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There's a girl at the end of the world.
She doesn’t want to die, but she doesn’t want to be erased either. An unwilling vessel for a creature who only knows how to warp everything that it means to be human and steal. Steal, and steal, and steal from a world that never belonged to them.
She won’t lose everything. She refuses.
The choice is made before she even takes the first step.
/
There’s a girl at the end of the world, and she realizes she doesn’t mind dying for the people she loves.
/
Maybe she never liked the stars.
The concept of them, burning, bright, never-ending, bringing terror to an infant Melanie Stryder. While others turned to telescopes and astronomy books, a child firmly planted her feet on the ground and promised to keep them there.
Maybe they were a wonder she had no desire to dream about, and she turned her nose when others gushed about their dreams of being astronauts and explorers.
If there was anything worth loving in the stars, in what existed beyond them, maybe Melanie did not see it.
And maybe that is a lie.
In any case, she doesn't like them now. She doubts she'll ever like them again.
/
There’s no stars when she looks up from her fall, as every imaginable pain shoots up through her broken body.
Only eternal darkness, greeting her like an old friend.
/
She screams.
She doesn’t scream. The thing that has become her screams. It reverberates through an empty room, piercing the silence.
Melanie doesn’t blame it. She wants to scream too.
/
She is no longer in control. She’s not gone either.
The poor, stupid thing reacts like a deer in headlights. It is not alone, and the knowledge is enough to make the thing angry and uncomfortable with the situation it finds itself in.
The petty, vicious part of Melanie smiles.
/
A half dead version of herself thinks of her family for the last time, and it passes again through a stolen mind. It takes this knowledge, a leech starving for presence and for an identity in this stolen world.
The anger festers inside of Melanie, pushing her to stay alert. Giving up seems so easy in the face of despair but this thing has already taken so much. She will not let it take more.
Mine, Melanie hisses. Somehow, she manages to burn the memory from her mind until it’s nothing more than a cloud of smoke. Gone from her thoughts, gone from her mind, gone from the searching grasp of the parasite.
Mine, the leech inside of her rebukes. Barely there for a few moments, but already it knows it’s in control. Everything is mine.
If Melanie could scream, could make her stolen ears bleed with her unbridled anger and rancor, she should.
She’d claw her own fucking ears out if it meant that thing couldn’t use her body.
/
They never imagined the end could be like this. Lingering behind, still aware of yourself. It was never even a possibility.
When her dad came back all those years ago, something else wearing his body, there hadn’t been anything in his eyes to suggest a part of him had remained. No, nothing had. Melanie knows that what happened to her and her father is not the same.
He was gone so entirely that his parasite had led his body to his kids.
Melanie is different. Stubborn, maybe. She takes vicious pleasure in that, and anything else that makes the parasite inside of her uncomfortable.
/
His name is Jamie Stryder, it sends the Seeker, months later.
Melanie’s heart aches to be back with him, her arms wrapped around him, cradling his frame to her chest and promising that everything is okay, that she’s back like she’d promised.
It had taken all of her strength to peel herself away from him when that final goodbye had come. But leaving him with Jared had been the right call, and they’d all known it. Sharon knew her, she trusted her. And she knew, though she’d never voiced it out loud, that she was the expendable option.
Were something to happen to her, he and Jamie would be fine. They’d mourn, of course, but Jared would protect their little brother with his life. They’d make it.
If she’s being honest, she’d never imagined she wouldn’t be coming back.
She should have hugged Jamie tighter. Now she’ll never be able to hold him again.
The parasite finishes her email, devoid of compassion for Melanie’s grief. And she knows she feels it. All of the anger and pain that resonates in Melanie’s body is loud. Melanie never felt anything in fractions.
It doesn’t blink before laying bare the very thing that Melanie tried to give her life to protect. The obedient little lapdog to an overeager Seeker, squeezing out anything it can steal from Melanie to destroy what she loves.
Melanie isn’t surprised.
I hate you, she tells the leech.
/
Her parasite is a teacher.
It speaks of space and the other planets they’ve stolen with knowledge and respect. It knows more about Souls than Melanie has ever been interested to learn, and it doesn’t. Shut. Up.
