We rode for almost three hours without a single thing happening. I didn't think I'd see so many cows in my life, but I was wrong. I took a deep breath and sighed, watching yet another cow chew on its cud. I had hoped to see something more exciting, like, oh, I don't know, a highway robbery in action or maybe a train derailing, anything to break the monotony and the quiet.

Kanda was still sitting there like a dog trapped in a kennel during a could practically see his hair standing up, despite being in a ponytail. He'd been like that all day, but nothing had happened. Maybe he was just overly sensitive.

Heaven knew, I couldn't stand to have my nerves more shot than they were. I was beyond the point of caring. I just wanted to do something already, and the tension he created was spinning my nerves out into oblivion. I couldn't even nap because he was so high-strung.

Bored, I started to whistle "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", just to pass the time. The sound seemed to echo off into the forest like the calling of some nymph.

And to my surprise, someone joined me. Kanda had a good whistle.

I whistled it as a round, and he managed to keep up. Mid-song, I switched to "London Bridge Is Falling Down", and he followed in with the next bar. I gave him a look, and he raised his eyebrows at me.

I started "Pop Goes The Weasel". He finished it.

I began "Where O Where Has My Little Dog Gone". He whistled the next verse.

I started to whistle "God Save The Queen", and he actually kept up with me.

I tried to wrack my brains for a more obscure tune, and I went with "Whiskey In The Jar". To my amazement, he shocked me by whistling the chorus.

I pursed my lips in thought. Shoot, he'd answered everything I'd thrown at him. There was no way I was letting him get me in terms of whistling. He couldn't be good at kicking my butt and whistling.

I whistled Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", and Kanda whistled the next three bars.

"Are you serious?!" I finally shouted, throwing my hands up in the air.

He smugly kept his nose high in the air, not bothering to say anything to me. I had never figured Kanda adept at anything besides reducing objects to infinitely smaller pieces.

He started to whistle "My Darling Clementine", and I let him have it, leaning my head against my horse's neck in defeat. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought my horse was silently laughing. It snorted explosively.

"Okay, okay, you win. You don't have to rub it in," I groaned.

He switched to Mozart's "Lachrymosa".

"Al-right already, I get it, you have an entire music library in your skull. I guess it's gotta be filled with something other than hot air and hate," I mumbled, and he gave me a deadpan stare.

And then we smelled the burning.

Our horses stopped, pawing the ground. We looked at each other, and the tension shot through his shoulders again. One of his hands sat on his thigh next to the hilt of his sword, and his back looked like someone had shoved a titanium rod down his spine. Our eyes locked for a few moments. It was like a telepathic moment.

Something isn't right here. I just don't know what it is.

Hey, search me. I have no idea either.

It was deathly quiet, but we decided to keep going. The horses nickered, reluctant to continue forward. The forest was suddenly oppressive, and it seemed like the trees hid something sinister. I swallowed nervously. Every rustle of leaves made me jump. The burning smell was getting worse. I sighed with frustration, and I urged my horse forward with a touch of my heels.

We continued down the road for another ten minutes, not seeing a soul.

"Maybe we were imagining things," I suggested quietly. My voice was muffled by the trees, like the air was full of cotton.

Kanda hummed assent, but I could tell he didn't believe me. Okay, I didn't believe me.

A wagon seemed to materialize around the bend, a mile down the road. It smoked gently, flipped on its side with all the belongings strewn out across the road. Ruts in the dirt trailed behind it where it had skidded, and I felt the breath go out of me. On the ground, not twenty feet from my horse, was a baby doll.

That did it.

It happened without me thinking about it. I dug my heels into my horse's sides and urged it forward into a gallop. The air rushed past. I'd somehow gone from point A to point Q in seven seconds flat without knowing where I was or what I was doing.

