No. 1 Race Against The Clock - Tumblr Posts

Race Against the Clock

(search party / panic attack / "if only we could hold on")

***

"Where is she?!"

"Faye. Calm down. You're hyperventilating."

Wide, wild green eyes stared uncomprehendingly back at him. Faye's breathing did not improve. The thick clouds of dust in the air were no help for breathing or for seeing a damn thing.

"She... she..." Faye gasped.

"Dammit, Spike! Forget about her for a second! Ed needs our help here!" Jet shouted as he continued to furiously dig through the rubble that was settling all around them.

Spike scowled. The circumstances were not great. Faye's panic attack was the most useless thing that could have happened at such a critical juncture. Although, something lurked in the back of Spike's mind about the dangers of attempting a rescue before a structure had finished falling apart. There was a risk that Jet's hasty attempts to dislodge the broken portions of the building would cause more of it to crumble and it's not like they even knew exactly where Ed was in all the disarray.

"Faye." He cupped her face between his hands, palms pressing against her cheeks gently. "You are making things worse. Get your fucking shit together."

Cruel words but he didn't have time to baby her. Besides, Faye tended to react more immediately and aggressively to negative comments than to anything sweet and soothing. Probably something psychological to explore there but this wasn't the place for that.

As he'd hoped, his callous command sparked something in her. She stiffened beneath his touch and jerked back as her spine straightened up. Hurt warred with confusion in her gaze for a moment before her eyes snapped like green fire at him. She shoved past him without a word and started to sift through the wreckage of a different section of the collapsed housing complex.

Worry over the fate of the lost hacker was predominant in Spike's mind as well but he wasn't convinced she was trapped where the others were searching. Ed had discovered a trapdoor leading into shadowy depths underneath the apartments. He'd seen as much for himself in the video feed of her COMM call before the ground began to heave and the signal cut out.

She might be hidden under more debris than the others realized.

A shudder tore through him at the thought that she might not be buried alive at all. She might just be... buried.

No.

NO.

Wrenching his thoughts from that dark avenue, Spike threw himself bodily into heaving aside fragments of concrete and wood and whatever else had once shoddily held the apartment building together. If he could just find the remains of the stairwell... if that section had been built strong enough to remain intact while the hallways and everything else fell apart... if he could just get further down, deeper down...

The dog was with her, after all. The two most clever and resourceful members of the crew, trapped together somewhere in a place where they might not be getting much oxygen. Where they might be wounded or worse. How much time did they have? How long before there wasn't any air at all to breathe? It was a race against the clock - a clock they couldn't even see. A race they might have already lost.

Worst-case scenarios continued to plague his thoughts. He could hear Jet grunting with effort, could practically taste the tears on Faye's cheeks as she choked back sobs and choked also on the dusty air they were breathing in.

No.

Ed and Ein would be fine. They just needed to hold on... Spike and the others would get to them soon... if they could just... if they...

Dammit.

"Hold on, kiddo. We're coming for you." Spike muttered quietly, his throat tight with unwanted emotion and burning from all the nasty shit he was inhaling. "Just... hold on..."