AN: Here it is. Good night, Irene.
Saturday 11:54 pm
Despite the frigid winter's night, Kiff felt sweat popping out on her forehead as she strained against the barring mechanism on the door. She'd tried kicking at the door, kicking at the device, battering it with the ambulance's emergency tools, pulling, pushing, and throwing a short hissy fit. She'd even tried ramming it with her shoulder, which turned out to be one of the worst ideas she'd ever had. All through it, the lock remained as impervious as a diamond to the bite of a mosquito, and Tru remained without an escape route should things go south.
When finally she gave up on trying to lever the thing upwards, she stood back to catch her breath and sent it an evil look.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
The cell phone in her jumpsuit pocket rang.
"What?" she snapped.
"Kiff! You're not going to believe how smooth it went. Jack spilled the whole thing over the radio and they couldn't have heard it better if it was in THX surround sound. Everyone down here at the dispatch center's going nuts! Granted that's mostly because they think a bomb's about to go off, but I don't think they've had entertainment like this since Bo and Hope got married."
"Harrison! Do you know how to pick a lock?"
There was a pause on the line that was just a little bit too long.
"Um... No."
"Fabulous. How's it done?"
"Kiff, why do you need to know how to pick a lock? You're not taking up cat-burglary, are you? I'm pretty sure you could pull off the outfit, but trust me when I say that bad things come of it."
"I need to know because somebody's put the club on the friggin' door and your sister's locked inside with a psycho and his bomb..! Is it just me, or does that sound like a band?"
"WHAT?" Harrison's shriek was so loud that Kiff had to jerk the phone away from her ear. "What do you mean somebody locked the door? Who? What time is it? What are you even still doing there? Aren't you supposed to be halfway to Cucamonga by now?"
"I promise I'll explain everything later. If I survive. Meanwhile, we've got about five minutes before the grisly doom of everyone on this block and your sister has no means of escape but a third story window. Now stop yelling at me and tell me how to pick this lock before I kick your skinny goyescher ass!"
Saturday 11:56 pm
Jack coughed as Tru's foot connected with his midsection. It was the end-result of a sharp combination that had gained Tru another foot and a half towards the boiler. Jack swung at her. She ducked and punched him in the kidney. Jack seized her in a bear-hug, pinning her arms and squeezing her ribs until she couldn't draw a decent breath. Tru gritted her teeth and struggled against the clamp of his arms. Jack grinned.
"I've had dreams that looked a lot like this, Tru. Granted we weren't about to die and you weren't beating the living crap out of me, but I'll take what I can get at this point."
Tru smashed her forehead into his already crooked nose and slammed her heel into his foot. He dropped her and the two stood at length for a moment, gasping for breath.
Once again, Jack was more impressed with her than he wanted to be. Less than five minutes into their fight and already he was sporting a broken nose, a split lip, a punished midsection, and an ejected tooth. Thank God he was willing to fight a woman or she probably would've destroyed him by now.
Tru meanwhile sported bruised knuckles and was fighting not to show her fatigue. Sweat was dripping into her eyes and it was getting harder to know which of the Jacks that graced her vision was the one she should strike at. Through it all, she was acutely aware that time was running out.
"Just tell me one thing, Tru," said Jack. "How could it've been worth it? All this so you could give a bunch of strangers a few more lousy minutes. Was it worth Luke? Was it worth your mother? I mean, I'm sure she was perfectly willing to buy the farm for this, but do you think she ever stopped to consider how it would affect you if she got killed? Strikes me as a little selfish."
"Don't you dare talk about my -!" Tru stopped herself before she could fall into his trap completely. Instead, she took a breath and then spoke. "Do you know what selfish is, Jack? Selfish is when you can't see beyond your own angle. Selfish is when you aren't willing to consider the fact that you may be wrong and everyone else has to pay for it."
"Like Luke did?"
That did it. Tru roared and came at him with an onslaught of punches, managing to land several good ones before Jack dropped to lash out his leg and sweep her feet. Tru landed hard on her back and Jack pounced. On his knees, he straddled her hips and encircled her throat with is hands. Tru coughed and gagged as he squeezed. She bucked and clawed at his arms to no avail.
