'Nothing personal.' Voice echoing in her ear, Fate turned the card in her hands, eyes staring into the ceiling. The lights were turned off in her office, she lacked the energy to switch them on after her harrowing confrontation with that Takamachi woman. Exhaustion crept into every extremity, and she felt the sleepless night crashing down onto her.
"Yo, Fate," A head adorned with long orange tresses poked in, "Saw that woman leave. How'd it go?" She felt the concerned eyes of her best friend and lab rat studying her, as if expecting to find physical wounds from the clash.
Tired beyond belief, Fate did her best to articulate past the wool in her mouth. Just talking was difficult. "Alph." she murmured in a perfunctory greeting.
"She gave us… no, gave me two days. Two days to show we can be of use to TSAB as a whole and not broken into parts for a weekend yard sale." Pulling off her glasses, Fate rubbed at eyes gummy from lack of rest.
Eyebrows trekking up towards her hairline, Alph sidled all the way in, resting a hand on Fate's shoulder. "Damn, that's a first. I know that Takamachi woman from my last gig. We were lucky we still had clothes on our back after she was done picking at the bones of our org." Impressed, she squeezed the thin shoulder under her hand, "You must've made a good case."
"I don't know, Alph." Fate ran a thumb across the name printed on the finely appointed name card. "Maybe she plans to say no and takes sick pleasure in seeing me twist in the wind." A muscle ticked in her jaw, "I don't plan to be part of her game, however." Gathering the last of her energy, she slapped her laptop closed, taking it with her as she stood. A swift but heartfelt one-armed hug was offered to her friend. "I need rest or I won't see straight. Wish me luck with that harpy."
Returning the squeeze, Alph chucked her classically beautiful friend in the chin, "Go get them, Princess."
Rolling her eyes at the sorely misplaced title, Fate carelessly tossed her glasses along with her laptop into her tote and headed out, "Tell everyone to keep their heads down, no bullpucky shenanigans." Leaving Alph's chirped affirmative behind, Fate made her way across the lonely car park to one of the furthest lots from the office. She had some staff with mobility issues that didn't quite merit the sticker needed to get a closer lot, so she took care to leave her space open at least. Sighing, she began her long trek to where her car was parked. Where were her keys?
----------------------------------------
The usual pantry chatter stilled when Vita's presence was noticed. Ignoring the sneering looks, the fiery redhead went about the motions of grabbing her labelled salad from one of the vast rows of refrigerators that served this floor of the company. She was used to finding her lunch in the trash more often than not, until one fine day when Nanoha noticed her assistant scarfing down yet another Cup-a-noodle and stalked out of the office. From that day on, Vita's meals were left untouched.
She knew her boss had something to do with it, and the side-eyed glances and whispered insults all but confirmed her suspicions. Pointless waste of time. Every organisation had its share of politicking, and TSAB was no exception. Usually there was a bubble around her department, by virtue of Nanoha being the highest performer of all department heads by a country mile, but people still tried their luck. Rumours swirled that she had only gained her position by spreading her legs to the right person, that person being the CEO, but no one had ever dared say it to her or her subordinates' face.
Much as her department had the White Devil of TSAB heading it, people took care not to antagonise the Chilli Padi, who was her executive assistant, either. She gave an internal snort. The regional term for the little spicy peppers common in local cuisine was not something she would dispute. If it helped keep some crap off of Nanoha's back, she would take it and any other moniker thrown her way.
"Vita!" Glancing up from her salad, the redhead spied Teana and Subaru at the door. "ETA for the boss?"
Pondering Nanoha's schedule, cleared for That Account, she could only give a one-shouldered shrug, "Site visits are hard to predict. Could be gone all day if they try to hide crap from her."
Subaru pouted, "Darn it, I wanted her personal thanks for including hottie head-shots in her info pack." Grumbling about learning her place, Teana elbowed her irreverent partner, "Can it, Subaru! She didn't hire us to be her fucking Tinder."
"Ow! But Tea, the twins are totally in her strike zone!"
"The hell do you know about her strike zones, you lust over anything with tits! The Boston Labs doge could have bolt-on tits and you'd still go for it!"
