Chapter Five

 

Cora woke up before her alarm even sounded. She reorganized her bag in silence, adding everything she thought she might need on a rescue mission. Eric slipped out of bed while she worked. He came over to give her a quick, silent hug good morning before he went to deal with his own bag.

Cora looked at the box of condoms on the bedside table. She tucked one back into its usual spot on her wallet. For all she knew, Carpenter had shown up overnight, no recue needed; maybe Eric and her would take another hike together, instead…

But even as she had the thought, she was pretty sure it was wishful thinking.

They met up with the others at Basecamp when the sun was just creeping over the horizon. Eric and Cora, Tashi and Tenzing, a few other people she didn't know. All of them looked pale and worried in the grey light of early dawn.

"We'll go up together, then split up once we hit Camp Three—" Tashi started, laying out the plan. Cora looked up at a flash of movement in the periphery in her vision. She squinted against the glare of the rising sun. Two figures were coming down the trail towards them at a staggering, unsteady pace, one leaning heavily on the other.

"That's Carpenter!" Eric said, following her glance. "Dammit, why's there only two of them?"

He was already moving, the two of them hurrying up the trail side by side, the rest of the group hard at their heels. The two men looked near collapse. They'd need help getting the rest of the way down.

The steadier of the two climbers wore a yellow jacket she recognized even from a distance as belonging to Carpenter. The other one was all in black. Cora's hands clenched into fists by her side. Andrew's parka had been red.

Carpenter hadn't brought him back.

Carpenter started waving, arms crossing above his head, as soon as he saw them: Help!

Beside him, the other man sagged heavily to his knees.

Now that she was closer, Cora recognized him: Everhart, Carpenter's condescending client.

Cora quickened her steps, Eric speeding up beside her. Everhart collapsed forwards in slow motion, his gloved hands sinking into the snow. His chest heaved like a bellows.

"Don't let him fall—Carpenter! Keep him up!" Eric bellowed, his deep voice carrying across the snow. Carpenter, who'd slumped in obvious exhaustion, jerked up just in time to grab Everhart by the shoulders and stop him from falling face-first into the snow.

Eric was flat-out running now, Cora just a step behind him when they reached the exhausted pair. Eric pulled Everhart up, forcing him to kneel upright.

"Please… tired," Everhart muttered, struggling for breath between the words.

"I know. But you gotta stay upright. If you lie down, it'll only get harder to breathe." Eric's voice was gentle but firm. He eased Everhart back against his own chest, taking his weight.

Everhart coughed, a horrible wet sound. Cora winced. She'd heard that kind of cough before.

"How much Dex have you given him?" she asked Carpenter.

Carpenter blinked at her. He looked totally exhausted, his eyes sunken and red-rimmed. He was weaving on his feet. "…What?"

"Dex. Dexamethasone. Medicine. How much did he have? Did you give him tablets or an injection?"

"Didn't give him anything," Carpenter said.

"What?" Cora unbuckled her pack, yanking out her little case of emergency medication, the syringe of Dexamethasone she always kept pre-filled and ready. "This is altitude sickness, you must have recognized—Why didn't you—" She broke off, lost for words, and simply shook her head.

Carpenter gave a grating, humorless laugh. "There wasn't any left."

There wasn't—

Andrew. Of course. Neither of Carpenters clients had been properly acclimatized, but Andrew even less so than Everhart. He would've gotten sick first.

"What happened?" Cora asked.

Eric had pulled Everhart's pants down over the side of one hip, exposing a patch of muscle; Cora handed him the syringe.

The rest of the group had finally caught up to them, all of them talking at once, the same questions Cora had been asking herself: What happened? Are you okay?

"Someone get me oxygen and a blanket," Eric ordered, his calm voice cutting through the din of voices.

Tashi spread a mat out on the ground, taking over the weight of Everhart's limp, half-conscious form to free up Eric's hands. Tenzing pulled an oxygen bottle from his pack.

Eric placed the oxygen mask over Everhart's face and secured it with sure, experienced motions.

Someone else had pushed a cup of tea into Carpenter's hand, but he was just standing there, holding it, his face blank.

Cora nudged his shoulder. "Drink," she said firmly, and then guided his hand until he obeyed.

Carpenter started swallowing greedily the second the warm tea met his lips, as if he'd only then realized what he was holding.

"What happened?" she repeated.

