By The Sea

He had always been there.

It was a simple fact. Not trusting the mob to look after her as well as he could, not trusting anyone at all, really, he had prepared himself to sit in the obvious blind spot of their protection.

The water.

They didn't have anyone out here. They wouldn't. They never did.

Surfing, as anything else in water, came easily enough to him that he had gone far into the water while she had stayed on the beach. It was with doubtful caution that he watched her get into the water. She had never liked...

Rip tide.

He was diving into the water before he could think about it, swept into the riptide himself as he searched for her. He was only one man in an ocean. The chances of him finding her-

It was her hair, really, that saved her. Sparkling in the sunlight and the brightest thing he could see under the water. The tide had pulled her farther out than he'd been, but the water brought her back to him. Just as it always would.

Wrapping an arm around her, he swam upward, breaking the surface before swimming for shore. Once they were close enough for him to place his legs on the ground, he pulled her up into his arms, carrying her bridal style as the ocean receded far back.

There was a pounding of feet. Cisco had come to meet them. Lowering her to the sand, Tre pressed his hand over her chest, letting the glow of healing seep into her as he pressed his mouth against hers and breathed for her.

He wouldn't let panic get in the way of saving her.

Her inert body flopped limply into the sand, her head lulling to the side as her brain was no longer controlling her muscles - no longer controlling anything. Nothing was left to hold her head up right; the only thing that was doing it was Tre.

People were crowding in close to watch the show, to watch the girl that had almost drowned.

The girl that had drowned.

Her lungs had officially stopped working; just like every other muscle in her body, once her brain had shut down, had stopped telling them what to do, they were at a lost for what to do. Without someone to guide them, they were lost, useless. Heavy with sea water, they no longer had the will or the way to take in air.

And without air, her brain had been cut off, taking a vacation. It was a vicious circle, no part of her body taking responsibility, and yet all of it was responsible.

A part of her wanted to come back, she wanted to breath, to respond. But that part was trapped, locked away, somehow aware of what was going on without knowing it at all. She couldn't break free. The air that was being pushed in her lungs were doing something, the healing spreading through her was trying, but she was stuck, trying to claw her way through a path that didn't seem to be there.

Her heart had stopped beating.

Ashleen D'Angelo was dead.

Tre pulled away from her, the water running from his hair into his eyes as he looked down at her unresponsive form. Taking another deep breath, he pressed the air into her lungs, his hands pressing into her heart in an attempt to force it into beating.

Something odd happened as she continued to stay limp. Some of the witnesses claimed to have been blinded by the sunlight on the waves, a sudden flash of gold bright enough that even those with sunglasses were forced to look away, their eyelids not thick enough to keep them from going blind. Cisco was the only one able to see into it, the only one there to see the sight that kept him standing there, dumbstruck at the blinding apparition of duel pinions neither solid nor light reaching out from behind the boy and into the sky.

Tre was unaware of this, his focus on the girl as he lowered his lips to hers once more, breathing out as the light brightened once more, and even Cisco's gaze was forced away. The very sea was silent as he lowered his ear to her chest...

And it rose in breath.

The light vanished, brilliance disappearing as a cloud covered the sun. He lifted her shoulders so she wouldn't choke on the water she was spitting up, his eyes leaving her to go to Cisco. He didn't bother to question the awed expression on his face. He did just save her life. Lifting her into his arms, he shoved her toward Cisco, the movement harsh in his fear to linger too long. He should already be gone. The mob was closing in on him again.

"Next time." He snarled, stepping closer and bringing him and Francisco nose to nose and affectively boxing Ash between their chests. "Do. Your. Job."

Then he was gone.

Thu -- ump

Thu -- ump

Slowly, a rusty engine forced into working once more it took a shuttering beat and then another. It paused, dramatic just like its owner. Then it beat again - stronger.

Thump - Thump

She took a breath.

Then what had once been moving in slow motion, like a thawing stream, was suddenly whizzing past, moving at mock speed, so fast she hardly knew what was happening.

The breath that she had just caught was suddenly caught off as water gurgled in the back of her throat. It was with wracking coughs - allowed by the movement, pull, of her shoulders up and forward - that she spewed up the waterlogged contents of her lungs purging herself of what should not have been there. What she had thought burned on the way down had nothing compared to coming back up.

Despite all this, despite all the evidence to the contrary, the girl couldn't quite believe that she wasn't in fact -

Well, dead.

Her head still swirled, slow to work much like her heart, still oxygen deprived. In fact, that was the only thing that kept her second guessing, kept her thinking that she might just have been alive.

The way her lungs gasped hungrily for air, as if they would never get enough again. That's what made her doubt that she was dead.

But how could she be otherwise when she had seen, could feel and hear...

Tre.

That face... it only haunted her dreams now, and was that not what death should be like? The ultimate dream?

And she just could not get past that glimpse; when she had first let her eyes flutter open they had locked on her favourite gold gaze before drifting -

The shove rattled her, knocking her both into Francesco's arms as well as back into the real world.

He was there. He was really there, in flesh and blood.

She was alive

And he was there.

"Tre," her voice came out as croak, weak, tired. It was hidden, unheard beneath his own growl. Her arm reached out to grab him but her motions were too slow, she was too late.

He was gone.

Again.

Had he even been there at all? Now she was second guessing herself, confused by it all. She wanted to believe. In her once again beating heart, part of her knew that she did believe.

But if she wasn't dead -

It seemed impossible.

For Ashleen could have sworn that in that briefest moment-

...

Tre had, had wings.