17-Dec-2000
Title: Inferno's Touch ~Chapter 15
Author: Ravynfyre
Archive: GW Addiction, Darkflame
Category: Humor, Action
Pairings: none in this chapter
Standard Disclaimer: All parts of Gundam Wing are Not Mine. It's all Theirs. *sigh* Too bad, but otherwise, I guess I'd never get anything done *happy hentai thought*. Anyway, not makin' any money offa this so dun sue me. You'd only get some college debt, a few dogs, and a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers anyway. Ya know. blood. Turnip. Do the math.
Rating: PG-13 at worst
Warning: none... okay, maybe a warning not to be drinking anything whilst reading the first part, otherwise you may irrigate your sinuses. *gryn*
Spoiler: none
Notes: Dedicated to my soul-sib. We'll be waiting.
Feedback: Yes, please. All comments welcome (although flames may be fed to my dogs, who, since they have notoriously gassy intestinal tracts, will be spending the night with the flamer afterwards)
"Well, there goes the neighborhood," a dry Chinese voice commented as Duo bounced through the large main bay doors into Engine House No. 8 the following morning.
Duo turned, dropping the duffel he was carrying as he peered into the shadows beside Medic 6 for the owner of the voice. A wide, sunny grin broke over his face as Wufei stepped out from around the corner of the ambulance, clipboard in hand. The Chinese investigator thanked the paramedic from the previous shift that he'd just been speaking to, before striding towards Duo with an indulgent half-smirk playing across his lips.
"Wu! Whatcha doin here?" Duo crowed, nodding to the paramedic as he walked past, heading for the kitchen.
"Unlike some people, Maxwell, I work for a living. And it's Wufei. Not Wu. Not Wu-chan. Not Wu-meister, Wu-marino, Wu-honey, Wuffles, Wuffie, Wu-baby, Wu-bamalingding, Wu-ing, or Schnookums. Got it?" Wufei replied with a quirk of a single elegant eyebrow.
"You are no fun at all, man," Duo pouted.
"And you would have to take that matter up with someone who may actually have a clue about it, Maxwell."
"Where is Zechs, anyway?" the braided driver replied, swooping down to snatch up his duffel once more before turning to wander off towards the kitchen.
"Probably on his way here. I'm not his keeper Maxwell."
"Oh really?" Duo replied saucily, spinning around to spear Wufei with a speculative glance as he struck a dramatic pose, "So does that mean you're willing to share?"
Wufei shook his head and sighed mightily.
"Maxwell, is there anything you won't consider sleeping with?"
Duo affected a contemplative expression, tapping his chin with one long finger and biting his lower lip as he feigned deep thought.
"Umm. Sauerkraut," he finally replied, tossing a wink at his compatriot.
"Great. You won't sleep with it, but you'll eat it on almost anything. There's something Freudian in that, I'm sure."
Duo smirked wickedly as he spun back around and continued his progress into the kitchen. He shoved open the swinging door with a flourish and pranced in, calling an overly cheerful morning greeting to the bleary eyed members of the previous shift who were discussing the morning news around the breakfast table.
"You're late, Maxwell."
Duo turned, surprised by the emotionless voice from the office.
Heero's prussian gaze met his own as the Japanese firefighter hung the training schedule back on the wall beside the door.
"Geeze Heero! It's barely 6:30! I got a half an hour before I hafta be here! I'm EARLY!"
"I've already checked over the whole rig, all the medical equipment, and all the tools," Heero continued, "What happened? Couldn't get that hunk of junk car of yours started?"
Duo's eyes flashed dangerously as Heero nodded cordially at Wufei before crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the doorframe with a bored expression.
"Ancestors save me," Wufei muttered, shaking his head as he slipped past the affronted driver and made a beeline for the coffeepot.
"My what?"
Heero's eyebrow arched delicately into his hairline at the icy calm tone of voice those two little words were spoken in.
"What did you call Deathscythe?"
In the kitchen, the guys from the previous shift were rapidly vacating their seats, edging towards the back door slowly, as not to attract attention. Wufei held his ground, coffee cup in hand, and took one of the now empty chairs with an unreadable smirk.
"I believe I called it a car," Heero replied evenly.
"A car."
"Sounded like 'hunk of junk' car to me," Wufei supplied helpfully from the table as he reached for the front-page section of that morning's newspaper.
"Aa," Heero agreed.
