Hello, readers!

Sorry for the wait, everyone. I was waiting for someone to read these older chapters, but I can wait no longer. They're up in a google doc, though, if that person ever wants to read them. I don't have all of the old story, sorry. Just the last like, 10 chapters or however much more I have. Anyway, I'm gonna try to get this story fully revised by the time the baby comes, so look forward to some more edited chapters next month.

This chapter has been updated as of 10/1/2017

~ Crayola


Chapter Nineteen

Through the Fears

". . . went well. We'll need to keep her for observation . . . ."

So what if I wasn't dead? Maybe I had survived that alien hive, but that almost didn't change a goddamn thing.

". . . another few days, maybe."

Yeah, sure. Not like I want to go home or anything.

What I wouldn't do for a fucking cheeseburger from McDonald's. I was sick and tired of eating hospital jello and cafeteria food. If I was lucky, my parents might bring me something.

They usually didn't.

Cheap-ass parents. Couldn't shell out a little bit of cash to buy some fast food for their hospital-bound survivor. I mean, sure. I'd technically broken the law and disobeyed direct orders. Details.

My doctor continued, answering some question Mom asked. "No, I'm afraid not . . . ."

I was only half paying attention, lost in my thoughts. Fantasizing about a Big Mac and trying to forget about what was going on around me. The bad news being delivered.

". . . to do something about that burn and . . . ."

Mom squeezed my hand reassuringly, but I didn't look up from my broken legs. From the new thing that was causing me some anguish. My mom was seated next to me and my dad was standing at her shoulder, his hand resting on my extra-thick pillow.

"How much will all of this cost? Will our insurance handle most of it?" Dad asked.

Yeah, Dad, that's the important part of all of this.

This is why I hadn't had any McDonald's yet. I shouldn't have been so hung up on it, but I was upset and could use some comfort food. Something fattening and unhealthy but so entirely delicious to take my mind off my horrible situation.

But apparently, I didn't deserve a tiny glimmer of happiness.

Echoing part of my thoughts, Mom shot him a sour look. "That's hardly what matters. She's alive and going to come home with us in a few days."

He rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut.

The government's doctor had finally found time away from her reports to meet with me and my parents. I didn't remember much of our last meeting, considering I'd been under a fuckton of pain meds and had gone straight into emergency surgery to salvage what was left of my knee.

She looked about as tired as I felt, but if the lines under her eyes and thin lips were any indication, she probably always looked exhausted. Her graying red hair was drawn up in a ponytail so tight that I thought her scalp was going to split open. Earlier, she'd introduced herself as Allison Kendrick, general surgeon.

"The government is going to pay for any and all procedures, Mr. Shain, so you don't need to worry. Surgery, hospital costs, physical therapy, even her counseling. Anything she might need."

"That's awfully nice of them," Mom said while petting my head.

So long as I keep my mouth shut, I thought bitterly, not looking up at anyone.

"It's the government's way of apologizing for this accident. The man who was here earlier can, and probably will, tell you more," Dr. Kendrick explained. Or deflected, rather.

"Will she need to be transferred to a government facility?" asked my dad.

Please say no, please say no . . . .

"No," said Dr. Kendrick with a shake of her head. She took one of her hands out of her pocket long enough to scratch her collarbone before continuing. "We can all do it all right here so she's close to home, that way she doesn't have to stay at a facility until she's better."

Oh thank the lord. I didn't want to go anywhere but home. At least there was finally something going right for me.

"Doesn't that put you out?" my mom asked.

"I'll be fine. I'm used to being relocated. It's Nichole's comfort we're worried about. Now," Dr. Kendrick said, stepping away from the door. "I'm sure that the nice man outside will want to have a word with you two, and I'd like a couple minutes to talk with my patient alone."

"Why?" I closed my eyes and sighed at my mom's agitation.

The doctor glanced at me and took a breath. "I need to go over some sensitive subjects with her and usually it's easier if the parents aren't present."

Like the subject of aliens.

"What? No!" Mom's protest made me roll my eyes. She grabbed my arm with her other hand. "I don't want her out of my sights for one more minute."

"Tamara . . . ," Dad warned her.

"No! I just got her back! I'm not leaving my baby."

I was just going to ignore the fact that they probably hadn't known I went missing until I didn't come out of my room. Or when they received the phone call that I was found. Whichever had come first.

Again, I rolled my eyes and tried to shrug out of her grasp. "I'll be fine, Mom, really."

She looked at me for a moment, torn. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Mom. It's only going to be a few minutes. Let the lady do her job."

