"Noah?" Catherine called, staring at the young man with worry in her eyes. He had been working so hard trying to get through that debris, futile work, she knew, if he was still hoping to save her. She felt another stab of pain in her stomach, underlining the futility of it and let out an involuntary moan.
"Catherine, honey, I've almost got it. We'll be out of here really soon." Noah hurried to her side once more, kneeling and taking her hand in his. He shook his head as he looked at her. He had thought that not remembering was bad but remembering and seeing a friend in pain like this, that was even worse.
"You're going to hurt yourself, Noah. Sam would never forgive me if...." Catherine wished so badly that Sam was here right now. There were so many things that she had wanted to tell him, things that would never be said. At the same time she was glad for his sake he was safely away, though. She didn't want him to have to see her like this.
"Cath, if Sam was here, you know he would be digging even harder than me to get us out of here." Noah said with a slight grin. If Sam was here, they would have likely been out long ago with Cath tucked safely in a hospital bed and Sam complaining about him skipping work for three years. "Now you just keep talking to me and let me get the last of this stuff out of the way so we can get out of here and get you patched up."
"Noah, if anything....."
"Catherine, I swear that this mess isn't as bad as some other things I've had to clean up before. You see all of those papers I've got tucked around you? Kids I've been having to clean up for for the last three years are to blame for those and those aren't even a tiny part of all of the perminant records, either. Believe me, after surviving three years of that, a little digging is very, very safe."
"Noah, how did you...." Catherine paused for a moment as she watched the young man pull at the debris, forcing her mind to focus on the questions she wanted to have answered. She knew she couldn't have much longer but there were things she wanted to know badly before she went. "Honey, what do you remember about what happened? What happened at the hospital?" Now there was something she was really curious about. How in the world had Noah survived and why hadn't they been notified?
"You mean how did the hospital manage to misplace a federal official?" Noah said with a chuckle. Better to try to laugh about the mistake than to dwell on other aspects of it too much , such as the fact that Noah definately remembered Sam being with him in the aftermath of the shooting so how could he.... He forced that thought firmly away. There was no time for it now when he needed to see about getting them out of there.
"Noah, what's the first thing you remember?" Catherine called to him, the conflicted look on the young man's face puzzling her.
"This probably sounds wierd," Noah said as he pulled harder on a piece of broken flooring, finally getting it out of the way. "First thing I remember was name tags. People were coming and going and they all had name tags on. They all knew their names and I didn't know mine. I really, really wanted one of those name tags." Most people, he imagined, would have their first recollection be of pain or bright lights or something. He hoped Catherine didn't think it too strange that his first memory was of the name tags.
"You really couldn't remember anything?" Catherine whispered, a wave of sorrow and guilt washing over her as she spoke.
"Cath, most everyone in the hospital thought I was either going to die or end up as some sort of vegetable and give the students a nice teaching lesson. Shocked everyone when I actually came out of that coma a week later. I think they thought amnesia was actually good, considering what could have happened. Well, they thought it was good until they realized it meant that I didn't know who in the world they could send the hospital bill to."
"Oh, Noah...." Catherine could feel tears starting to sting at her eyes at the few simple little things he had told her.
"Cath, it's okay, I promise." He moved to her side for a moment, kneeling down so he was sure she could see his expression. "I swear to you that I don't regret a moment of the amnesia. If it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here now to get you out of here and then I really would have something to feel bad about." He pulled himself to his feet again and moved back to the debris. "Just a few more minutes and I'll have this out of the way. You think Sam can actually manage to find his way to the hospital this time to collect us?"