turned to Ian and Wanda; which was weird because I had been doing a lot of thinking about Jodi lately.
Ian had given Wanda soccer lessons earlier on and I wasn't sure how I felt about that; they seemed to be relatively back to normal and a part of me was irked about that. They should have basically had to start over from square one after an ordeal like that, but alas, there was nothing much conventional about their relationship at all.
To me it seemed like shit that he always seemed to get what he wanted while for me there was always an obstacle in the way. I supposed that was the reason that I was hard on Ian, but if I wasn't then he would just coast through life and never have any challenges; well, real ones at least. Like, when I had gotten 'Jodi' back she wasn't even friggen there, but he gets Pet's body back and voilá, Wanda is there waiting for him as usual.
Sometimes I wondered how life would have been if he was the older brother and in my shoes. Whenever I had a day when I was feeling particularly down on myself, I would imagine that he had to go through much more shit than either of us ever had to; it was kind of like having a mental voodoo doll or something, but it worked. He didn't even know what it felt like really lose someone the way that I had lost Jodi. I mean, sure what had happened to our parents was unfortunate, but nothing really compared to losing your one true love. That sounded corny as hell, but it was the truth.
In a way, I kind of resented my brother for having everything basically handed to him on a silver platter, but at the same time I was glad that he'd at least found someone that he really cared about. After all, I couldn't always hate my brother.
My thoughts shifted to Sunny and where she was sleeping in the caves below where we were perched, blissfully unaware that I had even left her. I knew that if I had told her though that she probably would have protested and tried to get me to stay with her. She had been getting better with the whole separation thing, but still clung to me.
I scanned the area one last time before I allowed myself to rest my eyes for a moment. One second I was looking out at the dark desert and the next second I was looking at blackness.
"Kyle," I could register that someone was calling my name, but I batted my hand at the air trying to make them go away.
"Kyle, seriously, something's out there," the voice said again and I reluctantly opened my eyes and was a little shocked that the sun was almost up; I'd slept longer than I had thought.
"What the hell?" I said to whoever woke me up and Aaron's face came into my view."Why are you waking me up?"
"Because I saw movement out there. You can look for yourself," he said, thrusting the binoculars in my direction.
"What the fuck," I grumbled, taking them from him holding that up to my eyes, but they were too blurry to see through. I groaned before rubbing my eyes until they weren't blurry any more before holding them back up.
"Where the hell am I looking?" I snarled at him, still unhappy that I had been woken up, and that I had slept for that long as well too.
"Over towards the big cluster of rocks on your right, jackass," he quipped back at me and I pointed the goggles to that area while flipping him off.
"I don't know why you're so worried; I'll bet that there's nothing even—" I stopped short when I saw movement out in the spot where he was telling me to look.
"What the frig is out there?"
"I don't know, that's why it's a little nerve wracking. I'm going to go and get Jeb, maybe he could help us?" Aaron offered and I shook my head, adjusting the knobs on it so that I could see better.
"No. Don't go anywhere. It's probably nothing but a stupid coyote or something, I can only imagine it to be," I told him. "Where the hell are the next people to take watch? I don't want to deal with this shit."
"They'll be here any minute Kyle, but don't you think that we should..."
"Just wait it out. Like I said, it's probably nothing," I repeated, getting aggravated that he kept on suggesting that.
"Hey Kyle, Aaron. What's new?" I heard Josh ask and turned to see Brandt coming up behind him as they came to take over for us.
" 'Bout friggen time," I said to them, tossing the binoculars in Brandt's direction and he caught them with ease.
"Keep an eye out for something by those rocks; I bet it's just an animal but Aaron seems to think otherwise," I informed them, rolling my eyes and they chuckled.
"Well, it could be," he said, walking away from our little group as I stood up and stretched. "Ah well. If anything pops up, let me know and I'll deal with it," I said, cracking my knuckles while smiling at them.
"You know, you're not as menacing as you make yourself out to be," Brandt told me and I punched him in the arm as I passed him.
"Yeah yeah mister tough guy," he said and I shook my head as I made my way down the steps. "Oh and Kyle? You might want to check on Sunny. I heard some screaming coming from the rooms, but I'm not sure if it was her again."
"Shit," I swore under my breath and broke out into a gentle jog, hoping that it wasn't her nightmares again. She never told me what they were about, but they really bothered her.
