So a lot of things happen in a year and a bit! I graduated school, got a full –time job in my field (woot!), and my synchronized skating team placed first in all of Ontario and third in Canada! Exciting times! I have been writing so I decided to post an update. My New Year's resolution is to update regularly. Promise.
Thanks to piccolover22, IanOshea, jediasokaroxx, hanaharoo, Purple FireStarter5, RoseSharon, anmapamo, native-soul, ISleepWithSirens, nishikidojun, AmyOShea, Maylizzz, gretlcascade, londongirl2010, .Ian, Hannah3575, iluvdance622, twihardhannah, Wadjett, DisneyVampire, lovley ladybug and brooke123456 for your awesome reviews!
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.
Wanda POV
Within five minutes of my little taste of the strawberry, I knew that something was wrong. Ian had fallen asleep once we had finished our wander of the caves and returned to our room, and I had tried to hide my symptoms from him for fear of it being something little and getting Ian all worked up about it for nothing. Upon our arrival back to the room, he had promptly crashed onto the bed, pulling me down with him and we turned in for the night; only something didn't feel right and I never did actually fall asleep.
After I had laid there for a few seconds it became obvious that I was having a reaction to the berry, as I could recall from Pet's past memories the effect it had on the body. My mouth tingled something bad, my arms were itchy and my throat felt tight, which I was sure was not a good thing at all. I knew that I should have never let Ian give me that bite of the strawberry, but a part of me was hopeful that with the change in souls that the allergy would have subsided. It was a very foolish thought, for I was paying the consequences of it after the fact.
Sitting up in bed, I thought back to what they did for Pet whenever she had an allergic reaction to the berries, and it took a very long time to find an answer; the body only had one reaction when she was a baby and that was back with the old medical system. Her parents had rushed the baby to the hospital where the doctor had injected her with a single needle and all of the symptoms disappeared. The words "antihistamine" and "epinephrine" floated around in my head, but I didn't know what they meant, or what good they would do for me in this new world of medicine.
I turned then and looked around at Ian, who hadn't budged even a little bit at the movement I was making by sitting up. I didn't want to wake Ian, but I had to do something about my symptoms, so I quietly slid out of bed, replacing the covers and shoved my feet into a pair of shoes right by the door. I tried to move the door aside, but it seemed to be stuck and I panicked a fair bit; in silence so Ian kept sleeping though. Evidently panicking was the wrong thing to do, as it became very hard to catch my breath after that; another sign that something was terribly wrong with me.
Eventually, I calmed myself down enough to gently and carefully slide the door out of the way, leaving just enough space for me to slip through. I didn't want to press my luck and have him waking up so I just left it where it was and began my long walk down to Doc's room. If he wasn't down there, then I would start rooting around for something to help me; I realized from the body's past experience that time was of the essence and I needed to find an antidote and quickly.
It took me much longer than necessary to get down to Doc's room, for I had to stop every so often and attempt to catch my breath. As I neared the space, I was nearly bent over gasping for air, though it felt like my throat was closing up on its own. I really needed to act fast if I was going to make it out of this situation alive. I finally entered the room and looked through my watery eyes to get my bearings.
After a quick survey of the space, I noticed that Doc was not there so I practically threw myself at the first set of cupboards that he had and immediately began rifling through the marked boxes for something to help me. Nobody in the caves had any allergies as far as we knew, so none of us had ever thought to bring back something that might help us with them.
Three cupboards and endless boxes later, I had gone through every single part of our little medical stash and had come up empty handed. I let out a desperate little cry as I tried to breathe in again, only this time it was like trying to breathe through a straw; it felt like my throat had just about completely closed right up. My tongue was swollen by that point, I realized too, for it was very hard to swallow anything at all.
I began to really panic then and clutched uselessly at my throat while trying to gasp for air. Things were really going downhill fast for me and I really regretted not waking Ian for help; he could have at least stayed with me while I went through it all. If I was going to die from lack of oxygen, I would have rather done it with him by my side, not alone in an empty room where I was unlikely to be discovered until the next morning.