Melanie wants to laugh, she wants to cry. It’s just her luck, being stuck with the most boring leech on the planet.
At least she’s not a fucking astronomer.
/
Their talks are arguments. Melanie envisions her body a playground, two minds bickering like children about everything under the moon.
It's just as well. If she can't have her body back, pissing off the parasite works just fine.
/
The Seeker comes all the way down to see the parasite in its new home.
It’s desperate for answers that Melanie is unwilling to give, and it’s insufferable in its determination. That isn’t to say it isn’t insufferable in everything else it does too.
Melanie learns easy enough that she’s not the only one who dislikes this Seeker. They’re all supposedly peace-loving freaks, but the Seeker seems to crave violence and Melanie suspects she isn’t far off in her belief that she can convince her live-in to take a stab at murder if she paints it just the right way.
Melanie doesn’t think it would be too harsh of a loss for the Souls. Certainly not for this one.
Still, the Seeker hovers, impatient and nosy. It breaches every privacy afforded to her parasite. It continues until anger is the only emotion running through shared veins.
It warns that Melanie will take over, will become the dominant presence in their body, but Melanie is too busy planning the easiest way to make the Seeker disappear to even contemplate the possibility.
When her leech comes to the realization that leaving this body might be for the best, Melanie isn’t sure why she’s disappointed.
/
The curves that reach out over the skies on their long drive are hard to ignore.
Hope sparks in Melanie. She shows her parasite the things she did not want it to know, praying to an empty sky that when it says it cares for Jamie and Jared too, it means it.
She can get back to them. It doesn’t have to be goodbye.
/
She voices the Soul’s name for the first time as they argue with each other over water bottles. It sounds strange, even then. Wanderer. Not a typical human name, but then, what is human about the planet anymore?
Wanderer notices as well, though she doesn’t comment on it.
It’s not a big deal, if they’re going to be off the grid together.
She’ll call her a fucking angel if it means she gets her back to her family.
/
Impatience and anticipation build up in Melanie as they cross the desert.
There’s nowhere for them to go but forward. It doesn’t matter if they don’t make it, Melanie decides early on. As long as Jamie and Jared are safe, as long as no one finds them out here. Even this death would be a victory compared to the alternative of going back after everything she’s told Wanderer.
Wanderer doesn’t feel the urgency Melanie does, but she hopes too. She promises not to hurt them, and Melanie knows she’s being honest this time. The love is real. They’ll do this together or they’ll both die trying.
Have faith, Wanderer, she tells the doubtful Soul. She has to believe they’ll make it.
/
They lie on the dry, sandy ground with an empty stomach and parched throat.
Dying doesn’t seem too bad when it’s this easy, this silent. They take to the idea with serenity and understanding, like it’s the next logical step in their journey.
For the first time, Melanie is truly grateful for Wanderer.
I think you’ve found your home, she says, and she means it.
She doesn’t think a life with this Soul would have been half bad.
/
Of course they don’t die.
Of course Uncle Jeb is out there.
Of course they make it.
/
Her heart soars at the knowledge of others, so many others, and she knows they’ll be fine.
Uncle Jeb wouldn’t let anyone hurt them, he cares about Melanie, and she’s still there.
He’ll know what to do—
/
Jared is here, she thinks.
Wanderer’s body aches from the blow of a man her thoughts have only ever told her are family and Melanie knows she’ll feel it too, later, and the anger, but in the moment all she can feel is relief. If he’s here, Jamie is too.
They’re safe. They made it.
Wanderer tells her to shut up, but Melanie’s joy is loud and alive.
/
The hole in the cave is cramped, quiet. Jared stands outside of it and Melanie’s heart aches to be outside, to lay her own eyes on Jamie and assure him that she’s here, she’s back as promised.
Wanderer’s numbness extends to Melanie, a combination of emotions tamped down by one thing: the chances of them getting out of this alive don’t look so good. To everyone here, Wanderer is nothing more than a parasite and Melanie doesn’t exist to them.
Melanie wants them to know, she wants them to know. She realizes it’s a bad idea, but the selfish part of her doesn’t care. She needs to be with them, in whatever way she can.
I’m not ready to die, Wanderer says and Melanie pushes down her own feelings to understand that it’s not just her life anymore. She doesn’t like the Soul, not exactly, but she’s done so much for her already.