"Ya know, Heero. I could use real oil based paint next time," Duo replied dangerously.
"So could I."
"You have to have a first time, for there to be a next time, Heero," Duo said with honeyed sincerity.
"That I do, Maxwell," Heero replied, the tiny smirk teasing the corners of his mouth widening a fraction as he raised his arm and glanced at his watch, "Three. Two. One."
There was a sudden solid "thunk" from the roof above them, and then the soft "paff paff paff" sound of something, a lot of somethings, exploding outside from the direction of the parking lot.
Duo's eyes bulged from his head as he spun around on his heel and bolted for the back door. Heero followed sedately in the braided man's wake, almost sauntering into the kitchen. Wufei watched as Duo dashed past him, a look of horrified anticipation on his face. The previous shift crew scattered as Duo dove into their midst and slammed into the door, stopping short in his haste to get outside. Wufei stood and followed behind Heero as he strolled through the parted ranks for the now open door.
"YUY!"
The scream was primal, bloodcurdling, and vengeful. There was an edge of panic in it that offset the rage a hair, and a trembling hint of pain that made Duo's voice crack on the last second or two of vocalization. Privately, Wufei was amazed. He didn't know the human throat was capable of producing so expressive a sound, especially at that volume. Hell, he didn't know the human voice was capable of hitting that volume without electronic help.
The two of them slipped through the door, Heero pausing and crossing his arms over his chest once again as Wufei continued past him to examine the scene.
Duo stood, knees bent and body trembling, a half dozen paces from his beloved 69' Camaro, his hands clenched into fists by his side. The car, however, was in worse shape, as it was covered in dinner plate sized splotches of creamy white foam and a few tattered remains of thin balloons. An awful lot of dinner plate sized splotches of creamy white foam.
"You have a death wish, don't you?" Wufei muttered to Heero who had moved up a pace to stand beside him.
"It's the same wash and wax stuff he uses at home. I just agitated it into a stiff froth," Heero confided in a low whisper.
The laugh surprised him, bursting from his throat unbidden as he watched Duo try to assimilate the "candy coating" of his one and only true love. With a shake of his head, Wufei let the laugh have its way with him.
Duo spun on a heel, the flash in his amethyst gaze murderous. Worse than murderous. Wufei felt the laugh freeze in his lungs.
"When I'm done stringing his intestines from the front flag pole, you're next."
"Oh my god, Duo! What happened to your car?!" someone cried from near the front of the engine house.
"Shut up, Quatre," Duo snapped, advancing on Heero, "You could be next."
Wufei was surprised to hear Heero humming- no. singing something softly, almost under his breath, as Duo approached. After the second repeat, Wufei finally caught the singsong words.
"C-A-M. A-R-O. Ob, se, ssed," sung to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club Song.
Wufei's eyebrows shot into his hairline as he contemplated the scene. He wasn't sure which was more frightening, Heero singing, or the additional flash of rage as Duo comprehended the softly sung words.
"There are worse things than death, Yuy," Duo growled, his voice rumbling dangerously, "And you're going to become intimately acquainted with every one of them."
"Really?" Heero replied, his tone the very picture of boredom as he once again raised his arm up and peered at his watch, "Three. Two."
Duo spun on his heel again, his eyes going wide with another wave of horror as he tried to sprint to his car to avert whatever fate Heero had planned for it.
"One."
There was a slight hiss from the roof, like the sound of a firehose being opened up, and a gentle rain of water arched over the peak to sprinkle gracefully down over the racy black Camaro. Duo pulled up short as the frosting of white foam gently slipped off the muscle car, dripping to thin puddles on the concrete. After a few moments, once all the foam had been rinsed away, the gentle rain ceased, leaving only the puddles in the parking lot as evidence. Heero bent down and retrieved a bottle from its hiding place beside the back door. Duo turned and speared him with an incredulous look as he approached and pressed the bottle into the braided man's hand.
"You may want to wait until it dries before applying the second coat," Heero said with a wink.
Then he turned, and casually strolled back into the firehouse, without even a glance behind him.
Duo blinked and stared down at his own bottle of Wash and Wax. After a very long moment, he looked back up and met Wufei's wide-eyed gaze.
"Even his practical jokes come off perfectly. I give up."
As Duo threw his hands in the air and turned back to inspect his car, Wufei allowed the stifled laughter to burst from him again.
Looked like things were back to normal at Engine House No. 8.
