#disaster zone

Jason and Dick were thrown backward by the blast, landing in a heap about ten feet from where they had been standing. Groaning, both boys struggled to sit up and regain their bearings. People were screaming all around them and smoke curled out of the scant remains of what had just been the theatre.

All the blood rushed out of Jason’s face as he muttered, “Y/N.” He scrambled to his feet as Dick paled and frantically followed suit. They took off running towards the area they thought they had last seen you, but it was almost impossible to tell where anything had once been. When they thought they were in the approximate area, they began shifting desperately yet carefully through the rubble, screaming out your name. Jason couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Bruce had felt as he searched for his body years ago. Finally, Dick moved a hunk of cement and saw as a hand appeared from underneath it. He instantly recognized the bracelet that he had given you for your birthday on the wrist.

“Jay, over here! I found her!”

Feverishly, the two boys moved pieces of rock and debris, slowly uncovering more and more of your broken form, until the only wreckage that remained was a large section of the theatre wall that was too heavy for them to move. It was still pining you to the ground from the waist down, but there wasn’t any more they could do at the moment, so they began assessing your injuries.

You were lying awkwardly, half on your side, half on your back. Every inch of you was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. The left side of your face was skinned raw where you had skidded across the asphalt. Your sunglasses were destroyed, the remains of which dangled haphazardly from your face. Dick carefully removed what was left and noticed that they had been rammed against your nose with such force, they had shattered bones and blacked both of your eyes. The rest of your body was littered with bruises, burns, blood, and small cuts while your breathing was irregular and strained. Dick and Jason both crouched down next to you and tried to rouse you but at first you barely stirred. Finally, they watched as your eyes flickered open with a pained groan.

“Wha – what happened?” Your voice was hoarse and weak.

Dick and Jason exchanged a worried glance before Dick said, “We’re not sure. There was an explosion in the theatre. You were still at the door and it seems like you took a pretty bad hit. You were completely buried when we found you and we still can’t move that big piece off your legs. It is too heavy for just the two of us. Jay, you stay here and I’m going to go get help.”

“No…. don’t.”

“Sweetheart, we have to get you out from under that thing. You need medical attention immediately. Who knows what kind of internal bleeding you have or if there are any worse injuries this piece of wall is concealing.”

“You’re right, which is why it won’t matter. I can feel it. My leg…. Well, I’m pretty sure the pressure from this wall is the only thing keeping me from bleeding out immediately. As soon as you move it…. So, yeah, it’s too late to do anything.”

Jason sat back on his heels, horrorstruck, as Dick shook his head vehemently refusing to believe what you had just said. “We can at least try. As soon as the paramedics get here, they can help us. They’ll know what to do.”

You smiled hazily up at your brothers. “It’s okay, Dick. I’m not in much pain at the moment, it’s more numb than anything, but if you move that piece of wall, it’s going to be utter agony. And it still won’t matter. So, please, just let me go in peace.”

Jason hissed in fury, “We can’t just sit here and watch you die!”

“I don’t want you to. It might be too late for me but you two can go help the other people who were injured. You might still be able to save them.”

“We’re not leaving you.”

“It’s what we do. We’re heroes, Jay.”

“Not today we aren’t.” Dick said through a clenched jaw. You furrowed your brow in confusion. “Today we are just three siblings who wanted to spend the day together. Who just deserved a goddamn break for once in their lives. And instead, this happens. So, no. Today we aren’t heroes. There are enough other people walking around helping right now. We’re going to stay with you for as long as we can. I don’t care what that makes us.”

You grabbed Dick’s hand as tightly as you could manage as tears began to flow down his face. “It makes you a good brother.”

You smiled up at him and started to say something else, but a chest rattling cough cuts you off. Your brothers held you down, so you didn’t hurt yourself more as your body was racked with the intense hacking fit. Finally, when it subsided, you relaxed, blood dripping from your mouth. You looked up at Dick and weakly said, “I guess you were right on both accounts. Internal bleeding and a concealed wound. Huh, who knew?”

Before either boy could answer, you gave a dry chuckle and said, “You know, I always thought I would die in the suit. Going down swingin’ with my Bat Symbol proudly on my chest and my mask firmly on my face. Instead, it’s going to be flip flops and Jason’s old t-shirt.”

Jason thought for a minute, then stood up. “I’ll be right back. Dick, stay with her.” Dick just nodded numbly.

A few moments later, Jason came rushing back carrying the hoodie resembling your suit you had seen in the souvenir shop what seemed like a lifetime ago. For the first time since the explosion, tears filled your eyes.

