Well this is it. Once again, thank you so much for sticking with me through this story. If you have any ideas for a next story I would love to take it into consideration. Signing off for the last time with this story.

Epilogue:

Ian passed me another roll. It was the third one he had forced me to eat. But no matter how many times I told him I was full and that if I ate another bite I would explode, he insisted that I eat just one more. It tasted like cardboard and salt, but I ripped a huge chunk of it out just to humor him. Under normal circumstances, I would have fought him on this, but after everything I had put him through recently, I decided it was better to suffer this one in silence.

It had been exactly three weeks since Doc had finally let me out of the Hospital. And it had been about a month since Ian left my side. I didn't complain; I loved having him with me. He even let me work in the fields with him twice a week. Every time we walked anywhere together, he was touching me in some way. Hand on shoulder, arm around waist, arm around shoulder, it differed every outing. I knew he was still worried that I might be hurt. He didn't trust the medicine like Doc and I did. The instant the meds were applied to my injury I was as good as new. Ian was just paranoid, not that I blamed him. If the roles were reversed and he had fallen ten feet from a ladder, I couldn't have trusted any medication no matter how effective. I would've thought we'd over looked something.

While I continued to munch on my bread, Ian stroked my hair, making it hard to concentrate on what Melanie was saying. Something about soccer . . . or football? Some kind of ball. My eyes fluttered in exhaustion. My head was laying on Ian's chest, and I was slowly being lulled to sleep by the rhythmic beating of his heat. Bum bum. Bum bum. Bum bum.

"Isn't that right, Wanda?" someone asked.

I was pulled out of my restful nap by the sound of my name. "Huh?"

My head vibrated from Ian's deep laughter. I raised my eyes to find him staring down at me with a smile, genuinely happy smile. I had never seen Ian happier than I had in these past three weeks. He was cracking more jokes, laughing longer and louder, smiling all day, I'd even woken up during the night once and saw him smiling in his sleep. When he was happy, I couldn't help but be happy either.

"Well, we should be getting to bed," I heard Ian say. "Tomorrow is a busy day."

Melanie muttered something that sounded like, "When isn't it?"

Ian scooped me up into his arms when I tried to stand. When I was about to complain, he put his fingers up to my lips like he did anytime I was about to make an argument I would lose. So, instead, I shrugged and snuggled deeper into his chest. He held me tightly to him. We didn't say anything on the way to our room. Well, that was probably because I was on the edge of sleep and Ian was considerate enough to let me doze off.

Ian gently set me on the mattress when we got into the room, only leaving my side to quickly close the door behind us. When he sat down next to me, he pulled me to his chest again. But this time it was different. He had something to tell me now. I just hugged him around the waist, waiting for him say something.

"Wanderer?" He was making sure I was still awake.

"Yes." I tried to sound as alert as possible, but that was quickly ruined by a long yawn.

He back tracked. "Nothing. You're tired. It can wait until the morning."

"No. Please tell me what's bothering you."

I raised my gaze to meet his. He was looking at me differently. With a new kind of gentleness, deeper than before. What was he thinking? About my fall again. I knew he thought of it constantly. Sometimes he would have nightmares jarring him from sleep, crying and calling out for me. When he found me in the dark, he'd hold on to me so tight I swear he'd never let go. He'd stroke my hair and my cheeks and say my name over and over again. He'd be crying, making me cry, too. We never talked about it in the morning, though. Just too tired to bring it up, I guess.

"I can't stop thinking about what would have happened if you hadn't survived," he whispered softly but with much passion. "I know I wouldn't be sitting here in this room. It'd be too painful. Someone would have to switch rooms with me. I keep trying to imagine myself living again. Actually taking on tasks like eating and working, but I draw a blank every time. Without you I'd be lost and alone." He had to stop because the flow of tears was too thick to continue.

I wiped my few away with the back of my hands then grabbed his cheeks, making him look me in the eyes.

"Ian, if something ever happens to me you have to live without me. You have to continue going through the motions - no, that's not good enough. You have to live." He started to protest, but I cut him off. "No, listen to me. If I were to get hurt again or to die - " Ian flinched. "you have to promise me that you'd do everything in your power to move on. You'd work and eat and shower without being told. You would do things like I was still here making you do them. You can't lose yourself just because I'm not around. Promise me, Ian." When he tried to turn his head, I made him stare into my eyes. "Promise me!" I sounded desperate.

His blue eyes just about broke my heart. They looked miserable and alone. The red rims were getting more vivid as tears leaked out the sides of his eyes. The ocean's were deep and dark with a stormy look to them. But he wasn't angry. No, he was just a man who had almost lost the love of his life.

"I can't." His voice broke. "You know I can't live without you. How could you ask me to do something so impossible? If you died - " Another voice break " - there would be nothing to hold me here anymore. Nothing to keep me from going outside and being taken by Seekers."

"No! Ian - " I started to interrupt. How dare he say something like that! But he held his fingers against my lips.

"Don't you understand that you are the only think I live for anymore. You are my whole world. Without you I wouldn't be me. I wouldn't be Ian O'Shea anymore. I'd just be a man who had nothing to live for anymore."

"Ian," I whispered before pulling his lips down on mine.

This kiss reminded me of our second kiss after I'd woken up. Hot fire blazed when our lips touched, warming up my whole body with electricity. My hands were tangled in his hair; his arms were pulling me closer to him. This kiss was wild and unexpected. I was gasping for air by the time we broke away. He kissed my forehead when I laid my head on his chest.

"I know I didn't accept your promise," Ian started to say, "but will you promise me something?"

"Of course."

He pulled me away from his chest and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Promise to never leave me. Promise to love me. Promise that even when I pass you three more rolls you eat them. Promise to always tell me when you're hurting or when you need help. Promise to tell me when you are tired and want a break from working. Promise to let me carry you when I think you won't make it here. Promise to let me stay with you, always by your side. Promise to let me protect you even though you think you don't need it. Promise me forever." Then he got down on one knee and pulled a small, velvet box from his back pocket. "Promise me forever."

My hands flew to me mouth as I started to cry. This wasn't how anything was suppose to happen. When I was inserted in Melanie, I should have been able to take over her mind. I should have been able to give up her secrets to the Seeker, then live a few decades before being shipped to another planet. But instead I befriended my host, followed her to the humans, and fell in love. Maybe this was suppose to happen. Maybe it was fate that I had been chosen to be put into Melanie. But I was sure of one thing. I was sure when I got down on my knees in front of Ian that it was destiny that we had ended up together. This wasn't suppose to work - a human and a soul. But sometimes the world has a strange way of telling us it doesn't matter.

So when I whispered back, "Forever," I knew that everything was how it was suppose to be.