One moment everything was fine. No, better than fine, everything was right. Cam smiled, she turned, happiness was a gentle, timid glow in the air, her finger touched the frame--"First on the right."--she glanced back, laughed, thought I like this, the picture moved into place, Cam's back, his hair was getting a little longer, a shadow trembled where there should've been only light, Cam was--
Move, her brain shouted. Move, screamed the air in her chest and the nerves in her arms and the horrible, white-hot dizziness on her skin. Move, oh for the love of whatever Heaven is listening, move, please, let me move.
But she couldn't. Something thick and terrible--shock?--banded around her legs and ribs, something invisible as the cold and yet too light to untangle, something almost soothing--like fingers, a calm, familiar pull carding through her hair, damp coolness brushing the back of her neck, shhh, little one--was freezing her, making her helpless and useless, and Cam's head finally, inevitably, cracked against the step's edge.
Even as the inexplicable taffy around her muscles pulled loose, even as panic froze her throat, even as she heard flesh hit marble and bone give way, Mischa's wonderful brain was taking notes. It took in the stairs--whose design and installation she had overseen with personal pride--it calculated the length and impact, it brought up the necessary biological information, recalling the breaking point of bone, the average density of an adult human cranium, the incoming angle, the sequence of steps, the spot where he would eventually, finally land, and the clear, absolute fact that Cameron Harper was going to die.
And nothing would ever make the right sense again.
But what finally hit the floor was not one body, but two.
Sato. The name filled Mischa with painful relief, evaporating the dizziness fast enough to leave her trembling. Because it was Sato, her Sato, with her back on the floor and arms locked around Cam. Sato who had jumped down the stairs with inhuman precision in a blur of equally inhuman speed, Sato who had wrapped her own slim, impossible body around Cam's to cushion against the fall, Sato whose beautiful black eyes turned away from the top of the stairs and looked at her and said "Mischa", and suddenly everything made sense.
"Lia, get the med kit!" She heard a scramble that meant the other woman had paused on her way to inspect the noise and was obeying. James, too, was suddenly near as she expected him to, as he was supposed to, and Mischa unceremoniously plucked his cell from his jacket pocket. "Thank you. Please, return to the front."
They obeyed her just as they'd been trained to do, just as she was obeying her own bone-deep training.
"Sato-san?" Mischa looked down at her boss, unable to quiet focus on the--situation--in the woman's arms.
"Arm's broken. Concussion." Sato gathered her legs under her, moving with a fluid resiliency nothing human could dream of (but must've, once) and moving into crouching position without disturbing her still, oh so horribly still, cargo. "He's out." She shifted him, neck still safely cradled in the crook of her arm, and patted his cheek lightly. "Cameron? Cameron, can you hear me? Wake."
"Cam." Mischa was on her knees (when did that happen?), Lia lowering the kit into her hands. "It's--he's Cam."
"So desu ka..." The pale, pretty hand slapped a trifle harder. "Cam. ¿Me oyes? I need you to wake up, Cam, despertate! Wonderful. Lia, go to the phones; Mr. Sunders is on line 3 and we need the account closed by 6 PM. Do so. Mischa, help--"
"We shouldn't move him. If it's a concussion."
Sato's eyes were calm and it pressed on Mischa like a hand. "I could carry the child halfway to Jersey without disturbing a hair on his skin. Get the kit and follow." She stood, Cam in her arms. True to her word, his head never seemed to change position pressed to the Baku's shoulder. "Call his Master."
Mischa was already dialing.
OOC: Trans (in order of appearance): (1) Is that so?/I see..., (2) Do you hear me?, (3) Wake up