The Rejected Alpha

Chapter 118

Everyone was still silent.

I didn't say anything.
I was scared that I was dreaming.

This has to be real.
Please oh please let this be real.
Ana scrunched up her eyebrows as she looked around us.
"Why are we in the ground?"

I could actually hear her voice. She was awake and speaking. I wasn't dreaming, at least I sincerely hoped I wasn't.
Her heart was beating. I could hear it.
She was breathing. I could feel it.
She was alive. I didn't even want to dwell on what cosmic magic or loophole brought her back because I didn't care. She was here.
She was breathing, and looking around, looking up at me with expectancy.

Oh, uhm, yeah.
Her question.

The truth is always the way to go.
I shouldn't lie.

"We were playing pretend, remember?" My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. All the tears I was holding back straining on my vocal cords. I sounded both shaky and hoarse. "This is your fortress you're building because you're a princess." I said injecting as much playfulness into my voice as I could because I didn't want to alarm her. I still had no idea what all this meant. My voice however remained very shaky and so I slightly tickled her eliciting a small laugh from her and gestured towards her tiara to distract her.

I don't see any world in which I tell a five year old that she's been dead for months and that she's just come back to life in a way we're yet to understand ourselves. If there is, it's certainly not this one.

"Me being a princess is not pretend." She said turning her chin up at me. I smiled. And pushed back tears. I didn't want to overwhelm her. She had no idea what was going on.
"Can we stop though, it's itchy here." Her hands were rubbing her arms, the dirt probably making her uncomfortable.

And I for the first time remembered where we were. I turned quickly to the side, watching Damon who still stood a couple of feet away from us, staring at Ana wide eyed. He looked completely immobile, he wasn't even breathing.
He was in shock, rightly so.

I gently picked her up and got out of the hole and I placed her on the ground.
Right before Damon.

She had her head down as she smoothed out her dress, completely oblivious to how the world had frozen around her.
How everyone was afraid to breathe the wrong way in fear of having her disappear again.

Or maybe that's just how I was feeling.

Or how Damon was feeling.

He still hadn't said a word.

But his eyes held a thousand.

Words that may not be deciphered by a five year old, but I could see them.

Dropping to his knees in-front of her he let out a breath.
Finally content with her dress, she looked up at him she gave him a crooked smile.

"Damon!" She squealed, excited to see him as she always is. Then she instantly frowned. "You're dirty too." She looked past him at Marcus who stood close. "Why is everyone dirty?"

Finally making a move, Damon let out a laugh and pulled her in for a hug. And even though she pretended to make a fuss that he was dirty and hence ruining her dress, I saw her hands grip tightly into his shirt. She was holding on to him for dear life with her head buried in his chest. Probably not even understanding why she had missed him so much.

And Damon, he just held her and cried. In front of me, in front of everyone.
He just cried and held her. His little princess.

******

So after standing in the yard for a while, while the sun blazed down on us and the adrenaline of the fight and Sarah and finding Ana wore off of me, it's safe to say I began to feel light headed.