A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews/favorites/alerts! They seriously made my day! \o/ You guys are awesome, lol.

Enjoy!

"This is the worst "miss you" gesture I've ever seen," Katie commented as she watched Kendall attempt to fit the twelfth flower into the basket.

"I think it's romantic," he told her matter-of-factly. "And Jo will think so too. I mean, they probably don't even have roses in New Zealand. Think of how grateful she'll feel!"

"Think of how irritated the delivery men will feel when they read the "fragile" sign on the box," Katie corrected. "I don't think they'll be as considerate with the shipping as you're hoping they will. And I thought you called me up here because you wanted my help."

"I do," Kendall needled, reaching across the table to grab the pen. "I need you to go to the kitchen and make the brownie mix so we can pack them."

Katie rolled her eyes. "You're hopeless," she said, turning around on her heel.

Kendall gave her a sweet smile. "Thank you, baby sister!"

…

A lot can happen in two minutes.

Pain. That's what Kendall was aware of first. There was intense pressure right on his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. His head pounded. Every time he took a breath a wave of pain would smash itself into his temples, demanding to make itself known. He let out a groan, but even that seemed to hurt, vibrating his chest and setting off even more pain signals.

"…dall? Kendall?"

The voice was incessant and wouldn't let up. Kendall wanted to shout for it to go away—it was too high pitched and he didn't want to talk right now. He wanted to drift to sleep, but the pain in his chest grew to the point where it became unbearable.

Pressure against his chest, too much for him to handle. Kendall gasped out, a strangled yell ripping itself from his throat, his eyes flying open. There was nothing but dusty whiteness. Kendall let his eyes close again, smacking his head back onto the floor.

"Oh, God, Kendall, I'm sorry," the voice exclaimed, sounding strained.

"Katie?" he said—or he tried to. It came out sounding more like a garbled grunt than anything else.

"Kendall, yeah, I'm here. You're going to be alright, Kendall, you're going to be fine." Her voice cracked each time she said his name. Kendall felt fear creeping into him. Katie wasn't scared of anything. Do I really look that bad?

His eyes slipped open. This time instead of a foggy white blur, he could see Katie's face peering at him from above. Kendall blinked, shocked. Three or four cuts on her cheeks and forehead were still bleeding, and she had a large bruise that spread from her chin to her jaw. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were wide, terrified, and her clothes looked ragged and dirty.

Kendall started to sit up. "Katie, what happened to—" He broke off with another gasp of pain, this time shooting up so harshly that lights flashed like photographers in front of his eyes, blinding him and sending pain to his temples. With a groan Kendall plopped himself back down again, realizing that he was probably a lot worse off than his sister.

He looked down at his chest, wondering why it felt so heavy. At first he didn't understand what he was seeing: a slab of gray cement—or plaster, or ceiling, or whatever it was called—lying on his stomach like a horribly thick, heavy, hard-as-a-rock blanket. Dust covered the rest of his torso, and as he moved his head some fell out of his hair, too. There was blood—a lot of blood. The cuts on his face and arms and one spot on his chest felt fiery hot, like he was lying with a hot laptop on his chest. From the torso down it was numb save for violent pins and needles that were fading quickly from his previous attempt at movement.

As Kendall met Katie's eyes again he realized that it really was bad.

Katie was grinding her teeth together hard, her eyes darting from the slab on Kendall's chest to his face. Kendall tried to take a breath, coughed on the dust, and gasped in pain as the coughing sent spasms through his body.

"Katie," he managed to get out. "You… okay?"

Her eyes widened, if they could any more than they already had. "Am I okay? Kendall, you're—" She flinched violently, not saying it. "I'm fine," she said softly. "Don't you remember?"

Kendall shook his head slowly. Katie dropped her head, like she didn't want to say another word, but she lifted it again.

"You pushed me out of the way," she whispered. "I… God, Kendall, why would you…?"

Kendall honestly didn't remember doing something so heroic, but he hated how Katie's eyes looked like they were shimmering with tears. Katie was a tough kid, but she was still eleven, and she was still his baby sister.

