trans_9 | The Battle That Ended The Century

Jamie had been keeping an eye on Kaylee as she made her way up the ladder, and continues his "attempt" to sit down until he's sure she's all the way outside.

Once he's certain of that, however, he quickly stands back up and makes his way over to the ladder, fully intending on sneaking his way outside and making sure she's safe. The Doctor has problems keeping Jamie from doing things like this - there's no way Jamie's going to let Kaylee keep him from following.

He's actually managed to make it partway up the ladder itself when Kaylee's face appears in the hatch and Jamie is well and truly caught. Oh well, he thinks, when she starts yelling, at least she doesn't know his middle name. He doesn't think she does, at any rate.

She should have known better, really. Men and their gorram sense of honor. It was nice, really, most times. Kaylee's not exactly a fighter, and there's been more than one occasion where she would have gotten herself into plenty of trouble if somebody else hadn't been there to help.

It doesn't stop her from glaring at Jamie some. "You're s'posed to be sittin'," she says simply. No yelling. Even when she's mad at Mal or Simon, she doesn't yell.

If she did have anything to add, though, it's broken off by shifting rubble not too far off. Kaylee freezes, a panicked look toward the noise, before she slides around to the opposite side of the tank from where it came from. "Might not wanna bother with the tank," she whispers, though she's not sure Jamie can hear her.

Jamie is about to reply when he hears the sounds of rubble as well, and he finishes his climb out of the tank as quickly as possible. He doesn't respond to the whisper, as Kaylee's already moving to hide. Instead, he readies his rifle and very cautiously heads towards where the noise originated. It might be nothing, but better to be sure.

He creeps forward slowly, trying to put as little weight as possible on his bad leg. He's pretty focused, though, and not about to let a little pain slow him down.

Alright, so maybe she would make an exception to her rule and yell at him for this later. What is he even thinking, rushing out like that!? What if there is someone there, and they see that he's injured, and--

--this is not a likable situation. At all.

She's watching carefully out of the corner of her eye as Jamie investigates, but she's also already looking for a back way out, just in case.

Well, if Jamie's dead, there won't be any yelling. But nothing attacks him before he makes it to the rubble and some better cover. The rubble shifts again, and Jamie raises the rifle, ready to pull the trigger if need be.

And...nothing.

The rubble had just shifted of its own accord - possibly from the vibrations from an explosion, possibly just from gravity.

Once satisfied, he heads back towards Kaylee's hiding place. He actually makes it back there in one piece and opens his mouth, about to give her the all clear.

It's then that the sound of footsteps can be heard, and murmured whispers - but not from the same location. These? Happen to be from directly behind them, just past the other side of the rubble.

There are few options for getting out of their hiding place. The way they came in is the most obvious, but there are a couple tunnels leading through the rubble that might be decent if escape is needed.

She's listening into one of these tunnels as Jamie comes back, ready to report. Thankfully, they both hear the voices before either of them speaks and accidentally gives away their location, though Kaylee does shift a little closer to Jamie.

The murmured voices on the other side continue. It's a fairly calm discussion between two young men with British accents - they seem to be debating if they should climb the rubble here to investigate or if they should find a place with better footing.

Jamie takes a moment to touch her shoulder on her good side and give it a little squeeze - as if to say it'll be all right. Then he moves toward the tunnel she was listening at. Like he tends to do, he goes first to defeat any fierce beastie (or, in this case, enemy solider) he may happen across.

The men sound calm, which means they haven't been found out...yet. Either way, they sound like they're planning on getting in sometime, and that doesn't bode well for Kaylee and Jamie if they've got reinforcements waiting out.

She fully intended on following Jamie, if anyone asked later, but ideas were ideas, and if this one could help them get out it was worth a shot. The tank. Kaylee's mind is working a mile a minute, and she's got a plan that just might work, at least in distracting the men away from them. It'll just take a bit of rigging...

Quietly as possible, she creeps back toward the tank. The bottom panel is long gone, thankfully, and she can reach the wires without problem. A few switches (not without a few burned fingers, thanks to the rain and its sharing water), and Kaylee motions for Jamie to go ahead into the tunnel before she shoves the last of the wires together. The tank comes to life with a deafening rumble after such a long silence, and the shouts on the other side of the rubble are immediately. It only takes another fix or two on Kaylee's part to get the tank moving, and then its heading out of the shelter while the mechanic is darting back toward Jamie and the tunnel.

The tunnel is clear, and Jamie enters - but turns back quickly just past the entrance. He'll hold the tunnel until she can reach it. The distraction works like a charm - the British soldiers turn away from the rubble and move so they can try and get something quickly set up to fire at the vehicle.

This leaves the escape route open, and Jamie motions to Kaylee - as if doing so would help her make her way in faster. Once she's in, though, he concentrates on leading them through the tunnel and away from the soldiers.

Once he thinks they're clear, he says, "Och, that was a grand distraction ye came up with, Kaylee."

Thankfully, the tunnel's clear all the way through, and it doesn't take much for them to duck into another broken building, away from the enemy soldiers. Gunfire at the tank begins, but it's lost as they leave the scene behind.

Kaylee is genuinely surprised by Jamie's reaction. Some folks--a lot of folks--would have yelled at her for it, and she fully expected a tongue lashing. That he's complimenting her, though, well she really can't hide how pleased she is by it. "If it gives us a better chance at gettin' away..." She is a bit disappointed at the loss of the tank, though.