"That's not true, I only lust over y-MMMPH!" Slapping a hand over her idiot friend's mouth, Teana dragged her out of the office, flushing, "Sorry Vita, we'll see her login when she gets back, no need for her to know we dropped by!" Hoping to the gods Vita kept quiet, Teana shoved her blue-haired partner to the nearest lift to get their lunch.
Grumbling about kids and completely discounting how she could still pass for one herself, Vita continued to eat one-handed whilst trashing or forwarding the various emails, all marked URGENT!, flooding her inbox. "Everyone hates her until they need her," she muttered sourly.
----------------------------------------
Shrugging out of her business jacket, Nanoha tossed it on the passenger seat and sank back into the leather embrace of her car's driver's seat. She sighed audibly and set the a/c to run, hoping the cooling breeze would lessen the building migraine taking over the base of her skull. As many times as she had done this over the years, it never got any easier. She only got better at hiding her disquiet over having to run roughshod over people's lives.
Not having time earlier to have her breakfast, she checked the clock on her dashboard. 3:13PM. Not that late. "I guess breakfast is lunch now," she muttered and peeled back the crumpled paper, trying to unstick the now crusted and hard bun from the baggie it had been delivered in. Cold as it was, the filling of BBQ-ed pork sweetened in hoisin sauce and cooked to tender softness was still a pleasure. Chasing her mouthful down with cold coffee, she spied movement in the corner of one eye.
It was far past the usual lunch hour, the auburn-haired woman not expecting anyone else in the deserted parking lot to be about. Recognising the figure of the adversarial blonde walking through the parking lot, she studied the woman openly from the darkened confines of her car. The headlights were turned off, the only thing running being the a/c. It seemed the blonde was too distracted, or perhaps tired, to notice the idling car she was walking past.
Dark circles shadowed her wine-red eyes, shadows a match for the ones Nanoha's deftly applied make-up hid. Pausing a mere foot past Nanoha's vehicle, the blonde seemed to be digging for her keys. The executive noted how different she looked without her horn-rimmed glasses, younger, less severe. Her golden locks spilled in a glorious cascade over one shoulder while she dug around, looking much like a model in a hair commercial.
In the distance, Nanoha could hear the rev of a souped up dirt bike, highly illegal on the ordered roads of the island nation. It seemed to be roaring ever closer. 'Are those damned fools using this area…' Before either woman could react, the joyriding bike zipped past the blonde, hooligans whooping it up and not caring if they had clipped the stationary woman.
Spinning helplessly with a cry, Fate fell, her ankle twisting in the process as she valiantly tried to control her fall. Her tote landed a few feet from her with a dull crunch as the blonde fell heavily onto her right side. "Shit!" Heart in her throat, Nanoha threw the remains of her lunch aside, tumbling hurriedly out of her car but too late to catch the blonde or halt her fall.
"Great, just great…" Caught in the throes of self-pity and feeling misfortune heaping on her head like a cruel game of Jenga, Fate winced as she lifted her right elbow, finding a deep gash to explain some of the pain she was feeling. Crimson darker than her eyes stained the cement she was sprawled on, and she felt the walls starting to close in on her.
"You need to get that seen," Shocked that there was anyone else around, Fate's head whipped around towards the source of that strangely familiar voice. The Takamachi woman, her befuddled mind identified, still looking like a million dollars in her bespoke silk blouse, had come over to kneel by her. "Can you stand?" Again, she felt the warmth of the hand holding hers, now coupled with surprising strength. Helped to her feet, her throat bobbed. It was difficult to find her voice while she was wrapped in the cocoon of the shorter woman's solid form.
"I'll be f-ARGH!" A pained cry slipped past pale lips when she tried to take a step. Searing bolts of fire stabbed their way up her right leg. Glancing down past eyes teared up from the agony, Fate expected to see an unnatural twist to her ankle. All she saw was a growing pool of blood. The walls slammed down. Unable to fight the shock and exhaustion any longer, she drooped limply in a dead faint.
"Miss Testarossa? Miss? MISS?!" Bearing the sudden dead weight without issue, Nanoha's brows drew together, "...Fuck." Taking decisive action, she hoisted her too-light burden to the driver's side of her car. There was no way she would be getting the passenger side open with only herself to hold the woman up. Heedless of the blood staining the expensive leather and finishings within, she voiced, 'Unlock boot' to the car's AI.
