"How do they look?" Anna asked as Dr. Glass poked and prodded at the spikes on her back.
"I'm relieved to say that they seem to be getting smaller."
Anna released the huge breath of air that she had been holding in and smiled.
"And how about the rest of me?"
"Everything seems to be healing perfectly fine. Your progress in physical therapy every morning has been more than outstanding and you seem to be doing everything with no trouble, so whenever you're ready, I think you can have your long-awaited return to the battle field."
Anna cheered to herself as she felt an arm wrap around her shoulder and Anne lean over her, placing herself next to Anna's head.
"Just don't go too crazy, though I'm not sure what your definition of crazy is when it comes to fighting aliens." They both laughed before Anne gave her a small squeeze on each shoulder and exited the bus.
Anna slid off the bed and onto her feet to retrieve her shirt. She picked it up off the counter, sticking her head through the neck and shoving her arms through the sleeves. Simple enough. It wasn't until she pulled on the hem of the shirt when she had a bit of trouble as it got caught on one of her spikes. No matter how hard she pulled, it wouldn't budge. Letting out a frustrated groan, she reached to the back of her neck to try and fix the problem that was making her blood boil, but instead she felt a hand swat hers away.
"Having a bit of trouble there?" Anna heard the amusement in Ben's voice from behind her as he unhooked the clothing from her rugged spikes.
"Just a bit." She blushed and laughed awkwardly, not just because he had walked in on the little fight she had just had with herself, but also because nothing was covering her upper body except for a worn out sports bra. He handled it maturely, though- not like how a 17-year-old boy would react on a normal day. He pulled down on the hem of her shirt so that it loosely hung around her hips the way it was supposed to.
"You get used to it, I promise."
"Well, I don't know if I'm going to have to. Anne says that they're starting to go away finally."
"You're no longer going to be a weird razor back like me!" He joked, causing Anna to give him a playful punch on the shoulder. He help up his hands in surrender. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. That's great news! Congratulations!"
"Thanks, Ben." She smiled up at him.
"So how are you holding up otherwise? I mean, with the whole Austin thing." Ben questioned her as he walked over to the nearest stretcher and sat on it, encouraging Anna to follow, which she did.
"I can't even fathom it. It all feels like a memory from a horrible nightmare, and then I remember that it actually happened."
"I can only imagine. I guess he had just completely snapped. It's happened to a couple of people in the 2nd Mass. in the past, though it was really early in the war when our whole situation felt vulnerable all the time."
"Yeah, I guess. It's just a shame, he was a good guy. But I guess change is like a domino effect. One change leads to another change and so on…" Anna sighed, her posture slumping a bit as she stared at the floor in front of them.
"So how'd you know where to find me? When you saved me, I mean. How did you know I was there?"
"Well, uh, I kinda followed you." Ben's cheeks flushed a bit. "I was coming back from target practice when I saw you disappear into the forest. I went after you to make sure you were okay, and thank God I did that because you obviously weren't."
That really hit Anna hard in the gut. She could feel her stomach drop down 10 floors inside of her like a crashing elevator . If Ben didn't bother to keep an eye on her, she would be dead. Tom, Weaver, and probably Ben himself would've followed the sound of the gunshot to see my limp body soaking in a puddle of my own blood. A chill crept through my whole body, from the top of my head to the end of each toe. Talk about a life or death decision.
Ben continued, "And plus, I wasn't going to leave my partner adventuring off by herself."
"What happened to sweet little Jessie? I thought she was your partner now." Anna mocked, but Ben shook his head.
"Nope, she left last night. She knew that you were getting better and were most likely going to return to fighting soon, so she only found it fitting that she return your original partner to you. She said that she had served her purpose to the 2nd Mass. and wanted to try and ride out the rest of the war in the comfort of her own home. So we gave her one of our beaten down bikes that would last the journey and off she went. But Anna, do I sense a bit of jealousy in your voice?" Ben smirked.
"You mean the same jealousy you had over Austin?" Anna shot back at him with the same teasing tone. Ben squinted his eyes at her, but the smirk was still just barely there.
"Touché." He said before completely changing the subject. A subject that Anna didn't expect but she knew she should've. "So what was it like being able to act for yourself while you were harnessed?"
