A/N: just a little something i whipped up last night ;) ive also got 2 more GH oneshots ready, plus one almost finished one and an outline for a multichapter fic. Please review if you enjoyed this, and if you didnt, still review! tell me (in a constructive manner) how i can do better!

Climbing down a sewer isn't exactly where she expected her day to go.

Then again, searching an entire school for hitogata wasn't in the plan either, but there she was. Maybe she should've been more careful, you know, with all the curses flying around. But when a child is in trouble, she doesn't mind a little danger if it keeps them safe.

Which is how she found herself hanging halfway through a hole in the ground, searching for a way to climb back up after the ladder fell. Honestly, she's surprised she didn't fall with it. Her knees just wrapped around what was left as her fingers scraped the concrete in front of her.

"Okay, Mai," she tells herself, "just inch your way up, little by little. You can come back for the little girl later."

Because she was still there, crying at the bottom of a hole — not big, bawling cries, but little sniffles and whimpers.

"Just stay right here, okay?" Mai calls over her shoulder. She won't look down, can't look down. It's too far. So she looks up, focuses on the grass before her, and she shimmies — it's not much higher in the grand scheme of things, but every little bit helps.

"Mai?"

Oh thank goodness.

"What are you doing?" Naru asks, staring from the other side of the fence.

"There's a little kid down here!" she calls back. "The ladder fell when I tried to… um, Naru?" He looks confused.

"What do you mean by a little kid?" he asks as he opens the door.

"She's crying. Her backpack is over…" She nods her head, but the bag is gone. "Wait, where did it–"

Something laughs in her ear. A weight settles over her shoulders. Naru runs toward her, hand outstretched–

She feels the brush of his fingers as she falls.

=•=•=•=

Her breath comes in hitches, but she feels no pain.

Well, that's not true. Her head is pounding — she must have hit it on something when she…

Oh, right. She fell down the sewer looking for a ghost.

It's only as her eyelids flutter open that she hears a frantic yelling she recognizes as her name.

"Mai!" It calls. "Mai! Wake up! Shit!" He says something in another language (English, she thinks) and then he's yelling at someone else.

"You! Hey, you! We need an ambulance, now!"

Ambulance? She doesn't need an ambulance, she's fine. She just fell down a hole, no big deal. It's happened before and she was able to walk it off. She just needs to rest for a minute, then she can get up and find a way out.

Her muscles are just sore. Once that fades, she'll be good as new! No need for an ambulance. Masako's taken worse tumbles than her.

"Naru," she calls up, but her voice is weak. "Naru!" She tries again, and his head appears in the circle of orange sky far, far above. His face is pinched and pale, and if she didn't know any better, worried.

"I'm-I'm okay," she calls up to him. "I just need–"

"Don't talk!" he yells. "Save your breath, wait until the paramedics arrive."

"But Naru, I–"

"Shut up!"

Well then. Pain be damned, she's gonna climb up there and wring his freaking neck. She braces her hands on the ground — er, on the pile of rubble that she landed on — and pushes.

There's no strength in her arms. In one of them, anyway. She looks to her right–

There's a pole sticking up through her arm.

Oh. Oh, no no no.

She takes a deep breath — or she tries to, at least — before she looks down at her body.

Metal rods poke through her stomach. No, wait, it's just one, she thinks. It's getting hard to see straight. Was that a side effect of blood loss? She can't remember.

Is that a side effect of blood loss?

"N-Naru…" she whispers, but he hears her anyway.

"I can hear the sirens," he yells down to her. "I have to go get them–"

"No!" she screams. Her vision blurs with tears, whites with pain. "No no no, Naru! Please don't leave!"

He hovers over the opening, then looks behind him. "Bring them here!" he yells to a person she can't see. He looks back down to her.

Her voice falls to a whisper, and she raises her left arm to him. "Please don't leave me alone."

"...I won't."

=•=•=•=

He paces in her room, tempted to run his hands along machinery she's hooked to. Twenty-four hours ago, he wasn't even sure she'd survive, and even now that she's stable, the tension won't leave.

And it's his own damn fault. It was so peculiar, the sudden urge to look for Mai. He has faith in his abilities, that's for sure, but intuition? Gut feelings? Neither he nor Gene had shown any particular signs of it. He ignored it. For ten short minutes, he ignored that feeling.

Ten minutes was more than enough time for her to find trouble, though.

If only he'd been faster. If only he'd told them to stick together. If only he'd anticipated Mai being targeted.

Which didn't make sense. Why would she be targeted? If Chiaki Kasai really was responsible for these curses, why would she curse the one and only person who insisted on her innocence?

Did she do it unconsciously? No, they had proof it was intentional. Did she do it to throw them off? Making them think she wouldn't harm someone who believed in her?

Or did someone else do it, hoping to squash that belief?

At least they found the hitogata down there. One of the rescue workers found one covered in blood. Mai's blood. It must have been under her leg, they'd said, and I think there are more.

He made the rest of them look while he rode to the hospital with Mai. He told Lin to personally see to hers. Hours later, after all was said and done, they'd arrived. Filed in to see her only to be turned away at the desk.

He didn't want any of them here. It was his responsibility as her employer to make sure she stayed safe, and he failed. His father would have his head, he's sure. He's surprised he hasn't torn it off himself.

"You need to rest, Noll."

Lin. He didn't even hear the door.

"Did you bring the case files?"

"I did. Have you slept at all?"

He takes the briefcase from Lin and plops into a chair. "I will when this case is over," he says, taking out his notes and articles.