She doesn’t want Wanderer to die because of her.
/
The less violent of the brothers — is that description apt? Both of them had tried to kill them — comes to Jared.
He shows more compassion towards Wanderer than Jared has in one sentence, stops Jared from hitting them again by taking the blow himself. He speaks of remorse for what he tried to do.
It’s a stark contrast to his previous attitude, but Melanie doesn’t trust easily. She’d still gouge his eyes out if she had control, wouldn’t hesitate, for the bruises he’s left around Wanderer’s throat when all she wanted was to protect Jared.
He comes with news of the Seeker, and Melanie rages at the woman’s inability to keep out of things that do not concern her.
She hopes the humans kill her if they get the chance.
/
The loss of Jared’s presence hits them both like a truck.
They don’t doubt they’ll die without him there to keep them safe. It’s the most natural course, when he’s the one who tried to keep them alive in the first place.
But Uncle Jeb says it’s going to be okay. The worst part’s over.
Melanie, for all of the crazy stories she’s heard about him in the past, believes him. He’s a crazy old man, but he tried to protect her before it all began, tried to guide her here. Now, she knows he’ll protect Wanderer.
She has to believe that.
/
She drinks up knowledge of the caves like it’s her last lifeline. Wanderer worries about the humans, about the men following, but Melanie has enough trust in Uncle Jeb and his gun that she tries to get Wanda to listen intently.
It doesn’t work. The fear is ever present, lingering in every twitch and doubt of their body.
Melanie wishes she could comfort Wanderer, but even she can’t be sure about what is and isn’t true.
/
Uncle Jeb, Jamie, and Wanda sit together in a room and they talk about things Melanie must have heard a thousand times in the Soul’s history class.
It sounds different to her this time, more sincere when it’s a handful of people rather than a large room of students. It’s easier to imagine the things that Wanda describes when they share the same mind, but there’s still a part of Melanie that doesn’t know how she feels about obtaining this knowledge.
She doesn’t care about the facts, not really. Talk of the other creatures bores her. But Wanda’s words are soothing, and though it is Melanie’s voice tells the stories, there is an intellect and a softness to them — something that isn’t Melanie at all — that warms something in her as she listens.
Her attention is so entirely on the conversation and the concepts presented to her that the realization that Jamie is holding Wanda’s hand, softly and familiarly, entirely escapes her until the conversation turns to mostly just the two of them.
She knows it’s irrational to be mad, but it is not easy to forget that it should be her holding Jamie’s hand.
Wanda wonders about the emotion she has not yet experienced and Melanie tamps down on it enough to be civil. Jealousy.
She should not have to be a passenger in her own body, but it isn’t Wanda’s fault either. She understands that.
/
They tell Jamie the truth, and for once Melanie lets herself hope again. Maybe things can be okay, maybe they will be okay.
She’d cry in relief if she could, at finally being able to speak her mind through Wanda’s own words, not having to be tamped down and ignored for their safety. Of course Jamie would be her lifeline. The love they shared, the bond would never falter.
He asks the poor Soul if Melanie hates her and Wanda doesn’t know, but there’s no doubt about it. No. Not anymore. She doesn’t think she has since the other was so willing to chase down half-empty leads in the middle of the desert, maybe even before that.
They’re in this together, in life and death now.
/
The crazy old man knows what he’s doing. Melanie has to give it to him. She didn’t expect they’d be alive this long.
Days turn to one week, and one to another. The people of the caves seem to forget that Wanda isn’t one of them, and if they don’t forget then they learn to deal with it.
Jeb leaves them, sometimes. Puts one of the others with them, puts Wanda to work. Melanie isn’t scared of getting killed, and even Wanda’s paranoia wanes as the days go by.
She can’t trust Ian, not in the way Wanda seems to forget about the bruises on her neck at the kindness he extends. There is something in him that she isn’t sure she or Wanda are ready to understand.
/
Jamie asks Wanda if she ever hated Melanie and Wanda says no. There was only ever fear and confusion, and anger at not understanding what she could not control.
