When You & I Were Forever Wild

'Finn...' I registered Gerard's voice even though it was just a whisper, coming from what seemed like far away. 'Fiiiiinn. Wakey wakey.'

'Ughhhh.' I groaned, pulling the blanket over my head.

I didn't want to wake up. It felt way too early anyway and this bed was soooo comfortable. I wasn't even sure where I was but it also didn't matter right now. All I wanted to do was drift back into the blissful sleep Gerard had woken me up from. Everything else could wait.

'Finn...baby...' I could feel him pulling on the sheets and I kicked my leg in his direction. 'Now that's not very nice. Come on...someone's waiting for you outside.'

'I don't care.' I mumbled.

'Oh but I think you do. I'll give you a hint. It's a four-legged, furry creature.'

Immediately I forced open my eyes and sat up. Looking around, I finally realized where I was. The Wolf Sanctuary!

'There's a wolf outside?!?!?' I gasped, and Gerard nodded, a big smile on his face.

His hair was still wet from a recent shower he had taken but he was already fully dressed. Jeez, I must have been out like a light. What time was it anyway?

'Don't worry, it's only 8am. I wouldn't let you sleep the day away with so much fun stuff to do.' he said when he noticed I was stressing out.

We had stayed up until way after midnight, cuddling, talking, and listening to the wolves. Weirdly enough, now that I was fully awake and aware of what was going on, every cell in my body was 100% ready to start the day. I jumped out of bed and threw on the clothes that were still on the floor from the night before because I simply didn't care; I could take a shower and put on some fresh ones after I had said hello to our visitor outside. Gerard followed me as I ran down the stairs while brushing my hair, too desperate and excited to miss another second of this amazing opportunity. A REAL WOLF!

I opened the door and there it was, staring at me curiously. Wow.

'Good morning!' Rory, the staff member and handler we had met upon our arrival last night, greeted us.

'Morning.' I just replied, too overwhelmed by the wolf's presence to even bother with human socializing right now.

'Her name is Nymeria. She was named by George R. R. Martin.' Gerard said as I crouched down to come eye to eye with the animal.

'Nymeria...' I whispered and she took a few steps toward me.

I wasn't scared. Maybe I should have been, considering it was a wild, dangerous animal that despite being in constant contact with humans was still unpredictable. It could have been simply my naive belief that because it was my favorite animal, there was an instant bond between us but I felt comfortable with her, confident even. Slowly, I extended my hand to let her take a sniff, and after nuzzling my skin gently with her snout for a moment, she licked me and I had to control myself in order to hold back a delighted screech.

'Her whole pack was named after characters from his books. Your husband told me you're a fan.' Rory said and I nodded. How perfect! My favorite author had given these animals their names! As much as I wanted to find out more about it, right now, all I wanted to do was pet Nymeria.

'Can I?' I asked and Rory gave me his approval.

Her fur was soft and she leaned into my hand as I ran it over her head carefully. She stepped closer and began wagging her tail, and my heart began beating faster with joy. She liked me! She was letting me pet her! A wolf! Holy shit! I looked at Gerard who had sat down beside me and he looked just as fascinated and happy as I must have looked.

*

Watching Finn with the wolves was simply heartwarming. The best part of it was that the animals seemed just as excited to meet her as she was to meet them, and as much as I enjoyed it myself, watching her play with them, feed them, and photograph them , made the experience a million times better. We met the rest of Nymeria's pack, including two adorable pups, and even though Rory was with us the entire time, it felt like we were in our own little world, with the wolves. Seeing the Grand Canyon had been the highlight of our trip up until now, but it seemed almost insignificant compared to this.

After wandering around the sanctuary all morning, meeting even more wolves, wolf-dogs, dingos, foxes, as well as handlers and volunteers, we joined the staff for lunch during which they told us more about the animals, the history of the sanctuary, and their mission. As interesting and educational it was, both Finn and I were itching to go out again to spend more time with the wolves, and as soon as we had finished eating, that's exactly what we did.

'I heard they were looking for volunteers. We should totally move here and stay.' Finn said and although I knew she was joking, I felt tempted to agree.

'We should definitely come back. Rent the cabin for a week or two. Would be cool in winter too.' I said and her eyes lit up with excitement.

'Yes! Yes, we should do that! Oh Gerard, I'm so happy you found this place.' she hugged me tightly.

For the first time today, she was actually giving me some love, now that the wolves were asleep in the warm late-afternoon sun. I didn't mind the fact that I had been almost invisible to her all day, on the contrary, I was glad she had taken full advantage of this opportunity. We were both dirty, sweaty, smelly, and exhausted from spending time with the animals but they had managed to distract her from whatever had been on her mind since yesterday and that was all that mattered.

