Drowning: Chapter 12

Awkward Beginnings

Pairings: 1xR, 2xH, 4xOC

Quatre's POV

Warnings: swearing

Disclaimer: don't own

­­­The first thing I'm aware of as I wake up is how bad my body feels. My shoulder is completely numb, my head aches like no other, there's a terrible taste in the back of my mouth and my hands and feet are hurting terribly.

Oh. Well that explains the hands and feet hurting, they've been secured with zip ties. Ow. As for the rest of my poor self…

I think it's safe to say that this is shaping up to be the worst day ever.

I manage to get into a sitting position after much straining and pulling on my bonds. My vision is still a little fuzzy. Must be from the tranquilizer they tagged me with. Must have been a big one too because my shoulder burns with every move I make. At least I'm not seriously hurt.

Oh my God! Duo!

Where is he? I can't see him anywhere…oh shit, where is he? Is he ok?

Calm down Cat. Panicking isn't going to get you anywhere. First step: check out your situation.

Now that I take the time to look at my surroundings I notice that I'm not alone. Across the carpeted but otherwise bare room is a figure, lying with her face to the wall. I know it's a her because the only guy I've seen with that length of hair is Duo. Oh Duo. You better be ok!

The girl isn't moving, but she's breathing ok. They haven't tied her up. Hopefully she's just unconscious and not hurt. What beautiful red hair she has. The only person I've seen with hair like that is…

"Sara," I say in a hoarse whisper.

Oh Allah. Now it all makes sense. Our captors must somehow be tied to Dr. Azrael. The thought makes my stomach knot up with tension and my hands ice up. What could they possibly want with us?

"Ugghh," Sara groans, waking up, trying to sit up and hold her head at the same time.

"Hey, try not to move. It looks like they drugged you. Try to lay still 'till the dizziness passes." She follows my instructions and lies back down on her back, both arms flung over her face to block out the harsh florescent light of the room.

"Sara? Sara are you alright?" I ask hesitantly when she doesn't move for a little while.

"I feel like a piano was dropped on me," she says, the humorous statement tinged with pain and a little bit of fear. Emotionally she's still pretty out of it, her mind a jumble of random images and feelings. I can't tell which ones are hers and which belong to other people. It's so strange to feel that from her. Makes me wonder why I never tried to contact her earlier. I would have liked to have had another empath to compare things with and learn from.

"Do you know where we are?" she asks, breaking me out of my reverie.

"I'm not sure. I was unconscious the whole way here it would seem."

"Ah…by the way, um…how did you know my name?" she asks, not bothering to open her eyes yet.

"It's me…Quatre. Um, I called you to…um…come and all…and uh…" Back to this are we? One would think that having as many sisters as I do would teach me how to speak intelligently with members of the opposite sex. Apparently not.

She's sitting up now and looking at me, well at least looking at me as best as she can through squinted eyes.

"Oh my…I didn't…I didn't really expect to meet you this way…" she says, chewing on her lower lip cutely.

"I wasn't really planning on this either," I say with a wry smile.

"Oh my God!" she says, noticing my tied hands and feet, "Are you ok? Here, let me help you get those off!"

We work for several minutes trying to get the slippery plastic bands to come off, but every attempt just seems to work them tighter around my already raw wrists and ankles.

Sara finally decides to call a halt and sits back on her heals, moaning in frustration.

"I'm sorry. They're too tight," she says with a defeated tone.

"It's ok. Thanks for trying," I say softly. It was nice having her so close to me. She smells like lavender.

"Oh Allah, I'm an idiot!" I suddenly burst out. I had completely forgotten the small lock picks I always carry with me at all times. I can use those to loosen the bonds and slip my hands out. Thank God for being over-cautious.

I struggle for a little while trying to get them out, but they're in the inseam in the front of my pants and with my hands tied behind me I can't reach them.

Sara, noticing that I'm trying to get something gives me a quizzical look. She probably thinks I'm crazy with as much flopping around I've done in the past few minutes.

"Sara? Can you do me a favor? Can you reach into my pants and get something?"

A strange look crosses her face and I can tell she's trying to say something, but shock is preventing her.