Sunny POV
I'd been in the middle of a really bad dream; it was the one thing that I didn't like about Jodi's body as she was prone to nightmares. It was always the same one that would come flashing through her memories and it recurred more often that I would have liked. It wasn't as though she was able to break through or anything like Melanie had done to Wanda; at least I thought that it wasn't.
I rolled over and felt around on the other side of the bed, but it was empty; Kyle must have left to go to the bathroom. I noticed that he left to do that on some nights, but others he stayed the whole night. I didn't have a problem with it when he left, but at that moment I really needed him as I was sufficiently freaked out from that dream.
I curled onto my side and waited for him to return while trying not to close my eyes and let the dream come back. Even though I tried my best, I was just so tired that they close involuntarily.
Kyle and I were sitting at the kitchen table in his house and I was taking in the surroundings around us as we sat there; only it wasn't really me sitting there, it was Jodi. I saw that there were a number of pictures of Ian and Kyle hanging on the walls and a few knick knacks littered all over the shelves that were in the corners of the room. I noticed Kyle's hacky sack and Ian's baseball cap hat he'd flung there when I was over the day before.
Tensions were high between us as they had been over the past several weeks because Kyle and I had been arguing over some dumb issue between us. A few weeks prior he had come to me all convinced that something was happening and that our planet was being taken over or something, but I just didn't see it. He'd even gone as far as to point it out to his brother and his parents and he just about had them convinced too.
But what I'd learned that day from my parents was just over the top; he had somehow gone and contacted them behind my back and convinced them that something was up as well. That was the reason that they had flown out to Kyle's place and were sitting in the living room with his parents. Apparently they were discussing what to do in this situation while I sat there with Kyle fuming mad.
"Jodi..." Kyle started to say but I cut him off.
"Don't even start Kyle. I'm really pissed off at you right now," I told him and he fell silent for the time being, which was really saying something because he was never quiet.
"Jodi, I did it for your own good you know."
"Right," I snorted. "If you were doing it for 'my own good' you would have left them alone and be done with it. Nothing is happening Kyle, you're making it up."
"I'm not," he growled and I knew that he was getting riled up again. "My soccer coach at the college has been turned too; he doesn't want us to hurt any other players. Last week he told us to go out for blood. How do you explain that?"
"He probably just had a change of heart," I replied, picking at the dirt underneath my nails. "After all, you guys were playing too rough in the first place; you gave that guy a concussion last game."
"That was because the idiot was in my way," he countered and I shrugged.
"Same difference, right Ian?" I asked as he had just walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
"Whatever," he replied, pulling out a pitcher of juice and began searching through the cupboards for a cup. "You guys know that I don't like to get in the middle of your shit."
"Well I still think that it was pretty low of you to call my parents like that," I told him, shaking my head. "Ian would never do that to his girl."
"Ian doesn't have a fucking girl," Kyle grumbled.
"But if I did, I don't think that I would have..." Ian was interrupted when Kyle whipped the hacky sack off of the shelf behind him at his brother.
"Shut the hell up!" Kyle yelled at him as Ian rubbed his sore shoulder.
"Kyle, don't yell at your brother," I snapped at him.
"Well don't get him involved," he yelled back.
The dream always escalated from there when they yelled at each other and then had a yelling match with both of their parents and Ian in the room as well. I always felt bad for Ian having to witness their fighting, and a part of me never understood how they could fight so much, and yet love each other even more. The memory would then slow down and focus in on another part.
I was still angry with Kyle at everything that had gone on and even more mad at the fact that my parents were not only on board with him, but were taking me away from him. Even after all the persuading that his parents had done to convince mine to go find some place with them, my parents had decided to go back home to wait out whatever was coming. I had decided that they were stupid; if there really was something out there, not that I believed there was, it would certainly be safer to stick together and have more men around than just my dad.
My parents had gone out to the car already and I angrily put my coat on, doing up all the buttons.
"Jodi I know that you're upset, but it's really for your own good that at least you're going to go into hiding," Kyle said in a sort of gentle voice but I snorted.
"Really. I don't seem to see it that way."
"You know that I would rather have you here with me; I made that much clear but evidently it's not going to work out that way," he said and I could feel his presence behind me. I tried to move out of his way but he was quicker and wrapped his arms around my waist.
"Kyle," I protested, trying to move around but he had me good.
"Jodi just promise me one thing," he said and I rolled my eyes.
"What?"
"Promise me that we'll see each other again."
"Of course we will," I said, shaking my head. "You just wait. I bet that this whole 'end of the world' thing will be over in like a week."
