YOU SHOULD SEE ME IN A CROWWWWWN

It's after six and, if she were any normal person, she'd just wait here by the kitchen door to brag about how he's actually the one that's late. But because he's not any normal person, she realizes that something is off with the situation. It's not like him to lose track of time, his version of "late" is arriving right on time.

Then again, what does she know? He's seemed even more bothered than usual by something lately, perhaps he did just get lost in letting out steam. But how dare he make her wait on dinner.

With a little stomp of her heel, she whirls around to start down the hall, away from the warm smells of savory food that try their very best to make her mouth water. Not like she was going to eat much of them anyway, but the idea is still pleasant enough.

In between her steps, she can hear constant, off-beat, shots, noises that make her ears twitch. Are they coming from the range? That's. Odd. Is he running a simulation or something today? That would be a new one. She's only seen him use the range as, well, a firing range, never for its other uses.

With each step closer to the chaos, the more her mind spins trying to piece it all together. By the time she's down at the door looking in, she can't string together a coherent thought anymore, the noise pierces deep into her ears and rings in her brain.

Though. As much as that hurts, nothing shocks her more than the sight. Turrets are locked and loaded on Dolan who looks like a fish out of water, no cover, dwindling ammunition, splatters of blood following the streaks of it leading towards him. If this is a simulation, he's doing it wrong, and part of her thinks to tease him for it, but. That look on his face. This isn't right.

This wasn't planned.

Her eyes snap over to the booth, where she sees a figure standing, mercilessly watching the unfair fight without even flinching to intervene. Trita can't be sure, but the silhouette behind the glass looks vaguely familiar, though that's unimportant right now.

Flipping up the back of her suit jacket, she pulls a small submachine gun out of her waistband, away from where it had been pressed close to her spine, snagging a clip fastened into the interior jacket in the same sweep of her hands. It clicks into place like second nature, her breathing slows, things start coming back to her.

Ruined cityscapes, screams, dirt on her face, smoke in her eyes, hiding behind rubble living on only a hope and a prayer. She stays behind the doorframe for as long as she can, spraying the few turrets closest to the door, knocking them down in record time. The others are all far away, closer to Dolan, and, as good as her trusted gun is, it's not a sniper rifle.

A beat passes, she can hear her heart, things feel like they stand still in the second that elapses before she steps into the room, right back into war. She doesn't hear her heels, she hears the stomp of her boots on crumbling roads, cracked sidewalks. As she runs towards another turret, she reloads her gun, tossing the empty clip up in the air as a distraction to buy more time. In a stroke of good fortune, a couple of the turret follow it, locking on and firing, giving her time to gun the rest of them down.

It doesn't stop them all, one not too far off switches its focus to her and she catches a fast bullet in the shoulder. The immediate heaviness almost makes her stop, she's completely forgotten this pain, but, if there's one thing she always was, it's recklessly determined. She ducks and rolls off to the side, sliding up into a crouched position out of that turret's fire, bracing and taking it down.

A new turret drops down above Dolan and, though she won't admit this to him probably ever considering the gravity of the situation, she twirls her gun and shoots from the hip, taking it down in a flash. Something about it feels right.

There's no time to revel in the showboating, the figure behind the glass takes off out of the control room door into a connecting hall.

"Hey!"

Trita yells after them, bolting into the room, skidding out of the door so fast her hip hits into the opposite wall. There's no trace of the figure, they're gone.

The last of the turrets left still hanging in place power down quickly, life whirring out of them as they pull back up into a resting position, smoke still wisping out of the ends.

Trita is there, breathing heavily in the operational booth, flipping this switch and that, turning the room back into a range instead of a kill zone. The lights pull back up quickly with little transition, from dim to blaring in only a few moments, illuminating the shell casings littering the floor, the wreckage of the shot down turrets laying in heaps in the floor.