Moving around back, she pulled out a meticulously stocked first-aid kit from the car's boot, hitting a button to activate the mechanism to close it once more. Uncaring of the tailored jacket she was sitting on, she slipped into the passenger side and with sure, swift movements, cleaned the bleeding wound. Wrapping the site with a compress to stem the flow, she blew a breath out the side of her mouth, a distinctly un-White Devil like habit she would normally never display in public.
"One down, one to go…" she muttered, hitting the button on the driver's seat to set small motors in motion to shift said seat as far back as physically possible. Thankful for the Audi's spacious legroom, something she insisted on in every vehicle she drove, she tried not to think too much about her position, crouched down as she was between the blonde's legs.
Jaw clenched in unreasoning worry, Nanoha gingerly felt around the ankle that had already taken a decidedly mottled hue. Soft skin was warm to the touch, with a spongy feel. Not feeling a break, she released the breath she had been holding. Using a fever patch as a makeshift cold pack, Nanoha placed it over the worst of the swelling and expertly bound the injured ankle as best she could. It was an awkward affair, squashed as she was in the space between the diver's seat's edge and the car's limited leg space.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Glancing up, she was startled to meet the curiously puzzled but muddled gaze of the woman she had been tending to. Jerking back to be found in such a compromising position, the back of her head met the cold polished wood of her steering wheel.
"Ouch! Ack…" One hand flailing behind her, she attempted to find a purchase that would allow her leverage out of the nook she was stuck in, only to find the car horn that blared an elegant but still strident alarm.
Lifting her hand with a grimace, Nanoha's instinctive urge to apologise was waylaid by the soft sound of a gentle laugh. The musical timbre drew her eyes back to the blonde's and a corner of her mouth twitched. "This is, uh, not what it looks like?"
Fate had stirred partway through Nanoha's surprisingly competent administrations. Perplexed at how she ended up where she currently found herself at, but unwilling to interrupt, she had simply watched, the throbbing ache in her right leg slowly receding until warm tingles were all she felt. 'Blood loss, has to be the blood loss,' her mind inanely suggested. Noting that same blood staining parts of the car's interior, and the woman's silk blouse, Fate gulped silently. Then warm azure pools were meeting her eyes and she could only drink in the concern that seemed to swirl in their depths.
That is, until all that happened, culminating in a big old HONK! that had her ears ringing.
"I could ask what, but that's clear." Surprised at the husk in her voice, Fate cleared her throat and tried again, "So perhaps I should ask, why?"
A trail of gooseflesh skittered down the length of her spine when sensitive ears picked up the husk in the other woman's voice. Doing her damned best to stay professional, Nanoha's eyes became guarded and she reminded herself that this woman hated her guts.
"You're an employee of TSAB for at least another two days, Miss Testarossa," she drawled nonchalantly, taking care to retreat out of the position she had been in and manoeuvring herself onto the passenger side. "It'd be too much paperwork if I had left you where you fell."
Hmm. Swallowing any amusement, Fate pondered the enigma beside her. She had seen what she had seen, no matter that the woman was trying that cool exec routine on her now.
"Seeing as you've had your hands all over me," she willed her lips not to smirk at the heightened colour on those lightly tanned cheeks, "I feel like I've been given the deluxe service, when it comes to 'corporate responsibility'."
Stiffening at the mention of the word 'service', Nanoha's demeanour chilled visibly. "HR wouldn't appreciate your choice of words, and neither do I, Miss Testarossa. It was this or having you bleed all over my car." No excuse was forthcoming about why Fate's ankle had to be tended to well. Letting out a heavy breath, the executive shook her head, "In any case, you aren't driving with that foot." With no further talk, she leaned over and with supple strength, slipped her arms under Fate to draw her up and over the middle divide and onto the passenger side.
'She's not even out of breath.' Fate noted with wonder. Tugging her crumpled jacket out from under the blonde, Nanoha draped it over Fate's shoulders before buckling the woman in. The executive was coldly business-like, and Fate felt the distance between them yawing like a single prop caught in a slipstream. Still, her eyes followed the woman as she dipped down, gracefully retrieving her tote still strewn on the parking lot floor.
