A/N: This is the final proper chapter but there will be an epilogue after this. There is also going to be a yet to be named sequel. I will announce the title of the sequel when I post the epilogue. I hope you enjoy the very long last chapter. A big thank you to all the readers and reviewers.
Chapter Twelve- Honest
Violet POV
I woke up from a pleasant dream. It was just Iggy and I lying on that beach together. Every so often he'd tell me something like, I don't know if you can hear me, It should have been the other way around or Please Violet don't make me break my promise. I asked him what he meant and he'd just kiss me. It was so peaceful compared to what I woke up to. There was a tube shoved down my throat and I could clearly smell antiseptic. I was in an unfamiliar hospital room. I looked around wildly trying to find something familiar.
Then I found it. Iggy. He was sitting in a chair by my bedside with his head rested on my bed, near my leg, face down. He looked like he was sleeping. I couldn't talk with the tube in my mouth so I groaned loudly to get his attention. He lifted his head up looking confused.
"Violet?" he asked. I whimpered. He grabbed my hand. "Violet if you can hear me, squeeze my hand." I did so. He grinned widely; obviously he'd been worrying about me. He stood up as if he was about to leave. I wouldn't let his hand go. I was terrified of what was going on and I didn't want him to leave my side.
"It's okay; I'm just going to get a nurse." He leaned over and kissed my forehead, it made me relax a little bit. "I'll be right back, I'm glad your okay." He disappeared for a moment and returned with a nurse. She removed the tube from my mouth. It felt good to breathe on my own. She told me that the doctor would be with me shortly and left. Iggy sat back down at my bedside.
"How do you feel?" he asked rubbing my arm.
"Alright, I've been better."
"Do you remember what happened?"
"We were in a cell." He nodded and the memories started coming back to me. "And we tried to escape. My clone... and Omega tried to stop us but you made a bomb. We got out of the door and were nearly over the fence. I was in pain, I got shot and you caught me is that right?"
"Yeah, it is. Do you remember why you got shot?"
"You were in the firing line. I had to get you out of the way." He grimaced slightly.
"You shouldn't have done that." He said this quietly, in a guilty way.
"I couldn't let them shoot you. Don't feel guilty. So that's what you meant by it should have been the other way around."
"You heard that?"
"I dreamed that you and I were lying on that beach together and you said some really random stuff. Did you actually say that?"
"Yeah, I was sitting here talking to you. It was the first time I'd seen you since you got out of surgery. I said some stupid, soppy, lovey dovey stuff."
"Yeah, you said that. I liked it, I was confused but it made me smile. Especially when you told me that you loved me." He stood up so he was face to face with me.
"Well I meant that." he kissed me tenderly and sat back down. Then a female doctor came into my little hospital room.
"Hi Violet, I'm Doctor Parker. I was the one who operated on you." She looked at the monitor that was displaying my vitals. "Your vitals look good. If all goes well you should be out of the ICU later today. Which is a big improvement on how you were about twenty hours ago."
"Why, what happened?" I asked.
"You flat lined." The doctor said simply. Iggy gave me a look that made me feel guilty for some reason, like he'd found out something incriminating about me.
"Oh wow. But I'm okay now?"
"Pretty much, but there are things we still need to discus. There is a possibility of brain damage because of the lack of oxygen to your brain during that time. I'll check in on you later." she left the room.
"I flat lined." I said.
"Yes, you did." Iggy replied.
"Do you know something I don't?"
"Well, I know that for some reason you forgot to take antibiotics for a life threatening disease and you don't forget stuff. Were you trying to kill yourself?" I looked down at my hands not meeting his gaze.
"You don't know the full story. You don't understand."
"Well, can you help me understand?" This was going to take a lot of explaining.
"Before you, there was someone else. I had another boyfriend, Zack, in the school. He was completely human but they were going to alter his DNA at some point. One day at the school, they said I had a new 'roommate' and in came a boy of about my age; I was captivated immediately by his eyes. They were emerald green. When I compare him to you, I can't even think about why I even fell for him, when your personalities are so different. But I did fall for him. Maybe because I was just so desperate for someone to care about me or to have normal human interactions with someone who wasn't a white coat.
