Kettlewell. The town is called Kettlewell.

I had been running non-stop through the alleys of London, searching in my memory for the name. And finally, it had come to me.

It felt like an eternity since we left the hotel, but it had been less than thirty minutes. The rain continued. It stuck my hair to my face and soaked both our clothes all the way through. It only added to my discomfort. To make matters worse, the sky was darkening. It was almost night time.

I had lost my pursuers a while ago, but every face I saw, every noise I heard, I jumped away from and ran in the opposite direction. Car. Gotta get to a car. A car. Kettlewell. There would be medical supplies there, too. The infirmary. I'd be able to help Rin.

She still hadn't woken up.

The cover of darkness added a bit of confidence to my horrible mood. At the edge of an alley, only a few feet away from a crowded parking lot, I set Rin down on the wet ground and slid my bag under her head to keep her injury from getting filthy. Confident that no one would find her, I jogged to the nearest car. The duct tape hung around my wrist. In one hand I held my knife and in the other, my unextended baton.

The nearest car was a white BMW. It looked nice. It looked expensive.

"Sorry, stranger," I said, meaning it, and stepping forward to the door.

I jammed the blade of the knife between the door and the body of the car. Praying that it wouldn't snap, I pulled the handle away from the car, widening the gap. With my free hand, I extended the baton, sticking it through the opening and aiming for the lock button. After a few tries, I managed to press it down. The doors unlocked with a satisfying click.

I threw the door open, checking the parking lot one last time for any people, and kneeled down in front of the driver's seat.

Using the knife to remove any screws, I pulled away the cover underneath the wheel. A familiar line of wires appeared. Among them were two red and two brown.

Red to red, brown to brown. Red to red, brown to-

I started with the brown. Cutting both ends, I twisted the wires together and wrapped them in a thin strip of duct tape. The dashboard lit up and the radio blared to life. Next, the dangerous part. I cut the red wires and stripped the cover around them, careful not to touch them with my bare hands. The last thing I needed today was electrocution.

I tapped them together, and the car flared to life.

"Yes!" I whispered victoriously. After wrapping the ends in duct tape, to keep them from shocking me while we drove, I left the door open and went to fetch Rin.

She looked like she was sleeping. Curled up into a ball, clearly cold from the rain, her eyes softly shut and her head pillowed by my bag. I took a quick second to turn her head over, examining the wound on her temple. A thumb-sized cut had extended from her hairline down. It was wide enough that I estimated she would need stitches. It was still bleeding, but barely.

It was a nasty cut. No wonder it knocked her out this long. Probably concussed her, too.

I frowned. She was going to be in a lot of pain when she woke up.

My arms screamed in protest as I lugged her onto my back again, carrying her to the backseat of the car and laying her gently inside. After retrieving the bag, we were off.

I was lucky enough to have picked a car with a navigation system and an almost-full tank of gas. I typed Kettlewell onto the screen. We drove.

The sun had set and the rain had turned from a steady hum to a torrential downpour.

We had been in the car for almost four hours. We could have been there an hour ago, but I was forced to follow traffic laws to the best of my ability. I didn't want to get pulled over for speeding in a stolen car with an unconscious assassin in my back seat.

We had left the city long ago. There were no lights on this highway. Combining that with the rain made it almost impossible to see out of the windshield. Thank God I had remembered to turn on the electronics first, or else we'd be driving in the pitch-black.

Rin tossed and turned in the back seat. She was beginning to fade in and out of consciousness. I didn't know if that was a good sign or not. I was just happy she was waking up at all.

I didn't know we had reached the small village until we were halfway through it. Traditional rock buildings surrounded us, none more than two stories tall. There were no street lamps, no people walking around, and no other driving cars. We had entered the town on the west side. We needed to get to the east.

I drove slowly. The rain continued to pour.

I took a right somewhere once the road began to turn North. From here, I was clueless. The bunker was east of Kettlewell, hidden in the hills. I had no idea where.

I also did not remember the best way to turn off the hot-wired car. Touching the wires together again would just attempt to start it again. The gas was almost out, and, once I was confident I had reached the eastern limits of the village, I simply put it in park and left it.

