A/N: It's good to know that you guys haven't forgotten about me, and I really appreciate the reviews…hope you enjoy.
Chapter 15: Release
Sara dropped the phone in order to catch him and slowly lowered him to the floor. "Nottingham?" she called out, but he didn't answer. Pulling open his jacket, she felt around for the source of the blood. There was a small hole on the right of his lower stomach a couple of inches below his ribs, and it was bleeding profusely. "Shit, shit, shit" she whispered grabbing a towel off the rack and using it to put pressure on the wound.
She couldn't take him to the hospital, she wouldn't be able to keep him on her bike, not to mention the GSW report that would have to be filed. 'His car would be somewhere nearby" she realized, 'maybe I could take him to Vicky or…' She struggled to think quickly, what she needed was more time, she had to stop the bleeding or he would die. As she pressed the towel tighter on Nottingham's stomach, she felt a small vibration from the witchblade go through her wrist and hand. Lifting up the blood soaked towel she noticed that while the wound was still gaping, the blood flow had lessened.
"Sara…" said Ian.
Sara looked up, relieved that he was conscious again.
"I'm…sorry…"
Her eyes burned with tears of frustration. "You should be" she whispered.
Ian smiled briefly before closing his eyes again.
"Listen to me Nottingham…" She patted him on his cheek and his eyes fluttered open. "I need you to stay with me….can you do that?"
Nottingham nodded. "Anything…for my lady…"
"Good" she said going through his pockets. "We need to get to your car."
Fifteen minutes later, Sara had got Nottingham to his feet, down the stairs and into his vehicle.
"You still with me?" she asked. He was leaning his head against the cool glass of the passenger side window.
"Always," he said softly.
"Good" she returned and started the car.
It didn't take long to get to the address he had suggested. Opening his door she asked "Are you sure this is the place?" A few feet in front of them was a single metal door. It was in the middle of a wall under a bridge, lit from a lone street lamp up above, and there were no tracks in the snow surrounding the area.
"Yes" said Ian pulling himself out of the car.
She reached under his left arm and helped him over to the wall. Ian pulled a small ultra-violet flashlight from his pocket and shone it on the door. The numbers "417" were displayed. He punched a code into the keypad and waited for the click. Pulling on it with his free arm he said "Come on."
Sara half dragged half pulled Ian through a long intricate series of hallways and staircases leading down under the city.
"This is it, isn't it?" she asked, when they had stopped for a moment to rest. "The Cornea."
Nottingham nodded. Sara shook her head, "I could write my own ticket down at the precinct with the location of this place." Ian tensed and Sara stiffened to brace him. "Of course I won't say anything" she added quickly, looking around as they began to move again. "Just to know that this place really exists is enough for me."
Suddenly a flashlight was shone into their faces. "Identification please" said a voice. Sara could see the outline of three figures, the closet was the one who spoke.
"3 5 7" said Nottingham "dash 9 1 2….A"
The flashlights were immediately lowered. "Mr. Nottingham…I apologize, I didn't recognize you."
Nottingham nodded, and the three backed off to the side.
"Is there anything I can get for you sir?"
"Bentley" answered Ian. "And my vehicle is…"
"Not a problem sir." He interrupted.
As the three turned to leave Sara noticed that one of them was female. She could feel her dark eyes boring into her as she helped Nottingham through a doorway and down another hall.
It was less than five minutes after they arrived at Nottingham's room that Bentley appeared. He was a friendly looking man, with white hair, blue eyes and a smile that never wavered, even after he removed Ian's make shift bandage and observed his wound.
"I'd be guessin' it's safe to assume that you didn't do this" he said, opening his bag.
Looking at his wound again put a lump in Sara's throat, so she shook her head instead.
"Do not worry lass, he'll be fine. The boy has a gift fer healing if I ever saw one. Plus he's got a fine doctor to boot."
Sara managed a weak smile, and then left the room to wait in the hall. Her cell phone rang just as she closed the door behind her, and she answered it, surprised to get a signal so deep underground.
"Sara? It's me Jake… where ….you?"
"Jake?" The signal wasn't very good, and kept cutting out.
"… you hurt? ….a lot of blood in… bathroom."
"You're at my place?" asked Sara.
"…front door….unlocked….sure you're okay?"
"It's not my blood Jake, it's Nottingham's…he was shot."
"What?"