As I started to see spots in my vision, I knew that I had a slim chance of making it out of the room alive. I fell to my knees before lying on the dirt floor looking up at the ceiling just as blackness came over me.
Melanie POV
"Jared, stop it!" I laughed as he practically pounced after me while I ran towards the door. "I will go and get them only if you quit being a maniac and come with me."
"Oh, I'll come with you all right," Jared replied with a snotty little smirk on his face and I held my right index finger up to him.
"Quit it, then. I'm not taking you out anywhere if you're spewing innuendo like that," I warned him and Jared sat back on his haunches, holding his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "Awesome, then let's go quickly down to Doc's cave before anyone notices what we're up to."
Jared was in one of his moods and for once I had relented to help fix his little situation, or not so little, depending on how you looked at it. I usually didn't like to do it when there were so many others in the same vicinity, but I was letting my inhibitions go for one night and one night only. He seemed to have sensed that his window of opportunity was waning, for Jared leapt up and held the curtain aside for me to walk through first.
Once in the hallway, he turned around and scooped me up into his arms, cradling me close to his chest in a move that I was not expecting whatsoever. I nearly let out a scream at the unexpected action, but quickly caught myself before I woke up everyone in our corridor and ruined the vibe that we had going on.
Instead, I crossed my arms over top of my chest and let him carry me out into the main room where I began to squirm all over the place in hopes that he would put me down; I was a big girl and wasn't in to having Jared carry me around, no matter how nice it might feel. I was known for my independent nature and wasn't going to lose that part of my reputation in one night, even though there wasn't another person around to witness it.
"Mel, keep still, will you?" Jared asked, clearly struggling to keep a hold on me.
"I will once you let me down," I replied, raising an eyebrow at him, challenging Jared to test me at that moment.
He immediately let go of my legs so that they fell gracefully to the earth below, but did not release my upper body, opting to pull me closer to him instead. Jared's head began to duck down closer to mine, and because I knew him so well, I recognized the signs saying that he wanted to kiss me.
I decided to play with Jared for a little bit, pecking him on the lips and pushing against his chest so that I was free of his arms before he even got close enough to my face to initiate any sort of a kiss. I stood in front of him with a huge grin on my face and my hands on my hips while Jared just looked confused, so I had to laugh at him.
"Melanie Stryder, you little minx. You're really going to get it, you know," Jared taunted me as he took a few steps closer, his voice lower and more menacing compared to the last time that he had spoken to me. The result had made my body shiver in yearning for him, but I wanted to play around a little more.
"You gotta catch me first," I goaded him, taking a large step back; two of his steps were pretty much equal to one of mine, and since he was moving closer I wanted a bit of a head start for what I had planned next.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, but I had already turned on the spot and taken off sprinting through the room towards the tunnel that lead to Doc's room.
I knew that it had taken him a few seconds to react, as I heard him swear before his heavy footfalls resonated through the large room and I could practically feel him hot on my tail. Jared was fast, but I had gotten my head start and also had the element of surprise on my side, so I quickly beat him to the tunnel, still running down it like a bat out of hell.
"You're going to be cornered down there, Mel, what are you going to do then?" Jared called out to me and I knew by the closeness of his voice that he had caught up to the tunnel as well. I hadn't thought about that part of my plan, but I decided that he couldn't do anything terrible to me. Instead, I smirked and laughed out loud as the thoughts of what he might do to me began to cross my mind.
I burst into the room and dashed around to the farthest cot from the door, knowing that I had mere seconds before Jared caught up. I took the not so heavy object, turned it completely on its side and crouched down behind it, listening closely as Jared entered the room and his footsteps came to a halt.
"Oh Melanieeeeeee! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" he sang out to me and I smiled like a loon, trying to keep as quiet as possible and drag this out for him; not that it wouldn't be obvious due to the cot on its side or anything.
"My, my, you were busy weren't you? Searching around like this, but you didn't have much time, did you?" Jared asked and I was confused.
"What is he talking about?" I thought to myself, spinning around in the spot to look behind me at the cabinet there and noticed that it was open and all the boxes had been pulled out, some of their contents strewn all over the floor.
