i always survive

melanie stryder, twenty one years old, one of the last survivors of the alien invasion. i will do anything to keep the people i love safe. hurt them and you're just askin' for a fight.

[wanda-tha-soul-deactivated20140]

Wanda put the ball down by her feet and laughed at Melanie. “Why would I kick it at you, that wouldn’t make any sense. She started walking a little with the ball and soon she started running to get around Melanie, but as soon as she had gotten speed, her foot hit the ball and she ended up falling on her butt on the cold dark floor. 

She blew away some hair that had gotten in her face and looked back at Melanie. “This body is fragile, not like yours at all..” She smiled innocently at her sister.

[melaniestryd]

Mel grinned when her friend laughed, and took her place between the makeshift goalposts.

"Because I know you. You're afraid that you'll hurt me but I'm tough as nails. Kick it at me, come on!" she bellowed, although she couldn't help but chuckle at herself. She was asking Wanda to aim a ball at her and kick it as hard as she could. Mel wasn't sure if Wanda had it in her. No, she was certain she didn't.

"Hey now," Mel said, shaking her head, "I've seen twelve year olds play like pros. You're no twelve year old. You're more than one thousand years old and you've ridden a claw beast while carrying your friend to safety." She raised her eyebrows, knowing that story made her feel embarrassed sometimes. "A little soccer game? That's nothing to you, even in that body."

[melaniestryd]

Mel sat at a table in the main hall with little Freedom held close to her. She couldn't help but smile whenever she looked at the baby. There was something about being in the presence of babies that made her feel warm and fuzzy inside, not that she'd ever admit it to anyone.

Freedom started to make little noises that suggested he was going to cry and Mel bit her lip, looking to Jared with panic starting to spark in her eyes. She didn't want Freedom to cry and for Lucina to think she was a terrible babysitter.

Though she knew he wouldn't have much idea either, she asked Jared.

"What do I do?"

Mel didn't think he was hungry or that he needed a nappy change, so she settled on rocking him in her arms and making funny noises, just like she remembered her mother doing for Jamie when he was little.

It didn't take long for Freedom to calm down. Mel let herself relax as well as she gently caressed the baby's head. From the corner of her eye she spotted Jared staring.

"What is it?" she asked him, worried that she'd done something she shouldn't have.

[wanda-tha-soul-deactivated20140]

They entered the game room and Wanda leaned relaxed against the wall. “I just don’t mind losing. People get happy when they win, and I like to see other people being happy around here.” Her eyes found the ball and she went to pick it up, thinking about her past lives. 

"I don’t know if it count as a game, but in the ice world we have ice sculpting competitions. Most of them turned out like the most beautiful things you can imagine, since us bears worked with our claws." She got a smile at her face while thinking about it. "But it was more just for making beautiful art in a place that was pretty much just blue and white. Not as much a competition" 

[melaniestryd]

Mel nodded her head and smiled a bit, knowing how Wanderer always put the needs of others before her own, even if it was something as silly and trivial as a game. She tried to imagine herself like that, but she didn't think she could purposely lose a game to make someone else happy. Not unless it was Jamie. She was far too competitive.

"Ah, the Ice World. I remember. The planet where they called you Rides the Beast, right?" It was different to hear Wanda telling a story rather than showing her through thoughts and memories. It made her feel like there was an element missing to the story. "It sounds amazing. I wish I could see it through your eyes."

Wanda picked up the ball and Mel motioned for her to kick it.

"Come on now, Wanda. Kick it at me as hard as you can," she said, raising her arms, as if to say bring it on.

[wanda-tha-soul-deactivated20140]

Wanda walked a bit faster so she could catch up and walk next to her friend. “Of course I want to.” She smiled more when she mentioned Ian. “You know.. I think I will need that coaching, now that I don’t have you in my head to tell me what to do.” She was finally relaxing more. She could walk next to Melanie and joke about how she used to be in her head without it turning sad or weird. It felt nice. 

"Did you use to play soccer a lot? Before the occupation?" She looked curiously over at Melanie and was exited that she would listen to Melanie telling a story, in stead of showing her a memory.

[melaniestryd]

Mel smiled when Wanda confirmed she did want to play. "Good," she responded, smirking.

Mel and Wanda walked side by side down the halls. Without realising it, she'd fallen into step with her friend and they walked in synchronisation. It seemed some habits were hard to break, even when they were in different bodies.

"And," Mel added with a teasing grin, "if you play against Ian you'd better not throw the game on purpose, like you did before. I need to teach you how to be competitive as well."

She laughed as they rounded the last corner to the game room.

