Three years ago

March 9, 30 AE

It was the worst day of Elsie's life. On the bright side, it was unlikely that her future would be any worse because she was six inches away from it also being the last day of her life.

At least, she thought she was six inches away from the edge of the building. She wasn't about to look down at her feet to check, as much as she was tempted to.

"There's still a chance we can fix this," the police negotiator said, her voice probably soothing in any other possible scenario. She held her hands above her head in an attempt to look non-threatening, but her bullet-proof vest only reminded Elsie of the gravity of her predicament. (Heh. Gravity.) "Please, Richard, we can work this out."

Elsie felt Richard's arm around her neck tighten and the point of the blade at her back shifted. Obviously, the negotiator's voice wasn't cutting it for him either. Hah. Cutting it. At this rate, that voice would get Elsie cut instead.

"Get... the hell... away from us!" he bellowed, almost struggling to get the words out.

Elsie was tempted to say she didn't want to be grouped in with that "us," but a sliver of her remaining sanity voted against it.

"Richard..." the negotiator tried again.

"Just leave us alone!"

The negotiator furrowed her eyebrows a bit, and it didn't make Elsie feel any better about her predicament.

"I can't do that, Richard," she said, trying her best to sound apologetic. "But if you help me understand then maybe I can help you."

The only part of Richard that Elsie could see was his muscular arm wrapped tightly around her neck, but, after a brief pause, she felt him nod, his chin brushing roughly against her head.

"Is there a reason you're up here?" the negotiator continued. "I don't know about you, but I don't think Miss Bates really likes heights."

Thirty minutes ago, Elsie didn't really have a problem with heights, but she supposed she had spent enough time hovering five hundred feet above the streets of Downtown Los Angeles to develop a new fear.

"I'm sorry, babe," Richard whispered in her ear, before saying to the negotiator, "we just needed a chance to talk. I tried calling her a thousand times, but I kept getting sent to voicemail. I needed to talk to her in person. Where we couldn't be disturbed."

So he was the reason she had to change her number. Elsie's bitterness was strong, but not enough to completely distract herself from the increasing possibility of death.

"There's space in here," the negotiator said, gesturing slightly with a raised hand to the room she came from earlier. "I'll clear it out and give you two a chance to talk."

Elsie had nothing to say to Richard, a man she didn't even know, but she wasn't going to advertise that. Plus, she would much rather be inside with solid footing, rather than out there, forty stories up, standing on a ledge that was definitely supposed to be purely decorative.

The offer of going inside was supposed to be comforting, Elsie figured, but all she could do was compare the two settings of where she was and where she could've been. And by doing her comparison, all she succeeded in doing was overanalyzing all of the very, very bad reasons about her current situation and how she saw no way of getting out of it and her fate was in the hands of some overly obsessed fan and how holy shit she was going to fall, or she was going to get stabbed in the back and then fall, or she was going to get shot by one of the police snipers and then fall, or something was going to happen, but regardless of what happened, the end result was going to be her dead in the middle of the street below.

Elsie hadn't noticed when her breaths started to shorten, but by the time she did notice it was impossible to control it. She instinctively tried to hold her breath to reset her rhythm, but that only forced her to audibly gasp for her next breath and draw unnecessary attention to herself. Up until then, she had done well in maintaining a low profile, considering she normally prided herself in her ability to garner attention. Now, all her hard work had gone to waste.

"Elsie, deep breaths, okay? Deep breaths."

Easier said than done. Elsie wanted to scoff at the negotiator, but she had no breath to spare. Before she could stop herself, her hands grappled at the arm around her neck, struggling to give herself at least the semblance of breathing room. Belatedly, she worried that her captor would be furious at the touch, but Richard twisted her actions to fit his narrative.

"Shhh, babe," he whispered in her ear. "I got you. I'll be with you forever."

Elsie couldn't hold back her shudder, nor could she take back the tears that started trickling down her cheeks.

"Richard, Elsie needs help," the negotiator said. "We have to get her inside."

"I can protect her," Richard said. "I love her."

"I know you do. We can all see that you love her very dearly. And you want her to be happy right?"

