His first thought was of surprise to see her here.

There were never any signs that anyone else had been here- let alone, that anyone else could even get to this place. He figured, by this point, with as many times as he had been forced here, he would've at least ran into one of his partners.

At most, he had seen Leslie a few times, but even then those encounters had seemed more like distorted illusions.

If anything though... it told him she had survived the crash- and that was the best news he could've gotten right now.

But a second look at her told him to caution himself.

Her usually stoic expression was traded out for one of both anger and pain- more than likely, with one being linked to the other.

A steady stream of blood came down from somewhere under her messy hair and, at this point, had covered almost half of her face. The red trail had dripped over her jaw and down her neck, making a mess of her white blouse, which was already sporting several more bloody stains. Her arms were literally covered in blood, which caused thick droplets to roll off of her shaking fingertips- making it difficult to pinpoint what kind of injuries she had exactly. She noticeably cradled the ribs on her left side and walked with a slight, but apparent limp- which the dark stain on the front of her right thigh might've had something to do with it.

She looked like shit and he was pretty certain she felt the same as well.

Probably even worse.

"Fuck. Me." Her voice shook when she spoke, but the strained tone gave away to her anger. She gave an irritated groan as she stopped just long enough to lean against the doorframe for balance; her right leg visibly shook and looked as though it threatened to give out from underneath her.

She was incredibly pissed off- and she had every right to be.

But, more importantly, she was alive and she was here now.

"Kidman." Sebastian started, not entirely sure if he had even managed to force her name out.

But she looked up in the midst of wiping away the blood that was spilling out from her nose- and she looked every bit as confused as to who the hell could've called her name here.

She physically stilled when she turned and caught his eye; the hand she was using for balance on the door frame immediately tightened and, for a moment, it looked like the aged wood might splinter in her grip. But it was the partial, broken gasp that escaped her that really said everything he needed to hear.

"Sebastian... oh, thank God." she breathed in audible relief, as she pushed herself from the door frame and started towards him.

He stepped around the desk to get to her, mostly to help cut her travel in half, but instead of modestly helping her with her balance... he ended up pulling her to him the first chance he got. And she practically collapsed against him in return. She kept one arm protectively over her ribs, but wrapped the other arm around his back, burying her fingers into his vest.

In that single moment, he was just relieved to see her- he didn't think about the action at all, but it didn't seem like she cared either way.

Because, for now, they were both alive- and at least they had that knowledge to comfort them.

"He threw us though a fucking hotel." she spat into his chest; her fingers digging into his back now.

She had saved both him and Joseph from the Heresy.

She was the one who spotted the ambulance and had practically been halfway out the bus before he stopped her.

And she had managed to get the two of them away from the wrecked overpass before things went from bad to worse... She had almost gotten them out of there before Ruvik showed up. He could see why she would be so angry.

She had helped them avoid death again and again and again, only to be rendered helpless at the very last minute.

And judging from her reaction when she saw him, she must've thought he was dead and that all of her work would've been for nothing.

"You're alive, that's all I care about right now." He replied, before he carefully pulled away and held her at arm's length. Up close like this, he could see a few more scattered injuries, probably from the flying debris or... from what might've been the windshield shattering; he winced at the ugly shades of bruising that were settling in against her pale skin. "You're in bad shape."

"You're not any better." Kidman remarked, as she tried to wipe away the blood that was now spilling over her eye- to little avail though. It must've been a hell of a head wound if it was bleeding as steadily as it was. She gave a short look around the place, but based on her lack of surprise, he had a feeling this wasn't the first time she had been here. She had even mentioned something like 'she was back here again' earlier, so... perhaps this room was open to anyone who could find it. When she looked back to him though, there was a sense of concern in her eyes. "... Where's Joseph?"

Shit.

He could already feel that sense of worry and panic slowly building its way back up again- and of course it would happen soon after he had managed to calm it down. It felt like with every step forward being made, there was always something there to drag him back.

He had just gotten Kidman back... but was it at the risk of losing Joseph?

"I... is he not with you?" Sebastian asked, fumbling briefly with the question.

And, just like that, the panic seemed to hit her just the same.

