Goodbye... forever ?
On the surface:
Everyone had heard the loud rumble and had no idea what had just happened. Panicking, Catherine grabbed her cell phone and called Steve. But this time the mailbox went straight away. Now she was really scared and looked expectantly at Hank, hoping that he had a plan what to do next. But his facial expression didn't tell her anything good.
Under the surface:
Danny opened his eyes and looked around. At least he was alive. He must have been unconscious for a short time, which was confirmed by the fact that he felt fresh blood running down his head. When Danny looked around more closely, he saw Steve lying about a meter in front of him. Danny immediately panicked. What if Steve wasn't as lucky as Danny or maybe he was even dead?
Danny had to find out exactly what was going on. He quickly got to his feet, moved to Steve and checked his pulse. To Danny's relief, Steve was still alive and the only visible injuries, at least on the outside, were a decent laceration on his head.
Danny was now trying to shake Steve awake. He regained consciousness relatively quickly, but immediately felt the new pain.
"Hey Steve. Are you okay, buddy?"
"It's okay, just a pain in my chest, it's probably not that bad."
Steve looked around and saw that their path to the destination was now blocked.
"We have to get rid of this rubble somehow, otherwise we won't get out of here."
"And what's your plan? They are far too heavy to just push aside."
"I don't have one yet, but as soon as I think of something, you'll be the first to know."
Steve took out his cell phone, but found that they had lost signal here.
"Okay, listen. We need to communicate with the others, but I have no signal here. So I'm going back to where we came from. You'd rather stay here, then you don't have to go down this path again with your injury."
"Are you sure you have to do this? Surely this will take a while and you know that I really hate staying here alone."
"Danny, if I don't do it, the emergency services won't know what happened here and we won't be able to come up with a new plan. In addition, the air is getting tighter, we no longer have time to discuss."
"Okay, but please hurry."
"Of course. Just keep calm."
Steve quickly made his way back. It wasn't easy to get through the tight spots, especially with the new chest pains that were making themselves felt with every movement.
But Steve didn't want to give up, he had promised Danny to get them both out of here alive and he kept his promise.
It only took Steve a few minutes to get there and pulled out his cell phone. He was lucky, because here he had signal again and he immediately called Catherine.
Just before, on the surface:
Hank didn't know exactly what was going on and what to do now. Their device to get the two upstairs was ready at the right place and there wasn't much more they could do. Hank tried to make that clear to Catherine and Lou as well. But Catherine didn't want to accept that.
"Okay, I understand that, but I'm not going to stand here and just hope these two make it up here on their own. So now I'm going down there."
"It's far too dangerous. Everything down there is in danger of collapsing. We won't let anyone else down there."
"It's my decision whether or not to put myself in this danger and I tell you I don't care how dangerous it is there. Put me down there right now !"
Hank looked at Lou, but Lou just shook his head. Hank should just put her down there. Because they couldn't talk her out of this idea anyway.
"All right, come with me."
Catherine followed Hank who helped her put on her seat belt and then Catherine was carefully lowered down.
At the bottom, Catherine slipped off the harness, turned on her flashlight, and looked around. She ran straight ahead for a few steps when she couldn't go any further because there was a wall of rubble through which almost nothing could get through.
Suddenly, Catherine's cell phone rang. She looked at the display and was surprised and relieved at the same time.
"Steve! How are you ?"
"Almost good, the air is now very thin. And we have a problem. Some debris has slipped and blocked our way. There are too many and they are also too heavy. We need a new plan."
"We're already working on it and I know you won't like it. But I'm down here now, too."
"What ?! I don't want you putting yourself in danger, Cath. I don't want anything to happen to you."
"Nor do I want anything to happen to you. Well, I think I even know what you're talking about. Because I'm standing right in front of it, only from the other side. This means you are just a short distance from salvation. So you two are doing nothing right now, I'll talk to Hank and we'll get you out of here. I promise to you."
"Okay, but I have to get back to Danny because I just walked back a bit to get reception. That means you won't be able to reach me anymore."
