3 reviews! Thanks much! And I never give up on my stories, never! They might sit there for several years though, and occasionally I'll combine them with other stories, so they live on in some form, but I never give up on them! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA! (okay, you can say it, I'm crazy). Sorry that it took so long for me to update.
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Kim sat by Megan's bed, not really focused on anything. She continued to hold her friends hand, as she had done from the minute that she'd been allowed to see her partner. It was limp and cold, lifeless almost. She listened to the steady hum of the machines that monitored her vitals, the staccato whisk of the machine that was helping her breathe. She was supposed to be resting in her own bed, but she insisted on sitting with her friend, and the nurses had wisely not pushed the subject.
She jumped a little when a hand was placed on her shoulder, and she looked up to find Quatre standing over her.
"Have the doctors been in here yet?" He asked. Kim nodded.
"They don't expect her to wake up, and then they gave me the 'we must always have hope' speech." She said dryly.
"You should." Kim laughed bitterly, and the first signs of tears appeared in her eyes.
"Hope? Hope for what? That she'll wake up? That she can hear me? That one of these days I'll stop losing the people I care about?"
"For anything. Without hope, people can't survive. Heero told me that once." Kim shut her eyes tight as the tears started to roll down her face, and spoke through clenched teeth.
"How the hell are you supposed to keep going when everything you have keeps getting ripped away from you?"
"One day at a time. If you want, you can take this upcoming week off."
"I won't be able to finish the training if I do that."
"We'll hold a spot for you for the next round of Special Ops training." He left as she continued to cry silently, and eventually she put her head down on the hospital bed and fell asleep.
888
It had been raining for three days straight, and was expected to go for at least another two. The weather people said that they had no idea why it was raining so much, that it couldn't be explained. But fifteen year old Kim knew that it was raining for two reasons: Relena Dorlain had become Romefellor's chief Representative; and her older brother had just been killed in a shootout with a drug lord that didn't want to go to jail. Which was where he was right now, though that was small comfort to the girl who had just lost her much loved older brother.
She stood in the rain, hands in her jean pockets and thoroughly soaked to the bone. She wasn't crying herself, she was letting the rain do it for her this time. She'd already cried enough tears to last a lifetime when her mother had been killed by a drunk driver two years ago. She just didn't have the energy.
She blinked in surprise when the rain was shielded from her, and lifted her head to see Megan standing there, holding an umbrella over her head.
"Figured you'd be here."
"Whatever." Megan tugged on her arm.
"C'mon, we've got that competition this weekend. You don't want to miss it cause you caught a cold." A silent, subtle reminder from her best friend that life goes on. Against protests from her aching heart Kim let Megan pull her out of the rain.
888
It was Friday night, the end of their sixth week of Special Ops training and Kim and Megan were looking forward to nothing more than dinner at Joe's Diner and then sleeping for the next month. Which, unfortunately, would only last until Monday when they had to get up early again to start their seventh week.
They pushed the door open to the Diner, talking and laughing with each other and saying hello to the waitresses. They sat at the bar as usual, and Molly came over to take their order.
"Hey you two, what'll it be? The usual?" She asked. Both of them nodded, and Molly wrote on her pad 'the usual for the crazies', making both girls laugh.
"How's the baby Mol? Crawling around yet?" Megan asked as Molly placed their sodas in front of them.
"Just started. She is moving around so much that I don't need to go to the gym for a workout."
"My mom used to say that if you really wanted to stay in shape all you had to do was play with kids. Where they get all that energy is beyond me." Kim said.
"Well, where do you two get all your energy? You must have oodles of it to have made it this far."
"Simple. We never grew up."
"That I believe."
"Hey, can we get some service over here?" A loud voice demanded. Kim and Megan turned around to see a group of teenagers sitting in a booth and being loud and, well, young. Molly blew out an exasperated sigh.
"Yeah yeah, hold you horses." She walked over to take their orders, and Megan turned to Kim.
"Ah, to be young again." She said.
"I thought you said that we never grew up."
"Never growing up and being young are two different things."
"To true." Molly came back with the kids orders and placed the paper on the little hook, then turned to them.
"Can you two go look in the booth next to the kids?" She asked quietly. Both girls were surprised to hear the seriousness in her voice.
"What's up Molly?" Megan asked.
"Please, just go look." Kim and Megan looked at each other and shrugged, then got off their stools and looked in the booth.
