Warning: mentions of PTSD (implied), effects and symptoms of PTSD (implied)

Important: Chapters that have been fixed have an (R) in the title. Once every chapter has been remade, all the (R)s would have already been removed.

Disclaimer: Characters, maps, and the book is owned by Tahereh Mafi

Chapter 1
"Wake Up Call"

1 week, I think. 1 week, 6 days, and 138 hours.

Tick…tock…

A week since I last saw any of my friends.

Tick…tock…

A week since Anderson shot me in the chest and killed me.

Tick…tock…

A week since Warner brought me back to life.

Tick.

The world has never been the kindest friend to me ever since the day I found my powers. It has treated me with cruelty and disgust, giving me the worst of surprises and killing my short-lived freedom. It ripped me away of happiness and shackled me to the lowest part of the ground, going deeper and deeper until my own voice can no longer comfort me and my mind had started to betray me.

In all of my seventeen years of existence, I never thought that the world even had a heart until I had almost lost mine. I never thought it would change the course of time in order to stop me from almost dying; I never thought it would open its eyes.

And I never expected that all this would happen because of a man, much more cruel than the world, who almost killed me, and the boy who loved me too much to let me go.

Aaron Warner Anderson, son of Supreme Commander Anderson himself.

Warner had saved me.

He had found a way, with his body fuelled by desperation and anger, to make my heart beat again. He had found a way to stop the pain.

I knew that my heart stopped, because I saw the darkness for a short while. I knew that I had been dead for a few seconds before he brought me back to life. But no one, not even Warner, must ever know about that. They don't need to.

You're going to be perfect. Do you hear me? Juliette, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

You're not going to die. I'm not letting you die.

No.

Don't die. Please. Don't die, love.

I slowly open my eyes and take a deep breath, calming my erratically beating heart.

Another nightmare. It was another nightmare.

I won't tell him, of course. I won't tell him that I did die. I won't tell him that I remember what he asked of me, and that I wasn't able to do it.

Everything that had happened starting coming down on me a few hours after I woke up, almost as if I watched before me a landslide coming my way. I had begun trembling violently, saying things I couldn't understand myself, and acting as if the entire scene was right before my eyes again and again. Numbness took over the rest of my system and I couldn't move, couldn't breathe properly until Warner held me in his arms and kept me there despite my movements.

I was stressed. I was mad. I was crying.

And Warner didn't let go until I had calmed down.

It had been in that day, during those long minutes of silence and just staying like that, did it occur to me how much the boy who saved me loves me, how he had saved me out of nothing but love and hope.

He would take a bullet for me if I had told him to, no questions asked. But how true it is was what frightened me the most.

I can't help but think that what he has done is dangerous to the both of us. People fall in love, knowing well the consequences it can bring, and yet they choose to do so and watch as their hearts will bleed for those they may never have, I remember reading once. I've seen the way he looks at me from time to time. He looks at me as if telling me that me dying would be the breaking point for his sanity, as if just hearing me saying his name could kill him.

And he's afraid of that. Of a love as poisonous as the one he is showing me right now.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, the last few words I hear from him before my death playing again. Always. Always stuck on replay.

And the sound of his voice will never change in my head. Too desperate, too broken, like he would rather lose the war than lose me.

For a boy whose mind has memorized the shape and feel of a gun, whose hands have dipped themselves in other people's blood, the death of one girl would be something he couldn't even bare to remember.

That was what he told me when I asked him days later.

"The thought of you dying," he said, shaking his head. He had looked at his hands then, as if remembering what had happened. He clenches and unclenches them. Said, "it was impossible for me to imagine, love. It wasn't your time." A pause, then he continues, "God knows the world and your friends still need you, and I would never allow myself to let you die in my own hands."

I was silent and stiff the entire time, nodding in the slightest way possible and thanking him multiple times, knowing that that wouldn't be the last and only time he'll do that if it happened again.

He told me to stop thanking him, saying that he'd do anything for me. He had said other things then, but my focus had already wandered off before I could even recognize anything he had said.

"Will I ever see any of my friends again?"

He looked up and nodded. It's already 11 in the morning and I'm sitting in the kitchen with Warner, who's sitting across me,

watching TV and drinking coffee. He says he prefers his coffee plain, bitterness and all. I find it ridiculous.

I look down at my plate. I'm spending the morning with Warner, eating breakfast, and watching him drink coffee while my friends are probably looking for me, I thought. Kenji would never believe this.

Even I couldn't believe this.

