All for one. One for all.

Fortune smiled upon him.

David crawled up after her, dragging the rope with him. They knew that she really was safe by then. But they would not know that the hard part was just about to begin.

He knelt there for a few moments, recovering, his mind in shreds, not daring to stand up until he got some control back of his aching muscles and of his stressed emotions. That episode had been too enervating upon his hormones, as well as tiring on his already exhausted body after his long run.

He felt one of them touch him on his back to thank him, muttering some words that he did not clearly hear in the rain, but he did not know which one of them was thanking him.

He changed his position and sat there in the wet of the roof, his shoulders and arms aching, and brought his rope up, coiling it to rest there with him as he inspected his own minor injuries in the indirect, weak light.

The hardest part still lay before them now; getting them off the roof without going through the school. They couldn’t go back into the school like this, to face endless questions and an inquisition, even expulsion, but that decision would be theirs to make. He had got them out of the worst of it.

Le-an—he was able to just make out that bruise on her forehead—was touching him on the arm, squatting close beside him, everything within reach, openly tempting again. She was smiling at him, knowing how much he’d done for them so far, and what it was costing him.

The other one touching him must be Olivia. She was standing close to him too. He reached out and touched her on the lower leg, as she in turn touched his head before she moved away to sit under that coat, on the plank with Sarah.

He could see too much of Le-an, even in the indirect light Olivia shone at them and reflected from the wet surface immediately beneath Le-an. He could see even more about her in that light—though no suggestion of blood this time—but she was no longer thinking about that earlier episode.

If she didn’t care, why would he? He reached out and touched on her leg—he dared not touch her anywhere else, although he ached to do so, to slide his hand under her—wordlessly thanking her for appreciating what he’d done as she was thanking him.

She paused for a few moments, letting him see her as openly as he seemed to need to see her, knowing how he felt for her. She understood his mood.

She would always have his attention squatting like that, close to him.

“Thank you.” Le-an was crying as she leaned in to kiss him and hug him, but they were tears of happiness now.

David's hand was trembling as he continued to touch her.

She moved closer to him, holding his head close into her, feeling his hand beneath her now, full upon her, sliding under her, awakening him with what she was telling him and by letting him touch her like that, sliding his fingers along her, between her inner labia, encouraging him to touch where she had not been able to pause and let him touch before while she had been on the ladders. She knew that he would always want to touch her. She brought her legs closer together to trap his arm and hand where they were.

He would soon be a nervous wreck at this pace.

His heart was doing handsprings. He would do it all again to have her look at him like that again, and for that hug; to touch her like this so intimately. And to help Sarah too. He would have liked to have held her with him for a few more moments. He did not trust himself to say anything, or do anything else, the way he was feeling.

They were three wondrous, innocent young women, schoolgirls, while not being schoolgirls, never having been schoolgirls, always mature adult women hiding in those bodies, even at birth. They had been caught up in this hell and had invited the devil in to rescue them considering what he had done to Le-an, damaging her unforgivably in their first moment of meeting.

He felt guilty with what he felt, and what his mind was doing. He was a sham, an imposter, a man who would violate each and every one of them just as he had done to Le-an, given time and opportunity.

He entertained difficult thoughts and awkward feelings he’d never felt before to such an intense degree at any time in his life, and not just for one of them, but for two and possibly even for three of them. He had never met women like this; none that he’d been allowed to get close to. It was a strange and new world for him, struggling to believe what he felt; what had occurred.

Three women, but not the kind of women he’d ever thought to meet, and never in this way, had changed his life forever, and they did not even know it, except Le-an probably did. His life after this would be empty without them in it, so he must find some way to keep them in it with him. But only if he could recover from that first terrible mistake with Le-an.

No man could serve three such mistresses as he wanted to, without them wanting to murder him for his callous duplicity. They would not want him in their lives with them when they knew him better. He could never be that lucky. Except he’d made a start on it with Le-an, and even with Sarah.

It would have to play out as it would.

He was at a sudden watershed in his life, and it might go either way for him, depending upon how he handled it, and how they responded to him. Life, and happiness one way; a miserable, empty existence, the other. The latter was all he would deserve.

He wanted to reach out to them, hold them close, embrace and kiss them to comfort them, but also to touch them, hold them tenderly where he so ached to, but he knew that he must not, and especially when he could no longer be sure which one was Le-an in that ill-lit darkness when he could not see her face.

They were far from being finished with each other, but they needed to rest and recover for a few minutes before undertaking the next stage.

Medical school had not prepared him for any of this emotional, heroic stuff, but had prepared him for something different, which he could soon bring into play again to help them. And they needed his medical help, so it would not end yet. It must not end. Ever.

Daivd helped them sit down on their plank with Sarah in the middle (he knew which one she was, because of her knee), his coat behind them and over the heads of the three of them, bundled closely together to get as warm against each other as they could, covering their heads and their shoulders from the rain while hiding nothing of the rest of their bodies from him, crouched in front of them.