"Aye. Too bad about the tank, though," he says in an echo of those unspoken thoughts. Jamie was enjoying not having to hobble around, but he knows that they would have had a hard time getting away if Kaylee hadn't sent it off. It's like something the Doctor would have come up with, given the chance, and he's grateful she did so.

He leans against the wall to take the weight off his leg. He had lost the stick with the tank. "There's got to be something in here I can use to walk with," he muses. He hopes so, anyway, in case they have to move again.

Better the tank than them, in any case. Hopefully the luck will last.

Oh, gorrammit all, his leg. Kaylee searches the surrounding rubble for anything they might be able to use. "If nothin' else, you can lean on me til we find somethin'," she offers. As an added thought, "And don't be thinkin' you can tell me no cuz of injuries."

He was thinking pretty much exactly that, judging from the expression on his face. "Aye, well. We'll see," he says. With any luck, whoever had lived in this building had left behind something that would work and it would be a non-issue. Maybe a table leg or something - it'd be short, but he could use it like a cane.

For now, though, luck seems to be keeping enemies away and not really helping in terms of walking support. "Och," he says crossly, "Look, would ye let me come help if I promise not to put any weight on my leg?"

Or maybe an bed post? Kaylee shifts some of the rubble around, trying to detach the post from the rest of the broken bed's frame, but there are some things that just weren't meant to be done with one arm.

"Couldn't be any worse'n me trying to yank things with my arm the way it is," she replies, and nods him over. Gotta stop being stubborn sometime.

"Aye. I don't want ye to risk hurting your arm more," Jamie says - not without some concern in his voice. He's still fretting about that, apparently.

Now, how to get over there without putting any weight on his leg? Lacking the ability to walk on his hands, hopping seems the best option (and the least ridiculous looking). So hopping he does, keeping close to the wall so if he has to he can keep from falling. It's still a fairly slow process, and he takes a little bit to close the distance between the two of them.

Once he gets there, he gets a good grip on the bedpost and tugs experimentally. It appears it's going to take some effort to work it free. "Kaylee, ye may want to move back."

He can't brace his legs the way he would want to, and may very well wind up falling over, and he doesn't want to accidentally hurt her in the process.

"Ain't hurtin' more that I'm concerned about so much as I can't yank it like normal." Fret Central, between these two. Kaylee frowns at Jamie's leg, and mostly steps aside as he hops over. She hesitates a moment before actually doing what she's advised and moving back. Better to move out of the way when you couldn't help. The last thing either of them wants, she's sure, is a head injury to either party.

"Just don't hurt yourself more," she worries.

He is tempted to say, "Och, I'll be fine." Instead, he just gives Kaylee a 'What can you do?' sort of look, coupling it with a shrug.

The bed is near a wall, so he adjusts some. It's a little more awkward in terms of an angle to pull the post with, but gives him some extra backing so he's not entirely bracing himself with only one leg. Wrapping his hands around the bedpost again, he gives it a pull. It gives a little but doesn't fully come free.

"Hrmph." He frowns at the bedpost. "Why didna that work?" Maybe it's the angle or...maybe it's fastened somehow. He peers at where the post is joining with the frame, trying to see if it's somehow bolted together. It's fairly dark in here, however. What he needs is some light. But where...ah. Kaylee might have something.

"Hey, do ye have a torch?"

Edited 2010-03-17 05:29 (UTC)

It's the What-Can-You-Do look that sets her mind, more than anything. She leans back against the wall and waits for Jamie to somehow screw it up, and feels pleasantly smug when he can't get it to budge.

Then she holds up the crowbar.

"Torch?" she asks, stepping forward and wedging the found tool in between, wrenches it a few times, and pops part of the post out. Shift down a few inches, repeat. "Like, with fire?"

Jamie stares at the crowbar with his mouth slightly open, confused by the sudden appearance of the tool. Then his expression shifts, and he gives Kaylee a somewhat hurt look.

"Hey! Why didna ye say had a crowbar?"

He knows, deep down, it's likely because he was being a bit of an ass. He grumbles to himself for a moment, then the look on his face returns to normal.

"Torch, like the thing with the wee switch ye press and light comes out of it." He takes a half-step forward to stop her from using the crowbar, but thinks better of it. "Um. Would ye like me to finish?" he asks, a bit hesitantly.

Kaylee simply shrugs. "Just found it. You were askin' for a torch, 'sides."

A pause, and she glances back at him, head tilted slightly. "You mean a flashlight?" Back to the bed post. She gives the crowbar another push and pops another bit of the post off.

For once, though, she's glad he offered. It's hard work with just one arm, and fighting the urge to use both hands is almost worse than actually using both. "Long as you ain't gonna hurt yourself with it," she teases, then hands the crowbar over and steps back again.

Oh, well, that's different, if she just found it. He's mollified by that answer, and any residual grumpiness that may have come back just doesn't materialize.

He scratches his head for a moment, though. Flashlight, flashlight. Is that a torch? "It might be?" He's uncertain. "I didna know about them until I started traveling with the Doctor, and he always called it a torch." That made for some rather interesting confusion the first time the subject came up. He shrugs, and, thinking it'll help, adds, "We wound up in England a lot." It may not mean anything to Kaylee, though, being on the Earth-That-Was.

Jamie gives Kaylee a bit of a look as he's teased, pressing his lips together slightly, then chuckles as he realizes she's not serious. "No promises," he says as he takes the crowbar from her and proceeds to pry loose the rest of the bedpost. He offers her the crowbar back with one hand as he tests out his new walking stick. "Aye, this will do."

The Battle That Ended The Century

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