Everyone focused on Heero as the Japanese man's head snapped up, his deep blue eyes riveted to the speaker hanging high on the wall in the kitchen/living room of the engine house. If the speaker had popped, signaling an incoming call, no one else had heard it over their training video, but Heero had always been slightly uncanny when it came to anticipating action.
A moment or two after Heero's head had jerked up to stab the speaker with his intense glare, a familiar electronic tone filled the pregnant silence.
"This is an automatic alarm for Engine 8, Truck 2, and Battalion 1. Need you to go to 2328 Constitution Drive, the Imperrator Plaza. Have a report of their fire alarm system going off."
Before the entire call had come through, Heero, Duo, and Zechs were already dashing for the rig bay, one ear open for the rest of the details as they started tossing on their bunkers and shrugging on equipment.
"Hey. Isn't that that five star hotel place over near Panther Prairie Golf Estates?" Duo yelled as he finished snapping one last closure on his rig pants before he hopped into the driver's seat and palmed the door opener.
Zechs' and Heero's voices grunted an agreement in unison, only marginally slower jumping up into their own seats because of the extra equipment they had to shrug on.
"Rock and roll. We're out!" Duo yelled, starting to roll Engine 8 out the bay door before Heero had even gotten his door shut, trusting the firefighter to slam it closed before it could hit the wall. An instant before metal could make contact with concrete, the door snapped shut, the lights and sirens flicked on, traffic stopped, and like the well oiled machine Engine 8 and her crew was, the rig pulled onto the street and raced away.
From the kitchen doorway, Trowa and Quatre stood, watching as the tail end of the rig vanished from sight. Quatre was surprised by the secretive half smile on his partner's face.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Green eyes darted down, slipping comfortably over blonde hair and pale skin.
"Nice to see things back to normal," was his quiet reply.
"Normal being a relative term.." Quatre replied, indulging himself in a sunny grin.
Trowa snorted quietly, shaking his head as he slipped back through the door into the kitchen and the last half of their training video.
Heero finished snapping his bunker coat closed, slapping the Velcro flap over the metal snaps with practiced hands, and then settled back into his seat to shrug on the bulky SCBA tank assembly. He'd pulled the straps up onto his shoulders, cinched them down, buckled the waist belt tightly, and was reaching forward to slip on his helmet when some inner sense prompted him to pause. This was just another automatic alarm, like any other. Probably someone making popcorn in their room and let it go over long and burn. or someone smoking under a detector. or even just an electronic failure. They'd show up, find the offending detector, fix the problem, reset the system, and trudge on back to the engine house to patiently wait for their adrenaline to fade. Just like every other automatic alarm he'd ever been on.
Then why did he suddenly have this urge to get his mask on and be ready for some real action? There was never any harm in being overly prepared. With a shrug, he gave in to his inner discomfort, and pulled his hood down onto his neck so he could slip on his mask. Once that was on and cinched tight, he slipped his hood back up and popped on his helmet. The gloves were last to be donned, and the pick-headed ax made the ensemble complete. He spared a glance to the rapidly passing terrain; they were halfway there, and most likely to be the first rig in. Nodding to himself, he turned in his seat to see his captain, surprised a little when he noticed that Zechs, too, had donned his mask as if he was anticipating real action. Zechs seemed to feel his gaze, for he spared a quick look back, something sparking between them as each noticed the other's preparedness. Heero nodded, and then settled back into his seat, waiting for Duo to work his magic and get them to their destination.
As the rig turned sharply onto the main drag that would lead them the half-mile to Constitution Drive, Duo whistled sharply, biting off an exclamation.
Heero turned in his seat again, his breath stuttering in his throat for a brief moment as he took in the thick belch of black smoke erupting from one of the upper floors of the posh hotel.
"Looks like we got a cooker!" Duo called over the sound of the rumbling diesel engine separating them.
Heero grunted an agreement, even as Zechs radioed back to Control to advise them to upgrade the alarm to a general and get another four rigs on their way. The Japanese firefighter absently noted when Control responded, toning out another four rigs before Battalion 1 instructed Zechs that primary objective would be rescue, rather than fire suppression. Zechs was acknowledging that even as Engine 8 made the turn onto the right street and screamed through the traffic towards their objective. In the distance, Heero could faintly make out the wail of Truck 2's siren as Engine 8 screeched to a halt just beyond the front doors of the Imperrator. Before the rig had even completely settled, Heero had his door open, and was hopping out. He paused at one of the compartments long enough to grab a bundle of hose they called a High-rise Pack: 100 foot of inch and a half line, with a three foot length of two and a half inch line and a splitter that they could hook up to a stand pipe on an upper floor of the hotel so they could have some sort of water if need be. Once that was shouldered, he was on Zechs' heel, following his captain into the building, Duo but a couple of heartbeats behind.