“It’s not your suit, but it’s the best we’ve got at the moment.” As carefully as he could and with Dick’s help, Jason gingerly wrapped the oversized hoodie around you and zipped it up as much as he could. Then he pulled the hood down over your face, so the built-in mask framed your eyes.

You slowly lifted your fingers and traced the familiar emblem that rested over your heart. “Thank you, Jay. It’s perfect.”

“Least I could do.” Jason kissed your knuckles and smiled sadly down at you. Keeping ahold of your hand, he began rubbing his thumb lightly over the back of it, a constant reminder he was with you. Dick shifted so he was behind you and lifted your head so it was resting comfortably in his lap. You felt that the tension was so thick with all of the unspoken things between the three of you, that it was almost suffocating. Or maybe that was just your blood filling your lungs.

You felt your head starting to get fuzzy as your vision began to blacken around the edges, and you knew you didn’t have much time left. You nuzzled your cheek softly into Dick’s leg and gave Jason’s hand another squeeze. After taking a few deep breaths, you managed to croak out, “Hey…. I love you guys.”

“Back at you sis,” Jason tearfully bent down and kissed your forehead.

You smiled up at them as your world went black. Jason felt your hand go limp in his, and he frantically looked to Dick, hoping beyond hope his older brother would make this all better. But Dick just gazed down at your empty, staring eyes, tears streaming down his face. And all he could think at that moment was, “How the hell are we supposed to tell Bruce?”

Despair is paralytic so he puts it aside for now, refuses to allow the anger that would make him reckless and unfocused to kindle in his chest and falls back hard on his training. Tourniquets and pressure dressings, bags of fluids and piles of shock blankets. None of them know when any of these people are going to see a real hospital or a real doctor so Eddie’s job is to give them the best chance of living long enough to get there. 

“Good save, Eddie,” Bobby says, clapping him on the back as Hen and Chim work to stabilize the teenager that Eddie saw buried under what used to be the brick façade of a bookstore, only his fingertips visible and moving under the rubble. His praise is fainter when Eddie climbs a half-uprooted tree to untangle a woman trapped in the upper branches and then performs a needle thoracostomy to decompress a pneumothorax. By the time he’s performed an emergency tracheotomy on a man with severe facial trauma who can't receive oxygen any other way, his captain’s mouth is pressed in a thin line. 

Eddie thinks he knows what Bobby’s seeing. He knows the way he gets in a warzone, the way he has to get to survive it. There’s a ruthlessness to field medicine the same way there’s a ruthlessness to a surgeon’s scalpel. It’s not just leaving your feelings about a case at the hospital doors, it’s never letting them in at all. Terrified last breaths and bloody faces and mangled limbs are the purview of nightmares. Eddie can’t process them, can’t see them, right now or he’ll never be able to do his job. And Bobby sees Eddie not seeing them.   

“Get some air,” he says finally, after Eddie responds to a case of secondary drowning at the field hospital. The kid is young, younger than Christopher, and there’s a moment when Eddie thinks it’s too late and all of his careful detachment slips and Bobby sees.

“Cap-”

Bobby fixes him with that gaze that’s less captain and more dad and says, “Eddie, this shift isn’t going to end at seven. We’re going to be on search and rescue for days and it’s not gonna get easier. Call home. Rest for an hour, okay?”

It’s a direct order which means that Eddie says, “Yes, sir,” instead of “I’m fine.” 

He goes outside, but it’s too late to call home. He shoots a text to Carla, asking if she can get Christopher to school in the morning and back home again after and hopes he can keep enough charge on his phone to follow up when she replies in the morning. 

After that, Eddie should lie down. Rest is essential and he’s learned how to grab it at any time and in nearly any condition. But he can’t stop scanning. He’s watching other first responders rushing around, treating the victims that just don’t stop pouring into the field hospital, grabbing each and every one and directing them to the type of help they need most. There’s something soothing about it. Like LA’s a giant ant hill that got washed out by the wave, but here its people are, out and rebuilding right away. That’s the part that was missing during his service. The thought that there might be an end to it. 

He sees something. 

Eddie doesn’t quite know what it is. He’s scanning and then something trips his senses so he scans backward. Forward. No one is moving in panic. The scene is chaotic, but in a predictable way. Nothing really stands out as-

A flash of orange. 

