Rock Bottom

Mai was gradually becoming aware of a soft tapping noise. She opened her eyes, only to shut them again quickly against the harsh glare of the neon light above her.

Oh, right, she thought, remembering what had happened, the lift.

Without opening her eyes she did a mental appraisal of her situation. Her arm was still throbbing, although the pain had died down again – clearly the shock of seeing her injury had caused her to pass out. Or maybe she just hadn't realised just how much pain she was in until her eyes had shown her. Weird the way the mind works, she thought. She tried to move her arm but it seemed to be trapped. She was lying on the hard marble-effect floor of the lift but her head appeared to be cushioned by something. The worst thing of course was the fact that she strongly suspected that she was still trapped in a small space with an obnoxious jerk.

She opened her eyes again, slower this time. Above her, the ceiling of the lift was a mass of twisted metal and shattered panels. A long black gash ran the width of the roof where the cable had sliced across it and Mai shuddered involuntarily at the thought that she had been inches from its path. If Kaiba hadn't persuaded her to move…

Tilting her head to one side she caught sight of Kaiba. He was still working on the collection of wires which he had piled on his lap. He was using a thin sliver of metal to cut and trim the wires, creating new pathways by twisting them together with his slim fingers. He was completely absorbed and Mai wondered that he had even so much as glanced at her as she fell, it was clear that his priorities lay with the technology in his life more than the people. She looked at him, scowling. Something about him looked different and she couldn't quite make out what. His face was still set and determined, his blue eyes glittering as he tried to solve the problem at hand. The cut above his eye had stopped bleeding and was now covered by his hair. His stance, even involved in a task like this, appeared arrogant to Mai's eyes. His dark clothes hugged his slender frame and Mai could see his arm muscles twitching through his high-necked top. The shape of his legs were clear and defined through his tight trousers which seemed to cling to every curve from his calf muscles right up to his tight – Mai blushed involuntarily, averting her eyes back to the harsh neon light above her. Then she had a thought and she looked back over at him.

'Get too hot in here for you?' she asked. Mai was satisfied to see him jump slightly at her words but he didn't look around.

'What?' he asked, getting straight back to his work.

'I asked if you were too hot. I don't think I've ever seen you without that long white coat of yours.'

'Huh,' was Seto's curt reply.

'So, what'ya do with it anyway?' Mai persisted 'Don't tell me you've melted down all those rivets and are using them in some complex technological –'

Seto finally turned on her. 'Not that I would expect anything else from you, but just a tiny bit of gratitude wouldn't go amiss,' he snapped.

Mai was startled, okay so she was teasing him about the coat but she didn't think it was that serious, and what was all this about gratitude? Does he want me to thank him for tapping away at some console whilst I'm flat out on the floor probably bleeding to death!?

'What did I say?' she finally asked defensively.

Seto continued to look down at her, anger and irritation in his eyes. It faded slightly as he realised that Mai really hadn't meant to offend him.

'My coat,' he said and, by way of explanation, he gestured towards her.

Mai looked down to see that her arm had been bandaged up in strips of long white material. She sat up, astonished by the realisation. Looking behind her, she saw that her head had been resting on a mound of white material, with rivets in.

'But you – you love that coat! At least, that is to say, you're always wearing it,' Mai said, startled. She looked over at him but he had already gone back to his tapping.

'I'm quite fond of it, yes,' Seto conceded, 'but your need seemed greater and anyway, when I broke your fall I got your blood all over me. And I don't care what those adverts say, blood is a bastard to get out of a white coat.' He paused then turned to Mai with a small smile on his lips.

Mai was so shocked that she could only gape at him. She looked down at her bandaged arm again. No wonder she couldn't move it, it was strapped up really tightly; it looked professional.

'But I thought you – ' she began, but trailed off, embarrassed by her own unkind thoughts.

'What? You thought I would let you fall and bleed to death in my own lift?' he shook his head softly. 'Nice impression you have of me.' He turned back to his work.

Mai scowled to herself. She felt stupid, mean and, most of all, helpless in this situation. Kaiba made her feel small and weak and, even though she realised she was seeing a new and surprising side to him, she resented him all the same.

She winced as she slowly got herself to her feet, putting a hand to her head to stave off a sudden rush of dizziness. She noticed that the floor beneath her had been cleared so that she hadn't been lying on broken glass and splinters of wood. She looked at the coat that had been used as a pillow and noted the fact that, whilst the underside was still wet with blood, it had been positioned so that her head had been resting on the soft silk lining. She frowned as she realised that she had even more reason to be grateful to the conceited jerk. She looked across at him. He was trimming a wire with a small makeshift tool whilst the rest of the wires were cradled on his lap; his blue eyes focused and his brow furrowed in concentration.

