Steve and Neil were tossing aside chunks of the shattered roofing material as fast as they could in a desperate attempt to get to the person wearing the bright pink outfit. It was hard slogging; they had to be careful not to dislodge any material around the edges of the hole they were enlarging that would just fill it up again, or possibly further injure the person they were trying to save.

It seemed to take forever before they were able to uncover enough of the area to recognize that the colourful material was the back of a woman's blouse, a woman with long curly dark blond hair. The young woman with the toddler and the baby had long curly dark blond hair, Steve remembered, and he caught his breath. With a worried glance at his companion, who met his eyes with a concerned frown, the young cop leaned as far forward as he could, feeling Neil grab the back of his belt to support and stabilize him. Ignoring the pain in his back and leg that he had heretofore manage to suppress, he slid his shaking right hand along the right side of the woman's neck, searching for a pulse.

He could feel Neil's eyes boring into the side of his head as he tried to slow his own pounding heart. His fingers moved slightly to another spot, pausing, then moved again. He closed his eyes and his entire body sagged. Beside him he could hear Neil's soft, strangled gasp, an almost inaudible "Damn it", felt the strong hand tighten on his belt then pull him back up out of the hole.

Steve looked at the guard, shaking his head softly. Then he whispered, "The baby… she has a baby. She was holding it when the quake hit…"

Neil's eyes widened and suddenly he was in motion. He began once more to dig at the debris around the young woman's body, but this time with a franticness that was almost frightening. Galvanized, Steve scrambled to the other side of the hole and began to do the same.

# # # # #

The fingers that had wrapped around his own held more strength than he was expecting. Mike squeezed back. "How are you doing, Bobby?"

There was a brief pause then a quiet "Okay…" The shaky voice sounded a little louder coming through the small tunnel; conversation would be easier now and they wouldn't have to expend as much energy.

Mike shook the young man's hand gently. "Good… good…" He laid his head back against the cold hard ground and closed his eyes. He knew it was going to take hours for any help to arrive; there had to be so much debris above them. If air was able to permeate where they were trapped, there was a more than good chance they would survive till rescue arrived, providing there were no aftershocks large enough to cause any further damage.

He squeezed the young man's hand gently again. "Bobby, you said you were here with your aunt," he began quietly, knowing he was stepping into dark waters and not sure what kind of reaction he would get, but wanting to keep the young man talking, keep him conscious and distract him from his injuries and their situation.

"Yeah…" There was a warmth in that one word that made Mike smile.

"Why…" he hesitated slightly, "why were you both here… if you don't mind my asking?"

There was a slight pause. "She, ah… she's not really my aunt…"

"She's not? What do you mean?"

There was a dry, mirthless snort and another strained pause. "It's, ah, it's a long story…"

Mike chuckled, shaking the young man's hand slightly. "I, ah, I think we have the time, if you want to tell it…"

Bobby laughed slightly and caught his breath in pain. The older man squeezed his hand tightly until he could hear a soft exhale.

"Listen, ah, why don't you go start at the beginning. Where are you from?"

"Merced. You know where that it?"

Mike's heart skipped a beat. Merced wasn't too far from Modesto. "Near Yosemite, just south of Modesto, right?"

"Yeah."

"Are your parents still there?"

"Yeah."

"Brothers and sisters?"

"I don't have any. I'm an only child…"

The hairs on the back of Mike's neck started to tingle. "So, ah, so how did you end up here… with your 'aunt'?" He tried to keep his voice even and conversational. "What's her name, by the way?"

There was a soft chuckle. "Patty." There was a lot of love in that one word.

Mike laughed warmly. "So how did you and Patty end up here?"

A long, deep silence filled the small space and Mike knew Bobby was trying to find the right words. "A lot of bad decisions, I guess…" There was a melancholia in the tone that was heartbreaking.

Not wanting the young man to clam up, Mike took a different tack. "What does your father do?"

The split second of silence before the answer told the veteran detective a lot. "He's in the Air Force, stationed at Castle. He flies B-52's."

Mike whistled. "That's a helluva big plane, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess…" The tone was flat, toneless.

"Did, ah, did he fly them during the war?" Mike held his breath waiting for the reply, knowing the answer would speak volumes.

This time the silence lasted longer. When he finally spoke, the word was breathless. "Yeah… and in 'Nam too…"

Mike closed his eyes, taking his time. "Over Cambodia?"

Another long tense pause. "Yeah…"

Nixon's decision, kept from the American people when it happened in '68, to carpet bomb Cambodia had been another turning point in the Vietnam War, stoking the opposition and sparking more and more student riots. It had divided the nation… and it had divided families.

