Sorry this has been a while but I'm having so many problems with uploading. Hopefully I can get this going again.

Corny beamed at Tracy. He always liked that girl. She had a spunk that couldn't be matched and lit a room like the night lights of Baltimore. He smiled at her weakly.

Suddenly they heard a gust of wind like no other. The lights flicked out. All the girls screamed. Like clockwork, the generator did it's job and the lights, including the emergency lights at the bottom of each wall kicked on. Corny looked at Link. Job well done!

Corny looked at Shelley, "You better get those boys to hurry, Nurse Shelley. Sounds like a house is about to drop on us."

Shelley waved the guys over, "Hurry!" she said as they got under his arms.

Shelley grabbed Amber by the arm, "Let's go Sissy. You're needed down there."

…..

When Tracy asked if she could help, Paulie nodded, smiling. "Of course. Come on."

Paulie led the way up the stairs and over to Corny. Darla beamed at his arrival, but before he could return the gesture, there was a powerful gust of wind. The lights flickered out and Darla screamed; surely the building would collapse over their heads! She let out a gasp when someone wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up, but she realized it was Paulie as the lights kicked on.

"You need to get down there, now," Paulie said emphatically.

Darla nodded and scurried down the stairs, trembling the entire way down.

Paulie, on Shelley's orders, got Corny under his arms and lifted him up. It was easier with the other fellas helping, but Paulie still wasn't looking forward to carrying a grown man down those stairs during this storm. He heard another gust of wind. "Come on, gang, let's pick up the pace!"

And with that, they followed Shelley down the stairs and into the shelter below.

…..

Tracy gasped again when she saw Corny's wound but grinned back at him when he smiled. Link smiled a little when he was told they had done a job well done.

"You were the one who got it to work Corny."

Then Paulie said that Tracy could help. Along with Link she went to Corny's side and picked him up. Following Paulie's lead they carefully headed down the stairs.

…..

Corny smiled the best he could muster at Tracy. She and Link were great in a crisis, no doubt about that. As they brought him upright, the room swirled. He fought to stay awake. As manly as possible, but he felt himself losing it as they made their way down.

Shelley pulled Amber over to the vanities and called for Becky. "Come on girls, let's grab what we can use." She looked to Amber. Her skirt was stained with blood. Oh that wasn't good. It looked like an awful lot. She scurried over to the wardrobe and tossed her a new dress. She grabbed Link's spare trousers and threw them at Becky. She took the blanket at the bottom, grabbed a sewing kit, the first aid kit, and then had a thought.

"Amber, where is that Brandy?" she asked searching Amber's drawers.

"Huh?" Amber said, still slightly dazed.

"The Brandy that we snitched from your mother's office. The one you told her was gone."

"Bottom drawer."

Shelley pulled the drawer, and moving aside the fan letters, found the bottle. "Great!" she said to herself.

Becky's eyes grew wide.

"Let's go girls." Shelley said. She hesitated for a second and grabbed a can of Ultra-clutch as she turned followed by Becky and Amber. Down the steps, everything seemed to be in great shape. Guys on cots, kids milling around and going through boxes. Perfect.

"Hey Link!" Shelley shouted out. Link looked up. "Here ya go Hero boy." She tossed him the can of Ultra-clutch and he smiled.

She made her way over to Corny. Amber stood next to him, but in the shadows, back to the group as she slipped into the clean dress. Shelley looked down at him. Blood still oozed out of the cut. She had never asked her father how much blood a person can lose before bleeding to death, but she knew that if he continued to bleed until they were rescued, it didn't look good. And head wounds bled a lot. Shelley's thoughts drifted to Thanksgiving. Every year Dad laced up the turkey after it was stuffed.

"Here kids," he would say, "let me show you this one. These are the same knots I use to suture a wound...." he would work his art then hand the poultry needle to one of the children.

Each of them tried it. Shelley had done it a few times. However, there was a lot of difference between a cold, dead turkey, and the very alive Corny Collins. She only hesitated a second, then knew what she had to do. She looked down at him.

"Corny, here drink this.." she said as she handed him the bottle.

"Hey, that's Velma's brand. Where did you get this?" he asked as he tipped the bottle to his lips.

Shelley thought a minute, afraid they would get in trouble, but decided that she didn't care at the moment. "Amber took it when she cleaned out her mother's office. We were saving it for a rainy day. Guess this is it."

He nodded and swigged. Her face grew serious. "Corny, we have a problem." He looked at her, "The bleeding from that cut is bad. Even the bandages are helping. You need stitches."

He stopped drinking for a moment, "And..."

"And you need them." she said with a sigh. "You need them and I've done them so we need to do this."

He seemed to panic. "When? In Girl Scouts? At ballet camp? When?"

"Just last year. My dad taught me." She left out the part about the turkey.

Corny bolted up. "Oh no I don't think so!" he tried to make it off the cot, but wavered just a moment. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell back on the cot.

Amber rushed to his side. She looked from Shelley to Corny then back again.

"Well that makes things a whole lot easier." Shelley said calmly. "Amber, I'm going to need you to take these swabs and keep clearing the blood from his wound. I need to see what I'm doing."

Amber knew Shelley could handle anything. She had seen it many a time. This was going to get done. Amber pulled a box up next to Corny and sat to dab the blood.

"Anyone have a Zippo?" Shelley called out. She wasn't sure which direction it came from but it landed at her feet. She picked it up, grabbed a needle from the sewing kit, threaded it then ran the needle through the flame of the Zippo. Sterilized and ready, she took a deep breath and began her work.

It was twelve stitches later that she cut the thread. The bleeding had stopped. Amber handed her a few squares of cotton and the tape. It didn't stick well in his hair.