I was dimly aware of someone calling my name, but I was a little preoccupied, imagining a small child stuck underneath an axle, or in a tree, or, heaven forbid, underneath the wagon... My heart pounded as I approached nearer and nearer, hoping against hope that maybe I wasn't too late, that perhaps I could save the people who'd probably been in the wagon. I had bandages, I had water, and I had slightly maternal willpower, but my nerves jittered as I realized that I didn't know if I could handle the blood and the guts and -

I flew backwards off my horse, pulled like an overly large doll on a string, and landed squarely on my hip. I shouted in surprise, and I could swear I'd heard it pop as I rolled along the ground. My horse, and inertia, went on without me as I writhed on the ground, scrambling to get up. Any minute now I could be -

I was yanked for the second time, this time into an upright position, by my uniform collar, but my left hip was having absolutely none of this standing business. I suppressed a shout and several family unfriendly words, biting the knuckle on one hand. The blood had ceased rushing in my head, so I could hear Kanda's yelling.

"You idiot! Do you realize you could've killed yourself?! A chimp has more common sense than you. You lookbefore you dive in, moron!"

I hardly registered what he was saying. I think I must've hit my head when I landed on the ground, because suddenly the earth was doing the loop-the-loop around me. Not to mention, I didn't have enough brain space to store all of the terrible things Kanda was calling me right now.

"C-could you, uh, hold on to that thought a moment?" I asked, looking for my horse.

It lay in fifty pieces along the road, neatly sliced like a Thanksgiving turkey carved by a surgeon. I stared dumbly, a nauseous feeling sticking to my insides. In the sunlight, I could just barely make out the glint of wire strewn between me and the wagon, an evil spiderweb of deadly floss. If it weren't for the blood on it, it would've been invisible.

I had almost sliced myself up into enough pieces to get a closed casket funeral. I giggled to myself at the thought of someone picking up pieces of me with a spatula before slapping my hands over my mouth and swaying.

Oh, god, I was getting really lightheaded.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Kanda hissed at me from atop his horse, and I stared at him, bewildered. I had enough presence of mind to realize he was talking to me instead of just yelling in general. I didn't have enough presence of mind to filter out my responses.

"No," I answered bluntly, my brain taking a brief vacation. "Um, I mean, I was preoccupied... Shifu." With thinking about how I almost turned myself into sushi.

Kanda was suddenly flung backwards off his horse a split second after I heard a massive twang! somewhere in the forest. I am not ashamed to say that I screamed. I am a little ashamed to say that I might have wet myself a little bit.

Realizing that there was a good possibility someone might have just killed my partner (and ticket to safety), I hobbled around the panicking horse as fast as I could, trying to calm it down while simultaneously assessing Kanda's condition. Considering he was cursing enough to make a horde of fishmongers blush, I'd say he wasn't doing all too bad for a guy with a meter long shaft sticking out of his shoulder.

I yelped as another deadly meter-longstick lodged itself into the road next to my foot, and I quickly hauled Kanda to his feet.

"What happened to your super senses? You can see invisible wire from a hundred feet, but not figure out someone was going to shoot at you?!" I complained as I tried to haul the horse and the samurai into the forest.

"I'm empowered, not omniscient! Gentle, gentle with the arm. I have a healing factor, not a pain immunity, you sack of - !"

I dropped Kanda off behind an oak while I picked a rather sturdy maple tree for my hiding place. There was about twenty feet of forest between us and the horror show freaks. Now that we were under what I considered sufficient cover, I took a moment to panic.

Oh Lord, God, what do I do? I've asked that nearly a million times, but the answer never seems to come when I need it. I dug my hand in my hair and leaned my head back against the tree, willing myself not to freeze up. The horse whinnied at me and strained at its bit. I swallowed in sympathy. Me too, buddy.

I could hear the twang! twang! of death sticks ringing behind me from my hiding spot. Suddenly, I felt something bluntly hit my back, and I screamed silently. I ducked and lay on the ground, before patting myself and realizing I wasn't injured. I looked up to see what hit me, and I realized that the arrow had gone through the tree but still failed to draw blood from me.

