Drowning: Chapter 13

Places from Our Past

Pairings: 1xR, 2xH, 4xOC

Quatre's POV

Warnings: violence, swearing

Disclaimer: I think we've covered this by now…

I'm surprised by the woeful lack of security they have on us. For going through all the trouble of kidnapping us in public in the view of so many people, they sure are being sloppy about holding us here. Or arrogant. Come to think of it, I'm willing to bet the latter. The best of the best would never have attacked us so blatantly in the open like that unless they wanted to get a message across.

After leaving the sterile holding room we are confronted with several different hallways, all painted the same beige blah office color. In fact the whole building reminds me of an office building. There's something strange about the building though…I can't quite put my finger on it…

Going purely on instinct, because in all honesty I have no idea where to go, we head to the left and follow the narrow hallway around several sharp turns. Everything looks the same. I'm trying to memorize the route in case we need to backtrack, but there are absolutely no changes in scenery. I feel like I'm wandering around in circles.

That's it. Windows! There aren't any windows here. That's very strange. For an office building there should be at least some windows…even if we were still on-colony somewhere.

Unless…this isn't an office building.

"This place is creepy," Sara whispers to me, "It doesn't feel right, but at the same time it feels so…familiar."

"I was just thinking the same thing," I whisper back. At least she's talking to me again.

"Where do you think we could be?"

"I'm not sure…at first I thought it was some sort of office building, but I've never seen an office building with no windows before. Now that you mention it, this place does feel really familiar. I don't know why…"

"Where are all the guards?" Sara asks, breaking into my reverie.

"That's what's worrying me. They have to be somewh…do you feel that?"

"A couple of men are heading this way!"

"Looks like someone noticed we got out! Come on, this way!" I grab her soft hand in mine and begin pulling her through the confusing corridors.

Finally the hallway begins to change a bit. It looks like this section isn't used anymore. There's a layer of dust covering the floor. They'll have no trouble figuring out which way we went, our footprints are clearly visible in the dust. At the end of the hallway I can see a door with a small window. Hopefully it isn't locked.

It's only a matter of time before the two men behind us figure out which way we went. We're almost to the door! Just a few more feet and…

"Shit!"

"What?"

"It's locked. I think I can get it…one second…"

"Hurry…oh hurry Quatre! I can feel them getting closer!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying! Your yelling in my ear isn't exactly helping any!"

"Well excuse me! I'm scared ok!"

"There! Got it!"

With that I shove against the door and it reluctantly budges open a foot, just enough for us the squeeze through. Just as I thought, a staircase. Unfortunately the only way we can go is down. I had been hoping we could go up, just to throw our pursuers off a bit, but now there's no choice but down.

Running full tilt down the metal stairs my boots and Sara's tennis shoes make loud clattering sounds. They'll know where we are for sure now, but there's no helping it. Our only chance is to try and outrun them. They're almost certainly carrying weapons and I'm carrying nothing. Unfortunately my over-cautiousness didn't lend itself to forcing me to remember to carry a weapon at all times. I never really liked carrying a gun or knife with me, but now I wish I had gotten more into the habit of it.

I can't tell how many flights are left to this building because the lower floors are all in deep shadows. My hell bent pace however seems to encourage downward movement so that's the way that we're going.

After racing down about five flights I yank Sara to a stop and dash through the nearest doorway. I barely have time to look at my surroundings before we're off and running, our pace barely broken by the minor detour. I know I'm going to have to stop soon though, Sara is doing an admirable job of keeping up but I can tell she's starting to get tired.

"Qua…Quatre…we…need to stop…soon," she pants out.

"I know…just a little bit further. See where the hallway branches out? We'll…duck into one of those corridors…and hide until they go past us,…then go back the way we came. Hopefully we'll be able to find our way out of here then."

We reach the division in the corridors and speed down a side hallway. A slightly open room looks like the best bet to hide out in for a little while. We creep in, keeping an eye and ear and our extra sense out for our pursuers.

I pull the door shut behind us and crouch down in the gloomy darkness of the room to wait for the men following us.

"What if they don't pass us by? What if we can't get out the way we came in? Do you even know where in the hell you're going?" Sara asks in a harsh whisper.

"No! Do you know where we're going? I didn't think so. I don't have all the answers, all right! I'm making this up as we go along," I whisper back, equally fierce.

That quiets her for a bit.

"Why do we do this to each other?" Sara asks quietly, no trace of anger left in her voice.

"Do what?" But even as I ask I know.

"Set each other off like this. I mean…I know I have red hair and all, a temper sort of comes with the territory, but I've never been so blatantly rude to someone before. Especially someone I've just met."

"You're not being rude. I am. We're both just stressed out and a little out of our element here. It's natural for tensions to rise in a situation like this."

"What happened to knowing exactly what to do in a situation like this? What happened to macho Gundam pilot?" she asks, but there's none of the meaness in it, she's merely curious.