Darkly, she realized that Jack wasn't smiling. The face hovering over her was actually rather sad. She'd seen a similar look on her mother's face when she returned home from having their family's eighteen-year-old cat put to sleep: Sad she'd had to do it, but with the self-assurance that she HAD had to do it.
"Say good night, Tru," Jack said quietly.
Her hands lost their strength. Her vision darkened and her head pounded. And then, slowly and quietly at first, the pounding turned into a voice. Not her mother's this time, but Haioshi's. At least it was mostly Haioshi's. It was also an echoing blend of Davis and Harrison and Lindsay and even Kiff.
Remember... remember... remember where to look...
Tru looked up into Jack's face. She saw Jack standing over her in the abandoned factory where she'd been held hostage. She saw Jack gazing down at Luke's body as she held him and cried. She saw Jack beside her mother's grave. She saw him circling the scene of destruction from the day before like a shark. She saw him overseeing all the suffering she'd ever encountered since she was first called, and in his eyes, she saw herself reflected as a mirror image.
'Never again,' something inside her cried out. 'Never, ever again...'
With a strange new fire burning in her belly, she let go of his arms and wormed her index finger under his pinkies. Thinking she'd meant to try peeling his hands away from her throat, Jack was quite surprised when she suddenly cranked his little fingers back toward his elbows. The hollow snap echoed in Tru's ears and Jack howled in agony, easing up the weight on her hips just enough for her to bring her knee up in a sharp strike to his groin.
Suddenly mute, Jack rolled off her. Tru dizzily got to her feet and staggered toward the boiler, pausing to scoop up the remote detonator on the way. Blinking, she peered at the face of the clock.
A minute and a half to go.
She grabbed the bomb and ran for the stairwell. She took the steps two at a time and burst out into the gloomy service foyer, where she made a bee-line for the door. When she made it to the door however, she found a rather nasty surprise.
Locked. No, that was impossible! She'd broken the lock!
"No!" she yelled aloud.
She spun and ran for the stairwell again. If she couldn't go out, she'd go up. She made it halfway up to the second floor before she felt her ankle ensnared and dropped painfully to knees and elbows, barely managing to hang onto the bomb. Looking back, she found an exhausted Jack with his belly to the stairs, having lunged to catch her foot in his broken hands. He shook his head, his face earnest.
"You'll never make it, Tru."
The fire blazed in her again and she kicked back at his head. He toppled back to the landing and lay there unmoving. Without pausing further, Tru picked up her dash up the stairs.
Thirty seconds.
Second floor. Landing. Third floor. Door. Hallway.
Fifteen seconds.
She raced to the end of the hallway and found a filing room filled with heavy shelves and cabinets. Also there was a window. Tru ran across the room and set the bomb on the sill.
Five seconds.
Scrambling, she started a mental countdown and tried to make it to the filing room door. At one second to go, she dove behind a tall free-standing shelf full of records and covered her ears.
The next thing she knew, the earth fought back.
Intense light flashed past her closed eyelids. A deafening roar bombarded her ears. The floor shook as if she were inside a snow globe. It was as if every demon in hell had burst through the crust of the earth and now ran from the crater like a stream of lava.
Tru felt herself thrown to the floor and flattened there in a cascade of books and furniture. When at last the deluge seemed to be over, she lay there for a moment, catching her breath and figuring out which way was up. Her ribs ached fiercely where something had landed on them, accompanied by dozens of new pains scattered over her like measles. Cautiously, she began pushing debris off of her head and shoulders, relieved to find that her arms still worked. Turning her head, she surveyed the damage: The window was gone, as was most of the wall that had surrounded it, leaving a smoking, jagged frame of brick, plaster and sparking wires. The hole extended to some ten paces of the floor, which was now raining bits of tile and fiberglass onto the story below. The room itself was on fire, with flames creeping quickly along the walls, boosted by the hapless files.
Tru tried to get up and found she couldn't. Dazed, she looked down at herself and found she was pinned from the hips down by the fallen bookshelf and about two hundred pounds of files. Coughing on the building smoke, she tried to push the shelf off her until her arms shook and it felt like her head would explode. She fell back against the floor, choking and strengthless. She would try again as soon as she could catch her breath. Except that she couldn't catch her breath. She just inhaled more searing smoke until her lungs began to give out, too exhausted to cough anymore.
