Kate had always found it oddly ironic that silence was quite often the loudest noise a person could make. While it didn't leave your ears ringing like a shrill scream or rattle your bones like a booming bellow, silence could deafen you in a way that no other sound could. And for the last ten minutes, Kate and Wade Travis had been sitting in total silence, the manila file containing the lengthly list of Travis' crimes sitting on the scuffed, scratched table between them. His eyes had widened almost comically when Kate slipped into the room alone, closing the door behind her with a quiet click before she took a seat in the vacant chair, the legs scraping along the floor jarringly.
Travis had both forearms braced on the table, his wrists bound to the thick metal hoop in the centre of the table and Kate briefly cast her eyes over the dark crimson stains on the shoulder of his now-torn shirt, the thick, padded gauze sitting right over where her bullet had found it's mark. According to the medics who'd administered first aid when he arrived, the bullet was a through and through and, given the nature of the suspected crime, they were given the green light to question him before shipping him over to Med for further treatment.
Hank had joined Kevin, Jay and Hailey in the viewing room, all four of them watching the silent stare down for a few long moments until Jay eventually spoke.
"Travis is our only lead and he's in her head." He mumbled, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, folding his arms across his broad chest as he cast a sideways glance at Hank. "If she doesn't get a move on, we're gonna be circling the drain."
Questioning suspects, particularly disagreeable suspects, was somewhat of a specialty of Kate's and, on a normal day, Hank wouldn't have had a single concern about leaving her to her own devices to get the job done. But her history with Travis combined with the stress of Matthews being an asshole and the overarching anxiety of Alexis' safety, he didn't have his usual solid read on her capacity for bullshit. Yet despite his concerns, his faith in Kate's skills as a detective prevailed as he moved towards the back of the room, leaning his weight against the bricks, hands stuffed casually into his pockets.
"She knows what she's doing."
Sure enough, only a few more seconds passed in silence before Kate broke the stalemate.
"Y'know, you're lucky I'm a good shot." She said quietly, her eyes briefly flicking to Travis' chest. "Shoulder injuries can be pretty nasty. Hours of surgery, months of rehab but, oh wait, I forgot…" Kate allowed a false laugh to bubble in her throat, eyes finding the ceiling as though chastising herself for missing something so blatantly obvious but the next time her gaze landed on Travis' face, her usually soft hazel eyes were dangerously sharp. "You got a nice big payout from the city to cover all that didn't you?"
For a moment, Travis seemed slightly perplexed at her abrupt change in demeanour but it didn't take long for the cocksure arrogance to, once again, rise to the surface.
"And this time, I'll have your badge to go with it." He assured softly, his voice low and melodic as though talking to a particularly timid animal. When Kate didn't dignify his threat with a response, he settled as far back into his chair as the restraints would allow and cast his eyes around the room. "Where is your partner anyway? It's been a minute since I've ridiculed that nigg-"
Before the hateful slur could finish forming in Travis' mouth, it morphed into a pained cry when Kate lunged to her feet and seized the index finger of his right hand, bending the digit so far back that his entire upper body twisted along with it. He continued to writhe in pain, desperately trying to squirm out of Kate's iron-clad grip but she held fast, drawing backwards on his finger until there was no more give left without the bone snapping.
"You ready to be civilised?" She asked after a moment, slowly reducing the pressure on the protesting joint but it wasn't until Travis' nodded jerkily that she released him entirely.
"You nearly broke my damn finger!" He complained, his eyes darting between his throbbing finger and Kate's face as she casually returned to her seat.
"Means I got nine more." She warned before bracing her elbows on the table. "We're not here to talk about the fact your parents didn't raise you right. We're here to talk about how you graduated from spitting in the face of a cop to setting off bombs."
Travis' protest was instantaneous and well-rehearsed, claiming that he had no idea what she was talking about and that he certainly had no involvement in detonating any explosives in the city. Very rarely did Kate sit in the box with a suspect who was forthcoming with a confession. It took a talent for reading people, it took patience and, most importantly, it took the right flavour of motivation to tease out their deepest, darkest transgressions. But, naturally, when people were staring down the barrel of a long stretch behind bars, the instinct for self-preservation was higher than ever.
"Fail to plan, plan to fail."
