"Well I couldn't tell you why she felt that way; she felt it, everyday. But I couldn't help her; I just watched her make the same mistakes again."

Avril Lavigne, Nobody's Home

Chapter Five

Atlantis

In the silence following the crush of the wave, Sam could hear nothing other then his hurried breathing and his pounding heart. There weren't the usual sounds of New York City life, there were no blaring car horns or the mingle of a thousand different voices. There was...nothing.

Laura remained pressed against him, her arms wrapped tightly around Sam's waist as though she was still afraid that she would be swept away. She was shaking and Sam tightened his grip around her almost unconsciously, desperate to make her feel safe again.

Slowly, Sam opened his eyes and peered at his surroundings, as though he were afraid of what he might see. But, nothing appeared to have changed, the building was still standing and the hallway they had taken refuge in was still in one piece. Water trickled slowly down the stairs, proof that the horrible wave hadn't been a nightmare after all.

Sam looked down at Laura, who had yet to move, keeping her face buried against his chest; her hair was damp, sticking against her cheeks from the rain and spray from the water and her eyes were squeezed shut tightly. At that moment, Sam wanted nothing more then to protect her from anything else that might ever threaten her.

"Hey," Sam said gently, brushing her sticky hair away from her face, "Are you okay?"

Laura raised her head slowly, as though afraid of what she would see when she opened her eyes and Sam offered her a faint smile. "What happened, Sam?" She questioned, unwilling to believe that a towering tidal wave had really engulfed New York City. It was too impossible to be true, it went against everything she had ever been taught, everything she had learned from her endless text books.

Sam let out a long sigh. "That's a good question." He mumbled and slowly stood up, helping Laura up with him. The fact that she still gripped his hand tightly, unwilling to let him go, didn't escape his attention but Sam refused to let himself dwell on it; just because she was holding his hand didn't mean anything at all and now wasn't the time to try and figure out her true feelings.

Sam started toward the top of the stairs, heading for the roof once more but Laura held his hand tightly, stopping him before he got too far. "Where are you going?" She questioned with concern. "You can't go back up there."

"I think the wave's gone." Sam told her, trying assure himself as well. "I'm just going to take a look. You can stay here if you want." He regretfully pulled his hand free from Laura's and turned away from her, heading up the stairs.

Within seconds, Laura was beside him again, and they went up the stairs together and onto the roof. The rain had turned into a slight drizzle now, making everything seem as though it were shrouded in fog and Laura shivered, feeling goose-bumps cover her arms. All ready she knew that something wasn't right, that when they were going to look over the edge of the roof New York City wasn't what they were going to see.

Sam went to the edge of the roof and peered down, drawing in a deep breath, his mouth dropping open and his eyes growing wide. Water lapped the edge of the building, only a few yards down, cresting against the windows of what he would guess was the twentieth story. Laura stood beside him, too shocked to say anything, staring down at the water.

When Laura finally found her voice, all she could mumble was, "Wow." There didn't seem to be anything else to say, no other words to express just what they were looking down upon.

Sam's gaze traveled down what once had been the streets of a grand city, seeing nothing but shivering water and the very tops of street-lights, barely rising over the water. Several buildings had been engulfed by the wave, hidden forever beneath the water and once proud buildings now appeared to be little more then five feet in height. Sam couldn't help but feel as though he were looking at the legendary city of Atlantis, life buried beneath water, with two lone survivors left to take in the damage.

Laura seemed to be thinking the same thing because she turned to him and asked, "Do you think anyone else is alive?" Her eyes searched Sam's, as though trying to figure out if the words he was about to say would be the truth.

Sam looked away, back toward the water. "I don't know." He answered truthfully. "I'm sure that someone must have survived...in the buildings, maybe."

Laura watched him for a moment longer, before returning her gaze to the steadily calming waters below her, as though searching for some sign of life beneath them. A silence settled between them, both of them lost in their own thoughts, chilled by what they were seeing.

