What the water gave us (Cai, Zoe) [backdated to Friday]

[itsajesusthing.insanejournal.com]

Cai saw Zoe disappear from the surface of the pool; it was hard to miss her great splashing arms as the water around her went still.

He dove under and kicked off the wall, shooting through the water to get closer to her. She was having some sort of fit, and he knew you weren’t supposed to touch people when they were having a fit but first aid guides never said anything about what to do if the fit was underwater. Careless of them. He’d have to use common sense instead.

Cai had done lifesaving training, and first aid, but he hadn’t had to use it on more than scratched up foster siblings and once when Nonnie scalded herself. He grabbed Zoe’s arm as it lashed out toward him, and pulled her to the surface. He wrapped his arm across her chest, her head supported by his shoulder. It was still shallow enough that his feet could touch the bottom if he stretched out his toes and he was close enough to the edge of the pool to grab the bar and pull them both toward the edge.

She’d gone still as soon as he’d pulled her close to his body, but he wasn’t going to worry about that yet.

“Hey!” he yelled across the pool at the top of his lungs. “Help!”

The teacher on duty was right around the other side of the pool, but started powerwalking around the side to get to them. A few younger students were around the side of the pool wrapped in towels, staring at him in shock.

Cai hauled himself out of the pool with one arm, the other clutched around Zoe’s swimsuit straps to keep her head up. As soon as he was out he tucked his hands under her arms and with a grunt of exertion, heaved the dead weight of her out of the pool.

Her head cracked against the ground and he gritted his teeth in a wince, leaning over her. She wasn’t breathing.

A scared, involuntary noise escaped his throat but he tilted her head back, pinched her nose and breathed into her mouth. The teacher knelt down on the other side of her, giving Cai calm instructions but Cai was pretty sure he knew was he was doing.

Till he opened his eyes and found himself someplace else.

He saw Zoe, nicely dressed but clearly uncomfortable, standing in a room dotted with other equally formally dressed people. She was holding hands with Indigo-Hope’s new step-sister, the one who had climbed on the roof near the start of first term.

Cai looked around. He recognised this place. He knew where they were. He knew what this was.

He saw himself nearby. Cai had never seem himself in a vision before. He didn’t have visions about himself. He was wearing a tie, twisting the ends of it around his hands. He knew the tie; it was his grandfather’s second favourite.

There was an enormous crash and Cai turned to see the huge vase, filled with flowers, crash to the floor, water, flowers and bits of vase scattering everywhere across the hard wood floor.

And then Rachel was running, disappearing out the door with Zoe at her heels.

Cai came back to himself, lying on the floor at the side of the pool. Zoe was sitting beside him, supported by the teacher, frantically coughing and retching up the water she’d swallowed.

He sat up carefully, expecting dizziness, expecting queasiness, but he felt fine. Confused, a bit shaken, but not sick. One of his friends was standing nearby and said something Cai registered as sarcastic, but Cai wasn’t listening, still trying to process the vision. He accepted the towel he was passed, though, and nodded when the teacher asked him if he was alright.

“We’ve already called an ambulance,” the teacher said, patting Zoe on the back as she talked to Cai. “I think you should both go in and get checked out. You were gone for almost a minute.”

Cai looked at her in surprise. A minute was a long time.

After a while, Zoe’s coughing started to subside, replaced with raggedy breathing. The teacher got up to shoo everyone else away; it was almost time for them to start getting ready for class.

“How you going there?” Cai asked, once it sounded like she was breathing well enough to talk.

“Air,” said Zoe, illustratively. Her fingers crept up to the back of her head. “Ouch.”

“That lump’s my bad,” Cai said. “Sorry. Saved your life though!” he grinned lopsidedly at her.

“Okay,” Zoe’s voice was still not right, all croaky and chocked from too much water. “S’a fair trade.”

The teacher came back over to them, one of their bags in each of her hands. She left their clothes with them and, after making sure that they were both alright for a few more moments, said she was going to head out and meet the ambulance crew at the door.

Cai pulled on his school shirt and blazer, but kept his swimming trunks on, and Zoe tentatively did the same but kept her towel tied around her waist. They sat side by side on the benches by the side of the empty pool, waiting. Zoe’s head pounded.

“If I tell you something you’re going to think I’m messing with you,” Cai said, suddenly. “But I think I have to tell you anyway.” Zoe looked at him hard enough to make him nervous, but he said it anyway. “Just… wear running shoes to the funeral, okay?”

“What,” said Zoe. She stared at him, really narrowed her eyes like she could see through him to the truth. “You saw a funeral? Who’s funeral?”

“I don’t know. But it was at my church, and – we were both there. And your blonde friend, the one from the roof.”

“Rachel. Shit,” said Zoe, leaning back against the wall, but only for a second because the back of her head was tender and painful. She turned toward him instead. A black dress, she thought. Running shoes. “How did you do that? How did you see more of my vision that I could?”

“You have visions,” Cai said, but Zoe just kept looking at him, waiting for an answer.

“I don’t know,” he told her. “I was trying to give you CPR and then suddenly we were all in the reception area at the church. Something happened and one of the vases broke and you and Rachel just started running.”

“Which church?”

“St Mary’s in Islington.”

“I don’t know anyone who goes to St Mary’s,” Zoe said, accusingly.

“I’m just saying what I saw,” Cai said.

“When was it? How far in the future?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who else was there?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get a look at anyone else, just us three.”

“Did anyone start chasing us? Me and Rachel, when we ran?”

“I didn’t see. That’s when I woke up, just after you left.”

“Shit,” said Zoe, staring at the ground. “Shit shit shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Cai said. “I wish I could tell you more.”

Zoe pursed her lips, and glared out the window. She could see the teacher coming back, leading two ambulance officers toward them.

“Write it all down, the first chance you get,” Zoe told Cai, as they entered the pool building. “This is not over.”