Shit.

* * *

"Hsst...Hera." Was the only warning from Zelgadis, and Lina looked around suddenly, startled by the urgency in his voice. But there was nothing out of the ordinary...only some children playing in the street, and even now they were running to the sidewalk.

Tons of raging metal let out a loud squawk of alarm as the truck driver blasted his horn in panic, brakes squealing and tires smoking as they strove to halt the massive vehicle in its headlong dash towards a little girl sitting in the middle of the road. The child was paralyzed with fright, unable to even blink as she stared at her own death heading straight for her. Hera stared at the child, eyes wide as the little one's herself as she watched a horror about to occur.

"Hera, do something!" Zelgadis' voice snapped her from her appalled reverie and back to reality. She looked from him, to the child, then back again.

Time moves differently for gods than it does for humans. While we would have had no time to think about our actions, even the littlest of godlings has time to think carefully about what they will do next. Therefore, Lina had plenty of time to take hold of herself before she went rushing headlong into the rescue of a human child. She had plenty of time to remind herself that if she used up her one miracle this year, She would most likely not have enough for at least five more. She consoled her stung conscience with the knowledge that the child would die soon anyway, that it hadn't lived much yet, and was only human, after all. She had time to bury her wailing thoughts in the back of her mind, where they would do no harm.

Lina turned back towards him, her eyes flashing to a dull rust color as she feigned utter indifference. "Why donít you?" She replied offhandedly, staring him down. "What use is she to me? It's only a little human. Why should it matter? Besides, it's not missing much. And it's only lived four, five years at best. It will die, just like hundreds of other children do every day on this miserable earth." She shrugged, then looked away from his piercing blue eyes. "All I'll do is ruin my next few years by saving one."

Zelgadis drew himself up to his full height and glared down at her. "You will save her at least twenty years more. You care, Hera, I know you care. You've changed, you've seen these mortals in their lives, and you've lost the superior, separate feeling you had when you were high and away in mount Olympus." His gaze softened even as she avoided his eyes. "I can't do this, I haven't the power. Please."

Lina flipped her hair, now loose from her twist, angrily over her shoulder and scoffed, twirling her white robes about her indignantly. "For you," Hera muttered, wishing she could cut his glib tongue away from him, and twisted her bands of power about her hand. With a complicated flick of her wrist, the miracle she had been saving for ten years flew from her hands and touched the child just as the massive truck swept into her.

Hera held the bawling tyke in her arms as she glared at the smug smile plastered across Hades' face. "You owe me," She muttered angrily, and his grin only grew wider.

"No, actually, I believe you owe me." She spun angrily away from him. "You know you would have hated yourself for centuries if you hadn't saved her." Much to his further amusement, Hera ignored him in favor of the blubbering child.

"Does it hurt?" She asked softly, kneeling down on the rough pavement to touch a hand to her curly brow. The girl looked up, startled, with huge brown eyes and a tiny snub nose covered with freckles.

"No..." She said in a piping soprano, as though it surprised her. Her brown curls flopped in her eyes, and she unconsciously pushed them back. She turned an awed gaze on Hera, looking at her white flowing robe and worried eyes.

"Are you an angel? Am I dead?"

Hera kicked Hades, silencing the snort that was making its way from his lips, and smiled. "No sweetling," She murmured, brushing back the child's hair tiredly, "You're not dead. And I'm not an angel." She added, glaring at the black robed figure standing behind her.

"But I was in the road. The truck..."

"Not anymore." Hera stood up and dusted off her hands, smoothed out purely imaginary wrinkles on her robe and turned. "Are you ready to go, Hades? Or do you want another group of SCA members to walk by and tell you your costume isnít period?"

Zelgadis brushed his silver-blue hair out of his eyes and adjusted his spectacles as the child's eyes grew wide. "You... You just..." She stuttered, staring at the young museum curator where before was a specter of night. She looked back at Lina, standing in her tailored blue suit with her hair neatly pinned behind her head.

"Ready to go, Hera?" The young man asked the woman in blue heels. She shrugged, already walking away, and smiled at the girl with curly hair.

Who promptly fainted.

"Oh, for... here, Hades, see if you have enough power to find out who the kid is." Lina knelt and looked for a bump among the curls, thankfully finding none. She lifted the child in her arms and looked around, suddenly seeing the wreckage, and staring with amazement.

The truck had spun and crashed into an apartment building, crushing one of the walls and leaving the apartment bared as the propane the semi had been transporting trickled from its ruptured container. Mortals fled the building, pouring from the fire escapes and dragging their young with them, leaping from windows and running through back exits. The cab let off a few sparks from damages cables...soon the propane would ignite, and the entire building would collapse.

And Lina could tell there were still people in the building. Children, more of them, in the top floor, left by their mother with the eldest, who was desperately trying to get the three others out from under the bed.

No one else knew, no one else could see what even a godling knew instinctively. They would be found later, much later, if they were found at all, in the broken remains of their three room apartment. No one would care, either-- it would only be three minutes at most on the six o'clock news.

Gods can think and reason before something horrible happens. Sometimes they just don't.

Hera raced into the building, white robes flapping behind her even as Zelgadis turned to tell her who the little girl was.