“Oh God.” Abby groaned in pain and struggled to haul herself up to see what was going on. She looked around and saw only the remains of what used to be the warehouse that she was trying to rescue people from only 5 minutes ago. Now she was the one that needed rescuing.

She could faintly hear muffled voices and the machinery trying to move the debris out of the way to reach the injured.. She was one of them. Abby suddenly realised that she couldn’t feel below her waist. She looked down and saw a big beam lying across her legs. At least she was conscious. That’s always a good sign.

Then she heard another voice. This one was closer. A panicked cry came from a pile of rubble to her right and she saw the child’s hand move and reach out desperately for some comfort.

Abby leaned over, trying to free the little girl. She started to remove the rubble off of the frightened child. She cleared it away from the girl’s face and saw her anxious eye’s staring back.

“Where’s Daddy?” she cried. The girl, about 5 or 6, was getting even more panicked and began to scream.

“Shh.” Abby did her best to reassure the child but she had to admit that she had never been that good with kids. “Sweetie, are you hurt?”

“I want my Daddy!” she wailed, understandably distressed.

“I know but you have to listen to me. I’m a nurse, I can help you. Can you tell me your name?”

“Katie”, she said and continued to cry.

Now Abby was starting to get scared. The feeling was coming back to her legs and the intense pain was unbearable but she had to stay calm. If she started to panic, the little girl would just get more worked up and it wouldn’t help anyone, least of all them.

“My shoulder hurts”, the girl finally sobbed, “I want to get out.”

“Can you move?”

“I think so.” Abby’s calmness was starting to wear off onto the little girl and she was beginning to calm down but the fear was still evident in her timid little voice.

“Listen, honey. My legs are trapped. I can’t move. You’ll have to come over here so I can check on you, OK?”

Katie nodded cautiously and crawled slowly towards Abby. As she moved her leg from under the rubble, she displaced a beam and another portion of the building collapsed further.

They both let out a shriek as more debris fell to the floor. Fortunately, Katie was closer now and Abby was able to pull her out of harm's way just it time as a large piece of rusty machinery landed just inches from where the girl was lying only seconds before.

The one area around them where Abby could see an exit was now blocked. No way out. They would both have to wait there until they were cut out and God knows how long that would be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Abby!”, Susan was calling into the mess, trying to locate her colleague

She was not the only one yelling. The man was still shouting for his daughter and now most of the fire crew were joining in the search to find the two missing people. Susan had tried to keep her eye on the place where Abby had gone in but when it collapsed again, she lost all knowledge of where they could be.

You stupid cow, she thought but she was not angry at Abby at all. She thought she would be but she probably would have done the same thing.

“Doctor”, someone called to her, “Can you have a look at this patient?”

Susan reluctantly left the search and rescue in the hands of the professionals and went back to doing her job, even though she wanted to do anything she could to help.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carter was chatting to Malik at the admit desk about the latest basketball game, in the best mood he had been in for weeks. Right. No more excuses. When Abby came back to the hospital he would tell her exactly how he felt, once and for all.

“What’s up with you today?” Malik asked. Clearly seeing that Carter’s mind was on something other than basketball. “You’ve had a permanent grin on your face all afternoon!”

“Nothing” he replied, but it was obvious to everyone that something happened to put him in such a good mood. He couldn’t them exactly what happened, of course. They would think he was crazy, but he couldn’t hide his feelings much longer, and he would have no reason to. Once he told Abby his feelings and he was sure she reciprocated, he wanted to tell everyone about the woman of his dreams.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The child in Abby’s arms coughed and whimpered apprehensively as large pieces of building material crashed down, falling precariously close to where the two were lying. Abby did her best to calm the little girl but it was hard to sound convincing when you yourself weren’t entirely sure. And children were very good at reading emotions.

Abby herself was feeling like a frightened little child. She wished there was someone here now to comfort and reassure her. She could only think of one person who could do that job efficiently.

In the past, all the times she had needed him, he had been there. Those were not such life of death situations though and it was hardly realistic for her to talk to him now. Where is he now?, she found herself thinking, Does he know where I am? Is he worried?

A large plank of wood crashing down on her shoulder brought her back out of her thoughts and reminded her that she had far more important things to think about right now, other than potential boyfriends. Like surviving to ever see them again.

“Come on”, she said quietly to herself, through gritted teeth, willing the paramedics to hurry up and get them out of there.. She could hear them faintly over the din of the falling building. They must be close now. They had to be. She wasn’t at all sure how long the two of them could lie there and not be seriously injured by goodness knows what.

“Aaaaaaagh!” Abby let out a surprised groan and looked across at the worried child’s face.

Pain.

Then nothing.