"There was a storm," Carpenter said, which was the one thing she already knew about what had gone wrong. Cora gritted her teeth.

They managed to drag the story out of Carpenter bit by excruciating bit, and with every detail he revealed, Cora felt her hands clench tighter.

Carpenter had managed to get Everhart and Andrew up the first part of the mountain without incident. They'd reached Camp Three just as the first storm clouds started drifting across the sky. Carpenter had gotten overconfident; instead of making camp to wait out the coming storm, he'd decided to push on, gambling on being able to reach Camp Four before the full force of it hit.

But the storm had come faster and harder than he'd expected. Stumbling half-blind through the gusts of wind and snow, Carpenter had finally realized he'd made a mistake. They'd waited out the storm huddled together in the snow, then tried to turn around as soon as the weather cleared. That's when the avalanche had gone off just a few hundred feet below them, the same one Cora and Eric had heard from their cave last night. It had buried the trail down to Camp Three in piles of snow and debris, cutting off the retreat.

And that's when Andrew, inexperienced and badly acclimatized, had started showing signs of altitude sickness.

"I gave him the tablets, the Dexamethasone, I tried, I did, but he couldn't keep anything down." Carpenter hugged the mug of tea to his chest, gloved hands clenching.

"He just got more and more confused. No idea where he was, what he was doing. Kept trying to lie down in the snow. I didn't know what to do. Finally we just dug a hole in the snow and laid down, tried to keep him warm. I don't even know how we made it through the night."

Carpenter's voice cracked. "He wouldn't wake up the next morning, wouldn't get up. There wasn't anything we could do."

"So you left him behind." Eric's voice was as hard and cold as tempered glass.

Carpenter flinched. "What do you think I should've done? We couldn't go down the way we came, after the avalanche. It's snowdrifts up past your neck all the way down to Camp Three. We had to cross over to the East Face of the mountain and climb down the cliff wall. I had my hands full even just getting Charles down, and at least he was moving on his own!"

He gestured to Everhart, whose labored breathing had finally started to ease a little after the oxygen and the injection. "Only reason we managed to make it down at all was some other expedition had left a bunch of rope and gear behind, otherwise we'd all three be stuck up that mountain."

There were quite a few things he could've done differently, Cora thought. To start with, he never should have taken anyone up the mountain without making sure they'd had the time they needed to acclimatize. Yeah, maybe once Andrew had passed out there'd been no choice but to leave him behind, but it never should've gotten to that point in the first place.

But there wasn't any point twisting the knife by saying that out loud. From the look on Carpenter's face he realized perfectly well how badly he'd messed up.

"Was he alive when you left him?" Eric asked, in a hard, unflinching voice.

"He was breathing," Carpenter said. "We did what we could for him—wrapped him up in all our sleeping bags, made sure he was out of the wind—you know that big cairn of stones, the one with the prayer flags? We put him at the bottom, put up some snow walls around him. We would've brought him if we could, we would have—"

He put his face in his hands, swallowing a sob.

Everhart made a pained sound and tried to curl in on himself in Tashi's hold. Belatedly, Cora realized they shouldn't have had this conversation in front of him. That was his nephew they were talking about.

His nephew, who he never should've dragged up the mountain in the first place.

But if Carpenter was telling the truth, Andrew might still be alive.

She caught Eric's eyes. She knew what he was going to say, and nodded along as he did.

"We're going to go up and get him."

"You can't!" Carpenter face was distorted, almost a snarl. "Weren't you listening? There's no way down the South Face, not until the new snow from the avalanche has properly frozen over. And you can't take an unconscious body down the East Face. It's a goddamn cliff wall! You can't. Maybe you could carry him down as far as the Balcony, but it's difficult technical climbing below that. There's no way."

He was probably right, Cora reluctantly had to concede. The Balcony was a platform of smooth rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. The reason it had a name at all, when so many of the Rai Parvat's other rock formations didn't, was that it was the last good resting place before a long stretch of especially hard and dangerous climbing.

Even with Eric's help she wouldn't be able to climb down there with the weight of an unconscious person to manage.

"Can you get him down to the Balcony?" Tashi asked. "If you can get him down that far, I think I can pick you with the helicopter from there."

Carpenter laughed. "Are you insane? It's a little rock platform hanging off a cliff, and the air's so thin up there you can barely keep a chopper in the air as it is. No one's landing there."