It was probably the earliest piece of advice her dad had given her way back when her first-grade backpack was almost bigger than she was. Little did she know that the very same piece of advice would still be driving her career almost three decades later. Only now it wasn't about making sure she had her homework done on time, now it was about having the right information available to bury some of the country's most vile criminals.
"That right?" Dropping her eyes to the manilla file that had lain innocuously between them for the last thirty minutes, Kate flipped through the first few pages to pull out the photographs the crime scene techs had taken of the shards of plastic littered with Travis' fingerprints. "Then why'd we find your prints on the device Wade?"
The initial surge of panic that flashed across a suspect's when presented with incriminating evidence was pretty much universal but, for Kate, it was always the few beats that followed that were the most telling when they realised that they were watching their freedom dance out of their grasp. Some lashed out, some dissolved into tears, others simply looked resigned. And then there were the handful who lifted their chin in remorseless defiance, readily accepting their newfound fate like it was some kind of sick badge of honour.
As Travis cocked his head to one side, an amused smirk sliding across his face, it wasn't really much of surprise to learn that he was one of the few that fell into the latter category.
"You know what I hate even more than people like your partner?" His dark eyes flashed dangerously beneath the harsh lights of the interrogation room as he leaned menacingly across the table, bracing his weight on his elbows. "People like you."
"Like me?" Kate repeated with a smirk of her own, steadfast in her refusal to be intimidated. "You mean people that put animals like you behind bars?"
Travis' eyes never left hers as he shook his head, lips pulling into a broad, slightly unnerving grin that was more of a malicious sneer than a smile.
"Race traitors."
Race traitors. It was a phrase straight out of the history books. Something you associated with times gone by where people were uneducated and misinformed. It certainly wasn't something that you expected to hear in the twenty first century and yet it served as a very stark reminder that racism still was not a thing of the past.
Her mind almost instantly drifted to her partner and, whilst they didn't share the same bloodline, Kevin Atwater was her family. He was the family she had chosen, the family that she trusted with the life of her husband and daughter. There was nothing in this world that she wouldn't do for him and the mere thought of him being treated with anything less than love and respect that he deserved made her wild with rage.
Sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead as she battled with the almost overwhelming desire to vault over the desk and, once again, drive her fist into Travis' face but with Hank's warning echoing in her ears, she drew in a deep, steadying breath and turned her attention back to the case file, slowly lifting a picture of one of the victims who had fallen at Wade's hand before sliding it across the table towards him.
"But it wasn't just people with a different skin colour to yours you killed today, Wade."
Multiple pictures followed. Men. Women. Black. White. Young. Old. Kate slid them towards him one by one, displaying just some of the lives that Wade Travis had cruelly taken in some misguided attempt to rid the world of those he deemed inferior.
"You killed at least fifty innocent people today, many of whom look just like you." She said quietly, watching his face carefully for any sign of regret or remorse. "You took the lives of ten children. Ten babies who's lives had barely gotten started."
The glimmer of something that wasn't hateful arrogance flashed across his face so quickly that Kate found herself wondering if she'd imagined it's appearance entirely. But soon enough, Travis had snuffed out the last remnant of light within himself and turned his attention back to Kate, his face unnervingly cold.
"For the greater good."
Kate kept her eyes trained on his face for a few long moments before turning her attention back to the stack of papers in Travis' colourful jacket, sliding the pictures that she had laid out across the table back into an orderly pile.
"That why you chose Millennium Park? Nice diverse pool of victims?" She asked, trying and failing to keep the distain from her tone when Travis' mouth quirked into a sinister smirk.
"Not quite diverse enough though, was it?"
For a few long beats, Kate repeated the words over and over in her head until suddenly her heart fell still in her chest, the realisation of what Travis was implying washing over her like an icy wave.
"There's another bomb." She breathed, swallowing thickly when Travis' thin lips pulled taut to reveal two rows of discoloured, jagged teeth.
"Maybe you're not as stupid as you look." He whispered with a cold chuckle, the insult passing unnoticed by a stunned Kate. "But I guess you'll find out in, uh…" He leaned across the table slightly, head angled so that he could get a glimpse of the hands on Kate's watch. "…about six hours and forty five minutes, Detective."
For a few long seconds, Kate simply stared at Travis with one word rattling around her brain.
'Fuck.'
How hell were they going to search the entire city in under seven hours?