The car ride had dried my clothes. The second I stepped out of the car, they were soaked again. The rain fell in heavy, large drops that splattered at my as they hit the car. It almost felt like it was hailing into my back.

Rin had rolled over in the backseat. She snuggled against the leather.

"Rin," I called, though my voice was barely audible over the rain. "Come on." I knew she couldn't hear me. I grabbed her ankles, gently pulling her towards me, and balanced her on my back once again. Leaning forward like this to keep her balanced was killing my back. But we were almost there. I imagined the hike to the base in Montana. It couldn't have been much longer than that.

With my bag on my shoulders and Rin cradled onto my back, I started down the road. My free hand held the flashlight from my bag.

The pavement branched off onto dirt paths. I could have driven the car this far, but it would have been a dead giveaway to the base's position if I had managed to find it. Walking was the safer, yet more cumbersome, option.

With every step, my shoes sunk deep into the mud. There were a couple times when I was convinced I had gotten myself stuck, only to yank my foot from the ground and lose my balance for a moment. If I fell then, I wasn't sure I'd have the strength to get back up.

The rain continued to pour.

My small flashlight illuminated a circle before me. It shook with every step. I was shivering now. The unsteady circle of light reflected that.

I walked endlessly down the dirt path. Eventually, I caught sight of a stone fence.

"Fuck," I murmured. My back was killing me, my legs were burning, my arms were shaking, and I had only just reached the end of the small farmer's property. It was the first time I doubted my ability to make it any further.

But I kept going. Climbing over the fence carefully, I trudged on into the hills. There was no path to guide me now.

I had no idea where I was going. I felt like I was on the verge of freezing to death. There was no way of telling what time it was or knowing when the rain would finally pass and the sun would come up. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled through the sky.

Yuma had told me other identifying characteristics of each base around the world. He had told me a strategy to find them all. But each country had a unique one. I had hoped that being presented with the hills would jog my memory. So far, it hadn't.

But laying in the wet grass and pouting about it wouldn't help anything. So I kept walking.

At one point, I stepped into a particularly deep pit of mud. It took me nearly a minute to free myself, and, once I had, I jerked roughly to the right, landing on my side with a grunt. Rin toppled off of my back and fell into the grass next to me. Something in my bag broke.

Laying in the mud, with the unending rain pounding onto me, my entire body exhausted to the point of failure, I didn't want to get up. I was perfectly okay with going to sleep right then and there. For a long moment, breathing heavily against the ground, I considered it.

But Rin needed to get out of this.

So, with a groan, I pulled myself back to my feet, positioned Rin on my back once again, grabbed my bag, and kept walking.

And walking.

And walking.

"Len," Rin's weak voice suddenly sounded by my ear.

"Rin? Oh shit, are you okay? Are-"

"Where are we?" She asked softly. Her arms, which previously hung limply over my shoulders, tightened in an attempt to steady herself.

I panted between my words. "The UK base. Where is it? Do you know how to find it?" I was desperate to get somewhere safe and dry.

She sighed. I looked over my shoulder at her to see she had closed her eyes again. I almost screamed in anger at the thought that she had fallen unconscious again, but she suddenly spoke. "There's this… this dirt path-"

"I followed it," I cut her off.

"To the rock wall?"

"Yeah." I was going the right way. If I hadn't been so miserable, I might have jumped for joy.

"And then… and then straight?"

"Yeah! Yeah."

She paused again. "How many hills did we pass?"

I had no idea. Over the hours, I had lost count. "I don't know."

She picked her head up off of my shoulder, glancing around. There wasn't much to see in the darkness. "Over there," she pointed to my right with a shaky hand. "Point the flashlight over there."

I did. About a hundred feet away from us was a dip in the plains. It was a bowl cut out of the smooth ground. A tree poked out of it.

"That's… that's…" She leaned her head against my back again and said no more.

Fueled with hope, I ran for the tree. Sure enough, As I reached the edge, I caught sight of a familiar metal door.

"Holy shit. Oh my God," I whispered to myself as I slid down the edge. This bunker did not have a keycode. Instead, there was a small indent shaped like a hand on the left side of the door. Doubting that I had access, I dropped the flashlight, picking up Rin's hand and pressed it against the scanner.