If he hadn’t spent so much time looking for that flash in a crowd at some of the busiest tourist attractions in LA, there’s a chance it could have escaped Eddie’s notice. But his heart lurches and he knows he’s not imagining it. 

Eddie loses sight of it in the crowd as he leaves his position next to the tent and he raises himself up on his toes to see over them. He starts panicking, thinking he lost him and then the crowd parts and Eddie almost loses his breath. 

“Buck.”

His voice is too soft and Buck doesn’t hear him. He looks a little lost in the crowd. Worn and disheveled and, fuck, he looks beat to hell. That ridiculous orange tour shirt is ripped and filthy, wrinkled beyond belief. 

“Buck!” Eddie calls again and Buck just gets his head up before Eddie makes it to him, his blue eyes bewildered and cloudy.

“Eddie?” he asks. 

There’s a child on his back. A girl in a purple t-shirt, less than ten and just as exhausted and bruised as Buck is. She’s clinging to Buck’s neck, her legs around his waist, and Buck is somehow holding both of them upright. But not for long. He takes a staggering step forward, saying Eddie’s name again and Eddie grabs for Buck and for his radio at the same time.

“Hey, I need some help out here.” 

“I think she twisted her ankle,” Buck says. “It doesn’t look broken but I-I-I don’t really know how to tell.”

“Okay,” Eddie answers, cataloging the deep gashes on Buck’s face, the red soaked rag around his arm, and the painful stiffness to his walk. When he gets close enough to take the girl in his arms, he can see that what he thought was just water dampening Buck’s hair is actually blood, half dried in places, but still oozing a little from the part in his hair. 

“It’s okay, kiddo,” Eddie says to the girl who protests as she’s shifted from one perch to another. “You’re safe now. We’re going to take care of you.”

Buck seems to fade as the weight is lifted from his back, like that purpose was the only thing keeping him upright and he says, “Violet. Her name is Violet.”

Hen emerges from the tent at Eddie’s call. She finds him quickly, taking in Violet, listless in Eddie’s arms and noting Buck staring at both of them from a few feet away. “What do we have?” she asks. 

“This is Violet,” Eddie answers, passing the child over again. “Can you take her inside?”

“Where are her parents?” Hen asks.

At that, Eddie looks over at Buck who shakes his head. “Missing,” Eddie replies. “Check out her ankle, okay? Buck thinks she might have sprained it.”

“Buck?” Hen says, looking up at him with a different expression on her face. “Is he-?”

“I’ve got him,” Eddie answers. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Violet whimpers in Hen’s arms and that’s the end of the conversation. She hurries away with the little girl and Eddie watches them go until he sees Buck start to crumple in his periphery.

“Whoa, easy, I got you,” Eddie catches him just in time and Buck sags against him, boneless and shaking. Gripping tight, Eddie bears him up and says, “Don’t worry, Buck, I got you. Can you walk with me a little bit? I gotta get you inside, okay.”

It takes a phenomenal effort, but Buck puts weight on his feet again. He’s still leaning heavily against Eddie, but he lets himself be led slowly inside toward one of the few empty cots left. As Eddie helps him to sit, Buck groans pitifully and tries to lay down. Eddie doesn’t let him. 

“Hey, hey, hey, stay with me, Buck, okay? I need to check you out before you can sleep. Can you tell me what happened? Can you tell me what hurts?”

Buck looks up at him and his expression is distant.

Concussion, Eddie thinks. Exhaustion. Blood loss. It could be anything. His skin is cool under Eddie’s hands and everything is so wrong. Buck shouldn’t be here like this. He’s meant to be happy and carefree, shining in the sun and not limp and broken.

“Where’s Violet?” Buck asks, frantic without warning. “She was just here. She-”

“She’s okay. My friend’s got her right over there and she’s going to take good care of her.” He points out where Hen has Violet on a cot across the way, lying down as Hen listens to her chest. Buck sees and relaxes a little and Eddie keeps talking, “Where did Violet come from, Buck? What happened to you out there?”

When Buck lifts his gaze to Eddie’s again, it’s all Eddie can do not to reach out and stroke his fingers gently over his matted hair. He settles for gently turning his head to take a look at those gashes on his cheek and confirm that they don’t reach all the way to Buck’s eyes. As he does, Buck answers, “We were on the pier.”

“The pier?” The pier is destroyed. There is no pier. There aren’t any survivors from the pier except for the few they managed to pluck from the ferris wheel. 

But Buck nods, “Santa Monica tour. The water left all at once and I told everyone to run. Her dad, Max, he handed her to me and said he couldn’t run. He said I had to get her out. Eddie, the water. It came so fast. I lost them. I lost all of them.” 