"Now see what you did. I knew you were bad luck," Kanda grumbled from his own hiding spot, holding his arm with one hand.

"I am not bad luck!" I hissed, just as an arrow whizzed past, burying itself into another tree not two feet from me.

The horse was frantically trying to make a break for it, but I was keeping it with me by sheer force of will and the 'mom' stare. I couldn't blame it, though, because I wanted to be out of here just as much as he did.

"Hehehehehe, come on, Exorcists. This isn't like you. Why don't you come out to play?"

I swallowed while the Akuma taunted us. I looked over at Kanda, and I could see that his wound was bad. The arrow had slammed right through his shoulder, sticking out of him. He was a Reuben sandwich complete with a toothpick. Blood wasn't gushing out of him, probably because the arrow was keeping all his blood inside of him, but it was going to need immediate attention.

Of course, I could give neither attention nor could I make it immediate. I sincerely doubted he'd let me touch him anyway.

"You go on ahead with the horse. Go around the wires, and I'll meet you farther down the road while I handle Ugly and Uglier," Kanda ordered.

His hair was plastered to his face, and he was dripping bullets. He had already started sawing off the end of the arrow sticking out of him. He had enough guts to make a butcher swoon.

And then my brain registered what he was telling me. I gave him a wide-eyed look, and I pointed to myself in disbelief.

"What?" I asked incredulously.

He wanted me to go alone? First of all, he was going to die. Second, I was going to die. Third, we were going to die slowly. This was not a good plan.

"I didn't know you were deaf as well as chubby," Kanda growled, leaning against his tree.

I nervously shifted my weight, sucking in a breath as I put weight on my injured hip. I groaned, "Hey, the chubbiness is my mother's fault. Blame my French heritage."

I steeled myself as I realized I'd have to go quickly if I wanted to get out of the way. There was a lull in the volley of arrows, and I clambered up on the horse with a little bit of effort. I wheeled the horse around, looking down on Kanda. It was nice to be the one on the high horse for once. He looked a little less intimidating from this height.

The keyword is a little.

"Ten minutes. I'm giving you ten minutes, and if you don't come back by then -" I threatened.

Kanda rubbed his eyes with his good hand.

"Your help is a death sentence. Being killed would be less embarrassing. Now, get going already," Kanda urged, swatting my butt with the sheath of his sword.

I yelped and glared, but I didn't say anything. Yet another barrage of deadly wooden spears rained down on the forest. I guess this was my moment to make my escape.

I took off at a raw gallop through the forest, and I prayed to God that they'd miss.

"We're going this way."

"Why?"

"It's a shortcut."

"Your shortcuts tend to get us lost."

"This is a sure fire shortcut."

Erastus looked around the corner, and then he winked mischievously to his twin as he headed up the stairs. Sebastian only gave him a dubious eyebrow, though he was amused.

It was nice having him around again. It was like being able to scratch an itch that he couldn't reach before. There was that sense of satisfaction and completion. Not to mention, knowing that his twin was in one piece was a Godsend. Now he didn't have to worry about what he was doing at all hours of the day. His plans typically needed two people, so thinking of him pulling a two-man stunt single-handed gave him goosebumps.

Besides, worrying was Mag's job. She did enough fretting to cover the whole family.

"So how was Greece?" Sebastian asked as they went up what seemed like the fiftieth flight of stairs.

Erastus shrugged, ruffling his unruly shag of brownish-black hair. Both boys had wavy hair, a holdover from their Greek father, but they lacked the swarthy tan. Erastus boiled in the sun, and Sebastian tended to burn like milk. It was evident that Erastus had been out a lot, because he looked like he had a perpetual blush.

"Fun. Sunny. Lots of ruins, lots of demons, tons of buxom wenches, unbelievably good food -"

"Wait, what was that middle one?"

"Tons of buxom wenches."

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said. I wish I could've come with. This time, Mag can't breathe down our necks if we stare."