"S'okay," he murmured, reaching up with the arm that seemed most free to touch Katie's forehead. "I'll be fine, Katie." The words seemed to jumble themselves together and barely sounded like words at all to Kendall's ears, but Katie nodded in understanding.

"How…" She swallowed hard. "How do we get out of here?"

Kendall had to lift his head slightly to survey their surroundings. They were halfway between the kitchen and the dining room. Dust and plaster had caked everything in a dull gray color, but he could see the door had been blocked off by another slab of ceiling or whatever it was. It was pressed right up against the door, preventing anyone from opening it and escaping.

Katie caught his gaze and said quietly, "I tried to move it already. It's too heavy."

Kendall managed to nod slowly. He looked at the window and saw that it had been blocked as well by the couch. The couch seemed to be wedged between the wall and the window, but even without it blocking it, it was still a three story drop with nothing to drop onto.

They were trapped.

Sighing, Kendall lay his head back down and closed his eyes.

"Kendall?" Katie sounded panicked. "Come on, Kendall, please don't pass out. I can't… you have to… please, Kendall!"

"I'm okay," Kendall said, opening his eyes tiredly.

Katie's voice broke. "Don't do that again," she said, going for stern. "You need to stay awake. Logan says that when you're knocked out you need to stay awake and be sure you don't have a concussion."

"Logan," Kendall said. "Where..." Why was it so hard to breathe? "Where are the guys? Were they…"

"I don't know," Katie admitted. "I don't know where anyone is. I looked out the window, though—it's bad, Kendall. Most of the buildings have collapsed. It's like Haiti or Japan or Chile or any of those other places with massive earthquakes. I thought I saw a balcony break off and drop into the pool. How are we ever going to rebuild after this?"

Kendall looked at Katie. He'd gotten only about half of that, but the brunt of it hit him hard. They were in serious trouble. And his sister needed him.

Sirens made their way to his ears, and Kendall looked back towards the window. He was too low to see anything, but Katie caught onto what he was thinking.

"I'll be right back," she said quietly—whether to reassure him or herself, he didn't know.

He watched her make her way over broken pieces of furniture. It alarmed him that she didn't have any shoes on, and he could see her feet bleeding as she stepped onto pieces of broken glass and clay. She didn't seem to notice, making it deftly to the window and peering out of the crack that showed from behind the couch.

"They aren't for us," she reported, a note of frustration in her voice. "They're headed downtown."

"Don't worry," Kendall told her, grasping her hand with his free one. "If it was an earthquake, they'll get to us soon."

Katie didn't look convinced. Kendall knew that even though Los Angeles had a lot of resources, there were still thousands of homes, let alone buildings and hotels, to get to where people might need help, too. He didn't know who the priority would be in this situation. He just knew that they would be stretched thin. It could be hours, even days before they were rescued.

His little sister had to know that, but she trusted in Kendall enough not to say anything about it. Kendall was grateful for it. His position was probably scaring her to death, and he needed to be strong for her.

Katie knelt behind him and placed his head in her lap. Kendall didn't mention how much moving hurt to her, knowing she was just trying to help.

"Mom's gonna freak," Katie muttered.

Kendall managed to chuckle slightly before the pain hit him hard. "She'll insist we all wear helmets like Carlos," he joked between pants.

Katie shook her head. "No way. I get the worse helmet hair in the world. Maybe Carlos and James can pull it off—"

"What 'bout me?" Kendall huffed, pretending to be insulted.

Katie laughed. "It runs in the family, Kendall. You don't look too good in a helmet, either."

They smiled at each other, but the laughing cost him. Kendall definitely couldn't breathe now. His breaths came in wheezing gasps, but each time he breathed his ribs seemed to crackle, sending fire spurting through his veins. Kendall ground his teeth together, nearly biting his tongue, and tried not to scream like he wanted to.

"Kendall?" Katie's voice was fading, but he could still hear the panic in her voice. "Kendall! No! Wake up!"

"I'm not asleep," Kendall tried to tell her. But another wave of pain rolled over him, and then the darkness overtook him.