“Not Violet,” Eddie answers. “You got Violet out.” 

Buck looks toward the girl again to reassure himself and then back at Eddie. He frowns, “What are you doing here?”

Somehow, Eddie actually laughs, “I’m here to take care of you.”

“Okay,” Buck answers. “Good.”

Someone gets him a med kit and Eddie gets fluids into Buck’s arm right away. Buck blanches at the needle, but he lets Eddie do it, just like he lets Eddie clean his wounds and check his pupillary response. Buck’s a quiet and compliant patient and every little flinch he gives, sends a matching prick of pain through Eddie’s chest. The head wound is especially nasty. It opens back up again as Eddie tries to clean it and the fresh blood trickling down Buck’s cheek makes him finally moan a little. 

“I know. I’m so sorry,” Eddie says, encouraging Buck to fall against him, running his hands over his back and whispering soothing nonsense into his ears. “We’re almost done. I’ve got you. You did so good today. You’re so good, Buck.”

He can’t imagine it. Buck crossing the city, escaping the landing site of the tsunami, and carrying a little girl on his back the whole way. Eddie knew that Buck was someone special and finding out that, actually, he’s a real-life hero isn’t that surprising. But there’s a price to be paid for heroism. Buck’s seen all of the carnage that Eddie’s seen today and then some; it’s no wonder he’s exhausted. All Eddie wants to do is gather him up and take him home. To shelter Buck from any more horrors. 

Against his chest, Buck is trembling. His fingers are wound in Eddie’s shirt and his head is tucked into the crook of Eddie’s neck. There are other things to do, other patients to treat, but Eddie doesn’t let go until Buck’s grip on him starts to loosen. 

“Where’s Violet?” he whispers again.

Eddie turns to look and he doesn’t see Hen anymore. He doesn’t see Chimney either or Bobby. But Violet is asleep on her cot, a rough blanket tucked under her chin. “She’s okay. She’s sleeping.”  

Nodding, Buck pushes himself back a little to look at Eddie’s face and Eddie can’t help it, he reaches up and brushes a thumb over Buck’s brow. “You should sleep too.” he says.

“You have to get back to work?” Buck murmurs, his eyes drifting closed.

He does. His shift won’t be over for another four hours and, like Bobby said, they’re days away from this being over. But with Buck drained and hurt in his arms, Eddie doesn’t think he can drag himself away.’

They just hadn’t realized the repercussions of that. The portal had dumped them on the great plateau. Wild hadn’t batted an eye at the scenery, but the towering Temple of Time had stopped them all in their tracks. It was a marvelous piece of architecture. The fact it was still standing proved that. Its formidable form was diminished somewhat by the fact that it was in ruins. Nature had crept inside and had reclaimed the sacred temple for its own.

They all became disturbed as they walked. They could all recognize small things that reminded them too much of their home eras. Things that had been condemned to ruin and waste.

Wild’s nonchalance was heartbreaking, as they all came to the separate conclusions that he was just used to this. He had no frame of reference for what a thriving kingdom should look like.

The only one who wasn’t uncomfortable in the midst of the ruins was Hyurle, who’s own era was in a similarly ruined state. Admittedly, ruins such as these weren’t as common. It was more likely you would come across smoking ruins that had been freshly destroyed, not those that were a century old. But there were a few places where you could find ancient stone foundations covered in moss, stone arches that had not yet been pulled down for building materials. Hyrule always enjoyed sitting in the quiet of the ruins, and had always found it peaceful.

Apparently, most of the group did not feel the same way.

Wind least of all.

He had been acting oddly since they had arrived. Hyrule noticed more than his pained expression and stilted movement. He saw how the sailor’s eyes would linger in certain places, as if gazing at someone. He heard how the sailor whispered to someone late at night during his watch.

