"Well aren't you full of surprises?" Ezra mused as the slid into the car beside her, ignoring a nearly bouncing Blaise in the front seat beside Tim.

"Apparently," Blair chuckled, raising an eyebrow at him, "In my defense, I was pretty surprised too."

"You knew the second you walked in he'd agree," Blaise said, turning in his seat and earning a side glance from Tim.

"Of course I did," Blair said warmly, glancing out the window but not seeing a thing.

She was too far away, back across the sea in a small hospital no one but she would remember the name of.

"When you went abroad, you checked in to a medical facility," Ezra said quietly, observing her more seriously now, "Was it... only to hide your identity?"

"No," Blair admitted just as quietly, "That was part of it... but I'd had other options if hiding was the only goal."

Blaise's smirk faded as he processed the meaning behind her words, his eyes flicking toward Ezra.

"Did you know he had gone to end it?" Ezra asked after a long silence.

"Yeah," Blair said, not so much as flinching when the droplets began to hit the window, "He had that look in his eyes when he gazed out over the water and I... I knew. I could see it. I grumbled to myself a bit louder than I needed to as I moved a piece to drag his attention my way. I hadn't quite figured out how to invite him to play when he sat down, cocky as hell... like that was going to be his final hurrah."

Blair smirked softly, though the sadness in her eyes was unmistakable.

"I kicked his ass... told him he wasn't allowed to leave until he beat me. At least once."

That's what they did, the two of them. They set little goals, little deadlines... 'you can't leave until' - almost like a secret password that had formed between the two of them. Her goal had been set long ago... when she found out what happened to her brother and father. His idea, of course.

Tim turned on the wipers and adjusted the heat to prevent a chill, missing key details but having put enough together to be genuinely surprised.

"He doesn't take losing well," Ezra chuckled, studying her profile as he processed what he'd learned, "I suppose I should thank you... for saving him back then, I mean. We... I... I wasn't ready for him to leave quite yet."

"He's very fond of you," Blair said, turning toward him at last with a soft smile, "We agreed he wouldn't talk about his background. I didn't know his last name, I didn't know where he was from exactly, and I didn't know his whole family situation... but we talked. A lot. Lots of little things slipped out that he may or may not have meant for me to learn. He spoke of you, and your father."

She paused and held his gaze meaningfully when she added, "He's very proud of you. Even if he's never said so."

There was a long pause then, and Tim's eyes flicked up to the rearview to look fondly at the man he'd been driving around since he was a boy.

Ezra's eyes had only had enough time to go wide. The headlights of the truck weren't on, and in the dark it was if the shadow simply appeared out of nowhere from the darkness and rain. A metal demon emerging from hell aimed just right.

The sound of crunching metal was delayed. Like the world forgot how to breathe.

The sound when skulls met the window was drowned out by the sound of metal screaming and glass shattering.

Shouts rang out as the world inverted, shock and fear finally erupting as bodies lurched and fought against the seatbelts that insisted they stay where they were. As if the physics of the world has a point to prove, the restraints dug in just wrong, the sides of the car offering no cushion as they were slammed against the leather.

There was no reprieve, and they suddenly felt weightless before they slammed back down until their spines compressed under the force.

Then silence.

Inside the vehicle all four people hung where they were tethered.

Some moved. Some didn't.

A high pitched whining rang in ears like an echo in the sudden absence of the movement.

One breath. One heartbeat.

Then another.

Ezra couldn't see. Couldn't hear.

Couldn't breathe.

Still, as if by instinct alone he held his thumb against the button on the bottom of the ring on his middle finger. He didn't have the capacity to count to ensure he held it long enough, so he simply didn't let go.

"Tim?" Ezra's voice sounded wrong to his own ears.

But nothing sounded as wrong as the silence that greeted him.

"Blaise? Blair?"

Sounds outside the car reached him then. Muffled by his own mind's inability to catch up. Crunching glass? Murmurs? He wasn't sure.

"Ez?" Blaise's voice was weak, but it shattered the quiet and Ezra nearly choked in relief.

"Blaise. You okay?"

"Negatory," Blaise rasped, his humor falling flat despite it being the only reaction he was capable of in that moment.

A breath and Blaise let out a strangled cry, the pain radiating through him.

"Blaise!" Ezra gasped, blinking away the dark spots in his vision in a desperate attempt to see him.