Against her will, her darkening mind began to call out.
Help me... Somebody...
TRU.
The whisper sounded over the crackle of the flames. With the last of her reserves, she turned her head toward what used to be the window wall and watched. Nothing seemed to exist anymore except for the flames, which had taken on a strange white glow and seemed to rush toward the center of the floor, where they amassed and swirled upwards into the shape of a woman in long flowing robes. The fire-woman walked slowly toward her.
Tru stared as the flame-version of her mother knelt beside her and offered a hand. Tru lifted a shaking arm and reached out to her until their fingers barely touched...
... And suddenly they were in the snowy woods again, Tru enfolded in her mother's arms and white robes.
STOP, TRU, Elise Davies's voice whispered in her ear.
Tears slipped from Tru's eyes.
"Mom..."
With what seemed some reluctance, Elise released the embrace and cradled Tru's face in her hands.
STOP CRYING FOR ME.
Tru gasped. Elise's look was gentle, sad, proud, and very, very knowing.
IT'S ALL RIGHT, MY HEART. YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED. YOU DON'T HAVE TO CRY FOR ME ANYMORE.
Tru's shock at what this had all turned out to be about slowly gave way to all the pain she'd felt since her mother's death. It was true. She'd never really stopped crying for her mother. She'd never let go of the guilt. She'd never forgotten what it meant to have time stolen. And now?
Now.
Tru swallowed and somehow managed to choke out a few words.
"I miss you so much, Mom."
Elise's small, adoring smile widened a little.
I KNOW, MY LOVE.
Tru closed her eyes as her mother bent and kissed her forehead. When she opened them again, she was back in the burning room, looking out at the starry winter night. It was a good ending, she mused for a few moments before a more rational part of her began to scream at her over the peaceful feeling her mother had left in her heart.
Ending? No! NO!
Gritting her teeth, she set her hands on the bookshelf and tried to push it off her again. It wouldn't budge, and the flames crept closer.
Sunday 12:01 am
Half-deaf from the explosion, Kiff cautiously looked up from her instinctive duck-and-cover to the uppermost floor of the bank building, where the Southeast corner was a flaming ruin.
Many different conclusions flooded her brain: The bomb hadn't gone off near the boiler. Tru must have moved it. Tru was still inside. The fire department didn't know anyone but the bomber was inside. The second and third floors were now on fire. The fire department would focus on fighting the fire rather than sweeping the building for survivors.
No one was coming for Tru.
Frantic, she tried to think of what to do. Should she tell someone? Was there time?
Kathleen
Kiff spun around at the whisper of her name on the wind. Nothing greeted her but the empty alley.
The wind blew again, cutting harshly through her being.
There's no time, Kathleen. Go on
Kiff looked at the service door and gasped. Harrison had just finished talking her through an attempt at picking the lock when the bomb went off. Now it lay open on the stoop. She thought fleetingly that perhaps the little man had his useful points after all.
Kiff could smell the smoke the moment she was inside. She jogged through the darkness to the stairwell and dashed toward the roof. On the second floor landing, she paused. Both this and the third floor burned. Would Tru be here, or on the next? She didn't know!
Go on, Kiff
Far be it for her to argue with a disembodied voice. Kiff climbed on. On the third floor, she emerged and ran for the Southeast corner. Opening the door, she was blasted with heat and smoke. She dropped to a crawl beneath the smoke and groped about the floor.
Books... wood... bricks... tiles... paper... cement... furniture...
"Help..."
The weak voice on her left made her jump with hope.
"Tru?"
"Yes..."
"Tru, where are you?"
"I'm here," Tru coughed. "Under the bookshelf."
"Keep talking," Kiff said, crawling toward the voice. "Are you all right?"
"I... I can't move..."
Eyes burning, Kiff continued to sweep the floor with her hands.
More paper... marble fragments... a hand... A hand!
Eyes and throat burning, Kiff followed the hand to the body it was attached to and began tearing into the pile of books covering Tru, throwing it off by the armful. When finally only the shelf remained, she put her shoulder to it and pushed.
Go on, Kathleen
"I'm trying, you disembodied doofus!"
The shelf gave, and fell to the floor with a thumb that caused more debris to rain from the ceiling. Kiff levered Tru upright, held Tru's arm across her shoulders, clamped her free arm about Tru's waist, and stood to a crouch. She half-dragged, half-carried Tru to the doorway as quickly as she could.