"He was shot Jake…I can't believe you…" Sara stopped mid sentence.
"What are…talking about?….didn't shoot him…"
Sara changed the signal on the phone and Jake came through a little clearer.
"Sara…you don't understand."
"Are you telling me that you didn't get into a fight with Nottingham tonight?"
"Yes" said Jake. "I mean no, yes we got into it a little, but I didn't…" Sara was suddenly cut off as the phone went static.
"Jake…are you still there?" All she could hear was static so she hung up. She slid down the wall to the floor hugging her knees against her. 'Jake said he didn't shoot him, which meant someone else had. But who?"
The female security agent from earlier came around the corner and stopped in front of Sara. She was really quite striking Sara realized. A tall black woman with dark eyes and high cheek bones. She had long dark dreads that she kept tied at the nape of her neck, and there were familiar blonde streaks along the front of them.
"How is he?" she asked, staring down at Sara with an intensity that made her nervous.
"I'm not sure" answered Sara truthfully. "But Bentley seems optimistic."
The woman nodded slowly, crossing her arms across her chest, and then surprisingly sliding down to the floor across from Sara. "He'll pull through" she said quietly. "He's a fighter."
"Do you know him well?" asked Sara, curious about this woman's interest in Ian.
The other woman smiled. "There are few that can claim that ability" she answered. "Only one in fact… to hear him tell it." She shifted slightly, resting the side of her face on her knees. "But it's probably safe to say that he knows me better than anyone else on earth."
Sara felt a pang of jealousy at the relationship this woman implied existed between her and Nottingham. Well what did she expect said a voice from somewhere inside her, that no other woman, would be attracted to his soulful eyes and hard body…
"You're her aren't you?" she asked, "…the moon?"
Sara blinked rapidly and then stared at her. "What?"
The other woman smiled. "It's what he calls you..." The fluorescent lights above flickered a little and Sara felt her stomach tighten. "She who guides the tides of his soul."
Sara didn't know what to say. As she struggled for the words, the woman suddenly stood up and faced the door. Bentley opened it a second later and came into the hallway.
"Ms. Mobius" said Bentley nodding to the woman in front of him.
Sara scrambled to her feet surprised by both the sudden appearance of the doctor and the security guards identity.
"I believe I found the problem" said Bentley, placing a small flattened bullet in Sara's hand.
Sara looked at the bullet carefully and then sighed with relief. It wasn't department standard issue. Jake was telling the truth.
"He'll live" said Bentley turning to leave. "Once again." He smiled down at Sara. "Not that I'm complaining or anything…he's putting my grand kids through college." He gave Sara's shoulder a squeeze and then headed off down the hallway.
Cyan Mobius gave Sara a small nod before also heading off in the opposite direction.
Sara stood outside Nottingham's door for a moment, going over the events that had brought her here…to the Cornea. The underworld's Plaza Hotel. Where the elite in the criminal underground could secure maps, weapons, medical attention or just a place to lay low when the heat was on. Ian had frequented this place often from what the doctor said. And if she remembered correctly from the rumours at the station house, staying here didn't come cheap. Bentley had alluded to that himself. Opening the door and entering Ian's room she wondered what other criminals were hiding here right under nose.
It was more a vibration, then a presence he decided. He had felt it before, and it was natural given the fractured symbiosis between the wielder and the witchblade. He moved back from the door of his room and sat down again in the middle of a bamboo mat on the floor. She had no way of finding this place, no cop does. The exorbitant fees weren't for the atmosphere or the services, they were for the anonymity. He mentally went through the list of things he still had to do. Slowly he allowed himself to recognize that his concentration was shot, and that Sara had been the cause. That part of his life…his wife, his son….it had been closed off for so long. The green gem he always had so close to him began to glow, and though he attempted to resist, it pulled him into the memory he tried so hard to bury.
The desert marketplace was crowded, as it usually was near the end of the week. His wife was a few stalls ahead admiring a small sword with a gold engraved scabbard that she wanted to surprise him with for his birthday. Smiling to himself he pretended not to notice, and instead turned his glance to Samuel, his seven year old son who had wandered a few stalls away from her to admire the wares of a candy seller.