"…I thought—"

"Wait, wait," I say, lost. "What were you saying?"

He glanced at me before looking down at his coffee. "I said that you will see your friends again. I have a vehicle ready since I knew you'd ask to meet your friends the moment you woke up." He took a sip of his coffee. "Though I also expected that you'd escape again, which is why I had secured the place and left the tank at Sector 45, doubling the guards here and there since I won't let you out until you're fully healed." There's a small smile that comes afterwards. He was joking—though I don't know which part he's joking about.

I ignored his last sentence. "When can I see them?"

"A few days perhaps,—a day or three—until you're properly healed. I will also need to look for your friends' whereabouts," he says, "then I'll accompany you to their location."

I nod. "Thank you."

"You're welcome..." the smile on his face disappears and is quickly replaced by worry and concern. I blink, look down, and stare at the hand—my hand—trembling slightly. Of course he can see it. I clench and unclench my fist, flexing my fingers, but the trembling doesn't stop.

It's been happening ever since I woke up, and it was probably because of the nightmares I have everyday that causes this. My entire body was trembling that time, and my hands wouldn't stop flexing themselves. I remember everything that happened to me: the memory replaying every night in each dream, the ear-shattering sound of Anderson's gun, the sudden loss of blood in my system. Warner's carefully placed hand on my body. The only thing I don't remember was what it felt to be healed by Sonya and Sarah.

As time passes, it gets harder and harder to sleep, and easier for my senses to be alert and awake.

But when I wake up I see Warner lying next to me, worried and hurt by the pain I feel. He would open his arms and pull me close, arms around me as if he's protecting me from the dangers of the world while I crumple into his arms.

I see him breathe heavily, his hand moving up to rake his gold hair. He sighs. "We need to talk about what happened—"

I shake my head.

"Juliette, please." There's a small crack in his voice, a hint of pleading, as he says, "I've seen things like these before. You're traumatized by what happened to you."

I don't tell him that everything he's saying is right. Someone in my mind it telling me, whispering, that I shouldn't mind him. "This is nothing, Warner," I snap, anger quickly overcoming me, "I am not traumatized, nor am I some sort of case that you could just fix. Nothing is wrong with me, and I don't need your help."

Oh, it's more than just nothing.

We both know that my movement and actions are more than just from fear, nervousness, or any other emotion that you could get from the dictionary. It's something I can't control, unlike my powers. We both know this isn't normal.

But the only difference between him and I is that he knows what this is called while I don't.

I take my hand away and place it on my lap. The shaking doesn't stop. I need to get used to this, I tell myself. You need to get used to this. This won't help you in the war—

"Juliette."

I am not going insane again.

"You're not, love."

I look up, surprised I had said that aloud. I've never said my thoughts aloud before. This has never happened before.

"You're not going insane, love, and neither have you been insane. You were forced to believe those things about you and you had accepted it since no one was there to tell you otherwise," he says, "but this is different. I know what's happening to you and I won't let you torture yourself again." He runs a shaky hand through his hair and looks at me.

"I will help you find a way, Juliette. Even if it means forcing my father to stop any of his idiotic mistakes." He pauses. "Rest for now, love."

"But my friends—"

"Your friends and the entire world will have to wait before I let you go and kill my father, and trust me when I say that I want it done soon, before anything else happens to you, but for now you're going to need to rest." He stands from his seat, his chair almost falling from his sudden and reckless movement, and he paces around the room. Stops in front of me and says, "I'll be leaving in a few minutes, so I won't be back until nighttime. Until then you can do whatever you want, and when I come back we'll have to discuss a few things."

"Like what?"

"How you'll meet your friends, where they are, and other things," he looks down at me, his expression turning soft. He clears his throat, "I know you have a lot of questions, love, and I do know that some of them would be about our first few days together in Sector 45."

It's a thought that's been going through my mind for a long time, but I can't help but be surprised when I look up at him. He knows I despised him for what he did to me, what he forced me to do, and I still hate him for doing that even now.

Silence fills the room again. Then,

"The war," I mumble. He looks at me expectantly, silently asking me to repeat what I said.

"The war, " I say, louder this time, "The aftermath of what happened, I don't want it to happen again."

A few days after I had fully gained consciousness, Warner had told me then that Anderson's men killed a lot of people in Omega Point, some of them given a quick death and a shot in the head, some were held imprisoned for torturing and experimenting, while others had survived and found a way to escape the battlefield.

"My friends," I gasp, "Kenji and the others. Are they alive?"

