Rifiuto: Non Mirena

A/N: Written: 2012. Rewritten: 2013. Found: 2019.- Licia

"Carter! Carter!"

The sheriff looked up as Jo came barreling into the rotunda. "Woah, woah, easy, Jo! Easy!" He managed to catch the young deputy before she tripped over her own feet and face planted into the rotunda floor. "What's wrong?"

"God, Carter, don't you answer your phone? I left you three messages-" He listened as she continued to talk, only latching on when Jo got to, "Tesla called, and Shai's missing, she never went to her afternoon classes, I can't get a hold of her, none of her friends can get a hold of her-" Tears were coursing down her cheeks, and she couldn't seem to catch her breath.

"Easy, Jo. Deep breath." Once his young deputy had done as he instructed, he reached up, brushing the tears from her cheeks. Laying a gentle hand on her back, he guided her into the infirmary; so far, he'd been able to handle the standard 'case' of the day, leaving Jo to finish up paperwork at the office. Without another word, he led the young mother towards the infirmary despite her protests.

Dim yellow light began to flood the room, and the blaring of the alarms quieted down.

"What happened?" Zoe asked, as she tightened her hold on Shai. The eight-year-old glanced at the older girl; she was shaking, and Shai tightened her hold on the blonde, trying to comfort her. Zane took a seat on the stairs.

"It's a drop-lock security system. When the power runs out, the doors shut tight."

The two girls shared a glance as Pilar spoke up, stepping towards Zane; Lucas stayed by the large panel of buttons he'd pushed. "You knew and you didn't think to bring an alternate power source?"

"What kind of bonehead do you think I am? It's in my bag-" Zane bit back.

"On the other side of that door!" Shai snapped, pulling away from Zoe; the blonde grabbed the back of Shai's sweater, pulling her back towards her.

"Shai! That's enough!" Zoe looked at each of them in turn. "The last thing we need right now is to be at each others' throats."

"Seriously? What do you not understand about 'look, don't touch?'" Zane asked, elbows deep in the back panel of one of the walls of buttons. Zoe, Lucas and Pilar stood leaning against the second table, watching Zane work. Shai had moved to sit on the stairs, watching Zane work. She didn't exactly want to be near the scientist at the moment; she didn't entirely forgive him for what he'd said that morning. Pulling her sweatshirt tighter around her to ward off the chill, she rolled her eyes as Lucas apologized, yet again.

"I'm really sorry."

"Why? You just left us in here to suffocate. No biggie." Pilar bit, as she fiddled with her phone. Shai shook her head. She liked Pilar, she really did, but sometimes the girl was just so damned annoying.

"It's okay, you didn't know." Zoe replied; Shai rolled her eyes. She loved Zoe, she really did. She was her mother's adoptive younger sister; the one who was always willing to listen if Shai was upset with her mother. And so far, she seemed to be the most reasonable of the bunch.

"How much air do we have?" Lucas asked.

"Plenty." Zoe spoke up, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

"An hour, maybe two." Zane responded, as Shai finally got up and wandered over to join the other four, hands buried in her pockets.

"An hour?" Zoe's voice began to shake.

"Maybe longer." Zane muttered, yanking something out of the back of the panel. Shai furrowed her eyes as she watched him work. Zoe looked up as Shai sidled into the open space between Lucas and Pilar. The child didn't appear frightened, but Zoe knew that she'd picked that up from her mom. Jo was pretty good at masking her emotions, clearly her daughter had picked up her habits. She turned to Zane. From what Shai had been willing to divulge, he wasn't too happy to find out Jo had a daughter, which evidently hurt Shai deeply, and she couldn't help but be on their side, mainly because Shai and Jo were family.

"We'll be out of here way before then. Right, Zane? you're working on a plan-"

"I found the UOF transmitter. It can only send numeric messages, but it's a chance, if we can get power to it. The emergency batteries are dry."

"What about these lamps?" Shai asked, nodding to the dim yellow light flooding the room.

"They aren't electric, they're chemical. Proxy acid ester."

Shai glanced at Pilar, raising an eyebrow, before she snatched the phone out of the older girl's hands. "Hey! I was writing my will!"

"Is this enough power, Zane?" He turned, taking the phone Pilar had been typing on. He took the phone, studying it briefly, a grin tugging at his lips as he studied the younger girl.

"Maybe. If we can network them. Come on, give 'em up." Shai instantly handed her phone over. "If this works, it'll only give us a few seconds to transmit to the outside."

"And we can only send numbers?" Shai asked; she didn't like the idea of not being able to send letters, but then again, Shai was used to video calls and e-mails and phone calls with her uncles. She was used to lengthy conversations that lasted for hours, or that had to be cut short because of where her uncles were. She wasn't used to short anything message-wise.