"Why don't you leave that to me." Tashi gave him a glare. She reached out and caught Cora's hand. "Cora—do you trust me? If you can move him to the Balcony, I'll get you down from there."

"Of course I trust you."

The answer was easy. Cora had flown with Tashi before. She knew that Tashi knew exactly what she was doing. If she said she could do this, then she could.

Which left the bigger question: Could they get Andrew where they needed to be? Even if they managed to reach him in time, it would mean moving someone who might be unconscious, might be in critical condition, across the treacherous crossing to the East Face and then down a dangerous climb on the exposed rock face of the mountain.

Cora reached out blindly and caught Eric's hand with hers. A spark seemed to jump between their linked fingers, a connection so sure and steady she knew what he was thinking as if she could hear the words spoken out loud: We have to try.

 

***

 

They collected as much equipment as they could carry between the two of them. They'd have to climb up the sheer rock face of the Rai Parvat's East side. It was a much more technically demanding route than the walking trail up the South Face, but also much quicker, especially with ropes and equipment already in place. If they wanted to get to Andrew before nightfall, it was the only chance they had.

Tashi handed her a radio. "I'll move the receiver to the helicopter, keep everything ready to go. You give the signal, I can be with you in 45 minutes."

"Thanks." Cora clipped the radio to her belt. It wasn't a great way to communicate, but since the Rai Parvat didn't actually have cell phone reception, it was the best they were going to get.

"Good luck." Tashi leaned their foreheads together. They stood for a long moment, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders. Then Cora and Eric shouldered their packs, gave the assembled group one last wave goodbye, and then they were off.

 

***

 

This was nothing like her leisurely ascent of the Rai Parvat the day before, and nothing even like the tricky climb up the Veil; that had been technically difficult, sure, but there'd been no time pressure, and nothing riding on her success. If she'd gotten stuck or picked the wrong route, she could have given up and rappelled back down at any moment.

Now, Cora felt the passage of every minute like a heavy weight on her shoulders. They were pushing themselves to their limits, using every bit of the equipment Sasha's group had left behind. There were bolts already drilled into the rock they could clip their carabiners into, and ladders roped into place on the most difficult obstacles. Usually, this kind of climbing would have felt like cheating to her. She didn't like to rely this much on technical help. But right now, the only thing that mattered was speed.

They traded off the lead, each of them snatching what little moments of rest they could while belaying the other one. They stopped for food once or twice, taking five minutes to eat a few bites of a power bar, but that was as much of a break as they allowed themselves.

But even with the frantic haste and the worry for Andrew, Cora couldn't help but feel a secret, guilty joy at the climb. She'd always loved the challenge of a difficult climb, the sheer physical strain of pushing herself to the limit. And Eric was turning out to be the partner she'd missed all her life.

It was amazing what a difference it made to climb with someone who knew exactly what he was doing, and who never stopped paying attention to her. Eric seemed to have an almost supernatural ability to guess what she'd need, sometimes before she'd even realized it herself.

Things went well until halfway to the Balcony, and then they hit a sudden snag. A large crevasse loomed before them, almost forty feet across. Two aluminum ladders had been lashed together to bridge the gap, but the anchor had broken loose on their side, and now the ladders dangled uselessly from the other side of the chasm.

"Dammit," Cora said, with feeling.

Eric looked up from where he'd been examining the broken anchor. "There must have been a rock fall, look at this." He held up a heavy metal screw that had been snapped clean off. "How bad is this? You know the area better than I do. Can we go around?"

"Bad," Cora said succinctly. "There's an alternate route, but it'll cost us a lot of time. It's more technically challenging, and there won't be any equipment in place to help us along. Two hours extra if we're very lucky, more likely three—"

"Right. We'll have to go this way, then." Eric unstrapped his harness and dropped it on the ground, then started taking off his jacket.

Cora stared at him. "What on Earth are you doing?"

"I'll shift and jump over. The lion can do it."

"Are you insane? It's forty feet across!"

"We can't go around. We can't afford to lose that much time." Eric tied his jacket to his pack, then jerked off his shirts, cursing under his breath. "Oh God, this is cold."

Cora looked helplessly at the yawning chasm in front of them, then back at Eric. He was starting to shake, exposed to the brutally cold wind, but he was pushing down his trousers and stepping out of his boots with grim determination. "Are you sure—"

"I can do it."

