Kylie woke with a start when she felt someone – or was she just dreaming? She just couldn't be too sure – pulling at her, shaking her, shouting at her until she finally came to, with her arms unconvincingly flailing in a pathetic attempt to defend herself. What did it matter, though? The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was the slowly dissipating mushroom cloud through the damaged windscreen, the frayed edges were much more discernible, but still, the sight of it towering menacingly over the explosion area made her wish she was dead. Her head still spun, it was like she couldn't remember a time it didn't.

There was a long string of incoherent swearwords in a tone of voice she felt she was very accustomed to, and some more tugging. She let her head loll sideways to see what was going on and saw a man – short-cropped blondish hair, face caked with grime and sweat, forehead in a frown, eyes an intense, piercing blue, brimming red with what seemed uncried tears, mouth set into a thin, determined line – trying to push back the steering wheel to free her. He gave it a couple of hard blows with one hand clenched into a fist, the other hand with the fingers splayed open across her chest to push her back into the seat. It took a good couple of blows until he was able to move it backwards and sideways a little to ease up on her chest. The he leant over her, reached around – almost crushing her in the attempt – to loosen the seatbelt, but couldn't, as the seat had twisted in the rails and was now covering the buckle entirely. He smelled of smoke and sweat, and desperation.

There were more swearwords – she almost had to laugh but then she saw him pull a knife from a pocket, the light reflecting briefly from the blade and her eyes widened in alarm. While looking at him questioningly, a quick wave of panic rushing through her, then she felt the pressure on her upper body receding. He had cut the seatbelt and was now, as carefully as possible, dragging her out through the window. Once he had her out, he sat her down with her back propped up against the driver side door of her car, kneeling in front of her to take her face into both of his hands.

Dumbfounded and way too dizzy, Kylie had trouble focusing her eyes on anything, unable to make any intelligible connections. But one thing seemed to be clear to her – the man in front of her was Hansen, damn him.

"Kylie!" He said, kneeling before her, his face hovering right in front of her but she found it hard to focus. "I need you to look at me!"

"Hmm…?" She wasn't able to think straight, less say anything coherent.

Herc shook her, not very gently. "Kylie!"

She must have blacked out again. "Kylie!" he said for a third time, and this time, she was able to look at him. He saw that her pupils were huge, and the noticeable delayed movement of her eyes told him that she had suffered head trauma, with any luck only a concussion, he hoped.

"It's me, Herc. Herc Hansen." he said hoarsely. Did she recognize him at all? He put one thumb under her chin to steady her head.

"Hansen… What do you still want from me?" She wailed. "I got you everything you wanted. You apparently got what you came for and that's that. Please just leave me alone!" She feebly tried to push away from him but his grip on her was strong.

"You're hurt, I just cannot ignore that!"

He suddenly had a tissue in his hand, and began dabbing it against her forehead. "Did you hit your head?" It was like stating the obvious, but Herc needed to know if she knew that had happened.

"Wha…?" She was becoming incoherent once more.

"Your head. You're bleeding…" Herc said, his voice husked over.

Kylie feebly lifted one hand to her head but he pushed it down.

"Sit still there for a minute, will you?" With deft moves, he wiped as much blood away as possible from the cut on her hairline, brow and her cheek while carefully holding her in place with the other hand under her chin. He didn't want her to move her head too much, judging from the type of crash, there must have been at least a little whiplash strain on her neck.

From time to time, his eyes darted up and looked into hers, frowning. Her pupils were still too big, the skin around her eyes almost translucent. She was in shock, obviously. He just hoped that the apparent concussion she had suffered wasn't that bad. He was much more worried about the blood that had crusted around the corners of her mouth and throat.

A coughing fit now shook her entire body and caused her head to spin again. She weakly lifted a hand in a feeble attempt to cover her mouth but lowered it almost immediately to look at it in disbelief when she felt a hot wet spray – blood. Herc saw it, too and knew that his worries were more than spot-on. The crash had been more than serious. She had was internal bleeding for sure, a tear in an organ or vessel, maybe even a punctured lung, and he realized that time was against them. Yet, the old military dog he was, he kept calm around her because she already was in shock and simply didn't need any more upsetting news.