We didn't want to leave the next morning, especially after being greeted by Nymeria yet again. However, we both knew that if we stayed for too long, it would make it even harder, so once we had said goodbye to the human pack as well as the wolf packs, we set off. Finn pulled out her camera and Macbook right away in order to make our picture with the Westeros pack the new desktop background. The entire drive to Roswell, we spent talking; recalling our favorite moments at the Wolf Sanctuary, discussing our favorite animals (we couldn't decide which one even was our favorite!) and looking at the photos. When we arrived in Roswell, the excitement from our experience that was still making us hyper almost seamlessly blended into the excitement of finally reaching Alien City. Immediately we turned from wolf geeks to UFO nerds.

'Oooh look!' Finn called out and I looked at what she was pointing at.

A sign on the side of the road, announcing the 'Annual Amazing Roswell UFO Festival' which happened to take place this weekend. Finn and I looked at each other and had of course decided without a question that we had to go there. It was exactly the kind of thing we had been hoping to attend when we had put Roswell on our VIS (Very Important Stops) list. Could it get any crazier or nerdier than the UFO Festival? An event that celebrated the anniversary of the infamous Roswell UFO Incident of 1947. Although I did believe in extraterrestrial life, I didn't necessarily believe that there were aliens visiting us regularly from other planets and neither did I believe that our government was in possession of spaceships or the bodies of little green men. But while the majority of non-believers ridiculed people who did believe in things like that, I was actually very interested in listening to their theories and stories. I had a thing for conspiracies and I was fascinated in finding out how people came up with them, true or not. For me, it was simply science fiction on another level. Plus, since there was no evidence to either prove or deny it, the mystery still remained. Finn agreed with me on that, although she would sometimes freak me out, especially at night, when she would start with one of her 'but what if it's true!' theories. She'd get me to imagine the scenario, or google stuff in order to read it to me and then we would both lie awake and think about it, not able to sleep. Another thing she liked to do was point out how the government as well as scientists could have been leading us to believe that it's a myth or science fiction. But that since the government controlled everything, they could be lying to us about basically everything, manipulating the truth in order to make everything else seem unbelievable or even silly. We'd usually end up extremely paranoid. But it was fun and one of my favorite things to do.

*

'Hotel or tent?' I asked as we drove through the city center.

'Hotel, if we can find a room. I don't wanna be abducted.' Gerard winked and I grabbed the iPad to look for accommodations.

'If aliens want to abduct you, they're gonna abduct you. Whether you're in a tent or a building.'

'True. But I don't want to encourage them.'

'With so many willing volunteers, I don't think they're gonna pay attention to you.'

'Whatever, Scully.' we simultaneously rolled our eyes at each other and he pulled over so we could look through the options together.

Luckily, we found one last room at a hotel and after taking a little nap, we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the Downtown Historic District. There were aliens and UFOs everywhere - on streetlamps, on top of buildings, painted on walls; there were cardboard and blow-up aliens as well as miniature flying saucers outside every shop, in shop windows, even the McDonalds we passed was UFO-shaped. Every time I pointed my camera at one little green men, Gerard would find another one, and when we asked the guide at the UFO museum whether the town was decorated for the festival, he let us know that it was how it always looked like around here.

We stayed at the museum, getting successfully creeped out. It wasn't so much the figures (tall gray men instead of little green men) or the replicated crash site but reading all the articles about the crash and how the government kept changing their story. I still wasn't 100% convinced and I didn't take it too seriously but at the same time I couldn't help but wonder about what had really happened. Gerard and I got way into the whole thing and we knew that would happen too. Every time we looked at each other it became more and more obvious that this weekend would make our weekend in Las Vegas look like a family vacation. Things would get CRAZY.

'We should cosplay as Mulder and Scully.' I suggested as we snuggled up in bed a few hours later.

'Trenchcoats are too hot.' he pointed out and I had to agree.

'Guess I'm just gonna wear a bikini and spray-paint myself silver then.'

'What about me?'

'You can wear a bikini and spray-paint yourself silver too.' I giggled.

'You'd like that, huh?'

I couldn't deny the fact that yes, I would like that. At the end of the day I was just a girl in love with a boy and the less clothes he wore, the better.

The next day started with pancake tasting at the Cowboy Cafe and so far, they were definitely the best ones we had eaten yet. At 10am, there were already people in costumes out and about, and every now and then we could hear spooky sound effects and music from passing cars, along with someone shouting 'They are coming!' into a megaphone. Gerard and I were still debating whether we should simply embrace the craziness or have fun observing it all but then, within seconds, a decision was made when a couple around our age approached us.

