[.i.like.cherry.candy.canes.]
Zechs panicked. Normally, he wouldn't have. But Cadet Noin seemed. important. Too important to loose at this point in the game. For it was a game. He was just another pawn in Treize's little war. Treize. The man who did everything for a reason, and made no mistakes. Sometimes Zechs hated him. Sometimes. his feelings went beyond hate.
He'd been trained for things like this. He'd been trained for things that were in no way anything like this. But his mind was too hurt, too angry, too lost, to properly focus. He closed his eyes. And remembered.
Unconscious. No response to painful stimuli. Check airway, protect skin. monitor pulse and breathing. May tolerate plastic airway.
Plastic airway. Zechs jumped, pulled the red emergency bag closer, and pilfered through it's depths. He hadn't seen one there before, but you never knew.
There.
~*~
After he'd been at it for a while, her pulse quickened. Not by much, but enough to make a difference. After a bit longer, her eyelids fluttered. After still a bit longer, she tried to push him away. He sidled off, but only so that he was barely a few feet away.
Noin felt better. The world was drowsy, and she drifted, but she almost knew what was going on. where she was. why..
After a while, she began to feel herself again. She woke, and started shivering. Hands came to her aid, helping her sit into a more comfortable position. She knew she shouldn't have been so dry, but she was too cold to care, and clung to the space blanket wrapped around her body and head. What seemed like a long time later the hands pushed something warm towards her, which she grasped with both hands, savoring the warmth of it.
"Drink it." The hands tilted the little metal cup toward her mouth, and the warmth flowed down her throat. It was sweet, and made her sputter, but she latched onto it like a child and drained the cup.
The hands gently removed the cup from her grasp.
She looked over at him as he scrubbed it out with snow, his back to her.
"Thank you." Her voice was hoarse, and her throat ached.
He paused, then started to scrub the pot that had been on the little stove.
"These aren't the clothes I was wearing before."
This time, he turned and looked at her.
She recognized him. He could see it in her eyes. Of course, one of the top cadets of OZ, second only to him in their level, should know who he was. It felt kind of funny, to live again. Besides Treize, she would be the only one who knew of his existence. To the rest of the world, he had died long ago.
"I know." He had dared to go through her blue bag. She had been smart, keeping all of her clothes in airtight plastic bags. They were all dry, even her several pairs of socks, all of which she was wearing.
"Aren't you cold?" His face was beautiful, Noin thought. Not one that deserved the life it had lived, the pain it had withheld. It hurt her to think of it.
He shrugged. "I'll survive."
"Here." she started to pull off the blanket. Her fingers refused to cooperate.
"No." He stopped her. "You're sick."
"I'm fine."
"You're shivering. And your lips are blue."
Noin didn't argue. She didn't really feel like it. She lied down, and they looked at each other for a while. Then, she closed her eyes, and fell asleep.