"I took everything I could see." Nanoha murmured, depositing the bag onto Fate's lap. Nodding mutely, Fate could feel the stress of the moment pressing in once more. Hooded orbs studied the hands that had so easily lifted her. Feeling eyes on her, Nanoha shunted the sensation to the back of her conscious mind. She needed to focus. The executive's movements were full of self-assurance as she brought the car to life and spoke, "Call Wolkenritter. S."
"Nanoha! Are you calling to finally make my beach volleyball dreams come true?"
Pulling out of the parking lot, Nanoha threw a quick glance over to her passenger, relieved to see the blonde had fallen back into some form of fitful sleep. The executive hit a button on the vehicle's centre console, engaging a mechanism that silently lowered the seat Fate was in to a more horizontal position.
"Er, maybe. Can you see someone right now, Shamal?"
"Join my team and I'll see any amount of 'someones' you want, hun."
Groaning internally and knowing she would rue the day she said yes, the executive huffed in resignation, "Fine, I'll join."
Sighing, she cut off the squeal of delight before it could reach the blonde and wake her.
----------------------------------------
Wildly curious who this someone was, Shamal informed her staff to block out the rest of her day.
Soon, the familiar form of her cousin's oldest friend shadowed the entry into her private clinic. 'I thought she knew she could call for a wheelchair…'
Arm draped across the executive's surprisingly strong shoulders, Fate limped her way to the clinic. A firm arm was curled securely around her back, providing more than enough support to keep any weight off of her injured ankle.
Lilac and rose. The soothing scent that draped her burden was pleasant and distinctly feminine. Deciding a wheelchair would take too long, she opted to support the cool blonde the twenty yards that stretched between her parked car and the clinic's back entrance. 'No sense bothering Shamal's staff.' Nanoha thought.
Fate marvelled at how painlessly they had closed the daunting distance from car to clinic with the executive's help, the woman supporting her weight with an ease that spoke volumes about her fitness levels. Her nose still tingled with the scent on the jacket that had kept her warm through the ride, and she did not welcome the clinical smells that tried to override it.
Eyeing the pair from her vantage within, Shamal felt her eyebrows climbing. She had never known Nanoha to share personal space willingly with strangers, and surely the Doctor would have known who this blonde was by now, given the long friendship her cousin-in-law had with the executive. How very fascinating.
Shamal kept her observations to herself, merely beaming a warm smile at the two, "Nanoha's someone," she called in a sing-song voice, earning a roll of the eyes from the executive, "We can register you later, come in." With utmost care, the executive supported Fate onto the examination table. Deed done, Nanoha awkwardly left the room, closing the door behind her.
Feeling a warmth tinting her cheeks at being referred to as the executive's someone, Fate did her best stoic impression, settling herself more comfortably on the hard examination table with her one good arm.
"Excellent work, as always…" the lovely blonde in the doctor's coat murmured whilst gently unravelling the bandage around the stranger's elbow.
Fingers closing spasmodically on the edge of the surface she was seated on, Fate pointedly turned her head away from the sight of the blood-soaked gauze. Sensing her patient's ambivalence toward her own blood, the doctor got to work flushing the wound and preparing to stitch it up.
"Had a slip?" she enquired mildly.
"Joyriders." came the clipped reply.
"Tarmac?"
"Concrete, parking lot."
"Lunch date?"
"I was just near her c… WHAT?" Blinking, she glanced back at the doctor who, thankfully, was just tying off the stitches whose needle pricks she had hardly felt thanks to the anaesthetic cream the doctor had applied first.
The doctor's smirk spoke volumes and said nothing.
"S-She had b-business at the office I w-work at, that is all!" Cursing the heat in her cheeks, Fate fought the urge to squirm and knew she could not escape with her ankle like this.
"Mmmhmm, I see," was all the doctor said, intrigued at how easily the icy blonde's composure fled at the mere suggestion of a date with Nanoha.
'She probably thinks I'm lying.' Grasping at straws, Fate tried to change the subject and schooled her voice into an airy, uncaring tone, "Does M-Miss Takamachi make it a habit to deliver injured people to you?"
"Just herself, or strays." came the doctor's unexpected reply as she pulled her chair over to inspect Fate's swollen ankle. "You're going to be off this for a week, Miss Someone." she stated casually.
'Strays? Was she a stray?'
'You're an employee.' Shaking the echoed words clear from her mind, Fate sighed, "I see, can't be helped, I guess."
