Authors Notes: Thank you to starclipper01 and hoellenwauwau for your kind reviews. Part of the problem with writing for such as small fandom is that very few people read it, so if you are one of the few, let me know what you think, it always put a smile on my face and usually pushes me to post the next chapter. Enjoy

Chapter 2

De Souza and Anderson exchanged looks. It was always difficult to read faces when all you could see was a thin lipped mouth and chin, but Anderson could feel his concern and inner conflict. "Where the drokk is our backup?"

Anderson resisted the urge to jump down after Dredd, looked down and saw that at least one of the other judges was starting to stir. Neither was in good shape, it was hard to see in the dim light but there was a lot of blood glistening over their uniforms. "Get them out of here!" Anderson said, planting her feet firmly on the wall, "standard!" She commanded her LawGiver and started firing as De Souza dragged the two judges to their feet.

She laid down cover fire while they dragged the injured judges, stumbling, as far as they could. The gunfire wasn't stopping them in the slightest, as some fell, others tripped over the bodies. There was a crack of gunfire from the crowd and a bullet ripped into her thigh but she barely noticed, judges were taught early on to force pain aside until they had the time to deal with it. In attempt to push back on the onslaught she switched to incendiary rounds and fired one shot. It hit the nearest person, a woman brandishing a plank of wood with nails in. It hit her and she went up in flames almost instantly, the chemical compound the bullet was made from spraying accelerant as it exploded on impact. The woman howled in pain and turned in panic, as she fell she grabbed another rioter and he too caught fire. It caused chaos in the crush of people, the fire spreading, the noises of pain were horrendous, but it still didn't slow them. Anderson was glad she'd kept her helmet on, it dulled the thoughts that would have been otherwise projected into her head.

Then, finally, two armoured personnel carriers rolled up and came to a halt just in front of the fleeing judges. The back doors of both vehicles swung open and a riot squad of judges leapt out of each, with their shields and longer visors on their helmets.

A female judge got out of the front passenger seat of the first vehicle and approached Anderson, De Souza and the two barely conscious judges. Anderson smiled when she realised it was Judge Hershey. The two women had never worked together but had met a few times in passing, Anderson knew that Hershey was the closest thing Dredd had to a friend so based on that fact alone she trusted her. "What the hell happened?" She asked, watching her troops form a barrier and wade into the fighting. A medic van turned up and Hershey gave De Souza a nod of the head, dismissing him to get the injured judges medical attention.

"We got the call to assist, when we got here they were already rioting and Dredd was pulling those guys out of the crowd. We tried holding them off but there's something not right about this. They're in a frenzy and it seems like more than just mob mentality, nothing is stopping them. Grazinski got pulled into them and Dredd went after him."

Hershey nodded her understanding and barked a few orders at her men. Anderson went into the back of the riot van and pulled out a long shield, fixing it to her left arm.

Hershey gave her a look, eyeing the blood seeping from the ragged hole in the thigh of her leathers. Anderson didn't need to be a mind reader to know what the older woman was thinking. "I'll get it checked when we get Dredd back."

She should have said Grazinski too, she realised. Of course she would get Grazinski back too, and of the pair of them Dredd was far more likely to be able to handle himself but somewhere along the way the gruff older lawman had gotten under her skin. The whole thing seemed ridiculous; he barely spoke, he barely allowed himself a sense of humour and she didn't even know what he looked like under that mask. But there was no getting away from the fact that he had made her the judge she was today. Not just because he had passed her, but because he had listened to her, respected her, pushed her into seeing what she was capable of after a dozen academy instructors had called her worthless. He'd known she was a mutant and yet rather than hate and fear her he'd accepted her as he would any other judge, and that meant more to her than she'd likely ever be able to tell him.

She joined the others as they pushed back, wading through the residents. They still showed no sign of hesitation, but they were no match for the reinforcements. They mowed down those in the way as they pushed towards the block. They were making steady progress and then she heard a voice in her head as clear as though it had been spoken aloud. 'Anderson!' She broke into a run.

She made it into the lobby of the mega-block, feeling sick at the louder noise of the crowds. She followed their gaze upwards and her mouth fell open in horror. There was a struggle on the second floor balcony and then she saw Grazinski pushed towards the railing. His helmet had been ripped off and there was blood in his short blonde hair. He had his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck. Then, before she could react, he was sailing over the balcony. The rope snapped taught and Grazinski's neck broke instantly, leaving him swinging limply in the air.

Moments later and their second victim was pushed to the edge, a taller man with dark scruffy hair, ruggedly handsome were it not for a long scar that ran from his hairline down the side of his face to his cheek. He wasn't what Anderson had imagined was under that helmet, but she'd recognise that chin anywhere. Anderson met his hazel eyes and he fixed her with a steely expression. Anderson watched helplessly as a dozen hands pushed at him, he fought back but there were just too many of them, they picked him up, over the balcony railing and he fell.

Anderson ran to him, getting there just as he got to the end of the rope. The fall didn't kill him, instead he swung wildly as he fought, his muscles tensed and standing out in his neck where the rope cut in and left him unable to breathe. He was too high up for Anderson to cut down but she wrapped her arms around his legs and lifted him up as high as she could to ease the pressure on his neck. He was heavy, made more so by the leather and ceramic plated armour he wore, but she told herself she could hold him up all day if it would save his life. The crowd were unhappy though, were baying for blood, and she had to hit and kick those away who wanted her gone. Gone or strung up alongside him.