Sebastian leaned against the rail to catch his breath, suddenly winded. Erastus, already several steps higher, looked back at his partner with a concerned look.

"Hey, you okay?" Erastus asked quietly.

And Sebastian could see it. There was something like pity on his face. He hated that look, when people gave him the 'oh, the poor dear' expression, or the 'man, I'm glad I'm not him' look, or, even better, the 'hurry, look away before he notices you're staring at him and wondering what happened' face. He just wanted to be treated like any other human being.

Now, he could admit that the Finders were much better about this sort of thing, but then again, they saw even worse stuff on a daily basis. An eye patch was on the low end of the scale of weird things Finders had to deal with. One day, Sebastian saw a guy walking around with an axe still stuck in his head without a care on earth. The other Finders didn't even bat an eyelash.

"Yeah, just gotta get my wind back. I haven't been exercising, you know?" Sebastian said, brushing it off.

Erastus smiled, and he continued up the stairs. Sebastian took a deep sigh and followed behind.

They ended up on a second floor that looked over the main atrium of the building.

"What happened to your shortcut?" Sebastian joked, nudging his twin.

Erastus guiltily scratched the back of his head, but his eyes were suddenly glued to the atrium floor. A look crossed his face as he smiled and leaned against the guardrail while Sebastian tried to figure out where his brother was looking. Now, this would be easier if he had two eyes to use, but he had to make do with just one.

Finally, he saw past the colorfully dressed Swiss Guard at the girl walking below with Dark Boots activated. They suddenly wound down to two anklets, and she slipped her regular shoes on from a bag at her side. Sebastian looked between his smitten twin and the Exorcist down below. Sebastian finally leaned against the railing and whistled low.

"So this is why you wanted to take a 'shortcut'," Sebastian teased in a stage-whisper, and Rusty's perpetual blush seemed to spread like pink watercolor over his face. He smiled anyways and laughed.

"Can't pull the wool over your eyes - Oh. Over your eye," Erastus retorted, shoving his brother lightly. "You got a problem with me admiring a perfectly nice girl?"

"Well, it could get us both killed if Komui ever found out. And it'd look like an accident. A freak accident, but an accident," Sebastian grumbled with good nature, and Erastus blew a raspberry.

Now Lenalee was talking to a guard, saying hello. Her hair was cropped short at the chin, and she was dressed in her typical uniform, a high-necked jacket with a skirt. It looked good on her. The boys tracked her with their eyes, Erastus with a longing sigh and Sebastian with more mild curiosity than real interest.

"You thinking of making pursuit?" Sebastian asked, turning and leaning his back against the guardrail.

Erastus gave Sebastian a calm but dejected look. He pouted and played with the zipper on his uniform. He shrugged, trying to play it off noncommittally, but Sebastian could see the disappointment. It seemed to be like a cloud passing over the sun for all of a minute.

"Not really. She's... into someone else," Erastus muttered.

"Really?" Sebastian said, more a statement than a question. "Who?"

"Allen, believe it or not," Erastus chuckled darkly. "Well, okay, I can't say that. She does kinda like Allen that way, but she's not out to court anybody. There's too much going on. We go through Finders like popcorn, and Allen's got the self-preservation instinctsof a martyr. So I can sorta see why she wouldn't want to get involved with anybody... I mean, that's what she told me, that things are just too dangerous. After the war, maybe. But hey, a guy can dream, right?"

They both looked at the girl walking off towards the end of the atrium to the big doors that led to the mess hall.

"A guy can dream," Erastus repeated, suddenly quiet.

The two of them stood there for a while before Sebastian asked quietly, "Do you resent Maggie for breaking the rules and bringing the Innocence to us by accident?"