Hyrule didn’t know what was bothering him other than the landscape, but he decided not to push him.

~~~

Two days later, Hyrule was regretting not pushing him.

Wild ducked out of the tent that was tucked against the wall of a ruin. All their eyes were on him, but he only shook his head, looking more haggard than before. Hyrule could feel the hope draining from the group. No one has any solutions, and for all the talking Wind was doing, he refused to tell them what was wrong.

“No, No! Too loud, I’m sorry. I can't help you!”

Wind's cries were barely muffled by the tent’s fabrics. Hyrule’s heart ached for him to go help the sailor, but he had made it clear that other people around him right now only distressed him.

Dee woke up choking on smoke. He rolled to his side, heaving forward, his lungs aching like they were on fire. He clutched at his chest, and at the knife that had pierced his heart. The knife was gone. And beneath his ribs, a heartbeat thrummed, hummingbird-fast with pain and fear. He swallowed thickly and reached for the collar that he had died in. Gone. His wrists were free, too.

He blinked ash out of his eyes and scrubbed his face. Tears left tracks in the grit on his cheeks. He shuddered and realized his body was bathed in sweat, oppressive heat crushing his skin and forcing its way down his throat. The smell of sulfur burned his nostrils. He coughed and reached for his abdomen, bracing for the stab of pain through the wounds left by the angel’s knife.

Nothing. No pain, no blood, no wounds.

Trembling, he raised his head and dared to look around.

A thunderclap of relief broke over him and was quickly swallowed by terror. He cringed away from the dust that blew into his eyes and blinked against the blinding roar of fire in the sky. He could almost feel his lungs blister from the heat. He gagged and clawed at his throat, whimpering, head reeling with confusion and pain.

“K-Kiernan?” croaked a wavering voice behind him.

Dee cried out and scrambled away in the dust, only just now realizing he was naked. He covered himself, squinting through the smoke at the shadow that stood before him – just a shadow, no flesh, no bone. He swallowed and winced at the sandpaper feeling in his throat. His lips felt cracked, almost too dry to speak.

“Eligos?” Dee rasped.

The shadow flew towards him and he flinched back, throwing his hand in front of his face. Disbelief fluttered in his chest. His shoulder was restored; it was like it had never been broken. For the first time, he looked down at his body, and saw that it was not his body at all.

The last body had never been his, either, though.

“Wh-what’s happening?” Dee asked before he doubled over in a fit of hacking coughs, trembling on hands and knees.

A touch like a tendril of fire licked over his jaw, his cheek. His eyes watered, but he lifted his head and tried to focus on the shadow in front of him – one that bore a face he knew so well. Had known for so long.

“You are corporeal,” his friend breathed.

Dee groaned as the heat from the sky above singed the hair on the back of his neck. “H-hotter than I remember,” he murmured with an uneasy twist of his stomach. The ground baked against his skin.

Why am I here?

Why am I alive?

“You did not have a body, last time you were here,” Eligos whispered. Dee could barely hear him over the hot, screaming wind. “Did you go to earth, my friend? Did you see the colors, hear the music, eat the humans’ food?”

Dee raised his gaze to Eligos’s, and braced against the memories of the knife, the whip, the holy water. He shivered, despite the heat, and rubbed at his neck.

The shadow drifted back, and Dee could feel the sorrow radiating off his friend. “You were found,” Eligos murmured.

“Y-yes,” Dee said, choking on the word. “I was found, and… and taken. I w-was held.” Sweat stung his eyes.

“Where?” The word was barely more than a breath in the wind.

“I don’t know,” Dee moaned, and he slumped forward, baring his back to the blazing sky. “In a dark place. A basement. By three angels – powers.”

His friend gasped, and Dee felt a touch like fingers through his hair.

“But I was… I was saved.” Dee raised his head. Tears ran from his eyes. “I was saved. A human… they took pity on me. And… two virtues—”

“You were held by virtues?” Eligos gasped. The tendril of touch in Dee’s hair retreated. “Kiernan—”

“P-please,” Dee whimpered. “Do not… don’t call me by that name. The powers, they… they made me… recite that name, made me say it as they drowned me in holy water… they carved it into my skin, over and over, then let me heal enough so they could do it again…” He let out a shuddering sob and reached out towards the shadow that was his friend. “Please.”

“I… I am sorry,” Eligos said softly. “What do you want me to call you, friend?”

“Dee,” he murmured. His tears evaporated on his cheeks. “Just… Dee.”

Dee swore he caught the flicker of a smile in his friend’s shadowy face. “Alright,” Eligos said.