It takes my brain a few minutes to rewind and replay what I just said to her before it hits me. Dear God. I just asked her to reach into my pants…and…get…something. I could die. I could just die.

She notices when I finally realize what I said to her. A small smile starts to pull up the corners of her mouth. A little giggle is bubbling out of her, and soon it has turned into a full blown laugh.

My entire face must be glowing as red as a neon sign. I don't think I've ever been this embarrassed before.

Seeing this sends her into more gales of bell like laughter. She's laughing so hard she's starting to snort. This in turn sets me off and soon the two of us are laughing like little children.

I take several deep breathes to calm myself down.

"You do realize that we have been drugged, kidnapped and have no idea where we are, but can still find something like a little sexual innuendo hilarious?" I ask her. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing so much.

"Gotta keep a positive attitude, I guess. It's no good giving up. I try to find humor in everything I do. I think…if I wasn't like that I wouldn't have survived everything I have," she says, her voice going soft and reflective.

"That's a beautiful philosophy," I say quietly, now even more in awe of her than before.

"Hmmm, yes well…I stole it from my mom. She says that all the time. She says it's her life motto."

"Your mother must be a wonderful person."

"Yes," she whispers sadly, "I just hope that I…that I see her again…"

"Don't start on with that. We can't give up, remember? We'll get through this. I know we will," I say with more conviction than I feel.

"You don't really believe that," she retorts. This is going to take some getting used to, not being to hide my emotions from her.

"Well, you know what my life motto is?" I wait for her to shake her head before answering.

"My life motto is that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason why we're here right now, and I've been through hell too many times to believe that this is really the end."

She thinks this over for a moment before nodding her head in understanding. In one deft move her quick fingers are running along the inseam of my pants, having seen where my hands were straining towards.

After a few moments she makes a small sound of triumph and pulls out one of the small wicked looking lock picks.

"How is this going to help?" she asks incredulously.

"You'll have to slide in under the ties and pull up on it so I can slide my hands out." In the back of my mind I wonder if this is really going to work. Why couldn't they have handcuffed me? It would have made my life much easier right now.

It takes several minutes before she's able to put the small piece of metal between my skin and the bonds. She was a gentle as possible with it, but even still my wrist is bleeding where the sharp pick dug into me. At least I'll have a little lubricant to slide my hands out easier now.

Sara's grimacing with pain. It must hurt her for me to hurt. I don't really notice the pain too much though. I've been hurt much worse than this in the past. Slowly the cords begin to loosen and I manage to pull a hand out, scarping off quite a bit of skin in the process.

Sara gives out a hiss of pain.

"That must have hurt," she says, trying to avoid looking at the blood now liberally smeared on both my hands.

"It's not bad," I say casually, as though ripping the skin off my hands is something I do regularly, "Nothing serious."

With a bit more work and struggle my feet are free and I begin working on getting circulation back in my abused limbs.

"So how did you get here? Do you remember?" I ask her as she starts helping me rub feeling back into my ankles.

"No. I don't really remember much of anything. I remember being on the shuttle, then drinking some water the steward gave me, then I must have passed out because next thing I knew I was waking up here with you."

"Looks like we're in quite a mess here then," I say, smiling a little at her.

"Ya. Guess so. Don't you have like tons of body guards and stuff? Won't people realize that you're gone and come looking for you?" she asks hopefully.

"Yes, I'm sure people back home are pretty upset right now, but I'm not sure there's much they can do. It will take them a while to locate us, if they even can. They don't even know where to start I bet."

"Well, they captured the both of us, so I'd bet you anything it has to do with Dr. Azrael being caught this morning." Ah, I was right. Brains and beauty.

"That's what I was thinking too. I wonder what they want with us…but in any case, we can't be waiting around for people to rescue us. There's never a guarantee of being rescued in a situation like this, so I've always been taught to try to help myself out of them." Getting up is painful, but after my ankles stop throbbing I'm able to walk around the room looking for week spots.

"We're going to get ourselves out of here? I hate to remind you of this, but I've never done anything like that before and I'm pretty sure that you haven't either!" Sara's still sitting on the floor, looking at me like I really have lost it.