If it was at all possible, the remaining look of color drained from her face. "No... I... I thought he was with you." She started. "I mean, I thought you were both dead too, but if you're here..."

If Joseph was still at the crash scene...

He tried not to let himself be consumed by the thought- at least not again.

"Let's not jump to the worst-case here." He replied, although knowing damn well the thought was already circulating again in the back of his head. His main focus right now needed to be her- especially since they were both trapped here now. There was literally nothing they could do about the situation, there was no way they could help Joseph from here, so... the best they could do was keep each other calm. "... If you can be here, then there's a possibility that so can he."

And maybe it was all wishful thinking, but it wasn't out of the running yet.

It was a possibility that he was going to cling to until he was proven wrong.

Her only response was silence for the time being, but he had this odd feeling that she was studying him or maybe studying what he had said. She was a difficult person to figure out and right now, she seemed to be banking on that difficulty. Or maybe she just didn't believe a damn thing he was saying- and he couldn't blame her for that. He was grasping at whatever he could to keep the both of them level-headed and calm, but that kind of stuff wasn't exactly in his department.

"... We're stuck here, aren't we?"

Part of him wasn't the least bit surprised she was able to guess that as quickly as she did. If she had been here previously before, than she knew how this world worked and... she could probably just feel the difference in the air.

It was confining and cold now.

He only nodded in return and watched as her expression fell in response. An exasperated sigh escaped her as she briefly dropped her head forward and rested it against his shoulder. She was exhausted enough after everything that had happened... even if she could leave this place, it wasn't like she would last long out there. Neither of them would. And they would be of no help in this condition.

It was a hard pill to swallow, but... they could do nothing but come to terms with it.

For now, at least, she could share in his frustration.

"You're in bad shape, Detective Kidman." Tatiana remarked out of nowhere, unfortunately startling the both of them.

How was it that he was continuously forgetting about her?

He watched as Kidman pulled herself up and looked over at the woman, not appearing to be the least bit surprised by the nurse's appearance. If anything, she seemed briefly annoyed by Tatiana's unflattering remark.

"You should get looked at." the nurse continued, provoking Kidman to glance down briefly at the mess of blood that was dripping to the floor around her. Her arms had yet to stop bleeding and were messily splattering blood every time she moved them in the slightest.

"There's some medical supplies in the back." He offered. "... And you really need them."

She shot an annoyed look towards him as well and frowned briefly, but could do little else but nod in agreement. It wasn't like they were lying to her. Sighing, Kidman touched at the arm she was using to cradle her ribs and winced in reaction, before she moved to cover it. "I know, just uh... let me try to wash this blood off of me first. It's all over the place and there's no telling where to even begin."

"Do you need-"

"It's quite alright, Detective; I can be of assistance." Tatiana assured, interrupting him in the process, as she quietly pushed herself to her feet- setting her nail filer aside. She walked around the desk and waited patiently for them to separate.

"I'll be fine." Kidman replied, with what might've been a brief nod of reassurance. "You uh... you take care of yourself first; you'll be of no use to me dead."

Like she had any place to talk.

He stepped back and let Tatiana take Kidman by the arm before she helped her across the lobby and into the joining corridor; the nurse walked carefully to adjust to Kidman's limped gait. He started to head back into the back room, but paused just long enough to look back into the longer hallway. The door to her room was left open, just like his still was... And despite the urge to go check those rooms over again, he knew they would still be locked or empty. Nothing was going to change from here... He would just have to follow the rules for now and play by them until this world released him.

Stepping into the back room once more, he made sure to grab a few bandages from the cabinet and quickly taped one onto his still skinned forearm- after cleaning it one more time for good measure. He wasn't exactly worried about the open gashes on his arms for the time being; they weren't too serious and it would only be a waste of bandages to cover them.

They had a limited supply of medical goods, so they needed to be careful with them.

And he'd much rather them go to someone else.

It felt like minutes had gone by before he heard the sound of a door opening and heard her heels clicking as she headed back to join him; their usual rhythm was off-setted by her wounded limp. When she finally stepped into view, she thankfully had most of the blood cleaned up and had a thin towel pressed against her left arm. He assumed Tatiana must've given it to her.