Mai desperately wanted to know what he was up to but didn't want to ask unless she was told to be quiet again, or that she wouldn't understand or something equally condescending.

Mai was used to people assuming she was stupid; it had been something that she'd been dealing with since school. There was something about the sight of a big-chested blond woman in skimpy clothes that led people to jump to immediate conclusions. Mai was anything but stupid. Though she had left school as soon as she was able, she had always worked, easily getting jobs working in bars and casinos where she charmed and conned the customers in equal measures. She took pride in learning everything she needed to know in any given situation. Once she had recognised that Duel Monsters was taking off and there was money to be made from it, she immediately taught herself how to play, beating numerous opponents to become a top ranking tournament regular in record time.

But that had been then. These days it was all very different.

Mai looked again at her reflection in the mirror. Blood had matted the tips of her hair on one side. She sighed. Sod's law that the one-time she'd agreed to actually socialise with anyone, this is what would happen. She used her free hand to try and untangle her hair with her fingers but after a minute of this she stopped again. Her hair looked little better but now her hand was red. She focused instead on her makeshift sling, noting how the material had been so evenly cut and then folded neatly to avoid any loose strands poking out at the sides.

'How long was I out for?' Mai asked.

The tapping paused for a moment but then continued. 'About ten minutes, give or take,' he said curtly.

Mai looked at her reflection in the broken mirror, studying the bandaging. 'Ten minutes?' she said dubiously.

'Give or take,' Seto repeated. He looked at her, 'you seem surprised.' He raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

'No, well, yes I suppose so,' she looked again at her arm. 'It's just that this –' she indicated her bandages with her good hand, 'this looks like it must have taken a while and that's after ripping up your coat to make the bandages in the first place and then you cleared the floor, and made a pillow, all in ten minutes?' she looked at him sceptically.

Seto sighed and turned his full attention on her. 'No,' he said slowly, 'I cleared the floor, cut up my coat, made bandages and then patched you up in about five minutes and I've been using the rest of the time to try and find a way to communicate with the outside world, find out what's going on and to try and get help.' He gave her a condescending look. 'Okay?'

Mai looked hard at him for a few moments. 'I've told you you're a jerk, right?' she finally said.

Seto smiled coldly and turned away.

He was aware of Mai's eyes boring into the back of his head but chose to ignore her. Establishing a means of communication was proving to be more difficult than he had expected and he was beginning to realise that the communications wiring that he had assumed would connect the lift to the outside world simply wasn't here. It made no sense to him that there wouldn't be a way to speak to someone in such a situation as this. Hell, even if there hadn't been an explosion, even if something simple had happened, like the lift getting stuck between floors, he would expect to be able to tell someone about it. That was basic stuff wasn't it? But no matter which wires he connected, he wasn't getting anywhere. Whilst he was careful to appear cool and aloof now Mai was awake, in truth he was starting to get desperate. He had to get in touch with someone. He had to know people were okay. If anything had happened to Mokuba…

He came up against another dead end and squeezed his eyes shut in his frustration. His hands hovered over the wires and he drew a long breath before reopening his eyes and thinking through the problem once again. He regretted having told Mai what he was trying to do now. If he'd kept it quiet he might have been able to give up without losing face, telling her that he'd accomplished what he had wanted to do. Now though… He looked hard at the mass of wires, I must have missed something, he thought but if he had he couldn't see what. He became aware of Mai, now pacing the small room behind him.

He had always quite liked Mai before now. Well, comparatively speaking. Of Yugi's entire band of irritating friends, Mai had always seemed to be the most level headed of them. She had never tried to lecture him about how he should be Yugi's 'friend', or that he should learn to work as a team or anything. In fact, she generally left him alone. He also liked the way she was genuinely good at Duel Monsters, unlike the rest of the cheerleading squad who barely knew how to hold a card between them. When she had fainted Seto had instinctively rushed to catch her. He hadn't been lying when he had told her that he had found himself covered in her blood. She had been bleeding profusely and he had been amazed that the wound had gone unnoticed as long as it had. He put it down to adrenaline but, even so, he knew that most people would have suffered the effects of such a wound long before it had seriously affected Mai.

