"Whoever pulled that fire alarm has the worst timing in the world. If you want to get out of school, do it in the morning or before a test! Don't do it right before the end of the day." Puck whispered to a huddled group of impressionable freshman. He was determined to leave behind a few tricksters once he left the school.

As it was, the entire school was gathered a block away from the school building. None of them could leave despite it being past the final bell all because of the idiot that pulled the alarm. Seriously, for a school filled with gifted students, whoever pulled the fire alarm was clearly not very intelligent. I mean, who wants to be forced to hang out at school without actually having anything they need to do? Of course, if he were in charge, everyone would be allowed to leave, but they wanted to keep them there for their safety. Something about wanting to make sure that everyone was safe. Wasn't that what the firemen were for? Puck's Everafter hearing could detect them already; they'd be here within the minute.

"Sabrina Clarke? Has anyone seen Sabrina Clarke?"

A couple of students looked around themselves before shaking their heads and murmuring that they hadn't seen her.

Puck, suddenly very alarmed, quickly scanned the crowd for the sight of her dark red hair. She was nowhere to be found.

Well, he had said that whoever pulled the alarm was an idiot.

"Where is she?" Isabelle whispered to Puck, her eyes wide with concern.

Puck didn't even bother answering. He was already pushing the freshman aside in order to get out of line and was walking purposefully down the aisle of students.

That was when the firefighters chose to make their arrival. It was now or never.

He took off running, ignoring the startled shrieks of the students around him and the orders to stop by numerous teachers. He dodged under the arms of a rather burly firefighter and was in the building.

He didn't bother slowing down to gather his thoughts or acknowledge the firefighters following him or even the fact that he was now pouring wet from the over-head sprinklers. He already knew where she would be.

The first thing he saw upon entering the gym was the bloody body in the center of the room.

Horror and panic took over his body. Sabrina. He knew he shouldn't have left her alone; something like this was bound to happen. And now she was lying there de-

"Puck?"

He could literally feel his heart stop. And when it started again, it was beating just as quickly as before, but for a different reason this time.

"Sabrina..." He breathed out the moment he reached her side. He cradled her face in his hands and gave her a look so intense that even he didn't understand it. The surge of relief he had just experienced was almost cathartic. For a split second, he had been convinced that she was the one lying on the floor, and in that split second, he almost fell apart. But here she was, alive, and he had never felt more joyous.

That was when he noticed the blood covering her.

"Are you injured?" he asked, the panic surging back. Frantically, he searched her for life-threatening wounds. She did tend to acquire those at a rather alarming rate.

"Puck. Puck! I'm fine; it's not my blood." She grabbed his face to make him look at her so that he would listen and stop searching for wounds, his hands coming to a rest at her waist. She looked at him with a reassuring smile, but Puck could tell that she was barely keeping herself from breaking down.

"Sabrina…" he breathed out once again, reaching out a hand to brush a strand of hair from her face. Suddenly, she was in his arms, and he was squeezing her nearly as tightly she was squeezing him. Then she was in the air, and in him carrying her towards the door, Sabrina lessened her hold on him as the adrenaline exited her system. One of the several firefighters tried to take Sabrina from him in order to carry her out but immediately stopped after looking at Puck's fierce expression. Instead, the firefighter simply escorted them out of the building and led them to the ambulance that was waiting outside.

Puck didn't hear the frantic calls from their friends when he exited the building. He had no way of knowing that Sabrina looked dead in his arms as her body went limp and she was covered in someone else's blood. All he cared about was getting Sabrina to the waiting medic so that she could be cared for, even though it did require him to let go of her (something his brain practically had to order his arms to do as they were so reluctant to let go). He did let her go, though he did retain a firm grip on her arm. He needed to make sure that she didn't fall apart. Or that he didn't fall apart. Either way, he needed to be in physical contact with her.

"Sabrina!" Mrs. Garte had rushed over to make sure that her favorite student wasn't dead, and looked rather relieved when she realized that she was not. A wave of relief spread through the crowd when they realized she was not, in fact, dead.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but I'm going to need you to give the patient some space. That goes for you, young man, as well," Said the paramedic in a calm, but assertive, tone. Mrs. Garte bowed her head respectfully and walked away, ready to tend to her responsibilities in a situation like this. Puck, however, shot the man a glare so severe that he didn't ask him to move again. The fact that Sabrina didn't protest his presence helped as well.

