My brother twitched beside me his hand unconsciously reaching for mine. All around us there were families like us. Orphans like us. And we were all jammed in here together, packed in like sardines but not complaining. This was all we had. I watched as the Search and Rescue team brought another family in, lucky to be alive but too shocked to realise it. I had offered my experience to the teams but they turned me down, I was needed here too badly. The Search and Rescue team left and the room was silent again. The high roof of the room would normally reverberate the sound of support from the sideline but now it reverberated the silence making it seem larger, more menacing. A girl sobbed quietly on her boyfriend's shoulder three people away. It was a scene that was repeated over and over, husbands comforting wives, mothers comforting children sisters comforting siblings. Suddenly, the alarm whined followed quickly by another aftershock, the sixteenth since midnight. Screams went up as the lights flickered out. The walls groaned and a tense silence fell over the thousand people in the room as the first crack appeared in the roof.

The crack elongated and branched off into smaller cracks that were growing bigger by the second. As if in slow motion the first chunk of plaster fell towards the ground. It hit the floor with a crash and smashed into a million small pieces. The silence was broken, the young and old, male and female alike let out piercing wails that were a testament to the feelings of fear and hopelessness of this situation. My brother clenched my arm in terror but then I saw her. Across the room I saw her, a smile came curved to life on my face and I raised my arm in greeting but she was staring at the ceiling. I looked up and all colour drained out of my face. I pushed my brother out of the way then everything went black.

I was across the room but I swore I could hear the sickening crack of Sarah's skull splitting under the impact of the chunk of ceiling. I sprinted towards her taking in the sight of her brother sitting next to her looking at her with horror and disbelief written plainly across his face. She can't be dead. She just can't be.

I wake up in a white room filled with expensive looking machines. I have been in rooms identical to these in Australia to question suspects but this time I was the one in the bed attached to various machines. A man hovered over me and I heard his sigh of relief before he left the room in a rush. Blackness took over again. When I woke up Joan was sitting in the chair next to my bed. She let out a tired smile when she saw that my eyes were open. Even with a small smile her face was transformed, she was beautiful. I gave her a strained smile back and she promptly burst into tears. I tried to sit up but a masculine hand stopped me. I followed the hand up to an equally masculine chest covered by a crisp white lab coat and up to a breath-takingly gorgeous male. His eyes met mine and I was lost.

I kept my arm on her longer than was probably professional in my position but I couldn't help it as soon as she looked up her eyes locked on mine and a distant part of my brain heard my breath hitch. Even pale she was striking. Her freckles stuck out against her porcelain face that Joan swore to me was her natural complexion. My sudden and compelling attraction for her would make this news harder to deliver. It was hard enough when I didn't know the person. Not breaking contact I delivered the blow that would shatter her already fragile world.

"You have internal bleeding in your skull surrounding your brain. You have, at most, a week to live."