"I'm not totally inexperienced at stuff like this," oh, if only you knew… "I'll find a way to get us out of here. Don't worry, Sara, leave this to me."

"What? Leave this to you? What the hell does that mean!? I'm not some little girl that needs to be babied you know! I can do anything you can."

I think I whipped around in shock so fast that I startled her. Where did that come from! What happened to my sweet compliant little Sara? Oh, man, I can't believe I just thought that! Apparently she is anything but compliant!

"Well, I hate to tell you this, Miss Sara, but I think I do happen to be able to do a few things that you can't!" Like to see her pilot a Gundam.

"Oh! Isn't that so convenient! You think you're better than I am because you're a man, is that it? Or maybe it's because you're Quatre Winner, and you're just better than everyone!" She bursts out angrily.

"Hey wait a second! I never said anything like that! I happen to be pretty knowledgeable about this stuff because I used to be a Gundam pilot!" I shout at her. Where did that come from?! Why did I say that?!!

The room seems to get twenty degrees colder as I look at her. There's an absolutely awful expression on her face, like she's about to burst into tears.

"You think that impresses me?" She whispers, "A Gundam pilot almost killed my brother, and did kill all of his friends. You think you're something special…well you're not! You're nothing more than a fucking terrorist!"

Bright tears are slipping down her face and falling onto her soft sweater. Her whole body is trembling. I can't even describe her emotions at the moment…they're simply heartbreaking. I feel like the biggest jerk in the world.

"Oh, Sara…I'm so sorry. I am so so sorry. I don't…oh Allah Sara…"

"Forget it," she says bitterly, moving farther away from me so that she's once again facing to wall.

"I…I really don't know what to say! You'd think with all my political training I could think of something to say to you, but really there's nothing. I feel so terrible…you must believe me!"

"I do," she says tiredly, "I can still feel you, remember?"

"Ya, I remember."

I don't know what to say or do so I turn back to continue my appraisal of the room. Her anger and pain is burning through me like molten lava. Just shut it out Cat. Focus on getting out of here and then you can work through all these emotions.

There's a small grate in the far corner, but it's much too small to crawl through. The door however looks more promising. It's a simple door, no deadbolt lock or anything. Guess Sara wasn't the only one who didn't know what they were getting themselves into by putting me in here.

"I think I can get this door open," I say, hoping that maybe she'll say something to me again, but she stays quiet, stubbornly not looking at me.

"It'll just take a few minutes," I say again, this time more to myself than to her. Using my lock picks I'm able to unlock the door from the inside. Now all we have to do is find our way out of here. That and convince her not to hate me, or at least trust me enough to come with.

"There. The door's unlocked," I say to her. She doesn't respond. "I'm going to leave now. I'm opening up the door…" She still hasn't even looked at me. Sighing quietly I drop my hand from the doorknob and move over to her side.

"Sara?" I call gently, "Please, Sara. Please come with me. I don't know if we're going to have another chance to do this… Fine then. I guess we'll just sit here then, now won't we."

With that I plop myself down next to her and put my head in my hands. The blood from my wrist has clotted thankfully. It's dried on my hands though and I can't stand the smell of it, like bile and iron mixed together. When I look up it's to find her staring back at me.

"You're not leaving?" she asks, suspicion lacing her tone.

"No. Not without you."

"I…I don't…you're a very strange person Quatre."

"Thank you."

We sit there for some time before she suddenly stands up with a look of determination in her bright green eyes and starts heading for the door.

"Well?" she asks, looking over her shoulder, "Are you coming or not?"

Heh…teenage guys are so cocky!

Thanks so much to you guys for reading and reviewing! It really inspires me to write more.

Mousycoon: you betcha! And more is coming up!

RiseAgainPhoenix: Wow! I'm so glad you like my story. Thank you so much for the great advice. Hehe…I knew there was a reason for making Sara a red head! I always thought it would be fun for Quatre to be paired up with someone who's strong and fiery. Makes a good contrast to his sweet nature.

Silvermanel: ah, a reviewer of few yet poignant words!

Dark vampire: more sweet moments for our favorite teenage terrorists coming up soon!

Bibliomaniac: you rock as always. Hopefully more suspenseful moments to come!

-NostalgieMalaak