Kim stared at the package that had been left by the kid who had sat in this booth, who was no older than 18, if that. Wrapped in plain brown paper, taped on the sides like a birthday present, with the words 'this is a bomb' written in black sharpie pen. She felt Megan go still as she also read those words, and their eyes met. Hers were steady, strong, what she had come to count on over the years. But there was also fear. This was something that they had been training for, the special handling of terrorist cases. But they weren't finished with their training, they were only halfway through their Explosives and Disarmaments class, could they do this? If they didn't, people would die. There was a family in the corner, a mom and dad and three kids on their way to grandmothers house for a visit; the group of teenagers grabbing a cheap dinner before heading to a movie, they'd been laughing loudly and enjoying their youth; and Molly had a new baby waiting at home.
All of this Kim could see running through Megan's eyes, and she knew that the same emotions were running through hers. But there was only one thing to do, and Kim wasn't going to let Megan protect her this time. She would do this.
Slowly, still looking straight into Megan's eyes, she pulled out her phone and flipped it open, hitting the speed dial number that would connect her with their instructors. She spoke to her friend while she waited for one of them to pick up.
"Megs, get the people out of here."
"I'm not leaving you!" She hissed in return
"Dammit, get them out!" Kim hissed back. Megan was taken by surprise by the tone of her friend's voice, having heard it only a few times before when Kim was interrogating someone. It was a voice that held no room for argument. Instructor Maxwell picked up the phone, and she immediately began to fill him in on what was happening while Megan moved the people out of the diner.
Sweat poured down her forehead………
"Can't freak now…can't freak now…These minutes right now are the longest I have ever spent in my entire life…"
"You're doing fine Kim, just go slow and describe to me what you see. I'll walk you through it."
Kim wiped the sweat from her forehead with her shirt sleeve. She listened to the calming voice of instructor Maxwell telling her how to dismantle the bomb. The timer was at 1:37, and he wouldn't be there for five minutes at least. That left a rushed phone class. She could hear the sirens outside, and the confusion that came with this sort of attack, but she did her best to blot out everything except for Instructor Maxwell's voice. Outside, Megan strained against the arms holding her back.
"You can't go in! It's too dangerous!" Molly shouted as she and a local police officer tried to hold her back.
"My best friend is in there! I'm not leaving her alone!" She broke free of their hold and raced inside, standing behind her friend, barely breathing for fear of breaking the spell that she seemed to be in. She breathed a sigh of relief as the timer on the bomb stopped, and Megan put a hand on her shoulder. And then she didn't know what happened. All she knew was that Megan was covering her, and time seemed to freeze.
"You have to let go of this moment sis." Megan said as she stood up fully. Kim balled her hands into fists.
"You're the one constant in my life, I don't want to lose you." Megan placed both hands on her shoulders and looked her square in the eyes.
"You're not going to lose me, I'll always be there with you, just like your family is always with you. But you have to move on with your life, and you can't do that if you hold on to me. Let me go. For your own sake." She took her hands off of Kim's shoulders and began to walk away. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. "Oh, and if you think that you're going to cop out of training because I'm not there anymore then forget it. Cause if you do that I'll come back and kick your ass." She and the memory then disappeared, and Kim awoke to hear the heart monitor flatlining. Doctors and nurses began to rush in, and begin resuscitation, but Kim stopped them.
"Don't." She said. "Let her be."
"But there's still a chance that she'll wake up!" One of the doctors protested.
"No. There isn't."
"But…"
"She isn't going to wake up dammit, so just let her die!"
8
That following Monday all five of the instructors walked into the Gym for their weekly group training and were surprised to see Kim Cattrall waiting with all the others. They didn't say anything then, but near the end of the session Quatre pulled her aside.
"I thought that I gave you the week off." He said sternly but gently.
"You did sir."
"Then why are you here? None of us would have blamed you if you had taken the time."
"If I had quit now then I would likely never come back. I have been known to be thorough, slow, and a pain in the ass; but never a quitter. I started this, I enjoy it, and I'm going to finish it." Quatre looked her straight in the eye, and she stood her ground. He saw someone who had lost plenty in her life, and needed something to hang onto. The previous thing that she had, her partner, was gone, and all she had left was this. He knew that what she had said was true, that if she left now she wouldn't come back. And she wasn't just talking about the Special Ops training, she meant the Preventers in general. After about a minute, he nodded.
"We're not going to go easy on you because of what happened." A mischievous smile ghosted Kim's lips, letting him know that the old Kim was still in there.
"When have you ever?"
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WHOO-HOO! FINISHED! She might show up in other stories, but that is it for this one! Thank you to all who have read, I do appreciate it, and I would like to know your opinions on this last chapter. It didn't turn out quite like I had wanted, but I figured that it had been long enough since I updated and you all deserved one. Don't worry, I am still working on my other stories, they're just at a lull. Thanks much again!