Holding her with one arm Seto had swept the glass and wood splinters out from beneath her and had laid her gently down on the floor. He had used a piece of the glass to tear his coat and had set about bandaging her up. Only once he had finished the dressing did he stop to really look at her. Her face had still been pale but her features had softened until she looked like she was simply sleeping. He had brushed her hair away from her face and, for just a moment, had sat back on his haunches studying her. She was pretty, there was no denying it. Seto realised that he had never really looked at her properly before. Sure he had seen her lots of times but the way she dressed and acted, whilst on the surface designed to draw attention to her looks, actually meant that Seto had never really looked beyond the superficial.

Then he'd felt awkward about the fact that he was staring at an unconscious woman and had determined that, now she was safe, he could get back to the job of trying to reach Mokuba. It had been an after-thought that had led Seto to gently lift Mai's head and place the remains of his beloved coat beneath it. It was, he had decided to tell himself, as sensible a place as any to put his now ruined coat, and he studiously ignored the aroma of jasmine that emanated from her mass of golden hair as it fell onto his makeshift pillow.

Now she was awake again, Mai was proving to be just as much of a distraction, but less pleasantly so. He heard her stop her pacing and tensed himself for another of her attempts at conversation.

'Kaiba?'

Seto chose to ignore her, thinking that she had definitely been better company unconscious.

'Kaiba?' her voice was more insistent this time.

'What?' he snapped, wondering why she kept insisting on trying to talk to him.

'Well, I was just thinking –' she started.

Seto clicked his tongue irritably.

Hearing the tongue click, Mai lost her patience. 'Uhh!' she exclaimed, disgusted, 'God you're just – uhh!' she stamped her foot and turned away towards the mirror muttering audibly, 'jerk, jerk, jerk!'

Rolling his eyes, Seto tried to regain his concentration but found it shattered by the sound of wood splintering. He turned around, glaring. What now?

Mai stood at the back of the lift where the remains of walnut panel had been. She had taken a twisted piece of metal and had used it to rip away the last pieces of the panel and now stood with a shower of splintered wood around her feet. She gave Seto a fierce look.

'I just wanted to say' she said in voice so sharp Seto actually flinched slightly, 'that I thought I saw a metal speaker behind this panel and that maybe, if you're looking for a way to contact someone who might be able to help us, this could be the set of wires and cables you're looking for as I'm guessing that this is what remains of the intercom.'

She used the metal bar to point to a rectangle of golden metal that dangled loosely against the wall where the walnut panel had once been. It had a hexagon of small holes and another hole where a button should have been.

Seto stared at her. Mai stood before him in a stance and expression that looked for all the world like she would happily come at him with the metal pole should he choose to say the wrong thing. Even her bandaged arm didn't distract from her look of absolute ferocity.

Seto worked at keeping his face neutral in spite of the range of emotions he was feeling. First, he was naturally a little alarmed at being in a confined space with this violent looking woman. Second, he was pleased to see that she had solved his communications problem, although this led onto his third emotion, which was annoyance that she had found the solution and not him. The final emotion Seto felt was the most startling and unexpected. Looking at Mai, her face red with anger her expression one of hatred, he caught himself actually… admiring her.

'Yes,' he said after a moment, 'this does look promising.'

Giving Mai the thinnest of smiles he pushed past her, disturbingly aware of the heat coming from her body, the rise and fall of her chest as she worked to regain her composure and that faint smell of jasmine again.

Seto took hold of the small speaker and turned it in his hands. The back has shattered but Seto grasped one of the wires that hung from it. Following it down he grunted in satisfaction and pulled up exactly what he had been looking for: a small intercom button. He slotted it back into the hole on the speaker panel and pressed it. Nothing happened. He knelt down in front of it and started pulling at the wires that hung loosely from the wall around it. It was bit of a mess but Kaiba considered that it shouldn't be too much of a job to get something fixed up to it.

'Mai, fetch me my tool,' Kaiba commanded kneeling down by the contraption and already intently sorting through the wires. He heard silence behind him and turned his head, wondering why Mai wasn't doing as he had asked.

She looked at him, stony faced, her good hand on her hip. She raised an eyebrow pointedly.

What? Seto thought, what does she want now? He looked at her as she began to tap her foot. Does she want me to… oh for heaven's sake!

'Please,' he added, and scowled to himself as she gave him a cheerless smile and walked across to get his thin metal tool.

Returning to him a moment later, Mai smiled sweetly as she held the metal piece out to him. He reached for it but found it snatched out of his grasp at the last moment. Mai raised her eyebrow again, clearly enjoying herself.

Seto gave her his hardest look. 'Thank you,' he said through gritted teeth and Mai handed over his property with a smirk and turned away, propping herself up against the opposite wall and staring at him.

A cold silence fell on the room again as Kaiba began work once more.