"Yeah."

"Okay, so... what do we say?"

He scoffed gently, glancing back at Shai. "You better figure that out."

Jo pulled him into a hug. Henry had received the message on the radio an hour before, and after confronting Thorne, they'd looked at the blueprints, before working out a tentative plan on how to get to the kids. Jo had offered to go, but in the end, Carter had taken in, giving her the reasonable argument that it would be quick and easy and he needed her there to keep everyone under control. "Let me take this one, Jo, it's Zoe and Shai. I promise, I'll bring Shi back to you in one piece."

She had teared up at Carter's personal nickname for her daughter, and nodded, throwing her arms around him. "Bring my baby back to me, Carter."

"How you doing, kid?"

Shai looked up from her seat on the steps as Zane came to sit beside her. Her dark gaze met his briefly, before shrugging and curling into herself. She hoped that if she ignored him, he'd leave her alone; he took a seat beside her. No such luck. "What do you care?"

He sighed, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "Look, Shai, I... I'm sorry for how I reacted. I just... I wasn't expecting Jo to be... to have..."

"Me?" She asked, meeting his gaze. He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped, and Shai nodded. "You aren't the first one." She muttered. "Most of the guys Mama's dated want nothing to do with her after they find out about me."

"Carter and Vincent said that... that Jo doesn't say anything to them about you otherwise you'd get attached?" He shook his head. "It didn't really make sense-"

"Mama was dating this guy named..." She stopped, trying to remember the robot that had returned to town a few years ago. Alistair? No. Calistair. "Calistair. And he was really nice, and she introduced him to me but then..." Her face fell. "He left. Broke Mama's heart."

"Broke your heart, too?"

The smallest of nods. "And he came back two years later, expecting Mama to forgive him. She kissed him." The girl stopped, thinking. "And then she punched him."

"Oh." Zane swallowed the fear in his throat. It wasn't so much the girl herself, it was more along the lines of the fact that Jo had lied to him. But as he looked at the girl sitting beside him, he began to realize that Jo had lied about her daughter for a good reason. She'd lied to protect Shai's heart. Because if Jo gets her heart broken, that's fine, she's a grown woman, she can handle it, but if Shai gets her heart broken-

He turned his gaze back to the little girl. She was a cute kid, she really was. Her long dark hair tumbled down her back in waves that were similar to her mother's, and she possessed the same dark eyes. They may not be related by blood, but they sure look a Hell of a lot a like. She's going to be a very beautiful woman when she grows up, just like Jo.

"This was nothing to do with you, Shai. And honestly, it was really nothing to do with your mother. It was more the fact that she seems to think I wouldn't stick around, than-"

"But you won't. You even said you wouldn't. So why should Mama and I bother?" She replied, getting up and joining Zoe, who wrapped the younger girl in a hug. With a sigh, he returned to the work table, took a seat, and began tinkering with one of the pieces he'd pulled from the panel.

"Think they got our message?" Zoe asked, and Zane sighed, dropping the screwdriver he'd been using. He sighed.

"I don't know." He glanced at Shai. "Hopefully."

They all looked up as the doors began to slide open; a voice soon reached them. "Zoe! Shai!"

"Dad?"

"Uncle Carter!"

Shai met Zoe's gaze, trying hard to keep from squealing. Before either could say anything, Carter rushed down the steps towards them. Shai managed to stop herself, watching as Zoe went rushing into her dad's arms- only to go right through him. The eight-year-old stumbled back against the table Zane was working at, turning to him. "Did that... did Zoe just..."

Zane hadn't taken his eyes off Carter, but when he did, he was just as surprised as Shai. "I'm hallucinating. Anyone else?"

"Shai!"

Zane looked up as Jo hurried over to the bed where her daughter was.

"Mama!" Jo scooped her daughter into her arms, burying her face in her daughter's dark curls. He watched as Jo smothered her child in kisses, and Shai let her, clinging to the deputy as though her life depended on it. He thought back to his conversation with Shai, down in the bunker, and the pain in the girl's dark chocolate eyes as she'd spoken.

"It was more the fact that she seems to think I wouldn't stick around, than-"

"But you won't. You even said you wouldn't. So why should Mama and I bother?"

He caught Jo's gaze over her daughter's shoulder and sighed, realizing that Shai was right; he'd told Jo that morning that he wouldn't have stuck around. "I don't know that I would have stuck around, if I'd known ahead of time that you have a kid-"

But maybe... just maybe, he'd jumped the gun faster than he should have.