CHAPTER 23 | FREEDOM

MAIA'S hands tangled into the dry grass. Her eyes remained closed, but she still took in handfuls of weeds, pulling it apart from the ground to feel the dirt crust under her nails. She opened her orbs to the sight of red leaves hanging over her, sunlight trying to peak through the branches and blinding her.

The blonde slowly sat up as she began to look around her. She saw grass. Maia hadn't seen grass in too long. She breathed in quickly, hands finding the trunk of the white-barked tree next to her. There was only one explanation to this scenery: she had returned to Washington.

Maia took a while to finally stand, because her legs wobbled and her knees shook with tremors. She wasn't sure how long she'd been lying there, but she did take note of how her heart seemed to bleed as her mind replayed the scene of Jon's death that happened right before her eyes. She had been gone for months, and suddenly fate decided she should return when she was being chased for kill? Things weren't adding up in her brain.

She stumbled down the small hill of grass, pushing the caution tape placed around the tree out of her way, until she reached the dirt walking path. Nausea settled in her stomach as she spotted a police car sat just a few feet away. There had to have been an investigation for her, but she wouldn't have thought for it to go on for so long.

Derek must have been – oh, God. Derek was already gone. He probably canceled the wedding. He probably thought her to be dead.

The officer leaning against his car looked off into the horizon, immediately identifying the dirty blonde walking up to his vehicle. She was wearing an odd outfit of sorts, but he was no fool. He had seen too many photos of her to not recognize her. He sprinted to Maia, quickly hooking her arms around his shoulders as she asked who he was, to which he responded, "My name is Officer Conway, ma'am. We've been looking for you for a long time."

Maia held her head as the officer slid her into his cruiser. "I was ... away. Far, far away."

Officer Conway didn't have time to ask her questions, or how she suddenly appeared at the place of her vanishing out of the blue. Her choice of clothing depicted her story, for she wore a torn wool skirt with a tight bodice and hand-made sweater covering her shoulders. He unclipped his radio from his belt, muttering into it, "I found her, sheriff. I found Maia Sanders."

•••

He had booked a flight for that night as soon as he got the call from the Washington police department. Derek rushed for his plane, and it only took overnight to finally arrive in Washington once again. Being in the state of his fiancé's supposed disappearance made him feel odd, especially when he had been sad for so long, thinking that she had been murdered.

He almost hadn't believed the officer when he called him. It had been months since he'd last seen her, so it was normal for him to finally come to terms with her vanishing and to seek the help of a professional. But when he got the call, he knew that even if the woman they'd found wasn't Maia, he needed to see for himself.

Derek immediately got a taxi to the hospital, wasting no time to visit the hotel he somehow booked the night prior. He rushed into the medicated ward and spoke to the secretary that he was there to see Maia Sanders. He took a seat in the waiting area, hands shaking with moderate excitement, and before he knew it, a doctor from inside the glass doors approached him. "Derek Swanson?" He asked, putting a hand on the man's shoulder.

Derek jolted as he nodded. The doctor, which had a name tag that read Dr. Jenkin, gestured for him to stand and walk with him.

Dr. Jenkin led him through the hallways of the Washington hospital. "Maia was found sometime in the early hours of yesterday morning," he proposed. "She was right where she disappeared, oddly enough. The officer at the time didn't know what to think."

"But she's okay, right?" Derek asked.

The doctor halted their movements, stopping right outside a patient's room. "That is where the problem lies, Mr. Swanson. Your fiancé seems to think she was in some other world during the months she was gone. She begged us not to let you know, but she's convinced she was transported into that fantasy HBO TV show."

Derek took a step back. "She thinks she was in Game of Thrones?"

"She won't give us any other information besides that. We believe she's suffering from shock." Dr. Jenkin sighed. "I think you should talk with her. See if you can get more out of her."