"Oh Jodi if only that were true," he said into my neck, for he had nestled his head into my hair. Kyle then moved me around in his arms so that we were facing each other and the front door opened.
"You just about ready Jodi?" my mother asked and I nodded my head. "We'll be in the car."
"I'm sorry. I really wanted you to stay with me," Kyle said but I shrugged.
"Like I said, we'll be fine up there. But you know that I'd always rather be with you," I said, my anger dissolving as I looked up at Kyle. For such a tough guy he could really be a sweetheart when he wanted to be and luckily it was one of those times.
"I love you Jodi," he said before kissing the tip of my nose.
"Me too," I replied and he hugged me tight before letting me go.
That part of the dream always made me cry; why hadn't Jodi said that she loved him back? I knew from her emotions towards him that she clearly did, but I didn't understand it at all. The last part was what always had me screaming out. They said that I was supposed to remember the end of my host body's life the first time after we had been inserted, but for me the memory kept haunting me; I just never told anyone about it.
Mom and Dad had made my sister Jessica and I go up to our cottage out in the woods as soon as we had returned from Kyle's place. It was miserable in the cabin for a long time, as neither my sister nor I saw the real reason for us being up there. Then one day we turned on the TV and it was all different; the news reporters had stopped talking about the violence and crimes that had always happened; instead they were doing stories on humanitarian things and how the world was cleaning itself up.
Then one day the crime rate was zero and the police officers were shown joking around with regular people instead of arresting them; they'd even gotten rid of jails and turned them into apartments for people who formerly lived on the streets. There was no such thing as a break-in anymore; nothing got stolen so basically nothing was happening. That was when Dad had decided that nobody could go into town anymore and I started to take this whole thing seriously. Maybe Kyle was right in the first place.
I was sitting outside in the backyard one day when it happened. I heard knocking on the door and Jessica announced that she would go and get it; seconds later she was screaming at the top of her lungs. I jumped out of my chair, throwing down the book that was in my hand and started to run towards the cottage. I was stopped just as I was approaching it by my dad.
"Jodi you have to run. Go and run as far away from here as you can."
"Why? What are they doing to her?" I asked as her screams were muffled.
"They're going to change her. It's too late to save her," he said, holding me back so that I couldn't run through the house. "I will go to her; you get away from here."
"But I can't Dad," I protested.
"This is what Kyle was talking about. Do you want to see him again?" I nodded my head, my eyes starting to well up with tears. "Then you need to run and find somewhere to hide. Go, hurry!"
Dad pushed me away from him and turned back to the house.
"Love you Jodi Bear."
"Love you Dad," I said before running into the woods.
As I was running through them I spotted my Mom hiding out behind a tree watching the house.
"Mom!" I called out, but she hushed me.
"Go Jodi, get away from here," she said, giving me a light shove, but I hugged her for I wasn't sure if I'd see her again.
"I love you baby," she whispered, kissing my forehead as my tears began to run down my face.
"I love you too Mom," I replied before taking off on her as well.
I ran as hard as I could for as long as I could, sobbing like crazy just trying to put some distance between me and the cottage. As I ran, Kyle's words kept on sounding through my head and I really wished that I'd listened to him before, rather than after it was too late.
'They'll probably come after you when you least expect it and it doesn't matter where you are,' he'd told me. 'I think they do some kind of surgery and then it changes you completely... I don't want that to happen to us, please just listen to me Jodi...it's a bug or a virus that they put into you; Ian found out today...we're leaving and I want you to come with me, I can't bear to leave you behind and have you be taken over by these aliens...our neighbours have been infected, they gave themselves over to the police because they were doing illegal stuff inside and they didn't even get into trouble... I wish that you'd listen to me.'
I heard male voices behind me and they seemed kind of close. I looked over my shoulder to see if I could see them when I tripped over a broken log on the ground. Just as I was about to give up, I looked up and saw the old clubhouse that Dad had built for Jessica and I when we were little. I managed to scrape myself up off of the forest floor and race towards the little cabin, squishing myself through the door and slamming it tight. I leaned back up against the farthest wall from the door, my heart pounding in my chest as I tried to keep my breathing down and not noticeable so that they would pass right by me.
Several long minutes later, my legs were cramping up and I clamped my hands over my mouth to keep any noises from escaping as I heard footsteps draw nearer and voices discuss which direction I had gone. As I heard them talk about checking out the 'little house', my heart started pounding and I swore that they could hone in on that, for the next thing I knew the door was opening and they were trying to get inside.
