Chapter Four

The Risks

"Lucy, I'm fine." Jack insisted as he wife entered the lobby of the Embassy beside him, attempting once again to check the split and makeshift cast around her husband's leg as he hopped around on crutches. The only time Jack had ever used crutches had been seventeen years ago, when Lucy had been pregnant with Sam and he had fallen off the roof while trying to repair a leaky spot so that it wouldn't drip into the baby's room and apparently, using crutches wasn't like riding a bicycle, it was easy to forget.

Lucy looked up at her husband. "Jack," she began in a tone that the man she was addressing knew very well. It was the 'let me have my way or you'll regret it' tone. "Your knee is all but shattered, I don't think that's fine." She helped Jack over to a chair that had been nestled and abandoned in-between several couch cushions and piles of jackets.

Jack attempted to rest his crutches beside the chair, but they went crashing to the floor. As he attempted to bend over the arm rest of the chair to retrieve them, he noticed that the makeshift mattress he had left Sam on only moments ago was now empty. The crutches forgotten, he lifted his head and scanned the room for his son. Sam was standing by the front desk, leaning against it and rummaging through the metal army issue first-aid kit that had been left on the surface.

"Sam?" Jack called, attempting to get up. Lucy pushed him back into his chair and looked in the direction her husband had addressed, hoping that it wasn't Sam; Sam knew that he shouldn't be up, that he had a concussion and that required hours of resting and taking it easy. But it was Sam.

The boy in question turned around, looking almost guilty, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar moments before dinner. Lucy could see that Sam held a miniature first aid kit in a white plastic box, which contained only the basics like band-aids and gauze, a radio and a flashlight. Sam looked from his father to his mother, trying to decide if he should offer any explanation before they started asking questions.

"Sam James Hall," Lucy started sharply, abandoning her husband and heading over to where her son stood. "I told you that you're not supposed to be up, you know too much movement can make your concussion worse." Sam was still silent. "What are you doing?" Her eyes once again fell to the assortment of items in his hands.

"I'm going to Texas, where Laura works." Sam explained as though it was the most rational thing in the world. He glanced back the metal box in case there was anything else inside that he had missed.

Lucy's eyes went wide. "Sam, what are you thinking?" Her voice rose. By this time, Jack had managed to recover his crutches and had hopped and hobbled over to them. "Number one, you have a concussion," Sam figured that was his mother's favorite phrase of the moment, "and secondly, you have no idea where Laura is. Also, those earthquake guys-"

"Seismologists." Jack supplied.

"-Are you predicting after shocks." Lucy continued as though she hadn't heard him. "It's too dangerous Sam."

Sam had been anticipating this reaction from his parents, which was why he hadn't planned on telling them he was leaving. He had simply decided to leave a message with the front desk, someone like Janet hopefully, and be back with Laura before Jack and Lucy got too worried. "When I was trapped in New York, you didn't stop Dad from coming to get me. You understood why he had to leave; I don't care if you understand now, because I'm going to Laura anyway, but I'm asking you to try."

Lucy didn't know how to respond. "That was different, Sam." She mumbled weakly, but was it really? A part of her didn't think so.

"I love her, Mom." Sam said, his voice even, though inside he was frantic and nervous. Every second he wasted here was a second taken away from getting to Laura, from being with Laura, from holding her in his arms and never letting go again. "And I'm not going to just leave her."

Jack looked at his son for a long moment and in that moment, he realized that Sam wasn't his little boy anymore. He had grown into the man he had hoped he would become ever since the day he was born and that almost threw Jack for a loop; where had all the time gone? "I'm going with you." He said and both Sam and Lucy looked over at him in surprise.

"No way." Sam said with a slight scoff. "You broke your leg, Dad." Jack had been pretending he didn't remember. "And Laura works on the eighth floor."

Lucy turned her attention and worry back on her son. "How are you planning on getting to her?" She questioned, wringing her hands together, a nervous habit. "I know you saw the building on the news, it's collapsed in on itself."