For a moment all she did was stare at me but eventually dragged herself to her feet. Of course, she had to draw it out as long as possible by fussing with my blankets and pillow. "I'll be right outside the door. Just yell if you need me, okay?" I nodded, but she still busied herself for a couple of precious seconds by readjusting the fox plush she'd brought me from home. She'd bought it for me from the Denver Zoo when I was younger.

"Mom," I groaned.

Finally, with a huff, she tore herself away from my bedside and let my dad escort her out of the room. Dr. Kendrick waited for a few heartbeats after the door closed, then took a seat next to my bed in one of the chairs.

Eyes back on my lap, I asked, "Am I really never going to play soccer again?"

Dr. Kendrick took a deep breath and folded her hands in her lap. "I'm afraid so, Ms. Shain. Chances are you'll walk with a permanent limp, even with therapy."

Sighing, I leaned my head against my pillow. At least she was honest.

"You broke your legs in a fall, right?" When I nodded, she asked another question. "The wounds aren't consistent with just a general fall. Did anything else happen?"

Lips pursed, I tried to remember. "Um, I tumbled down a hill. Might have hit my knee."

"That fits. Did anything happen after you broke them? That could have made the injury worse, I mean," she asked, reaching for the clipboard at the end of my bed. A pen magically appeared from somewhere within in her coat. "Did you try to walk or something along those lines?"

"Not that I . . . ." Well, actually, a lot had happened. "Oh, uh, I was carried into the woods . . . put back down . . . then that guy found me—Mendes. He pulled me back a ways from the ship—"

"Pulled?" Dr. Kendrick interrupted, raising her brows.

"Yeah, like . . . dragged me. Just a bit, though . . . then he stopped when he realized my legs were hurt." I was surprised at how defensive I sounded on his behalf.

The doctor stared at me for a second, then huffed and scratched a spot above her eyebrow. "That would have done it." She shook her head and scribbled a note on my clipboard, her eyebrows arched high on her face. I felt a strange urge to defend Mendes. I kept my mouth shut instead.

Silence fell between us, then I glanced around and said, "Where's that necklace you guys found on me?"

"I wouldn't know," she replied, looking up at me from the tops of her eyes. "If you tell me what it looks like I could try to have it found and returned to you. Why did they even take it from you in the first place?"

"Um . . . well, I don't know. I guess probably because . . . it had a skull on it and some teeth," I muttered, wringing my hands.

The doctor put the clipboard down on her lap, expression confused. "Like what kind?"

I shifted the way I was sitting, trying to make myself comfortable. "The alien kind."

That information caught her off guard and she leaned back slightly. "How on Earth did you get something like that?"

"It was a gift." Maybe one I didn't fully appreciate but a gift all the same. I would have liked it back. Wolf went through all of that trouble and now the government had it and I wasn't even sure if they were going to ever give it back.

Probably not. They probably wanted to run tests on it and map genomes so they could clone it or something stupid.

Dr. Kendrick sighed and shook her head. "Then you probably won't get it back."

"Yeah," I mumbled. "I thought not."

Surprisingly enough, she didn't ask anything further about it. Instead, she posed a few more general questions about my health, like allergies and current medication I was on, but I knew that couldn't have been the only questions she wanted to ask. I didn't know why she was avoiding it so thoroughly even though I'd already brought up the aliens.

"Ask me," I demanded.

She finished her scribbling and glanced up at me. "Ask you what?"

I shot her a deadpan stare and it took her another moment to figure out what I meant. She finally nodded and looked down at the chart. "Ah . . . yes. Well, first I'd like to ask about your burn. Acid, was it? How did you get an acid burn?"

"It was their blood. The aliens' blood, the nasty screeching ones, not the ones Mendes found me with. It was, uh . . . corrosive. Like acid."

"Interesting defense mechanism," Dr. Kendrick hummed, more to herself than to me. She scrawled a few more notes. "We'll have an artist come down some time and you can tell them what they looked like, okay?"

Dredging up memories of those horrible aliens was extremely unappealing, but I understood the need for it. "Sure, whatever."

After a short pause, she continued. "Did you sustain most of your injuries by fighting them off?"

Sighing, I leaned against the hand that wasn't in a brace and blinked slowly at my doctor. "Yeah, most of them. Except for my legs. I kinda—jumped off the ship, I didn't really fall."

"Why did you have to jump off?"

"It started sliding down the hill so we had to bail." I flinched at the slip, but she didn't seem to notice. Or care. Either one. I wasn't sure why I felt the need to hide the nature of Wolf and my relationship, but it seemed appropriate.