Thankfully the riot team were only moments behind her, having got there just in time to see Dredd fall. They fought off her assailants and someone ran upstairs, cutting the rope that held him. Anderson felt huge relief as he fell into her arms and she collapsed under the weight. They both ended up on the cold dirty tiles, Anderson took a moment to revel in the feeling of her arms wrapped around his chest as he took in big gulping breaths of air. But in an instant she was up, loosening the rope round his neck and using a knife to cut the bonds that tied his hands.

Hershey crouched down beside them as Dredd struggled to draw air into his oxygen deprived lungs, resting heavily into Anderson's supporting arms. There was bruising starting to come up on his jaw and he held his left arm in close across his body, it was clear he'd taken a severe beating.

"Get him out of here." Hershey ordered. "We'll deal with the rest."

Anderson didn't need to be told twice, she hauled the larger judge to his feet and slung an arm round his waist to support him, pulling his uninjured arm over her shoulder. The bullet wound in her leg burned with the added weight but she ignored it and started to hobble towards the medics which had set up behind the riot vans. Beside her, Dredd stumbled along, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, but managing to anyway out of sheer determination.

Outside, the riot squad had already done their work, the crowd had scattered, a few more resilient fighters breaking off and continuing to do battle with the armoured lawmen and women, but most had seemed to disappear, like rats on a sinking ship. Anderson and Dredd reached the triage van and Anderson helped lower Dredd down to sit on the step into the back of the vehicle. The two judges he'd rescued were already on cots inside. She pulled her own helmet off and ran a hand through her sweaty hair.

Anderson took a long moment to inspect Dredd's face, the ever present frown was still there but the rest was unlike what she'd imagined. For a start she'd thought he'd be older, she'd certainly expected him uglier. The rumour had gone round the academy that the reason that Dredd was so adamant about keeping his helmet on was because he was as ugly as sin underneath, but even with the scar he was undeniably attractive. And that, was the reason, she realised. How could he keep up the facade of unfeeling and uncompromising lawman, able to strike fear into the heart of even the bravest of men, if they knew that underneath he hid good looks and soft hazel eyes?

"What?" He growled, clearly unhappy with the scrutiny. His voice was strained, his brow furrowed in barely concealed pain. It shook Anderson out of her thoughts and she started to help him unzip his leather armour, careful of his broken arm and any other injuries he might be hiding.

"Sorry," she grinned. "But as one of the privileged few to ever see your face, I thought it important to remember it." Her tone was teasing, she rightly assumed it was lost on the stoic man.

"Not what you expected?" He asked.

"Pleasantly surprised." She replied. She tugged his sweat soaked leathers from him and he bit back a groan as he pulled his arm free. It left him in a plain black tee shirt stretched over broad shoulders and a well-defined muscular chest. Anderson thought if he flexed it would rip, and then was immensely thankful that she was the mind-reader and not he.

She knew she was far from the only judge to allow herself the occasional sexual fantasy, hell, there were both male and female judges who fantasised about the man in front of her, but if he ever found out she'd be mortified. She'd never known anyone so rigidly adhere to the monastic code that they all were supposed to live by. Part of the reason she was mistrusted by the other judges was she knew just how many of them had broken those rules. A casual fucking is fine, they told themselves, a perfect stress release and the one pleasure left in this harsh world, just don't let the council know, and whatever you do don't make it about anything more than scratching an itch. As a psychic, not only did Anderson know who was sleeping with whom, she also knew who was kidding themselves that it had nothing to do with emotions.

A medic came to join them, a middle-aged woman with short cropped hair and stern features. Sterner features than Dredd, Anderson mused with a smile. She inspected Dredd's arm which was black and swollen from wrist to elbow and made him lift his shirt to display the deep bruising at his hip and lower back, whirring a handheld scanning device over his body to check for damage.

"Well," she assessed. "Your arm has multiple fractures and you'll be pissing blood for a week but we'll be able to fix you up good as new. I'll get you some pain relief and fit your arm in a plasti-cast then you'll be good to go home. The cast will need a week to set the bone, I'll sign you off on medical leave until then, then you come back into the clinic and I'll take it off. Nothing strenuous and certainly no work until next week."

Anderson grimaced at the diagnosis, she'd had experience of the plasti-cast before and it was unpleasant to say the least. On the outside it appeared to be a rather innocuous looking plastic casing, that moulded to fit the broken limb, but inside housed a series of electrodes inserted into the skin, that pinned all the pieces of shattered bone in place and stimulated new bone growth with a series of electrical pulses. The whole process ranged from itchy to downright painful, Anderson had worn one for two weeks when a perp had shattered her knee with an armour piercing round, and it had driven her to distraction the entire time. But she imagined the thing that would annoy Dredd most would be not being allowed to punch anything for a week.

"A whole week! That's gonna suck." She commiserated.

"Yeah." Dredd frowned. There was a beat as they both felt a little awkward. It was weird how, without the helmet, Dredd was a lot more human and that made her just as uncomfortable as it appeared to make him.

"Okay, well, take it easy Judge." She said, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze and then starting to walk away.

"Get that leg looked at!" He called after her. Anderson smiled, yep, this is as close as she'd ever hope to get to the man, and she was okay with that.