As soon as one of the men touched my foot, I let my hands drop from my face and started screaming out, hoping that someone, anyone would hear me. Since the only ones that could have possibly heard me were my parents and sister, they weren't much help. Instead, I thrashed around as best as I could and tried to fight them off, but it was to no avail. The men had to break down the wall where the door was since none of them could actually fit through the hole to get to me and once they had me outside, I bit the person who was holding me and he let go for a fraction of a second.
That little time was all I needed and I took off running away from them but there were just too many of them. I was basically tackled to the ground and I heard them hollering to prepare something for me. I saw a bottle come into my vision and I tried to twist and turn my head every which way so that they wouldn't get it close to my face; in all honesty it had scared me. The man basically on top of me held my face in one place as they pressed down on the top and all kinds of spray came out of it and all I could smell were blueberries.
'I'm sorry Kyle, I've failed you,' I thought as my lids grew heavier. 'I love you.'
I screamed out as the dream ended as I usually did and sat right up again, realizing that I was indeed sobbing hard like every single time I had that dream. I looked over in the dim light and saw that Kyle still wasn't back, so I crept out of bed in search of him; only he knew how to calm me down, even if he didn't know what really got me so riled up in the first place.
Ian POV
I was startled awake as a scream pierced the air and I immediately looked over to see if it was Wanda, but she was still sleeping peacefully. I let out a sigh of relief and rolled over onto my back before sitting up a little, resting my back on the wall behind me and concentrating on getting my heart rate back down after that scare. I looked up at the holes in the ceiling and saw that it was starting to get light out and I groaned at the fact that there was still a lot of time to sleep left and I was wide awake.
"Mmn Ian," Wanda mumbled out from beside me and I turned my head towards her to see her silver eyes opened and facing me and a small smile gracing her lips.
"You should be sleeping," I said to her, nodding my head in her direction.
"So should you," she whispered while still giving me a bit of a smile. Wanda then started moving around, pushing and pulling on the blankets until her head was resting on my stomach and her arms were around my waist. I reached down and ran my fingers through her hair, loving the feeling.
"Ian?" she asked.
"Hm?" I responded and she sighed.
"How come yesterday when I was talking to Jared you looked kind of... weird?" she asked and I lifted my head so that it was resting on the wall as well.
"What do you mean?" I countered, though I knew exactly what she was talking about.
"Well, I don't exactly know how to explain it, but you kind of got this odd look on your face whenever I would laugh or when you would look over at us or something," she said in a small voice and I felt her fingers tighten around me a little bit.
"Um, well..." I was trying to put off what I was really feeling because it was embarrassing, but at the same time I wanted to be open with her, given our new understanding of sorts.
"It's okay. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she said yawning towards the end of her speech.
"No, I will, it's okay. To be completely honest with you, I was a little jealous," I said quickly and felt a weight missing off my stomach and I glanced down to see that she was looking directly at me.
"Why?" she asked incredulously.
"I don't know, it's stupid, but I just felt like he was able to get through to you at a time when I wasn't really and I felt a little jealous. I regret that now, but then it was a genuine feeling," I admitted, closing my eyes when I felt a hand on my face.
"Ian, I'm sorry that you felt that way."
"Quit apologizing Wanda, it's okay. It was just something that I felt at that time. I don't feel that way and I know that it was stupid for me to think that."
"You're right, it was," she said and I was a bit shocked. "Ian, you know that I'm yours, and I'm not going anywhere at all, ever. To be honest with you, I'm kind of upset that you'd think that Jared and I had something; it's a bit insulting."
"I didn't mean for that," I said, caressing her cheek gently and it didn't escape my notice that she leaned into my hand. "I know that you and I aren't leaving each other. I had no right to feel that way."
"Don't beat yourself up over it. I have to admit that in those first couple of weeks after I'd been taken out, whenever you would give Melanie those looks I felt a little jealous as well," she admitted and my eyes widened.
"What?"
"I was. I knew that nothing would come of it and that it was just some weirdness between you two, just as there was some with Jared and I. But I was, you know," she said in a small voice. I cupped my hands around her face and pulled on it gently.
"Never," I said fiercely. "Never will anything silly like that come between us."
"Never," she whispered back and I leaned down a little bit to press our lips together.
"Are you tired?" I asked once I pulled my lips from hers and she nodded ever so slightly. "Go back to sleep."
"I can't, I'm all riled up now," she said and I chuckled lightly.