Therefore, when the roof access door banged open once more, slamming against the wall, both Sam and Laura jumped in surprise, their reactions almost comical. Sam turned to see Brian rushing across the roof toward them, the concerned look on his face slowly being replaced by one of relief. "Thank God." He gushed when he reached his friends. "I thought you two were dead." Brian looked as though he wanted to envelop his friends in a bear-hug but thought better of it.

"We're all right." Sam said, though that much was obvious. "Just barely." He mumbled this last part, unwilling to think about what would have happened if he hadn't reached Laura in time, or if he and Laura hadn't made it to the safety of the stairwell before the wave had reached the building.

Brian peered past Sam and out at the newly created ocean that stretched below them; his eyes went wide and he stared in silence. Finally, he managed to pull his gaze away and look at Sam and Laura. "Did that really just happen? Is New York really beneath all that water?"

Sam and Laura didn't answer, an answer wasn't necessary. By a silent agreement, they turned away from the silenced city and headed back for the relative safety of J.D.'s apartment, where they could begin to make sense of things.

Laura sat on the couch, wrapping an Afghan around her shoulders, shivering; she felt as though she was never going to be warm again, with the temperature continuing to drop and most of her clothes already damp from the previous day. Sam sat down beside her and offered her a comforting smile, which Laura found easy to return. What was not easy, however, was resisting the urge to move closer to Sam and snuggle beside him, fighting away the chill and her growing fear.

Brian was pacing around the living room, shrouded in shadows and mumbling to himself. When the tidal wave had struck, the electrical wires had snapped and fallen, lost beneath the water, leaving the apartment in a state of darkness.

Watching Brian pace made Laura nervous and she stood suddenly, keeping the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, heading for the kitchen to gather up the candles she had found the day before. Sam stood up as well, and picked up the phone on the coffee table, decided to see if it worked just for the sake of doing something.

"Do you think anyone else got to safety?" Brain was saying as he paced. "What do you think happened to all those people down there? To J.D.?"

It was a question that had been going through Sam's head ever since he had saved Laura but he still didn't have an answer for his friend. All they could do was hope that their new friend had made it to safety before the tidal wave found him.

Laura re-emerged from the kitchen, holding a burning candle in one hand and several others pressed against her chest. She set the light candle on the coffee table and dropped the others down beside it, looking over at Sam. "Do the phones work?" She asked, dreading his answer.

Sam shook his head as he put the phone back on the cradle. "No, the phone lines must have been knocked down during the wave." He sighed. There was no way for them to get in touch with their parents, no way to let them know that they were all right, stranded but all right.

For a moment, Laura looked at him, as though reading his thoughts and seeing the utter hopelessness of their situation. She looked away and lit the other candles, bringing a little more light into the dark room, but making the room seem all the more eerie, with the flickering shadows and absolute silence.

Without a word, Laura retrieved one of the candles and left the living room, heading down the hallway toward the bedroom she had adopted as her own. Sam watched her go, remaining where he was for little more then a minute before going after her. Brian raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything and Sam acted as though he hadn't seen his friend's reaction.

Laura hadn't shut the door and Sam found her sitting on her bed, staring ahead a nothing, her face lost in the shadows. "Hey, Laura, are you all right?" Sam questioned from his spot by the door, not wanting to intrude.

"Yeah." Laura answered, looking over at him. "I'm fine." She smiled faintly at him. "Thanks for coming back for me, that was really brave."

Sam smiled as well and waved his hand dismissively. "No problem." He said, entering the room. "You sure you're all right?"

Laura nodded. "I'm just worried about what's going to happen to us." She confessed, looking away from him again. "What are we going to do?" She wanted him to have an answer for her, to assure her that everything was going to be all right, but she knew that if he did, he would be lying.

Sam was silent, sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking at Laura through the darkness. "I don't know." He said finally. "I'm sure we'll think of something, someway to get in touch with our parents."

Laura sighed. "I'm not sure that'll help matters too much." She mumbled. "My mother seems more willing to believe that this whole thing is my fault; she wants me home now and can't seem to understand why I can't get there." She sighed again. "She'll really love this."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Your mom sounds like a really great lady." He remarked, sarcastically.

