Hey! So its been like what? 8 months since I've posted anything here? So I've been a little busy with life and everything but I never stopped writing and I never forgot about all of my lovely readers and those who support me in my writing. This is a little something I've been working on with France and Jeanne d'Arc. I hope you all enjoy it.

'I'll talk to you when I get home.'
'Okay mon cheré. Drive safe'

Keys turn in the ignition starting the car. Jeanne pulled out of the school parking lot and started the drive home, stopping at a light.

Arthur was pissed. This isn't necessarily something new. He has a bad temper and anyone who had spoken to him knew this. He cut the call on his phone and got in the car, tossing the phone onto the seat beside him and pulling out of the parking lot shortly after Jeanne. Not a minute later his phone began ringing. He tried to ignore it but after the person called back a second time, sending his phone into another round of repeated ringing, he groaned and reached over for it with the intention of shutting it of. He took his eyes off the road for a second. It wasn't that long and honestly, how much could a second hurt.
He looked up just in time to see a blue Porsche stop before him.
Tires screeched with the slamming of the brakes in a futile effort to stop before the hit the car. The front end of his car crunched in upon impact with the Porsche, pushing it into the intersection. More screeching of tires and metal colliding with metal.
Arthur stared out watching the scene in horror. It only took a second for the smaller car to be sent whipping through the intersection when a truck collided with it. He stumbled out of his car running toward the scene.
He froze a few paces from the crushed blue Porsche when he saw the driver. Bile rose in his throat.
"No..." he said, shaking his head. He took a small step closer, glass crunching under his feet.

Jeanne had no time to react. She saw the other car approaching in her rear view mirror and knew it wasn't going to stop in time. She looked back up at the light and that was when she felt the impact. Her head whipped back into the seat from the force. She pressed hard on her breaks in hopes that it might keep her from moving too far forward. Everything else happened so fast after that.
First impact, her car is shoved forward.
Second, her car begins spinning.
The third impact is her head's connection with the glass of the driver's side window.
Everything is black after that. Jeanne can't feel the pain that would have left her in agony. She doesn't know the number of people who shut their cars off and rush to help the teenage girl bleeding in her car or the boy in speechless terror staring at her car. She doesn't hear her phone ringing in her purse, doesn't see Francis's caller id flashing across the screen as sirens fill the area followed closely by the ambulances that release their loud cry. Jeanne doesn't feel paramedics work to carefully lift her mangled body from the destroyed car and lay her out on a stretcher. Blood stained her shirt and ran down the side of her face in a steady stream from cuts to her head and neck. Something struck her in the side, leaving a deep cut there soaking into her shirt.
Sirens flood the streets once more. Cars pull over and move aside, clearing a path for the ambulance. Everyone knows what it means though none know what happened or who was in it this time. They only had to hope it wasn't someone they knew that time.
Francis pulls his own car over, watching the ambulance drive past and wondering what had happened a few streets behind him.
That night found no messages or calls from Jeanne and Francis was left thinking about what she might be doing. He shrugged off her silence and attributed it to school work. He was surprised the next day when he went to his first class and sat through it with no sight or word from Jeanne. He frowned, calling her quickly after class only to get her voicemail. He hung up and took his seat in his second period class. The day carried on with no appearance of the French girl who always seemed to brighten his day.
The same thing happened the following day. Francis sat through his classes receiving no word from Jeanne again.
By the third day Gilbert stopped him at lunch time on his walk to their normal table.
"Are you okay?" he asked the other.
Francis, who had been quiet and constantly checking his phone over the past few days looked up at him. "Oui, I'm okay."
"Nein. I don't believe that. What happened?" he asked, staring into his eyes.
"Jeanne hasn't been answering my calls and I haven't seen her in three days. She hasn't been at school," he said after a moment.
"That's it?" he asked. "She's probably sick."
"She would text me if that were all," Francis argued, checking his phone once more.
"Or she turned it off to get some rest," Gilbert retorted. He looked at Francis silently for a moment before patting his back. "Give it a few more days before you go investigating for some kind of explanation. Ja? I'm sure she'll be back in a few days."
Francis nodded and true to his word, he did do his best to ignore the sinking feeling he got every time he showed up to class and Jeanne wasn't there. He ignored how his heart would race each time his phone buzzed only to stop when it wasn't Jeanne texting or calling him. Though of course he couldn't ignore it forever and when the next week rolled around and Jeanne was still gone Francis thought his heart would break.