The door opened.

I picked up the flashlight again and descended the stairs with glee.

The base was identical to the other one. Using the flashlight to guide us through the room, I headed straight to the infirmary, setting Rin down on the table gently. I threw my bag on the ground next to her. Next, the generator. I left small pools of water with every step. Water sloshed in my shoes and on my clothes. Through the living area, into the beds, to the generator. The second I activated it, the machine roared to life and all the lights turned on. It nearly blinded me.

I opened the chest at the foot of my bed, or, at least, what would have been my bed, and was pleased to find clean, dry clothes inside. I took the extra minute to change into them. It wasn't the normal outfit we wore back home, instead some possibly discarded pajamas. But they were dry. That was all that mattered to me.

I threw my sopping onto the floor of the bathroom as I made my way back to the infirmary.

There had been a piece of sanitary paper lining the table Rin laid on. It was nearly falling apart under her dripping clothes. I awkwardly removed the paper from under her, taking off her jacket and stopping there. I refused, even if getting her in dry clothes would help her, to go any further.

I grabbed some clean cloths, wetting them in the sink, and began dabbing at the cut on her head. I had to brush her bangs out of the way to see it clearer. The rain had washed most of the blood away, but there was still a single line running down her cheek. I dabbed it away too.

Rin furrowed her brow, recoiling from my hand. Her eyes fluttered open, and she clamped them shut again.

"It's bright," she said. Her voice was still alarmingly soft and weak.

"Sorry," I said. "Kinda need the light to… you know. See."

She sighed, then propped herself up on her elbows.

"No! No. You should lay down-"

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"Rin, you're not. You've been out for hours. You need to lay down and let me look at this."

Her eyes were still closed. She ignored my plea, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She turned to face me. Her legs dangled over the edge of the table, nearly a foot away from the ground.

She took a deep breath. Sitting up, she was nearly eye level with me. "Everything is spinning." She didn't open her eyes.

"I'm pretty sure you're concussed," I told her, stepping forward again to dab at her temple. She flinched but didn't move away this time. "You got hit pretty hard."

"I don't… I don't remember-"

Memory loss. Definitely a concussion.

"How's your shoulder?" I asked, careful not to rub the cut. Dabbing would get the blood off, rubbing it would only disturb it more.

She shrugged. "It's… fine."

I wasn't convinced. Reaching for the cabinet to my right, I pulled the door open and retrieved a sling. The specific location of every item was identical to home.

"No," she said, her eyes finally opening in slits. She glanced at the sling with low lids.

"Yes," I answered. I dropped the cloth onto the table next to her, wrapping the sling around her shoulder and positioning her arm in it. She wasn't happy. But she didn't resist.

"What happened?" She asked as I continued cleaning her cut.

I took a deep breath. "You want the long version or the short version?"

"I want to know everything."

So I explained everything. The mysterious stranger, Meiko's betrayal. The gun, the police, the car, the drive here, the rain. Everything. Ending with her briefly regaining consciousness to tell me the last bit of information needed to find our hidden haven.

Throughout my explanation, she didn't say a word. Heavy silence filled the room as I concluded as well.

"You need stitches," I told her after a few minutes.

"I don't want to."

"You need to," I answered.

She let out a soft laugh. "You sound like Anon."

I turned away, pulling open the drawers once again to find the disinfectant. "This is going to sting," I warned her, dabbing it onto another clean cloth.

Her eyes fell on the bottle suspiciously. "Do you have to-"

"Yes," I nodded. "We need to clean it."

She reminded me of a little girl at the doctor's office, protesting her shots.

"It's just for a second, okay? I need to make sure nothing got into it. If it gets infected-"

"I know, I know," she interrupted. Her gaze traveled downward. "Just… do it. I guess."

I gently laid the cloth against her skin.

"Ow," she said, squeezing her eyes shut.

"I know. Sorry. Just a few more seconds."

Her knuckles were white. She was clutching the edge of the table like her life depended on it.

"Okay," I finally said, slowly pulling the cloth away. She still wore her pained expression. It would sting for a while. But that wasn't even the worst part.