"We wanted nothing more than to escape the school. I told him that it had been done before by you guys and that someday we would join you guys. One day at night we tried to escape, but we were met by erasers. They attacked us and I got taken back to my dog crate. I sat awake for hours and hours waiting for him to be bought back. But he never came back. I found out when an eraser came to gloat." I covered my face with my hands. I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I felt someone move up onto the bed beside me and carefully wrapped their arms around me. I took a deep breath before I tried to continue.
"I gave up on life after that. They gave me some disease and I just decided to let myself die. But they saved me. I kept going. I made the escape on my own and I found you and you made everything better. I'm happy again because of you. And I think I love you more than I did him." I said this through tears. I cried into Iggy's shoulder as he patiently sat there with his arms around me whispering words of comfort in my ear. I don't know how long we sat there for but at the end of it, I finally felt like I had gotten over Zack's death, I was fully healed. All of a sudden I felt tired and started yawning.
"You should go to sleep. I'll stay with you." Iggy murmured to me. After everything I had told him in the last hour, I felt like there should be one final secret I should share with him.
"I've got something else to tell you."
"Tell me when you wake up."
"No, no, it's important." My speech was slurred with tiredness. "They made you blind intentionally, at the school. It wasn't an accident, it was an experiment. To see if they could improve your other senses then fix your sight." As soon as I got that final word out, I fell asleep.
*~*~*~*~*
I woke up in a new room. This one was brighter and sunnier than the ICU room. I wasn't hooked up to a monitor anymore but the IV was still there. Iggy was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room listening to an I-pod.
"Hey," I said, he looked up and pulled out the ear buds.
"Hey, you're in a ward now. They moved you when you were asleep."
"Oh that's good. The ICU was freaky. This place is much nicer."
"True but this ward has visiting hours."
"Aww, did they kick you out. Aren't you allowed to sleep here anymore?"
"They did, I had to leave overnight."
"Well I'm glad. Although I would love to have you here night and day. It really can't be healthy for you to spend all of your time here."
"It's not healthy for me to be away from you."
"Stop being cheesy. So you've left the hospital."
"Yes, they kicked me out when they were moving you and told me I wasn't allowed back until eight o'clock the next morning. The Flock have rented out hotel room so I went there. I ate, showered and slept. Oh and I made a bomb."
"Of course you did."
"Stress-release."
"So did you think about that thing I told you, just before I fell asleep?"
"Yeah, I did."
"And..."
"At first I was angry."
"I know, I should have told you earlier. I'm sorry."
"Oh no, Violet. Not at you of course. At the white coats. But then I kind of accepted it because, they said it was fixable. So maybe, someday in the future, I can find someone who can help me see again."
"I'm glad about that." my chest suddenly started to ache. I took in a breath sharply. It was really painful.
"Are you okay?" Iggy asked immediately sanding up.
"Um... yeah it's just a little sore." I cringed gritting my teeth.
"Do you want me to get a nurse, they can give you painkillers."
"No I'll be alright." I squeaked because the pain was getting worse. "Okay fine."
"I'll just be a minute." He went out the door and returned with the nurse. She was holding a syringe that immediately made me squeamish. I tensed.
"Okay Violet, I'll just put some morphine through your IV." She injected it straight into my IV tube.
"Call if you need more." she told us before leaving
"See, that wasn't that bad." Iggy told me dragging his chair closer to the bed and sitting back down in it. Then the morphine hit me. It was immediately relaxing.
"No, it feels much better."
"Good. No need for you to be a masochist." I stared up at his lips thinking about how much I would like him to kiss me.
"I really want you to kiss me." I blurted out. It was like I had lost the filter between my brain and my mouth. He gave me a strange look.
"I shouldn't be taking advantage of you, while you're high."
"I'm not high, and please take advantage of me."
"Okay, I'll kiss you then." He leaned over me and pushed his lips up against mine. God, I loved him.