"Lie down," I instructed her and she resumed her position from before laying back down on my stomach again. I tried to keep my thoughts pure as her head was dangerously close to another part of me that was starting to really long for her.
I resumed running my hand through her soft hair as one of her free hands entwined itself with my left hand, stroking her thumb gently across the skin of my hand. I looked down at the top of my stomach and saw her left hand resting there and I stopped rubbing her head to pick up her left hand and kissed it. I heard Wanda sigh into my waist and I smiled to myself as she seemed to be settling in and I really wanted her to fall back asleep.
After a few moments I was able to hear her breathing even out and I knew that Wanda was sleeping again; so much for being all riled up as she'd put it. I smiled to myself as sleep overcame me while starting to formulate a plan for the perfect proposal for Wanda; when the time was right of course.
Melanie POV
"Mel, wake up!" I heard Jared calling my name, but I didn't want to wake up so I ignored it and tried to go back to sleep.
"Melanie," he called again and I pulled the covers up closer to my head but I heard him laugh and they were gone in the next minute.
"Jared," I whined and felt his body move the bed as he sat down beside me and I cracked an eye open to look at him.
"What do you want?" I mumbled and I saw him reach over for my pillow, but I held onto it tightly so that he couldn't take it away from me too.
"We've got to go up and do watch this morning, remember?" he said gently and I groaned. I did not want to get out of bed. "Come on Mel, I even got Brandt and Josh to cover for us for an extra half hour so that we could sleep."
"Did you have to give them your left nut for that?" I asked, my voice a little muffled into the pillow.
"No, nothing of the sort, just my first born son," he quipped and I raised my hand to smack his leg. "I was kidding, Melanie. I would never give away my child like that. I might let someone watch over them for a little while so that we could reconnect, if you know what I mean."
"Ian and Wanda," I responded, rolling my eyes at his connotation.
"What about them?"
"They are the only ones that I will allow to watch after our child," I elaborated.
"What about Jamie? Or Sunny?" he asked and I noticed that he kept on pulling the sheets away from my body as I was getting colder by the second.
"Well, Jamie's a little too young to be trusted like that and wherever Sunny goes, Kyle follows. I think that would be enough incentive to stay away from that area," I said, removing my head from the pillow completely.
"Point taken on that one, especially," he said and I sat up, stretching my arms up above my head. I felt Jared's hands around my waist immediately and one of his hands was snaking its way up my shirt.
"Jared," I groaned again and he smirked at me.
"Speaking of children," he said and I batted his hand away.
"We don't have time for that. You were the one who's waking me up and all," I said, getting up off of the bed and stretching even more; there was no reason why I couldn't give him a little more of a teasing.
"You're going to be the death of me, Melanie Stryder," he said from the bed, shaking his head.
"I sure hope not, I need you around, Jared Howe," I said to him seriously and he rose up off of the bed.
"I'm not planning on going anywhere and you know that. Nothing can tear me apart from you," Jared said into my ear as he wrapped an arm around my waist as he walked by me. Jared kissed my neck before letting me go and I smiled at him while Jared threw a clean shirt in my direction. I quickly changed and marched towards the door.
"You coming?" I asked, holding the sheet aside at the door.
"Shoes?" he said pointedly, looking at my feet and I rolled my eyes before shoving my feet in the pair of sandals that were right inside the door, raising my eyebrow up at him where he was sitting on the bed putting his own shoes on.
"Okay, let's go," he chuckled and we set out for up top where we took over for Brandt and Josh. Once we got up there, Jared was pulled aside by Brandt while Josh took off, probably to get to sleep. I sat down and slid off my sandals and propped my feet up on the rock ledge waiting for Jared to join me.
"What was that about?" I asked, yawning as he sat down beside me.
"Apparently Kyle saw something earlier and warned them about it, so Brandt told me to watch out for it," he said, leaning back again the rock.
"Something out there?" I nodded my head towards the desert and he nodded back.
"Yeah, something about that rock pile on the right. Said there was some movement there but didn't know what it was. Brandt didn't see anything, but that doesn't mean that it's gone."
"Probably an animal or something," I said and he smiled.
"Or a Seeker."
"Jared! Why do you have to think so negatively all the time?"
"Just to keep you on your toes, babe," he answered and I rolled my eyes.
"You get to take the first shift, kay? I'm tired," I instructed him, not really giving him a choice.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," he answered, propping himself up to kiss me gently before settling back in.