"Yeah, of course," she replied. Mel's eyes unfocused a bit as she thought of a much simpler time, when soccer and climbing trees and doing things her parents told her not to were the most dangerous things in her life. "I played a lot. Most weekends I went to the park with my friends to have a game. Sometimes Jamie joined in, too." She smiled a little. "It's really nice that we can play soccer here. It reminds me of home."

She turned to Wanda, wondering if the souls had any games they played for fun on other planets. She wouldn't be surprised if they didn't, though. It would explain why they weren't competitive at all.

"Do the souls play games? On other planets, I mean?"

[theh0sters]

Our family.

[thejaredhowe-deactivated2014010]

Just seeing her face made Jared happy. He opened his arms as he felt her embrace. Laughing, he balanced himself as her enthusiasm had taken him a little by surprise.

"Well, I just couldn’t stand being away from you too long. And we got everything we needed," he replied with a smile, his arms still around her.

[melaniestryd]

Mel hugged him tightly and rested her chin on his shoulder. She let out a contented sigh. Now that he was here, it was as if all the troubles and chaos of the past few weeks had disappeared with a single breath. "I'm really glad you're back. I missed you," she told him, smiling.

She lingered for a few seconds longer and leaned away from him, but not before she planted a kiss on his lips.

Without needing to think about it her hand reached out for Jared's. She looked up at him with a teasing smirk. "Please tell me you got Cheetos. I'd kill for some right now."

With a start, she realised that she had almost forgotten the reason for her being in the kitchen in the first place. Before she was distracted, Melanie was supposed to meet Lucina to look after her little boy, Freedom.

"I have to go. I'm supposed to be babysitting Freedom while Lucina does her chores," she said, huffing regrettably. She thought her reunion with Jared would be different.

"Unless..." Her eyes brightened a bit when she spoke. "Unless you want to babysit together?"

[nostalgic-films]

[thejaredhowe-deactivated2014010]

As soon as the trucks were unloaded and the supplies they had found were put away, Jared went looking for Melanie. He walked in the direction that Jeb had told him he last saw Melanie. As he saw the brunette, he felt a huge smile form on his face. She was turned away from him, talking with someone it seemed, but Jared didn’t care. He walked up behind her and chuckled, “Honestly, I’m jealous of whoever you’re talking to, because I missed seeing you.”

[melaniestryd]

Mel heard Jared's unmistakable voice and she whirled around, her current conversation forgotten. When she saw him, it took her a moment or two to register that it was actually him. He was home at last. Her lips spread into a huge smile.

She excused herself from the conversation and ran into Jared's arms, almost sending him off balance with her excitement.

"Jared," she breathed. "I thought you weren't s'posed to be back 'til tomorrow."

[melaniestryd]

       "Why are you lookin' at me like that?"

[melaniestryd]

       "What are you doing with that?"

[itsmeariannaoshea-deactivated20]

Arianna watched Mel as she heard that she was talking to Wanda. “Well I talked to my brother and he told me some things that, well let’s just say I could never hurt my brother.  After everything we have gone through to find each other, I can’t lose him now.” Arianna caught the ball and sat it down on the ground and dribbled it between her feet where she was.  “After a while, Wanda came to see me and we talked it through.  She’s okay, I guess.” she shrugged. 

Arianna stopped messing with the ball and looked at the ground.  She wasn’t sure she should tell Mel, or not, she wasn’t about to tell her about what happened between her and Brody, but should she tell her about her condition? She wasn’t sure what to do. Thinking it over for a few minutes she finally looked back up and Mel and told her, what was the worse she could do. 

"I have epilepsy, have since I was a little girl.  No meds for it these days so I have more seizures. They drain me of my energy, let’s put it this way if Ian knew I was up out of my bed right now he might hunt me down and kill me himself, but I couldn’t stay in that room anymore."

[melaniestryd]

Mel listened to Arianna's explanation. She'd decided to put whatever she felt about Wanda behind her so she could be there for her brother. Mel smiled slightly. "You guess?" she asked with a confused little shake of her head. She exhaled slowly and shrugged her shoulders. "Whatever. I'll accept that."

She motioned for Arianna to pass the ball back. When it rolled to her feet, she dribbled it to the far wall. There, Mel positioned two piles of rocks to signify goal posts. "Penalty shoot out. Best of five. What do you say?" She smirked as she nudged the ball back to the blonde. "I'm sure you're quite the soccer player. It seems to run in your family."

Mel took her position between the goal posts but she turned around when Arianna confessed she had epilepsy. "Really?" she asked. "I never would've guessed. You sure there's no meds that will work? They have medication that fixes... well, everything."

[itsmeariannaoshea-deactivated20]

Arianna smirked at Mel when she replied to the soccer statement.  She also wasn’t sure she could keep up with Mel after everything that she had gone through.  Her energy level wasn’t up to par by any standards. 