“But the virtues did not hold me,” Dee murmured. “They did not… hurt me. They…” Dee could barely get the words out past the lump in his throat and the fire in his lungs. He longed to claw the prickling, stinging skin on his back. “They cared for me. But… the human most of all.”

Eligos was silent for a long time. “I have never heard of such a thing,” he said finally, his voice desiccated and dry.

“Neither have I,” Dee said brokenly. “I had… I had a few days, at most, in the body I found. And then I was taken.”

“Y-you’ve been gone for years,” Eligos said gravely. “That whole time...”

“Most of it,” Dee said. “Most of it was… under their penance.”

A sound like the roar of a forest fire tore from Eligos. Dee flinched away, scrambling backward on his hands. “What they do is not penance, Kier— Dee. Even their Lord does not call for torture. He calls for death, if He calls for anything.” The shadow spat sparks, and Dee squeezed his eyes shut against his friend’s sudden anger, shifting to his knees in the burning earth. His friend’s anger passed over him like a wall of fire, then flickered, faded.

Dee shivered as Eligos stood perfectly still before him. Then, slowly, Eligos reached out and let the shadow of his hand pass over Dee’s shoulders. “You are changed,” Eligos said softly.

“I kn-know,” Dee whimpered, cowering against the ground.

“No,” Eligos murmured, and guided Dee’s head up until he met his friend’s eyes. “You are… you are not of this place, anymore,” he breathed, his touch brushing Dee’s face like smoke.

Dee’s throat bobbed. He was desperately thirsty. He looked down at his hands, and they were peeling in the blazing heat. He swallowed hard and met his friend’s gaze.

“What have they done?” Eligos whispered.

“They killed me,” Dee whimpered. “They… p-put a knife in my heart.”

“But what did they do first?” said Eligos. His gaze burned Dee’s skin. “They have done… something.”

Dee whined softly as he looked into the depths of his friend’s eyes. He felt it all, the whip, the knife, the iron, the water, the crack of his own bones—

—the burn of Dominic’s blood in his veins.

His hand flew to his throat, but there was no wound there, no scar. He trembled as he remembered how it felt, the fire creeping through his veins and searing him from the inside out.

“They gave me their blood,” he croaked.

The shadow of his friend twisted and keened in his shared pain. “No,” he gasped. “That must have been—”

“Torture,” Dee whispered, and shut his eyes. Even his tears burned him. “It was torture.”

“And you died with it… still burning you?” Eligos said.

Dee opened his eyes and looked up. The blazing sky felt imprinted on the backs of his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured.

His friend’s scalding shadow swiped the tears from Dee’s cheeks. “Then,” Eligos said, voice quavering. “You know you cannot stay here.”

Dee folded forward with a sob. “I know,” he whimpered. “But I cannot return to earth, I…” He clutched at his hair. It was long enough to grab, now, curling past his ears and against the nape of his neck. “Th-they will hunt me.”

“But you will burn here,” Eligos said. Dee felt the too-hot touch encircle his wrist. “See?”

Dee couldn’t pull away. The prickling heat of his skin under the touch of his friend was too much like the agony of the angels’ clutches. He was frozen, staring down at the shadow that held him with a fiery grip. He whimpered and pressed himself lower against the rocky ground. The stones ground into his knees and burned him there, too.

“Go,” Eligos said with a groan. “Go, my friend. Find the human, or find your solitude. You can live on earth. But… carefully. Perhaps in secret.” He lifted Dee’s face. “This may be difficult to hide.”

Dee blanched. He licked along his lips and winced when his fangs pricked his tongue. He had not meant for them to come out, had not tried to show them in his pain or fear – they were there, part of him. He shuddered and swallowed hard.

“Your eyes, as well,” Eligos murmured. The shadows around his own eyes deepened. “Still slitted, like they always are.”

Dee whimpered softly. If he looked like what he was, unable to hide even his fangs behind the subterfuge of human teeth, he would end up right where he’d been – or worse.

I had decades more penance to pay. Dee’s voice broke and he whimpered again, louder. His flesh felt like it was melting off of him slowly.

“Come,” Eligos said above the howling wind. “Come. You cannot stay here. The blood that ran in your veins was never meant to last, here. It may be why you burn still.”

Dee was so, so tired of burning.

He struggled to his feet, blushing at his own nakedness. Even wearing the woman’s body had not made him feel so exposed, but this was his flesh, his blistering skin.

Still, even the fire of the sky above him and the burning grit beneath him was nothing compared to the agony of the angels’ touch, of holy water in his lungs, of angel’s blood in his veins.

“Wh-which way do I go?” he croaked.

“I don’t know,” Eligos said sadly. “I know only fire, and that is everywhere.” The sky flared above them, and the shadow of Dee’s friend seemed to waver.