Before she had the chance to press him any further, the door swung open to reveal a stony-faced Hank, his usually warm brown eyes alight with a barely contained rage that simmered dangerously below the surface.
One look at his face told her that her one on one time with Travis was up and, sure enough, within seconds a willowy red-head in an expensive suit was striding into the interrogation room, threats of disciplinary action for interrogating a suspect without legal representation already spilling from her pursed lips.
Kate didn't even acknowledge her presence as she flipped the top of the manilla file over and slowly pushed to her feet, both palms braced on the cool metal surface separating her from Wade Travis. Pausing for a brief moment, she half-considered taking a swing at the smug prick but, while she knew knocking his teeth down his throat would alleviate uneasy tension filling her gut, she also knew that she wouldn't be able to find a bomb from a six-by-six cell at county.
Drawing in a slow, deep breath, Kate lifted her gaze from the table to meet the the remorseless brown eyes staring right back at her.
"I'm gonna make sure you rot in hell this time, Travis."
Ignoring his lawyer's squawk of indignation and Wade Travis' dark chuckle of amusement, Kate turned on her heel and followed Hank out into the hallway before verbalising her internal question of how they were going to pull together enough resources to scour the city in time.
"Travis is a sexist, racist, homophobic asshole." Hank muttered quietly, lifting a hand to rub at his forehead as the rest of the unit joined them outside of the interrogation room. "He's going to target places with high diversity numbers. Churches. Mosques. Airports."
"Yeah, and you know how many of those there are in Chicago?" Kate replied, hissing out a quiet curse when she failed to punch in the correct combination to the gun safe for the third time in a row.
Briefly catching both Erin and Kevin's wide-eyed expressions, Hank turned his attention back to Kate, watching his wife's trembling fingers jab Alexis' date of birth into the key pad one final time before the electronic lock released with a beep.
She wasn't wrong. Even if they recruited every shield in the city, their odds of finding the device in time were slim to none at best.
"Alright, we got six and a half hours to find this thing." Hank looked around the small circle containing his unit, searching each face in turn before he spoke again. "But if we get down to sixty minutes, he goes in the cage."
"Hank…Kelton's on the war path." Erin warned but, from the expression on her face, it was clear she was just stating the obvious rather than trying to dissuade her Sergeant from securing yet another black mark in his jacket.
"You think I give a damn about what that prick has to say?" Hank scoffed, the distain for Kelton all too plain. "There is no way on earth I'm letting that animal kill anybody else. Not in my city."
Kate watched on in silence as her gentle, loving husband slipped effortlessly into the cold, hardened cop who hadn't hesitated for a second before shooting his son's killer in the face at point blank range. This was the man who wouldn't think twice about cutting another human being into tiny little pieces with a switchblade if it meant securing the safety of their child.
She loved him; every last of inch of him.
But she couldn't quell the chill that slithered down her spine as she watched the dangerous darkness that she knew dwelled inside of him bubble to the surface.
For hours on end they meticulously tore Wade Travis' life apart, leaving no stone unturned in an effort to track down the location of the second device that he'd planted somewhere in the city. As the clock on the wall ticked in an ominous countdown, Hailey lurched from her chair with a sheet of paper in hand, her blue eyes wide with something akin to panic.
"Sarg…"
Hank was at her shoulder in a matter of seconds, his eyes frantically darting back and forth across the page until he muttered a quiet curse and rubbed a hand across his face.
"Hank?"
Brown eyes met hazel and she knew instantly that whatever Hailey had shown him
"The tech team managed to crack Travis' burner phone…the last signal bounced off a cell tower on East Walton."
The potential targets were endless. John Hancock Centre, universities, hospitals, high-end stores, train stations, hotels. But Travis wanted volume. He wanted to inflict as much damage as he could and that only left one option.
"Navy Pier."
It was almost as though all of the oxygen was instantly sucked from the room at Kate's tight whisper, eight pairs of eyes simultaneously widening in horror. Even with the width of the bullpen between them, Kate could see Hank swallow thickly, his mouth pulling into grim line before he stomped down the wave of emotion she knew was swirling in his chest.
"Jay, get on the horn to the bomb squad, let them know we've got a possible ten-eighty nine somewhere down on East Grand. Kim, call pier security and tell them to start evacuating as quickly and as quietly as possible…we don't wanna cause a panic."