She listened to Mel as she explained why she was alone and Arianna kind of felt the same way and understood her.  “Yeah I get it.  Ian’s out on the raid and so is Bobby, so the only person here that I can talk to is either myself or Wanda and I haven’t seen Wanda today.” She tried not to laugh when Mel made the statement about not losing a game yet, but she couldn’t help it.

"I bet you haven’t." she said.  "I"m not sure I have the energy to run around this place right now, but if you want to play I’m up for trying.  I know I need to work out all my muscles after the past two days I’ve had. So it’s up to you."

[melaniestryd]

Mel raised her dark eyebrows curiously.

"Since when do you talk to Wanda?" she asked as she kicked the ball again, sending it hurtling towards the wall. "I thought you hated her. That's the whole reason for our spat the other week." Perhaps Arianna had finally come around and realised that Wanda was a good person. Most people did eventually even if they were really stubborn and hateful at first.

Mel's lips curled into a hesitant smile. "Shoot-out then?" she asked, picking the ball up and tossing it to Arianna.

Mel was mildly interested in what'd happened to the blonde over the past few days and after a few moments she asked. "What do you mean?"

[brody-archer]

Brody ran a hand through his hair and nodded slowly.

"Okay, yeah. I should get to the fields." he mumbled, more to himself then to Melanie. He stood to the side to let her past. "Just, please promise me you won't tell anyone." he breathed, fearful that Silver will discover peoples knowledge of him and decide it would be entertaining to try and kill them.

[melaniestryd]

Brody made room for her to walk past him and she ducked her head, smiling politely and about to leave, when his voice stopped her. She backtracked a couple of steps to look him in the eye.

"I promise. I won't say anything," she answered sincerely. "And I always keep my promises."

The corners of her mouth tugged into a slight smile before she walked past him to the kitchen. Hopefully Lucy would be having breakfast and Mel could apologise.

[itsmeariannaoshea-deactivated20]

Arianna heard noise coming from the game room, so she decided to go see who it was and if they were playing soccer she really wanted to join in.  Once she made it in there through, she almost walked right back out.  She didn’t want to get into another fight with Mel and not after all she had been through in the past few days.  Plus after the seizure she had had, she knew she would lose right away.  The losing all her energy after one really sucked.

"No," She replied.  She wasn’t sure what to say to Mel.  She didn’t want to fight about Wanda seeing as her and Wanda had made up and Arianna actually liked talking to her. "I’m not going to fight you or say anything else about Wanda.  Okay?" She said trying to smile.  "I heard noise and came to see if someone was playing a game of soccer. Since you aren’t, I guess I could go." she went to turn around and leave but thought about something that was nagging her and turned back around. 

"Why are you in here all alone? Sorry I don’t mean to get into your business really, I just thought you have friends and family here and well, I don’t. I know why I’m alone."

[melaniestryd]

Mel tucked the soccer ball under her arm and watched Arianna with wary eyes. Though she wasn't in the mood for another argument, if the blonde girl started another, Mel would be quick to bite back. However it seemed like Arianna wasn't in the mood for it either.

"Okay. Good." she said, her surprise making her voice a slightly higher pitch than usual.

When Arianna said she was going to leave because no one was playing soccer, Mel set the ball on the ground and rested her foot on top of it.

"Who said I'm not playin'?" she said, cocking her head to the side. Now this was interesting. If Arianna wanted to play soccer, no matter how much Mel disliked her, she wasn't going to say no. She was too competitive to miss an opportunity to win.

Mel narrowed her eyes as the blonde girl asked why she was alone. "What's it to you?" she asked. She shook her head and sighed a bit, brushing her hair out of her face when she decided to answer. "Jared's still on the raid, Wanda's with Ian most of the time, and Jamie's gettin' to that age where he'd rather spend time with his friends than with his sister. That's why I was playin' soccer against this wall 'ere. I haven't lost a game yet."

[melaniestryd]

         Two lanterns dimly lit the game room. Every few seconds a loud thump could be heard as Melanie kicked the soccer ball at the wall. Jared was still on the raid, Jamie was with his friends and Wanda with Ian, so Mel was on her own. She wasn't lonely, not really. She just preferred the company of other people to being by herself.

         She counted fifty-three kicks when she heard the scuffing of someone's shoes. Turning around quickly, her smile slipped when she realized who it was. "Oh. It's you," Mel mumbled, picking the ball up as it rebounded back to her, as if Arianna would snatch it. She hadn't seen the blonde girl since their fight a few weeks ago. "What do you want, Arianna? Here to insult my friend again?"

[theh0sters]

New The Host still.

[kirawalkers-deactivated20150619]