They huddled in the cave for most of the day, conserving heat and energy, but as the afternoon wore on Jack began to accept that they wouldn't be saved today. They were going to need to settle in more. He stuck his head out to estimate how many hours of daylight they had left.
“What's up?” Calder asked, moving out of the way to make it easier for Jack to crawl back in. He made his way to the pack, pulling on waterproof gloves and digging out a knife and a trowel.
“The sterno isn't going to last the night,” he explained. “We're going to expand the shelter a bit and try to build a fire.”
“Thought you said we needed to conserve energy?”
“Well, I changed my mind. Come on.”
He led Calder outside, examining their humble little cave for a moment before making a decision.
“Help me clear this area. Down to the dirt if you can,” he said, indicating a relatively small space in front of the cave.
They moved the loose snow easily and Jack used the knife and trowel to cut the hard pack into bricks. He stacked them in a curving wall around the cleared space.
“Is that an igloo?” Calder asked curiously, watching him smooth loose snow over the bricks.
“Half of one,” Jack replied. “They're useful when you have to spend the night out in the cold. I'm building just enough to close in the cave and direct heat from the fire.”
He left large open spaces on either side for air flow. They could easily suffocate themselves if they closed it in all the way. A second, rapidly shoveled together little wall outside the opening, far enough apart for he and Calder to pass relatively easily, blocked the wind without trapping the air.
Jack had experience with this kind of building, but it still took a couple of hours of hard, sweaty work. Jack couldn't help keeping a mental tally of the calories they were losing compared to the food they had left in the pack. It was a seventy-two-hour bag for one person, but split between the two of them it was going to last far less time.
“Want to make a snowman next?” Calder asked, flopping back onto his hands as they finished, unaware of the worries twisting at Jack's stomach. Jack smiled.
“Can't,” he said, sitting back with a tired sigh. “No carrots.”
“It'll have a rock nose,” Calder suggested, digging idly in the snow beside him.
“You can't make a snowman without a carrot nose,” Jack insisted. “It's against my principles.”
In response, a handful of snow hit him in the face. He was stunned for a moment, Calder's laughter ringing in his ears, then scooped up a big fistful of snow to fling at the other man. Calder yelped and covered his face, opening himself up for Jack to tackle him, jerk up his jacket and rub snow directly into his stomach. Calder shrieked and fought, eventually throwing snow into Jack's eyes and running away. Jack pursued him laughing, forgetting his problems for a moment of childlike mischief.
They ran through the snow careless and laughing, like they weren’t lost and starving, like they were innocent lovers on vacation. Snow frosted Calder’s hair, clung to his lashes, and in the light he shone like something ancient and magical, a winter spirit frolicking through the mountains, and Jack his clumsy human thrall, chasing after him to tackle him rudely into a snow bank. Calder was faster than Jack, and more flexible, wriggling away whenever Jack caught him, or just hitting him right in the top of the head with a snowball. Jack laughed even as Calder escaped him, knowing he would catch him again. He wished this moment could last forever.
They wore themselves out and, shivering, sought shelter from the wind. Calder's cheeks were red, his eyes bright with mirth, his mouth turned up with a bright smile, his auburn hair curling out from under his hat, loosened by their roughhousing. Jack didn't think the straightest man in the world would be able to resist kissing him at this moment, and Jack was beginning to realize that wasn't him. He caught Calder by the neck and pulled him closer to kiss him, quick and tender. Calder was stiff against him for a moment, then softened. Jack could feel the curve of his smile. Jack pulled away after a moment, averting his eyes.
“We should get started on the fire,” he said, clearing his throat. “It's going to start getting dark soon.”
He hurried out of the shelter and Calder followed, not commenting on the kiss.
“There should be some small trees and shrubs around the rocks,” Jack said. “Check under the snow. And don't go past the rocks. I don't want you ending up in the lake.”
“What about those trees over there?” Calder suggested, pointing at the distant stand of pines.
“Not worth crossing the ice,” Jack replied, kicking snow away from a bare, twiggy bush. With his knife and a few tugs, he pulled it out of the ground and kept searching. “There should be plenty of scrub here for now. I think there's a dead tree down that way.”