"Nanoha was helping you just fine, from what I saw," the doctor pointed out.
Unable to formulate a coherent response, Fate remained resolutely silent, not that the doctor seemed to need a response to that. Tut-tutting at the road rash on the side of her palm, the doctor lifted Fate's hand to the light, noting the prominent jut of wrist bones on the lanky woman.
"Have you been eating enough?"
Flinching at the question, Fate gave a light shrug, "Enough. It's been a stressful period."
Tsking, Shamal hurumphed, "I swear, that woman wouldn't know what to do with herself without stress. You'll do well not to follow her example. Try to snack more if you can, it's probably why you feel cold all the time." Nodding without truly giving an affirmative, Fate did her best to hide how suffocated she was beginning to feel.
Giving the re-bandaged ankle a pat to indicate she was done treating Fate, the doctor rose and stuck her head out of the office, "Come get your someone. Hand her ID to Shiela and I'll get her prescription settled."
"I heard that," Alto mildly accusing, Nanoha rose to fetch the injured blonde.
"I wanted you to," the doctor retorted.
With snake-like reflexes, the doctor snagged Nanoha's strong chin in an iron grip just as the executive was about to slip past her into the office in order to help the blonde back out. Shamal tilted bloodshot eyes up to the pen light she had fished out of her coat pocket. "Still getting them, huh? I'll refill yours as well, then."
The executive held back her initial instinct to smack away the doctor’s hand, firmly reminding herself this was her long-time doctor. Still, she attempted to pull away from the light, blinking eyes teared up from the brightness being directed into them. Muttering something derogatory about handsy doctors once released, she helped Testarossa into her shoes and back to the waiting area. Ignoring the odd looks the blonde threw her way, she quietly asked her for her ID card and slipped it over the counter to Shamal’s staff.
Wondering what all that was about, Fate closed her eyes to focus on keeping her breaths slow and even. She hated the scents here, clinic or hospital, they all stunk the same to her. Shifting her arm, now in a sling, she tried to conjure up better thoughts and wondered why an image of the executive caring for an injured pup was what her addled brain settled on.
The soft beep of a cashless payment unit brought Fate back to the present, and her eyes fluttered open in time to see the Takamachi woman removing her smartwatch from the unit's scanner. Mouth opening to protest the consideration, the words died on her lips when the auburn-haired woman turned back around to face her. Lines of tension seemed to etch themselves into her otherwise smooth face, giving her an expression of foreboding that seemed to indicate any and all arguments would be rendered null and void.
Deciding to leave the battle to another time, if there would even be another time, Fate simply remained quiescent while the other woman fished up two bags of medication. 'That much for a few stitches and a sprain?' Bemused to see both baggies fit into a curiously deep skirt pocket, she understood that this meant the woman's hands were free to help Fate back to her car.
The sun was setting by the time they made it to the executive's vehicle. Noting the angle of the shadows, and the bag of half-eaten Char Siew Bao littering the car's floor, Fate glanced over to study the finely chiselled profile of her erstwhile rescuer. Fishing out the medications from her pocket, the Takamachi woman leaned over and popped open the glove compartment to toss both bags in. By the bright light of the auto-LED in the compartment, Fate caught the executive's name on one of the pill bottles. She recognised the medications as those commonly prescribed for migraines.
The blonde considered her options in light of the states the both of them were in. "We'll need food for our meds." she ventured, boldly making an assumption about the executive's prescriptions, "My treat?" The woman had apparently missed her lunch because of her, the least she could do was to feed her a meal, right?
Gaze hooded, almost defensive, Nanoha peered at the blonde from under an unruly lock of rich auburn that had escaped her pristine hairdo. Fate felt her fingers twitch, wanting to help move the soft-looking bit of red-tinted hair out of the executive's eyes. Instead, she did her best to cross her arms, as if to warm herself in the chill breeze of the car's cooling system.
"Can you take beef?" Was the quiet response she received.
Taking the blonde's small smile as a yes, Nanoha drove quietly to what Fate recognised as the red light district of the island. Soft strains of ambient music blanketed the silence between them. Wordlessly, Nanoha adjusted the a/c to a warmer temperature, despite the fact that the spiking aches in the base of her skull wanted the cold.