I continued to look around, no longer concerned about Jared and how he was still jeering at me, now looking for the source of all the disarray. Doc would not keep all the supplies like this; he liked everything to be orderly and even kept inventory of every single item in the room so that everything was accounted for.
As I continued to turn around, the next thing that I saw made me gasp in disbelief; I couldn't believe that I had missed seeing this on my way in. Granted, I was a little distracted by 200 pounds of male body that was chasing me down, but I was shocked that I had overlooked this huge detail.
"Jared, over here," I said to him, noticing that my voice was shaking as I fell to my knees, skidding across the floor to get closer to Wanda's body that was just lying there, unmoving.
"Well, that just gave away your spot, Mel. It wasn't much of a hunt for me," Jared said and I looked up to see his face peering over the side of the overturned cot, his expression quickly changing from one of playfulness to shock.
"What the fuck?" Jared swore again, shoving the useless cot to the side as I bent over Wanda, shushing him in the process to check and see if she was breathing. I pressed my ear to her lips and felt the faintest of breath coming in and out and I emitted a strangled cry.
"Turn the cot over and help me lift her up," I instructed Jared, the first aid training that I had done the summer before my life fell apart kicking in. "Then I need you to go and get Doc right away. And maybe Ian; he might want to be here for this."
"Is she breathing?" Jared asked, setting the cot back up and running over to scoop up Wanda's small body.
"Yes, but we need to hurry. I don't know what's wrong with her, but if it's anything bad..." I couldn't finish that sentence. I didn't want to dwell on the 'what if's', I just wanted to fix her. "Go get Doc now!"
Jared placed her gently on the cot and then tore out of the room at a speed that I had never seen him run at before. I was glad that he was in shape; the sleeping rooms weren't that far, but at the speed he was going he would be there in no time.
"Oh Wanda," I sighed, leaning over her body once more to make absolute sure that she was breathing. "What have you done to yourself?"
Ian POV
"Ian."
A deep voice was calling to me, but my body was telling me that it was not time to wake up, so I decided to ignore it as best as I could. If there was some shit going down, they would just have to deal with it themselves; the people around the caves were more than capable of handling things just fine without me.
"Ian... Ian. Ian you asshole, wake up," with that, the guy trying to rouse me from my slumber kicked the side of the mattress closest to me and I groaned in response.
"Get up, Ian. You have to come now. Wanda's in trouble," Jared told me quite frantically, but he really had no need to be like that at all.
"Wanda's right here. Go away," I mumbled; reaching out to the side where Wanda was lying to make sure she was indeed still there. Instead, my hand met a cold mattress. I turned my head and saw that her spot had been vacated and sat up immediately.
Jared looked like he'd seen a ghost as I looked at him. He kept glancing at the door and looked agitated about something.
"Where is she?" I asked, now fully awake.
"You have to come with me now, O'Shea. Melanie and I found her down in Doc's cave passed right out. I dunno what's wrong with her, but Doc already took off running for her so I thought that I would come and get you so..." without any further explanation from him, I had ripped the sheets off of me and tore out of my room down the hall, leaving him in the dust.
"Ian, wait up!" I could hear him calling to me, but I had pure adrenaline pumping through my veins, making me run faster and faster towards Wanda. I just needed to get there and assess the situation and above all, make sure that Wanda was okay.
"Ian, wait!" Jared's voice was barely a whisper to me as I tore through the fields in the main room and reached the other side of the room quite easily.
I could hear my heartbeat racing at a thousand beats a second, getting me closer and closer to whatever was happening to her down there. A part of me wished that I had allowed Jared to tell me what exactly was wrong with her because I was headed to her with no knowledge of the situation at all. I burst through the entrance to Doc's room and quickly got my bearings as I ground to a halt.
There was a figure lying on the cot; and by its small form I knew right away that it was Wanda; I bounded over and elbowed my way in between Doc, who was on one side of Wanda checking her vital sides, and Melanie on the other. Mel looked completely distraught and she clung to Wanda's hand, who just lay there unmoving with the exception of the very slow rise and fall of her chest.
"What's going on?" I panted, stroking Wanda's golden hair off of her face, my heart breaking because I didn't know what to do to help her.