“I really figured they would have come to get us today,” Calder said, looking up at the off-white sky.
“They probably don't realize we're in any trouble yet,” Jack replied. “With no message, they can't be sure we didn't just set down to wait out a storm, or flew off to Anchorage for something and didn't bother to report in. They probably won't even start looking for us until tomorrow.”
“But then they'll find the plane's GPS, right?” Calder asked, stopping to claw a dormant sapling out of the frozen soil.
“Hopefully,” Jack replied, not sharing his private reservation that they might not be able to find it. “Sooner or later someone will fly over the mountain looking for us and see the hole in the ice. We just have to be here when they do. Otis wrecked over by Anaktuvuk Pass summer before last and hung out in the wreckage of his plane almost a month before we found him.”
“You can last that long alone out here?” Calder asked, eyes widening.
“Well, of course. All kinds of people live out in the bush, completely self-sufficient. It's not impossible if you've got the skills and the resources to get well established before winter and you don't mind not seeing another human being for months at a time. And Otis was well prepared.” Jack paused to kick at some snow, frowning when there wasn't anything worth taking under it. “All bush pilots know there's a good likelihood that any given flight will end in a wreck. Alaska is huge, and most of that space is empty as all hell. We know how to look after ourselves. He broke his leg in the crash, but otherwise he was in good shape and it was summer so he had less to worry about.”
“Still, a month,” Calder shook his head. “He must be tougher than he looks.”
They had reached the dead tree and Jack kicked a branch loose, relieved to find it relatively dry. He collected a few more.
“Did you ever sleep with him?”
Jack froze, then turned to look at Calder, who shrugged.
“It doesn't matter to me,” he said, seeming like he meant it. “I'm just curious.”
Jack cleared his throat again, face red.
“Yes,” he admitted. “Once. But we're better friends than anything else.”
“What about that guy with the Tarantino DVDs,” Calder asked, taking some of the branches from him so he could get more.
“Johansson?” Jack asked with a scoff.
“Yeah, he seemed pretty friendly.” Calder grinned, teasing.
“No,” Jack replied, rolling his eyes. “His taste in movies is terrible. Are you gonna ask me about every guy on the base?”
Calder turned his palms up as though to say maybe.
“Well, I'll save you some trouble,” Jack replied, shaking his head, “and tell you I've slept with far less people than you seem to think I have. I'm not some randy jackrabbit sampling every dick that walked through the door—”
“Shut up,” Calder said suddenly, his eyes focused out toward the ice. “Look.”
Jack started to take offense at being hushed that way, but then he followed Calder's gaze.
“Do you see that?”
Faintly, in the distance, a flicker of red waved against the ice.
“It could be debris from the crash,” Jack warned him. “Or trash from campers.”
“It's not, it's him,” Calder said with complete conviction. “It's the same signals he was using before. He was here! He might still be here! Avery! Avery!”
He rushed toward the glimpse of distant red, and only stopped when Jack grabbed him and held him back, dropping firewood into the snow.
“Let me go!” Calder demanded. “I knew he was close! I knew it!”
“You don't know it, you idiot!” Jack scolded him. “We just crashed a God damn plane into that ice! If you go out on it now you will die. Do you understand me? You will die!”
Calder finally stopped fighting, but his eyes were still fixed on the far off flash of red as though he expected Avery to appear at any moment, calling his name. Jack's arms were around him, his chest pressed to the other man's back, but Calder was still only thinking of Avery. Jack swallowed the stab of pain that caused and loosened his grip, tugging Calder back. Calder, reluctantly, complied.
“We'll tell people we saw something when they come to get us,” Jack told him, picking up the scattered firewood. “We're in no shape to be rescuing anyone.”
“We could go around the ice,” Calder suggested. “Or find somewhere it's solid. He probably headed for the pines, right?”
“That ice goes on all the way to the ocean,” Jack said, staying close to Calder in case he needed to stop him from running again. “Our number one priority is to stay alive and where rescue can find us.”
