Log; Completed

[warped-inside.livejournal.com]

When; Late Saturday
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Toshiko Sato warped_inside and Luke Skywalker knightbalanced
Summary; Luke finds Toshiko after her release from the Saw trap
Log;

Tosh stumbled back into the room she'd just left, falling inside the doorway, tape player still clutched in one hand. There had to be another door, a passageway, something that would lead her to where Tony was being held. She just had to find it. She scrabbled at the wall, fighting back the desire to just lie down and give up, leaving bloody handprints as she searched for something that might give her a clue how to find him.

Too many traps in one night - and a curse, creating so much chaos. Tosh, Tosh, of course, that was the disturbance Luke had been feeling. He'd grown so close to her, but she wasn't from his world, and he would never have been able to predict it. He'd barely gotten off the comm with Jack before he'd bolted. He could feel her, now, and hear her terror in his mind.

He was a blur through the Underground, coming to the enclosure, and he was in no mood for any delays. The sealed door in front of him was no match for a quick snap-hiss and gutting with his lightsaber, and he ripped the iron thing off with the Force.

"Toshi--"

The smell of blood hit him first, almost before the sharp, nearly painful wrench in his heart. "Toshiko!"

Her hands were covered in blood, her shirt soaked in it and sticking to her skin, from the gashes covering her face. If she heard anything, realized she wasn't alone, she didn't respond. She'd decided that the monitor had to be the key, had to be what was hiding the access she needed to that other room, and she grabbed at the exposed edge, weakly trying to pull it from the wall.

Luke could see her through the spaces between the chair. She must have been so traumatized already to not notice the door being torn off, and the sound of his lightsaber. He grabbed the heavy metal chair blocking the entrance and yanked it out, a loud crash sounding. A quick slice with his lightsaber and a touch of the Force sent the blades hovering there safely to one side. When he stepped near her, he did so cautiously.

"Toshiko?"

This time Tosh looked up, although it was first to the monitor as if she expected the voice to be coming from it, before finally turning toward Luke. Dropping the tape player, she reached toward him, grasping at his clothes.

"Tony..."

Back toward the monitor again, and this time she laid her other hand on the screen, leaving a bloody handprint there.

He clicked his lightsaber off as soon as she turned around, hooking it back on his belt before stepping forward to stabilize her as she moved. He knew his face was shocked and pale seeing her like this. How she even managed to get out, he couldn't see. But she was a fighter, that much was clear.

Luke moved forward slowly and gently guided her away from the monitor as best he could in the cramped quarters, trying to see what she was looking at. There was nothing on the screen, though he got such a distinct feeling of wrongness from it that he knew that there used to be.

"You need to come with me now," he said quietly. "Come on, Tosh..." He didn't even care about Amanda, right now. All his thoughts were focused on getting her out of there, and safe.

Everything was quiet until Luke began to move her away from the monitor. Then Tosh screamed, struggling wildly, pushing at him and trying to pull herself away from his grasp, although she was weak enough already from the loss of blood that her attempts were meaningless.

She wasn't finished yet. She still had to get Tony out of his trap. The tape had said she'd failed, mocked her, but she'd done everything right, so why couldn't she get to him?

It wasn't entirely unexpected. He held her, not wanting to let her thrash around and hurt herself further. He didn't speak, but pulled her close against him, reaching up with his left hand to touch the side of her head, the blood from her wounds covering him.

Be still.

He commanded the Force, giving her peace. He could sense her panic, but knew if she worked herself up she'd just lose more blood, and she was on such an edge already.

Flashes of memory assaulted Tosh's mind -- a dark basement, a knife held to someone's throat while she was restrained, a cold cell with only the movement of shadow for company, the look on Owen's face as he bled out onto the pavement, Tommy's eyes begging her not to make him go...

And then they were gone, the panic muted and a sense of calmness taking its place, and she relaxed into Luke's arms, collapsing against him.

"I killed him. I killed him. I killed him."

"No you did not," he murmured, scooping her up into his arms easily and ducking out of the enclosure. He paused outside, stopping to look around with his eyes and the Force, searching for other life forms. Nothing. Blast. Tony Stark... Had he really been there? So many people had squeaked by out of the traps alive but physically destroyed. Not tonight.

He began moving again, heading quickly back to the overground. With any luck Clow had alerted the hospital staff after all.

Now that she no longer had the agonized desperation keeping her going, Tosh began to drift out of consciousness. She hovered right at the edge, aware that they were moving, vaguely realizing when they left the underground and when they arrived at the hospital, but not really caring enough to think about it. In fact, she didn't say another word, the only difficulty coming when they attempted to get her to loosen her grip on Luke's sleeve. Beyond that, she barely seemed to notice what was happening around her.

Luke worked to keep her from going under completely, a presence in her mind, even as he rushed into the emergency room lobby - Earth's medical facilities were still so strange to him, it almost made him paranoid seeing such low levels of medical technology - and told them what had happened.

"You need to go and let them help you," he said to her when she wouldn't let go, even though he realized she was not listening. He was ushered out of the operating room, and for a long moment he just stared at the doors, maintaining the connection with his friend, before realizing he was covered in her blood, a stark black and red contrast in the pristine white hallways.

He wasn't shaken. It was a fact that struck him as odd. He'd felt something was coming, and this was it. It was just a hollow feeling. He tried to prevent it, they'd all tried to prevent it, and yet there she was. It would be so easy to fall into anger. But he knew he couldn't.

So he forced himself to move, instead of just standing there, and checked in on the network. With Jack. And he didn't leave, because he was where he needed to be.

By the time Luke was allowed to see Tosh again, she was clean and dressed in a hospital gown, tucked under white sheets in bed. Half of her face was swathed in bandages, where one of the blades had bared her cheekbone, and an IV slowly dripped fluids through a needle in her hand. Her eyes were closed, and Luke was warned that she would be groggy from painkillers.

Despite that, she opened her eyes when he came near, and although she looked dazed and only half-aware, her gaze followed him.

He'd gotten cleaned up by the time she was ready to be moved into her room, and when she looked up, he leaned forward, soft smile on his face. He reached out and let his fingertips brush her arm, a small comforting touch.

"Hey. Don't try and talk. You're gonna be okay."

Tosh was certain she wasn't going to be okay, but she couldn't explain this to Luke. She kept thinking about what the voice in the trap had said, how she never minded killing before so Tony shouldn't matter now. She could have saved him, she'd been given the chance, and she hadn't been good enough. Maybe she hadn't cared enough, and if she'd tried harder, he'd still be alive.

"Sorry," she whispered, looking up at Luke for a moment before closing her eyes and letting the drugs pull her into sleep.

[ooc: Takes place immediately on the heels of this scene. An open post for interaction will be up shortly.]