Carrie Vaughn - After the Golden Age

“Celia!”

It took her far too long to focus on the sound, especially when she turned and found Arthur Mentis standing right in front of her. She let go of the firemen and fell into his arms, hugging him tightly.

“I thought I was dead. I really thought I was dead this time.”

A good sport, he hugged back, patting her shoulder. Finally, she straightened, thinking she ought to recover some sort of dignity—if for no other reason than to help Arthur recover his. She wobbled.

“You should sit down. I think you have a concussion,” he said.

“No, I’m fine.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

She squinted. They kept moving. “Three? Six?”

“Definitely a concussion. Come on.”

“My bag—my attaché case, you have to find it, it’s got some information about a lab Sito used to work at ages ago. Do you know he worked for West Corp, for my grandfather? I can’t lose it, I have to show Dad—”

He gave her an odd look, like he thought it was the concussion talking. “We’ll find it, Celia. Don’t worry. I’ll look for it myself, but you must sit.”

She let him lead her to a quiet curb and a blanket. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re helping with the injured. There were forty people on that bus.”

The emergency crew was spraying fire retardant foam everywhere, and dozens of stretchers carried away the wounded. So many of them. No one had gotten out of there unscathed.

“They’d all be dead if it weren’t for you,” Arthur said helpfully.

Celia gripped his arm in a sudden panic. “The baby, is the baby okay? There was this baby, it was screaming, and I think we all wanted to throttle it … is it okay?”

He pointed. The mother was sitting on a stretcher while an EMT dabbed at a cut on her forehead. She held the baby in her arms, smiling and cooing at it. It was still crying, but the sobs were reduced to tired whimpers.

Celia continued holding Arthur’s arm, because it steadied her. The world was still moving at eighty miles an hour. “I killed the driver.”

“I know. You did what you had to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’re a hero.”

She started to laugh, but it hurt, so she stopped. “I just didn’t want to die.”

He gave her a wry smile. “That’s good to hear.”

She looked down, saw her hand on his sleeve, resting on his arm. “Thanks. You’re always there for me when the shit hits the fan, pulling me out of the Destructor’s clutches, or just … just keeping me sane. So thanks.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

Her gaze focused for a moment, and her breath stopped. He had blue eyes. She felt them looking back at her, felt them, through her eyes and into her mind, and they told her that what he’d said was more than a social nicety.

He never showed emotion. He kept such tight control over himself. But for a moment, that guard dropped, and she saw … everything. The look in his eyes left her gut feeling warm.

He glanced away, lips slipping into a frown. He squeezed her hand and stood as an EMT took his place beside her on the curb. Calmly as ever, he walked away to join the rest of the rescue effort.

The medical powers that be wanted to keep her in the hospital overnight for observation. She didn’t mind. She lay in bed, between nice clean sheets, and enjoyed the feeling of not moving. They’d even given her a private room. She didn’t have to face anything but the walls if she didn’t want to.

She had her eyes closed when she heard footsteps approach, then stop in the doorway. Not bothering to lift her head from the pillow, she looked. Blinked, looked again. There he stood, a familiar form in his overcoat, slouching sheepishly. Mark, bringing flowers. He gripped a vase of roses in both hands.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t look convinced. Probably because of the thick bandage around her forehead. A cut, eight stitches. She hadn’t even felt it. She supposed she ought to be milking this for all the sympathy it was worth.

“Can I come in?”

She could tell him off or let it go. Letting it go made her less tired right now. “Sure.”

He tried to find a place for the vase of roses, but all the tables were filled, as well as the floor along the wall with the window. He slipped it in between another vase and a teddy bear holding a balloon.

“Popular girl,” he said, standing a little ways off from the bed.

A dozen families of passengers on the bus had sent her flowers; two dozen random people she’d never heard of with no connection to the accident sent her flowers. All because she lacked any compunctions about crawling up to a man with a gun and strangling him from behind. It weirded her out, even more than all the bad press after her testimony. She’d deserved the bad press. All the news stations had carried live breaking reports of the bus hijacking. Once her name had come up, the reporters grabbed it and ran record-breaking sprints. The second time in a week she’d made the news, and the only thing reporters liked better than a hero was a hero redeeming a dark past.

“It’s a little much,” she said.

“They’ve had a heck of a time trying to figure out what happened, but twenty of the passengers gave sworn affidavits that you single-handedly stopped that bus from going into the harbor. I think you may be up for a medal.”

“Don’t tell them I was just trying to save my own ass.”

He chuckled. Just like a guy to act like there’d never been anything wrong between them.

She mustered the energy to say, “Mark, are you wanting to apologize and be friends again or what?”

He looked at his shoes. “Yeah. I guess I am.”

“So all a girl’s got to do to earn an apology is save a busload of people from a maniac.”

“It wasn’t … I was going to—” He paused. She watched him visibly collect himself, taking a breath, looking at the ceiling. She waited patiently. This ought to be good. But if he made her cry, she’d never speak to him again. “When I saw your name on the passenger list, but no one knew if you’d been hurt or not, I was useless. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t focus, or work. I had to find out. I got over here as soon as I could.”

As apologies went, he could have done worse. Now she had to decide whether or not she was going to forgive him.

“You should sit down,” she said. “You look tired.”

Looking relieved, he pulled up a chair. “We’ve been trying to track down the story on the driver.”

“What have you found out?”

“Male, forty-seven, divorced twice. He’s got a rap sheet, a half-dozen temper-related reprimands on his work record, and a felony conviction for assault. He’d have been laid off already if the transit authority weren’t so short-handed. His supervisor didn’t seem surprised when we told him what happened.”

Not one of those he-seemed-so-nice testimonials. He’d been boiling and the system hadn’t caught it. “He just went postal.”

“Looks that way.”

Someone knocked on the door, which was already ajar, and didn’t wait for an invitation before entering.

“Celia?” Her mother pushed into the room, followed by her father, both in street clothes. Mr. and Mrs. West, now. She hadn’t seen them at the accident site. They’d been too busy, and the paramedics had sent her to the hospital with a vanload of walking wounded as soon as they could.

“Hi, Mom.”

Suzanne took the invitation to rush to the side of the bed and shower her with maternal attention. She touched Celia’s arm, shoulder, cheek, and her eyes teared up. How could a superhero be so weepy ?

“I can’t believe you were on that bus. Are you all right? How do you feel? Do you need anything?”