Laura gave him her attention once more. "She just doesn't like things she can't control, she needs to feel in control all the time." She told him. "She got that way when my father left."

"When did your father leave?" Sam questioned before he could think better of it, worrying that he was intruding upon Laura's private life. If she didn't want to answer him, he wouldn't be offended and he was about to tell her that went spoke again.

"When I was six." Laura answered. She looked down at her feet, staring at anything to avert her eyes from Sam's, though she doubted that he could see her tears in the darkness. "Right after my little sister was born."

Sam wanted to say something to comfort her, something meaningful to show Laura just how much he cared for her, but all he could come up with was, "I'm sorry." Even though the words were genuine, he couldn't help but feel that they were somehow hollow.

"It's fine, I've gotten used to it." Laura said, trying with some difficulty to make light of the situation. "It's hardly the most important thing right now." She pointed out.

Sam was about to argue but he stopped himself once he realized that Laura didn't want him to argue, wanted to push those thoughts from her head and whatever tangled emotions from her heart. So, he just forced himself to agree with her, a sigh escaping his lips. "If you ever want to talk-" Sam started but Laura cut him off before he could finish his offer.

"I'm fine Sam." She interrupted quickly. "It's not big deal, I'm fine."

Sam looked at Laura, seeing her face through the shadows that surrounded it and saw that her eyes were filling with tears. As though sensing his stare, Laura turned away from him so that he could no longer see her face, forcing herself to blink away the tears that had come, unbidden. How could Sam do this to her so easily? Tear down the armor she had spent years building and remind her what it was like to cry over her father? Though she knew his intentions were good and his concern was real, Laura still found herself wishing that Sam would shut up and leave her alone; this wasn't what she had planned on. This was just another way for her to get hurt.

"Laura," Sam began again, attempting to force her to turn back toward him. Laura, however, remained where she was, keeping her back to him, unwilling to see the concern in his face. He touched her shoulder gently. "I know that-"

Laura pulled away from him so suddenly that Sam wasn't sure how to react. He stared at her, silent, no longer sure of what to say.

For a moment, Laura hated herself for turning away from Sam like that, for shunning away his concern, his apparent love for her. She hated herself for forcing herself to be the constant martyr, ignoring the way she felt just to keep herself from getting hurt again.

The uncomfortable silence didn't last much longer because Brian came hurrying down the hallway, calling his friend's names. "You guys have to come look at this." He said once he had reached the bedroom, gesturing behind him. "You're never going to believe it."

For a moment, the conversation that had passed between Sam and Laura was forgotten, replaced instead by curiosity. Together, they left the room and followed Brian into the living room, where they found him standing by the window.

Outside, a huge Russian barge was slowly making its way down the water-logged street, its wide sides scrapping against the tops of buildings and breaking out glass windows. The barge was traveling at a painfully slow pace, bumping along the sunken taxi cabs and buses that lurked beneath the water.

Laura's eyes went wide as she watched the ship head in their direction, almost unwilling to believe her eyes. Beside her, Sam mumbled, "Oh my God," in a breathless whisper.

If a huge barge had managed to get through the narrow streets of New York without scraping bottom, the water must have been deeper then they first figured, Laura decided suddenly. Much deeper.

That made their chances of getting out of the city much slimmer.

So, here's a new chapter, finally; I know this one wasn't very good but I'm having some writer's block that I'm forcing myself to muddle through. The good news is that I finished my other story so I can devote all my attention to do this -until I start another story that is. All the reviews have been so fabulous, you guys really brighten my day. To Wally, thanks for keeping me on my toes, where would I be without you to keep my scientific facts in check? To Punkin: here's another chapter, stop harassing me now. Just kidding. And, of course, to the ever wonderful Lilly, who needs a nickname too, you'd better update that wonderful Sam and Laura story of yours. Don't just leave me hanging like that, come on. And by the way, how old is Tessa? Do you think I could borrow her for a story of mine? Thanks again for all the great reviews, I love you all ;)