With the rest of them awaiting his order, Kate was surprised to see him hesitate for just a beat, not long enough for the others to notice but enough for Kate and Erin to share a look from across the room. As much as he loved his job, this was the part he hated. Sending his family out into the fray knowing there was a very real chance that they may not make it home in one piece. But despite his brief moment of uncertainty, he straightened his spine and turned his attention to the remainder of his unit.
"Rest of you gear up. We got just over two hours left. We're gonna need all hands on deck to find this thing in time."
Leaving a slumbering Alexis and Makayla in his office under the careful watch of one of Trudy's patrol officers, they headed down to the garage en masse, instantly slipping in to a meticulous routine that came with years of experience on the job.
Vest. Ear piece. Radio. Weapon check.
"I got no idea why we're bothering with vests." Adam groused quietly as he slipped the heavy kevlar over his head. "Not like that's gonna save us from a great dirty bomb."
Hank had been in the process of adjusting the velcro around Kate's midsection when Adam spoke, his hands falling still against the black fabric as he too considered the value of the protective gear.
"I'd rather have shrapnel pierce this bad boy than deal with any more scars, Ruz." She said quietly, tapping the bold lettering on her vest with the palm of her hand. "My chest already looks like something out of a Mary Shelley novel."
Of course they all knew about the bullet wounds and the surgeries, but none of them aside from her husband had ever seen her in a state of undress to know first hand just how much of the job she now carried with her forever.
Adam paused for a brief moment, his handsome face filling with sympathy but Kate simply gave him a tight smile and a wink before turning to make sure Hank's vest was secured to his body.
By the time they arrived at the pier, the asphalt was crawling with every unit the CPD had to offer, the co-ordinated teams working swiftly to guide confused members of the public towards a makeshift perimeter the bomb squad had set based on the damage the first explosive had caused.
"We found anything yet?" Hank asked, striding towards a tall, burly lieutenant who was wearing a matching expression of grim determination.
"I got my guys canvassing every inch of this pier. You sure it's here?" Lieutenant Kilburn pulled off his black protective helmet, tucking it under his arm as he ran the back of his free hand across his sweaty forehead.
"Suspect wouldn't talk but this is the best lead we have."
Kilburn paused for a beat before jerking his chin into a sharp nod, turning on his heel and disappearing in the tide of people moving towards them with the Intelligence Unit following close behind him.
The seconds slipped by in a hazy blur, the sun slowly sinking down behind the horizon, bathing the pier in a lazy orange glow. Kate was jogging towards the last trash can on the east side of the dock when she heard a muffled curse from a few feet behind her where one of the rookies from the academy was crouched next to a bench beneath the Centennial Ferris Wheel.
"You got something?" Kate called, drawing the attention of the officer who glanced over with a look of abject horror on his face. Abandoning her search of the almost-empty trash can, she sidled up to the young rookie she recognised from her trips to the academy with Trudy to peer over his shoulder, the oxygen all but freezing in her chest.
Tucked behind a small planter was a plain black backpack, the unzipped fabric grasped in a tight-knuckled grip of the still-crouched rookie revealing a sizeable IED nestled at the bottom along with shards of metal, ball bearings and rusty nails.
"I-I…I think I found it." He stuttered, lifting terrified brown eyes to Kate's face.
"Yeah…I think you did." Kate breathed, offering what she hoped was a reassuring smile. With a gentle pat on his shoulder and a quiet command to remain perfectly still, Kate pulled the microphone attached to the collar of her shirt towards her mouth, taking a deep breath before putting out the call everyone had been waiting for.
"Sarg, I got eyes on the device. East side of the wheel between a bench and some planters. Get Kilburn and his guys over here ASAP."
The second she stopped talking, Hank's voice barking out commands to the rest of the unit began to filter through her earpiece but all of Kate's focus was now on the young man who was holding both of their lives in his sweaty, shaky hands. Crouching down next to him, Kate placed a gentle palm on his shoulder, his eyes snapping to hers at the contact.
"Torres, right?" She asked quietly, allowing her lips to tug into a half-smile when he dipped his chin into a jerky nod. "Alright Torres, I need to you to let go of the bag as slowly and as carefully as you can. Try not to jostle the fabric."
Kate watched on as Torres drew in a few slow, deep breaths before doing exactly as she asked, making sure the bag was still resting safely on the concrete before releasing his grip on the black nylon.