Erastus ran a finger absentmindedly over the tiny charm hanging from his belt as he mused over the question. Things had changed since they'd split up. Sebastian was much more serious and less prone to joking around. Erastus, on the other hand, had gone the other way, poking fun at everything he could find. It was a sort of defense mechanism, to try and block out the scary things they saw every day. He'd had to lend a shoulder to Violet after she woke up from a nightmare, babbling about digging her way out from under stones. Things weren't always peachy, but...

"Nah, I don't. Because honestly, this is one of the best things that ever happened to us, you know? Now we've got a safe place to live, food to eat, and all our hospital bills will be paid for. We get to beat the daylight out of monsters, and I can do something that no one else on Earth can. ... Except for maybe you. I get to see the world, and I can enjoy my life for a little while before I die. It's a lot better than living hand-to-mouth, fighting every day. We've got security," Erastus explained.

"At the price of freedom," Sebastian mused glumly. "We can't ever leave."

Erastus stared at Sebastian with dinner-platter eyes.

"What do you mean we can't leave? You're saying we can't quit? They expect us to fight with respirators or something?"

"Hey, old man Yeager was fighting until he was in his 70s. I...overheard Lavi talking to Reever about me. He said something about 'being Fallen'. From what I could guess, if you betray the Order... betray God... you become this rampaging monster that will destroy everything in its path until it tires itself out or someone kills it. Your Innocence takes over and drains you until you die, freeing it up for the next guy," Sebastian quietly related. "We have to keep fighting until the Akuma either kill us or the war is over. And this war's been going on for seven thousand years, so fat chance of that happening."

Erastus looked like someone had punched him, hard, in the face. He blinked his eyes, trying to process this information.

"Who else knows?" Erastus asked with a crack in his voice. There was no joking about this. He couldn't hide from it.

Sebastian gave him a soft look.

"A few people, not many. It doesn't happen often, and I guess you can see why. On the one hand, go out in a blaze of glory. On the other hand, betray everyone you love and get eaten by your weapon. Option number one sounds a lot nicer and cleaner," Sebastian said with a sardonic smile, weighing two invisible options between his hands.

Erastus could only shake his head numbly.

The two stood there beside each other, trying to incorporate the information. Erastus contemplated the Innocence he held in his hands now, a beautifully ornate charm no bigger than his thumb. When activated, the bulb was almost the size of his fist swinging on a chain that, by some strange magic, was always as long as it needed to be. It had been a constant companion for nearly six months, and now he'd just learned that if he ever went against its will, it'd kill him. It was hard to believe.

"Well, if we're stuck here, there's nothing we can do about it. We may as well make the best of it. We always have before," Erastus said slowly, swinging the little thing in lazy circles.

"How are you going to do that? You can't fake freedom," Sebastian grumbled, leaning his chin into his elbow.

"But we can have fun," Erastus said with a crooked smile, dangling the Innocence, recently dubbed Holy Smoke, in front of him.

Sebastian caught the gleam in his twin's eye, and he begrudgingly started to smile. He rolled his one eye with a sigh, and he muttered, "Damned if we do, damned if we don't. I guess you're right."

Several minutes later, the hall was filled with a disgusting stench no one could place, and the two were already running down the halls as fast as their feet could take them.

I waited at the end of the road, chewing a fingernail. There was nothing but me, the gravel, and the trees. Now and again, a bird flew overhead, but that was the extent of the activity on my end of the battle. I was just sitting here, waiting with nothing better to do. I'd tried whistling, I'd tried counting trees, and I'd even attempted to draw things in the dirt with a stick.

I paced at a hobble in front of the horse, eying my pocket watch every ten seconds. I could tell it was every two seconds because each time I looked, the seconds hand had moved all of ten seconds, and I'd snap it shut in frustration.

I couldn't deny it. I was worried about him. I didn't care that he had the personality of a seasick tiger. And just because he could practically regenerate limbs did not exempt him from giving me gray hairs. And besides, he had his moments. They were far and few between, but they existed. He'd saved my life more than once, and I was determined... well, not to return the favour, so much as to prevent the opportunity.

