Deliver Me

[littlebuttercup.livejournal.com]

Title: Deliver Me
Rating: PG
Summary: Nick character piece. They say he has a hero complex.

AN: Inspired by (and written for) 0creativity, even though he didn't know it. This was not how I meant it to turn out, but I'm glad I went with it. There's no Greg in this fic. I'll make up for it in the next one, okay?




She’s young, doesn’t even look 21, rich brown hair with matching eyes, and he has the fleeting thought that even though she’s covered in blood, she’s beautiful.

“Help me,” she whispers, her voice raw and broken.

“I need a medic!” He yells, his voice echoing eerily off the cliffs and rocks of the desert. “Call for a medic!” She’s lying on rocks some ten feet below him, and in a moment of panic, he crouches down, digs his hands into the ground and swings his body over the side, then lets himself drop onto the small ledge.

Her right arm is twisted at an impossible angle so he reaches for her left one and helps her hook it around his shoulders. “Come on,” he whispers, wrapping one arm around her waist and supporting her head with the other, “let’s get you up there.”

“Help,” she says, whimpering, and he realizes that one of her legs is broken when she sways against him. “Please.”

“We’ll get you up,” he tells her. “Warrick, my friend, he’s going to help you. Reach out and grab his hand, he won’t let you go.” He braces her against his body and lifts her up as high as he can, but she’s still several feet short of Warrick’s outstretched hand and he knew that would happen.

“Nick, stay right there,” Warrick yells down, rather unnecessarily, he thinks, because if he could go anywhere, he would. “I’m going to get the cables, try and pull you up.”

“She’s hurt too badly, Rick,” he calls back. “See if there’s a stretcher, anything to stabilize her.” He tightens his grip on her waist and tells her it will be just another minute, and she’ll be fine. “I’m Nick,” he says, almost as an after thought. “What’s your name?”

“Laura,” she whispers, and when she starts coughing, he realizes that she’s coughing up blood and from all his experiences he knows this is not good.

“Laura,” he says, swallowing hard, “hold on for me, okay? Warrick will be right back, and we’ll get you out of here.”

He knows she won’t make it, somehow. He knows that she’ll be dead by the time the medics arrive and there’s nothing he can do about that. She’s shivering, gasping for air and blood is flowing from a wound on her chest.

He’s watching her die, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

They say he has a hero complex, an intense need to save everyone. And maybe that’s true, but he dares anyone to hold a dying girl in their arms and not feel that resolve, the burn to fix her, make her better. But for all his heroism and strength, he’s at a loss, because help is ten feet above him, digging through a jumble of supplies they haven’t used for years and he can’t scale this rocky wall while holding onto her and he’s not leaving her down here to die on her own.

All his training, bullshit classes on CPR and the correct way to help a live victim, out the window, because all he’s got down here are the clothes on his back and his hands, and those aren’t going to help her.

“Stay with me,” he whispers to her. “Only a little bit longer.”

He’s got nothing left. No way to help, no means for comfort. Nothing but his words and his arms that are holding her up. Words that are lies, told because he won’t ever tell her there’s no chance she’ll make it, not when the nearest medic is thirty miles away and he can hear Warrick cursing under his breathe about lack of supplies. “Come on, Rick,” he yells, desperate tones seeping into his voice.

“Just hold on, Nicky,” Warrick yells back. “Medics will be here in twenty minutes. We’ll have to wait – I got nothin’, man.” There’s a pause, and then he says, hesitantly, “try and figure out what happened to her.”

It’s the last thing he wants to do, but he takes a deep breath and beings to question her quietly. “Laura, we found your car pulled off by the side of the road. Can you tell us how it got there?”

“I was driving home,” she tells him, her voice raw. “I was tired – pulled over-“ she breaks off, coughing, and he wraps his arms around her a little tighter. “Walk around, you know? There was a truck – the guy got out-“ she takes a shuddering breath. “I don’t remember. I woke up down here.”

“Do you remember what he looked like?”

“Tall. Blond hair.” She clutchs him a little harder and he feels her sway. “Nick,” he hears her gasp, and he pulls back to look at her.

“Hold on,” he says, almost desperately. “Just hold on, Laura.”

“Hurts,” she moans, her breathing becoming labored. “Please, Nick.”

“Rick, I need a medic now!” he yells up, “Get them here now!”

“Please,” she gasps again.

He’s not sure what she wants, if she’s looking for permission or absolution, but he gives it to her either way. “It’s okay,” he whispers. “You’re okay.”

He barely feels her nod, and she takes one last shuddering gasp of air before she’s dead weight against him, and he lets himself sink to his knees, holding her tightly.

He bows his head and feels the burn of resolve flowing through him. He was tall, with blond hair, and Nick will find him.