"No!" Yelled Fabian when they heard the outside locks clunk into place.
And then there was silence. The room was dim, but certainly not dark. Nina and Fabian looked at each other in explicit horror.
After a beat, they both said at the exact same time; "This is all my fault."
Nina's serious face broke when she snickered at this.
Fabian felt terrible though. He had led Nina right back into a trap! And they could be stuck for hours, days even! Rufus may have locked them in there for good, and may never come back!
He began pacing around and starting talking of escape routes. After finding that there were no easy ways, he started thinking of building something out of the materials available. Unfortunately, the wood was all moldy and most of it broke when any weight was put on it. Most of the pipes were connected to the ground, rooted and concrete and therefore unusable. He even checked the tiny bathroom connected to the warehouse but nothing was movable.
Nina explained her old escape route, which Fabian thought was very ingenious, but there was no way they could reach the hatch now.
As Fabian rapidly moved around the warehouse considering escape methods, Nina decided to sit on the ground and to rest. To Nina, things could be way worse. Compared to the past few days, she wasn't in that bad of a situation. She felt a bit guilty that she was happy that Fabian was with her.
Finally Fabian, at an utter loss, came quietly back to where Nina was, and sat down next to her. She patted him on the back,
"We'll think of something," she said trying to be positive.
"I feel so bad," was all he could mutter, looking down at the floor tracing dust patterns with his finger.
"It really isn't your fault. Let's not play the blame game," she said trying to stay strong. Fabian was a pretty brave guy, but this whole kidnapping thing was new to him and he certainly looked miserable.
She didn't know how long they sat in silence at the center of the warehouse, but after a while, they both nodded off to sleep. When Nina awoke, she was curled up next to Fabian, her head on his chest. He had an arm around her as he slept.
Nina quietly sat, comforted that he was there with her. He watched his face and could tell his was in a deep sleep. When she looked at him, she saw all the wonderful things in him that made him her best friend- all that made him Fabian. She saw in him a true friend- someone who wanted to protect and help her always. Hadn't he already proven that by finding her when no one else could? He was her conscience and was always giving her a smile. Tugging at the back of her mind was a sense of guilt that she had gotten someone as good as Fabian into this situation.
The feeling was shoved aside when her stomach growled. She slowly got up, and got some water from the sink in the bathroom, but it didn't help. So instead, she decided to keep busy to keep her mind off of everything else.
She worked on the problem at hand. She collected all the available pipes and lined them up in a corner. There weren't many. She studied the materials carefully like a math problem. She tinkered here and there trying different strategies as Fabian slept.
She would give up, but then have another idea and come straight back to looking for a solution. The day continued like this. She realized Fabian wasn't kidding earlier; he must not have gotten any sleep because he was obviously dead tired.
Nina was getting uncharacteristically frustrated as she ran out of ideas. She spent the better half of the afternoon constructing a series of pyramids out of wood with the pipes stacked, log cabin style on top. The object was to grab a large pipe angled out from the ceiling and somehow use that to reach the hatch.
She carefully climbed up and began reaching for the pipe. But she heard splintering of wood and felt the poles tumble beneath her feet. She and her creation flew to the floor with a crash.
Fabian woke up to that and immediately jumped to his feet.
"Nina!" he yelled, "are you ok?"
Through the haze of dust, he found her sitting at the center of poles and broken wood crying, her back to the wall.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
She just shook her head, a few tears coming out of her eyes. Fabian sat next to her and lightly dusted off her shoulders and boldly moved the hair out of her face as she shuttered uncontrollably.
Fabian was almost relieved to see her cry. She had taken the getting trapped in a warehouse all so nonchalantly before, and he had felt like a complete wimp. Now he could see this was hard on her too. He desperately wanted to make her feel better.
He remembered that girls liked to talk about their feelings so all he could think to say was, "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head but a minute later she said, with her voice cracking, "I'm just so frustrated. I don't want to think about any of this anymore."
"Then what should we think about?" Fabian asked.
"I guess we can start by talking about something," she suggested.