"I don't care Mom!" Sam couldn't help himself from shouting. "Laura's hurt and she needs me and I'll be damned if I just sit around here and wait for someone else to help her." He didn't feel better after he had shouted at his mother, but he did think that she had gotten the point.

Jack understood what was driving Sam, the absolute anguish of not knowing of the one person you loved more then anything else was alive that very moment. Were they hurt, suffering? That was almost worse, wondering if that person was suffering without help. The very same thoughts and emotions had driven him to New York a year ago and Jack knew that Sam was doing everything in his power not to think of the possibility that it might already be too late for Laura. Sam loved her, he had proved that time and again and he was going to prove it now; it was an act of courage and selfless love and Jack understood every bit of it. But that didn't mean that he was going to let his son go into a possible suicide mission.

"Sam," Jack began as patiently as he could. "I know that you love Laura but I don't think you understand how dangerous going into that building could be. The whole thing could collapse; you could get killed."

Sam fixed his father was a solid, unwavering gaze. "I don't care." His voice was even and Jack knew, without a doubt, that he meant what he said.

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Elsa decided not to tell the others in the room that they were trapped inside until they could find a way to cut loose the metal gate. Instead, she headed again to the back of the room and found that the mother had managed to bandage up the girl's leg and had calmed down her sons. "I'm going to need your help." Elsa said, the words mainly spoken to the female doctor but the other teenager could help too. "My friend is trapped in the storeroom and I need help getting the door open."

The doctor stood up, her twins clinging tightly to her legs. "I'm Dr. Kate Brown." She introduced. "And just tell me how I can help your friend."

Elsa nodded, grateful, but somehow, she couldn't understand what drove people to help complete strangers. This woman had two small children that needed her, so what in her led her to eagerly agree to help Laura? Maybe it was just the fact that she was a doctor.

"The door's blocked by something." Elsa said, pushing her other thoughts away. "We have to find something to push it open with."

Dr. Brown nodded and they started searching the store once again; their search yielded no results and Elsa was starting to feel anxious about Laura's situation as well as their own. "We could use the counter." She suggested when there seemed like nothing else to say. With the two of them and the damaged rendered by the earthquake, she and Kate could easily shove the counter into the door and force it open.

"If we get to your friend, we'll need the counter to lay her own." Kate pointed and Elsa realized she was right. Laura's injuries were obviously severe and the floor was covered with rubble and broken glass, which would only cause more damage but the counter was clear and solid.

As Elsa studied the counter in question, she became aware of the jagged cracks running through the floor for the first time. The floor of the store was no longer level, with parts of it raising higher, creating a surface that looked as unstable as it did uneven. She realized that any more drastic movement in the building -like an aftershock, she thought with a shudder- would send the entire floor crashing into whatever was left below it.

"Hey," The voice of the teenage girl that hadn't been injured caused Elsa and Kate to turn in her direction. "One of these shelves is loose, you could use that. Maybe." She added this last part as though she wasn't sure she should have spoken at all.

Elsa hurried in the direction where the girl's voice had come from, her eyes now glued to the floor to keep her from tripping over the fissures in the ground. Kate followed suit and Elsa quickly saw the shelf that the girl had spoke of; one of the heavier wooden racks, used for clearance tee-shirts was hanging out of the wall in the crooked angle. It looked heavy enough to wrench open a door and she hoped that it was.

Together, Elsa and Kate managed to yank the shelf the rest of the way out of the wall, sending a shower of plaster and rubble cascading to the floor. The teenage girl that had spoken sneezed and looked almost sheepish; Elsa was once again struck at the emotions that people expressed during times like this.

The shelf was heavier then she had first anticipated and Kate lost her grip once it had been pulled free; the shelf crashed to the ground, landing on Elsa's fingers and causing her to cry out in pain and jerk her fingers out from beneath the wood. The floor beneath them groaned and shifted, upset by the sudden increase in weight and Elsa forgot all about her fingers as she waited for the floor to give way. With a final shift, the floor remained where it was and it seemed as though the threat of it collapsing had passed for the moment.