Slowly, she was able to focus a little more. Her eyes steadied and she looked at him, seeing the pearls of sweat beading along his forehead, the deep frown crumpling the bridge of his nose and right above the upper lip. She watched – her sight still dragging – as he swiped his forearm across his face, repeatedly, to wipe the sweat away that must have been itching, maybe even burning in his eyes, yet she couldn't tell whether it was the sweat or the tears that made his bright blue eyes stand out so intensely. She also noted a fair amount of freckles on his dirty but otherwise pale face.

The next time their eyes met, he didn't look away, but she could tell that it made him uncomfortable, just like herself. There was this ambiguous intensity of simultaneous invasion and vulnerability in his gaze. Cocking his head sideways, he tried a little unconvinced smile. "I am sorry that I raised my voice at you over the comm." He muttered under his breath.

Kylie attempted to raise an eyebrow but failed miserably. "Oh well, and here I was thinking that you did that with all female personnel…" At least she could put some sarcasm into her voice.

Herc frowned and pulled away from her a little. There was outright concern all over his face. "No!" he exclaimed. "I don't usually do…that!" Then his face fell again. "I guess it was in the heat of the moment. I don't know…"

She studied him for a moment, he seemed genuine enough. "Why did you come back?" she asked out of the sudden. He looked at her, clearly confused.

"Why wouldn't I?" came his simple answer.

"Well…" she began but couldn't think of anything to say.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

"You helped me save my son, so the least I could do was try and find you." Herc had been kneeling before her and now changed position when he seemed content with the outcome of his ministrations. It was only then when Kylie saw the little boy standing a couple of feet away, staring at his feet, trembling in silence.

She briefly remembered what he had told her over the comm before, he had wanted to save both his son and wife. She swallowed hard. She realized – sadly though – that time had also not been on his side to accomplish the entire mission.

"That's my son, Chuck…" Herc said now, having followed her gaze. "Thank you for getting me the chopper and with it the chance to at least save him. I brought it back to Glenbrook, just so you know."

Kylie turned towards him, nodding, eyes brimming with tears. "Good for you…" she whispered but thought 'Who cares about the chopper?' to herself. She looked back at Chuck, who was now sitting on the curb, playing with his shoelaces. "Good for you…" She somehow wanted to be angry but couldn't didn't find the strength in her. "I would have loved to get my family out." She simply stated instead, shoulders slumped forward, head bent down.

Herc moved closer again, took her hand into his and squeezed it gently, while placing the other under her chin to make her look at him. She thought he might say something, but he kept quiet. His eyes, however, seemed to look deeply into her soul, making her come undone.

"I…I…" she couldn't hold back the tears anymore. "I couldn't get to them fast enough. I couldn't get my baby out…" She broke down in his arms.

He was silent for a moment and simply pulled her into an embrace, hugging her tight. "Where were they?"

Kylie breathed against his chest, trying to get a grip on herself. "Lindfield…" she said and pushed away from him, clearing her throat. "Even if I hadn't wrecked the car, I wouldn't have probably made it back out anyways."

"I am sorry…" Herc's hands fell to his side and he looked much smaller than he actually was. "There wasn't enough time…" He didn't need to go on, Kylie understood. She leaned back into his arms and they sat quietly for a moment or two. Lindfield had been in close proximity to Garigal National Park, too close for anyone to make believe that there were survivors of the nuclear blast or the radiation wave.

Looking over at Chuck, she smiled a lopsided smile. "You know…when you told me that you wanted to take the chopper and get your family out, I was so angry with you because you…you went out there to get your family and I couldn't and all I wanted was to scream at you to try and get my family out as well. I know I was wrong to wish for that, it was already way too late, but I wanted you to at least try, I wanted it so bad because I had already failed them."

Herc just held her, he didn't know what else to do.

"I know that it would have killed all of you, I know that!" She continued as she sobbed against his shoulder. "I just…I wanted someone to help them, too. I wanted…because I couldn't…" That was the moment she broke down completely. He pressed her against his chest, feeling how hard her heart beat, how the sobbing shook her body, how her tears wet his shirt. He felt so sorry for her, even more than he felt sorry for himself, but he didn't know how to put it into words. He wanted her to know that none of this was her fault, but he didn't' know how. He decided it was better not to speak at all.