My watch read nine minutes. Another minute would put me in cardiac arrest. I hobbled on to the horse, spurred him (reluctantly) forward, and started signing crosses, despite my Lutheran upbringing.

The ride was quick, short, and sickening. There were deep ruts in the road from the ensuing battle, and I could smell ozone in the air. Somewhere behind me, thunder roared, and I blandly wondered when the thunderheads had suddenly moved in from the north. I swallowed as I passed by the wreckage of the wagon that had lured me in the first time. I was careful to pick over the pieces of my former mount, feeling a little guilty. My current horse was nickering uneasily at his fallen brethren, and I was none too happy to pass him over either. He'd been a good horse.

I slowed down towards the bloodied wires, my eyes focusing on them momentarily before shifting to the figure slumped fifty feet behind that red line. My breath caught in my throat as I realized that the figure wasn't moving.

He can't die. He wasn't allowed to die. Nature practically forbids it to happen.

I climbed off the horse and cut the wires in front of me, shouting once when it rebounded and caught me across the hand. I hastily wrapped it in bandages Kanda had hastily stuffed in his saddle bag (for what purpose, I had no idea) and clambered aboard the horse. I surveyed the area, counting one dead Akuma steaming in the bright sunshine with another unaccounted for. My blood coursed through my veins like liquid electricity, and the horse galloped towards the downed figure.

I dropped to the ground and immediately let fly a rainbow from my mouth. My hip was grinding itself into bone meal. I couldn't put any weight on it. I had no idea how I was going to get him from the ground to the horse if he was in such bad condition that he couldn't even get up.

But I needed to worry about that later.

I huffed my way over to him, dropping to my knees, and I took my first good look at him.

He was on his stomach, but his hips were turned on their side. His hair was splayed out behind him, and it was dirty, either with blood or oil, I couldn't tell which. I took his wrist and felt for a pulse -

My heart stopped for a moment as I frantically pressed my fingers against his wristbones. Come on. Come on. Come on.

No pulse.

I shook my head and muttered to myself as I flipped him over, laying my head to his chest. Please let there be a heartbeat. I need there to be a heartbeat. He can't just die here. I left him. It would be my fault, and I wasn't about to let him have the satisfaction of seeing me guilty, even from the afterlife. I bit my lip hard, but his chest cavity was empty. His body was still warm, though, and I felt tears prick at my eyes.

I started to hyperventilate as I held my head in my hands, looking at his curiously still face, the white pallor of his skin, and I leaned my head over his mouth, just in case, just in case.

"Don't leave me alone. Please don't leave me alone, I don't want to be alone. I'm not good enough yet to be alone. Yu, wake up already, this isn't funny. This isn't a training exercise, this isn't some freaking joke, Yu -!"

I heard the faint crunch of gravel behind me. I looked over my shoulder at the Akuma, spidery and gangly with little pincers, and I breathed, "Oh."

It launched something at me, and I raised my arms over my head, leaning over Yu's dead body in a vain hope of protecting it, bracelets warm around my wrists. The earth, in that moment, seemed so alive as I stared at the gravel road ahead, acutely aware that this was my last view of the world. The trees swayed like they would suddenly get up and walk. The road was a bright amalgam of different colors and leaves and rocks, and the sky was so whitish blue with cotton clouds. It was impossible to think that, in a moment, I would not exist here.

No. I can't die. He told me not to give up. That I couldn't ever give up. I couldn't face him and tell him that I'd given up.

The air around me exploded into blue. Electric azure lace danced around me for a second before blooming outwards, and whatever it was that had been aimed at me, shot at me, whatever, I didn't care, ricocheted off the impossibly sheer substance. There was a definite hemisphere over me, and for a few moments I started to giggle at the absurdity of it. I could feel my Innocence in that weird, symbiotic way, but now it was deeper, more ingrained. It was like discovering a new thing about your friend, except what you knew about your friend could possibly save you from certain death.