"That's no longer a problem, I brought a new repeater down here. Then you will also have reception here."
"Good." Steve was about to hang up when Catherine stopped him.
"Steve, wait..."
"What?"
"Please take care of yourself."
"You too."
After that they hung up and Steve made his way back to Danny.
Catherine stood in front of the rubble for a moment, wondering how they could get through it. However, she decided to contact Hank. He would certainly know better how to get through this rubble. So Catherine called Lou, who put her on speaker and went to Hank.
"I see the problem down here. Some debris has shifted and is like a wall down here. I don't know how fat it is. But Steve and Danny are alive, I spoke to Steve on the phone. So we need a rescue plan fast because Steve said the air is already very thin. Hank, please tell me you have an idea."
"Well, yes. But I don't think you will like it. Our only option would be to blast the rubble in a targeted manner, but of course there is a risk that not only the planned rubble will be blown up, but more and then everything will collapse."
Catherine felt as if her heart had stopped beating for a moment. For a brief moment everything around her seemed to stop. She didn't want to believe what she had just heard. The hope hadn't been particularly high from the start, but now it was just an oppressive feeling that didn't want to go away. Catherine refused to accept that this very risky rescue plan was her last chance. That could not be true.
She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and then spoke to Hank.
"Is...is this our only option?"
"Yes, otherwise they will run out of oxygen. I'm sorry."
Yes, there is another song for the next scene, of course it doesn't belong to me, but you know that.
Just type this into youtube: One Republic ft. Sara Bareilles~ Come Home (slowed+reverb)
Catherine barely noticed what happened next. Hank prepared everything to blast the rubble and meanwhile Catherine stood in front of the wall of rubble and tried to breathe out the oppressive feeling.
Suddenly her cell phone rang and when she picked it up Hank explained that she had to come upstairs now so they could blast. Hank also offered to tell Steve and Danny about the plan, knowing how difficult this was for Catherine. However, she insisted on telling the two herself.
So she did. Everyone involved knew that this was their last chance and were accordingly tense.
After Catherine had told the most important thing, Danny was already on his way so as not to be close to the explosion.
This gave Steve another chance to talk to Catherine alone.
"Steve...I'm so sorry...everything that happened and that I lied to you back then."
"Hey, Cath, don't do that, you know I've forgiven you. Just please do me a favor."
"Okay, what?"
"I don't want to disappoint you by making you my promise that I'll make it out of One Republic ft. Sara Bareilles~ Come Home { + }here alive because this really is our last chance...but."
"Steve, please don't, I..."
"No, Cath. Listen to me. You know exactly how the situation is right now and I just want you to promise me something... If this doesn't end well today, I want you to please not blame yourself. You did everything you could, okay?... And I remember when I met you back then, you were pretty closed off, always had that wall around you. I think I helped you put those aside. Please, promise me you won't build it up again... Forgive yourself and move on with life, okay ?"
"I promise you, but Steve...I don't know if I can do this on my own...I just need you...please don't leave me..."
That really broke Steve's heart right now. He just wanted to hug Catherine now and calm her down, show her that she wasn't alone.
"Cath, you can do this. I'm so sorry about all this, but we don't have time now, so we have to say goodbye now... Believe me, I'm having as much trouble as you are. But I love you, please never forget that."
"I love you too...Aloha."
There was a short silence, because both of them didn't want to do this. Goodbyes had never been easy for them, but that kind of goodbye was the worst of all. This pain was the worst they had ever experienced.
"Aloha." Steve managed to get out. Then he hung up because he couldn't take it anymore either.
Now he went to a safe distance, if it could be called safe.
After Steve ended the call, Catherine took a few deep breaths and then barely noticed what was going on around her.
She was brought back to the surface and Kono tried to talk to her. But Catherine was deep in her thoughts, trying to process the situation.
A moment later, Catherine heard the bang of the explosion and prayed that more hadn't collapsed...
Hope you liked this chapter and I would be happy, if you leave a little nice review here :) Mahalo.