Two and Three

Breathe, Just Breathe

"Lisha!" Ian called out in alarm.

She didn't reply. He shot one look to Tony and Abbie before hurrying to her side. There was a dark bruise up the right side of her skull, black with blood and swollen like someone had bashed the bone above her eye in several times with a heavy object. He shook her shoulder urgently but her body only rolled under his hands.

Ian panicked for a moment as he put his ear by her mouth and heard no sounds of  breathing. That was followed by a short sigh of relief when he felt a faint pulse thrumming in her neck. She was alive, not responding to anything, but also not dead, which was better than nothing. "Lisha, Lish, Lish-Fish. Come back to the world of the talking. Tony wants to ask you out again."

He ignored Tony's pointed glare.

Something about those words seemed to spark a bit of rebellion in her because, not moments later, the sax player moaned and rolled onto her back. "I didn't mean to..." She whispered hoarsely. "I didn't mean too, its all my fault."

"What?" Ian asked in alarm.

"I didn't think he'd catch up that fast," she whispered as her eyes wandered sightlessly up to the ceiling. Ian wasn't sure if it was the best idea to inquire on the events of the girl's last twelve hours, but something seemed to sending her into a slight hysteria as she forced herself to sit up. "Why didn't I see it coming? I should have known! I see everything coming! Why, why? They didn't do anything wrong... Why didn't I see that?"

"Lisha, Lisha, Lisha, Fish-Face," Ian grabbed her head between his hands to hold her still. "You need to calm down. Do you hear me? Calm down!"

She shook her head between his hands.

"Come now," Ian glared at her. "Calm down. Try a little harder than that. Deep breath, will you?"

She sucked in a raspy lungful of air then started coughing. The fit pulled her away from Ian and onto the floor where she laid momentarily, struggling to breathe. It was cold out there, Ian realized and her immune system couldn't possibly be at peak condition. He stroked her hair out of her face and rubbed her back soothingly. "Musician's breath," he reminded her quietly. "Bottom of the lungs, then top of the lungs, then when you breathe out, breathe all the way out." He started clicking quarter notes at a steady march tempo on the floor. "Eight and eight," he suggested.

After several long moments, her breathing appeared to steady, and the shudder in her shoulder blades slowly disappeared. Ian tried to help her sit up, but her weight twisted his arms in an awkward angle that stretched his newly formed scabs apart from his skin. Ian let go with a gasp, and Lisha would have fallen face first back to the floor if she hadn't managed to catch herself in to time. "We are all messed up," she whispered.

"Yeah," he nodded to Abbie and Tony. "We are."

"What's supposed to happen now -- where's Michael?" Lisha seemed to notice his disappearance for the first time. "Oh my gods, where is he?" Ian wasn't sure if he should put words to it. Lisha looked at him with a mixture of hope and terror. In her mind, it was probably possible that Micheal had gotten out and was going for help. Or maybe it was something as bad as what really happened. Her face shattered as his silence confirmed her fears. "What happened?"

"I don't know."

"That is bull Ian Turner, and you know it!" She ran a hand over her eyes and snapped away the moisture, before lowering her voice. "You may be able to spin this stuff with Abbie, but you can only do that because she doesn't have the energy to use her common sense anymore. You can't do that with me, I'm not there yet," she glared past the tears. "Not yet. What. Happened?"

Ian sat back and ran a careful hand through his hair. "I really don't know, okay. Some girl came down here with a gun and made Mike leave with her. I don't know where they went." I don't know if he's alright.

"Gods," Lisha went back to sit against the far wall. Ian followed her after a moment. "How long has it been?"

"If I had a clock, I'd tell you," he snapped. "Maybe forty-five minutes? Maybe an hour, maybe two? Maybe it's been ten minutes! I really don't know!"

"Calm down, Ian," Tony muttered without looking at them. "You're angry, we understand. But taking it out on her is only going to make things worse."

"No need to be mean about it," Lisha murmured into her lap. 

He sighed and brought his knees up to his chest. "I don't know what to think now."

"None of us do," Lisha murmured as she leaned over Abbie to double check on her wound. It had become a habit with her, Ian noticed, to see how they were doing, even though there was nothing she could do about their hurts except rewrap them tighter and tell them they'd get help soon.

Lisha blinked her eyes slowly and brushed Abbie's forehead with the back of her hand. The guard girl fluttered her eyelids unconsciously, but otherwise didn't respond to the touch.

"How much longer do you think she has?" Ian whispered.

"I'm not a bloody doctor," she replied without looking up.

"And you're not bloody British," Tony added and turned his head toward the them for the first time in several hours. "Guesstimate."

Her eyes shone bright with tears, even in the dull light. "Not long."

"Come here," Tony commanded and held his arms out weakily. Lisha didn't say anything and scooched over to his side. Ian sat on her other side to put a breaker between the sax player and the guard girl. Tony wrapped his arms around Lisha as silent sobs started to wrack up and down her shoulders.

Ian wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, but he knew it wouldn't, so he kept silent.

A/N

Am I the only one getting feels? Yes? Okay.... So auto correct says that guesstimate is actually a word and that I spelled it wrong.

#FlyLikeaRock

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