The flames were already in the hallway when the two got through the door. Kiff made their way down the stairs, trying not to be disconcerted by the various crashes and other noises that sounded above them as they went.
Go on, Kathleen!
The urgency in the strange whisper spurred her even faster toward the front door of the building, where they were met first by a sea of surprised emergency workers and then by a deafening roar that sent them both tumbling to the ground.
Quite confused as to what had happened, Kiff found herself face-down in the snow that covered the threshold of the building. She looked to her side and found Tru motionless some feet away. Frantic, she scrambled over to her friend and felt for a pulse, weak with relief when she found one thumping steadily in her neck. Only then did she have the presence of mind to look back at the building.
The entire third floor had collapsed in flames.
Sunday 1:02 am
Harrison dashed past the triage desk of County General's ER and had poked his head into several curtains before the nurse caught up with him.
"Sir? Sir! Excuse me, sir. You can't be back here!"
"Where is she? Where's my sister? Is she over here?" Harrison pushed back another curtain and winced. "Whoa, hey. A girl, huh? Congratulations."
He gingerly closed the curtain and was about to go on to the next one when he found the rather solid-looking nurse had planted herself in his path.
"I said you can't be back here."
"Listen, you pop-up book from hell! I just got a phone call in the middle of the night to tell me my sister was pulled out of a burning building. Nothing else except something about next of kin. I don't care if you ban my children's children's children from this stupid place. I'm about to tear it apart if you don't tell me where my -"
"Harrison?" came a weak voice from nearby.
Harrison jumped around the nurse and made for the last curtain in the row. Pulling it aside, he found Kiff seated on the edge of a bed. Her face was sooty, her eyes red. She smelled strongly of sweat and smoke. With her coveralls peeled down to her waist, she had a hospital gown draped over her upper body, revealing forearms that looked sunburned. From the way she was hunched forward, it looked like she was working to breathe.
Seeing Harrison, she nodded wearily to the triage nurse.
"It's all right, Fran. He's with me."
Scowling, Fran departed.
"Thanks, Fran. Call me," waved Harrison. Then he darted to Kiff's side. "Kiff! Are you all right? What the hell happened?"
Kiff pulled the oxygen mask from her face, drawing a dirty look from the nurse who was taking her blood pressure.
"Well," she wheezed, "she didn't defuse the bomb."
Harrison blinked. "Pardon me?"
"She got it away from the boiler, but I couldn't get the door unlocked in time. She took it to the third floor. It went off."
Harrison felt his blood freeze. He had to bully his suddenly arid mouth into expressing his next question.
"Was... Is she..?"
Kiff tried to answer and fell into a violent coughing fit. Harrison lifted the oxygen mask back onto her face and held it there until she was panting rather than choking. She dried her teary face on the hospital gown and what came out of her nose was black.
"She's here... alive," Kiff managed to say. "Not burned, but... took a lot of smoke... toxic fumes..."
"Where?" Harrison demanded.
"Can't go in... the stabe' room... They'll take care of her."
"But she'll be okay, right?"
"She's bad off, but... she's young... tough... Think she'll be okay."
Harrison finally allowed himself to exhale. Under the circumstances, it was the best endorsement he had the right to hope for.
"Are you all right?"
"Allergic to... smoke... It'll pass..."
Harrison suddenly wanted to hit her.
"Allergic to WHAT? Are you stupid or just insane? You could've died!"
"I know."
"Jesus, I'm surrounded by crazy women. It must be freaking contagious. Tru told you to get the hell away! Why didn't you listen?"
"Harrison?"
Harrison quit stomping about the curtain and looked at Kiff. That was when he realized that for all that she looked like utter hell, there was something peaceful to her that he'd never seen before. The tears she was crying weren't solely from her irritated eyes, nor were they from sadness. She was smiling a quiet, lovely smile.
"It's all right," she said. "Don't you see?"
Harrison had a feeling there was something that she was trying to say, something inexpressible, and somehow, he of all people more or less understood. Without warning, he seized her in a hug and for once, it was completely platonic. Kiff closed her eyes and let him hold her. Like it or not, there are precious few things that can make people truly connect over the course of a single day, and surviving a miniature apocalypse together is one of them.