Melanie wants to laugh along with Jamie, but she also feels the heavy weight of guilt that rests in her heart as she thinks about the time spent together before the caves. She had not been fair to Wanda, had made her life miserable in all of the ways that she could, just for a little control.
It is hard to imagine that she had ever felt anything but gratitude towards her companion.
/
Uncle Jeb wants Wanda to teach them about the Souls, and she refuses.
He gets his way anyways.
Melanie listens with calm fascination just like before, letting Wanda’s interesting experiences with the other words lull her, letting her relax into the stories with ease. The other humans listen too, more curious than they’d like to admit.
It’s a step forward.
/
Jared is a step back.
/
She’d like to have control of her hands again, of her mouth, just to be able to give him a piece of her mind.
A possessive streak burns deep in her gut as he sneers at Wanda, at Wanda, as he gazes at her as if she’s nothing more than a piece of day old trash. He stands side to side with Kyle as he makes up his mind to kill them once and for all, as he asks for the gun, and Melanie balks as she thinks about the kind man who she once knew that had promised to keep their little family safe.
They were friends, weren’t they? With a bond deeper than blood.
It’s blood that saves them, though. As Jamie pleads with Jared to spare her life, as Jeb decides that there’s no death unless both he and Jamie are in agreement.
Her saving grace. Her Jamie.
/
Wanda tries to be strong but Melanie can feel her shattering right beside her, their thoughts wrapped together so tightly it’s hard to distinguish in that moment.
They know now that whatever happens to both of them, it will hurt Jamie to lose them.
Melanie can’t entirely wrap her head around it when Wanda decides to split away from those that could protect her, wandering the halls of still not entirely familiar caves by herself. In the dark, guided by touch alone, Melanie can only watch as Wanda takes herself back to the place where they’d held her prisoner not too long ago.
They stand alone among the food storage and they discuss their options.
For one decisive moment, they know what they have to do.
/
Jamie comes. Jared comes.
If she had her mouth, Melanie’s throat would be raw from screaming at them.
They’re family. They don’t have to fight. They shouldn’t fight.
They’re family.
/
It’s hard to keep track of everything. There’s anger and grief in an enclosed space with too many people and all Wanda can really think about is the hurt she causes being there, the presence that is not wanted.
Melanie can see there is something going on in the grim faces of the other residents, in their hatred when they see Wanda, but it is the last thing on her mind.
/
Ian and Wanda sit together on a field, alone.
Melanie hates how comfortable he is around Wanda, she hates the casual way he looks at her and smiles as if he’s in on some private joke. His softness and openness is a relief compared to the cold shoulders of everyone else in the caves, but it isn’t innocent. Melanie isn’t stupid enough to believe it could be.
But Wanda is safe, for now, and Ian believes her when she says Melanie is still there, so she takes it in silence and lets them be.
/
Jared’s lips on hers are an unwelcome addition to an already batshit insane day.
Wanda doesn’t know how to react, but Melanie does.
She swings, all of the force backed by anger and horror. Jared reels back, not far enough, and Melanie tries to go at it again but Wanda is back in the reins, keeping her controlled as she struggles with the guilt of letting herself be an extension of violence.
I’m going to kill him, she swears to Wanda. She tries to claw her way back to the surface but Wanda is the only thing there now. If he puts his hands on us again, I’m going to tear his throat out.
It does nothing to calm Wanda’s frantic, terrified thoughts as she struggles to grasp what’s happened. Melanie cannot argue with her before the Soul is throwing their body back into that cramped hole, uncaring of how much space is available for them.
There’s nothing but mortification in the poor thing’s thoughts, and Melanie cannot do anything to comfort her. Too wrapped up in her own seething rage, she doesn’t notice Wanda’s crying until the sobs come.
I’m sorry, Wanda. She wouldn’t have hit him if she’d known this was the reaction she’d get, though she suspects it doesn’t all have to do with the punch.
“Mel?” Jared’s voice calls out, and her anger flares again, even as he continues to speak over Wanda’s cries. “You know I didn’t mean anything by it, Mel. I just— I needed to know. I needed to know if you were there.”
Her desire to scream at him is overpowered by her attention on Wanderer, and she ignores anything else he says in favor of comforting the other. I shouldn’t have punched him. I didn’t think he’d do that, and I’m sorry. But I promise that it’s going to be okay.