Once the paramedic had finished his examination, an examination that Puck did not like seeing as how it required the paramedic to actually touch Sabrina (something he felt no one but him was entitled to do at this moment), he wrapped a shock blanket around Sabrina and then went off to do who knows what. Puck didn't care, as long as Sabrina was okay.

He took a seat next to her and didn't complain when her weary head rested on his shoulder.

"Hey, Puck?" her voice was quiet, barely above a whisper. "Remember that guy who was nice to me during my try-outs? Actually, he was the only guy that was nice to me. He wanted me to succeed; he told me so." She took a deep, rattling breath. "Well, he's dead now. Someone stole his heart." As if to prove her point, a gurney was rolled out of the building, the body concealed in the big plastic bag.

A startled scream erupted from the crowd of students, and Mrs. Garte practically ran over to the firefighters, her voice too quiet for Puck to overhear.

Sabrina didn't say anything else, clearly horrified by what she had just experienced. During the war, you expected casualties so it wasn't unexpected when someone you were close to died. But this was a reconnaissance mission, not a battle, and they had been assigned to prevent anything like this from happening. Puck knew that Sabrina was going to have a hard time forgiving herself for Steve's murder, but he also knew that it wasn't going to defeat her. Sabrina was stronger than that, and once the initial shock wore off, she wouldn't rest until she had found his killer, regardless of what it cost her.

"Sabrina, is it?" A female police officer had approached them without Puck's noticing. He wouldn't admit it, but he was too busy staring at Sabrina. "I understand that you were the one that found your classmate. I know that this must be hard for you, but whenever you're feeling better, we'd all appreciate it if you would tell us exactly what happened." This woman had clearly been chosen for the job for her voice alone; she spoke in an incredibly soothing manner.

Sabrina sat up and stared at the woman; Puck recognized the fire that was returning to her eyes.

"Would you like me to tell you here or at the station?" Puck couldn't help smile at how even her tone was. The police officer clearly wasn't expecting her to be so put together and looked rather startled for the split second it took her to regain composure.

"You may tell me here, however, if we have any further questions, you'll be asked to come down to the station."

Sabrina nodded in understanding, and, after giving Puck a look that reassured him that she would be fine, she followed the police officer to a more private area where she could recount what had happened.

Puck sent a quick message to Alfred explaining that they'd need to be picked up from school; Puck severely doubted that Sabrina would be willing to walk home in bloody clothes. Once he was sure that Alfred would be by momentarily, he focused his attention back on Sabrina. It seemed as though Mrs. Garte was making sure that she was okay, a reassuring hand on Sabrina's shoulder. Sabrina nodded that she was okay and then headed back to Puck. It was clear that, though she was holding herself together rather well, she was draining fast. The effort she had put into keeping it together for those few moments was taking its toll. Luckily, at that moment Alfred pulled up, and Puck helped Sabrina into the car, ignoring the curious and concerned stares of their classmates.

Sabrina sat stock-still; as if any sudden movement was too much for her to bear. "Mrs. Garte said that she understands if I don't want to attend school tomorrow; that extends to you as well. In fact, she hinted that we don't have to go back to school until we feel comfortable doing so. Imagine that, Puck, you never having to go back to school." She let out a noise that sounded like a strangled laugh before falling quiet again. Puck noticed that she was staring at her hands, or rather at the dried blood that coated them, as though she had just noticed them. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and reassure her that it wasn't her fault that he was dead and that they had no way of knowing that it would happen, but he was afraid of her reaction. She seemed as though she was on the edge of breaking down, and Puck didn't want to be the one to shove her over.

Puck helped her out of the car and up to the penthouse, Sabrina moving robotically. She started shaking when they were in the elevator, transfixed by the blood on her hands.

"Sabrina. Sabrina, I need you to listen to me." Puck urged her. When she didn't respond, he picked her up and rushed her to her bathroom. Not bothering to undress her, he knew that he would get punched if he even attempted it, he sat her down in the shower and turned on the water before sitting down next to her. She was quiet as the blood swirled down the drain. They sat there for a while, the hot water beating down on them, even after the last of the blood had washed away.

Puck, realizing that if they stayed in the shower any longer they'd probably turn into prunes, got up and turned it off. He was just as soaking wet as Sabrina was, but his priority was making sure that she was okay.