"Wake me when you get tired and I'll take over. Or if anything exciting happens, which I doubt," I instructed him before laying down on the floor on my side. "Or if I start to get a little sunburned."
"There are a lot of 'or's to that, aren't there," Jared mused and I nodded.
"Course there are. But I'm dead serious about the last one. I don't want to look like a tomato around here; it would give Jeb more reasons to pick on me."
"He only does it cause he loves you," Jared said and I shrugged.
"All the same."
We were silent for a few minutes, but I found that sleep wasn't coming to me as quickly as I would have liked it to. I settled for studying Jared while he sat and watched the desert around us, seemingly uninterested in the place, which I thought was odd; he was usually all for watching everything.
"What are you thinking about?" Jared asked and I nearly jumped, not expecting him to ask me anything.
"I dunno."
"There has to be something on your mind; anything at all," he prompted me and I finally relented, there was no use keeping it inside anyways.
"I keep thinking about how we're going to get married. I mean, it'll have to be down here and someone will have to officiate, but like... I don't want much, but I don't want everyone in like their dirty old clothes for this. But at the same time, it would be nearly impossible to get that many nice clothes for everyone; especially if Sunny's the only one who could pull it off for us."
"Where there's a will, there's a way Melanie," Jared said, very philosophically and I sighed.
"I guess so."
"Mel, we'll make it happen, I promise you," Jared told me very seriously looking directly at me and I felt compelled to nod my head in agreement with him.
"Did you talk to Wanda about all of this?" he asked and I shook my head. "She might have a few ideas for you, you know. I mean, she is your maid of honour and all."
"Yeah, you're right."
Jared fell silent then and I took the opportunity to close my eyes again, picturing our little wedding that would be down in the caves. I wasn't exactly sure when it would be, for nobody really had any sort of plan, but that was okay with me; just the knowledge that I would one day officially be Jared's was enough to tide me over for the time being.
"Shit Mel, where are those binoculars?" Jared asked suddenly and I cracked an eye open to see him frantically looking around for them.
"They're on the other side of me," I told him, watching as he nearly leapt over my body to get to them and then mashed them up to his eyes.
"Is everything okay?"
"I don't know, Mel."
"Did you...see something?" I asked tentatively, sitting up beside him and he pushed my head back down well below the level of the rocks around us.
"It's possible. I saw movement," he answered and my heart dropped down into my stomach. Nobody should be out there.
Jared POV
I felt bad for Melanie; she just wanted things with our wedding to be so simple with everything that was going on, but I believed that she deserved so much better than that, and certainly more that I could possibly give her in our current situation. The simple fact that she was worried about everyone having formal-ish attire let me know that I really needed to make that happen for her. Just that little statement would mean a lot; and it certainly wouldn't hurt my chances of being with her either.
After our little talk I looked out at the desert toward the pile of rocks that Brandt told me to look out for, when I noticed a small movement. Quietly, so that I didn't disturb Mel who looked very engrossed in her thoughts, I made myself a little higher up so that I could safely see out without being seen myself. I saw another movement from over there, but it was hard to see with normal eyes, so I started to look around for the binoculars, which of course I couldn't find.
I asked Mel where they were and ran to get them, pushing her back down when she tried to sit up and look as well; I didn't need whatever it was spotting her and then coming after us; that wouldn't bode well at all.
"What does it look like?" Mel asked me gently and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was definitely rattled from the new knowledge.
"It doesn't look much like an animal, I'm afraid," I said, focussing in on it. "Definitely not. I'm going down to get Kyle."
"I'll stay here..." she started to say, but I grabbed her hand.
"No flipping way you're staying out here alone," I half growled and started tugging her back down the passageway into the caves.
"Jared, who's going to keep lookout?" she protested, her feet finally catching up to her.
"It doesn't matter; we need back up more than we need one of us out there and alone," I said with finality and she dropped the subject. I had to admit that I was a bit freaked out as well, but I couldn't let her see that; I had to be strong for her.
"Where do you think Kyle will be?" she asked and I thought hard as we kept walking quickly.
"Well, Sunny was screaming out earlier on, so he might have gone directly to her. Where they went or what they did after that, I have no clue," I informed her and she broke out into a run.
"They'll be in their room, come on," she urged me and I ran along beside her. Luckily, since it was still an ungodly hour of day most people were still sleeping so we didn't run into anyone along the way. It kind of seemed like we got to the room in a record amount of time and I tugged on Mel's hand to slow her down.
"Wait one second," I told her and she frowned.
