A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, boys, and girls, I am VERY pleased to present to you the final, longest, and most exciting chapter of my story, "Her War with Peace"! Filled with romance, action, fire, and darkness, I offer as my final installment...
Chapter Sixteen: Resolutions and Revelations
Jeanette Odelle stormed out of Dr. Howell's office in a fury. The unfortunate aforementioned doctor had made the mistake of attempting to patronize a mother's instinctive worry, though he had providentially suffered no injury except that to his pride.
Jeanette scanned the room numbers until she found Dawn's. "Sweetheart?" She called softly as she opened the door quietly.
"She's sleeping." Warren responded, not taking his eyes off of Dawn but recognizing Mrs. Odelle's voice. "She's been sleeping all day."
When he finally looked up at her, Dawn's mother was surprised to find tears in the pyrokinetic's eyes. "What did the doctor say?"
"What all doctors say: that they're trying their hardest, that they've done what they can do, and that she'll be fine."
"Xi-huan guei." Warren muttered, and Mrs. Odelle smiled wryly.
"I agree; 'like heck'." She admonished. "No swearing around my daughter, even if it is in Chinese and she's unconscious."
"Yes, ma'am." Warren responded dryly, but no smile crossed his face. "I'm worried about her." He regretfully admitted, leaning back in his chair and running his hand over his face as though he was trying to wipe all his worries away.
"I know."
The two sat in silence for a moment before Jeanette stood. "I'm going to the house to clean things up since I don't think there's anything I can do here. Keep an eye on her, would you, Warren?"
"Yeah."
"She she ni."
That did summon at least a small smile to Warren's face; Mrs. Odelle was an interesting woman.
As the hospital door swung shut behind Dawn's mother, Warren ran his fingers through his hair. It was going to be a long day.
-
Now inside the hospital, the shadow slunk into a corner and peered across the hall at a chart listing patients and room numbers.
- Ms. Dawn Odelle, Rm. 211 - was scribbled in typical doctor's handwriting across the chart.
With no comment or even stray thought, the darkness shifted and slid up a flight of stairs and down two corridors until it stopped just outside the room. Identifying the number as the correct one, it slipped underneath the door and immediately melted to the floor as it spotted Warren. The pyrokinetic still had his back to the door and apparently had yet to notice the new visitor.
Two smoky tendrils stretched towards Warren's back. As soon as they made contact, the latter leapt out of his chair and whirled around, his throat constricting and his eyes confused.
"Idiot," the shadow hissed, "to think you could be rid of me so easily."
All Warren could do was make choking noises…and blow a fireball through the shadow's midsection.
It hissed again - this time in pain rather than contempt - and released its hold on his throat. Warren's breath came back in gasps, and he stood still momentarily, glaring at his opponent.
"You can't have her." He growled.
"I don't want her," the darkness whispered back, "I want you."
This caused a brief pause in conversation before Warren responded. "I don't go for your kind, but thanks anyway."
It didn't seem to understand his sarcastic humor, though neither did it care. "I won't let you live."
"Ain't that a shame." Warren's hand shot out and another fireball tore through the shadow.
It snarled and grappled to hold him again, but as soon as it did, the pyrokinetic made fine use of his powers and it was forced to release him. This went back and forth for some time, the two circling the small room, determined to be the predator and not the prey.
Finally, the shadow sneered as it shrunk smaller. "How long do you think you can keep this up, boy? Are you just waiting for young nurses to hear the noise we're making, so I can take them too? Not everyone is as gifted as you, you know."
"But…I am."
Dawn's feeble voice piped up from the back of the room, as she slowly opened her eyes and glared condescendingly at the shadow.
"No, little girl, you're not." The shadow growled. "You're weak, especially in this state. You can't do anything to me." It stretched its tendrils toward her, but she slowly pushed them away telekinetically. It drained her mentally more than she'd ever been drained before, even to just turn the misty strands away like they were glass.
Only a few seconds went by before Dawn was so drained that she could no longer push the shadow to the side, and the wisps locked onto her wrist. No sooner had they done so, Dawn's breath began to be taken away.
"Don't touch her!" Warren roared, the seconds-long window giving him enough time to gather himself and shoot a burst of flame at the shadow. It dropped her wrist and shrieked at him, shooting its entire mass around the telekinetic's form.
"Burn me, and you kill her! She's not strong enough to fight off fire from you!" The shadow screamed, for the first time showing genuine anger.
As it sucked the breath from Dawn, Warren clenched his fists helplessly.
And then he looked closer.