Dee reached out and let the shadow touch his palm. “Thank you,” he whispered, eyes streaming from the heat and from the sinking feeling in his heart. “Thank you, for—”

A gust of wind and sand that scoured skin from Dee’s body swept over them both. Dee cried out and fell to his knees, protecting his nose and ears. The sand felt like sparks falling on his back. The air felt like the inside of an oven. He sweat, and he panted, and he burned.

When the wind faded he stood up, casting a glance up at the inferno sky. He was utterly alone on an empty, blasted plain, swallowed by fire and heat.

He picked a direction, and started walking.

The earthquake had coincided exactly with Scott’s visit, and they’d heard nothing from their biggest brother since the quake had hit.  Considering that it had hit in the early hours of the morning, when everyone was still supposed to be asleep in bed, they hadn’t actually heard from him since just before he’d turned in for the US-night, four hours before the quake, but that detail was insignificant against the carnage Thunderbird Two was seeking a landing space in.

Scott wouldn’t have slept through an earthquake.  He should have been on the wire to John immediately, or certainly as soon as he knew what was going on.  He definitely should have answered at least one of John’s many, many frantic hails.

He hadn’t, and that had them fearing the worst.

The rescue itself, for the most part, passed in an adrenaline-spiked blur.  Not particularly unusual, especially with something of this scale and such a high mortality rate – getting too emotionally invested only ever ended badly – and Gordon was grubby with dust, dirt, and blood smears when his brain re-engaged fully to throw everything into a very sharp relief.

He hadn’t known that he was working the sector where Scott’s hotel had been.  John hadn’t given him that information, and he hadn’t asked for it, but as he found a dust-coloured, limp hand sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble, awareness slammed back.

It wasn’t that he recognised the hand – there was no way of recognising any hands in the mess of this disaster – but that he recognised the watch.

Scott never took his watch off when he left home.  It worked as his comm, leaving him constantly connected to Thunderbird Five, and by extension the rest of them, and never raised questions with anyone else, because watches doubling as phones were commonplace nowadays.

Even if Scott’s was Brains’-created, and therefore rather more than most people’s watches.

Gordon might not recognise his brother’s hand underneath the dust, but he certainly recognised the watch.

He grabbed hold of the hand, rather more desperately than he intended to.  “Scott?”

Intellectually, he knew that there wasn’t likely to be any response.  His brother was buried, had been buried for several hours.  If he was still conscious-

The hand twitched.

Gordon froze.

“Scott?”

Fingertips curled loosely, a touch too light to even be considered a grip, but Gordon was hyper-aware of every movement his brother’s hand made.  Those were definitely conscious actions and he cupped his own hand over the weak fingers.

“I’ve got you,” he promised. “We’ll get you out.”

The fingers twitched again.

Reluctantly, Gordon pulled one hand back to slam it against his comm.  “Virgil!  I’ve located Scott.  He’s buried but conscious.”

“Is he talking?”  It was John that responded.

“Negative.”  Gordon grit his teeth.  “I’ve just got his hand.”

“See what level of response you can get,” Virgil ordered.  “I’ll be over as soon as I can.  Alan, what’s your status?”

Gordon tuned out his younger brother’s response, focusing on his allocated task.

“Scott,” he called, “squeeze my hand once for no, and two for yes.  Do you understand?”

For a moment, there was nothing, and he feared that Scott was less conscious than he’d originally thought.

Then came two twitches.

Gordon’s shoulders sagged with relief.

“Virgil’s coming to dig you out,” he told him.  “You’re too buried for me to get out alone.”

Two more twitches.

“Let’s talk about you, shall we?” he continued, wrapping his other hand back around Scott’s.  “Can you move?  Twitches don’t count.”

There was no immediate response, which was typical Scott and gave Gordon his answer even before the reluctant single twitch eventually came.

That wasn’t a surprise, but it did tell Gordon that Scott was going to be a nightmare during recovery because he was almost certainly injured.  An injured Scott meant a grounded Scott, and a grounded Scott was not fun to be around.

He kept talking to him, as much as anything to try and make sure his brother stayed conscious, as well as to keep him reassured that he wasn’t alone, until Virgil arrived with the jaws of life, Alan hot on his heels.

They both zeroed in on the hand Gordon held, and he could see the moment they recognised the watch because Alan’s eyes widened, and Virgil’s jaw set.

“Let’s get him out,” his older brother said, stepping forwards.  “Gordon, you need to get out of the way.”

Gordon didn’t want to let go of his brother’s hand, but Virgil was right.