“But he might be right there—”
“And if he was, I'd tell him to stay put,” Jack interrupted, stopping Calder and grabbing his shoulder to make the other man look him in the eye. “I don't want to see anyone going through that ice. Rescue might be here tomorrow. Do you want to jeopardize that now?”
Calder pressed his lips together tightly in distress, but, after a moment of reluctance, nodded. They headed back to the shelter silently, shivering in the growing evening chill. By the time the sun was disappearing beyond the distant pines they had a fire going, warming the inside of the cramped cave nicely.
Calder had barely spoken since they returned. Jack didn't sense anger from him, merely distraction, his eyes always turned in the direction of the lake, probably regretting every second he'd allowed himself to think about anything but finding Avery.
“I need to ask you for something,” Jack said, catching the other man's attention. “It's important.”
“What?” Calder asked, the firelight glowing, bringing out the red in his hair.
“If something happens,” Jack said, choosing his words slowly and thoughtfully, “something bad—any of the thousand disasters that might happen out here—and you have to choose between me or you, I want you to choose yourself.”
Calder leaned back, eyes wide.
“What?”
“I'm not planning anything stupid.” Jack held up his hands to stave off Calder's clear concern. “Just in case. I need you to promise that you'll look after yourself. You'll make sure you survive before you try to save me. Understand?”
“Why are you bringing this up?” Calder asked, cautious confusion in his eyes.
Jack looked away, contemplating how to answer. The fire danced between them, its steady twisting dance calming and hypnotic.
“Because of how you acted earlier today,” Jack replied. “Because of how you always act about Avery. You're too eager to put yourself in danger for the sake of other people. I want to make sure you never do that for me.”
“Why?”
Jack fumbled for a toothpick, gnawed at it a moment as he considered whether he wanted to tell this story.
“You asked me before,” he said at length, choosing his words carefully, “why I quit flying rescue. The answer is Brian and Robert Cunningham.”
Calder, sensing that more was coming, sat back to listen silently.
“Robert and his wife Marna worked out of Tahltan with their four kids,” Jack went on, “making most of their income from hunting. That year there had been unusually high snowfall and low temperatures. Bad for hunting. Robert and his sons, Ned, Terry, and Brian, went out in early spring hoping to make up the difference. But in April the temperatures skyrocketed, all that snow melted all at once, and the result was catastrophic flooding that wiped whole towns off the map. Robert and his sons were stranded in the bush, fighting to survive. They managed to get a call out asking for rescue. I'd been flying since the flooding started. Hadn't had a real night's sleep in a week for pulling people out of the water. Robert's SOS was old by the time anyone got to it. There were too many people to save, too much to do. But me and Otis flew out all the same, in a borrowed rescue chopper, hoping there would still be someone there to save.”
“We found Robert, Brian and Terry stranded on a bit of high ground in the middle of a river of melt water and debris. Ned had been swept away in the first wave. His body turned up a month or so later on the coast. The water was still rising and I couldn't even set down. Otis took the controls and we lowered the emergency gurney instead, because we had to do something. I went down with it and found Robert the only one conscious, and barely that. He was wounded and exhausted, probably would have lost both legs, but he would have survived with treatment. His sons were a different story. Terry was already gone. Robert was just clinging to his body at that point. Brian was breathing, but unconscious and unresponsive. His father had pulled him out of the water, but not before a piece of debris had hit him hard enough to fracture his skull and damage his spine. It had been days since, and he hadn't woken up. I got that much out of Robert as the man was pushing Brian into my arms, insisting I get him into the chopper first. If I had done things by the book, if I'd had any kind of sense, I would have made Robert go first. He was the one in the best condition, the best likelihood of survival. But he wanted me to save his son, and I couldn't say no. I was half way back up to the helicopter with Brian when a wave swept Robert out, still hanging onto his dead son like it would make a difference. We never even found the bodies. They probably ended up in the ocean.”
Calder looked pale, mouth twisted in a grimace of horror and pity. He swallowed his distress, trying to compose himself.
“But you saved Brian,” he said. “You saved his son.”