"Well, she is breathing, but just barely. Her airway appears to be obstructed though by some swelling to her throat and tongue. I also noticed some red marks on her arms, indicating that she had been scratching at them something bad. They're here on her neck too, see?" Doc said, being the only calm one in the situation as he pointed out the obvious red marks on her poor body.
"What does it all mean though?" Mel asked as Jared finally made his way into the room.
"My best guess would be that she's having an anaphylactic reaction to something that she ate. I didn't know that souls could get allergic reactions like this and I don't think that we have much time to react," he replied soberly, looking around the room at the destruction that lay there.
"When I found her she was lying by an open cabinet like she had been looking for something," Mel said, her voice growing shaky by the second as I continued to stroke Wanda's hair, at a loss for words.
"Probably looking for something to stop her reaction, but the problem is that we don't have anything. I would have given it to her if we did, but nobody was prepared for something like this to happen," Doc said, giving me sad eyes and I looked away.
"Can we go on a raid and look for something?" Jared asked, standing on the other side of Melanie. "We could be back by..."
"There isn't that much time," Doc hissed. "She's lucky that she's alive as it is, but any longer and her air supply will be totally cut off and brain damage will set in."
I tuned them out and took a few seconds to clear my head and begin to think rationally. Back in school we all knew of kids that had allergic reactions and that we had to keep nut free environments for them and stuff. I remembered that those kids needed to carry Epi-pens with them, but since the souls had taken over they had virtually disappeared. Why this was happening to Wanda was totally beyond me; the body should have been immunized against it before anyone was inserted in the first place.
"Megan," I spoke out loud as I was still thinking and the others just turned to face me with confused expressions on their faces.
"What? What are you talking about?"Mel asked, the first of what was sure to be a flood of tears brimming her eyes.
"Megan had anaphylactic reactions to peanuts and tree nuts; she always carried an epi-pen on her. I would bet any money that she's still got it with her," I explained and Doc nodded.
"Then go," he instructed me. "And hurry."
Doc sure didn't have to tell me twice to hurry as I took off like a bullet, careening my way through the caves, leaping over plants and rocks on my way down to the storage cave where Megan and the others were. Brandt was sleeping during his post as guard and I didn't even have the heart to wake him up and tell him what an idiot he was for sleeping on the job, I just leapt over to him and found Megan's sleeping form in the little light from the lantern.
"Megan... wake up. Meg!" I whisper yelled at her while shaking Megan's body to wake her up for good. I wasn't taking any chances when Wanda's life was currently being held in my hands; if I failed at this then I lost her.
"What the hell, O'Shea," she mumbled, swatting at my hands to get me to stop. "Let me sleep."
"No, do you still carry your Epi-Pen?" I asked, visually searching the ground around her to make sure that it wasn't just lying around.
"What the hell do you need it for? Got a sneeze?" she asked, waking up more the more I kept shaking her. "And you can quit it, I'm up."
"Please Megan, I need it if you have one. I need it now!" I pretty much yelled at her, forgetting to be quiet for the sake of the other people sleeping in there.
"Where's the fire?" Matt asked groggily and Megan told him to shut up.
"Please, Wanda's having a reaction and I can't just leave her there and..."
"No," she interrupted me, rolling onto her side away from me, but I moved around so that I could look at her properly.
"Why not? What did she ever do to you?" I asked, wishing that Megan wasn't so damned stubborn; we didn't have much time at all.
"She brought the rain down on Earth and I hate her for that," Megan spit and I wanted to hit her; if she was a boy I probably would have too.
"First of all, Wanda did not 'bring the rain' as you put it. Those souls were here long before she even flew to this planet and Wanda is one of the few who hates what they did to us. She wants to help fix it and make our planet right again and she'll never get the chance to if she doesn't survive! She doesn't have much time, Megan!" I told her, getting angry that she wasn't just giving it up.
"Still, Ian. What would the world be with one less soul; it won't affect me too much," she spat and I clenched my teeth together, grinding my molars down.