"Nice setup." Kidman remarked as she slowly walked around the table, hardly even looking at her surroundings. She used her foot to ease out the chair to his left before she carefully sat herself down. A somewhat muffled groan left her at the motion and she shifted forward to ease the weight off of her back.

"You'll have to talk to that nurse up front about it." He replied.

"I don't think I will."

He chuckled briefly at her less than modest answer. "Come on, let me see if I can do anything about that arm." Sebastian offered, watching as she roughly moved to place her right arm down on the table. Most of the blood had been washed away and the injuries, thankfully, had yet to start bleeding all over again- which would hopefully mean he could at least get them cleaned before they did.

Her arms were torn apart.

The entire length of her forearm, including her palm, had massive scraps that practically skinned her arm open. She had a few patches of skin missing on her palm, wrist, elbow and on the side of her arm where she had probably first hit the ground. It wasn't nearly as severe as he had thought, with the blood and all, but it was still a pretty damning injury.

And all of the exposed nerves didn't help when it came to cleaning each inch of torn skin.

He caught her physically flinching each time he had to clean one of the skinned off portions.

"I uh... I jumped." she started, as she watched him carefully try to clean the last of the open gashes on her elbow. "I missed the fire escape I was aiming for and when I hit the street, I rolled pretty hard."

He had seen injuries similar to these in some motorcycle crashes or when someone was thrown from the car in a wreck. They were always cringeworthy injuries- because when human skin hit asphalt going who knows how fast... there was no telling what was going to be left in the aftermath. But he had never seen any to this extent. Then again, jumping out a hell-bound bus from a third or fourth story level would do that.

"You're lucky you can still move." Sebastian replied.

"Believe me, I know." Kidman nodded, wincing once more as he moved to take care of the bloody, busted portions of her fingers. There were a few, small chucks of skin and tissue missing from her knuckles- although most of them had been skinned when she inadvertently rolled on them in an attempt to protect her chest. "I'm lucky I don't have bones sticking out of me."

"At least none you can feel now."

She managed a brief, weak chuckle at his remark, although noted that it briefly hurt to do so. "Please don't say that. I'm actually scared of what I can't feel right now."

Understandable.

He stopped in the middle of cleaning the wounds on her shaking hand when he noticed the blood on the table, and knew it was coming from where her arm had started to bleed out again. At the very least, her injuries had held out longer than he thought. He covered the more painful injuries with a few medical pads before he ended up wrapping the entirety of her forearm in gauze. She briefly complained that it was a waste of supplies, but he argued that it was well worth the cost.

"So, tell me, how'd you guess that we were stuck here?" he asked, as he finished touching up her busted fingers as best he could.

She examined his work when he was done- although she had to admit that she was just mostly glad to see the injuries wrapped up out of sight. The gauze mildly irritated her bruised and tortured skin, but she could look over it with no problem. As long as she wasn't a bleeding mess anymore and didn't have to see her skin all grounded up and peeling off. Pulling her chair around, she had to sit facing him so he could start cleaning up her left arm- which he had to pull the blood-soaked towel off of first; her skin briefly stuck to the material and she tried not to flinch as noticeably during the slow process.

Her left arm was worse- if that was at all possible.

"Because you would've been out of this place and looking for us by now."

Sebastian paused briefly at the remark before he continued to work on her arm, slowly working his way from her palm down once more. "And instead, we're both stuck here... and we have no clue what's going on out there. We're safe, sure, which is probably for the best considering neither of us are in the greatest conditions, but..." he let his voice trail.

"I know." she assured with a light nod, before she slowly moved to rest her hand on his shoulder- giving it a brief squeeze. "It'll be okay."

It was odd how comforting she was, but... somehow it didn't seem straight out of character for her. In some way, she was probably just as worried as he was- because they were both well aware of how this world worked.

It didn't exactly show mercy or pity.

"... So, how uh... is your shoulder?"

The question sounded forced and almost awkward for her and he didn't necessarily understand why until he saw the tense look on her face.