It was a shield. My frantic need to be alive had awakened a new ability, and I was not about to argue about why it didn't do that the other thousand times I was in danger.

"Ah, now, that's no fair. I didn't know you could do that!" the Akuma complained, skirting around me.

"Uh, neither did I," I answered sincerely.

I swallowed hesitantly, hoping the shield would hold. It was running off my energy (I didn't know how I knew, I just knew ), and I didn't have much energy to give.

The shield extended almost ten feet high and five feet wide. My horse was mostly protected. Kanda's body and I were safe, for the moment. I had bought myself five or so minutes.

"Never… call me… my first… name," a raspy voice said, and I jumped.

"You were dead!" I shrieked, staring at him.

"What?! He's alive?! I stabbed him! I stabbed him good!" the Akuma screamed indignantly.

"Shut... up," Kanda grumbled irately, licking his lips. "Go… Hit... him."

"Even when you're on the brink of death, you're bossy," I complained.

I rubbed my wrists compulsively. I was going to lose the shield if I activated the bracelets. There was no way I could have a shield and a weapon. I couldn't keep up both at the same time. That took too much effort. Already, the shield was draining me of what energy I had left. I had to make a quick decision.

"Don't go anywhere," I finally told Kanda.

He gave me the finger, too tired to say anything. It got his point across.

I suddenly activated one disc only, half the shield melting away into the circle of metal. The other half was game, swirling on my left side.

"Ohohoho, you think you're smart, don't you?" the Akuma cooed, looking at me with fifteen mechanical, bulging eyes.

I swallowed.

"Oh, I know I'm not smart. I just have to be smarter than you," I retorted.

I half-hobbled, half-charged underneath it, my left shoulder forward to block the swinging wires. One lashed my unprotected shoulder, but the uniform held up under it. My leg wasn't so lucky. A flashing wire almost hamstrung me. I skidded underneath its belly, and I slashed into it's carapace repeatedly as it tried to find me. I cut off half its legs before it fell over, and I finished off the rest of it with a quick swipe.

I collapsed to my knees, Innocence deactivated, as I stared at the Akuma. I put my hands to my mouth and closed my eyes. Thank you, God. Thank you, God, for this daily bread, for this daily air, for this daily second...

"Quit your... praying and... help me," a familiar voice ground out, and I turned around.

Kanda was propped up on one elbow, giving me the stink eye. Anyone with an arrow through the shoulder would be grumpy, but the added discomfort of a gaping wound to the chest had added a whole new level of grouch.

I tried to get up, but my leg wouldn't hold me. I almost screamed as I fell over, biting a knuckle. There was no way I'd walk on it. I inched my way over to Kanda, and I flopped on my back beside him.

"Can't... I just... rest?" I groaned.

For a moment, I knew he'd say no. He was going to tell me to suck it up, get off my keister, and carry him to the nearest town on the nubs I called legs.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Rest. You've got sixty seconds."

"We go to the left."

"No, we go to the right."

"I know where I'm going. It's on the left fork."

"Well, maybe if we'd looked for the map, instead of leaving it -"

"We did not have the time to dig through fifteen pieces of horse to look for a map!"

We sat at the fork on top of Kanda's horse. Because I had the good arms, I was steering. Because Kanda had the good legs, he was making sure I didn't fall off the were currently lost.

"I'm telling you... it's the right fork," I complained, swinging my hand in that direction.

Sheesh, my butt hurt. And I was getting dizzy. It'd been a while since I'd had food or water, but we were trying to conserve it. We had only three saddlebags worth of stuff left, plus our messenger bags.

"No, it isn't, you moron. Montreal is to the east. We go left," Kanda countered. For a guy who'd been dead not two hours ago, he was still pretty feisty. I almost preferred him as a slab of meat on the road. At least he didn't argue.

"I read the map myself! It's the left fork -"

"Right fork -"

"Why don't we just ask for directions?" I retorted, slamming my hands into my lap and instantly regretting it as my hip screamed agony.