I don’t want that, Wanda all but whimpers at Melanie. Her sobs soften, though they’re still loud to both of them. None of that should have happened.
It won’t happen again, Melanie promises. He’s just a moron. He knew it would piss me off, if anything would. If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll back off.
If he knows what’s good for him. Wanda doesn’t sound so sure.
Melanie can’t make assurances herself, but all she can do is look at the positive when Wanda can’t. At least he believes us now?
Maybe, Wanda agrees, and then falls back into silence.
/
Wanda’s grief over Walter brings Melanie back to the forefront.
They walk together to the south wing, hand in hand with Ian and Jamie. Melanie says nothing of the position they find themselves in, though she knows Wanda notices her attention.
Both hardly speak to each other, tough words are not needed often with one another. One of the perks of being in each other’s heads. Melanie doesn’t want to interrupt, understanding how much the soft man who’d defended the Soul meant to her.
When the poor, dying Walt confuses Wanda for his wife, she keeps her thoughts to herself.
She owes Wanda this moment on her own, and so many more.
/
Melanie has never been a comforting person. She wouldn’t even know where to start.
Wanda’s pain is real and heavy as she clings to Walter, understanding that there is not much time left for him. She understands the act of mercy in ending his pain, though the loving part of her wishes to hold on for as long as possible.
She cannot give another apology, though she forces her thoughts to be as soothing as possible. There is nothing else she can do.
/
The list of people Melanie thinks she’d kill if she had her body back to herself only seems to grow.
It’s a short list, consisting entirely of one Seeker and one human man, but it’s enough.
The fucker hunts Wanda like an animal around the bathing room, unstoppable despite all of Melanie’s attempts to guide Wanda to survival.
She tries to take control of her body again, pleads with herself, with her strength, like she’d done with Jared and a handful of instances before, but in the moment of desperation she finds there is nothing for her to grab on to. It is all Wanda, and nobody else can help.
Her instructions are not thorough, she cannot save herself and her Soul with words alone. Wanda screams and she tries to claw her way out, but Kyle is an unstoppable force with a deadly advantage.
Melanie’s own desperate pleas for Wanda to fight back are drowned out by the struggle, by the water rushing into her throat already hoarse from screaming.
You just have to last long enough for someone to come, she promises.
She knows the end has come when Kyle tries to throw them into the sinkhole, and her only comfort will be that Wanda fought as hard as she could to keep it from happening.
The floor falling underneath them is a blessing in disguise.
/
She knows it is too much to ask of Wanda to let Kyle fall.
She thinks, bitterly, that Wanda wouldn’t be the Soul she knows and loves if she didn’t try to save everyone.
Goddamn Souls.
/
She feels dark enjoyment at knowing Ian takes her side over his murderous brother, like a silent 'I told you so' she won't voice now.
Wanda is safe. They aren't dead.
That's all she cares about.
/
The sadness lingers in Wanda’s chest like a weight after Walter passes, and Melanie does not have the strength inside of her to find comforting words for the caring, loving person who she has come to view as a friend.
It is bittersweet to know that at least Ian is there, helping when she can’t.
/
I think Ian likes you too much, she tells Wanda the day after the funeral.
Too much? Of course Wanda doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have the time and experience around human beings that Melanie does. To her, kindness is instinctual, not the result of wanting something from another.
/
Wanda offers to share her newfound room — Ian’s room — with the man and Melanie wants to scream.
/
“I like you very much, Wanda.” Ian smiles like a fire just sparking to life. Not burning, but warm. Happy.
Happy with Wanda.
Melanie doesn’t like him touching her body. She doesn’t like him touching Wanda’s body. It’s not an invasion, but a threat. The threat that Wanda will feel about him the way Ian feels about her, that she’ll find herself growing comfortable, intimate, with this man who Melanie does not like at all.
If he touches us again, I’m scratching his face off for the both of us, Melanie warns.
He's not hurting us, Wanda says, naively.
His hands don't belong on you.
/
"Good or bad?" Ian asks against Wanda's lips.
The rage coils in Melanie, tight and uncontrollable as she pushes to come to the surface in a desperate attempt at reacting.
