Chapter Five

For the first time since she arrived at Acres, Wanda had been granted a day release. It meant she could leave the hospital for a few hours without the supervision of the staff to see how she would cope outside of the restrictions of the facility. Steve had opted to take her out for some lunch and wedding dress shopping. He usually was a stickler for tradition but Wanda wanted him to be involved.

Steve leaned against the car as he watched Wanda walk out the entrance. His heart melted. She looked like her old self. While she was still thinner than she was before they arrived home, the sparkle was back in her eyes and her movements had the grace and joy of when they were in the UK.

Wanda smiled brightly as she leaned up to kiss him. "I have been looking forward to this for days."

"Me too," he replied as he pulled her in for a hug. "What time do you have to be back here?"

"16:00. Plenty of time."

They drove to Poughkeepsie and they found a little organic food shop and café. They did homemade pasta with a variety of meats, vegetables and sauces. They had adapted her meal plan so she was able to include more vegetables. Wanda looked up at the menu and decided she was going to order pappardelle with chorizo and kale.

"How are you finding your bereavement group?" she asked as she took a bite of her lunch.

"Well, they give out free doughnuts," he replied with a small laugh. "The first session was hard. Just hearing all these stories of people who had lost their families – some of them were the only survivors. But I managed to say my piece yesterday. I honestly feel a lot better for it. I'm still going to go because I think it helps to have that space to open up."

"You know the first time I went to group therapy, I thought I would hate it. Just the idea of sitting in a circle and hearing people spewing everything into open and sometimes it feels so mundane. But then I sat in the circle and realised that people have damaged backgrounds that lead to major problems. Much like myself."

"Well, the good thing about damaged people is that they heal." Steve leaned in pressed a kiss on her forehead. "I mean look at you. You are a different person to the person you were last month."

"So are you. Not that you were completely different but I know when you have a more optimistic outlook and a pessimistic one."

"Which one am I?"

"Definitely the former. Has something changed?"

"Well, you're better. I have a wedding to plan. We're going to try for a baby. Life is good."

"We just need a house."

Wanda turned back to her lunch. Steve had to smile to himself. Before he had arrived at Wanda's gynaecological appointment, he had signed a deal for a house in Brooklyn. For the last few weeks, he had been painting, decorating and putting furniture into their new house. He had not told Wanda as he wanted to leave it as a surprise for her for when she was allowed home.

Once Wanda had finished eating her meal, they went over to a clothes store to try on some dresses. Since they were not planning on having a traditional wedding, Wanda was looking for something simple. They raided the sales rack for dresses that would be her size in a month. She found a white dress, she found a pale pink and finally a cream dress.

Steve waited while Wanda tried the dresses on to show him. She emerged in the white dress. It was nice. It came down to the top of her calves and had a black lace strip down the middle. She did look beautiful in it, but for some reason, Steve did not like the dress. Wanda did not seem too convinced either.

"I just don't suit white," she said.

"You do, but whenever I see you in white I think of your nightdresses," he replied.

"How do you know? You never saw me in them for long enough." She gave a coy smile and returned to the dressing room. Steve chuckled. This was what they were like when they were in the UK: playful, loved up, happy. Wanda emerged from the dressing room with the pink dress on and Steve smiled. "What do you think?"

Steve took a glance at the soft pink dress. It was mostly lace and it came just above her knee. There was something so pretty about its simplicity, and all Steve could say was, "It's perfect."

"You really think so?" Wanda asked.

"It looks more you. Nothing artificial. No frills." Steve stood up and put his hands on her waist. "That's why I fell for you in the first place."

Wanda leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips. "It is the best dress. I really love this one. It's perfect. Today has been..."

"Perfect."

"More than anything."

-o-

Wanda had worked through a lot of things with Doctor Uzair in the month and a half since she arrived at Acres. The deaths of her family, Vision and Sam. The events that lead to her breakdown and her feelings for the future. What she had not really addressed was her alcohol addiction. At first, Wanda had linked the alcohol with her bipolar disorder, but the more she had thought about it, the more she realised that her issues with alcohol had been long-standing.

"When was your first drink, Wanda?" Doctor Uzair asked.

"When I was fifteen," Wanda replied. "Pietro and I were with our last foster placement. They had a son, Novak. He was a little older, but I developed a crush on him. One night… I woke up and could not get back to sleep. I found Novak sitting in the living room, drinking whiskey and I just joined him. I remember it tasting horrible, but it did take the edge off. The next thing I remember is my pyjamas were on the floor and Novak over me and trusting inside me. It felt weird because it didn't feel like I was in my own body."

"You lost your virginity when you were fifteen?"

"Yeah. It sounds bad but the only other person I have had sex with was Steve and that was not until over ten years later."

"How old was Novak?"

"Eighteen... The age of consent is fourteen in Sokovia so we hadn't done anything illegal."

"Well, that's good to know, however you were a vulnerable young girl who had been drinking." Wanda vaguely remembered her interaction with Steve when she had drunkenly suggested he should have sex with her following Pietro's death. "He may have taken advantage even if you gave consent."

"You know some things are beginning to make sense. After Pietro's death… Steve found me drinking in the morgue and I asked him if he wanted to fuck me. He said that I was extremely vulnerable, and he did not want to take advantage."

"The first time a person has sex, it can be a very formative experience. You, being quite young, probably perceived sex with Novak as quite normal. If this is going a step too far, tell me, but how does your sex life with Steve compare?"

Wanda snorted, "Well sex while sober is great. I think the difference was that I am genuinely in love with Steve and he is with me. Novak was nothing more than a crush that resulted in losing my virginity."

