Moana
When I woke up, I found myself in a dimly lit hospital room with Edrick sleeping on my lap. I was no longer floating in a void, nor was Michael above me with a knife. Instead, I was safe and sound with my mate by my side.
But nothing felt right. That dream was too vivid to just be a machination of my own anxiety... It felt like an omen. Was Michael coming for me with that knife, or was it really all just a dream made up in my own mind?
Suddenly, Edrick must have sensed that I was awake because he jerked his head up and opened his eyes wide.
"Moana," he whispered. He lurched forward suddenly, looking relieved, and kissed me deeply. I was comforted, but also taken aback at the same time, and when we pulled apart I gave him a puzzled look.
"What happened?" I asked quietly. My throat felt dry and cracked.
Edrick shook his head. "You've been asleep for three days," he responded, his own voice shaking. "But you're okay. You're okay now."
I felt my eyes widen as Edrick spoke. "Edrick, I have to tell you something—"
But before I could get a word out to tell him about my prophetic dream, the room suddenly became rushed with nurses and doctors who began taking my vitals, checking on me, and asking me questions. The room filled with a flurry of activity, and by the time all of the tests were over and they had finished wheeling me around to various rooms to get x-rays and scans, I felt utterly exhausted and disoriented.
When I finally was returned to my original room where Edrick was waiting nervously with dark circles under his eyes, the doctor came in to give me my results.
"It looks like both you and the baby are perfectly healthy," the doctor said with a smile. "You can thank your wolf for putting you in a dormant state... And you're lucky that you came out of it as soon as you did."
"What should she do now?" Edrick asked. I noticed that he was holding my hand tightly, but I didn't mind one bit.
"I would like you to stay on bed rest for the next week," the doctor said as he scribbled furiously on his clipboard. "I'm going to send in a prescription for you for some special vitamins and some medicine to help you sleep if you need it, and I'd like you to come back when the week is over for a follow-up appointment."
"A week?" I asked. I couldn't stay in bed for a week! I had a job to do, and I had already taken enough time off because of the whole warehouse ordeal!
"It'll be okay," Edrick said gently, rubbing my shoulder with a worried yet relieved look in his gray eyes. "It's just a week."
"And it's necessary," the doctor continued. He gave me a stern look as he ripped the page off of his clipboard and handed it to Edrick. "You've been through a lot of stress for someone who is still relatively early on in her pregnancy. At this point, if you don't dial things back and stop biting off more than you can chew, you'll jeopardize both yourself and your baby. And I know that you won't want to do that."
I nodded slowly and stared down at my hands in my lap. The doctor was right, of course; I didn't want to put my baby in harm's way. I would just need to get through the next week and hope that the headmistress wouldn't fire me for being out of work so much, and then hopefully it would be smooth sailing.
The doctor cleared his throat then and let out a sigh. "Now, this next part isn't so much an order as it is a strong recommendation," he said, leaning on the end of my bed with his hands as he looked at me over the rim of his glasses. "But I sincerely think that you should find a therapist. I don't know exactly what happened a few weeks ago, although I've heard bits and pieces. And I don't know if that's the only thing that has happened to you. But it's a lot for one person to process. Combined with the pregnancy hormones, you're setting yourself up for some severe postpartum depression or even postpartum... psychosis."
My eyes went wide. I had heard stories about women going through postpartum depression, and those stories were bad enough. Postpartum psychosis, on the other hand, turned out to be fatal more often than not without proper treatment. The things I had heard were troubling to say the very least.
"Rest assured, doctor," Edrick suddenly said, standing. "I have a few therapists in mind already." He looked at me for a moment with pain in his eyes, but there was something else there, too. Fear. Was he afraid that I would kill our baby? Did he view me as a dangerous person because of what I went through in the warehouse, or was I just being paranoid now?
The doctor, seemingly satisfied now by Edrick's promise, nodded and shot me a smile. "I'm going to have you stay the rest of the night to keep an eye on your vitals, but you can leave after that," he said, patting my ankle. "If you need anything, just call one of the nurses."
Edrick and I watched the doctor leave. Once we were alone again, Edrick sighed and ran a hand through his disheveled hair before he turned back to face me and offered me a weak smile.
"Are you afraid of me?" I suddenly whispered, unable to contain myself.
Edrick's eyes widened. "What?" he asked, rushing over to my side. "No. Of course not, Moana. I just want to make sure that you get the help you deserve."
I nodded slowly and stared down at my lap. It was comforting to know that Edrick was worried about me, but at the same time it was frightening. I felt like a crazy person, someone who needed to be watched and monitored in case I had a sudden episode. But maybe Edrick and the doctor were right... Maybe some therapy would be helpful in the long run.
"Earlier, you said that you needed to tell me something," Edrick said gently. "What was it?"
I was suddenly reminded of my horrible dream. At the time, I thought that it was an omen. But now, after being awake for a few hours, it didn't feel so scary at all. It really was just a dream, and nothing more; and I didn't want to worry Edrick any further by mentioning it, so I shook my head and smiled.
"It was nothing," I said quietly. "Just a dream. I hardly even remember it now."
"Oh." Edrick furrowed his brow and sat down beside me. He seemed a bit disbelieving, but he didn't push it further, and for the rest of the morning we dozed off together while the nurses floated in and out of the room.
Hopefully, it really was just a dream that would soon fade out of my memory completely.