"Well done, kid. Good job." She said, pushing to her feet and drawing Torres with her, immediately moving him away from the device. "Right, now you haul ass to the west side of the pier and take as many people as you can with you, understood?"
Once again, he gave her a small nod, this time with a little more confidently and with a firm "yes ma'am" he took off across the asphalt, gathering every civilian he passed on the way.
The back of Torres' head was barely out of sight when Kilburn and his team arrived, crowding the device without hesitation to get a look at Travis' handiwork. For a few long seconds, Kate watched on with bated breath as they mumbled and muttered amongst themselves until eventually one of Kilburn's team huffed out a quiet curse.
"Timer on this thing is under five minutes, boss." He said, tilting is head upwards to meet the eyes of his commanding officer.
Kate's heart seemed to stop dead in her chest, her own eyes darting between Kilburn and the expert still crouched at her feet.
"What the hell does that mean?"
Her blurted question was met with a grim but surprisingly calm response from Kilburn.
"It means we're out of time."
"Wait, you can't stop it?" She breathed, hazel eyes widening in panic. Grasping her gently by the shoulders, Kilburn bent slightly at the knee to bring himself eye-level with Kate, his voice carefully even.
"We haven't got enough time to unpick the detonation device. Evacuate and control the blast zone."
A thousand scenarios ran through Kate's mind in the space of a few seconds. Why couldn't they just toss it in the lake? Why couldn't they just snip a wire like they did with every other bomb some nutcase decided to build in their garage?
"Now Detective." He urged, giving her a firm nudge in the shoulder as the bomb squad got to work.
Kate set off at a sprint towards the group of people closest to her, firmly but swiftly guiding them towards the pier exit where she could vaguely see Kevin's towering figure ushering a group of senior citizens to safety as fast as their walkers would allow.
"Meadows, what's your twenty?"
Hank's voice in her ear was like a soothing balm over her fried nerves, momentarily calming the frantic thudding of her heart hammering against her ribs. She wasn't sure why he always seemed the have the same effect on her. All she needed was to hear his voice, feel his warm touch or inhale his familiar scent and instantly she felt grounded. Everything about him made her feel safe in a way she hadn't felt since she was a child.
"I'm making my way to the exit with the last of the civilians, Sarg."
She had barely finished her update when the faint sound of whimpering had Kate coming to a dead stop, eyes darting around the open space in search of the source until they landed on the tear-stained face of a tiny little girl, her bright blue eyes full of fear as she cowered behind a nearby bench - nowhere near far enough away from the device to survive the blast when it finally came.
"Shit." Kate breathed, making a split second decision to turn against the tide of people and set off towards the girl at a sprint, the sound of her heart once against pounding frantically in her ears, deafening her to the cries of the tactical units standing guard around the perimeter.
She didn't stop to draw breath as she hauled the child against her body, wrapping both arms around her as tight as she could but the countdown had already begun. There was no way on earth she was going to get them both to safety in time.
Thirty…twenty-nine…twenty-eight…twenty-seven…
Hank had just seen what he thought was the last civilian to safety but it wasn't until he heard somebody scream "Meadows!" did he realise that his wife was a good thirty yards inside the blast zone with a tiny blonde child clutched against her chest.
Their eyes locked and, for a split second, he wondered if this was going to be the last time he saw her. Even with thirty yards between them, he could see her bright hazel eyes were clouded with fear; fear of not being able to hold her baby or her husband just one more time.
'Kate.'
With adrenaline surging through his veins, he took off towards her without a backwards glance but he was barely a few strides towards her when two firm palms planted against his chest, a tall, wide frame blocking his path.
"I don't think so Sergea…"
Kelton's order faded into a muffled grunt of pain as Hank's flying fist caught him off-guard, the force of the Intelligence Sergeant's right hook sending the Commander sprawling gracelessly to the floor, blood spilling from his nose.
Fifteen…fourteen…thirteen…
He was breathing heavy when he finally reached her, cupping her face in his trembling palms.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't leave her."
Of course she couldn't. It wasn't like he could do it either. But they were out of options and they were out of time.
Five…four…three…two.
Wrapping his arms around both Kate and the little girl in her arms, he used his own body turn them towards the edge of the pier and, without hesitation, he pitched them off the safety of the concrete, plunging them into the depths of the frigid, dark water waiting below.