"Sure it will. If Wanda dies, then I do too; that's our pact. I love her way to much to try and live on this planet without her. Wanda makes living worthwhile; I love her so much. So if she dies, it will affect you, unless you don't care for me at all, that is," I added for good measure and I could see Megan letting down some of her guard. Just a little more and I'll have her.
"Why do you need it so bad?" she asked, still not relenting.
"Wanda's having an allergic reaction to something that she ate and we don't have anything to counteract it; nothing except your Epi's if you still have them. Seriously, Megan. Wanda brings me so much light to my world of darkness and I don't know what I would do without her. I've already lost her once, and I do not want to lose her again; not when I have the chance to save her," I pleaded as nicely as I could without full out begging, but I would if it came down to it.
"Megan quit being a bitch and give it to him," Matt muttered from his sleeping bag and she rolled her eyes.
"You owe me big time," Megan grumbled, throwing back her blanket and rising to her feet. "And just so you know, I'm doing this for you, Ian not that stupid girl. I could care less whether or not she lives or dies."
"I know. Thank you," I said as nice as possible as I followed her over to her bag and she unzipped the front pouch revealing a whole stash of the medicine.
"Is it all safe?" I asked, taking the one that she'd offered to me.
"Some of it's expired but it should work," she shrugged, yawning. "That one's a Twinrix so there are two doses just in case. And she's not getting any more so use it wisely."
"Thank you!" I called out to her as I raced back up the passageway back where I'd come from, hoping that I wasn't too late already. Megan liked to make things difficult when she wanted to and unfortunately for Wanda this was one of those times; I just needed to make it back there in time.
After a marathon sprint back to the hospital cave, I halted at Wanda's bedside where she was turning a horrifying shade of blue.
"Is she still breathing?" I asked, nearly out of breath myself, taking in her sickly image.
"Barely, did you get the epinephrine?" Doc asked and I nodded, already taking the injector out of the case and handing it to him. "Don't you think that I should administer it?"
"No," I replied, taking caps one and two off and looking up at him. "I need to do it."
Doc backed off then and Mel let go of Wanda's hand as I came close to her side, holding the injector in my fist and jabbing the needle into her thigh. I hated hurting Wanda with needles, but if it saved her life it was more than worth it. Nobody in the room spoke for a couple seconds, hoping that she'd make a miraculous recovery.
"How do I know if it was administered?" I asked, still trying to catch my breath, not taking my eyes off of Wanda for one second.
"Just wait ten seconds and then take it off; if the needle is out then it's done. If not, you can try again and press down harder," Doc instructed me and I nodded. Mel and Jared were still silent and seemed to be rooted to the spot.
I counted as slowly as I could, the adrenaline in my body making my heart beat faster and I needed to calm down. A part of me wished that I could somehow transfer some of my adrenaline to Wanda to help her more, but it was pretty much impossible. There was no sense losing my head over this until I absolutely needed to; praying that that time never came. After ten long seconds, I lifted the injector up and saw that the needle was out of the casing and I breathed a sigh of relief, but Wanda was still just lying there.
"Give it a second. Try rubbing the spot where the needle went in," Doc suggested as we all had our eyes glue to Wanda's chest. It was moving up and down, but not at a regular pattern like it should, making me very nervous. I started rubbing her leg in circles, praying that it worked.
"Is there something that needs to be done after this is given?" I asked Doc and he immediately got to work setting things up around me. I barely noticed as he stuck an oxygen mask over her face and began setting up an IV, let alone wonder where he had all this stuff hidden because Wanda's eyes were fluttering behind her eyelids.
"Wanda, honey can you hear me?" I asked, taking her hand with the one that didn't have the injector in it, not wanting to stab her any more than necessary.
Her eyes opened a crack and I noticed that she took a big breath of air, seeming to gulp it all in at once.
"Slow down there, Wanda. Too much air will just make you lightheaded," Doc advised her and Wanda nodded.
So many questions went through my mind but I didn't want to swarm Wanda with all of them, smothering her again. Wanda must have sense this, for she offered me a small smile and squeezed my hand, but I knew that her strength was zapped out of her; she looked weak just lying there on the bed.