"Liberating, to say the least. You know what it's like on those ships. You're forced to do all these things that you don't want to do, but nothing can be done about it. All you can do is process everything, but that doesn't do shit to help you out."
"It was horrible." Ben said, thinking back to the months he wished he never had to experience.
"Horrible is another understatement. You see, we just can't seem to find the right words to describe what they do to us. It's that extreme. And deep inside of me, I could feel these intense emotions building up, so deep that I didn't feel them yet. Instead, I had all of these thoughts in my mind that went along with an emotion because the harness didn't allow me to feel the emotions themselves. Memories of attacks against us. Memories of all those people we've lost- my parents, my sister, my friends, people I fought alongside with. I even thought about you. About all the kids here who had been harnessed and how miserable it can make you guys feel. It really hit me that all of this, this pain, was caused by this species who lived off of the destruction of other planets. And I guess all of that emotion in me, a burning hatred for the aliens and a strong, infinite love for the people I knew, was a factor that the aliens missed. It was much more powerful than any harness could ever be on me, and so I won, bringing about the first window of freedom. After that, the windows came by themselves, growing longer and longer each time. I wonder if this was happening because I was slowly just destroying the harness. That would be a great thought, wouldn't it?" Anna lets out a small chuckle, and Ben looks at her.
"Were you scared? Before you crashed the ship, were you scared?"
Anna, after looking at the floor in front of her this whole time, finally looked Ben straight in the eyes, switching between each one every once in a while.
"We live in a life where we fear most of the choices we have to make and just life in general. Hell, you saw me when you found us. I was frightened, and I still was scared in the beginning when I was in the comfort of the 2nd Mass. The first time I got that window, I was terrified. I was in an unfamiliar torture chamber all alone, surrounded by my enemies. But then I remembered something my uncle had told me. He was a military general, but an explosion caused him to lose both of his legs, binding him to a wheelchair. Being a young kid, I asked him if he was scared before the bomb went off. He told me something that at the time I didn't understand, and still probably wouldn't understand if the world wasn't the way it is now. He said that fear is a choice, and that even though the world is dangerous, fear doesn't have to coexist with danger if you don't want it to. So I stopped letting fear control me and I did what I had to. Crashing that ship was my only way out of causing more destruction to you guys, and if dying was what it took, I was more than willing to make the sacrifice."
Ben saw that glint in her eye. The one he would always see in her best moments. The one he admired so much. It was strength, and not just some of it. It was every bit of strength a single person could possess within him or herself. Not many people were strong like that, though nearly all wish they were. But no matter how strong she was, everyone has their insecurities that makes them human, and that glint went away for the time being. It most definitely wasn't going to be the last sign of it.
"I was supposed to be like Karen. Like I said, I wasn't just another harnessed kid to them. They knew how valuable I was to the 2nd Mass and I was going to be permanently turned into some human-alien hybrid, just like her." Anna shuddered at the thought.
"Well, you would've fought through it, just like you did with the harness."
She only sighed at this. "I wish, but I think I would've been hopeless. I'm only human."
"I disagree. Yes, you're only human, but you're not just another human. You're much more special than that. You're the strongest girl I've ever seen in my life, even more than Maggie. Maggie may have lived through her battle with cancer, but in the end it was only because of a miracle from God. You made your own miracle, you saved yourself! No one could do the things you do." Before Ben could even think about stopping himself, he slowly leaned in closer to Anna's face. They were just inches apart. "You're not just special, you're amazing."
Anna now had tears welling in her eyes from all of the emotion. Their faces were now so close that they could feel each other's breaths coming from their mouths, though Ben was sure he had been holding his in. Any small movement from either of them would close the small gap between their lips.
But they were both startled and jumped away from each other instantly as Tom marched on the bus casually. Well, casually until he realized he had walked in on an intimate moment between his son and his friend. He backed away bit, turning his head for a second and scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Wow, okay, I already had to deal with this with Hal and Karen a while ago. What is it, an end of the world thing or something?"
When Tom realized his attempt to ease the awkwardness had failed, he grabbed the box of band-aids he had originally come in to retrieve, and began walking towards the door at the front of the bus. But not without turning and giving the two of them a small look. A look that read, 'I shouldn't be so happy that I walked in on something like that'.
Anna and Ben turned to look at each before bursting out into a fit of laughter and following Tom's lead off the bus and into what had become a beautiful day.