An excitable older man met them in the lobby, and with much hand waving and squeaking, directed them to the elevator and the 23rd floor. It took Zechs precious seconds to calm the man enough to get a clear picture of what was going on and discover that there had been some sort of explosion. The resulting fire had spread quickly through the 23rd floor, draining the sprinkler system rapidly without putting much of a dent in the fire itself. Initial reports estimated about half a dozen registered guests on that floor unaccounted for, and possibly trapped in their rooms. Before the hotel manager could get excited once more and waste any more of their time, Zechs Duo and Heero left him behind and vanished into the waiting elevator.
"We'll get off on the 22nd floor and take the stairwell up. The standpipe should be in the stairwell. Get it hooked up and ready to go. We' ll split up and search room to room. All the electronic locks will have been tripped, so all the rooms should be open. Leave the door open while you're inside the room, and after you've searched it. Understood?" Zechs instructed.
Duo and Heero nodded, taking a moment to reach behind them and turn on their air tanks. The doors dinged and quietly slipped open. A very light haze of smoke filled the hallway, drifting down through the air handling system to lower floors. Floors above the 23rd would probably be much worse, as the smoke rose through ducts and ceilings and stairwells. The three of them quickly exited the elevator and turned down the long hallway, moving as one for the stairwell. As soon as they opened the heavy fire door, they could tell something was wrong. Very wrong.
Thick banks of heavy black and grey smoke pressed down from above, forcing them to slap their regulators into place. Heero shifted his grip on his ax and hose pack, then followed after Zechs and Duo as they crawled up the stairs to the floor above. As soon as they arrived at the right landing, Heero was efficiently unpacking the hose, while Duo unscrewed the cap from the standpipe. Zechs was busy examining the shattered remains of the stairwell door as Heero and Duo got the hose hooked up and laid out as best they could in the tight confines of the stairwell. Heero grabbed a few folds of the hose and stretched it out on the stairs to the floor above, then gave Duo the signal to open the valve. With a slight grunt, the braided driver spun the handle open and waited for water to flush the hose.
Nothing happened.
"Standpipes and the sprinkler system are all interconnected!" Duo shouted to his Captain.
Zechs nodded, unsurprised, and motioned both his firefighters close.
"You two take the left side of the hall, I'll take the right. Heero, lay the hose out down the center of the hall so we can find our way out of we get disoriented. Down by the elevators, the hallway splits into another two wings. I'll take the branch on the right, you guys take the branch on the left. Heero, left side, Duo, right side. If you find anyone, radio and let everyone know before you start evacuating them. RIT team should be ready and waiting before then. When you split up, leave the hose by the elevators, and hook your search lines to it. Got it? Any questions?"
A pair of nods, followed by identical negative shakes answered him.
"Half an hour, then you retreat."
The three crawled into the black shroud.
"This is a General Alarm. Section 8A. 2328 Constitution Drive, Imperrator Plaza. Have a report of an explosion and fire on the 23rd floor."
Trowa and Quatre's heads snapped up as the tones started blaring over the speaker, a quick familiar jolt of adrenaline slicing through them. Moments after the speaker went silent, they caught the faint pop of another call coming in and waited patiently for the next set of tones.
"Medic 6, Medic 8, Medic 5, need you to respond to 2328 Constitution, possible Code Blue."
"Civilian victims," Quatre murmured as he and his partner leaped to their feet and darted out the kitchen door.
Trowa grunted an agreement as the two of them slid into their seats and toggled on the lights and sirens. The ambulance rumbled to life and slid out the door, leaving Engine House No. 8 empty behind them.
Heero waited at the junction of the three wings for Duo to catch up. They'd split their side of the hallway, each taking every other room, and promising to meet at the elevators. While they'd been searching, another rig had arrived and hooked the building into the nearest hydrant, supplementing the standpipe and sprinkler system with a fresh influx of water. The hose Heero had been dragging had flushed full about halfway down the hall, some ten minutes ago, offering them some relief from the punishing heat and flames. Every so often, he would direct a fresh spray up into the dense smoke along the ceiling, trying to cool off the thermal layer bit by bit. It was as he shut down the line that he felt a hand grab his ankle firmly and a figure drag himself up beside him. Duo appeared at his side, leaning his head in close until their masks touched so that they could hear each other over the roar of the nearby flames.