Derek nodded before slowly making his way to his fiancé's room. He watched the way she began to play with the IV punctured in her arm. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes. She was the same on the outside, leaving him absolutely breathless, but on the inside, she was so much different.

When Maia's eyes found his, she felt a wave of fear bubble up in her stomach. Not from the sight of him, but from the guilt buried deep within her. She had turned her back on him. She had fallen in love with another man in a different time. She couldn't marry him anymore knowing that. In fact, Maia was sure she didn't want to marry him anymore.

All she wanted right now was to be holding Jon's hand.

Derek cleared his throat, sliding a chair over to her cot. "Hey, Mai." He greeted, reaching out for her hand. She didn't move it. "How are you feeling?"

Maia spoke no words. She stared at him with wide eyes.

"The doctor informed me on what's been happening. I've missed you more than you know." He ogled her, realizing that she was fearful to be near him. Maia – the girl he'd been with since college – was scared of him. "What's going on with you?"

She looked down at her hands before whispering, "You're going to hate me."

"Maia, I could never hate you. I just got you back after so long." He stood to caress her cheeks and place a kiss on her forehead. "I've missed you so much. Don't you know that?

She didn't want to cry, but there Maia was, feeling a tear slip down her face to dangle below her chin. "I don't ..."
She took an intake of air. "I don't love you anymore."

Derek gaped. He moved his chair away, allowing him a moment to think as he gawked at the sight of his teary-eyed fiancé.

"I don't want to marry you. I can't do it." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I –"

"Is this because of your fucking psychotic episode? You really think that while you were away from me, you were in goddamn Game of Thrones?" He scoffed at her sobbing. He only saw it as an act of pity now. "Did you – what – fall in love with Jon fucking Snow? Is that what you've come up with in your mind?"

Maia looked out her window, watching a dark, black crow perch itself on the flowered tree beside her. The bird glowered at her as she mumbled, "I didn't mean to fall in love with him, Derek."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me? You've actually managed to go fully insane, instead of just owning up to the reality that you were probably fucking kidnapped! You created this whole scenario to cope instead of telling the truth!" Derek sighed. "This is not a healthy way of coping. I thought we trusted each other, Maia."

Just the look she was giving him was breaking his heart. He had always been a hot-head when things like this happened. Derek was livid, and he knew that if he continued to stare at her in the hospital bed, he would apologize for his words. Though he didn't want to, because he didn't regret them one bit, not when she was giving up on him.

"I always knew you were fucking crazy. You went ballistic during stupid wedding plans!" Derek let out a gruff huff, something that sent a chill down Maia's spine. "You know, I'm happy I canceled our wedding while you were away in fucking Westeros, apparently. Now I can finally come to terms with this."

Maia rubbed at her eyes and laced her hands together. "I never meant to hurt you, Derek."

"You did a pretty good job of doing it anyways."

She watched him walk out of the room, almost in slow motion. He practically ran into her specified doctor and grabbed him by the collar so he could mutter, "She's crazy. Send her to a therapist, for all I care." Maia sucked in another sob as she watched Derek not only stride away from the hospital, but from her life.

And as the doctor explained the new treatment she'd have to go under, the former pair finally let out a breath of relief. They were free.

•••

A/N: Okay so, it was kinda obvious that Derek and Maia were never going to get back together. This seemed incredibly dramatic, but I never really got into a lot of backstory for Derek because I was afraid people wouldn't want to hear about him. From scenes that you did read of him on his own, you can see he went through some pretty low lows, and this in moment, you saw he went through a pretty high anger, and he also has his high happy days. I advise reading his backstory in my Meet My OCs book, because it delves deeper into his past! I wanted to give off hints that Derek does have bipolar disorder, which is a disorder that affects over 5.7 million Americans every year. I hope I portrayed this in his character somewhat correctly, because I thought it was important. This is the reason why this chapter may seem bit too dramatic, and also because - let's be honest - Maia is basically out of her mind lol

Hope that cleared some things up!