Riding a horse with a bum leg was a horror as it was. At least for the moment we were still. The up and down motion had aggravated my torn up leg, and my other leg was filleted. The only thing keeping it together was hastily poured bourbon, a few bandages, and Kanda's knot-tying.

Kanda gestured around with his good arm.

"Yes, great idea. Go ask that elm over there. Or that oak tree. I'm sure they know where Montreal is. There isn't anyone here, idiot."

The rain suddenly dropped out of nowhere at that point. It came slowly at first, and then in great sheets. I closed my eyes tightly, and I sighed to myself. Yeah. It couldn't get much worse than this.

There was a crash of lightning, and suddenly the horse reared and unseated both me and Kanda. I scrabbled for the reins, but it was too late. I fell backwards -

Blinding, excruciating pain. I shrieked to the sky as Kanda coughed and turned over under me, dumping me on the ground as he found his feet. The horse was long gone, dashed off in some random direction. It was only a matter of time before that horse would've bought it.

"Come on. Get up. We've got to get going or start camp," Kanda urged, but I suddenly found that I could hardly breathe.

The air had been knocked out of me. I turned on my side and tried fruitlessly to get up on one knee. I grabbed Kanda's wrist and hauled myself up, but the minute I tried to put weight on my other leg, it buckled under me like rotten wood and I screamed wordlessly. The rain had soaked through my clothes and I started to shiver.

Kanda pulled my arm over his shoulder and hauled me up, and we began the long limp in the rain. It fell at intervals, sometimes a drizzle, sometimes a downpour. It was doing a number on my hair, and I was suddenly shivering, cold to the core. My good (well, bandaged) leg was suddenly cramping, and my vision was getting blurry. I felt so sleepy all of a sudden, and I couldn't -

I tripped and fell in the mud, and Kanda unable to catch me in time. I curled up in the mud, and I began to cry. The pain...

"Get up and watch where you're going," Kanda griped as per usual, but I could hardly hear him.

I felt sick and tired. Something wasn't right. I didn't feel... right...

Kanda tried to pick me up, but his bad arm wouldn't hold me up. I tried to stand, but my bad leg wouldn't cooperate. Finally, we sat under the trees as the storm continued. We spread our coats over some low hanging branches, but it did little to help. Kanda still had matches on him, but by now they'd be soaked. I started to cry, though not of my own will.

"Let me see your leg," Kanda said matter-of-factly.

I looked at him dumbly before putting out my torn-up leg, the bandaged one. He opened the bandage, but it was fine. No signs of infection.

"Your hip," he said reluctantly, giving me a worn out look.

Tired, I turned on my side, and he pulled the waistband low enough to see the damage.

He cursed profusely.

"You dislocated your hip. If we're going to get anywhere faster than a slug, we have to shove it back in," Kanda grumbled.

A/N: Another day, another misadventure. Maggie's got her hands full, and the twins are at it again. My apologies for the once-again erratic schedule of my fanfic writing. I'm juggling some health issues right now with crippling doubt about my own abilities as well as school, so my hands are full, but writing is therapeutic, and as long as you keep swimming, you'll be fine, right?

Anyhow, a big, big thanks to karina001 for betaing the chapter as well as leaving me a nice, meaty review! Same to my guest, who also left an incredibly meat review that was a delight to read. I appreciate the kind words, and they mean more to me than you know. Subscriptions are excellent, and favorites are nice, but reviews give an in-depth reason for why a writer should keep on keepin' on.

Now: discussion! What are your favorite relationships in the story so far, and what kind of relationships are they? What kind of atmosphere do you get, overall, from this chapter? If you had to give this story a book genre, what would it be? What are your thoughts on Maggie's progress, as well as the progress of her siblings? What other characters should be added to the mix to give the story more flavor? Would you like to see someone else's perspective? Whose?

That's all I've got for now. God bless you, and happy fic-finding!