Arthur watched as the week progressed and Francis dove further and further into worry. He knew he should tell the other what happened, or he should at least tell the Frenchman Jeanne was in the hospital. With a begrudging sigh he crossed the school campus at lunch and wove his way through the cafeteria full of teenagers to the back table where he knew Francis and his friends ate everyday. Only Francis wasn't there. Antonio and Gilbert were but there was no sign that the blond had shown up at all.
"Where is he?" Arthur asked, standing in front of the table.
"Where's who?" Antonio asked, looking up at the Brit.
"Francis isn't eating with us today. Try the theater. He eats there sometimes," Gilbert said, cutting Arthur off before he could speak again. Arthur nodded and turned away from their table with the intention of going to the theater room. He didn't know why he cared so much to tell the other. It wasn't like him knowing would make any difference anyways.

Francis was seated at one end of the stage. A book sat in his lap and his phone was placed carefully on his knee so as to make it easy for him to read any messages that came through. He turned the page of the book though he hardly knew what the contents of the page were. It was something about two men talking to some guy about his wife. Curley? Yeah. That was one name. It didn't matter though. He would look the book up later if he needed to for the assignment.
"Francis!" Arthur's voice cut through his daze. He looked up as the other crossed the room to stand in front of him.
"Oui? Arthur, did you need something?" he asked, placing the book aside and standing up.
"I...I need to tell you something but...not here," he said, glancing around the room at the student who had paused in their conversations to watch the two. It was a well know fact that Francis and Arthur were prone to loud and sometimes hostile arguments and it had been rather quiet between the two of them in the past weeks. Needless to say, everyone was expecting some type of disagreement to arise.
"What can be so important that you cannot tell me here?" Francis asked him, waving the others off.
"Francis. I just don't know that you want me to tell you in front of them," he said, silently wishing he would come with him.
Francis looked him over and sighed softly. "Where did you have in mind?"
Arthur led him outside and into an empty classroom. He stopped, placing his hands on the desk and took a deep breath. "...something happened last week and I do not think you know about it," he started slowly.
Francis stared at him, having just closed the door. "What do you mean, Arthur? What happened?"
"After school...when everyone was driving home...I was behind Jeanne and...she was hit. There was a bad accident and she has been in the hospital since."
"...she hasn't said anything. She didn't call me...no one told me."
"Francis, she wasn't awake when the ambulance came. I-I don't know if anything changed but..."
"Why didn't you tell me before?" he asked. His throat constricted painfully forcing him to choke on his words. He sat down in a chair by the door, lowering his head into his hands.
"I don't know...I-I'm sorry Francis." He knew he was apologizing for more than keeping the secret but at the moment Francis didn't care to ask anything further. The door clicked shut behind Arthur and Francis was left alone in the room with nothing to fill the silence but his quiet crying.

The sound of the bell cut through the empty room and made Francis aware of the end of his lunch period. He rose from the chair numbly and walked out of the room. He returned to the theater room and collected his things before quickly walking out to his car, ignoring those who called out to him. Francis didn't start the car immediate. Instead he stared at the steering wheel trying to keep the tears from wetting his cheeks again. With a frown he turned the keys in the ignition and took off down the road to the hospital. Francis didn't know what he would do when he got there or even if he would be allowed to see her, but he still went.

Jeanne was in a room alone, not that she really knew this. Her eyes were closed as they had been for the past week. A tube snaked from a softly humming machine and down her throat, forcing the inhalation and exhalation of oxygen. A white bandage wrapped around her forehead and another loosely over her neck covering where ugly black stitches held together the skin that was so easily separated by the glass of her widow. More tubing traced it's way down the bed where it entered her arm through a catheter and dripped liquids into her bloodstream. If it weren't for all the machines she was attached to she would have looked like she were sleeping, but when Francis entered the room he knew everything the doctor had said was true. Her body was wrapped in white bandages with small flakes of red marking the areas that had yet to fully stop bleeding and heal. Her face was pale and slack with unconsciousness. Francis covered his mouth to hide the gasp that escaped his lips and sank slowly into the chair beside her bed. The only sound in the room was the soft hum of the machine that forced oxygen to flow into her lungs and the steady beeping of the heart monitor.
Tears slipped down his cheeks and he reached out a hand for hers, cupping her cool hand in his warm one.

I hope you all enjoyed this. I don't plan on making this nearly as long as "Sacrifice" was but it will be a few chapters long. I'll try and not be too long on the updates but my schedule can be a little unpredictable sometimes. As always, reviews are much appreciated.