"Why do you want me to wait? This is kind of an important matter, you know."
"Yeah, but I need a minute," I said, bending over and placing my hands on my knees and breathing heavily.
"Seriously Jared? Really? You, Mister endurance big soccer player couldn't handle that?"
"No, I just can't hand the small heart attack I had right before we ran like friggen bats out of hell is all," I replied. "Okay, I'm good now."
She shook her head and then stepped up to their door and announced our arrival before pulling back their curtain door and stepping inside.
"What the hell do you want?" Kyle croaked from where he was lying with Sunny curled up beside him. "Aren't you two supposed to be up top?"
"Well, we were," Mel said, looking over at me and I nodded. "But Jared saw something that he thought you should know about. Apparently you were the first one to spot it?" she asked in a whisper, for it appeared that Sunny was sleeping, but we couldn't be sure. Sunny didn't know about when Kyle went up there in the night and for the time being it seemed as though he planned to keep it that way.
"What did you see?" he asked in a hoarse whisper, which was as quiet as we were going to get from Kyle.
"I just saw more movement from the rocks that you said there was some from. But from what I can tell it didn't look like an animal, Kyle," I explained. "It was too tall and it didn't move like an animal would have. I... I didn't get a firm visual, but it didn't look good."
"Shit," Kyle swore under his breath and he looked over at Sunny to see if she had woken up or not. Luckily she was still asleep and hadn't heard his swearing or else I had a feeling that she would have freaked out on him.
"What are we going to do?" Melanie asked and we all looked to Kyle as he leaned back with his hands over his face.
"I don't know. I have no idea for this at all," he answered and I sighed. "I guess the best that we can do is to let Jeb know so we can get a team started or something. I... I don't want to even imagine what it possibly out there."
Kyle heaved himself out of the bed and looked back at us.
"Get out of here so that I can get dressed and we can deal with this shit," he ordered of us and out of the corner of my eye I could see that Mel was getting a little pissy about his tone with her, but I grabbed her arm and started to lead her out into the hallway.
"Fucker should know better than to act like that," she grumbled and I bit back a laugh. "I mean a simple 'please leave' would have sufficed, but nooo"
"It's Kyle, what do you really expect?" I said and she shrugged before turning around to face me.
"Jared, what's going to happen now?" Mel asked me and as I looked down at her I saw that her tough girl mask was gone and her vulnerability showed through; she was really scared about whatever was out there.
I reached out and pulled her to me, crushing her against my chest but she didn't seem to care; in fact she held me to her just as tightly.
"I don't know Mel," I answered honestly, running a hand through her soft hair. "I can promise you that we will be all right though."
"What about everyone else?" she asked in a small voice and I sighed into her hair, burying my face into her shoulder.
"We'll make everything okay," I responded. I knew that she was getting a little too worked up over everything since we didn't really know what exactly it was out there, but I supposed that her feelings were legit. Those souls had already taken her away from everything once, she was probably scared half to death at the prospect of them coming back and doing it a second time. I wouldn't let that happen to her though, not now, not ever.
"Will you go and get Ian?"
"Will it make you feel a little better?" I asked, kissing the side of her head and I felt her nod.
"Ian's got a level head like you; we need that to balance out Kyle," Mel said and I nodded as well.
"We can go and get him right now; he should probably be there for the whole thing," I said, kissing her forehead and looking down at her. Mel was beginning to throw that mask back up, but since I knew how she was really feeling I had to do everything in my power to erase that.
"Don't worry," I said, running a hand over her cheek, which she leaned in to. "We're going to make this all right. I'm sure that Kyle and Jeb will have some sort of plan so that Ian and I can..."
"And me," she whispered and I shook my head.
"No way," I responded quickly.
"Jared, I'm helping with this whether you like it or not. I can't sit back and watch as people get stuff done around here, you know me." I was still very apprehensive to answer her one way or another and she smiled at me a little sadly.
"I'll have you to help me," she said, but it came out as kind of a question.
"Fine," I relented, unable to deny her that. "But if I say so, you run in the other direction, got it?"
"Jared, I..."
"You have to agree or I won't let you in on this with us."
"You have no right to boss me around," she frowned and I sighed.
"Melanie, I've already lost you once..."
"And you think I want to lose you?" she countered and I shook my head.
"No, of course not. But I can take care of myself as long as I know that you will be in a safe place. I'll always come back to you, you know that."
"Fine," Mel agreed after a moment of hesitation. "But I don't like this one bit."