'You look like you might want to join us.' the girl whispered, handing us a card that had nothing but an address on it.

'Entry is free if you bring some party favors.' the guy grinned knowingly. 'Oh. And keep it to yourself. It's by invitation only.'

'Did we just get invited to an illegal rave?' I asked Gerard, leaning over to him as they walked away.

'I think we did.' he smiled and him and I both knew we would get into the good kind of trouble again tonight.

*

Our afternoon had consisted of parades, street food with funny names, shopping for accessories to make up for the lack of costumes, getting our faces painted, and at the end of the day we looked like we belonged there just as much as the locals and enthusiasts who had traveled from all over the country to attend. Finn looked absolutely gorgeous with her green and gold eye make up, with winged lines running up her temples and sprinkles of glitter on her nose and forehead, making it look like she had glitter freckles along with her real ones. My face was painted gray with black eyes and Finn had pushed back my hair, pointing out that I looked 'scary hot', whatever that meant. Once we were painted and styled, we couldn't resist but go into full-on nerd mode along with the rest of the crowd. We stayed until the end of the pet costume contest and then went back to our hotel where Finn swapped her cropped top and shorts for a little black dress that looked so good on her, I immediately wanted to get her out of it again.

The secret location was an old factory on the outskirts of Roswell, an area that looked like an abandoned industrial district. We flashed the card we had gotten and the bag of booze we had brought upon our arrival and the guy at the entry stamped us before letting us in. Holy shit! I looked at Finn and I could tell she was thinking the same thing as we saw the crowd. It was absolutely packed, so packed that it took us about ten minutes to even get to the bar. The music was blasting and I had to yell into the guy's ear to order our drinks while Finn held on to me so we wouldn't be separated. This was nuts! I had been to a few very crazy house parties during college and also a good number of clubs, this was just a messy mix of both and so far, I had no idea whether I liked it or hated it. For now, it made me extremely anxious and I had to get drunk quickly to get rid of the panicky feeling that was making my stomach twist. Finn's grip on me tightened, as though she knew, and I kissed her quickly before handing her her drink and a shot.

'Hey, you made it!' the couple who had invited us had found us on our way back through the crowd.

'Yes! Thank you again for the invitation! It's crazy here!' Finn shouted and I nodded, the warmth of the hard liquor in my system already making me feel more relaxed.

'I'm Darcy and this is Kit!' the girl introduced them and we gave them our names. 'Come on, we'll take you somewhere less crowded!'

We followed them, trying our best not to lose them, the strobe lights and dancing bodies not making it easy to keep up. Eventually, we entered a smaller room where the music was a bit more mellow and people were sitting on pillows on the floor, only a few of them swaying around to the tune that was playing. Darcy and Kit led us to a free spot and we were offered another shot as soon as we sat down.

'So where are you from?' Kit asked, lighting a cigarette.

'New Jersey. But we live in LA.' I replied.

'You like Roswell?' he wanted to know and I nodded.

'I loooove your make up.' Darcy smiled at Finn.

'Yeah?'

'Maybe it needs a little touching up. Come on.' she got up and Finn let go of my hand, doing the same and they disappeared into what must have been a restroom.

'Umm yes, I love Roswell. Finn and I went exploring yesterday, we couldn't get enough. And this festival is just nuts.' I answered Kit's question.

'How long have you been married?' he motioned toward my ring.

'Two weeks. We're on a honeymoon road trip.'

'Congrats! Roswell, New Mexico feels honored to be a stop on your journey.' Kit raised his cup and I did the same.

Finn and Darcy returned from the bathroom and I was momentarily confused by the knowing look they gave each other, before Finn wrapped her arms around me.

'I got something for you.' she whispered in my ear, her lips brushing my skin, making me shiver.

My mind immediately went there and I nervously looked over at Kit and Darcy. To my surprise, they weren't even paying attention to us, too occupied with each other to even care, so it seemed. I had expected Finn to pull me up and disappear into some dark corner with me but instead, she smiled and opened her hand, revealing two green pills with an alien head design. Of course I knew exactly what they were, I'd had experimented with drugs in art school and was still confronted with it occasionally at events. Ecstasy had never been my first choice though, probably because of that one bad trip I'd had a few years ago. But this time it would be different, I told myself, this time I'm with Finn. Nothing bad would happen.

'Let's party.' Finn smiled, placing one pill on her tongue before kissing me and slipping it into my mouth.

Notes

I wanted to update yesterday but then I didn't feel so well. Sorry for the delay!

More adventures for Finn and Gerard! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, let me know what you think :)

Thanks for reading!