"Wanda, I'm going to get you to sit upright, it will help to open your airways and you'll be able to breathe more," Doc said and Wanda nodded, gripping onto my hand to pull herself upright. Doc lifted the bed up at the same time and she leaned back, resting her head on the back of it.
"Your colour is coming back. I was so worried!" Mel cried out as she rushed forward to hug the smaller girl, but Wanda never let go of my hand.
"Mm okay," Wanda croaked and then coughed for a second. "Promise."
"Ian, make sure that you keep that needle handy; usually after the very first reaction another one will follow a little while later," Doc said and I nodded, keeping a firm grip on the cylinder.
Wanda shook her head and indicated with her hand that she wanted to write something down. Jared found a scrap piece of paper and a pen and Wanda set right to work.
"Pet's body has had one before," Melanie read out and Doc nodded, still fiddling with things around Wanda, coming to stand in front of her with another needle for her IV.
I moved aside so that he could inject it but still held onto Wanda's hand; I knew how she felt about needles and she closed her eyes so that she wouldn't have to watch it go in her skin.
"Wanda, when was the last time that the body had a reaction?" Doc asked and Wanda began scribbling again.
"When she was a small child. Before the souls came," Mel read out. "The body hasn't had one since then."
"Do you know what caused it?" Doc asked and Wanda nodded, removing the oxygen mask from her mouth, but keeping it on her nose before I could protest, shooting me a look to keep quiet about it.
"The strawberries," Wands whispered and I immediately felt guilty.
"I'm sorry," I said, and had four sets of eyes snap to my face immediately, but I could only look into Wanda's silver ones.
"It's not your fault," Wanda said at the same time that Mel said "What are you sorry for?"
"We were in the fields and I made her try a strawberry since she claimed to have never tasted one before," I explained, my gut clenching knowing that I had caused all of this. Wanda nearly died because of my stupidity.
"It's not your fault," Wanda said in a low voice but I shook my head, disgusted. "No, listen to me. I didn't know that this would happen either or I wouldn't have let you do it."
"But you just wrote down that the body has had a reaction before..." I protested and Mel just glared at me.
"It took me awhile to even think of what was happening to me; Pet's body was barely three years old when the first reaction happened. That was a long time ago and it's not like she reflected on it every single day to make the memories fresh. All she knew was that she'd never had a strawberry before but didn't know why that was. If I had known, I wouldn't have bitten it," Wanda said, trying to take the blame on herself, but it was my entire fault and nothing was changing my mind about that.
"Doesn't your throat hurt?" I asked her, trying to make Wanda see that she needed to rest after an ordeal like that.
"It's a little tight, but nothing too horrible. And I promise that I'll let you know if I start feeling bad again," she told me and I nodded.
"You'd better," I told her, looking right into her eyes and trying to make her see just how scared I was that I'd lost her. It must have worked, for she bowed her head down a little bit and back up, keeping her eyes on me the whole entire time.
"Okay, well since you seem to be doing better we're going to head back to bed. Come and get me if anything changes, and I'm serious about it. Even if I'm sleeping, you have my permission to bang down the door and wake me up," Mel said and Jared nodded.
"Ditto," was all he managed to say before yawning, taking Melanie's hand and pretty much dragging her from the small room.
"I'm staying," I told Doc and he shrugged.
"I figured as much," he replied. "You can let go of the Twinject too, Ian. Just put it to the side or something; you're making me nervous that you're going to poke you finger with it or something and I don't have anything to deal with a gangrene finger."
The thought of that happening to my finger was incentive enough to put the device down, making sure that it was far enough away that it wasn't going to roll off and onto the floor for someone to step on either. That would be nasty business to get a dose of that without actually needing any adrenaline.
"Care to tell me what the hell that was about?" I asked quietly once Doc was busying himself with something in the far corner of the small cave.
"Well my body obviously had a reaction to the strawberries and..."
"No, I meant why you felt the need to sneak off alone to pretty much die instead of waking me up and asking for help," I was more specific that time and Wanda bowed her head away from me, this time not looking up at me at all.
"I just thought that we would have something down here for me to take care of the issue," she started to explain and I almost didn't want her to finish.
