Sophie

Sophie Douglas was jogging with her brother, across the Golden Gate bridge, desperately trying to make sure he was not falling behind her when the most horrendous thing happened to her. Her brother, David, was not one for exercise and was huffing and puffing like a pug with a sinus infection, red face, sweaty and miserable. Sophie, on the hand, was keeping a steady rapid pace, with a slightly red face and even, practiced face. This was generally easy peasy for her, as she was incredibly strict when it came to conditioning her body- a by-product or really a demand of being a ballerina. Somehow, now that David was living within spitting distance of her again, she had managed to drag her physically inept brother that would rather spend his time in front of a whiteboard scribbling out intense, complicated and completely groundbreaking equations to try and figure out the universe, to go running with her every morning.

This was the four week.

David was still horrendously out of shape.

"S-S-S-Sophie. Brea- Breather!" he begged, half sobbed at her a few feet away.

Sophie sighed, before calmly slowing her pace, falling back until she was at David's speed, and then calmly stopped altogether. David hunched over, hands on his knees as she tried not to snicker. So as to not lose any warmth in her muscles in the chilly, foggy air so early, she stretched, moving about in a few select yoga poses as her brother wheezed and tried to keep from dry heaving- as he had the first week.

"You are a fucking taskmaster!" said her brother with a snarl, pushing up his slightly foggy glasses up his nose.

Sophie felt her lips quirk, slowly spinning on the spot in a dancer's pose, bringing down her lifted right foot in a graceful gesture before she brought her left one up.

"Drink water, nerd," she said cheerfully, laughing at his haggard expression. It was moments like this, even with her brother's pissed off expression, that reminded how much she had missed him when he had moved to New York to get his Ph.D. in Astrophysics.

Grumbling, but doing what she had asked of him, David drank from the water he was carrying in his small backpack. He was nearly done with half of it before Sophie batted it away with a shake of her head.

"You're going to throw up again if you drink it that fast."

"Do we have to run all of the bridge?"

"It's not even two miles, you big baby."

Her brother leveled her with a pout, which was ridiculous on the face of a man that was a Doctor, and soon to be a Professor at a college. David rubbed his face with a sharp, funny whistle through his nose. Sophie made it a note to tell her brother to stop forgetting his allergy medication because, well, it sounded horrendously gross.

"It's almost four if you run it back and forth," he said pointedly, and she noted it seemed like he had almost gained his breath back, "Which we fucking do."

"You promised," Sophie countered him, doing her best to looking up at her brother with wide, beguiling brown eyes that were perfect for the puppy dog look. She even wobbled her lower lip in a perfect pout.

David pursed his lips.

"That stopped working when you were five, Sophie."

Sophie giggled pout morphing into a wide, beatific smile.

"Do not lie to me. If it hadn't worked you wouldn't be here."

David grunted. Sophie simply wiggled her way to her older brother, pressing her hip into him.

"Oh, come on, I promise we'll do something you like and I hate to make up for it."

David grinned.

"Planetarium with me lecturing the chemical composition of every star mentioned?"

She grinned back.

"Davey, we'll be there for five years."

"Sweet sweet promises."

She laughed before she grabbed her own water bottle and took a good swig from it.

When she heard the screech of tires, she had turned her head in alarm. And noticed that in the same split second that a truck had lost control and was spiraling towards them.

Sophie didn't even think. She only shoved her brother as hard as she could, sending him sprawling on his ass a few feet away from her. The truck, a large behemoth, broke through the barrier like paper. Then, the truck hit her, sending her flying. She hit the railway of the bridge with such force that she tumbled over the edge. It took less than a fraction of a fucking second, and before she even had time to try to catch herself on edge, Sophie was already too far away.

Sophie fell, all two-hundred and thirty feet, not even being able to scream for the four or so seconds it took her to hit the water.

When she hit the water, she felt every bone in her body shattering, and the rush of water streaming into her lungs. Sophie had never in her life had felt such pain- could barely comprehend it even as she felt herself start to lose consciousness out of the sheer pain and shock. She doesn't remember much after that point. Just the vague sight of the sunlight glittering over the water as she sank further and further down into the San Francisco Bay, hoping that the pain would just stop.

And it did.

If only that had been the last of her problems.