A/N - i own nothing you recognize

back to school on tuesday :'(

-sigh- oh well. sorry for the long wait...again :s

Six: Flight

But she never quite heard the end of his sinister farewell. He hadn't quite finished speaking her name when his voice stopped with an unmanly squeak and he flew backwards from her. She gripped the ledge immediately with her hands, her stomach turning over as she had the sensation of falling. She saved herself, looking up, knowing what she would see before she saw it.

Phantom had grabbed her assailant by the back of his shirt, jerking him off of her and tossing him across the roof an impossible distance. She watched his back as he walked away from her towards the fallen man, realizing the inhuman strength hidden beneath the black suit.

She slipped off the ledge, incredibly annoyed to find that she could not feel her legs, and dropped to the floor. Presently the feeling rushed back into them and she rose. Phantom was holding her attacker up by the collar, about to rip off his mask.

Suddenly the man pulled out her taser. He must have taken it from her earlier without her noticing. She had been distracted. She hadn't quite yelled a warning before she heard a tiny whirring sound and Phantom's body was racked with electricity. He dropped the man, who kept on firing the taser at him. He looked as though he was having an epileptic fit. It frightened Sam, because she knew that the low voltage should not be causing that much damage to him.

She darted over to the attacker, dive tackling him to the concrete. She ripped the taser from his loosened grip, turning off the power. The dark man on the floor kept writhing though, and Sam wanted to go help him, but knew she had to get rid of her attacker first. She tasered him, but he managed to kick at her ankles, sweeping her feet out from under her, and disconnecting the wire from his chest, while also sending the shock into her – enough to make her freeze in pain for a split-second. She leapt away from him as soon as she recovered, bracing herself for a fight.

But instead the man jumped up, albeit painfully, and ran to the elevator. Sam watched him, torn between her need to go get him, and her need to help her savior. It only took her a moment to dart back to the body on the floor.

He had stopped writhing, but lay on the concrete, completely immobile, his head tipped back so that his back was arched uncomfortably under him. His white hair looked as if it was smoking. His arms were lying on the ground, palms up, his fingers curling and twitching periodically. One of his legs had jerked up so his foot was flat on the ground.

"Um," she said, kneeling beside him, not knowing what to do and feeling frustratingly useless. Did he answer to his journalistic nickname? "Phantom?"

He did not move. She would have given him CPR, but something stopped her. The thought that maybe he was not human – that it would not help him.

She reached out to touch his face, but her whole body jerked as electricity shot from his skin into hers. The shock was not too bad, and she recovered quickly, her hand still on his face. His eyes flashed open. She literally had to close hers after looking into them. They were luminous, glowing eerily green. When she reopened her eyes, she noticed that there appeared to be lightning flashing inside his irises, and that the whites of his eyes were shining a brilliant, almost blinding white.

The strange appearance of his eyes scared her. She pulled her hand off his face worriedly. "Phantom?" She grabbed his shoulders and shook him impatiently, yet gently. "Phantom?"

He murmured, and relief flooded her. He closed his eyes, then reopened them, and the eerie glow and the lightning were gone. He sat up, putting his hand to his head.

"Are you alright?"

"Are you alright?"

They both smiled. Sam spoke again. "I'm fine. Are you? You don't look too good."

"No, I don't feel so great." He shook his head. "I feel like I was short-circuited."

"What, are you some sort of cyborg?"

"Not as far as I know." He chuckled. "But that's what it feels like." He rose to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. He turned to look at her, having to look down, as she only reached his nose. "What were you doing here?"

She turned to walk away. "Investigating."

"You could have been killed."

She wheeled around, her eyes spitting fire at him. "So could you!" She walked back to him. "What were you doing here?" She jabbed her finger into his chest. "Stalking me too?"

"No. I was just here saving a woman who was being mugged down in Carlyle alley. Sorry if that isn't good enough for you."

She fell silent. He could be lying. She shook her head at him. "I want to go home now, so goodbye, Phantom."

"When did I agree to being called Phantom?"

"When I decided to call you that."

"Of course." He grinned lopsidedly at her.

She turned away from him and moved towards the elevator. She heard his voice from behind her, but didn't bother turning around.

"How did you get here?"

"I walked."

"It's one in the morning. You think it's a good idea to be walking alone now?"

"Are you offering to escort me?" She stopped for a moment.

"Maybe."

"Well I don't need an escort, thank you very much." She kept moving towards the elevator.

Suddenly she was swept up into his arms from behind as he launched into the air. She restrained a shriek and smacked him upside the head.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Taking you home."

"When did I give you permission to manhandle me some more?"

"When you refused to let me escort you home. There are creeps out there this late at night, Sam,"

"And you don't count because…?"

"Harsh. I'm not that bad, am I?"

She didn't answer. "Must you carry me like a baby?"

"No." He suddenly dropped his hands from her, and a tiny yelp escaped her throat. But he instantly grasped her right hand with his, and wrapped his left arm around her middle, so she was on her front, flying next to him. After her fear dissipated, as she realized that he was perfectly capable of holding her and not dropping her, she looked out in front of her.

She was flying. The thought made her throat catch. There was a wind streaming into her face as though she was in weightless water. She closed her eyes. She had always dreamed of flying, but things got in the way. Up here, there was nothing to get in her way, nothing to stop her.

She was flying. She turned her head to look at the man flying next to her. Well, he's flying, and I'm being towed. Still.

The city rolled out below them. The moon was high and glowing in the sky, the clouds just above them. She got the feeling he was taking a detour, because they were up in the air for a very long time - but she wasn't complaining.

When they reached her apartment block, her hair wildly escaping its braid, she suddenly felt heavy again. He landed smoothly on her roof, turning her as he twisted his body, so they ended up in the same pose they had been in when she had fallen off the bridge. They landed softly, his feet touching the ground a few seconds before hers.

"How do you know where I live?"

"Do you really want to know?"

She pursed her lips. "Half of me does, and half of me really doesn't."

He grinned, lifting her hand and kissing it gently. "Goodbye, Sam."

"What are you, some sort of prince?" She said in her mind. But the words got stuck in her throat, and never made it out through her lips. She heard herself say something else instead. "Goodbye, Phantom."

He gave her a winning smile, then, same as on the bridge, he dissipated, like a mist.

Her thoughts shot all of a sudden to the pair of gloves that she had secreted in the top drawer of her dresser. The ones he had put on her hands on the bridge and left with her. They must have some DNA on them, she thought. I'll take them to the office tomorrow and get them tested.

And it was right then that she realized that she recognized the voice of her assailant that night. Her eyes flew wide open and she sped down the stairwell to her house, pushing open the door and running to her cell phone. The dial tone sounded forever, until she finally heard a gruff voice on the other end.

"What the hell?" Danny sounded very unhappy. "Sam? It's," there was a pause. " One thirty in the morning? What could possibly be the matter?"

"Danny," Sam said patiently, though her heart was leaping in her chest. "I know who the thief is."

"What?"

"I know who stole the Rose Sapphire."

ooo. Do you? ;)

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FunkyFish1991