They just sat there, for what felt like an eternity, even though Herc knew very well that time was critical here. Kylie had suffered injuries that needed treatment, urgent treatment if his initial diagnosis was right.

"Can we go home now?" Chuck's small whiny voice pulled them out of their reverie and Herc got to his feet a little too quick, clearing his throat.

"We will need to find someplace else to sleep for now, little man." Herc said with an unusually comforting voice as he stood up. The kid must have gone through the first circle of hell before his father had come and rescued him from the school. How did he get him out, anyway? Schools had quite an extensive security protocol, especially when there were catastrophes about to happen.

Kylie struggled to get to her feet as well. There was more pain in her body now, a lot more pain, but her head was clearer. She guessed that the shock was still having a strong hold of her but at least she was able to form coherent phrases when she now asked: "Tell me one thing at least…is the Kaiju dead?" She felt ridiculous just for asking, as it mattered next to none to her.

"Yeah, they got the bastard." Herc was brief in his answer. Kylie saw his face tighten up.

It was only then Kylie saw the extent of damage the impact had inflicted on her faithful Holden Commodore. Every fiber in her body screamed that she could have easily been killed. The tree was incrusted way past the engine block – how, she didn't know – and parts of the radiator, the battery and a lot of wiring and tubing were scattered all around. The front tires had folded inwards and it looked like the back of her car had slightly bent up, giving the car the shape of a somewhat mashed banana.

There was a lot of liquid pooling around the tires underneath the car, some it oil, some coolant and some gasoline. Those at least she was able to distinguish by their liquescence, color and smell. She faintly remembered having seen smoke when she first had come to. Now, cars usually don't go up in flames so easily, that just happened in movies, but usually the engine was hot at impact and there were a number of highly flammable fluids that could easily ignite. She was lucky, she guessed. Cars traveling at a high velocity slamming into hard and motionless objects weren't really designed to prevent such violent ends. While engine ejections and explosions weren't necessarily the norm, they weren't as rare as most would guess.

"Thanks to the modern car industry for crumple zones, eh?" she tried to joke but the look that Herc shot her indicated that he wasn't finding any of this funny.

"Yeah, you can be happy that it was a square frontal impact and not off-set and that the airbag deployed." He took Chuck by the hand, the boy let himself be dragged forward and fell into movement next to his father. Kylie moved along, too.

Once Herc had made sure of her being ok to walk – even though he was sure that she had suffered some serious injuries in the crash, just by judging the state of the car – he turned the radio back on. He had disconnected it when he had found Kylie. There were constant emergency messages, advising people what to do and where to go. Herc lead them towards Kingsgrove, which apparently was the Rescue Shelter closest to them – at least that was what he said.

Kylie swayed as she walked, her sense of balance was off. In fight-or-flight mode, the adrenaline released into her system would create some pretty awesome short term side effects like oxygenating muscles to make them work longer without fatigue but that had worn off quite a while ago. She was exhausted and from time to time, she felt that she would even faint. Luckily for her, she knew that this was not going to happen until her body felt she was out of danger entirely.

However, it was quite a long walk and Katie grew tired quickly. She lagged behind and Herc had to help her push through several times and finally ended up almost dragging her along, one arm around her waist. With the other, he was holding on to Chuck, as if his life depended on it.

In her blurry state of mind, Kylie noticed that the sullen boy never asked for his mother and it seemed weird to her that he wouldn't. Now, she didn't know how much information Herc had shared with his son but she felt that the young boy knew more than he showed. She felt quite a lot of hostility emanating from him, but couldn't quite place it, believing it was due to the shock and all. All of this was difficult for her as an adult – knowing fair well what had gone down and what the consequences were - and she could only begin to imagine how it must have been like for a little boy who, most likely, had no idea what all of this really meant.

Lost in thought and pain, constantly steadied by Herc with a secure arm around her, they finally arrived in Kingsgrove.