Chapter Two

A/N: Thank you to LittleBooLost and loveistheprotection for being my first reviewers for this story.

The fire alarm still wailed in the distance as Simon Lowsley shepherded the students outside of the building, raising his voice above their shouts to try and drive them into their form groups for the registers. Nikki Boston, as always, was a great help in doing this, and the students seemed to listen to her more readily than they did him. He didn't dispute the fact that Nikki probably had more authority with them at this point than he did, but he didn't envy it either. Though he wanted the kids to listen to him, he did not want to end up as public enemy number one.

Once the form groups were assembled, the registers came back fairly quickly, and they were almost complete, bar two missing students, Connor Mulgrew and Imogen Stewart. Naturally, this prompted Christine to attempt to run back into the building, but George Windsor stepped forward and held her back, repeating Nikki's wise words that they could not enter the building again until the fire brigade had dealt with any dangers. The headmistress did not take this well, and fought back with her old friend, until the doors of the school opened, revealing the two students themselves. 'At least now we don't have any students trapped in the school this time, if there really is a fire. Michael Byrne told me that that had happened before, back when Rachel Mason was still headmistress.' Simon thought, but the sound of Sonya Donnegan calling out the names from the staff register was enough to bring him back to the present quickly enough to answer his own.

As always, the Senior Management Team's were read out first, to allow them to go and deal with the students, and so Christine, Simon, George Windsor, who was Head of Sixth Form, and Nikki, Head of the PRU, were free to go. After that, the names were alphabetised by surname, just like the children's registers had been. Maggie, Antoine, Darren, Audrey, Carol, Ramgeet... then silence. A name had been read out that had received no response. When he heard the silence, Simon began to listen distantly, still in the midst of a heated discussion with Shaznay Montrose about scaremongering the other students. But then the name was repeated again, and this time, the man's full attention was caught, as his heart skipped a beat in his chest.

"Miss Spark?" Sonya questioned for the third time, the usual light tone of her voice beginning to be weighed down by realisation. The Deputy Head turned on the spot, leaving a protesting Shaznay stood shouting at thin air, and approached the group of staff gathered beside the steps, his head snapping right and left as he walked, desperate to find Sue stood somewhere on the yard, too engrossed in doing something trivial to have heard her name read out. Unfortunately, he had no such luck, and his fiancée was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is she?" he asked, beginning to breathe a little more heavily. He knew that this was a futile question to ask, as had anyone actually known her location they would have said so by now, but he could not think of any other path to take. There was no response from any of the staff, merely the shaking of heads.

Immediately, Simon's instincts took over and he began to sprint in the direction of the school building, not caring about the smoke pouring from one of the upstairs windows, as he was not worried about anything happening to him, only wishing to get Sue away from the danger.

He had almost reached the steps when he was pulled back by Nikki and another member of staff, Laurence Terrier, Head of Science, each grabbing one of his arms, preventing him from moving any further forward. He fought against them, desperately trying to push past and reach the door, not even really caring what the kids would think of him behaving like this, as his mind was fixed on the danger his fiancée could be in.

"Simon, you can't go back in there! You don't know where the fire is!" Nikki pointed out, gripping his arms tighter as he tried again to pull them free.

"Sue is still in there!" he exclaimed in response, struggling even further. "Nikki, she could be hurt, I have to help her!"

"Well, you're not going to do her any favours by burning yourself to a crisp, are you?" shot back the Head of the PRU. "The fire engines will be here in a minute, and they'll stop the fire and get her out of there. We just have to wait a little bit longer."

Unwilling to dispute the matter any longer, Simon nodded his head, ceasing his struggles and, once they had been released from the grasp of his colleagues, letting his arms fall limply by his sides as his head did the same. Seeing clearly in his mannerisms that he was not going to try again, Nikki and Laurence moved away, making an effort to calm the group of pupils, some of whom were finding Mr. Lowsley's lack of control hilarious, even in such a terrible situation as this.

And so he took Nikki's advice, and waited for the fire brigade to arrive. He found it impossible to tell how long he waited, ignoring the chattering rabble of students and instead listening out for the siren of the fire engine. The siren was the one sound he would pay any attention to at that moment, surpassed only by the sound of Sue's voice. But he knew now that she was trapped, he couldn't deny it any longer. All he could do now was hope the emergency services did not take too long.

The fire engines arrived after a period of time, though Simon could not even have attempted to guess how long it had taken them. To him, lost in his thoughts and his fears, every second seemed to have lasted forever, but now that something could be done about it, time sped up, each moment flying by to give way to the next.

The students were becoming rowdy again, extremely annoyed at the events, as it was coming close to the end of the day and no one was permitted to leave the premises until the fire had been dealt with, in case they were stupid enough to try and return to the building. However, once the sirens had stopped, even they quietened down a little, struggling to understand what was going on, as not all of them had been close enough to hear the conversation between Mr. Lowsley and Miss Boston.

As the firefighters sprinted into the building, needing to deal with the fire before they could even attempt to speak about anything else, Simon sank down onto the steps outside the building, resting his head heavily in his hands. He tried to think of something, anything, that would take his mind off the fire, but no matter in which direction he tried to divert his thoughts, whether it be television, music, books, marking or even just a funny joke he had heard the other day, he could not think of anything without his mind turning to the one person he wished he had by his side. And as he thought of Sue, he could not stop himself from pondering the most horrific question he had ever been faced with.

'What if I've lost her?'

A/N: Not very good, I know, but still. Please review!