"God, I love you."
"You really are high aren't you?" He pulled away from me. No, I didn't want him to do that.
"Kiss me properly. Get up on the bed, make out with me." I insisted pulling at his shirt giggling. And I rarely ever giggle.
"I really shouldn't. The nurse told me off last time I got on the bed."
"The nurses aren't here are they? Please Iggy. I nearly died. Let's live life now."
"You'll regret this when the morphine wears off. You'll be angry at me."
"No, I won't. I could never be angry at you. I promise. Come on you know you want to. I'll make it worth your while." He sighed and started climbing up on the bed. I grinned.
"I'm going to be in so much trouble for doing this." he said to himself before kissing me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kicked away the scratchy blankets so my legs were free. I really didn't know what was compelling me to do this but I just went with it.
"Oh my!" Exclaimed a nurse. Iggy jumped off me quickly.
"We... um... er." He stammered going a bright red. The nurse left hurriedly. I started laughing hysterically.
"You look so stupid." I snorted.
"You're as high as kite." He said shaking his head.
"No, I'm not." I protested still laughing.
"Settle down. If you keep acting like this they won't let me visit you anymore. Come on let's watch a movie, maybe if you sit still for awhile, It might wear off a bit." I saw him pull a couple of DVDs off the bedside table. He put them on the bed in front of me. "Nudge got them for us. Read them out to me."
"Okay, there is Pearl Harbor, Titanic and the notebook."
"Typical Nudge, hmm well Pearl Harbor has war and bombs, so that one." He went over to the TV that was up against a wall and mucked around with it for awhile. He handed the remote to me and sat back down in the chair.
"No, sit with me." I told him.
"I don't trust you not to try and make out with me. I want to actually be allowed to visit you without the nurses kicking me out."
"Oh come on. I won't." I shuffled over to make room for him. Giving me an exasperated look, he sat down beside and put an arm around me; I rested my head on his chest and pushed play on the remote. I enjoyed the movie even though anytime there would some sort of explosion or gunshot Iggy would ask me to describe what was going on. I didn't really mind.
"That was nice." I said as the credits started rolling.
"Yeah, those explosions sounded awesome, I wish I could have seen them."
"Maybe someday."
"Yeah hopefully. You seemed to have come off your high a little bit."
"I wasn't high."
"How else do you explain wanting to make out with me on the bed and the laughing fit?"
"Shut up."
"Is that the best retort you've got? You've lost your touch since we were being guarded by the two human robots."
"Oh yeah, that was fun. My favourite was when you asked them about them repopulating the world with perfect babies."
"I liked it when you told them to leave so we could make out. What did you say exactly?"
"I can't remember. I just know it was something along those lines." As soon as the words left my mouth, I gasped, realising what had happened. I tried and tried to remember but I couldn't.
"You've forgotten." Iggy said blankly, looking at me worriedly. "But you don't forget things, you have a photographic memory."
"The doctor said something about brain damage. Maybe this is it."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
It turned out that my photographic memory was gone. I still had an above average memory but after a series of test done on me by a neurologist it was found not to be perfect anymore. To be honest I wasn't that sorry to see the back of it. Sure, it came in handy with all those Itex passwords and memorising maps but bad memories never faded. I was able start forgetting everything that had happened before I meet Iggy. Because that was when my life really started. The girl who was a prisoner of the school, who was so lost in grief that she nearly killed herself, was a completely different person to the girl who fell in love with a blind pyromaniac.
Iggy stayed with me at the hospital until eight o'clock when visiting hours were over. He was back again in the morning when I woke up. I was discharged from hospital that afternoon. I went to the hotel where the Flock was staying. It was an awkward reunion, but I was determined to try and get along with them. They were Iggy's family and Fang was my brother. It was unconventional but I still had to try. And I was sort of succeeding. I spent a few days recuperating in Florida, before the Flock and I flew back to Arizona because the flying, talking dog Total was getting married. As weird as a dog wedding was, I had long learnt to accept that weird was a part of life. Well, my life at least.