Thanks for all the reviews and suggestions :) hopefully you'll like this, I'm just so worried it might be too much. Enjoy, and any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
A jarring cough woke him from Sam's sofa. He realised he was sweating, wearing only a t-shirt and boxers in the middle of winter. Something was wrong. A smoke alarm, unmistakable, blared suddenly. Tom coughed again. That smell. Something was burning. He pulled on his discarded jeans from beside the sofa. His first thought was Sam.
Tom tried to call her name, to warn her, but the surging smoke caught him and his words choked in his throat. He stumbled towards the staircase, and saw the first flames through streaming eyes. They seemed to be coming from the kitchen, blocking the front door, but he didn't stop. He hurled himself up the staircase. Luckily, he knew where her room was. The fire had not reached the upper level of Sam's house yet, but a thick haze of flickering smoke was dragging around his shoulders, obscuring his vision further. He had to feel his way to her room. Nothing could be heard from inside through the hissing and spitting of the ever growing blaze, and his own heart, every beat like a bullet. He shouldered the door open, forgetting everything he had been taught about checking for fire first. Nothing mattered but Sam. He saw her lying, peaceful amongst the commontion, under the duvet, the indents telling him that she was curled in the same way as she had been the previous night. Her face, too, gleamed with sweat, but the full heat of the flames had not reached her room. He wheezed her name again, and, without waiting for her to wake, hoisted her up into the cradle of his arms, grabbed a blanket from the edge of the bed, and carried her out of the room.
Her room had been relatively smoke-free, but out at the top of the stairs the smog entered her system and she awoke, a disorientated look taking over her face immediately.
"Fire!" choked Tom frantically, still clutching her tightly. He had forgotten how fast fire spread. Like a torpedo it had whipped through her front hall, blackening everything to ash. Now it crept along the banister of the stairs, preparing to consume it. Tom turned his body so that he was facing away from the blaze, enclosing Sam behind his exposed back, squeezing her securely. He felt the heat radiate onto his back, almost certain he'd have burns there, but his blood turned solid in his veins when he heard Sam's strangled cry as the flames took hold of her ankle. It was only for a second but it was enough. Her bare skin blistered almost immediately, but they had to keep going. At the foot of the stairs, Tom looked around desperately. They couldn't escape through the front door, but there was a back door.
"The key's in the kitchen," Sam spoke painfully for the first time, seeing him make for the door. He placed he swiftly on her good leg, wrapped his hand in a random tea towel strewn on a nearby table and punched through the window as hard as he could. It shattered, seeming to momentarily break the crackle of the fire. Tom pushed more glass out of the way until there was a big enough gap for them. He helped her through, and then followed straight after, only earning a few abrasions on his forearms. He surrounded Sam with the blanket and one of his arms to support her, ignoring the sting of the cuts, and they limped around to the front of the house. As they hurried, they heard the ambulance and fire engine sirens; the neighbours must have called them, Sam thought.
Sure enough, a small group of people were gathered on the pavement, staring up at the little house. From the outside, Sam could see that flames, like a constricting cage, had almost entirely depleted the far left side of her house. The ambulance arrived then, followed by a fire engine. They reeled into action. The paramedics found Sam and Tom, and a hose was fired at the house, until the foam had extinguished even the last smouldering embers. They were yelling things at her, at Tom, but although she felt herself nod and shake her head, she didn't really register what they were saying. Once again, she had no idea what to think. The nerves to her brain seemed to have gone into shutdown; everything was slow. She looked at Tom's ash and salt-smeared face and wondered what he had even been doing there. Then with a burst of realisation, she was brought back to the present. It was the middle of the night, it was freezing cold, and her house had just been on fire. Tom had rescued her. Tom, who had only been there because he wanted to protect her in the first place, had once more saved her. She sat down abruptly, not bothering to check if there was anything to sit on, but was caught by an anxious looking Tom.
"Are you alright?" he asked. She nodded indistinctly, but further conversation was cut off as she was taken in the comforting hands of the paramedics while he was led to the ambulance. As they were driven back to the hospital, Sam stopped feeling the pain from her seared ankle, and then it was a haze.
When Sam woke up in the morning, she realised she was in cubicles again. She sighed. Was this going to become a regular thing? She brought her hands to her face, noticing the layer of smoke and grime still in their grooves and under her nails. They nurses must have given her a quick clean, as she didn't feel completely disgusting, but she was desperate for a shower. She turned that thought away; she didn't exactly have a home to shower in anymore. There was going to be so much to deal with no, she realised, but it would have to wait. She looked at her bandaged foot - it seemed to be her only injury from the fire, although she was still sore from the, well, the miscarriage. She hadn't even had a chance to think about that; it had been shoved to the back of her mind, but try as she might, she couldn't seem to keep it there. She certainly didn't want to talk to Tom about it. In spite of her resentment, she wondered how he was doing. He had probably saved her life, after all. But isn't that what anyone would have done? No, he could have just got the hell out of there, but he hadn't. She wished she could say it was going to take more than this for him to prove himself to her, but really, he couldn't do much more than that. A bulb of hope sprang in her stomach. They needed a talk, she just wasn't very good at talking.
What will Sam do now? Let me know what you think :)