"Tell you the truth, I never did much of this kind of thing. I was only captured once…well twice…and both times I had another pilot with me to bail me out and help me decide what to do. I've never done this on my own before. I'm sorry I was so snobby before. I don't know what's wrong with me. And I am really sorry about your brother and his friends…truly I am." I say quietly, hanging my head a little.

"It's going to take me a while to get over my feelings about that…but for what it's worth, I think you're a nice guy. It's hard for me to picture you doing the things the news stations say you pilots did. Maybe it was just the other ones that did those terrible things…"

"No. We were all responsible for what happened. I made mistakes just like the others…actually I messed up pretty badly in fact. The other pilots aren't bad people either. They're like brothers to me in fact."

"Oh."

"I think we get so mad at each other 'cause one person's anger helps fuel to other's. Do you know what I mean? We're both empaths, so we can both pick up on each others' emotions. It only makes sense for us to feel each other's anger and let it get to us. I wonder if all our emotions will do this to us, be amplified I mean. I wonder if…" I don't finish that statement. My mind certainly knows the best times to take a trip into the gutter.

Sara's eyes are dancing with laughter as she looks at me.

"You wonder if what? You wonder if sex will be better between two empaths than two normal people?"

Allah. I can't believe she just said that! Actually I can. I just wasn't expecting it. Miss Sara A'Mal is certainly full of surprises!

In answer to her question I can feel my face heat up for the second time that day.

"For someone as experienced as you claim to be, you sure blush a lot at stuff like that!" Sara says laughing.

"Hey! I never said I was experienced that way!" Great. Why don't you just tell her that you used to play tea party with your sisters and liked it for crying out loud!? That way she'll have no question about your lack of manliness! Why does my brain disconnect every time I talk to her? I don't even think she likes me that much.

Now I'm blushing more than ever. Sara just laughs a little more and pats my shoulder reassuringly. Maybe she doesn't hate me after all.

This time we're able to sit in a half-way companionable silence as we wait for the bad guys to show.

We aren't long in waiting.

"Do you see that?" a disembodied voices comes floating down the hallway.

"What, that door? Ya? So what?" replies disembodied voice number two.

"I was just down here this morning and it was open. Now it's closed. I bet you anything that's where the two little freaks went."

Well shit. Looks like it's time for drastic measures.

"Sara," I whisper urgently, "They're going to be coming in here soon. When they do, I'm going to try and distract them while you run, ok? No, don't argue. Just run as hard as you can for the stairwell. Don't worry about me. I'll find you. Here they come. Ready?"

She nods is quick assent though her mind is still roiling with doubts.

Suddenly the door crashes open with a sickening sound of twisting wood and the two biggest men I have ever seen come barreling into the run at full tilt.

"Run Sara!" I yell and I watch as she makes a mad dash for the door, only to be stopped by thug number two.

Thug number one in the meantime is trying to catch me in his meaty hands and pin me to the ground.

He manages to grab a handful of my shirt in one huge fist, but I don't let him get the other hand on me. My left foot connects solidly with his stomach and he bends over from the middle, letting out a whoosh as the air is knocked out of him. My second kick connects squarely with his jaw and his eyes roll up into his head. Thankfully he releases his death grip on my shirt before falling to the ground unconscious.

Thug number two is so surprised that he doesn't even move to retaliate as I grab thug number one's hand gun and shoot him through the kneecap.

It isn't until after he's down on the ground that he realizes he's been shot. Blood is spurting out of his leg, I probably clipped an artery. He opens his mouth to scream but just a slow whine of pain comes out. With a sharp blow to the back of the head he's down as well.

The whole fight took maybe ten seconds.

Sara looks like she's in shock.

"Sara? Sara? Come on now, don't quit on me now!" I grab her shoulders and give her a little shake to try and snap her out of it.

"How…?" she asks feebly, "How can you not feel their pain?"

"I…I…don't…I don't know…" How is it that I can't feel their pain? I can feel everything else about them…but not that. I know I used to be able to…Now's not the time for this! With a sharp shake of my head I turn away from the gruesome sight.

"Come on. We've got to get out of here right now!" I say, taking her hand once again and leading her from the room. Her eyes don't leave the sight of blood pooling on the carpeted floor until we're past the room and running back the way we came.

----------

It's been three hours since our escape and we still have yet to find our way out of the building, or to run into anymore bad guys.

I don't think it would have been so difficult if the whole place didn't reek with empathic signatures. They're distracting me to no end. Sara's feeling the effects as well because she keeps looking over her shoulder and squinting up her eyes as if there is something there, just out of sight.

There's something here all right. It feels…bad, for lack of a better term. As if something horrible happened here. I can pick up on stuff like that. Empathic signatures don't just come from people they sometimes come from places, especially when something really emotional happened in those sites. It feels like death here. It's odd though, because the building looks brand new except for the dusty, unused hallways. I guess the whole place is weird though. We explored several floors and they all look exactly the same.