Despite myself, I narrowed my eyes and hunched my shoulders. "Why are you asking and not some scary government agent?"

She set the clipboard down on her lap and folded her hands on top of it. "You'll probably be interrogated later, actually. It just helps us to treat your wounds if we know how you got them. Also, I'm just a curious person, sorry. I'd also like to know about that mark and why you were given a skull necklace as a gift, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Otherwise, I'm just here to inquire about your health, not your experience."

Oh great, so Mulder and Skully were going to give me the third degree eventually. Great.

"However," she continued, "that probably won't be for a little while, until you can start your PT or your counseling."

"Why's that?"

"Well, they technically aren't allowed to question you without your parents present because you're still a minor. So, they'll probably sneak into one of your sessions so they can . . . circumvent the rules." Her face scrunched into a grimace.

Lips pursed, I nodded. "Can't let my mom and dad know about the aliens."

"Exactly. It's most likely that they'll disguise their interrogation as a therapy session. You'll still have regular sessions, too. You'll obviously need to see someone to deal with the trauma and it'll be good for your healing, too."

That news perked me up a little bit, but I remained guarded. "Will the same privacy laws apply there? Will I be able to tell this therapist whatever I want without them reporting it?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Dr. Kendrick's lips and she said, "Unless the information you give her is a threat to national security, your health, or someone else's, yes. You'll be given the same privacy rights as any other patient. "

Though pleased, I wasn't sure I felt it was my place to talk about Wolf no matter how much I really needed to. Maybe it wouldn't quite be betraying him if I spoke to someone who wasn't going to be relaying all of it to the government. I doubted I had enough information to help them track him down, anyway, but I felt like I was tattling.

"And until then?"

"Until then, you can get some sleep and focus on healing," she stated matter-of-factly, standing up. "Before you're discharged, someone will likely be by to discuss the cover story with you."

I felt the color drain from my face. "What do you mean?"

Dr. Kendrick took one last look at my clipboard, took the top sheet with her notes and tucked them into her pocket, then hooked the chart to the end of my bed and let it dangle. "I mean what you're going to tell the press, what you're going to tell your family and your schoolmates. I'm sure my employers are crafting a nice story for you right now."

Oh. Right. Can't go around shouting about aliens, can I?

"The press?"

Her warm expression faded into something grave and she looked away from me. "You are the only person to come out of that forest alive who saw what really happened. The others we've talked to only saw shadows and mistook them for wolves or cougars."

Mountain lions, I silently corrected.

"You, on the other hand, were missing the entire night along with a couple dozen others. The media will want to ask you some questions."

Just what I always wanted.

I couldn't help but think that if Michelle were here instead of me, she would have been pretty happy to hear that.

"Get some rest now, Ms. Shain. You've earned it, and you'll need it when I come back to treat that burn" she bade, smiling at me. I returned the gesture and she turned toward the door. My parents piled in the room after she left and as the door shut, I heard her reprimanding poor Mendes about the manner in which he had handled me.

*:・゚✧

Sleeping was nearly impossible. I wasn't on as many painkillers as I had been when I'd first arrived, so I wasn't knocked on my ass when I did try to rest.

All I saw when I shut my eyes were monsters black as night and teeth that tore and ripped. All I remembered when I tried to empty my mind was the terrified faces of my friends when Jess died and when that cop gunned them down. All I imagined while I was in bed was their parents glaring at, shouting at, and blaming me.

The only time I'd finally managed to get some decent sleep was because Dr. Kendrick had agreed to give me a sedative so I could relax.

Even then it had left me feeling even more exhausted.

At the very least, though, I didn't dream when I took the sedatives. I didn't think I could handle the nightmares that followed me wherever I went.

In fact, I didn't think I would ever be able to handle them.

After a few days of sitting in a hospital bed, I was more than ready to go home. There was one last procedure to help with my burn, then I would go home the next day. They'd discussed a few different options, but in the end, they'd chosen to go with a skin graft.

"How are you feeling, Nichole?" the nurse pushing my gurney asked. She was already wearing her mask so I couldn't see her face, but I hoped it was the nurse from before. That lady was nice.

I nodded and took a cleansing breath. "Nervous."

"Don't be." I could tell she was smiling even if I couldn't see her mouth. "It's a very simple procedure and should be done quickly."

Right, no reason to be nervous. Or scared.

Unconvinced, I said, "That's what they always say on those ER shows. Right before the person dies of random complications during surgery."

She just giggled. "Those are TV shows. You'll be fine."

Of course, she was right. I was disappointed in how frightened I was so soon after the incident. I'd battled through alien hordes and impressed a galactic warrior enough to be considered his comrade, but this surgery? The thought twisted my stomach up into knots.