But he didn't look certain. Cora looked at the chasm again. The other side somehow seemed farther away than ever. Mountain lions were strong runners and strong jumpers, she knew that much, but even so...

Eric had finished bundling his clothes into his pack. His fingers were turning white from the cold. He shifted from one foot to the other in the snow, his jaw tight with pain. "Throw me my pack as soon as I'm across. I'll tie a rope to the bottom of the ladder, and then you can pull it up from your side."

"Be careful," Cora said. Her voice cracked. She yanked him into a quick, hard kiss, and pulled back just as quickly; they didn't have the time. Exposure in this kind of weather could kill within minutes.

Eric was still in her arms when that golden light washed over his skin, and she had to step back and let him fall from her grip. The lion landed easily on all fours.

Cora ran her hand over the dense fur of his shoulders. "Be careful," she said again.

The lion nudged his head against her hip. He turned and paced away, giving himself enough space for a running start. Cora watched as the powerful muscles twitched and gathered under his skin. Eric exploded into motion, covering the distance to the chasm in three enormous, bounding leaps, and launched himself into the air.

Cora watched, her heart in her mouth, as the lion flew across the gap. His front paws came down hard in the snow on the other side. Cora gasped. It was too close to the gap. She watched helplessly as the lion's back paws scrambled against the wall of the chasm, claws scratching against solid ice over thin air; and then his claws caught on a rung of the ladder, and he launched himself to solid ground with a single, powerful push.

For a moment the lion stood there, his sides heaving, his breath a white cloud in the icy air. The golden light washed over him, and then it was Eric again, naked in the snow.

Cora scrambled to throw the pack across, and then let herself bury her face in her hand, muffling the sob she couldn't hold back anymore.

By the time Eric was dressed, she'd gotten herself under control again. She watched as Eric carefully climbed down the ladder and attached the rope at the bottom. He tied a stone to the other end of the rope and managed to throw it back over to her.

After that, it was easy enough to pull up the ladder and fasten it to a new anchor on her side of the chasm. Crossing the shaking, unstable ladders, the bottomless drop beneath her, was always a bit of an adrenaline rush, even with the safety rope clipped to her harness, but right now it felt like nothing compared to having to watch what Eric had just done. She threw herself into his arms as soon as she was all the way across.

Eric caught her, crushing her tightly against his chest. "I'm fine, I'm fine."

But up close, she could see that he wasn't. His lips were still blue with cold, and she could tell that he had to make an active effort to stop his teeth from chattering.

"You're too cold. We'll have to take a break—No, stop it, you can't go on like that and you know it. We can spare twenty minutes," she said, cutting across his protest.

Eric nodded reluctantly.

They didn't bother putting up the tent, just huddled together in the shelter of a large rock, their mats beneath them and their sleeping bags piled on top. They unzipped their jackets and pressed together, chest to chest, sharing body warmth. Cora took Eric's hands and guided them beneath her jacket and the outer layers of her thermal clothes, until there was only the thin layer of her undershirt between her skin and his. Even through the shirt, Eric's skin was so cold it almost hurt. She suppressed a flinch with an effort.

"You okay?" Eric asked.

"Me? Are you okay? Jesus, I still can't believe you just did that."

"I'm fine," he said, but she could feel him shaking, fine tremors running through his muscles under her hand.

Cora tightened her arms around him and buried her face against his throat. She could have lost him so easily right now. She took a deep, shaky breath.

Eric turned his head to kiss her cheek, nuzzling her gently until she lifted her head so he could kiss her properly. It was a long, slow, thorough kiss, soothing some of the tension inside her.

"Hey. I really am fine," Eric said gently, when he finally pulled back.

"I know." But she still felt shaken. Cora had worked as a guide for years. She'd seen a lot of people through a lot of dangerous situations, and yet she didn't think anything had ever hit her as hard as the moment when she'd thought Eric might miss the landing. Her hands had closed into fists around his shirt; it took an effort to make herself let go.

At least they wouldn't have to come back this way with Andrew. There was no way they'd get an injured or unconscious person back across that ladder bridge. They only had to get him as far down as the Balcony; Tashi would take over from there with the helicopter.

If they managed to get Andrew down even that far. If they didn't come too late. 