Elsie felt Richard nod again, and it took all of her effort to keep herself still against his touch.

"How do you think Elsie felt today, Richard?" the negotiator continued. "She was working on her next movie when you came to see her, right? Was she happy about her work getting interrupted?"

This time, Elsie felt Richard shake his head. "She was a little mad," he said, severely underestimating Elsie's earlier reaction. "She's been busy lately."

"I've heard," the negotiator agreed. "Elsie's a very talented actress, isn't she?" After Richard nodded, the negotiator continued. "She must love her job too, don't you think?" Richard nodded again. "How is she supposed to do what she loves from out here?"

That path of reasoning was ridiculous, but Richard seemed to seriously contemplate it. Then, much to Elsie's relief, the arm around her neck started to loosen, and the pressure of the blade against her back disappeared.

"I... I guess you're right..." Richard muttered. He kept Elsie close as he brushed his nose against her ear. "I'm sorry, babe. I shouldn't have done that while you were working."

You shouldn't have done that at all, you little shit, Elsie thought, but she still didn't have the voice to say all of that. Thankfully, their conversation gave her a chance to regain some of her bearings, and she managed a small, "it's okay." She took a deep breath before continuing. "We could... go inside and talk now? If... if you want."

Her heart was racing, and her legs were one panic attack from giving out, but her voice was surprisingly steady and calm. Damn, she deserved an Oscar.

She felt Richard nod, and they had barely shuffled a foot back towards the window they came from when an enormous cheer erupted from the ground. It was muffled, given how high up they were, but it was still loud enough to reach them.

The next few seconds seemed to happen all at once. Richard yelled at the negotiator, who in turn was trying to placate him over his bellowing voice. Shouts from inside the building added to the symphony of noise, and the only word Elsie could make out though the chaos around her and in her mind was one word: guardians.

"You brought them here to take her from me!" Richard accused the negotiator. It wasn't a question.

"No, Richard, that's not—"

"No one can take her from me!" Richard wrapped both of his arms around Elsie like a boa constrictor, one tight around her waist and the other crossing her chest with the knife pressed to her neck. "Not even guardians."

And then the ledge disappeared from beneath her feet.

After the chaos up on the ledge, the slow fall down was surreal. Elsie wanted to scream, flail her arms, do something, do anything, but she couldn't, not with that creep wrapped around her with a blade at her throat. It didn't make sense to be afraid of her throat being slit open when she was already plummeting to her death, but her mind was focused on survival, even if it only was for a few more seconds.

Suddenly, a blast of light and heat flew straight for her neck, and she couldn't help but yelp in surprise.

While she felt nothing but a slight warmth, her captor didn't seem to have gotten off as easily. As he howled in pain, Elsie felt his grip on her loosen and the sharp blade leave her skin. The unexpected freedom filled her with an odd sense of relief, given that she was still falling, and with that relief came fury.

Elsie threw an elbow behind her, hoping to catch him in the gut. Her hit miraculously landed and Richard grunted before scrambling to grab her again. He managed to yank her by her wrist and quickly spun her around to face him. This was the first time Elsie actually got a good look at her captor's face, but it didn't matter what the little shit looked like. Instead, she took the opportunity in facing him to gift him a solid kick in his crotch, and took some satisfaction in seeing him suffer.

While she now has some breathing room, she was still falling, and with her back now to the ground she couldn't even see how much time she had left. Elsie closed her eyes, trying to think of all the people she didn't get a chance to say goodbye to, and of all the things she wanted to accomplish in her life. She worried she had forgotten someone or something in her list, then about the things she left unfinished. The movie she was filming was almost wrapped up, but she had a photoshoot on Wednesday and a charity event on Saturday. It was too late to cancel, and she hated to break her word like that.

Elsie's thoughts were shattered by another pair of arms wrapping around her. Her eyes flew open, ready to fight that Richard creep until her last breath, and she flailed her limbs to shake him off.

"Easy, miss," a different voice said, light and strangely chipper. It wasn't Richard's chilling baritone, nor was it the negotiator's strained calm. It was sweet and playful and so completely out of place that it caught Elsie off guard.

