Dated to the 18th-for Lipton*

[lt_blade]

She was with her kids the afternoon on the beach, both girls with sunscreen and swim wear. They were too young to really swim, but it was a good enough time to let them get used to the water.

Her ears caught the sounds of fighting, of screaming, and for a moment she forgot where she was and only just yelled a warming to Max, placing both girls on the back of the direwolf before running forward toward the sounds.

She stopped when she saw Lipton on the ground, looking battered and bloody with a good sized wound on his head.

"Lip!" She ran over to him, checking his pulse. It was weak, but it was there and that was all that mattered.A quick check over, to her knowledge and the best of ability, showed no broken bones.  "Lipton..wake up..wake up, soldier!"

Sonya pulled him up by his shoulders."

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[niceofyoutoask]

He was moving, the world spinning around him. There was a hot, pounding pain in his head, making his other aches pale in comparison.

He blinked, hands going out in an attempt to steady himself, finding ground with one hand and another body with the other, dizzy and disoriented. He comprehended, belatedly, that a voice was talking to him, and he tried to focus in on the voice.

"Sonya?" His fingers went to his head, coming away wet with blood that he wiped on his trousers. Something brittle and frantic was in his chest, urgent and panicked - his scrambled mind grasped at the beach, at a shell, at - "Lydia!"

[lt_blade]

She saw the blood, but until she saw Lipton respond she forced herself not to think the worst. Not that it was settled when he came to.

"Lip..Lip you're injured." All she had in way of cloth was the swimsuit and sweatpants she wore to the beach: it'd have to do. She used the knife she carried to tear off a length, wadding it up and putting it on top of his head and covering it with his hand. "And you're bleeding."

What he said next made her stop just as she was helping him up. "Lydia...what happened?"

She had to get him to the clinic. "Talk and walk at the same time-you need medical attention."

Sonya turned over to the wolf, glad that the babies were holding onto his back. "Max...come on buddy."

[niceofyoutoask]

"No," he said, forcing his legs under him to get to his feet. "No, she's -" His vision greyed, rushing in his ears, and then he leaned over and vomited.

[lt_blade]

Whatever it was it was bad, but right now Sonya was more concerned about Lip's health.

She waited until he was done throwing up before carefully helping him to his feet. It was a good thing they were the same height and fairly strong-Sonya wasn't sure she could carry him all the way to the clinic otherwise.

"Carwood Lipton, the only place you're going is the clinic in this state."

She proceeded to walk him towards the pathways. "What happened to Lydia?"

She was insistent that she knew: Lydia was one of the sweetest children she knew and Jane one of the first genuinely sweet women she's met here-if anything happened to them.

[niceofyoutoask]

"Thing from Rapture," Lipton grit out, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other and staying upright. "Metal suit. Came outta nowhere - put her in a cage on its back."

[lt_blade]

For a moment, her body froze. In her time in the army, most of their work was done in an urban enviroment, where there was always the risk of civilian casualties. Sonya herself once volunteered at a clinic a few times-she vividly remembered the times when children were brought in. She and everyone there hated seeing the kids injured, but it happened and all they could do was to treat them.

This though..this wasn't war-least it wasn't up until a few moments ago. She didn't have to settle for a 'these things happen' answer-she wouldn't.

She forced herself to keep moving, one step infront of the other, her grip on him tightening without fully realizing it.

"We'll get her back." She answered, her voice steely-she had kids herself, the sudden anger in her voice wasn't misplaced. "As soon as we get to the clinic, I'll tell the IPD and the ITF-we'll get her back safe and sound."

[niceofyoutoask]

He nodded, words thick in his mouth, even though the world tilted sideways when he did so. He couldn't process what the alternative of that was.

"Yeah," he said, unable to put anything else into words - how he could remember Lydia's screams, how she'd held onto him as long as she could, how he'd failed to protect her. "Yeah."

[lt_blade]

"Come on buddy, stay with me." She recognized the way he spoke, knew the signs of concussion-hell, she'd felt them herself well enough to remember. "She's alive..until we know otherwise, she's alive and we'll get her back. She'll be in your arms as soon as possible and you'll have weeks of piggy back rides to look forward to."

Until proof said otherwise, they had to believe she was alive-alive and well. To do so otherwise would be too much.

[niceofyoutoask]

"It had a cage. For Liddy. It was strong enough to take her without it, but it had a cage." He had a mind for strategy, for plans, for looking at logic and reason and using that to make a decision. Focusing on a detail like that would give him something to think about that wasn't the worst case scenario.

[lt_blade]

She focused on his works, on the path infront of them-anything to keep her going, to know that Lipton will make it. He was tough, but they had no idea just how bad his head injury was.

She sucked in a breath when he mentioned a cage. In her time in the Special Forces, there were times when she did come across people in actual cages or cells-people who's only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"They wanted her alive." She said, her voice gone quiet-she didn't trust herself if she were to talk any louder. "They want her for something..a cage means to keep someone from escaping, but it also means they don't want to risk injury to her." Just yet..she mentally added.

It was a small detail, but even then-for how long, and what were they...

Shit.

"Lipton..the girls in Rapture-they're around Lydia's age."

She usually ignored them. There was nothing they could do for the girls already down there..they'd been contained for so long-why start looking for more 'recruits.

[niceofyoutoask]

He said nothing, because he'd been focusing on the idea that they might not want to hurt her. He'd seen the horrifying little girls with their unnatural eyes and large needles - he didn't want to think about the little girls they'd once been.

He didn't want to think of little Liddy as one of those. He couldn't, not now. "We'll find her."

[lt_blade]

Right now her goal was getting in to the clinic. Keeping him talking was only to make sure he was still with her.

She was thankful that his steps, while unsteady, weren't dragging-they still had another mile to go.

"With the IPD and the ITF, you're damn right." Nevermind that Rapture was an entire city onto itself, that they may only have a vague idea were to look.