Twenty minutes' break was all they could allow themselves, but their shared body warmth and two cups of tea seemed to have done the trick. Eric looked a lot better when they got back on their feet. Still a little bit colder than she'd like, Cora thought, watching the slightly stiff way he moved, but they'd keep moving. It'd be all right.

It had to be all right.

 

***

 

Even with the interruption, they reached the Balcony in record time. Above that, the climbing was easier; if it hadn't been for the brutal cold and the lack of oxygen, even a beginner could have safely gotten up this part of the mountain. But in the increasingly thin air, every movement seemed to take twice as much strength as normal.

Cora found herself looking at the familiar route with new eyes, wondering how on Earth they were going to get an unconscious person down here. By the increasingly tense set of Eric's shoulders, she knew he shared her worries.

But there wasn't any point thinking about that now. One step at a time. Right now, all that mattered was getting to Andrew in time, or everything else would be moot.

The sun hung low over the horizon by the time they reached the point where Carpenter had crossed over from the South Face of the mountain, which meant they were safely above the point where the avalanche had gone down.

There was just barely enough light left to safely navigate the tricky crossing over to the South Face, a narrow ridge with cliffs falling steeply away to either side. Treacherous cornices lined the edges of the path, frozen boards of snow that arched out over the edge of the rock, making the path seem wider than it was. If you failed to recognize a cornice for the trap it was, you'd crash through the snow into the void below. Cora and Eric very carefully kept to the middle of the trail.

By the time they were finally back on the safer ground of the mountain's South Face, the light was almost entirely gone. But they couldn't stop now. With a lot of luck Andrew might have made it through one night alone on the mountain. There was no way they could leave him to go through a second one.

They turned on their headlamps and grimly trudged on.

Even the simple joy she'd taken in the physical challenge of the climb was gone now. The brutal cold started to sink into her bones through all her insulating layers. Her feet had gone numb. Her fingers ached. Every step she took was twice as much of an effort as it should have been, as if she was moving her body through molasses.

You can't stop. It won't be far now, she told herself. The words turned into a mantra inside her brain, going round and round. You-can't-stop-it-won't-be-far-you-can't-stop…

And then the light of her headlamp caught on a bright red scarf, fluttering from a cairn of stones.

There was a snow-covered lump at the bottom of the cairn. Cora fell to her knees beside it, Eric crouching down beside her. They brushed off a thin layer of freshly-fallen snow to reveal a crude lean-to constructed from two foil blankets. Andrew was curled up inside the improvised shelter, the hood of a sleeping bag pulled down so far it completely covered his face.

He looked as still as a statue, his face frighteningly pale. Eric tugged one glove off with his teeth and tucked his hand against Andrew's neck, his eyes closing in concentration. Cora waited, hardly daring to breathe.

"He's got a good strong pulse."

Cora let out a breath of relief that came out sounding more like a sob.

She had to admit that Carpenter hadn't been lying when he'd said they'd done what they could for Andrew. He was wrapped in three layers of sleeping bags, three thermal mats spread beneath him to isolate him from the cold ground. They'd left him every bit of camping equipment they'd had on them. If they'd gotten caught out by another storm on the way down, they might not have made it through the night themselves.

She unzipped the various layers. Andrew's hands had been tucked into his jacket, arms crossed over his chest. His fingers were pale and cold, but not the deathly white of frostbite. His chest rose in a slow, steady rhythm.

Eric handed her a syringe of Dexamethasone while he strapped an oxygen mask to Andrew's face. They activated the chemical heating pads they'd brought and tucked them around his body inside the sleeping bag before zipping him back in.

And then Eric reached out and caught Cora's hands in his.

"I know you're exhausted." His voice was gentle, endlessly compassionate. Cora squeezed her eyes shut. She already knew what he was going to say. She knew she didn't want to hear it.

"He'll have better chances if we can move him as far down as we can before we camp for the night. Can you keep going?"

She couldn't. She couldn't! Every inch of her body hurt. She'd pushed herself to her limits and then kept going. Her legs burned with exhaustion. Her fingers and face stung from the cold. All she wanted to do was curl up in their little tent with a cup of tea and sleep until sunrise.

But every little bit of altitude could make a difference when it came to mountain sickness.

Cora gritted her teeth and swallowed down a sob. "Let's get him down."

Eric squeezed her hands. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. She could see the pride and affection in his eyes.

"How are we going to move him?"

Eric tilted his head, considering. "I figure we can use the mats as a sled and pull him."

