Afterlife

25

Connie stepped off the elevator just as Luke had begun his climb out of the Commander's office window, completely unaware of what had happened since she'd been gone. Figuring it would be a good idea to head back to the office and find out if Luke was still there, she headed for that area of the floor, but when she reached the hallway where the office was located, however, she paused when she saw none other than the Commander himself walking towards the door.

'Crap!' she thought to herself as she ducked out of sight behind the corner where she and Luke had been hiding before, watching as the Commander opened the door and entered the room. She furrowed her brows, however, when she didn't hear any sudden reactions come from inside the room. 'Maybe Luke already left?' she told herself. 'He might have made it to that room there,' she thought as she looked at one of the doors in the hall. 'But did he have to go outside to get there, or was he able to get out before the Commander got here? Its more likely to be the first, but if that's the case, then he may need someone to let him in. Either way I suppose it would be a better hiding place than this corner, even if he wasn't there.'

Then, being careful to keep an eye on the door to the Commander's office for even the slightest hint of movement she crept up to the door in question and stepped inside, closing the door behind her as she frantically scanned the room for any sign of her friend. "Luke," she called in a hushed tone, "Luke, are you in here?" but there was no response. "I guess not," she added as she walked over to the window to check and see if he simply hadn't made it to the window yet.

At first she didn't see anything when she looked from side to side, but then when she looked down, her eyes widened as she exclaimed, "Oh shit!" as she scrambled to open the window. Luke was hanging outside the window, clinging to the ledge with nothing but his fingers keeping him from falling ten stories to his death, and she could tell by the looks of it, that he'd probably been that way for a while, because he seemed absolutely exhausted.

Once she finally managed to unlatch the window, she pulled it up as far as it could go before leaning out and grabbing hold of Luke's wrists just as his fingers were about to lose their grip. Grunting as she was suddenly forced to hold his entire weight. Luckily she'd managed to position herself well enough that she felt like she had a good hold on him, and Luke was surprisingly lighter than she'd expected. Though maybe that was just her adrenalin helping her out on that one.

When Luke realized he was no longer plummeting downward, and that there was now someone holding him back from falling to his death, he then looked up, and seeing Connie, a look of relief was apparent in his eyes as she smiled and said, "I've got you." He then smiled, wrapping his tired fingers around her wrists as she began to pull him back up.

Since Luke was similar in weight to herself, it wasn't too hard for Connie to pull him up to the window, and Luke also helped by using his feet to scale the side of the building as she assisted him. Once he had his feet on the ledge once more, Connie then wrapped one arm around his waist, keeping him from falling backwards as he climbed back into the window, allowing himself to collapse onto the floor as he took a few reassuring breaths, now that he was finally back on solid ground.

"Are you alright?" she asked as she knelt down beside him to check up on him, a look of concern overwhelming every one of her features. To which he simply offered a simple thumbs up. "What happened?"

"I... slipped on moss," he said between breaths, "The ledge was too... shallow... for me to... pull myself... back up."

"I knew that ledge was a stupid idea," she then said in a slightly annoyed tone, but there was no real anger behind it. She was just scared that she'd almost lost a close friend over a mission that might have not even been successful. She then paused for a moment, pulling herself back together before asking, "Where you at least able to find anything in the office?"