"God, I'm sorry." Kate apologized quickly and Elsa just waved her words away. Once Laura was safe and out of the storeroom, then the doctor could apologize all she wanted, and take a look at Elsa's fingers, which she figured were broken because they sure as hell felt that way. As if things couldn't get any worse... Elsa thought to herself with a sigh.

Kate and Elsa lifted the shelf of the ground again and managed to balance the weight so that they could both handle it; careful of the cracks in the floor, the dragged the wooden object toward the storeroom door. The door cracked beneath the sudden pressure placed upon it and Elsa squared her shoulders, pressing against the shelf with all of her weight, trying to force the door open. Kate pushed on the door itself, gritting her teeth and squeezing her eyes shut.

Metal squeezed from the opposite side of the door as the twisted metal shelf that had fallen across the threshold was wrenched of the way. The door swung open and the shelf dropped to the ground so suddenly that Elsa dropped with it. Once again, the floor groaned but this time Elsa didn't hold her breath waiting for it to fall out beneath her; she had managed to open the storeroom door and that was all that mattered for the moment.

Elsa lifted her head, squinting her eyes in an attempt to peer through the darkness and locate Laura. It was difficult to see the still form of Laura Chapman lying beneath the other metal shelf but her eyes finally settled on her friend and she drew in a sharp breath. Even from where she was, Elsa could see the part of the shelf had fallen across Laura's shoulders, after having struck her in the back of the head and the other half laying across her waist, successfully pinning her to the ground.

As carefully as she could manage, Elsa navigated around the fallen boxes and spilled shirts and other articles of clothing. Kate followed after her, eyes watching the floor beneath her, batting aside the occasional split cardboard box. When Elsa was at Laura's side, she pressed her index and middle finger against the girls neck, praying like she never had before that she would feel something beneath them; the skin was warm and there was a light pulse. "She's alive." She whispered, looking up at the doctor, who offered her a faint smile.

Kate studied Laura carefully; the upturned side of her face was covered with blood due to a gash on her cheek and another at her hairline. The arm pinned directly beneath part of the metal shelf was swollen and bruised and she suspected something had been broken; because of Laura's winter attire, it was impossible for Kate to assess any injuries below her torso. But even if she had been able to, she knew that none of the injuries would prove to be as bad as the one at the back of Laura's head; the metal shelf had struck her directly, creating what Kate guessed was a fracture, matting Laura's dark curls with blood and staining the back of her shirt. That was the injury that was going to give them the most trouble; a skull fracture was the most difficult to treat, even with the proper instruments and procedures and, aside from that, Laura could possibly bleed to death or hemorrhage.

"This girl needs help." Kate mumbled and Elsa looked up at her as though to say that she had figured that out herself. "More help then I can give her." Even in the dark, Kate could see the way Elsa's face seemed to loose several shades of color.

Elsa looked down at Laura, noticing the injury at the back of her head for the first time. "What should we do?" She had to look away; the sight of blood made her stomach roll and getting sick was the last thing she needed right now.

Kate thought for a moment. "We should try and get this shelf off her." She said finally. She knew that she couldn't move Laura, less the head injury grow worse but she didn't think there was much choice. "And we have to put pressure on her injuries. Aside from that," Kate sighed, "there's not a whole lot we can do."

Elsa looked down at her young friend (too young to be almost dead) and brushed a lock of hair away from the cuts on her face. Come on Sam, she prayed silently, just hurry up and get here.

Sam had saved them all once and she prayed he could do it again.

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Thanks for all the reviews, you guys are so great! Just a little question, do you think I should bring Brian or J.D. into the story? I haven't been able to decide and I'd like to know what my wonderful readers think. Just let me know and keep those great reviews up! Also, I know the chapter title is really stupid but I couldn't come up with another one.