The only two floors left are the two sub basements. I can tell they're basements because we found an elevator shaft a while back. I was too afraid of being stuck or caught in it to actually take it, but I checked out the floor listings to find out where we were.

Creeping along the first floor the empathic signs are getting stronger and stronger. There are some that aren't coming from the building so I'm pretty sure the rest of the bad guys are somewhere up ahead.

I'm hoping we'll find an exit before we run into them…oh no. This is not good at all. Looking through a large window in one of the open rooms off the hallway I can see that we're on a satellite. The window overlooks the docking bay and beyond that are huge windows looking out into space. This place is too small for a colony and ships aren't built like this. The only option is a satellite and the only shuttle on it is being guarded by the burliest men I have ever seen. Directing them, or rather screaming at them, is sunglasses man.

"Damn," I say quietly.

"What are we going to do?" Sara whispers behind me.

"Well, we can either try to take out those ten men out there with a gun that only has seven shots left, or we can try finding a line out of here and try to contact my friends."

"I vote for finding a vid phone," Sara says immediately.

"Good. Me too," I say with relief. I really don't enjoy hurting people if I can help it, and I know that if we got into a fire fight with those guys we'd come off very badly. Probably dead. I still want to know why I can't feel people's physical pain anymore. It's really bothering me.

With that we head off down more corridors to find a vid phone, checking every door we come to that isn't locked. We don't have time to unlock every door and check every room. From how mad sunglasses man was at his men they'll probably be ruthless in their search for us.

All too soon we run into the first of the searchers.

"Hey! There they are! Get them!" screams the man in front, a huge man with a deep red muscle shirt.

We're off and running in no time and it seems at first like we're going to outrun them, but no such luck. Muscle shirt and the slightly less gigantic man behind him turn out to be incredibly fast for their bulk and know the hallways better than we do.

I turn quickly to face them. They're no more than five feet behind us as I whip out my gun and shoot muscle shirt through the head, the bullet passing through and killing the man behind him as well. I don't even stop to look at the carnage before sprinting off again, a stunned Sara in tow. Two down, eight to go.

It takes a little longer for the next group of kidnappers to catch up to us. We're able to take a short breather while Sara fortifies her emotional barriers. All the violence is really getting to her. I can feel her revulsion and through her, though to a lesser degree, the deaths of the men I killed.

The next group isn't taking anymore chances. They know that I know things that as a pacifist I shouldn't. They're also very very angry. I've wounded two of their teammates and killed another two.

They manage to surround Sara and I in a small hallway, the lighting dim and casting harsh shadows over their faces. Behind me Sara gives out a small growl of defiance. She won't go down without a fight, but the idea is for her not to be hurt at all. She hasn't done anything wrong! Dumb bastards!

Even with them ready for an attack I move faster than they can predict and take out the two men nearest me with a wicked kick and uppercut combination that Wufei taught me. The other men converge on me like the walls of the Red Sea coming down on Pharaoh. I stay upright as fists and feet rain down on me, all the while delivering punishing blows to smirking faces and muscular torsos.

We're all too bunched up for me to use my gun. I might accidentally hit Sara.

I use every hand-to-hand combat move I know and somehow manage to pull myself and Sara out of the mass of bodies. We only take a few steps before a gun shot rings out and I feel a sharp burning in my left shoulder. The bullet passes through the fleshy part of my upper shoulder accompanied by a spray of blood. Sara screams, clutching her own left shoulder in pain.

We crash head-long into a doorway. Not just any doorway. The stairwell. I turn around quickly and slam the lock home. Unless any of those men have a key to this stairwell it will take them a long time to get through.

Sara takes over leading and we descend into inky darkness. The sub-basements look completely blacked out. It's apparent that they haven't been used for many years.

Moving slowly to avoid running into anything we go through the door on the bottom floor. There's a weird stale light coming from down the long hallway and in this light I'm able to see a place I never wanted to see again. Even in the low light I know that the walls are painted a glaring white color and the tiled floor is perfectly even. The whole hall gives off an air of sterility.

Along the hallway are doors with little windows looking in. Windows that look in but can't be seen out of. Windows that look in on a tiny cell with six white walls. White walls where I once wrote my name in blood over and over again so I wouldn't forget it.

We're in Dr. Azrael's laboratory.

I can feel something happening in my mind. Like an itching, or a tickling starting at the back of my mind and moving forward. An episode is coming on.

In a pre-episode and loss of blood haze I slowly sink down to the ground. Sara's horrified shrieks filling my ears as I let myself once again melt into darkness.

Ah ha! Finally got it done! That was a fun chapter to write…next chapter will be just as fun!!! (Hopefully).

-NostalgieMalaak