Fletcher
She remembers us, I told myself that was the most important thing, but the truth was it hurt that she'd forgotten telling us she loved us, even if it had been her wolf that delivered that message. "Well the good thing is her memory seems to be intact for the most part, save for the trauma that put her in here, she's really very lucky." Jerry tried to cheer us up in the dinky cafeteria, I was one of many who growled to silence him. "Now we have to wait and see how quickly she heals, that will determine how fast we can get her out of here." Simon grunted into a slightly stale raisen bagel.
"The sedatives we put her on to keep her calm will be wearing off soon, the quicker you can get back to her the safer for all of us, I get the impression the girl doesn't like hospitals." Jerry muttered lowly. "Uh, yeah, guess we don't exactly need her panicking and mauling all your staff." Beck chuckled darkly. "She already tried, why do you think we had to sedate her." Her grunted back, so Sid was actually fighting them then. "Eat up everyone, we don't want to keep her waiting." Bowen gave the order and I reluctantly followed it, hospital food was disgusting, or at least here it was.
"You pups go check on your girl we're going to go make sure her pets are taken care of and make sure everything is good back at your place." Alvalrado's pack headed out when they finished eating and we headed back up to Sidney's room. She was still sedated apparently so we all took up spots around the room to get some rest, sleeping on a cold and possibly diseased hospital floor wasn't the best but I was just so tired by now that I really didn't care. I woke up to the alarming sound of the frantic beeping to her monitors, the first panic was that we were losing her until I saw her ripping things off as Doctor Jerry rushed in.
"I guess the sedatives have worn off." He muttered under his breath behind me while she fixed her gaze on Bowen. "Which one of you decided to bring me to the freaking hospital because we are going to have a major conversation as to why that is a horrible idea, after I kick your a**!?" She snarled so fiercely at Bowen I couldn't help grinning, she might be in pain but she was still our Sid.
Colton
It was slightly amusing seeing Bo with the expression of a deer in the headlights, he seemed unsure how to respond so I figured I'd help him out. "We all made the decision because we didn't want to lose you, now please stop pulling out wires before they have to sedate you again." I tried to sooth her with the calm of my voice but it only sparked a new fire in her eyes as she scowled back at me. "You are going to get me the h*** out of here, and if anyone tries to sedate me, I'll kill them." She roared out as she pulled another wire and set off another round of obnoxious beeps, Simon grabbed her hands and held her tight as he tried to calm her trashing, I helped hold her legs as she kicked out at me.
"Let me go!" She howled her outrage as Jerry came forward with another needle, probably sedation and there was a new wildness to her eyes when she noticed him. She bucked so hard that she threw Simon off by surprise, grabbing the needle from Jerry and throwing it far out of reach before trying to lunge for him, I stopped her barely. "Jerry get out, now!" Bowen ordered the human doctor who rushed out into the hall without question. "Okay, Sid okay, calm down and talk to us! If you want to get out of here and don't want them to sedate you again you have to calm down and talk to us!" I moved to take Simon's place and hold her still as I tried calming down her racing heart and her growing panic, she was shaking so much I wasn't sure how she would respond.
"No needles, I can handle an IV, but no more needles, please." She gritted out a plea as her frantic eyes held my own. "Okay, no more needles. You're safe here Sidney, we won't let anyone hurt you." I nodded my agreement and her entire body went limp in my grasp. "Hospital's are never safe, not for me, and not for anyone around me when I... I'm not safe." She shuddered and started shaking again as I moved to sit at her side instead of pinning her to keep her still. There was something in her tone that held a note of fear as her eyes jumped around the room in a panic.
"Relax, you are completely safe we'd wipe anyone out before they could get to you, nobody is going to hurt you with us by your side." Beck stood beside her and gave her clenched fist on the sheets a gentle squeeze. "I don't care about that, don't you get it, I'm worried that with you by my side, I might hurt you." She whispered, she seemed to be trying to control her shaking but was still trembling beneath the blanket. "What do you mean Sideny?" Bowen had unfrozen and was back to protector of the pack now as she sent a glance towards him.
"Hospital's remind me of the lab, the sights, the smells, I don't like them. I know that it's sort of irrational that the lab is gone now and everything but... sometimes it's like I'm still living that nightmare." She was shaking hard again and now I understood. "Hospital's have triggers that set you off?" Simon voiced softly in his own realization as she nodded curtly. So she kind of had PTSD when it came to hospitals, no wonder she was so upset with us bringing her here, in trying to help we were hurting her in another way.