"Were you a resistor?" Mike refrained from using the word 'dodger' and all the connotations it brought up. He knew all about Steve's past, about the tensions between the idealistic young man who had gone east with the Freedom Riders and butted heads with his career Army father over the war, among other things.

"I wanted to be," came the soft reply.

Frowning to himself, Mike snorted gently. "What do you mean?"

The silence that followed was so long that the cop began to wonder if the question would ever be answered then came a very quiet, "I loved my father… or I thought I did…. I didn't know what to do so I didn't do anything. And then my number came up…"

# # # # #

They dug away as fast as they could at the debris around the young woman's body, trying not to think about what they were doing. Neil lifted a large chunk of concrete, no doubt from a wall that had buckled in, and it exposed the dark blond hair matted with blood on the top of the woman's head. He stopped moving and stared then looked up at Steve.

The young cop sat back suddenly, shaking, realizing how close he had been standing to her when the earthquake hit and yet how different their fates had been. It was paralyzing. Neil nodded at him with a grim smile then tossed the piece of concrete away and went back to work.

Gathering himself, Steve sat forward and, trying to block everything from his mind, including that the tips of his fingers getting more and more sensitive handling the heavy bitumen-laced paper, returned to the task at hand.

They had removed enough of the rubble to allow Neil to step carefully into the depression to reach down and get a grip on the woman's body. Hesitating briefly, unsure where to grab her, mindful that the baby was hopefully somewhere nearby and most probably beneath her, he reached under her right shoulder and, grabbing her upper left arm as well, began to lift her enough so Steve, from his perch higher up, could drag her out of the hole. Time was of the essence right now, and speed was more important than respect for the dead at the moment, as much as it tormented them both.

The young cop, trying not to think, trying not to let the reality of what he was doing affect the job he needed to do, reached down as best he could, grabbed the woman's left arm and began to pull. With Neil pushing up from below, they managed to wrestle the body over the edge of the hole. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, other hands were reaching out, and both Steve and Neil looked up, startled by the sight of at least half a dozen people who had joined them on the pile of rubble.

As the woman's body was pulled free, their attention snapped back to the hole. The tiny baby lay frightening still, eyes closed, protected from the crush of the falling roof by its mother's body but now lifeless. With a strangled cry, Neil bent swiftly and picked it up, cradling it against his chest and slapping its back. "Breathe, damn it," he mumbled over and over, "breathe."

Everyone was staring, every breath was held. No one moved.

# # # # #

"You were drafted?" Mike asked.

"Yeah…. I, ah, I had no way to get out of it. I was eligible… and my father expected it of me…" There was another soft and melancholy sigh. "And I had a low number…"

"So you were sent over?"

"Oh yeah…. I was Hue during the Tet Offensive…" Bobby's voice fell soft, almost to a whisper, and Mike could hear him take a deep and unsteady breath.

Closing his eyes, Mike squeezed Bobby's hand tightly, letting him know he understood, that no more words were necessary. He knew all about Hue and the vicious battle that had raged there during the early months of '68, when the tide of the war turned and Nixon lost the backing of the country's journalistic icon Walter Cronkite, and therefore almost the entire American population. It wasn't just families that were being torn apart, it was the nation itself.

Taking a deep breath, Mike opened his mouth to ask another question when suddenly the ground began to shake again and he could hear the precariously balanced debris above his head start to groan and shift.

# # # # #

Every eye was on the big black man with the tiny white baby clutched to his chest, his huge hand patting the small back, trying to reignite the small ember of life they hoped was still burning. They all heard a small cough and Neil froze, the hand in mid-air grabbing the child and pushing the still limp body away from his chest, his dark eyes wide with shock and hope as he stared at the small chubby face.

The baby coughed again, its limbs starting to move, and it began to cry.

Neil threw his head back and roared; there were cheers all around. Steve dropped his chin to his chest, bringing his hands up to cover his face as he released an unsteady breath. His legs suddenly giving out from another surge of adrenaline, he sank slowly to his knees then sat, his hip, back and leg screaming for the attention they needed but that he wasn't about to give. There were too many people still trapped, too many people to try to save. Mike…

The grey-haired woman who had been the first to join them stepped forward, holding her arms out. She smiled at Neil. "I'll take her down," she offered, the tears of relief in her eyes visible in the moonlight.

Almost reluctantly, but knowing he must, Neil handed his precious little bundle over then looked at Steve, who was still sitting. They shared a brief but warm and relieved smile, then the big black man reached out and took the smaller white man's hand, pulling him to his feet. "Come on," he said, "I bet there's more people we can save, right?"

As he got up stiffly, Steve's smile got a little wider. "Yeah… yeah, I think you're -"

The rubble under their feet started to shake, and a soft roar surrounded them as people began to scream and all hell broke loose once more.