The rain woke her up. It was dark now, and she sat up in panic, not knowing where she was, until the sharp pain in her arm brought it all back. She tried to rotate it to get a better look, but excruciating daggers suddenly shot through it, and she barely suppressed a shriek of agony. Jarred loose in the fall, the ball had slipped out of the socket when she moved. It hung unnaturally limp and overextended, begging to be reset. Gritting her teeth, whimpering all the way, she tried by degrees to force it back into place. Suddenly, as easily as it had dislocated, everything fell back into alignment. The pain vanished as if it had never been, aside from the raw scrapes and deep-set bruising.

Looking around in the darkness, she caught sight of Rebelage. The chestnut horse's head was lowered in distress, and he held his right foreleg limply off the ground. Though the skin around it remained intact, the bone was clearly broken. Alabaster had long since disappeared from sight; she could only hope he found his way back to the stable and not injured himself running loose. And Tommy…

Unable to see him from her present position, she unsteadily pushed herself to her feet only to discover that this action sent such a roaring past her ears that her vision dimmed and she nearly fainted again. Guess I won't be trying that again, she thought ruefully, choosing instead to crawl on hands and knees through the mud and wet grass towards Reb, trusting that he had not moved far from where he and his rider had fallen.

With more than a little trepidation, she strained her eyes until she spotted his red shirt. "Tommy?" she called softly, without really expecting a response. She got none. Afraid of what she might find, she approached cautiously, until she came within full view of him, and then she gasped.

His handsome face was a mass of cuts and scrapes. The grass around his side was stained red, and his left leg was crumpled beneath him. She wondered how he could possibly be all right, and a terrifying thought was pushing at the corners of her mind. She couldn't quite form the words to define it, but it kept her frozen in place, afraid to come any closer. Suddenly disgusted with herself, she forced herself to go to his side. Still wincing, she knelt down…there! A faint but audible breath. He was alive. Still, seeing him lying there, so vulnerable and broken, she couldn't help the tears welling up and spilling down her cheeks, mixing with the rain until she couldn't tell the difference.

Kim whispered his name, then repeated it with more volume, trying to shake him awake without causing anymore damage. Her efforts for a moment seemed fruitless, but then his eyes opened. "Kim?" He tried to sit up, but grabbed his side and fell back.

"Don't move," she warned.

"Figured that much out," he said, making an effort to joke but too weak to even smile. His eyes closed for a moment, opening again immediately, focusing on the cut on her face. "Are you hurt?"

She fought hard not to laugh at the idea of comparing her injuries to his; she was sure being at the edge of hysteria made the question sound more absurdly humorous than it was. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on his next thought. "Where's Reb?" he finally asked.

Kim bit her lip, keeping herself as a shield between his line of sight and the horse. "Injured leg. Not as bad as you, though," she lied. "At least he's standing." She was glad he didn't ask her to elaborate further. In fact, oddly enough, the statement seemed to wash over him with scarcely any effect at all.

"Sorry," he mumbled, beginning to shut his eyes again. "Should've listened to you." Alarmed, she shook him again, but with that he was once more unconscious. Swallowing hard to quell her panic, Kim finally remembered her cell phone. Tommy usually neglected to bring his, but she always had it clipped to her belt…her hand shot to her waist, knowing as she did that it wouldn't be there. She hoped it had at least fallen off somewhere near the bottom of the hill, not in the water.

A few minutes of groping blindly in the dark, however, proved in vain. Her eyes had adjusted somewhat, but the lightning seemed to have passed on and the forest afforded very little moonlight to see by, even if the rain had not been falling so thickly. A shuddering sound diverted her attention; looking back, she saw that he, though still unconscious, had begun to shake.

A moment later she had decided to take action. Relieving the injured Reb of his heavy saddle, she brought the saddle pad, dry on one side and still warm from the animal's body, over to Tommy. Tucking it over his chest, getting what little of herself she could underneath it as well, she curled up against him. Shivering along with him, Kim kept one leg draped protectively across his, the rest of her body pressed lengthwise against him. Praying for strength and rescue, suddenly exhausted, she fell asleep waiting for the sun's return.

---------------------------------

When Kim awoke the next morning, the sun was shining with deceptive, almost cruel brightness. The cut on her head was throbbing intensely and every muscle felt sore, giving her no chance at all to hope that last night had been a mere dream. Tommy was still unconscious, or perhaps only asleep, but at least he was breathing evenly and no longer shaking. His wounds looked worse in the daylight, however, reminding her again about her need to find the phone.

A small grunt from behind made her turn, where she winced at Rebelage's condition. His leg was more inflamed than before, only the tip of his hoof balanced against the ground, no weight on it at all. He apparently had not moved all night. She reached out to him, when suddenly his ears pricked up and swiveled backward.

Kim looked cautiously around, but though she neither saw nor heard what had caught his attention, she did recognize a bit of silver. The phone was in plain view, not fifteen feet from where she had been last night! As Reb let out a loud neigh, she stood eagerly and tried to take a step forward to reach it. With the movement, however, her vision swam and she collapsed. Kim felt herself checking out to the sound of the horse's shrill whinnies and – was she imagining it? – echoing voices.

---------------------------------

Later, she wasn't sure when, she felt herself being lifted off the ground. Dazed, she blinked and looked into the face of a concerned rescue worker. The man was asking her something, but she wasn't sure what he wanted. The effort of pulling her head up had exhausted her, and Kim let her head drop without answering the question. Only bits and snatches of words above her were able to cut through the curious fuzziness that had become of her hearing.

"Hear me…lie still…hospital…be okay?"

Kim managed to nod her head faintly. She wanted to know where Tommy was, and if they'd found Alabaster, and who was helping Rebelage. Yet speaking seemed an impossible feat. Wiley's stare flashed in front of her.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, Wiley," she mumbled. She was drifting away again, only faintly feeling the jab of pain in her arm as she was lifted onto a stretcher, certainly not detecting the barely visible shadow that passed over the scene, sailing high in the sky, away and out of sight.

2/23 Notes: OK, off for spring break. May or may not update next week; depends on if I can wrestle computer time from my brother.