"What—?" she spun her head to the side and found herself staring into the eyes of a goddess.

Okay, maybe Elsie was delirious; but maybe she wasn't. After all, as vivid as her imagination was, even she didn't think she could conjure up the image before her out of thin air.

At the same time, there was no way the woman before Elsie could be real. Because all it took was one look in her warm brown eyes for Elsie to feel completely at ease. There was no way this woman was real, not with her wide smile that somehow exuded both confidence and compassion, both strength and sympathy. It was impossible that this woman actually existed, and that she was actually carrying Elsie in midair.

"We're gonna keep heading down for a bit, but it's a controlled descent," the woman said with a grin. "You don't want to get whiplash, do you?"

Elsie shook her head and closed her mouth that, at some point, had fallen open in awe.

"Smart choice. Putting on the brakes now, so keep all arms, feet, and legs inside until we've come to a complete stop!"

Elsie was confused, but she wasn't sure if it was because she was a complete mess or because her brain completely stopped at the sight of the woman that held her. She recognized her from the millions of times her face was on the news and government propaganda. How could she not? Everyone in the country, maybe even the world, knew about one of the most powerful guardians, Camilla Wyatt.

And holy hell, she looked even better up close.

Like most people, Elsie had never seen Camilla in person. But now that she finally got her chance, Elsie just couldn't stop staring.

After she finally looked past Camilla's soothing eyes and reassuring smile, Elsie noticed those features were perfectly framed by her soft jawline and cheekbones. In the middle of it all was a dainty button nose, and Elsie was tempted to simply reach out and tap it with her finger just to see what would happen. On top of her head, Camilla's dark brown hair circled in a braid like an angelic halo, and Elsie expected it to start glowing before her eyes.

Okay, maybe Elsie was a little delirious after all.

Belatedly, Elsie realized that she didn't feel nearly secure enough for a trip via flying in someone's arms, and she threw her arms around the first thing she could: Camilla's shoulders. Camilla's resulting chuckle felt sorely out of place relative to Elsie's wild jumble of emotions, but Elsie was too stressed to say anything. Instead, she kept her eyes fixed on the buildings that they flew by, trying to judge the speed of their descent by how quickly the windows zoomed by.

After several long seconds, they finally slowed down enough for Elsie to make out the details of those windows, and she felt like she could finally breathe again. She inhaled deeply to test it out, shuddering a bit but managing to fill her lungs with air. If Camilla had noticed, she didn't mention it, but she did speak up.

"Now where are you headed today, miss?" Camilla asked, as if she was a taxi driver.

With her sanity slowly coming back to her, Elsie started to feel embarrassed about her predicament. Obviously, she knew that she had no reason to be ashamed, but that didn't matter when she was in the arms of a very attractive woman and her heart's rapid beating wasn't solely due to her near-death experience. The sound of the cheering crowds below, growing louder as they descended, didn't help the flush that was creeping onto her face.

"I just wanna go home," Elsie mumbled.

But she knew that was impossible. She was just involved in a very public incident that almost killed her. Her manager would need to see her to discuss what their next move would be. The public would need to know she was alright. The movie crew from the set she was wrenched from would need to know when she could get back to work. And shit, her phone was still back there.

"And where's home?" Camilla humored her.

"Everland Park. That obnoxious highrise with that neon lightstrip going down one side? You can't miss it, even if you were on the moon."

"Next stop, Everland Park," Camilla said happily, and Elsie felt them ascending.

She instinctively tightened her hold on Camilla and she finally took a peek at the ground behind her. They were flying towards a large area on the street that the police had sectioned off from the public, where the flashing lights of patrol cars, ambulances, and fire trucks were waiting. There was a large inflatable cushion, its bright orange presence made morbid with the giant red X that marked the center. Beside it, someone in a guardian uniform was waving them down to land.

And they flew over and past them without the slightest pause.

 "Wait, what?" Elsie whipped her head around, trying to get a glimpse at the greeting party they just ignored. "Don't we have to go back?"

They turned at an intersection, and the crowd disappeared from view, so Elsie turned back to Camilla.

"Probably," Camilla replied, not sounding at all concerned.