He handed her a towel and instructed her to undress and towel off with the promise that he would get her some clothes. He held true to his promise and passed her a pair of pajama pants and a tank top before heading back to his own room to get changed. He practically ran back to her room after getting dressed. Knowing Sabrina, she would wait to fall apart until after he had left. But no, she was just sitting there on the edge of her bed.

"Hey Puck?"

"Yeah?" he responded, taking a seat next to her.

"Promise me that we're going to bring those bastards down." She looked at him with such intensity that Puck couldn't help but smile. Sure, she was tired, wet, and mentally and emotionally drained. But she was still Sabrina Grimm, and she wasn't going to give up.

"What is this 'we'? I plan on taking down the whole organization all by myself. I mean, I am the greatest warrior there ever was." He boasted proudly, sitting up a little straighter. Sabrina let out a tired laugh in response and lay back on the bed.

"I'm sure you can, Puck. Just leave a few for me as common courtesy."

"Fine." The boy whined, lying down next to her.

They lay there for a few moments before Puck realized that Sabrina had dozed off. Carefully, he lifted her up from the bed and eased her underneath the covers. Once he was sure that she was comfortable, he laid down next to her. If anyone came to hurt her in the middle of the night, they'd have to kill him first.

The next morning, Puck awoke to find himself alone. In the blind panic that usually accompanies surprises before one is fully awake, he practically fell out of bed.

"Alfred, where's Sabrina?"

"She's in the training room, Sir. She's been there since 4:27 this morning and has yet to eat breakfast."

Puck let out a sigh of relief. Well, at least she hadn't gotten herself kidnapped. But what was she doing?

His first stop was the kitchen where he grabbed two bowls of cereal, not bothering to stick a fake eyeball in Sabrina's. He wasn't sure of her mental state at the moment and didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of her breakdowns.

His worry wasn't needed however. When he entered the room, Sabrina was in the midst of beating the shit out of a training dummy. In fact, moments after he entered, she had kicked off its head.

Puck winced. He was rather happy that he hadn't decided to prank her after all. He was rather proud of his gorgeous face.

"Here's the breakfast you clearly thought wasn't important enough to eat." Puck said, handing her a bowl. Sabrina declined it and grabbed his bowl instead. No trust.

Puck looked around at the rest of the room as Sabrina inhaled her cheerios. There were papers strewn all around the room, no order to any of it.

"What the hell have you been doing these past few hours?" Puck asked while looking at a notepad that seemed to have nothing but mad ramblings drawn on it.

"I've been trying to figure out why someone stole Steve's heart. It has to be ritualistic; I don't think there's an Everafter that kills people by ripping out their hearts. Maybe it was meant to be symbolic. Perhaps Steve hurt someone's feelings and they decided to get revenge." Sabrina said all of this in a rushed, feverish manner. Puck was starting to wish he had drugged her food with a sleeping pill.

"Maybe… I do know that the Aztecs killed quite a lot of their sacrifices by removing their hearts. If that's the case then our Everafter is very old." Puck spoke slowly, as if his words would slow down the frantic girl.

"Maybe. But the fact that his body was left in the gym has to mean something."

Puck knew what it could mean. It could mean that someone had found them out and had left it as a way of scaring them off. But there was no way he was going to say that and make Sabrina blame herself even more.

"It means that these Everafters are so confident in their ability to stay hidden that they don't worry about leaving behind incriminating evidence. It means that they're more dangerous than we previously thought."

Puck poured over the autopsy report that he had 'borrowed' from the police database. It appeared as though Steve had no injuries that would coincide with a struggle, meaning he probably knew the person that had killed him. The cause of death itself was rather strange. There were no signs of anything actually cutting into him in order to remove his heart. It was almost as though the heart hadn't been ripped free from his body, but that his heart had removed itself from his body (though it didn't say so explicitly in the report). The pathologist was completely confused as to how this could possibly have happened. However, being an Everafter, Puck could guess: magic, and rather powerful magic at that. This meant that they were dealing with a witch who was mentally unstable. After all, it is well documented that when a witch commands too much power and uses it only for evil purposes, she starts to lose her mind. Just look at Baba Yaga.

"Find anything?" Sabrina asked as she toweled off her hair. She had decided to take another shower after seeing the crime scene photos.

"Yeah, it seems as though he was killed by a rather powerful witch. Any ideas as to who it could be?"

"None. But witches tend to be older, right? I mean, all of the witches we've met so far tend to be adult aged, not teenagers. So are we looking for a teacher?"