She wasn't choking; she was holding her breath. Her palms were up, her eyes were closed, and the shadow seemed to not be touching her anymore as much as it was just floating around her.
She better be doing what I think she's doing. Warren thought desperately, knowing he would roast her if he was wrong.
Now or never.
Eyeing the oxygen tank next to Dawn's hospital bed - fortunately it wasn't in use, - Warren blasted it with the most powerful fireball he could muster. It blew.
And it blew hard.
The entire tank exploded into a giant burst of flame, blinding the whole room with fire. The shadow disintegrated with a howling shriek, and Warren turned his head slightly, impervious to the heat.
Dawn, when inside the shadow's grasp, had used the last of her strength to form a telekinetic bubble around herself - much like the one she had used in the cafeteria on her first day of school. Inside the bubble, she deprived herself of oxygen and held her breath, hoping that Warren's next fireball would take out the shadow and not hurt her, since the fire would have no oxygen on which to survive.
Fortunately for her, he did one better than that.
As the fire dissipated into the air, Warren was pleased that his fire-resistant clothes had withstood the potential damage, and he didn't seem the mind that most of the things in the hospital room were now incinerated. However, since the area of Dawn's bed that she hadn't shielded was now on fire, he lifted her bridal-style from the sheets just as the hospital sprinkler system turned on.
As water sprayed from the ceiling, and Warren held Dawn sheltered in his arms, he bent his head toward her, attempting to block her from the sudden chill. She weakly and gently lifted her right hand, stroking his face and letting the droplets run onto her fingers.
"Is it over, Warren?" She whispered, still gasping for air.
"It's over, baby." He murmured back, nuzzling his head into her neck and holding her tightly. "It's over."
He sat on the tile floor and let the water pour over them as he cradled her in his arms, and there they stayed until the hospital attendees came rushing in to find them.
-
Two weeks later, after being visited by Warren every day she was away from school, Dawn announced to her mother that she was going to Sky High that day if it killed her. After being told not to joke about that, Mrs. Odelle gave her consent as long as she could get her wheelchair onto the bus - her broken wrist prevented her from using crutches.
At the bus-stop, students were more than willing to carry her onto the vehicle, having heard all about her escapades. Warren was sitting in the back of the bus, as usual, but his face lit up when he saw Dawn shyly wheeling her chair down to join him. It took some struggling to make sure she and the chair were both secure for the flight, but eventually success was granted to them.
Once at the school, Dawn took Warren aside. "Can we talk for a minute, sweetheart?"
"Sure."
After Warren had started calling her "baby", Dawn had decided to retaliate and find a good endearing term for him. Currently, she was trying out several.
The pyrokinetic knelt beside her wheelchair, and she ran her good hand through his hair, slipping it down to linger at his cheek. "Warren, we haven't had a good talk since all this started."
He gave her a puzzled look and shook his head, responding in his deep voice, "Talk about what?"
"Well…"us"." Dawn shrugged, looking down and taking her hand off of his strong-jawed face.
He grew quiet and made a frustrated noise. "I thought we talked about this."
"You said you didn't do relationships and we haven't talked about it since. What "talk" are you talking about?" Dawn made a face.
"I don't do relationships."
"Like it or not, babe, we're in one." Dawn said, surprising Warren and herself, "We're closer than friends are supposed to be, and we both know that. Just because you don't label it as a relationship doesn't mean it's not happening."
Warren sat on the floor beside Dawn's chair and gave a deep, - almost feral - growly sigh. It was the kind of noise that Dawn hadn't heard since before they had become friends.
Dawn was afraid she had offended him, and she averted her eyes, biting the edge of her lower lip at the same time.
Warren groaned. "Don't do that, baby. You don't know what you do to me."
She looked up hopefully, deciding not to ask, "Do what?" and just take advantage of the moment. "Does that mean…that you might be okay with acknowledging our relationship?"
"If you mean I'm in denial," he growled, leaning forward, just inches from her face, "then I would deny that."
"That's the point of denial," Dawn said, fighting a smile.
Warren leaned closer, his hair brushing her face gently, and his hands slipped to her waist, sending tingles up her spine. "I reject your reality, then, and substitute my own."
And that's when their lips met.
- The End-
Final Author's Note:
I surely hope you enjoyed the story, and thanks to ALL of you
who bore with me the entire way through, even when I took infinitely,
painfully long hiatuses. Hiatusii? Whatever. After sixty-two pages of
solid Word documents, Her War with Peace is finally over. Thank you again.
And, I might add, they lived happily ever after.
Corvaisis