"Sorry I wanted to kick your goyescher ass," she muttered into his shoulder.
Monday 6:39 pm
Even Davis wasn't used to sitting still for this long. He was quite sure the nogahide chair he was sitting in now had a perfect indentation of his butt, and he'd been wearing the same clothes since Saturday.
In the nearly forty-three hours he'd been camped out in this hospital, he'd read every magazine in the family room (even Girl scout Weekly), watched seventeen different World War II documentaries on the history channel, made up half a dozen songs to the beat of the heart monitor's incessant bleeping, and eaten five twixes, four snickers bars, a bag of Fritos, and three different brands of cheesy crackers. Now he just sat and watched Tru sleep.
Tru had been moved here after being stabilized in the ER. 'Here' was somewhere between the regular inpatient rooms and the ICU, where they sent people who weren't about to die, but were bad off enough to make the staff quietly worry while they dismissed Davis's concerns with a patronizing cliché. Tru meanwhile hadn't moved in almost two days. The heart monitor bleeped, three different IV's ran, oxygen flowed into her nose through a thin clear hose, and Tru slept on.
Granted Davis had always wanted to watch her sleep, but still...
"Davis?"
Davis's head shot up. Tru's face was turned toward him, her eyes squinting as if she wasn't quite sure it was him. He stood up too fast and his numb legs tumbled out from under him. Tru sleepily watched him fall.
"Dee?" Her voice came with difficulty and was low, almost a tenor.
Davis's appeared at the edge of her bed, gripping it as if he were dangling from the edge of a cliff.
"Waking up to my face has got to be getting old," he ventured.
"Where am I?"
"County General. They brought you here after the fire."
At the mention of the word 'fire', Tru closed her eyes, her brows drawn in concentration, trying to remember. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open obvious panic. She tried to sit up and failed, having to settle for groping at Davis's arm.
"The firefighters. The police. Kiff!"
Davis instinctively stilled her hand with his own.
"Take it easy, take it easy. They're all fine. Kiff inhaled some smoke. They treated her and sent her home yesterday morning. That was all."
Tru relaxed back onto the pillows and forced herself to breathe slowly.
"What happened? After the bomb?"
"Don't you want to know how you are?"
"Tell me what happened first."
Davis sighed. "The building's gone. The fire spread like... well, wildfire after the bomb went off. A-Am I allowed to compare domesticated fire to wildfire? No, doesn't really work, does it? Anyway, Harrison says that Kiff says that some strange guy barred the service door after you went inside. Harrison helped her pick the lock, and the bomb went off. Now you have -"
"A guy?" Tru interrupted.
"Yes. Now you have -"
"What guy?"
"I don't know! A guy, like a million other guys. Meanwhile, you managed to wind up with an exacerbation of your head injury, airway burns, inhaled poisons, and three broken ribs. Add to the fact that you were literally blown up and... and..."
Tru blinked. Davis actually sounded angry. He never sounded angry. And now that she thought about it, why shouldn't he be? Not for the first time, he was mentally and physically exhausted because of her. It was a lot to ask of a person what she asked of him, and yet he was always there when she needed him, asked for or not. She squeezed his hand, which he only then realized she was still holding.
"Davis?"
"What?"
"What would I do without you?"
Davis's look softened, though he tried unsuccessfully to hang onto his stern tone.
"You're lucky to be alive, you know."
Tru found that hard to believe. If it was possible, she felt worse than she had when she woke up in Haioshi's office. In addition to a splitting headache, she now had a raw throat and painful bruises scattered over her body like a leopard. She dragged a hand up to her throat, and found that the outside was painful as well. Why should that be? She hadn't been burned...
Ah, yes: Jack had choked her... Jack.
"Davis, what happened to Jack?"
"We... We don't know. I mean, they're still looking, but..."
"But no one's found a body yet," Tru concluded for him.
Davis quirked an eyebrow. He'd been avoiding the subject of Jack at this point in the conversation because he'd been afraid of upsetting her. Now that it had come up, she didn't seem the least bit surprised. In fact, she seemed rather content.
"Did I miss something?" he asked.
Tru was smiling at him. "I'm okay, Davis. Whatever happens from now on, I'll be okay. I just want you to know that."