"Ready?" he yelled, holding out the end clip of his 100 feet of rescue rope.
Heero nodded, laying the hose down and fishing his own rope out of his pocket. He tugged on the end fastened to his bunker pants firmly to make sure it wouldn't come loose, and then clipped the other end to the nozzle of the hose. He watched carefully as Duo mimicked him, clipping his own line in and gave it a good yank to make sure it, too, was secure.
"See ya in fifteen," Duo yelled, giving Heero's shoulder a squeeze as he moved off towards the right hand side of the left hallway.
Heero grunted an agreement and crawled towards the left-hand side, keeping one hand on the wall itself to keep from losing his way. The smoke soon swallowed Duo up, even though the other man was but a bare few feet away.
As he came to the first door, he knelt up enough to reach the knob and shove the door open. He followed the door as it swung open and grabbed the small wire cord hanging on the inner wall, the loop designed to keep the door open for housekeeping, and looped it over the inner knob. Satisfied that the door would remain open, he crawled into the room, keeping one hand on a wall or an article of furniture at all times as he made his way around the room. With a quick sweep of his arm, foot, or ax, he checked on and under every bed, behind every chair, inside the closet, and even under every dresser and table. Like every other room he'd been to thus far, it was empty. Forty seconds after he entered the room, he was crawling back out, turning to his left to continue down the hallway.
His radio squawked loudly as Duo keyed up his mike. The braided driver had found a victim and was calling for the RIT team to meet him in the stairwell. Zechs broke in quickly to tell Heero to continue his search for another fifteen minutes and then pull out. Heero acknowledged it quickly and then knelt up to shove open the next door.
Nine minutes later, Heero crawled into the throat of the fire. The cherry glow raged over his head as he started shifting his way through debris in the hallway. Pieces of wall and floor were broken and missing in spots as he pressed on, forcing him to lose precious seconds radioing back the danger to other firefighters. As he reached for where the next doorknob was supposed to be, he pitched over forward, surprised by the absence of even a door. The frame was twisted and shattered, and much of the surrounding architecture littered the floor of both hallway and room entry. Heero limbered up his ax to shove the debris out of the way, careful to keep his rescue line from getting tangled as he forced his way into the room.
Once past the doorway, the flotsam was sparse, but heavy. He had to push his way past an upended bed, and a tipped dresser at one point, before he came to the bathroom door. This door, unlike any of the others he'd come to before, was closed. With a frown, he turned the knob and gave the door a shove. It resisted his manipulations, the wood groaning under his shoulder as he slowly forced it open. Heero dropped his ax, shoving it to the side so he could reach that arm around the door and feel around on the floor. Something soft and unyielding met his grasp. Even through his thick heavy fire gloves, he could tell that the solid obstacle was a human body, lying against the back of the door.
Carefully maneuvering so that he could use his arm to help guide the body out of the way, he managed to force the door open enough to get into the bathroom. His flashlight scanned over the unconscious form quickly. No apparent injuries, no entanglements, and best yet, he could detect the slow rise and fall of the woman's chest as she struggled to breathe in the choking acrid smoke.
Even as his mind was noting the short sleeve shirt and skirt she wore, he was retreating back to the bedroom to yank one of the thick blankets off the bed to wrap her in. It wouldn't be much of a barrier against the intense heat, but it would be better than her clothing alone. As he returned and wrapped her into a tight cocoon, he keyed up his mike and called for another RIT team to meet him in the same stairwell they'd entered the floor from, to aid him with the rescue of a civilian victim.
He was already dragging the woman into the room and out into the hallway beyond when he heard the Batt Chief acknowledge his call and send fresh firefighters up to meet him. Heero was careful to wrap his rescue line around the cocoon of blanket and woman as he retreated, both to keep himself from getting entangled, and to keep his burden close to him as he quickly pulled her to safety. He'd almost reached the hose again when another group of firefighters bumped into him from that direction, wielding their own hose to help put out the flames.
"Give me a few before you open that nozzle," he yelled to the firefighter on the front of the hose, "Got a victim!"
"Got it!"