And, somehow, the pieces came together after that.

"Fine." Sebastian answered, as he continued to work down her forearm. "I had actually forgotten about it until now."

He swore he heard her mutter a brief 'shit' under her voice as she let her hand drop away from his shoulder.

"Listen, I-"

"You don't have to say anything." He interrupted, already knowing well where this conversation was going to go... and right now, he didn't want to discuss it. "You have no reason to apologize."

Kidman frowned again. "I shot you, that's not exactly something I can walk away from with my hands clean."

"You shot in self-defense." He reminded, as he turned her arm slightly so he could try to stop her elbow from bleeding once more. Her left arm was proving to be a bigger hassle considering there was even more skin missing from it. He could only assume that, just like with his, she had landed on her left arm first and forced it take the brute of that initial landing and all the weight that followed behind it. It wasn't bleeding heavily like before, but... it hadn't stopped bleeding either. "I made an attempt to kill you- and I would had if you hadn't pulled the trigger. That's it. Case closed."

She didn't immediately respond and he had a feeling she was quietly fuming to herself.

He had to admit that he hadn't necessarily been expecting an apology from her. She did what she had to do to survive and he couldn't blame her for that. If anything, he should've been thankful that she went with a harmless shot rather than a life-threatening one. He could deal with a little shoulder pain if it meant that she was still alive.

"I could've at least stayed behind to make sure you were okay."

Her tone hinted that she was still angry, but had admitted defeat with the discussion for now.

"Well yeah, sure, but I'm not exactly helpless." Sebastian replied. "Let's just drop it, okay? We're both here now, we're both alive and that should be the only thing that matters."

She only nodded in response.

He quickly finished up her arm to the best of his ability and wrapped it up just the same- and tried not to comment on how strange she looked with the bandages now. With the serious injuries out of the way, he tried to figure out and focus on whatever was left. She had been a mess of blood before, but with all of it cleaned up, it was a little harder to locate where the bleeding had been coming from. Luckily, she had managed to find the gash on her head and remarked that she had hit a slab of concrete on the way out, which had torn some of her scalp off- the most they could do was clean it and hope for the best.

The back of her shirt was bloody and torn, and it didn't take long to realize that she had scraped the back of her shoulders to hell just the same as her arms. And while the damages wasn't necessarily to the extent of her arms, it was still pretty obvious that the injuries needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.

She had turned her chair around so she could prop herself against the back of it while he tried to clean her skinned shoulder as best he could. In order to do so though, she had to unbutton the front of her shirt just enough to slip her arm out to make the process easier.

She had offered to go shirtless for a short while so he could get her shoulders done in one go, but he had quickly shot the idea down.

It would be far less awkward to just clean one shoulder at a time.

"How'd you get so good at first aid anyways?" Kidman asked, as she briefly fiddled with the bandage on her arm to distract herself from the lingering pain in her shoulder. For the most part, her body had stopped throbbing every time she moved and had dulled down to a brief ache instead. Her ribs were still sensitive though and she had to keep herself confined to one position to keep from jostling them around. "I uh... I figured that was more of Joseph's thing."

Sebastian briefly glanced up at the question before he went back to tending to her left shoulder. He had a feeling she was just making conversation to pass the time and to distract herself from the occasional pain- and he couldn't blame her for that. The silence in this place was eerie and something about it still felt off. "I'm a Detective, my wife was an Investigator and I had a five year-old daughter, believe me... you learn on the go."

She didn't say anything in response, but the brief tension that pulled across her back told him what he needed to know.

"But you're right, this is something more suited for Joseph to do." He continued. "Unfortunately, you're stuck with me."

"Well, I feel more sorry for you, because you're going to be stuck with me." she replied, managing to force out a light chuckle that didn't hurt her chest.

That was right... he didn't necessarily finish taking care of the rest of his injuries. He supposed he really needed to get back to them when he could. Or at least have her take care of the ones he couldn't see. He didn't have anything serious apparently, or else he would've been well aware of it by now, but... the least he could do was make sure he didn't die from an infection.

"Detectives."

They both looked up as Tatiana stepped into the room.

"You have another guest."