~.~

The startled curse that tore from her lips as she finally lost her grip was caught sharp at the last second when fingers closed around her wrist. Her other hand grabbed blindly, smacking into the arm that had halted her fall into oblivion, grasping fiercely at a sleeve as her wild eyes sought the sky. Panic bubbled and spat in her gut.

Mirage's face looked down at her own.

His mouth hung open as he heaved in short breaths, the amber of his eyes darkened with the sun behind him. He looked shocked and exposed, like he'd forgotten his mask. It finally dawned on her what had just transpired, and something in Wraith's chest thumped hard.

She could smell the sunshine on the tarmac. She could still feel the heat of the bullet that had already blazed its path, a ricochet she flinched from on instinct. She could still feel her foot as it failed to find purchase on the rubble. She could still feel the way time had felt slowed as the air dragged her over. She tore a breath from the sky where she hung, digging her fingers further into his sleeve as she stared up at him.

In her mind she saw him, again, out of reach as she slid and lost her hold. He'd reached the edge in impossible time. She stared at him and forced air back into her lungs, and he stared right back at her.

For a stretched, disbelieving second, all either could do was look at the other.

The comm-line crackled in Wraith's ear, drowned out by the thundering rush of her own blood. Wraith realised belatedly that their third must have dealt with their opposition, for Mirage to be there; exposed on the end of one of the Airbase runways, his grip the only thing keeping her from hurtling to her death.

"Y-yeah," Mirage answered, strength returning to his voice as he did, "Yeah I got her, Path."

Wraith stared up at him as he blinked at her. She watched the slow return of his wide grin as he began pulling her back up onto the runway.

~.~

Wraith had replayed the moment a hundred times over, and it still left a deep chill in her gut, for there was no explanation for how he'd crossed that distance in time to catch her. It was an impossible move. She still felt it; the weightless inevitability, the snap of her fall cut short, the almost burning heat of his hand closed tight on her wrist. Impossibly close.

Yet it had happened, for she was here, alive, as proof.

The door opened shortly after her knock and all the plans she'd composed in her head just fell away.

"Wraith." he greeted her in surprise, his eyes wide and curious as she shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, "I, uh… What's up?"

She'd had words. She had, had practiced them on her way from one far end of the dorm halls to the other. But now that she was there, standing before him, knowing what he'd done that day… Her words failed her. Her eyes darted behind him, belatedly wondering if the room was empty.

She prayed she hadn't just interrupted his victory tradition and her uneasy gaze found his again, as though to ask.

He blinked at her, before his expression seemed to soften.

"Helluva day, huh?"

She dropped her head and looked away, feeling suddenly awkward, rubbing one hand gingerly against the opposite arm. She wasn't sure how to approach what she'd come to say. She opened her mouth, but ended up closing it again with a weak shrug.

Out with it, then.

"I… Wanted to thank you."

He seemed to still, and when he spoke again his words were hesitant and surprised.

"For what?"

She looked up, and she knew he knew. She saw it, there in his face, that emotion she'd seen on the runway. The strange new weakness in the shadows of his eyes. A potentially obvious indication that Mirage wasn't all that there was to the man in whose hands she'd entrusted her life all these months. Not to mention evidence that their time working together had inevitably brought them closer than either of them had intended.

She hadn't come to make friends. But she could hardly deny that she had recognised, while hanging above her own death, the fear in his eyes. She'd come to care for him too, as more than just the soldier beside her on the field. Losing him would have impact. It was strange and new, and admittedly frightening.

It had never occurred to Wraith that she was capable of making friends.

"That." he murmured with an awkward half-nod, "It was nothing."

That time he looked away, his lips lifting weakly in a ghost of a smile as though trying to convince himself.

"You saved my life." she answered quietly, and though he looked back at her she couldn't meet his eye again, aware of the weight of what she'd said.

"I do that more often than you'd think." he joked weakly, and Wraith brushed aside the instant surge of exasperation, for she could see now the truth underneath.

Wraith didn't have adequate words to answer him. They both knew this was different, from fighting together. Different from killing in a gunfight, different from battlefield first aid and his decoys and her portals. This had been a moment completely removed, a moment where she'd almost died from something trivial, something she had no chance of surviving. It had terrified her in a way she wasn't sure anything else ever had. That it was something she couldn't fight.

Elliot seemed to shrink in the silence as his shoulders fell, and eventually he gave a soft huff and stepped aside.

For a moment, Wraith hesitated. The unspoken invitation hung between them, prodding her pulse to pick up its pace. The very air fell hushed, waiting. The moment stood tall and prominent between them. A point of no return.

Wraith stepped inside.

~.~