"I didn't want to wake you and make you worry about anything when I could easily take something and make it back to bed before you'd even rolled over. I finally knew what was happening to me once I was like halfway down here so it was just a matter of finding the medication, that was all," she said sadly.
"Do you think it would have been better if you had just come down here alone and died because neither Mel nor Jared had come down here in the middle of the night? Nobody is usually up and about at this time of night; everyone's sleeping!" my voice was rising and I needed to get myself in check; I hated yelling at Wanda and I'd probably end up taking it out on Kyle's nose later for something to do.
"Don't be mad at me, Ian. I didn't think that far ahead, I was only thinking about fixing my problem and getting back to you. I wasn't planning on dying down here," Wanda added gently.
"I'm furious with you because you scared the hell out of me, Wanda," I told her, using a swear word with her and she only recoiled a little bit. "If Mel and Jared hadn't found you then you would have left me. Again. Last time you left me in the middle of the night like that we had to find you another body. You owe your life to them; and Megan," I told her and saw her little brow furrow at the last name that I mentioned.
"Why Megan?" she asked quietly and I sighed.
"It was her Twinject that we used; I had to beg her to let me have it too, she was all for letting you die," I explained, trying to make it sound as nice as possible. "She isn't too fond of you yet, guess that means that they won't be coming out of there any time soon."
"Well I'm indebted to her for that; she kept me alive. And you; I love you so much Ian," Wanda said, finally looking at me with some unshed tears in her eyes.
"If you love me so much then why do you keep leaving me? Am I going to have to chain myself to you when we go to sleep to make sure that you don't up and leave again?" I asked, threatening her a little bit. "Because I will if I have to and I'm being totally serious about it."
"No, you won't have to. I promise to wake you up if something ever arises again. It was stupid and selfish of me to try and do this all alone when clearly I needed more help than just Doc could give me," Wanda apologized, squeezing my hand again.
"I love you," I told her slowly, emphasizing each word carefully. "But if you ever do that to me again, I will personally follow you around day in and day out until you get it through your head that you are not leaving me, got it?"
Wanda nodded and I stood up to press a kiss to her forehead before wrapping my arms tightly around her, crushing her small frame to my chest. It was a giant relief to feel her warm, alive body in my arms; her heart beating quickly and blood pumping through those veins properly. I let go of her for just a second once I remembered that she still had the oxygen mask on her nose and noticed that she had regained a considerable amount of colour back in her skin, but her lips were still a tinge bluish.
"Um, Ian?" Wanda asked and I nodded, wrapping my hand around the back of her neck and feeling for her scar before running my fingers over it, watching as she visibly relaxed.
"Yes Wanda," I replied, wanting to hold her close and never let go, but I repressed the urge for the time being.
"Remember how I told you that I'd let you know if I started to feel bad again?" she said and I immediately jumped back, worried that I was restricting her air space or something.
"Yes," I replied warily and watched as Wanda touched her throat.
"It feels tighter again," Wanda said, looking up at me with her doe eyes.
"Doc?" I called out to him and he rushed over, asking her more questions and visually checking her out again.
"I don't think that we'll need to administer the second dose, but Ian you should stay off of her chest if at all possible," Doc advised me and I nodded right away. "I'm going to continue to monitor her for the next couple of hours just to be on the safe side and then I want you to take her back to your room to rest. No grumbling, missy."
Wanda had started to mumble something about being under 'room arrest' if she went back there and I smiled. I would gladly keep her under house arrest if it meant spending more time with Wanda and making sure that she was safe. A part of me was still mad at her for pulling this one over on me, but I was glad that she was okay. I was going to keep that needle close by my side though for the next little while. Just in case.
A/N: I have never had an anaphylactic reaction, nor have I ever been around anyone who has had one. I am trained to administer both the Epi-Pen and Twinject auto injectors since I work with small children who carry them, but all the "facts" for lack of a better term that I wrote of above are taken from the internet and what I've learned in First Aid and Epi-Pen Administration courses. And what my Mom has told me about the one time that she had to take someone to the hospital who was having a reaction and didn't have an Epi-Pen.
Forgive me if I'm wrong. It is after all a work of fiction!