Davis scratched his shaggy red hair.
"That's great, Tru. But aren't you worried about -"
Eyes drooping, Tru shook her head.
"The most wonderful thing happened. I saw the most... wonderful... thing..."
Her voice trailed off as she plummeted into sleep again. Davis looked at her for a few moments, sighed again, and pulled the covers up to Tru's shoulders. As he continued to watch her, an impish voice piped up in his brain, pointing out that he had no right to ever hope for this opportunity again.
He cast a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, bent, and placed a tender, lingering kiss on Tru's face just this side of her mouth. He would remember it for the rest of his life as being as soft and sweet as the smell of lilacs after a spring rain. Tru would remember it as a dream.
Epilogue
Tru's doctors kept her in the hospital for another two days. By the third day of her stay, her voice sounded normal again, and she was allowed visitors who hadn't bullied their way in with medical credentials (It was good to be both a doctor and a county employee, Davis decided). Meredith stopped in between appointments. Lindsay brought her magazines and ding-dongs. Harrison snuck in some contraband hamburgers so she could have something to eat besides mystery jell-o. Even her father came to visit, though it had been months since they'd last been in touch. He acted happy to see her, relieved that she'd recover, but strange, distant even for him. When Davis asked her about Richard's visit afterwards, Tru shrugged and answered honestly that she felt exactly the same as she had before he arrived.
She was also visited by the chief of police who, having heard the exchange with Jack over the radio, had taken it upon himself to resolve matters in the department. Confronted with the evidence, Patterson had promptly broken down and named everyone involved in Tru's undue persecution. They were now sitting in jail awaiting trial, surrounded by people they'd put away. The chief seemed nice and genuinely apologetic, not to mention grateful that she'd saved the lives of about a hundred of his officers. Tru forgave him for the misunderstanding, but not for promoting a crazy Neanderthal like Patterson to the rank of detective in the first place. Later, she would blame that remark on pain-killers.
Kiff, who by some miracle was allowed to keep her job despite the fact that she'd 'borrowed' an ambulance without permission, gave a description of the man she'd seen locking the service door to the bank to the police sketch artist, but she just couldn't seem to get the nose right. It wound up looking, as Davis had so aptly put it, like a million other guys. The chief promised to try, but didn't offer much hope for the matter.
The First Street Bank had been reduced to an ashy ruin in less than half an hour after the bomb detonated. The remains of the building were sifted and combed by everyone from Timmons to the county commissioner. Jack's body was never found.
Not that it mattered. Despite the assurances of all of her friends that he could never have survived, Tru was quietly secure in the knowledge that he would eventually surface again. And if not him, then someone else.
But not for a while. Now was a time for other things.
Three weeks after the First Street Bank was bombed, Tru walked gingerly from the women's changing room into the training space of Haioshi's dojo, where many of the students had arrived early to warm up before class. Tru's ribs twinged angrily as she tried to stretch. With several items on her laundry list of maladies still on the mend, she knew there were limits to how much she could participate in the class. However, she'd felt oddly detached in her time away from the place and was glad to be back in any capacity.
"Hey, Tru! Over here!"
Tru brightened when she saw Harrison waving at her from the viewing area. Next to him sat Davis, looking out of sorts, but waving politely as well. She bowed off the mats and walked over to them.
"Harrison, what are you doing here? I thought you decided it wasn't for you."
"It's true," Harrison said. "You see, I've learned something in all this: I can be so secure in my masculinity that I have no qualms at all about the idea that my sister can beat me up. I mean, at least you're my BIG sister. It's your job to protect me."
"How enlightened."
"Thank you. Anyway, the Dee-man and I thought we'd just stop by, watch you in action, say hi to Hi-yoshi, and..."
"... And check up on me again?" Tru finished for him.
Harrison and Davis exchanged a sheepish look that heralded an answer ten times louder than their muttered 'Maybe'. To their surprise, Tru just smiled and shook her head. They would always look out for her. Given what probably would have happened if they weren't in the habit, she had to admit that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.
"Just try to keep quiet during class, will you?"
Tru turned back to the mats and spotted Haioshi just coming out of his office. He smiled at her approach.
"Tru San," he said. "How are you feeling?"
Tru surprised him with a hug that was sudden but careful. He laughed a little when she released him.