Dolan takes a moment to close his eyes. He’s pressed himself against the furthest wall, trying to put pressure on his shoulder to stay the bleeding. Feeling is coming back into his limbs now as he catches his breath and he’s realizing his whole body aches, pulls against him. How many times has he been shot? Nothing feels life threatening. If he was going to die, he would have by now.

His mind feels scattered, like its watching flashes of an old grainy movie play out on a sheet screen. He keeps seeing the vast, open sky, the lifeless sepia tones of the desert, the clouds of dust that accompany all enemy movement across the border. He feels sand between his teeth, and then he sees Trita. He hears radio whine and warble, sees the antennae jut up like gnarled black skeleton fingers into the desert sky. And then he sees Trita. She’s coming toward him and her mouth is moving, but he can’t hear anything.

He keeps blinking, staring straight ahead, fixed on something tag even he’s not sure of. Like his brain has sounded all alarms and issued a full lock down mode. It makes his joints feel like they’re made of metal. God, is all this blood his?

“You’re hit.”

The words spit out of his own mouth as she approaches him. His voice doesn’t even sound like it belongs to him.

“Ruined your favorite suit. Shit day.”

"Yeah, well, buy me a new one later, idiot."

Trita sighs deeply, kneeling down in front of him, happy to hear him say something. If anything, that's a good sign.

"Let me see."

With a gentle hand, she tilts his head back against the wall, pulls up on his eyelid with her thumb, and checks his pupil for a few moments. After she checks the other, she moves her hand to his neck, counts his pulse, and sighs again.

"Damn, Commander. I have a feeling your brother brought you here for me to take care of you in your twilight years or something. You're lucky you aren't dead, old man."

Taking a moment to catch her breath, she stands again, hoisting her jacket back up to slip the gun against her spine again. The world spins a little as she is affronted by her own pain, loss of blood, but also the overwhelming smell of his blood mixing with the settling smoke. Her nose wrinkles some but it seems like a petty thing to complain over right now.

"Come on, let's get you back to my room, I have a first aid kit there. And if these are worse than I think they are, we can call Yvaine to help out."

Dolan doesn't move immediately and while the nice thing would be to give him a moment, he doesn't really seem to have spare time to be throwing around. Trita hunches over him, slipping her arms under his and hoisting him up to lean against her. He wobbles some, clearly fighting the idea of putting his weight on her, but she bumps her hip into his to throw him off and force him to trust her. It works surprisingly well.

"Okay, big guy. One step at a time."

“Stop. Treating me like I’m dead.”

He huffs out the words with a bit of a stifled groan. It hasnt been all that long since he was last shot at, since he was last shot. But still. This is different.

In a war zone, nothing stands still. You get wounded and you push through. There’s enough going on to distract you, to fill you with a sense of urgency that pushes the pain right out of your veins. It numbs you. Here, Dolan realizes, there is none of that. There is fading adrenaline and eyes burning from too bright lights and an incredible feeling of coming down off something and being left with the bite.

With blood and the bite.

“I️ can help with. With yours too. I’ve done this before.”

The dry tone of his voice stands alone without the normal wry grin that has started to accompany it in the last few weeks.

“How was that. How did that.”

He feels like an utter fool, the opposite of everything he’s supposed to be. That something could have come up on him so fast and deadly. That without her, he’d in all likelihood be dead on that range floor.

"You're not dead yet, but I can help you get the rest of the way there if you want."

Her eyes snap to him immediately before she thinks enough to calm herself and look back out down the long hall towards the elevators. He clearly didn't mean anything by it, she must just be on edge with everything, understandably so.

Still, despite his gripping, she makes sure to take it slow for him, calmly getting them closer and closer to their transportation.l

"Someone must have slipped into the control room while you were firing. I couldn't see who it was, I just saw them run off once they saw me down several of the turrets. They either wanted you dead or very close to it. You're lucky I don't like being stood up for dinner and came to find you."

The elevator takes longer than she'd like to call down, but the doors open eventually and she slips them both inside.