"I've already searched their names in the records of those who were killed and taken in, and Kishimoto wasn't in it, as well as Castle and some others, Kent included of course." I could sense the venom in his voice just by mentioning his name.

Funny, though, because they're more similar than they think they are. I just hoped that another war would break out if Warner finds out that they're brothers.

Warner nods in response of what I said, slightly surprised. He blinks once, twice. Says, "Of course, neither do I. I'll help you in that too, even get along with Kishimoto and the others if you want me too. Just tell me what you need and I'll do it with my best capabilities."

I smile at him, "Yes, yes. Please. Thank you." I stand from my seat. "I'll leave you to your work—"

Wait.

What?

"Wait, what?" I gasp. "You're joining us? Fighting with us?"

He nods, though he looks uneasy. "Yes, I told you that a few days ago. Unless you don't want to."

"No, no," I shake my head, letting the awkwardness come between us, "o-of course I want you there. I mean, it'd be great if you'll join us."

Time seems to go slower that moment as I watch the boy in front of me smile, dimples and both cheeks, and move closer. There's a look of understanding and amusement in his eyes when he looks at me, and I jerk a little as he pulls me into an embrace. My hands are awkwardly placed on his chest, stuck in between our bodies, and he kisses my forehead. The calculated and stiff Warner I know disappears and he begins to relax when I return the gesture, wrapping my arms around him.

It's a moment of weakness. For the both of us.

"You're going to defeat him, Juliette," he breathes into my ear, "I know who you are, and I know that you can do this."

He lets go of me and I immediately turn my back on him, cradling my slightly trembling hand and hiding the blush forming on my cheeks. I don't say anything else and wait until I hear the front door close before I go upstairs and retreat to his bedroom.

I start taking down notes, thinking of strategies and things I could do, all the while imagining what it'd be like if there was no Anderson. No Reestablishment.

Everything will begin tomorrow, I tell myself. A new world will rise and it will be made by my own two hands.

A/n: Before anything else I'd just like to give a huge thank you to everyone who has helped me and supported me so far, even when I said that I plan on redoing the entire story itself. Some of you may be sad, but yes, this is the new chapter 1 of Ignite Me, the fanfic. I plan on posting the old story afterwards though, so don't worry!

So for those of you who don't know me, I'm the-warner-syndrome, one of the very first few writers in the SM fan and owner of the tumblr page called aaron-warner. I've made quite a lot of works in the fanfic site, encouraged others to contribute as well, and I do think that I'll be in this fandom for a long time. I'm usually known to be the weird one in the tumblr family of SM blogs, actually. Before the 3rd book was released, this story was written in hopes of fulfilling my followers' wishes of wanting to read Ignite Me so bad. I wrote a story on it, specifically the "boardroom table" scene that Mafi teased us about on twitter, and things became very weird from there.

So now I decided to return the favour for all the support and positive reviews I got and remake the entire story, giving it a better plot and clearer storyline. Summary still being written though!

In this case, I've decided to write IM in a very different way. I'll focus more on the concept of it being a dystopian story and mainly center the story on the war preparation, the war itself, and the aftermath. Will I pull an Allegiant? Maybe, maybe not. But I might pull a THG on this one (I'm talking about some minor character death and occurring disabilities, suthn like that). I'm completely changing the entire story, full loop and stuff.

"So does this mean you're rewriting SM and UM in order to complete your story and its dystopian concept?" Hahaha. Nope, I do not plan on doing that anytime soon. Though if I do get motivation to do so then maybe. Meh.

Important things:

Warning: this story (the upcoming war scene, for example) may turn out to be more detailed than the details you've seen in the 3rd book, probably unsuitable to young audiences. Lives will be lost, characters may end up disabled, awesome fighting moves will be described in the most epic manner. This story will be darker then ever before. You have been warned.

I also plan on discussing Juliette's… disorder and why I chose to put this in the storyline. I know that some of you may end up shamming me or be disgusted by my actions, which is why I've already prepared my explanation. But I will only explain it if you guys want me to. It's a very complicated situation, but I can explain. (1/3 of my reason is because I want to break boundaries and go out of my comfort zone, and by simply making this character more complex, writing more detailed war scenes, and actually planning everything out—this is what I want this story to be. My Grand Story of the Year, if you'd like.)

Also, thanks for your reading and understanding. I hope that I'll be able to finish this story without any problems yeah. Tell me what you think in the reviews section and I'll try to answer some questions you have. Any corrections and additional information would be very much appreciated. Thanks and don't forget to leave a review!