Even through the murky lake water, Kate could see the flash of bright orange light surge overhead a few moments before a muffled boom, her lungs burning as she kicked towards the surface. Hank's arms were still banded tight around her body and she was sure she could feel his heart thudding against her back through both of their vests. They kicked awkwardly for a few moments, entirely unwilling to loosen their grip on one another until they were breaching the surface of the lake, gasping for breath with the little girl still wedged securely between them.
Swiping the water from her eyes, Kate hoisted the sobbing child higher in her arms, almost lifting her entirely out of the water as she gently pushed her soaking blonde locks away from her face.
"S'alright honey, you're okay." Kate whispered, doing what she could to soothe her as they bobbed amongst the waves, a plume of dust billowing overhead.
"Hey, you're bleeding."
Kate felt Hank prod none too gently at her forehead, wincing slightly when he touched a particularly tender spot along her hairline but he was interrupted from further examination by the sound of Kevin's voice bellowing from above them.
Between the two of them, they managed to make their way to the side of the pier until eventually they reached the rusty ladder, carefully transitioning the girl onto the bottom rung where Kelly Severide was waiting to pull her to safety. Once she was bundled in a blanket and in the care of the Firehouse 51 paramedics, Kate hauled herself out of the water, the additional weight of the water making her arms and legs tremble with exertion until Severide reached down to grip the straps of her vest and drag her the rest of the way up.
Once her knees hit the asphalt, she let herself fall against Severide's chest, every muscle in her body protesting as though she had just gone all twelve rounds with Earnie Shaver.
"Y'know, all you had to do was call if you wanted to see me, Meadows. Didn't have to toss yourself in the lake."
Kate gazed up at Severide's handsome face, his blue eyes twinkling with mirth as he held her tight, propping her upright just as Cruz pulled Hank back on to the pier, the Squad Three staple patting the Intelligence Sergeant on the back briskly as Hank gingerly pushed to his feet.
"Bite me Severide."
His bark of boyish laughter bought a wry smile to Kate's face, biting back a groan as she let Kelly help her to her feet before wrapping a large grey blanket around her shoulders and securing it under her chin.
"We whole?"
Hank had his own blanket grasped in a tight fist, his body shivering with cold but he seemed too preoccupied with getting a status update from Jay than preventing hypothermia.
"Zero casualties, Sarg." Jay confirmed, casting a concerned glance between Hank and Kate who had sidled over to gently tug the blanket from her husbands hand and drape it over his shoulders.
"Well that's somethin'." Hank mumbled with a sigh of relief, instinctively looping his arm around Kate's body when she tucked herself against his side; for warmth or comfort he wasn't sure.
"Unless you count Kelton…"
Adam had appeared at Jay's shoulder along with the rest of the unit, all wearing matching expressions of concern mixed with relief at the sight of their Sergeant and colleague standing before them unharmed, albeit a little wet.
"What happened to Kelton?" Kate asked, peering up at her husband with a raised eyebrow only to find him shooting Adam a glare that very much screamed 'keep your damn mouth shut!'.
"Probably best you don't ask." Erin muttered as Adam cleared his throat uncomfortably, the tips of is ears turning an adorable shade of pink under Hank's hard stare.
Before Adam could dig yet another hole to launch himself into, Sylvie and Violet had returned with a request straight from Chief Miller that they be escorted directly to Chicago Med to be checked over by doctors before being allowed back to the District.
After clambering into the back of Ambulance 61, they sat shoulder to shoulder with Sylvie on the bench opposite, pulling together the supplies she needed to clean and dress the small laceration on Kate's forehead.
"I can't believe you pushed me off a pier." Kate mumbled, leaning her head back against the cool metal behind her, closing her eyes with a groan. "You know how much I hate open water."
Hank's huff of laughter had Kate cracking one eye open to find his lips tugging into a wry grin as he draped an arm around her shoulders to draw her beneath the blanket with him.
"A 'thank you for saving my life, honey' would've sufficed." He muttered sarcastically, eliciting a snort of amusement from Violet who had heard their quiet exchange from the cab.
"Thank you for saving my life, honey." She parroted with a grin, leaning up to press a soft kiss to the underside of his jaw before burying her face against his neck, inhaling deeply.
While it might have been the first time he had saved her from certain imminent death, truth be told, he had saved her life so many times already in every way a person could be saved; clearly he just hadn't known it.