“See you soon, Scott,” he said, and got a double twitch in response before he gently set it down on the rubble.

Alan was hanging back, clutching a hoverstretcher, and Gordon joined him as Virgil exercised the mechanical muscle to start the process of digging their big brother out.

It took some time before he got enough shifted that the pale, dust-covered and red-smeared face of Scott could be seen.  Gordon wasted no time in springing forwards, leaving Alan in the dust as he dodged around where Virgil was still working on freeing his torso to kneel by Scott’s head.

Blue eyes were half-lidded at best, drifting towards closed despite Scott’s clear attempts otherwise.  The red smearing down the side of his face seemed to come from a graze rather than a direct blow, with fragments of rubble embedded in the skin.

“Hey, Scott,” he said, lightly brushing dust-coloured hair back from the wound.  “You’re not looking too hot there.”

His brother opened his mouth silently, mouthing words and scrunching his face up in frustration when no sound came out.

“Take it easy,” Gordon insisted.  “Once you’re clear we can get a medscanner on you and see what the damage is, so you don’t need to try and tell us.”  Not that they’d take anything Scott said at face value, anyway.

Scott’s eyelids fluttered closed for a moment before snapping open.  It seemed like the lure of unconsciousness was strong, and Gordon was not a fan of Scott passing out when they didn’t know how bad it was.

Virgil grunted as he moved a particularly large chunk, and Scott let out a pained gasp.  Gordon ran his hands over his brother’s hair soothingly.

“It looks like his legs are in a small air pocket,” Virgil reported after a moment, crouching down. “Alan, get that stretcher over here and we’ll see if we can move him.  I don’t want to move any more of this rubble if I can help it.”

Glancing up at the rubble in question, Gordon realised that it did look rather precarious.  If they moved the wrong thing, Scott might well end up buried again.

“F.A.B.,” Alan responded, voice shaking just a little, before appearing next to Gordon.  He seemed unable to look away from the limp body, eyes wide and round even as he mechanically set up the stretcher.  Gordon shifted around until he was in a better position for moving Scott, never breaking contact with him, and clouding blue eyes followed his movement sluggishly.

Scott wasn’t going to be clinging onto consciousness for much longer.  He probably wasn’t going to make it through being moved.  Gordon grabbed the medscanner off of Alan and deployed it, praying that Scott wasn’t too seriously injured.

Multiple hairline fractures flagged up, especially around his ribs, and Scott’s body might as well be one huge bruise waiting to form, but all in all he seemed relatively intact. If he tried, he could probably move now he wasn’t pinned, but Gordon wasn’t going to be encouraging that any time soon.

“Get his hips,” he ordered Alan, hooking his own hands under Scott’s arms.  “Make sure his legs and feet don’t snag on anything while I pull.”  Virgil and his mechanical arms were bracing the rest of the rubble, making sure nothing fell as they worked and leaving the actual extraction to the youngest two.  “Move him on three.  One… two… three.”

He heaved, Alan guided, and the ragdoll that was Scott slid free, eyes flickering closed and this time not reopening.  Gordon wished he was surprised as they manoeuvred him onto the stretcher.

“One Scott extracted,” he reported to John as Alan set the jets going and Virgil tentatively released the precarious rubble the moment they were clear.  “He’s unconscious, but I think it’s pain and exhaustion, not a specific injury.”

“Understood,” John replied. “Will he need a hospital?”

“We should manage at home,” Virgil interjected, appearing suddenly behind him and peering over his shoulder at the scan results.  “The hospitals are going to be overrun and there’s nothing life-threatening in the scans.”

“F.A.B.,” John acknowledged. “Virgil, sector eighteen are asking for some heavy lifting assistance; they’ve found a pocket of trapped people.”

Virgil heaved a sigh and straightened.  “I’m on my way.  Gordon, Alan, get Scott settled in Two’s cockpit.  We’ll need the module to transport the rest of the injured.”

“F.A.B.”  That was a sobering thought; Thunderbird Two’s module had a huge capacity.

But then, this had been a hell of a disaster.  In the scheme of things, Scott had been lucky, not that he looked it on the stretcher, all pale and dust-covered with streaks of red where debris had scraped him and pyjamas torn beyond all saving.

“Let’s move, Alan,” he said, gripping the head of the stretcher and starting to tow their big brother away from the remains of his hotel.  “This rescue isn’t over yet.”

Just because Scott was safe didn’t mean everyone was.  Back in Thunderbird Two, the two of them docked the hoverstretcher in place at the back of the cockpit before leaving food and drink in easy reach in case Scott woke up before they got back from dealing with the rest of the danger zone.