Alice is 22 years old when she first meets the boy who will eventually save her life. Of course, she doesn’t know it at the time. Looking at him, dragging himself through the filthy puddles and trash of the alley, she’s not impressed.
She stops, because sometimes she likes to think she is a nice person, but she makes sure to keep a hand on her pepper spray and prevents her knees from locking.
“Want help?” Because it’s clear that the boy needs it, but she’s not going to give it to someone who’ll be ungrateful.
“Ha!” The boy pants or laughs or coughs at her, “Yeah, that’d be good,” He continues his crawl, elbows and forearms pulling the rest of his prone body towards the lit street. His clothes are horrendously disgusting at this point, and she hasn’t spotted a bag or other set of possessions, which means likely that’s all he has.
“Ambulance?” Because EMTs are probably trained to handle worse things than smelly clothes.
“Well that would make things a lot easier. I don’t have my phone anymore,” Which bodes well, if this is just an injured mugging victim instead of a potentially crazed vagrant then she’s not in as much danger as she thought.
Alice calls 911, because that wasn’t a no and the sooner she can make this someone else’s responsibility the sooner she can go home already.
The dispatcher is calm and collected, and when Alice puts the phone on speaker the boy is equally composed in answering the questions on how he was injured and as much as he can remember about the incident. She feels kind of superfluous at this point, it’s rather boring considering there’s a beat up kid at her feet and Emergency on her phone.
She stays until the sirens come shrieking onto their little corner of the street. EMTs rush around the boy, checking his spine and neck before transferring him onto a stretcher. Now that he’s not belly down on the ground, Alice can get a good look at his face. Or she would be able to, were it not also covered in blood, bruises, and questionable smears.
She trots alongside the stretcher as best she can, asking “Hey, do you need me to come with you?” She’s seen TV shows, they always have someone join the victim in the ambulance. They don’t know each other, but it’s the most interesting thing to happen to her this year, even if it is duller than those shows.
The boy gives another cough laugh pant, “I don’t even know your name,”
She doesn’t know his name either, and he’s being rather uppity considering she just got him expert medical attention, but still she says, “It’s Alice. Alice Lee” It’s not a common name, but it’s a big enough city–there are probably multiple Alice Lees out there.
“Well thanks, Alice Lee, but I think I’ll be fine,” Then his face, underneath all that muck, twitches and he continues, more earnest, “Really, Alice Lee, thanks for this.”
And because they are strangers and she doesn’t really care that much and he already refused, the EMTs load the boy into the ambulance and leave her behind.
She does not discover that boy’s name until she is 28, unwillingly handcuffed to a briefcase bomb, and sporting a few facial bruises of her own.
It has been 6 years since that admittedly tepid rescue, so Alice doesn’t quite remember the boy. But apparently the boy remembers her, Alice Lee, one of eleven Alice Lees in the city. Because when the terrorists demand 500 million dollars from Suleiman Isidore the billionaire prodigy inventor of CRO-Tech Industries, it is paid immediately.
And when they renege on their side of the deal, when Alice is sure that today is the day she is going to die, that weird filthy boy she saved is the one who tells the SWAT team that one death is not acceptable. That one specific death is not acceptable. It is his voice on the megaphone that negotiates. And he’s the one who stalls long enough for snipers to shoot one two three four five terrorists and the only threat is the one attached to her wrist.
And even though he’s not the one with careful steady hands, the one with four years of bomb squad experience, removing that damned briefcase, he’s standing outside by the ambulances treating hostages for injuries and shock.
“Hey Alice Lee,” billionaire prodigy inventor of CRO-Tech Industries says to her, suave suit and nonchalant smile betrayed by the wrinkles and mussed hair of someone frenzied and worried.
But she doesn’t really remember that boy from 6 years ago, whose face she couldn’t get a clear look at, and whose name she never got anyway. She’s got an icepack up to her eye, her punishment for struggling, and the EMT is carefully treating her slightly bleeding wrist. The shock blanket they first put on her has fallen off, and she can’t even put it back one because both of her hands are currently busy.
“Hey,” Because she doesn’t know what to say and she’s going through shock and honestly she can’t be bothered.
He sticks around still, as awkward as she is, and when they decide to load her up into the ambulance (because apparently they don’t think she can accurately judge her pain levels and they’re right, she can’t, so there might be other injuries hidden around) he jumps in after them. Because he’s billionaire prodigy inventor of CRO-Tech Industries and he maybe sort of saved the day, no one questions him.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘Well thanks, Suleiman Isidore, but I think I’ll be fine?’” He prompts, three minutes into the drive. The EMTs look about as confused as she feels, but since it’s not directed at them they just keep talking to each other.
“I didn’t even know your name,”
“Well, I suppose it’s close enough.” He states, before pulling out the shiniest business card she’s ever seen and tucking it into her reusable grocery bag full of granola bars and fruit snacks.
Alice is 28 years old when the boy whose life she might have saved, and who save her life, becomes her suitor.
~
A/N: Uh… again with the lack of actually using the word. And shut up, it’s totally January 5th still. So I guess this is weird one-sided maybe eventually requited meet-cute romance thing happening? But really from Alice’s point of view it’s just like… whatever some Tuesday I guess it was kind of interesting and then this goddamn Thursday sucks balls. While from Suleiman’s point of view it’s like–this beautiful angel saved my life and I tried to play it cool but then she disappeared and then some guys were threatening her life but I saved her so it’s all good now.
JackSGreyson Says 