Happiness - A Reddie Story

Waking Up

"It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you"

(Toto - Africa)

Sunlight hit my face, turning on my consciousness, but my eyes were still too heavy and too lazy to open. I smelled a weird scent while feeling something strange in my body...

I was no longer feeling the softness of the cotton mattress that Eddie had loaned me to sleep in his room, I was sitting, asleep (well, almost awake now), in an armchair.

The scent I felt was clean, fresh, like Listerine mint flavor freshly taken from my mouth after a mouthwash.

Curious about it, I frowned and slowly opened my eyes and realized I was no longer in Eddie's room.

It was a hospital room.

I believe the day I had a sleepover in Eddie's house was twenty-seven years later or more from now.

My vision was becoming clear, and I looked at the corner of the bed, there were some hanging balloons, but not the kind that had messages that could kill you, in fact, some of them were heart-shaped, silver-textured, and others with "Get well soon" written.

"What?" I muttered, and looked around, and in the blink of an eye, I saw Eddie still young, with the cast on his arm. My eyes widened and in another blink of them, I saw the same Eddie, but older, and in place of the plaster arm was a tourniquet.

And I remembered, this was a few days after we finally killed It.

God...

I almost lost him...

Thank God we could rush to the Hospital just in time... I believe he's asleep since then.

I looked at the window as the door knocked, and not even waiting for an answer, someone already opened it slowly.

It was a nurse.

"Good morning!" She kindly said, as she went towards Eddie to do the routine checkups.

"Morning." I mumbled, answering with a smile.

"It's such a beautiful day outside, isn't it?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"It's been raining for months, and now, recently the sun decided to show up with its glory."

I glanced at the nurse, smiled and nodded.

She glanced at Eddie and looked at me.

"You are lucky, he lost a lot of blood, thank God there are kind people who are able to donate blood." She said. "Now he's fully healthy, resting."

I looked at Eddie and smiled. "Yeah. We had a rough time here... car accident, you know."

She frowned then shook her head, smiling. "Mr. Tozier... if you want to, go take a fresh air, I can keep an eye on Mr. Kaspbrak."

I shook my head "No, thank you."

"Okay then, I'll bring the breakfast within minutes." She said, smiling.

I nodded as she closed the door. Then I looked at Eddie.

"You saved us, you know that?" I whispered. "I never got the chance to tell you but... thank you, Eds... for everything."

I stroke his hair. Suddenly, all of the memories of us after we defeated Pennywise for the first time showed up again. The camping... our last laughs on Barrens... our goodbye when Beverly moved from Derry, then Ben, then Bill, then Bev... then you... and then... I said goodbye to Mike...

And look at us now, twenty seven years later we are back, after defeating some alien fucking ancient clown being. But one of us didn't make it to see It dying.

"I wish Stan was here with us." I suddenly muttered.

I sat on my armchair and sighed as my childhood memories started to run through my hair... my Voices... the Barrens dam... oh gosh...

I smiled at nothing, with a feeling of nostalgia running into my mind.

I ran my hair through my hair and sighed again. Then I heard something, the bed was... moving?

I quickly looked at it, and saw Eddie giving first signs of waking up.

"Mmm... mmm..." he mumbled, making moves with the shoulder with the tourniquet.