To break his face in two, to rip his hands off so they never touch Wanda again.
Melanie doesn't know what she wants, but Wanda knows even less. Her body reacts to Ian in a way Melanie knows it's never reacted before and she can't keep herself from kissing back, from being a part of the moment.
I'm still right here! Her thoughts are a screech in Wanda's consciousness, ending the moment definitively.
I'm sorry, Wanda says. She sounds… not as sorry as she should.
Melanie rages.
/
She never imagined.
The bodies, the Souls. Where were they buried? Next to Walter?
Wanda screams. She'd almost forgotten the sound.
/
GET OUT OF MY HEAD, Wanda shrieks.
Melanie tries to cling but the darkness is there, reaching, and Wanda is pushing her into a corner she can't escape. She can't hold on, she can't—
/
Come back, Wanda begs.
Ian is there, and his lips are on Wanda, his hands around her waist, pulling her closer and they kiss, and Wanda pleads in silence.
Please, please don't leave. I can't lose you.
Wanda? Melanie asks. The haze lifts, slightly. She feels hands on her body that don't belong, and all at once her emotions turn to anger.
Her head pulls back, away from Ian. She brings it flying back, straight into his perfect face, aiming for his nose.
Ian falls back, stunned. The headbutt misses his nose, but Melanie is just glad his hands are gone from Wanda’s body.
I leave for one second and you've got his tongue down your throat, huh?
Wanda's apologies are endless, but she tells Melanie about Jamie. The anger turns to worry, to fear.
/
There is never a moment of doubt.
Not about Wanda.
/
Jamie’s eyes open, his cut disappears and the fever goes with it.
Melanie understands, for the first time, that she is irrelevant in this place. Her life means nothing, because Wanda can do things she never could. She’d go above and beyond, and she… she’s better. Better at being a person.
Better at protecting the people they love.
/
The Seeker kills Wes, and all Melanie knows is the guilt Wanda feels.
She’s no more responsible than Melanie is, neither of them ever wished anything bad to happen to the guy, but it’s hard to say that to someone who spends her whole life putting everyone else above herself.
Things are simple for Melanie, in a way they never will be for Wanda. They’ll let the Seeker die — at the hands of Jeb, Aaron, Brandt; it doesn’t matter. They put a bullet through her like she put one through Wes, and they call it a day. They mourn, they move on.
But when has anything been that easy for them?
/
Not for her, Melanie pleads with an anger and an agony she does not remember possessing before a Soul became half of her.
A knowledge she’d been denied unfolds from the deepest corners of Wanda’s mind, bearing itself entirely in its willingness to be the drop that tips the scales. It could be everything for the humans. It could be everything for survival.
And she doesn’t want it.
She doesn’t want any of it.
/
What Melanie wants to say is: Not for anyone. Not for her, and not for me, and not for a single person who could find the strength to take you from me .
/
Her grief is a thunderstorm, and all Melanie can do is cry in a place that no one can hear.
It’s not enough to lose Wanda, but to have her end be so definite that Melanie will have to live knowing she is buried only a few meters away? She cannot ask Wanda to leave, and she cannot force Wanda to stay.
/
Ian's anguish is not enough to change her mind, though Melanie gives them all of the privacy in the world to consider the possibility of a happy ending together.
For once in the little time they've known each other, Melanie knows what is running through Ian's mind. The same thoughts run through hers.
At the tribunal, she fights with Wanda. For one, hopeless second, she imagines having the strength to come forward again, to tell them all that her life is nothing if Wanda isn't there too.
It doesn't matter. Wanda would never listen.
/
Wanda walks through the corridors of an empty cave. Her body shakes with the pain of unspoken goodbyes, but her mind is resolved in a way Melanie cannot comprehend.
Melanie cries for the both of them.
/
It's not too late to turn back, she says. I wouldn't blame you for choosing to stay.
Wanda smiles. The tears have begun trickling down her face, warm and silent. You know it's not you who'd blame me, Mel.
Forgive yourself for the both of us. Even in her mind, her sobs are loud. I'd be happy enough in the sidelines of my own life if I knew you were with me.
You know I can't do that.
Melanie knows better than anyone, but she can't accept it. Then learn. You mean too much to me, to all of us. You're leaving to give me my life back, but it's nothing without you!