"Amber, you're going to have to keep your hand here." She took her hand and placed it on the bandage. "I need a break." Shelley stood, quite proud of herself. and walked to the huge tin of candy. She popped one into her mouth and smiled.

Amber looked at him. Why couldn't she be braver? If she just told him how she actually felt, then no matter what he said, she could get on with her life. She sighed and put her head on his chest. All the emotions of the day overcame her. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.

…..

Link was stunned when Shelley said his name and then she threw him a can of Ultra Clutch. He smiled at her. At the sight of the Ultra Clutch he instinctively ran his hand threw his hair. It was still damp and he thought that it must have looked like a real mess.

Tracy was trying not to giggle when he glanced at her. "Well, you did say that we have enough Ultra Clutch here to keep our 'do's looking like new."

He ran his hand through his hair again. "It must look like a disaster."

He put his finger on the sprayer and aimed it at his head.

Tracy placed her hand on his arm. "Don't, I think it makes you look more like you. The you I have come to love dearly."

Link grinned as he captured her lips. He loved her too. He had a glimpse of her hair. It looked like it could use some hairspray as well. He then came out of his daze and remembered everything that was happening. Hair wasn't as important as two bodies on cots, one unconscious and the other bleeding. His thoughts turned to something Shelley called him.

"Hero boy?" he asked. He wondered if that would be a new nickname for him. He didn't think of himself as a hero though. He was just trying to keep both he and Corny alive.

Tracy smiled at him. "You did save Corny."

Link nodded. "I did but he could have died if I hadn't gotten him inside."

Together they watched as Shelley tried her hand at medicine. Corny's wound looked horrible. They hoped that Shelley knew what she was doing and that the stitches worked. He was equally stunned when Amber helped. She looked exhausted from the night's events. She laid her head on Corny and was fast asleep. Tracy thought that Amber's hand might slip since she was asleep so she decided to keep an eye on the bandage just in case. Seeing that her hand was still in place she, along with Link turned to the other invalid.

"How's Fender?" Tracy asked.

Link was going to ask but she beat him to it. He stood besides Tracy awaiting an answer.

…..

After setting Corny down on the cot, Paulie headed over to where Darla was kneeling beside Fender's cot, watching him worriedly. She managed to smile at Paulie as he sat beside her. Her small hand threaded through his own.

"You okay?" he asked, knowing that she, like everyone else, had to be extremely shaken up over the events of the evening.

Darla shrugged. "I've been better, but things could be a lot worse. Paulie, you, you were wonderful up there. You managed to get everyone down here safely, and you even got two unconscious people down here! It, it was really brave of you."

Paulie also shrugged, coloring up a little bit. "I just did what needed to be done. Shelley did a lot, too, you know, and so did Link and--"

"Stop being so modest," Darla interrupted, smiling. She shifted until she was sitting fully on the ground, her crinolines causing her dress to poof out around her. She nodded her head towards where Corny, Amber and Shelley were resting. "Do you think Corny's okay?"

Paulie shrugged. "I don't know that I'd trust just a kid to poke a needle in me, but Shelley looked like she knew what she was doing."

They were quiet for a moment as they watched Amber rest her head on Corny's chest; it had been a rough night for all of them.

"Well, who would've thought?" Darla asked softly, smiling a little. Suddenly exhausted from everything that had happened that night, she closed her eyes and rested her head on Paulie's shoulder. Her eyes shot open, however, when she heard a squeaking and a rustling behind her. "Paulie?"

"Yeah?" he asked, wondering why she had suddenly turned tense.

"When you and Brad came down here in the past...were there ever rats here?"

"Um...sometimes."

Darla shrieked as one of the furry creatures streaked by her leg, rustling her skirt, and she leapt to her feet. "RAT! GET IT, GET IT! SOMEBODY GET THE RAT!"

…..

Tracy jumped behind Link, holding tightly to his shoulders. Link couldn't believe that after all that they had seen that night with Corny's wound, Fender unconscious and IQ looking green around the edges that Tracy and Darla would be frightened by the small creature.

"Where's the rat!?" she exclaimed.

Link glanced from Darla to over his shoulder at Tracy. "Calm down girls, the rat won't eat you."

"They might!" Tracy said.

"I thought you were going to find some rat traps while you were upstairs."

"Sorry lil darlin I got distracted."

Tracy knew he had more important things on his mind but at that moment she hoped someone would take that rat elsewhere. She thought that Darla, and Penny probably felt the same.

…..

Darla jumped onto a cot when Tracy suggested that the rats might eat them.

"I do not want to be eaten! Somebody kill it, now! I mean, aren't boys supposed to be brave or something?!"

"Well, what do you want me to get 'em with?" Paulie asked wearily; it was amazing that after being trapped in a studio and tending to one unconscious person and an injured man, the girls were afraid of something as trivial as a rat.

"I dunno...your shoe, maybe?" Darla suggested, squeaking as the rat scurried under her cot.

"Darla, Tracy, it'll be fine," Paulie sighed, sharing a look with Link. "It's just a rat. Think of it as a hamster."

"Hamsters don't try to eat you!" Darla protested. "Hamsters sleep and smell like woodchips and run on their little wheels and eat treats and are cuddly. Rats smell like sewage and they try to eat you!"

"No, they don't," Paulie assured her. "I've been down here tons of times, and they've never bothered me. Just get down from the cot, Darla, and it'll go away after a little bit."

"I am not getting down until that thing is caught and killed!" Darla said firmly. "I want to keep my feet, thank you very much."

"Darla--"

"Kill it and I'll get down!"

Paulie sighed and turned to the guys. "Anyone know where we can find a shoebox?"