Everyone Deserves The Flame (Adopted By Patrick Stump)

27 (Patrick's P.O.V)

The car ride home was silent. Not a word was spoken, the only sound was the hum of the radio. I opened my mouth many times to talk about stuff, but I found myself closing it each time. It was clear Iris wanted to talk, but didn't know what to say either. Her hands were tightly squeezed between her legs. I noticed she was nibbling on her bottom lip. Something was making her nervous.

"Are you okay?" I asked her as we pulled into the driveway. She looked at me, and stopped chewing her lip. I watched as she ran her hands up, and down her jeans, before resting them on her lap. Her eyes were somewhere between a blue, and green. She was happy, and sad all at once. She shook her head lightly, her ponytail swaying side to side. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just nervous about the Ativan. What if it doesn't work? What if it works, but I don't want to stop after I'm supposed to be done? What if-"

"Iris, you'll be okay, I promise. As far as I'm concerned you will never touch more than two pills at a time, one Ativan, and one painkiller." I insisted, and she nodded. She was having the same doubts like the rest of us. Everybody was worried about this going sideways. There were so many risks, that it was impossible not to worry. But we had to keep hoping for the best outcome. In order for Iris to believe in herself, we had to believe in her too.

"I just really want this all to work, and to be okay again." She whispered, not moving an inch. I didn't move either except to shut off the car. We just looked around us like the world would stop moving if we wished it hard enough. But it didn't stop moving, it kept turning, the clocks kept ticking, and the sun kept falling only to rise again. Things would never stop, we were always going to be moving towards the end of the day.

"Me too, Kiddo." I said before exiting the car. Declan was at Elisa's for the next week, it was a part of the fifty fifty thing we had issued by the judge. She gets him for two weeks, I get him for two weeks. Since he wasn't in school yet there wasn't a need to figure out where he'd go yet. Iris was fully mine. I had her one hundred percent. And nothing in the world could change that. I had explained that to Iris when we were waiting for the nurse to remove her IV.

We walked into the house, and Iris went to her room to get changed out of the clothes the hospital gave her. I went to my room, and looked for a place to hide the Ativan, and painkillers. I probably could've just put them on my bedside table, and Iris would never touch them. She hardly ever came into my room. She only came into my room to wake me up, or get something I asked her to grab. Other than that she had never came into my room, she was very respectful when it came to things like that. I just wanted to be sure that unless she was looking really hard for them, she wouldn't find them. I shoved them in my empty bedside table drawer that I never used.

A knock on my closed door, caused my head to shoot up. I quickly pushed the drawer closed so that it wasn't obvious where I hid her medication. I walked over to the door, and saw Iris standing there wringing her hand around her wrist something was making her nervous.

"Somebody just came inside, I didn't get to see who it was." She whispered. I pulled her into my room, and sat her on my bed. I knew it was Andy, he was probably just bringing some of his stuff to the guest bedroom on the main level. But Iris didn't know that. She had every reason to be terrified. Last time someone entered where she was staying, uninvited she ended up nearly dead. Now somebody came into the one spot she thought was safe, and left no warning. I understood why she would come to me. I was happy she came to me instead of running this time.

"It's just Andy, he's moving in for a while remember? It's okay, he can't reach you here I promise." I grabbed her hands. She looked down at them before nodding. Her hands we warm, and small. Nothing like that day in the back of the ambulance. That day her hands were lifeless, here her hands were full of life. We heard the front door click shut again, and the vroom of a car leaving. She smiled at me letting out a breath of relief.