Cora nodded. She sat in dull exhaustion while Eric wrapped rope around Andrew and the mats to keep him from sliding off, and then put a foil blanket beneath their improvised sled to help it slide more easily. She knew she ought to be helping, but she simply couldn't bring herself to move.

When he was done, Eric pressed a mug of tea into her hands. It had gone lukewarm despite the high-quality thermos, but even so, she drank it greedily.

"Five more minutes, then we need to go."

Cora nodded again, not wasting her energy on words. Eric put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. She tucked her cheek against his gloved hand for a moment.

Eric looked exhausted himself. His big shoulders slumped as he knelt down in the snow to drink his own cup of tea. His shifter's strength might give him an advantage, but it clearly wasn't inexhaustible.

When Eric stood up, she pushed herself to her feet. For a moment she swayed where she stood, panting. It felt as if she couldn't get enough air. She dragged in a few painful breaths, and then forced herself to move.

There were two ropes tied to the sled; Eric had already picked up one. Cora took the other.

Eric caught her eyes. "You sure? I can—"

"I can manage," she said. This was going to be hard enough with the two of them working together. She wasn't going to leave Eric to pull the weight alone.

 

***

 

As hard as that last part of the ascent had been, it paled in comparison to the endless, stumbling trek down the mountain. Their headlamps lit up a narrow wedge of trail in front of them, a claustrophobic slice of light in the darkness. More than once they had to backtrack, hauling the sled painfully back up the trail, to take a different route around an obstacle they hadn't been able to see in time.

Even going downhill, moving the sled was brutally hard work. On the soft, freshly-fallen snow it dragged and juddered, getting stuck every few feet; on the more exposed stretches, where the wind had blown the snow off the hard, slippery ice beneath, it would suddenly start sliding rapidly downhill, until even with their combined strength it was all they could do to keep it from careening down the mountain.

Cora had long since stopped feeling the cold. Sweat dripped down her back inside her insulating layers. Every breath burned like fire in her lungs. Her fingers cramped around the rope.

Thinking back on it later, it couldn't have taken them more than three hours to reach the crossing. At the time, trudging grimly through the darkness, pushing through the pain, it felt like they'd never get there at all.

Cora didn't even notice Eric had stopped moving until the rope snapped taut in her hands and wouldn't budge when she pulled.

She turned her head. "Eric?" Her lips felt numb.

"We're here," Eric said. Cora followed his gaze until the beam of her headlight caught on the twisted pillar of rock that marked the beginning of the crossing to the East Face.

"Oh," she whispered.

They'd made it if as far as they could go. There was no way to safely navigate the narrow ridge in the dark. She could stop.

Tears gathered in her eyes. Cora blinked them away. No time for that now. They still had to put up the tent, and she ought to check on Andrew…

"Sit down." Eric caught her gently by the shoulders, urging her down onto the mat he'd unrolled on the ground. "Get some rest, I've got it from here."

Some part of Cora wanted to protest. This wasn't how she operated. She'd always insisted on pulling her own weight in every expedition she'd ever been part of. But even she could admit that right now, Eric was in better shape than she was. Now that she was off her feet, she hardly knew how she'd ever manage to get up again. Everything hurt. Her eyes were blurring from exhaustion.

She gratefully accepted the mug of tea Eric placed in her hands. Maybe just this once, she could let herself lean on someone else.

Despite his own obvious fatigue, Eric moved quickly and efficiently, putting up their tent in the wind shelter of a pile of rocks and dragging Andrew inside.

Cora must have closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, Eric was in front of her, one hand on her arm, pulling her up. She stumbled the few feet to the tent, Eric's grip on her elbow the only thing keeping her upright.

Inside the tent, their mats were already unrolled on the floor, their tiny camping stove going in one corner below a pot of slowly-melting snow. Andrew still hadn't woken, but even with the oxygen mask concealing half his face, she could tell that his color looked healthier.

She collapsed gratefully onto her mat, drinking the mug of fresh hot tea Eric handed her and then, a little while later, a mug of soup. She hadn't been aware of feeling hungry, but the second the smell of the soup hit her nose, it felt as if her entire body woke up and took notice. She drank it down with a sudden hunger so intense it was almost painful, and followed it up with greedy bites from the protein bars Eric wordlessly pushed into her hands.