"It's so stupid too, I mean anywhere else like a vet office or cleaning supply store with similar scents and lights I'm completely fine, it's only hospitals that set me off in panic mode." She gritted out, so we needed to keep her calm and keep her talking. "Maybe it will help if you talk it out then, how did you realize they set you off?" Asher is displaying as much if not more calming energy than me as he takes up a space on her other side, her shaking was slowing down again but she still seemed seconds away from bolting despite her injuries.
"It was about a month after I escaped and I was learning to figure out living on my own, this was before I had Tyson or Ollie. I was running one day and picked up the scent of fresh blood, usually I stayed clear of danger back then but something made me follow it. I shifted and pulled on some clothes before I found the source by a small stream, a boy so sick with fever that he barely acknowledged my arrival. He was maybe a year or two younger than me and he had a deep gash in his thigh that was infected, I knew if I left him there he'd die." Her eyes seem foggy as she recalls this far off memory.
"I didn't know how he got there or what had happened, he was a complete stranger but I couldn't leave him there to die alone. We were in a pretty big national forest and the nearest town was a long way off, I'd stopped in that town briefly, I knew where everything was. So against his weak fevered protests and obvious pain I carried and dragged him all those miles back to town and got him into the hospital." She murmurs as a new round of shakes picks up.
"I watched them rush him into the back and at first I was okay as I explained I'd found him in the woods when jogging. Then suddenly I wasn't okay the scents seemed to swarm me all at once and my survival instincts kicked into overdrive. I nearly shifted in front of 20 humans because of my panic, they wanted me to stay and talk to police but I had to get out, I took off and shifted as soon as I was out of view." She's wild eyed but we seem to be helping her focus on staying with us and not losing herself to the past.
"I stayed around for a few days laying low, I found out he'd gone hiking alone and had been missing for 5 days, he had taken a bad fall and gashed his leg open, he'd crawled to the stream and that kept him alive long enough for me to find him. I heard he asked about me that he kept wanting to meet the angel that had materialized from the trees and saved him, apparently they wrote a news arrival about it and he and his family were trying to find me to thank me. I had left town as soon as it came out though because I caught whiff of other wolves, I knew it wasn't safe to stay." She murmurs and something clicks in the back of my mind, why did that seem so familiar?
"Wait this was about two years ago right, it wouldn't have been Sierra National Forest, in California?" Micah frowns beside me, apparently I'm not the only one who remembers that weird little trip we'd taken. "Yeah, how'd you... It was you, you were the wolves, no wonder your scents seemed almost familiar when we first met." A click of recognition seems to hum through her and stop her shakes all together. "We had a meeting with another pack a town over we were passing through and heard the story about the strong and beautiful angel who appeared through the trees and saved this guy from certain death. They'd had search parties out but the area was so big they couldn't find him, we joked that he was probably so high on his fever that he didn't know what he was talking about." Beck scoffed.
"We did however consider the sudden shimmery appearance he described sounding a lot like a shifter than might of followed his scent, kind of strange we almost met and we didn't even know it." Bowen smiles at her silently. I remember the reason for that pack meeting too, they'd had rogue sightings and were worrying over an impending attack but something had seemed off about their explanations. "Yeah the Drake pack, really hope they weren't friends of yours." She winced out softly, I'd hated them and I was the more civil one about it.
"Why's that?" Tucker voiced curiously. "Because I killed them a few months later. I had come back to leave a note for the guy and ask him to stop looking for me, I ran into the pack when I was heading back the way I'd came. They knew I was a she wolf and they gave me a horrible ultimatum, so I created a third option and ripped all their throats out." She grunts out, I fight to stay calm at the thought of that ultimatum. "Now I kind of wish we'd killed them for you." Jason growls softly and a small smile pulls at her lips. "Feeling a bit better now?" I ask noting the fact she's stopped shaking entirely.
"Not really, but I'm glad you're all here, my wolf feels calmer knowing that you have our back, just be careful if I start panicking again, I don't want to hurt any of you." She whispered hoarsely. "You won't, and I promise we'll do our best to get you out of here as quick as we can." I swore the oath with my heart in the palm of her hand. "Thank you." She whispered back. "Try and get some rest it will help your healing process, I'll go see about getting you released to our care." Simon sighed as he headed into the hall, the sooner we got her home the better.
*So this chapter kind of exploded out of my imagination, I didn't expect Sidney to have that kind of issue with hospitals, and the story of the boy in the woods completely popped out of nowhere and I kept wondering why as I wrote it out. But I guess this is how it has to go now, even I wonder where this thing is taking us...*