He left them to hold each other close, huddled in a tight knot together, arms around each other front and back, sharing what little warmth they had, and to recover. He undid his rope from the chimney and began coiling it to get it out of their way. The next step would be the most difficult. Getting them into the school again or taking them off the roof with him. It would be their decision.

The former was unlikely and would be asking to have everything found out, including his role in it, so he would have to get them down, as he and Le-an had come up, but that would be just as dangerous in other ways. They would probably not be missed until the morning, except by their close friends. He could smuggle them back into the school in the morning before anyone else was moving, once he’d seen to them. His father had most of the keys, and he could find enough clothes for them to return to the dormitory, unseen, but then appearing for breakfast with their various injuries, and inviting questions. The worst injury of all would be unseen, but sorely felt. He hoped and prayed that Le-an could eventually forgive him for that, though she already may have done.

They sat close together and talked with their heads close together, comforting each other, loving, not caring if they were overheard, and getting some benefit from each other’s warmth and warm breath, but they couldn’t stay here for much longer. It was getting cooler.

He looked from one to the other, having difficulty telling which one was which.

Oh, Lord. They were triplets! Identical triplets!

He had to close his eyes for few moments and try to think clearly about what he knew. There were three of them, not just one. They were identical in every way, and he had already fallen in love with Le-an on first seeing her, despite the other thing he had been doing to her at the time. Love at first sight! And now there were three of them? Would he fall in love with the other two as he had with Le-an? Too late. He already had. Fate played no favorites, raining blessings on the just, as well as upon the unjust. Blessings, or trouble? With either, it was a case of one size fitted all.

He’d take it.

The sister on the right was the first to voice her thoughts to her sisters. “What now, Le-an? We can’t go back into the school like this.” Her use of that name told him who they were. Le-an on the left, Sarah in the middle, and Olivia on the right, speaking.

Olivia continued. “There would be too many questions, and we need help in other ways, all of us, but specially you, Sarah.” Sarah said nothing, held on either side by her sisters, and still recovering from her near brush with death. “We’d be expelled for sure. There’s no hiding where we were, or what happened.”

“Then we can’t go back in. Not like this. David will see to us, I know he will.” She seemed to have more faith in him than she should have. “He did this for us. We can get down with his help.” Le-an sounded sure of that and looked at him, knowing he could hear them clearly. Hell, he was only two feet away. He was nodding. They were daring to trust him?

“How?”

“I don’t know. By getting us off the roof and looking after us so that none of this need be discovered if possible. I got off the roof and found him, and he will see to us from here. Goodness knows we can do pitifully little for ourselves.” She was being realistic.

He backed away, but not far. He should let them sort this out for themselves. Yes, he would help them, no matter what it cost him. Even if it was the last thing he would ever do.

Le-an seemed to have more faith in him than she should have. Olivia did not give up, lowering her voice so that he would not hear so easily, but he still caught snippets; more than just snippets.

“But look at us. Look at the state we are in. Look at how we are. How vulnerable we are, and he is a man.” That most dreaded of dreaded mammals for a woman to encounter. Or the most wonderful.

Le-an rationalized it for all of them. “We have two choices, school, and expulsion, or we trust him, despite how we are.” Le-an let that sink in.

They could easily see the lesser one of those damaging choices, if it were the lesser. Only time, and him, would reveal which one it would be. Le-an already seemed to know. Something had happened between them for her to be so trusting. Olivia had seen some of it.

“We must trust him. Look how he helped us just now.”

“I trust him.” Sarah was not too hurt to voice her feelings. “He got me up from that roof.” Le-an could have kissed her, but touched her on her uninjured leg instead.

“We can’t do anything for ourselves and can’t go back into school. Sarah needs help. We all need help. We are all injured in some way. He came back with me and rescued Sarah, and he will see to us getting out of this too.”

“How?” That question again.

“I don’t know.”

Olivia continued to argue with her, but not very forcibly. “We know nothing about him.”

“I know about him.” Le-an did indeed, even if some of it was not what she would dare to tell her sisters about just yet.

“And so do you, if you think about it. He risked his life for us, to rescue us from this mess. I, know about him.”

David should not be listening to this personal exchange as they discussed him. He moved a few feet farther away and checked around at what he could see, as he planned the next steps.

Le-an whispered. “Another thing, and the most important”—she hesitated for a few moments to give her words greater effect—“what if he is that one man we spoke about, but despaired of ever finding; the one man for all of us? I believe he is that man, and you will see it too, soon enough.” That remark captured their attention.

“But that was just foolish daydreaming.” Olivia did not understand either of her sisters at this moment, but she had not been as close to him as her sisters had.

“If it was just a foolish dream, Olivia, then I don’t ever want to wake up. But what other choice do we have? Going back into the school like this is not an option. We have to trust him.”