It is the painful memories that are the clearest, he could almost feel the heat of the mid-day sun as it beat down upon his head. He could smell the perfume of the woman who walked by him, her auburn hair tied neatly under a wide brimmed hat. Her expressive green eyes determined and focused on a point somewhere beyond him. That was all it took, that brief moment of distraction. A man on a large black horse came barreling through the market place, seemingly in chase of the woman. Samuel had just decided to return to his mother, clutching a piece of candy that the merchant had given him. His wife having heard the commotion turned to look over at her son at the same time as her husband did…moving as he did…diving as he did…to protect their son from the careless horseman… Genesis fell short, blocked by a water carrier and his mule. They entered the next life without him.'
He shook his head as he came out of his vision. 'That was the past' he thought, 'buried and done with, under the sands of time.' Sighing he scratched his head. 'The wielder is stubborn, if I cannot bring her around to my way of thinking, and if I remain unable to reach the blade…' He tented his palms against his lips as if in prayer.
"It has still not come to that" he said aloud. "I may yet prevail." Looking up at a photograph he had pinned to the wall, he frowned. "But first I must deal with the Paladin."
'It would be morning by now' thought Sara, rousing from a short doze. She looked at her watch which read 7:34am. 'Though you'd never know it down here.' She blinked and tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness in the room. She had turned off the table lamp earlier, preferring to sit in the dark as she watched over Nottingham. 'At least he had had the good sense to get shot on a Friday' she mused.
The next thing she noticed was that Nottingham was not in his bed, but rather sitting on the floor in the center of the room with his eyes closed.
"Good morning Sara," he said, opening his eyes and looking over at her.
How he did that she still didn't know, it was as if he could sense whenever her thoughts turned towards him in the slightest. Sara briefly lowered her eyes, hoping he wasn't able to sense what she was thinking right now…sitting there bare-chested as he was, his hair hanging loosely about his shoulders.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, in an attempt to distract herself.
"Much better, thank you" he said, an almost non-existent grin playing about his lips.
She came over and knelt in front of him. "Let me see" she said peeling back the square band-aid on his stomach. The wound was still quite ugly with yellow and purple bruising around the stitches but it looked well on it's way towards healing. "This is amazing Ian, last night you were almost comatose…and now you… Her voice caught in her throat and she looked down at her hands. "I thought I was going to lose you," she said quietly.
Ian gently took her face in his hand and briefly placed his lips against hers. They were soft and warm and he rubbed his thumb against her cheek as he pulled away.
"What was that for?" she whispered.
Ian's eyes softened with concern as he looked at her. ''You seemed to need it," he said, then stood and walked over to his closet.
Sara knelt there for a moment at a loss for words, floored by the emotions the simple gesture had inspired.
"Nottingham?" she said, when she was finally able to speak.
"Yes" he answered, pulling on a black sweater, and tying back his hair.
"What happened last night?" She turned to face him, going from her knees into a sitting position. "I mean what really happened between you and Jake?"
Nottingham paused, there was so much about her partner, that Sara did not know, that she would not accept as more than the mindless ramblings of a jealous fool. 'Which I am" he thought, 'insanely jealous.'
As if she could read his mind she said, "You saw us together, didn't you? Through the window."
Nottingham nodded, closing his eyes against the image of Sara in Jakes arms. "What would you think of me if I told you that I wanted to die?" he said quietly. "That I went in search of McCarty in hope of a confrontation. That I dishonored my "giri*" by pretending to be weak."
Sara stood and came towards him. "I would say that you were human," she answered. "A trifle melodramatic for sure, but who of us isn't at times?" She crossed her arms and looked away from him. "As for me and Jake…that was a mistake you know? I mean I'm sure even he knows it…really."
Nottingham put his hands in his pockets and stared at his feet. "There are moments…when I see us…in another place... or perhaps another life. In a field of green, that seems to go on forever. And when you look at me… it is without fear, or hesitation." Ian looked deep into Sara's eyes. "It is in these moments beloved, that I find the peace that allows me to go on without you. To always remain two steps behind. To praise your accomplishments with silent cheers and wish you success, prosperity and even… love." Nottingham lowered his head again. "I can wait for you Sara…" he said, "a thousand lifetimes if necessary…for it was for you I was born."
Sara placed her arms around Ian's neck, cradling his head she kissed his forehead, and each of his eyelids, then turned away from him so that he would not see her tears.
"What was that for Sara?" he asked gently.
"You seemed to need it," she replied and then quickly left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
*Giri – sense of duty