What about Jamie? And Jared? Wanda won't be convinced. She's made up her mind. Being here is different when you can't even use your own body.
Being here is useless if I can't keep you, Melanie cries. Ian's words in her mouth sound like the only right ones. I love you. Doesn't that matter?
Oh, Mel. Wanda's words are soft, but not surprised. I love you, too. But that love means nothing if I can't give you back.
You stubborn, selfless Soul.
Wanda laughs, so soft and gentle. Be happy, Mel. Enjoy it all. Appreciate it for me.
I will.
But Melanie’s happiness will die with Wanda.
/
“I couldn’t stop her,” she tells Ian.
“Did you want to?” he asks.
Melanie doesn’t know how to say yes a thousand times, to fit into her mouth the words to describe how hard she’d fought to keep Wanda here. The words best friend aren’t enough to encompass the complexity of what Wanda means to her.
Her hands, gentle against the cool surface of Wanda’s cryotank that lies protected in Ian’s arms, rest easy knowing that the Soul is alive and well.
She thinks Ian understands.
/
In the game room, Melanie sleeps half-nestled with Jamie. Wanda rests on his other side, her smaller frame tucked in Ian’s arm, warm and content with her new human life.
Between Jamie’s soft snores and the empty space that has become her mind in the past few months, Melanie isn’t sure how to fall asleep easily anymore.
She misses the gentle words between Wanda and herself that once came before sleep, the ease with which she didn’t have to hide her thoughts or opinions from the person who became half of her universe.
It is no longer so easy to speak her mind when she knows there’s a physical barrier between the two of them.
After what must be a few hours — certainly long enough for the stars to move into a different position above them — Wanda speaks up. “Are you still awake?” she wonders, voice low enough to not disturb their sleeping companions.
Melanie exhales softly. She lifts her shoulder to twist her body in Wanda’s direction. “Yeah. I’m up.”
“The stars look beautiful from here,” Wanda comments. It’s easy to imagine the soft smile that forms around her words. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of looking at them.”
Melanie hums, once. It comes out more like a laugh than she intended, but she can’t help it. “You know I never liked the stars.”
“I know.” Wanda swallows. Her breaths, soft as they are, sound impossibly loud to Mel. When she speaks again, her hesitance is deafening. “Can I ask what you’re thinking?”
“I’m thinking I miss when you didn’t have to ask that,” Melanie answers. She’s surprised to hear an edge of bitterness in her voice, a melancholy that comes so completely out of nowhere. “Having to be a person is so much more complicated than I remember.”
“I’m sorry,” Wanda whispers. She sounds remorseful, though Melanie could repeat a thousand times that it isn’t her fault. It would do nothing. “I feel like I should have given you back so much sooner. I took you away for too long.”
Melanie’s eyes shut tightly. “Wanda.” She can’t find the words, but she forces them to come. “This isn’t about you. This is about me, and my... feelings. Before you came, all I had to think about was Jamie. Now? I have this whole life, and all of these choices ahead of me. You don’t have to apologize for giving that to me. If I feel wrong, it’s not because of anything you’ve done.”
“But?”
“But nothing.” Melanie sighs. “There’s nowhere to go from here but forward. With each other.”
“I know it’s complicated,” Wanda says. Her tone is still too sad, and Melanie hates herself for it. “We’re gonna figure it out, Mel.”
Melanie is comforted to feel Wanda’s hand reaching over Jamie’s body, small fingers reaching for a warm hand to hold.
She takes it like a lifeline, warm and comforting.
/
Wanda drifts off to sleep with Melanie’s hand still tightly grasped in hers.
Sleep comes no easier for a girl who’s barely learning to be human again, but she doesn’t mind it so much.
She looks into the starry night sky and what does she see? A thousand possibilities gleaming in the distance, the promise of the everlasting unknown. The knowledge that, before her and after her, the universe will go on.
Melanie never liked the stars, but their beauty doesn’t go unnoticed to her eyes.
She looks up into a world she has no chance of knowing, no way of being a part of, and she blinks. She takes a breath, and another, and she blinks again.
In the face of extraordinary terror and wonder, what else can one do?