Wolf would have been so upset.

Where was he, anyway? I could only imagine he was out in the woods with Brutus as his company. Hopefully, they were surviving alright out in the cold mountain with all that snow. How they were going to phone home I had no idea, but they were a capable pair. They'd find a way. Maybe there was something in the ship they could use or their wrist computers.

As these thoughts passed through my mind, I couldn't help but wonder what he'd been planning to do with me. Keep me around? Escort me back to Estes Park?

He hadn't seemed to want to leave me there, otherwise, he never would have come back after I'd broken my legs. He'd gone through the effort of carrying me to safety with him, then putting this—his—mark on my collarbone.

So, then what?

The lights overhead passed with a monotonous drone and I picked up counting them again.

One. Two. Three.

I couldn't help but keep coming back to the thought that he might have had the intention of bringing me with him and Brutus. To space—or his home planet.

It was hard to imagine what life would have been like out in that vast expanse. Would he have trained me to be a better fighter? Kept me on the ship as his personal hunting dog, some sort of pet, or some spare bait? Decoration? I was curious enough that I wanted to know and couldn't help but wonder, but the majority of me was glad I didn't have to find out.

There was no way I belonged in space.

Humans didn't belong in space. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Here, at least, I felt pretty safe. Much safer than I had. Sure, at first, I would have done anything to avoid having to explain myself to anyone, but now. . . . My parents were here, sitting in the waiting room for me. There were no more aliens to fight off, and maybe I could go back to a normal life. Sans effective legs.

They'd even said that they'd buy me some god damn McDonald's after the surgery. Wouldn't be able to find that kinda shit outside the Milky Way.

My mom had had that stuffed fox in her arms the last time I'd seen her—almost as if she needed it more than I did. Even Alan and Kristie had come with them to visit me right before I was wheeled out of my room. However, it was more than likely that they wanted to be anywhere else. I couldn't blame them.

After all, I would have liked to be anywhere else.

When they came to drop by and wish me good luck, I'd learned via an intense lecture from my parents that Kristie had been inches away from the same fate as I. They thought I couldn't hear them bickering, couldn't hear my mom and dad using me as an example to teach her a lesson.

That she could have died out there. That I had been lucky.

"You could have ended up just like your sister, or worse!"

The only thing that had kept her from suffering the same fate was the fact that she had shown up late to the party. Dad couldn't help but point out every few minutes that the cops had saved her life by picking her and her friend up.

Should I and the others have been so fortunate.

At least my brother was too young to have even known about the ship. He was only in elementary school, so all we told him was that I had been in an accident and wouldn't be able to do anything for a long while.

Including soccer.

That killed me the most. It was the only activity I had besides school. The only thing I enjoyed and participated in since I had learned to walk. At least that was how it seemed. Now it was gone and I had a long life of doing nothing but minor exercises to keep from degrading into a fat and lazy slob. Wolf probably wouldn't even want me on his team anymore.

I was useless now.

Probably would be forever.

A permanent limp? Maybe something good would happen for once and my physical therapy would go super awesome well and I could bypass the whole threat. If Wolf had managed to drag me into space, maybe I wouldn't have had to worry about that at all.

His species had mastered space travel. They surely could have fixed my legs.

Though, even if I didn't have a limp, I would probably still be gimped. No way my legs were going to be in pristine condition again.

But a girl could hope. Maybe I was just being cynical.

Thirteen lights since I'd started counting. Doors opened in front of me and I was pushed into a bright room with a lot of scary-looking equipment. I didn't remember any of that from my first surgery. The nurses transferred me to the operating table and another masked man leaned over me with a plastic gas mask—the aesthetician. "Alright Ms. Shain. We'll see you on the other side. Just relax."

Easier said than done.

He slipped the mask over my mouth and nose. There was a faint hiss from somewhere close by and the air I was breathing had a strange taste to it.

"Count backward from ten for me, please."

Taking a deep breath, I did my best to count. "Ten. Nine."

People were talking around me but I couldn't hear them so well.

"Eight . . . seven . . . ."

Already I was having trouble keeping my heavy eyelids open. The only thought I had was how much I didn't want to do this.

It didn't matter what I wanted. It mattered that I needed it. It mattered that I could do it, and the mark Wolf had left on my chest was a testament to that fact. This was just a basic surgery. In and out. I'd have full range my shoulder after the graft healed.

If I could live through that crashed ship, I could live through this. All of it. The surgery, the permanent limp, and living my life.

"Six . . . five . . . fo . . . ."