"About what?" he prompted.
"You," she decided after a moment. She wanted to know more about her darling friend who saved her from the terrible shed.
"Ok," he said waiting.
"So what are your likes, dislikes, and give a brief summary of your life," Fabian laughed and then started to talk about the books he liked and then how he played guitar. He spoke of science class and history class and his hate for chocolate with almonds in it.
"Yah, but what about your high school life?" Nina asked when she found that he was only giving generic explanations.
"What do you mean?"
"Like the people in it; your best friends, your girlfriends, your family," she explained.
"Ok, I'm an only child and my parent are awesome," he said ticking off a finger.
"Best friends? That's difficult, Mick probably," he hesitated as he ticked off another finger. He had always been a bit of a loner in the House. Everyone always had their best friend, and he was always the odd one out… that is, until Nina came. Before her, he and Mick had been roommates, but Mick left midway through the year and only recently came back. Mick was his best mate, but he was always focusing too much on girls.
He knew the answer to the next question, but honestly didn't want to own up to it.
"Girlfriends?" Nina prompted.
"How about you?" he countered instead of responding. Realizing right after he said it, that the question could be taken as 'did you have any boy friends?'
"No boyfriends," she replied honestly.
Suddenly Fabian seemed to realize how close they were.
Fabian pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ears, and looked deeply into her eyes. For the first time he realized how beautiful eyes could be. He had always thought that commenting on eyes was just a front for romance. But maybe, he thought, you had to be in love to discover the real beauty of eyes.
And with this, Fabian realized that he did love Nina Martin and he wanted her very much.
His lips met hers for the second time in two days. But this time, instead being a kiss of relieved joy, this was composed of many emotions. Desperation with a hint of longing characterized this kiss. She responded with equal passion as she ran her fingers through his short hair and rested one on the back of his neck and the other on the side of his face.
He slid an arm around her waist as and put the other hand up against the wall behind Nina to support himself as he leaned in to her.
Faintly, Fabian could hear an engine running but was too distracted to care what it was.
Nina pushed him away and said in a whisper, but breathing loudly, "Fabian. What is that noise?"
They both got up and crept towards the door. And sure enough, the door swung open.
Nina and Fabian froze as Rufus strolled in.
"Why" he began dangerously, "does the necklace not work?" He whipped the necklace out of his pocket, walked over, and shoved it directly in front of Nina's face.
"Uhh…" began Nina.
"I broke it," blurted Fabian. He didn't want Rufus knowing that Nina was the only one who could work it.
"You can't break it," Rufus shot back skeptically.
Nina invented wildly, "No! Give me this morning's newspaper and I can get it working," she said.
Rufus looked confused for a moment, but nodded and backed out of the warehouse and to his car. Nina kicked a pipe in between the door so that it did not shut completely. She shook her head in disbelief- Rufus really was an amateur kidnapper.
She and Fabian left the warehouse and stood around the corner. They watched Rufus walk in and got out of their hiding spot and locked Rufus in the warehouse.
Rufus banged on the door.
"Slide the necklace underneath the door crack and we'll let you go," Nina said as Fabian shook his head adamantly.
Rufus didn't seem to have any choice, so he did so.
"Are you going to let me out?" Rufus yelled in annoyance.
"Nope," said Nina, "I was just retrieving my rightful property. Now if you excuse us, we are going to call the police. See you around. Or not!" yelled Nina from the outside of the door.
She dared not hope that the whole episode was over. She still worried about the well being of Amber and Patricia. But as she walked away hand in hand with Fabian back to the Anubis House- she felt confident that the worst was behind them.
A/N: Thank you for reading! I hate ending stories, so the ending was a tad abrupt but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing- I felt it was getting too long for anyone's attention span.
Reviews on the story are REALLY appreciated. (Seriously, I take every one to heart) Thanks for all those who have reviewed already.
PS- I need to flaunt a little… In the real episode (that came out tonight 1/31) Rufus WAS attempting to trade Patricia for a vile of suspicious liquid- and I'm so proud that I totally called that!)