"E-Ez," Blaise whimpered," Ah fuck! Oh fuck! Shit! Fuck!"

"Blaise! What-"

"Ez," Blaise choked, "It's... It's stuck in my... It's... Oh fuck. Oh shit! I'm... I..."

"I'm coming," Ezra grit, "I-just hold on. I'm coming, Blaise. Just breathe."

"Oh...oh fuck... Oh my God, Tim... Ez he's... Tim's.... Oh fuck!"

Ezra turned even as he blindly reached for the seat belt digging into his waist like it wanted to slice him in half, and he froze.

Was that... String hanging from Blair's lips?

It hit him a second later that, no, it wasn't. It was a steady, thin stream of liquid pouring from her.

Blood.

Blair was covered in blood, her hair and arms hanging down limply around her. But she had pulled her hair up to paint, and despite how it had come half free in the crash, her face was clearly visible.

Her face was relaxed, her eyes closed... And blood, flowing down from her mouth toward the roof of the car below her.

"No, no, no," Ezra whispered, "Blair? Blair! Shit!"

The seat belt refused to come free, and as fear morphed into anger, clarity sliced through his panic. The world narrowed in the silence that erupted in Ezra's mind - cold and sudden.

He had one thought - to fix this. Now.

Reaching down, Ezra grabbed a piece of shattered glass - ignoring how it dug into his fingers as he sliced fiercely at the strap. It didn't cut cleanly or quickly, but he sawed relentlessly until it suddenly snapped.

He fell forward into the pile of glass below him brutally, but didn't let the sharp pains stop him as he reached forward and began sawing at Blair's belt next.

When she felt into his arms, she didn't even flinch.

Ezra inhaled sharply, but didn't stop, kicking at the door again, and again, and.-

It finally busted free, furious sounds as metal resisted the force. It was enough to crawl forward with Blair on one arm.

Ezra placed her in the grass by the road, trying not too think too hard about how pale she was or the strange angle of her arm. Instead he dashed, ignoring the pain, to Blaise's door and began yanking on the frame with all his strength.

Blood pooled around his fingers from the glass's souvenirs, but he couldn't feel it. Couldn't see it.

When the door yanked free, though, he froze.

"Ez," Blaise breathed quietly, his eyes dropping heavily, "I... I can't feel... I can't feel my legs... Ez."

Ezra stared at the jagged metal spear that had pierced straight through to the seat, the bent frame still stuck to the edge of the windshield as if determined Blaise was forever bound to the twisted metal.

The red had bloomed around it on his stomach and was pouring down and around him.

"Ez," Blaise choked, "Help me. Please..."

Ezra forced himself forward and worked to detach the metal from the windshield, trying not to jostle it too much.

He failed, earning screams from Blaise as the metal jolted from his work, but he didn't stop until the metal came free. Then, as gently as he could, he sawed at the seat belt - catching Blaise so he couldn't be impaled anymore and lifting him - metal spear and all, out and away to lay him beside the car in the grass like he had with Blair.

"Don't touch it," Ezra grit, holding the metal upright, "Helps coming, Blaise. You just have to hold on until they get here. You have to leave it in, or you'll bleed out before they arrive."

"Ezzie, I don't wanna die," Blaise's eyes fluttered and his head lolled to the side as the words fell from him.

Ezzie. Blaise hadn't called him that since they were children. For some reason, hearing Blaise use it again hit Ezra deep in his core, and panic exploded through him again.

The sounds of sirens could be heard somewhere far away, but Ezra couldn't hear them. He was too focused on holding the metal piece so it didn't rip a bigger hole in his best friend.

He couldn't move, but his eyes flicked through the door he'd ripped open in search for the last person he needed to find.

The cry escaped him before he realized he'd made a sound.

Tim's eyes were open. Sightless. His neck was... Wrong. It was wrong. That's not... That's not how he should look.

Even as the sirens grew louder, the only sound the trees around them heard were the yells Ezra couldn't contain - his eyes bouncing between his best friend whose chest was barely moving, the woman not far from him who laid at an awkward angle, and Tim who hung inside the car and stared at him without seeing him.

The sound echoed in the darkness of the abandoned road, the city too far away in the distance and the estate no longer visible behind them.

There was no one around to hear the broken sounds of his pain as he waited for what felt like an eternity for the lights to grow in the distance and finally arrive.

The moment the EMT grasped the metal, Ezra's world went dark. 

--

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