Finally she dropped the last empty wrapper and sprawled onto her back with a deep sigh. God, it felt good to be lying down. She curled her cold hands around the warm, sated feeling in her belly.

"Feeling better?" Eric gave her a smile.

"Yeah. Thank you." She rolled over onto her side so she could look at him more easily. "I'm sorry. I wasn't exactly much help just now."

Eric paused, his mug of tea halfway to his mouth.

"Are you kidding? I can't believe you were even still moving after that trek up the mountain, never mind helping me get him all the way down here. I'm a shifter, and I barely managed to keep going, and shifter strength's pretty much cheating."

He leaned down to brush a tender kiss over the corner of her mouth. "I've never met a human who could keep up with me the way you do."

His breath brushed warm against her cheek. Cora buried her face against his neck, closing her eyes, losing herself in his touch. For a moment, all her aches and pains seemed very far away.

But her exhaustion wouldn't be pushed away for long. Cora drew back when she felt her eyes slipping shut. She lay face-down and motionless on her mat, too weighed down by fatigue even to sleep, for long, timeless moments.

Her watch told her that half an hour had passed by the time she realized Eric wasn't in the tent. She dragged herself up with a groan. Cora hadn't taken off anything but her boots, so it was easy enough to get dressed again. She pulled her hood deep into her face, huddling up against the cold, and pushed the tent flap open.
Eric was sitting on his mat in the shelter of a large snowdrift. He'd put his flashlight down beside him. It cast him a soft yellow glow over his body, warm and welcoming in the cold blue Himalayan night.
He turned at the sound of her steps in the snow, shifting aside to make space for her on his mat. "Can't sleep?"
"Mmm. In a little while."
In truth, she was exhausted enough that she thought she could drop off as soon as she let herself close her eyes, but she didn't want to leave him sitting out here by himself.
She didn't have to ask why he wasn't sleeping; the tight lines around his eyes told her enough. He was worried about tomorrow's descent. It nagged at her, too.
"It's going to be bad, isn't it?" she said quietly.
"Probably." His voice was just as soft. The both turned to look at the tent, where Andrew slept, unconscious, oblivious to the dangers that awaited them.
Eric poured a cup of tea for her from his flask. She let herself slump against his side, gloved fingers wrapped around her cup. Eric put his arm around her, tugging her tightly against him. She tilted her head until she could rest her cheek against his shoulder. Eric twisted his head around, pressing a slow, lingering kiss against her mouth.

"Come on. Let's get some sleep."

They managed to zip three of the sleeping bags together so they could fit all three of them, if just barely, and piled the other two bags on top for extra warmth.

Eric and Cora lay down on either side of Andrew, huddling close to try and conserve as much body heat between them as possible.

Cora's cramped, frozen hands were finally thawing. She gritted her teeth against the prickling ache of returning sensation.

But even when that pain finally eased off into a not unpleasant warm throbbing, sleep didn't want to come. There was something eerie about how still Andrew was, motionless except for the steady rise and fall of his chest; too cold or too deeply unconscious even to shiver.

Eric stretched one arm across Andrew's side to lace his fingers with hers. He wasn't sleeping, either. Cora stroked her thumb over his warm, calloused fingers.

Tomorrow's descent was a looming, heavy weight in her mind. How on Earth were they going to get Andrew down even as far as the Balcony? And even if they did, could Tashi really manage to pick him up from there? In the thin air, the helicopter would be generating just barely enough thrust to stay in the air. How Tashi ever planned to get it off the ground again once she'd landed, Cora had no idea.

The thoughts wheeled around and around in her mind, even though she knew there was no point in fretting now. The best thing she could do would be to get as much sleep as he possibly could.

A movement next to her jerked her from her unhappy thoughts. For a moment she almost thought she'd imagined it, but then it came again: a shudder running though Andrew's entire body. He made a low, unhappy noise, curling in on himself in a sudden convulsive motion, and then he started shivering for real, small tremors that turned into wracking shudders.

It looked terrifying, but Cora had seen people come out of hypothermia before. She recognized it for the good sign it was. The stage where the body grew too cold to even shiver was by far the most dangerous. This was just his body trying to warm itself up.

And Andrew had moved. He'd made a sound. That death-like unconsciousness was finally starting to loosen its hold on him. The medicine, the descent or both had started to work.

Eric squeezed her fingers. Without any words said between them, Cora knew that they shared the same hope.