"I wouldn't expect anything less," I told her and she let me go.
"Let's go and get Ian," she said, taking my hand and practically pulling me down the hallway with her. As always, I had virtually no choice but to follow behind her.
Wanda POV
"What do you think we should do?" a voice rang out through the room and it woke me up, but I didn't open my eyes; I could already tell that it was much too early to be functioning normally.
"Shh Mel," I heard Ian's voice whisper, but I remained very still as I could feel more than one pair of eyes on my 'sleeping body'.
"Keep your voice down," Jared whispered and I became confused. Why was everyone in our room?
"I don't want to wake her up," Ian said and I felt the bed shift as he probably either sat up or stood up from the bed. Luckily I was lying on my right side and was facing away from the door so they couldn't tell for sure that they'd woken me up.
"You'd better come though," Mel said and Ian shushed her again.
"Run this by me again," Ian instructed them and I could hear rustling from the floor; he was looking for something to wear.
"I already told you," she responded kind of harshly and it seemed as though tensions were high in the room. I really wanted to know what was going on with everyone.
"Yes well, I was half asleep seeing as how you practically ripped me from my bed," Ian said.
Jared began speaking to him in such a low voice that all I could make out were the mumbles emanating from them and it was frustrating. I really wanted to know what was going on. Plus, since they thought I was asleep I would have figured that they would have spoken in a louder voice than that; it was making me almost mad with want to know about what was so important.
"What about Wanda?" Ian asked tenderly, with his voice still just above a whisper.
"I don't want her to get involved," Melanie answered and I frowned to myself. "She's been through enough and I don't think she needs to get involved with all of this."
"I think that she'll be mad if she's left out though," Ian pointed out and I wanted to scream at them to just tell me what was going on; it wasn't fair.
"Guys!" Kyle's voice rang out even louder as it echoed everywhere and he was met by three people shushing him as I could hear his footsteps enter the room.
"Quiet, Wanda's still sleeping," Jared told him.
"It's gone," he said in a lower voice.
"What?" Mel said.
"I went running out there and it's gone; no sign of it at all."
"You went out there alone?" Ian asked incredulously. "Actually, I really shouldn't be surprised, should I?"
"No, you shouldn't," Mel responded and I bit back a giggle at their tenacity.
"Jeb was back at the base and I went to check it out; we're all clear," Kyle explained, but it only confused me some more.
"I'm going back to bed," Kyle announced. "And Jeb wants to see you, Jared. You too, Mel."
"Fine," Melanie huffed and I heard a set of footsteps getting farther away from the room. "Let's go Jared."
"Thanks for waking me anyways," Ian said and Jared laughed softly. "Let me know if anything else comes up."
"Will do, Ian," Jared responded and I could hear two sets of footsteps getting softer.
Ian sighed to himself before I felt the bed sag on his side as he sat down again and moved over towards me. I felt his chest press up against my back and set it on fire in the process while at the same time Ian moved the hair off of the back of my neck and I could feel him brushing the scar that was there. I felt myself being soothed by that small touch to my point of insertion and I relaxed a little bit more. Ian then wrapped his arm around my waist and tangled our feet together and made it so that just about my entire body was on fire from his touch; I loved the feeling.
I could tell that I was getting sleepy again as I felt right at home in Ian's arms, even if I couldn't return the sweet gesture as I was supposed to be already asleep; moving right then would have clued him in that I was up the whole time and probably freaked him out.
"I love you, Wanda," Ian whispered gently into my ear and I smiled to myself in my groggy state.
Ian hadn't actually voiced those words out loud to me since I'd returned, but the fact that I knew how he felt made me ecstatic; I knew that we would be all right. The time would come where we could say them to each other while we were both awake, but I would let it come as it may; I wouldn't push that. Ian then leaned in and kissed over top of my scar twice, and I didn't know if he did it again for I was so relaxed that I fell asleep again.
A/N: The End.
9,106 words : )
I know that I said I'd have this out awhile ago, but it was only like 6k and I wasn't happy with parts of it, so I changed them in the little spare time that I've had.
So. Up next... I will post a one-shot from the Host that someone requested that I write... that should be up soon. Then I'll be starting a new Twilight story that I've been drabbling with for the better part of the last year, and of course, the sequel to this. I still want to fix up a few things in there, but I'll post an A/N when it's up!
Review lovelies! : )
PS. I had to get someone else to upload this for me because the file apparently wasn't compatible, no matter what format or program I tried it in. Does anyone else have this problem??