It took Elsie a moment to figure out what to say to that. "Aren't... aren't you going to get in trouble?"

Camilla shrugged with one shoulder. "Who cares?" She looked down at Elsie pointedly. "Unless... you want to go back?"

"Well, I don't want to..." Elsie said without thinking.

"Then home it is."

"But I have to! They—I'm expected back there!"

"And you always have to do what they expect?"

When Elsie couldn't come up with a response fast enough—she had too long of a day to think properly—Camilla said nothing and continued on her way.

They reached Elsie's building in no time. While Elsie felt guilty about ditching everyone, it's not like she was going to ask Camilla for a ride back. She pointed out which balcony was hers and was relieved to finally get her feet back on steady ground. Until...

"Shit..." Elsie patted down her clothes before quickly remembering that her dress from the costume department didn't have any kind of pockets. And it wasn't like she carried around the key to her balcony door anyway. She would have to ask Camilla for a ride down to the lobby, and then have to deal with getting the building security to let her into her condo.

Except Camilla was already moving towards the balcony door. As she crouched onto the ground to inspect the keyhole, Elsie couldn't help her eyes track her every movement. Standing next to her, Camilla was much shorter than Elsie expected. Regardless, she still looked built enough to hold her own in a fist fight, even without meta-abilities. Her fitted guardian uniform moved effortlessly with her, and it took a bit of effort for Elsie to pull her gaze away.

Camilla pressed a hand to the lock, and it clicked a second later. She jumped to her feet and turned to Elsie. "You might want to disarm your security system now."

Elsie scrambled inside and quickly did as she was told before taking time to bask in the fact that she was safe at home. She wanted to collapse on the floor right then and there, but she at least had the decency to go to her couch and fall on the cushions instead.

A muffled buzzing sound was enough to keep her from getting too comfy, and she turned just in time to see Camilla glance at her phone before stuffing it back into one of the many pockets on her uniform. Her very fitted and attractive uniform.

Nope, Elsie had more important things to think about.

"Do you mind if I borrowed that?" Elsie asked. "Your phone," she clarified.

Camilla shrugged and handed it over.

Thankfully, or not, Elsie knew her manager's number from memory, and he spent ages lecturing her while Elsie casually ignored him. Elsie only managed to escape by reminding him she was borrowing the phone, and after begrudgingly agreeing to stay put, she returned the phone to Camilla.

"Thanks," Elsie said. Belatedly, she realized she was being a terrible host and didn't even offer Camilla a seat or a drink. What's worse, Elsie's condo was a mess with clothes carpeting the floors and trash haphazardly stacked in piles at high traffic points around her living room. She hadn't dusted in ages... and when was the last time she did the dishes?

As Elsie struggled through her internal crisis, Camilla's phone buzzed again. The woman stared at it for a few seconds, debating on whether or not to answer it, before accepting at the last moment. She listened without saying anything, then hung up shortly after. Before Elsie could even question anything, Camilla sighed dramatically.

"Looks like the fun is over," she grumbled to the ceiling, then turned to Elsie with a renewed smile. "You good?"

"Uh..." Elsie actually had no idea how she felt. "Yeah. All good. Totally. Totally good."

Camilla nodded once before heading back to the balcony. Elsie followed automatically, but stopped instinctively just inside the door. Apparently, her subconscious was telling her she wasn't as good as she thought.

The other woman didn't seem to notice as she leapt onto the railing with ease, almost as if she was floating, then spun around to face Elsie with the grace of an Olympic gymnast on the bar.

"See you around, Miss Elsie," she said with a sly grin and a small wave, before falling backwards off the railing.

For a moment, Elsie thought her heart stopped, temporarily forgetting who flew them there, until she saw Camilla flying off in the direction they came from. Flying back into the city to save another hapless citizen, Elsie presumed, most likely not even realizing that she changed Elsie's life forever.

---

NOTES

Thank you for flying with Camilla Airlines! We'll always be here to pick you up when you fall, or when you're dragged off the side of a building by an overly obsessed fan! :)

Also: alternative reality where Camilla uses her abilities to break into people's houses and clean for them.

Thank you for reading, voting, and commenting!