"Probably, I always knew that anyone that taught for a living had to be evil at heart."

"So we'll start monitoring the teachers as well. I'll take the teachers from my class and you take yours. We'll figure out how to deal with all of the other teachers later." Sabrina said, taking out a pad of paper. "So the people we know to be Everafters are Emily, George, and Max, who is a descendant of Bluebeard. And we don't even have proof for the other two."

"Well, I think we can be certain that both of them are from Greek myths. I saw George reading a book in ancient Greek the other day."

"True. Wait! You remember that girl that was practically drooling over George a few days ago?"

"Yeah, you said that they had kissed at the party."

"Well, I saw her the other day and she seemed completely uninterested. She didn't look at him once. It screamed of magic."

"So what? She just got over her crush."

"Oh please, Puck, crushes don't just disappear over night. People can harbor one for years even though there's no hope that the other will reciprocate. It's sad but true."

"So who was your crush?"

"Excuse me?" she looked at him in shock.

"Well, it sounds like you're speaking from experience. Who was your crush?" he raised one eyebrow to accompany his smirk.

She stared at him for a few moments before responding. "Please, like I'd ever tell you. And besides, I've gotten over it."

"Well that's a lie." He smiled even wider. She gave him a strange look in return. "Come on, Grimm, I know you. If you liked this guy once, you still like him." He winked. Sabrina scoffed in response.

"Yeah, well, I am. Can we get back to this witch-hunt? I'd really rather avoid walking in on any more dead bodies.

"Fine."

The two poured over more files for several minutes before Puck looked up at her.

"So you really don't like him anymore?"

"Puck!"

The fact that Sabrina and Puck didn't come into school the day after the murder wasn't obvious to other students as school was closed. An email was sent around giving condolences to Steve's friends and stating that if counseling was needed, there would be a grief counselor available the next school day. An announcement about the funeral was also sent out, but it only said that students would be asked not to attend as the family wished to have a small ceremony.

Both Puck and Sabrina agreed that it would be unwise to miss too many school days considering the reason they were there in the first place. So that is why, the Monday after Steve had been brutally murdered, Puck and Sabrina went back to school.

Upon entering, she was immediately greeted by a barrage of hugs from her female friends. Puck thought she looked like she was wrapped in a cocoon of sympathetic teenagers.

"You must be so traumatized!" Isabelle said once they released her.

"Let's just say that my parents have decided that I'm actually worth the price of therapy." Her friends laughed at her comment.

The girls formed a protective wall around Sabrina with Puck following dutifully behind.

He listened in as Sabrina explained what had happened and how terrified she had been, skimming over the gory details so as not to terrorize her friends. Puck had heard the story several times as Sabrina rehearsed it in a mirror; she had wanted to make sure that she told the story as a teenager would, and not a soldier. Puck was just happy that no one asked him how he had felt during the whole affair.

When he had entered that room and seen that body, his heart had stopped beating. He had been so terrified that she was the one lying on the ground, and he knew that if that had been true, he would have been broken forever. But then he had heard her voice, her small, small voice, and he had felt his heart start up again and he was filled with hope. Sure, she had been covered in blood, and the thought of her dying in his arms had been the worst of all, but she was alive. If she had been injured, he would have rushed her over to Lucy's regardless of the complications it caused. He would have willingly jeopardized the entire mission just to save her, to get to see that fierce look in her eye whenever she was faced with a new problem.

But all of that had been unnecessary. She had been fine, if not a little shaken up. And that fact had made him happier than he had ever known.

But he never wanted to feel that way again. That hollowness that had filled his heart had been almost too much to bear; he had almost broken from just the thought of never seeing her again. It was absurd; he was the Trickster King, and he should be able to go on no matter what the tragedy. That was his role in life, and it was one that he had played rather well up until this point. What had changed? Had he just gotten older and therefore weaker? He had accepted this 'puberty virus' as fact quite a long time ago, but he never did like it.

"Hey Puck, you coming?" Sabrina had stopped once she realized that he was no longer following and was beckoning him with a smile, a smile that made him smile reflexively in return.

Oh crap.

AN-I stayed up later than planned so that I could post this as soon as my Beta was done with it. I think I'm going to follow her instructions now:

Beta-HERE! IT'S DONE! NOW GO THE **** TO SLEEP! -Director Fury and me

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PS-sorry for not responding to any reviews, I've been lazy