"So, after that night, were there any other instances where you drank alcohol?"

"Um… whenever I went into some hostels, someone would offer a drink and I would always take it. It took a lot of the edge off you see. I struggled to sleep and often the alcohol would help. I never actually dependent on it…"

"Until your brother's death?"

"Well, you know what happened the day he died. What I neglected to say was that drinking did not stop after that night. It went on for months. Just any opportunity. If it was a group dinner and there was rosé wine, I would be the only one who would drink it, and it was a whole bottle. Then there was whiskey."

"Whiskey seems to be your go to."

"Not sure why. I guess it is nostalgia. The point is that if there was an opportunity to drink, I took it because it meant that I could forget everything. That lasted until about Thanksgiving. I think that was the point where I had an epiphany that if I socialised, then I might be happier. And it did work. I only drank occasionally after that."

"And after the Raft?"

"See that is the weird thing. I didn't drink. I think my depression was that bad that physically getting out of bed was torture and I was diagnosed just as my manic episode began so I never got a chance to drink alcohol. Literally, the first time I drank any alcohol in eighteen months was in Sam's bedroom."

"So, we gave you diazepam for the withdrawal symptoms when you arrived, and we weaned you off after a few weeks. How are you feeling now?"

"I think that I will be okay. I think now that my moods have stabilized, I won't have any trouble with alcohol. I'll have a support network who want me to recover."

-o-

May arrived and Wanda was used to being woken up in the early hours of the morning and having her vitals taken. It seemed that the better she was getting, the less she struggled to get out. She had been weaned off the sleeping tablets, aripiprazole and diazepam and her dose of lithium had been slightly lowered. She felt like herself again and that was a huge relief.

"Okay, hopefully, today will be the day," Zoe said as she took Wanda's blood pressure. She smiled when the numbers flashed. "One-ten over seventy. Perfect." Wanda jumped off the bed and onto the scales. Fifty kilos on the dot. She had hit her target. Zoe grinned and told Wanda, "Well done. You've done so well."

Wanda felt so proud of herself for hitting her target weight. When she arrived at Acres, she felt as though she never would get to this point. Given how low she had fallen, she never thought she could get back on her feet, but she had.

Later she was called for a meeting with Doctor Mathieu. The doctor had a bunch of notes from what looked to be from Doctor Uzair and Kate. Wanda felt some nerves about what was going to be said and she tapped her fingers against the back of her hand.

The doctor looked up and smiled softly. "So, Wanda, how are you feeling?"

"Well," Wanda answered. "Happy that I have hit my target. I feel so much calmer. I feel as though I have some hope for the future."

"Well, Doctor Uzair has been impressed with your progress. You've responded well to the sessions and I can see in the way you present yourself that you are better in yourself. When you arrived, you appeared withdrawn, had little hope and scared of your own shadow. You were extremely thin, and you looked unwell. Now you look healthy, you are more confident, and you can talk about what you want with doubting it could happen."

"So, what does all this mean?"

"I think since you have a support network at home, we can consider arranging for you to be discharged. We can move you to a transition room for the next week, which will give you some more independence. This is just to see how you go outside the clinic's rules. You do have a support network at home, and we can arrange outpatient treatment so that you don't jump without a net."

Wanda nodded. Inside she felt all giddy and she wanted to jump up and down being able to be at home with Steve. She could not wait to tell him. She ran up to her room with the biggest smile on her face.

"Okay, what are you on and can I have some?" Calliope asked.

"They are making arrangements for me to leave," Wanda replied. "They are moving me to a transition room tomorrow."

"Congratulations." While the tone did seem pleased for Wanda, Wanda sensed that Calliope was not too happy. "It's a good thing. You've done really well."

"But?"

"Well, you are my second roommate to be discharged. I'm not exactly getting pushed despite being here longer than you have."

"You'll get there. If I can do it given the state I was in when I arrived, you can do it."

"The thing is Wanda, you have a supporting family."

Wanda sat at the foot of her bed and asked, "Do you want to go home?"

"Of course I do."

"I'm just wondering if you are scared to leave this place because of the friendships you have formed, and they are closer than your actual family."

Calliope sighed, "I failed a home visit. All it took was some snide comment from my mother and I did this." Calliope lifted the sleeve of her left arm and showed the scabbed over cuts. "So, I am a little worried that as soon as I am discharged, I'll instantly slip back into my old ways."

"Maybe you should think about cutting her out. If someone is being abusive and damaging to your mental health, cut them out."

"Problem is that I am financially dependent on her. Can't move out until I get a job and I can't get a job until I leave here. I guess I could move to my father's. He lives in San Francisco so it could be a fresh start."

"I would take it."

"What happened to the shell of a person who came in two months ago?" Calliope asked.

"I think she's going to be all right." Wanda smiled and the two women hugged. "My friend Sam always used to play 'Alright' by Kendrick Lamar during tough times. However, I think I may have found a new song to mark the future."

Wanda went over to her phone and turned on Spotify. After a few seconds, the sound of Macklemore rapping blared out and then the chorus began, 'I feel glorious, glorious. Got a chance to start again. I was born for this, born for this. It's who I am, how could I forget? I made it through the darkest part of the night, And now I see the sunrise. Now I feel glorious, glorious, I feel glorious, glorious.'

The two women sang along at the top of their lungs and danced around the room. A few of the other patients looked in wondering if there was a party going on, but they saw the joy in the room and could not resist joining in on the fun.


Wow, less than a month until Avengers: Endgame, or watch as Sophie dies inside. Just waiting on those damn midnight realese tickets.

Oh, and we're doing Saturday updates because it's easier for everyone.