“No, I didn't,” Jack replied, his voice dull, staring into the fire. “I saved his son's body. The damage was too severe. By the time we got Brian to a hospital, he was already in a coma that he never came out of. And I had to tell Marna that I let her husband die so that I could bring back the empty shell of her son.”
“It wasn't your fault,” Calder said, trying to be soothing. “The wave—You couldn't have known.”
“You think I don't know that?” Jack said bitterly. “That's what I kept trying to tell you before. That's why I stopped flying rescue. Because you can make all the right choices and still lose. You can try your hardest and care more than anyone and it won't matter. That wave would have come anyway. Even if I'd made Robert go first, I still would have had to tell Marna she'd lost three sons in one day. There were no good options. No happy ending. I couldn't keep doing it. I couldn't keep being the one to decide what was the lesser of two evils. I couldn't keep lying awake at night, wondering if I might have saved all three of them if I'd flown out earlier. Who else might have died because I did that instead of something else. Who else I might have saved if I'd stayed with the main rescue effort instead of wasting time and resources on a lost cause to bring back what might as well have been a corpse. A corpse that Marna would spend thousands of dollars in medical bills taking care of. A corpse that would sit in her house for years reminding her of the family she lost, driving a wedge between her and her one surviving child that will probably never heal. How much is my responsibility? How much was inevitable? What do I let go of, what do I cling to?”
Calder said nothing and just stared at Jack, realizing, Jack assumed, that there was nothing he could possibly say.
“I just want to know,” Jack said slowly, taking a deep breath. “That if something happens, you'll be the one who gets on the plane first.”
“Jack,” Calder said softly.
“If it's me or you,” Jack repeated. “I pick you. I don't want to be the one who lives because someone else dies. I want you to live.”
Instead of speaking, Calder pulled him close and kissed him. Quick and tender and all too brief, Calder let his forehead rest against Jack's to look him in the eye.
“I promise,” he said. “If you promise to make sure I never have to make that decision, all right?”
“It's a promise,” Jack said, smiling. “I don't have any interest in dying any time soon.”
“That's what I like to hear,” Calder said, and kissed him again.
They heated another can of soup over the fire and ate it for dinner, talking idly about nothing important. Movies Jack had missed out on, places Calder wanted to see one day. Conversation came easier now, no longer stilted by the tension of what they couldn't say to one another. Even in this situation, Calder was funny, insightful and charming. Jack wondered if he even fully realized the danger of the situation they were in.
“Do you think you'll go back to flying rescue after this?” Calder asked as they scraped the bottom of the can for any remaining drop of food.
“Nah.” Jack didn't even need to think about it, sucking a last smear of gravy off of his finger. “I mean, even if I wanted to, my plane is gone. But trust me, I don't want to. I didn't get into this line of work because I wanted to help people. I just happened to be good at it.”
“What will you do?” Calder leaned back, eyeing the empty soup can longingly, wishing there had been more in it. Jack set it aside to be reused. The one from the night before had already been cleaned and they were boiling water in it.
“Not sure,” Jack admitted, watching the fire and how the light danced on Calder's face. “Try to find work, I suppose. Save up for a new plane. Should only take me about...”
He did some quick mental math, counting on his fingers.
“Fifty years.”
Calder winced.
“I'm sorry,” he said, and Jack could hear the guilt in his voice.
“It's fine,” Jack assured him, though the thought of not being able to fly even half that long felt like a hole punched through his chest. He took a toothpick from his pocket, but only held it idly between his fingers. “What about you? You gonna go back to teaching yoga?”
Calder actually considered it for a long moment, frowning down at his own feet beside the fire.
“I don't know,” he said. “I mean, I don't have any particular passion for yoga really. But I don't hate it, and it's kind of my whole career.”
“If that's enough for you there's nothing wrong with that,” Jack said with a shrug. “Me, I gotta love what I do. Couldn't live otherwise. But for some people a job is just a job. As long as there's something in your life that you're passionate about, that's all that matters I think.”