Confident that they wouldn't steam bake his burden, Heero continued until he could unclip his rope and hook it in to the woman he was dragging. Now fully unencumbered from his rescue line, he yanked out his length of tube webbing, wrapped it securely around her shoulders, fastened it to his SCBA harness with a heavy duty clip, and then began his rapid escape from the choking inferno.
He was almost to the end of the hallway, to the relative safety of the stairwell, when he heard the team behind him open up the hose they'd brought with them. The hiss of steam and dull roar of the rapidly diminishing flames exploded behind him, spurring him on.
He tumbled through the doorway, literally landing in the arms of the waiting RIT team. Not sparing another moment, he gave his tube webbing a firm yank, pulling his victim into the stairwell with him and shouldering her quickly. The RIT team, having caught his air of urgency, helped keep his burden steady as they fled down a flight of stairs. Behind them, a cloud of superheated steam and smoke erupted from the doorway and flashed upwards. Once they reached the next level down, Heero slipped through the door into the relatively smoke free hallway and turned the bundle over to the RIT team.
Fresher hands quickly untangled his rescue line and tube webbing from her, rewrapping the blanket around her firmly before she was carefully slung over someone's shoulder. With a hearty slap to his back, the RIT team slipped back out the door, guiding Heero along with them as they clomped their way down 22 flights of stairs to the ground level.
As they burst from the stairwell into the end of the long Lobby, Heero's tank buzzer started going off; he spared a brief second to flip his helmet back enough to yank the fogged over mask off and suck in a lungful of clean fresh air. Meanwhile, the RIT team was busy carrying his victim over to the waiting ambulance, where Trowa and Quatre were readying a gurney. Heero followed, radioing to Zechs along the way that he was out of the building and waiting on ground level. His captain advised him to remain down in the EMS area until the rest of their crew arrived to go to Rehab, to which Heero grunted an affirmative. Duo appeared at his elbow as he continued over to Medic 6, arriving just in time for Trowa to finish cutting the blanket off of the woman.
"Smart thinking," the quiet paramedic complimented as he took in the woman's relatively unburned state and her unassisted breathing.
Heero shrugged, dodging the wad of ruined blanket as Quatre tossed it out of their way prior to getting her settled on their gurney for examination.
"Yeah, excellent thinking, Heero. Wrapping her like that saved her life," Quatre agreed.
The woman's cornflower blue eyes popped open, fixing immediately on Heero's ash smudged face. One sculptured hand weakly shoved a sweaty wheat colored bang out of her line of sight before Trowa reached down and soothingly settled her arms back to her sides.
"You need to be still, ma'am. You've been through a fire, but you're safe now. We're going to check you over and get you to the hospital to be treated, okay?" Quatre's calm voice soothed gently.
Her gaze never left Heero's face as the two paramedics wrapped her into a fresh medical blanket and strapped her to the gurney to be loaded into the ambulance.
"You saved me," she whispered weakly, one hand trying to reach out to Heero where he stood watching silently.
"It's all right. You're in good hands. Just relax," Duo said from beside his partner.
Her gaze never wavered, remaining firmly trapped in Heero's, even when the braided firefighter slipped between the two of them to help lift the gurney into the ambulance.
Suddenly, a hand descended upon Heero's shoulder, and a familiar bedraggled mane of platinum hair brushed past him as Captain Zechs slipped up into their midst.
"Do you guys need a rider[1] in to the hospital?" he asked, stepping up to the tailgate to lean in and glance at the female patient within.
"No, we should be good, I think," Quatre answered, shifting a little, and opening a line of sight between the woman and the Captain of Engine 8.
Her expression jumped, startled, as she tore her eyes away from Heero finally and fastened them firmly onto Zechs. Everyone paused at her dumbfounded exclamation as their gazes met and sparked.
"Milliardo. I found you," she breathed, her voice a study of wonderment and surprise.
Zechs jumped, his own ice blue eyes widening in almost comic dismay and shock as he finally got a good look at her. When he opened his mouth, a single word tumbled out, devoid of all emotion, save a glazing of resignation.
"Relena."
~TBC~
Notes
[1] rider - Occasionally, the ambulance crew needs an extra set of hands,
since one of the two of the paramedics has to drive the ambulance in to the
hospital. Usually, they grab the nearest firefighter. We call that "taking a
rider."
RavynFyre
Please send comments to: ravynfyre@hotmail.com