"What was that for?" he asked.
Tru paused, choosing her words carefully.
"That advice you gave me turned out to be really good."
"I'm glad. I'm glad also that you've returned today; I have something for you."
He reached into the fold of his worn gi and pulled out a folded yellow belt. Bowing slightly, he offered it in the traditional two-handed manner. Tru stared.
"But... But my test isn't for another six months!"
"Tru San, if you will forgive an old man his assumption, you have passed many tests since last we spoke. Please."
Tru haltingly took the belt and bowed low. Haioshi looked immensely pleased.
"Now that you are among my intermediate students, I hoped you would be willing to help with the beginners. May I pair you with one of them for the day?"
"Sensei, of course!"
Haioshi smiled and looked past Tru toward the corner with the changing rooms, beckoning. Looking over her shoulder, Tru's jaw dropped in surprise.
Kiff approached with fast little steps, looking rather uncomfortable in her spanking white gi. Her white belt was so stiff that the ends stuck out kitty-wompus and probably could've poked someone's eye out. At Tru's shoulder, she stood, shaking her head to Haioshi's obvious amusement.
"Really wondering why I'm not back in Minnesota right now."
"Kiff, it's so good to see you! What are you doing here?"
"Haioshi - er, Sensei called me. He said I looked like I could use a better segkuri, whatever that means. I said all right. That was before he said I'd have to wear pajamas in public."
"You look fine," Haioshi approved.
"I look like a yeti."
"You look scrumptious!" Harrison cheered from the viewing area.
"Class in ten minutes," Haioshi reminded them over their dirty looks at Harrison. "Tru San, please lead Kiff San in some warm-ups."
Tru took Kiff to a relatively secluded corner of the training space and began demonstrating the warm-up exercises. Kiff followed along awkwardly.
"Wow," Kiff said. "I haven't moved that joint in years. Whoa! There was a free adjustment."
"Trust me: After your first kicking class, you'll be sore in places you never knew you had."
"Lovely. This doesn't seem fair, you know: You crashed a car and got blown up in the same day and you're hopping around like Michelle Kwan on a frozen pond. My joints sound like rice crispies."
"From what I hear, you weren't all-together unscathed either."
Kiff frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Harrison told me you're allergic to smoke. It couldn't have felt good to crawl around in a burning building."
Kiff swore under her breath. She'd avoided contact with Tru until her burns healed and her hives went away for just this reason. She'd even told Harrison to make sure Tru thought some dashing firefighter had pulled her out of the building instead. Just as Kiff was resolving to someday swipe that little weasel's shoes, Tru gave her a knowing look.
"I already knew it was you. Harrison just filled in the gaps."
"Oh."
"Thank you. For saving my life."
Kiff blushed a little and tried to hide it with a shrug.
"Once in a while it's good to have me around, I suppose." Well, as long as the cat was out of the bag anyway... "Tru, can I ask you something?"
"Sure?"
Kiff paused, as though unsure whether she should even bring up the subject.
"That thing you can do? Is it normal to... I mean, do you ever hear things? Voices?"
"Voices?"
"Yeah, voices."
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"Well, I think it was a lady's voice. It was really hard to tell."
"What did it say?"
Kiff made a frustrated noise. She'd avoided the subject for this long for just this reason.
"After the bomb went off, the building was dark and so full of smoke that I couldn't see my own hands, but I found the stairs, I found the file room, and I found you. I don't think I would have if it hadn't been for... Nah, forget it."
Tru's heart leapt into her throat. It couldn't have been... Could it?
"Did she sound kind of like me? Maybe a little more soprano?"
Kiff's face dropped into the please-get-me-out-of-this-twilight-zone-marathon look that she so often wore around Tru.
"How did you know that?"
Tru opened her mouth to respond, but Haioshi called for class to begin. As they went to line up with the other students, Tru cast a look out the window. The sky was mostly overcast, but there was a break in the clouds that allowed sunlight to fall in gold beams onto the rooftops, making the snow sparkle like the sugar on gingerbread houses. Just for a moment, the big scary city seemed as inviting and protected as a living room.
Tru fixed on the light streaming through the clouds and smiled.
"Thanks, Mom."
The End
This one's for cherrygirl. Happy graduation!
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