“I guess making that one thing a person is kind of setting yourself up for disappointment though, isn't it?” Calder said, his eyes distant and clouded. Jack looked at him for a long moment, his eyes soft with sympathy, before he put the toothpick in his mouth.
“Yeah, probably,” he said. “You have to be your own person first, you know? I've met a few people like that, mostly mothers and girlfriends, who think of themselves as supporting characters in someone else's story, without even realizing what they're doing. Movies and romance novels encourage it, I think. Probably cause it's easier to write a character whose whole personality is based on what someone else wants, rather than make them a whole person.”
“I still don't know what my life is without him in it,” Calder admitted, his voice so quiet Jack almost couldn't hear it over the fire. “It's...tempting to just replace him.”
He glanced at Jack, then quickly looked away. Jack took the toothpick pack out of his jacket just for something to do with his hands, fiddling with it as he wondered what to say.
“I don't want to do that,” Calder continued. “You're right. I should be able to live on my own. It's just easier said than done.”
Jack nodded in understanding, still turning the toothpick package around and around in his fingers.
“I mean, there must have been something that made you happy besides him all those years,” Jack said. “Something you wanted before him.”
Calder shrugged, thinking about it.
“I always wanted to travel more,” he admitted. “Not on ski trips. Just to see things. I picked up cooking because Avery wanted to eat healthier, but I used to really enjoy it. Making something delicious and seeing someone enjoy it. It's nice.”
“Well, that's somewhere to start,” Jack said with a small, relaxed smile. “You'll have found yourself in no time.”
Calder chuckled and shook his head, clearly doubting that it would be that easy.
“I should go back to Tibet at least,” he said. “See those pillars at Jokhang.”
Jack looked at Calder from the corner of his eye, cleared his throat.
“I always wanted to see those too,” Jack mentioned. “And I'm going to have a lot of free time coming up. Maybe I'll see you there.”
Calder's eyes widened, then he smiled, bright enough to dazzle Jack for a moment.
“I'd like that,” he said.
It had grown dark outside their shelter and the cold beyond the little circle of the fire was punishing. Jack shivered and, deciding he'd had about enough, retreated back behind the tarp to sleep. Calder followed soon after, lying down beside him. His body was warm in the cold cave and Jack pulled him closer gladly, eager to stave off the chill.
Under the emergency blanket, Jack curled up against Calder's chest, his head under the other man's chin, an arm slung over his waist. Calder's breath stirred his hair as they settled in. For a moment, Calder's hand drifted low on his hips and Jack expected the other man to make a move, half wanted him too, but Calder just squeezed him tighter. Jack felt oddly vulnerable suddenly. He'd told Calder things today that he'd never told anyone. Not his family, not Otis, not any of his friends. He felt, suddenly, too close. He slid a fumbling hand down toward Calder's pants, wanting to disrupt this peaceful, intimate moment with something physical, something he could dismiss. Fucking meant nothing. But this, laying here in one another's arms, comfortable and content, that meant something.
Calder caught his hand before it could reach its target and lifted it to kiss his palm instead, pressing kisses to his knuckles and the hollow of his wrist. Jack blushed at the gentle rejection, shifted in uneasy discomfort, growing increasingly uncomfortable with the intimacy of the moment. Calder answered by shifting to kiss him properly, pressing him back into the sleeping bag as he quelled all Jack's anxiety with the sweet certainty of his mouth. He had a way of following long, deep kisses with smaller ones, like signatures on a love note, like the last notes of a song. He kissed Jack breathless this way. Long, passionate kisses, followed by a chain of small, sweet pecks just long enough for Jack's head to begin to clear before Calder swept him up in it again.
Calder's hands never wandered. He twined his fingers with Jack's and simply held the other man until, kissed thoroughly witless, Jack's fear began to ebb. He felt ashamed of the impulse now. Why did he want so badly to ruin every good thing that happened to him? Calder didn't seem to hold it against him. He pressed kisses to Jack's eyelids, then laid his head down to sleep. Jack, still uncertain but beginning to accept that uncertainty wasn't, in and of itself, a bad thing, soon joined him.