Nearly an hour later, she sat in front of me, stitched up, exhausted, and still in pain.

"It's all done," I told her, grabbing an adhesive bandage. "Just this thing and we can go to bed."

She didn't respond. Her eyes were glued to the floor. The entire time, she hadn't met my eyes once.

I stuck the bandage onto her head and smiled. The fact that this was over thrilled me as much as it thrilled her. Though she didn't show it. "There," I said. "All done."

She didn't move.

My smile faded. I knew this expression. "We're okay now," I promised her. "We're safe here."

"We're never safe," she spat out.

I let out a deep breath. Though I didn't want to accept it, I knew she was right.

"I can't believe it," she said softly. "I just… I can't. She hired someone to kill me. It just doesn't seem right."

I let her talk without interrupting.

She let out a huff. "I can already hear Kanon's 'I told you so',"

"Well," I shrugged. "At least you weren't alone."

She hesitated. "I would have died today if you hadn't been there."

I had known it since we stepped out of the building, but her words still hit me with a force I did not expect. "Eh, it was nothing."

"You could have left," she continued. She rose her gaze but kept it trained on the wall to her right, still avoiding me. "That was your chance. You could have left with all that money and that gear and we would have had no way to track you down or find you. You could have gone home. Gone back to your normal life. Told the police. You could have left. But you didn't."

The thought had never even crossed my mind. "I couldn't just leave you there."

She sniffled a bit. And then, out of nowhere, she leaned forward, resting her forehead against my shoulder. I froze.

"Thank you," she whimpered against my dry shirt.

I couldn't help but chuckle. "Rin, it was really nothing. Like, of course I would have-" I cut myself off. "Do… do you have dry clothes here?"

She nodded, her motions ruffling my shirt.

"Where are they?"

"By my bed," she said.

I gently grabbed her shoulders, pushing her away. Only then did she look up at me. "I'll go get them," I told her.

Her eyes were watery. "Okay."

After she changed, I followed her into the living quarters. She insisted on walking without help, but I watched her carefully as she swayed. Whether from her head or from exhaustion, I couldn't tell, but I wasn't about to let her fall.

She made it to her bed without losing her balance. It was only then that I noticed the plainness of these cubbies. Each bed had nothing more than a thin sheet over it. Folded on the shelf of what would have been Flower's bed was a single heavy blanket.

Rin had already snuggled under her sheets. I wanted nothing more than to keep this blanket to myself, but I knew it would be better for her to have it. I unfolded it and laid it over her bed. She didn't react.

With my flashlight in hand, I turned the generator off and climbed into my bed across from her.

The sheet wasn't warm, but it was better than being out in the rain. The walls around us shook as thunder rumbled through the air once again.

Rin tossed and turned for a long time in her bed. I could see nothing, but I could hear the sheets ruffling under her distress. I didn't blame her. She had been a second away from a bullet to the head. The thought was disturbing to me as well. Thank God for Kanon's paranoia. I couldn't imagine Flower returning home from picking Rin up from the airport without the girl. I'd be at home, probably doing some stupid contest with Yuma, and Flower would come back looking disturbed and worried. And Rin would be dead.

Shit. A lot had happened today. The same thoughts were probably running through Rin's head, too.

But Flower was going to return home from the airport empty-handed. Our flight was well on its way to Montana, maybe even there already. I still had no idea what time it was or how long it had been. Either way, we would need to find a way to contact them tomorrow. We were both too exhausted to get out of bed now.

Rin shuffled once more. Then, to my surprise, I heard her step away from her bed.

My back was to the wall. I opened my eyes to try and see where she was going, but it was no use in the darkness.

And then the blanket was thrown over my bed. I let out a laugh. "You should have it-"

My words caught in my throat as the edge of both the blanket and the sheets was lifted, and she crawled between them.

"Rin-"

"Shut up," she answered quietly, burying her nose in my chest.

She was scared. She was really, really scared.

I wrapped my arm around her and closed my eyes.


Why do all of my fics end up being 5672393269 chapters longer than I plan.

This one is up to 34 now. So prepare for a read lol

Thanks for reading everyone! :)