It was warm and he was comfortable. He was lying on his side in the most glorious softness he'd ever felt, surrounded by cloud-like blankets. He opened his eyes and saw Calder's face lying sleeping next to him, illuminated golden by the early morning light. He smiled, for a moment dismissing everything that had happened as a dream. He was back in the cave. No, back in his room after that first night. He would treat Calder better this time. He would make himself someone worth staying with... He turned his head, slow and half asleep, the better to see the other man's face, and felt the twinge on his cheek, his shoulder, his back. He remembered the bear, the ice. Was he dead then? This felt like heaven to him. An eternity in this softness, looking into Calder's sleeping face. He could be content with this.

He raised a hand to brush Calder's hair from his cheek and the IV taped to his wrist tugged uncomfortably. The pain in his back went from a twinge to a stab as he woke more fully and he groaned. Nope, not heaven. This felt more like hell, which must mean he was still alive. Calder stirred at the sound of his cursing and sat up, rubbing at his eyes, which widened abruptly as he woke up enough to realize Jack was conscious.

“Oh thank God, you're awake!” Calder threw his arms around Jack, embracing him tightly. Jack wished he could enjoy it. Instead, he cursed louder and more specifically as Calder leaned on the wounds on his shoulder. Calder moved back quickly, apologizing, and ran to get a nurse who brought Jack more pain killers and a strict admonishment not to move.

“How long have I been out?” he asked Calder when they were alone again.

“A few days,” the other man replied, opening the blinds of the window to let in the golden early morning light. “Between treating the hypothermia, the frost bite, and the damage from the bear, they said it was kinder to keep you unconscious.”

“I figure they were probably right,” Jack said with a snort. “Are you all right?”

“A few minor dings from the crash,” Calder said with a shrug, and sat down gently on the side of the bed next to him. “Mild hypothermia, nothing rest and food couldn't fix.”

“Good,” Jack said, relieved. He gathered his courage for the next question. “And, is Avery...?”

“Alive,” Calder told him. “But he’s not conscious yet. He was in worse shape than you.”

Jack nodded, glad in spite of the selfish part of him that wanted Avery out of the picture. He would be all right. They were alive. Everything else would work out.

“I suppose you should get it over with,” he said, and Calder looked at him curiously. Jack smiled a little. “The 'I told you so.' You were right. He was alive all along.”

Calder smiled back.

“Well, I did tell you,” he said, teasing. He reached for Jack's hand, squeezing it. “But I don't really want to talk about him right now.”

Jack's heart beat a little faster and he cleared his throat.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“How about the frankly badass scars you’re going to have?” Calder suggested with a laugh, and Jack reached up to touch his bandaged cheek with a grimace. “You literally fought a bear! You’re going to look like you stepped right out of an action movie, and you’ll have the story to back it up.”

Jack just groaned and sank back into his pillows.

“This is why I don’t fly rescue,” he muttered. “Cargo never tries to maul you. The U.S. Postal Service never made me fight a bear.”

“Okay, okay, I owe you one,” Calder said, laughing. “Several ones in fact.”

He took Jack’s hand again, his expression thoughtful.

“Do you remember what we were talking about that morning?” he asked. “Before all of this?”

“Kind of still feels like it was this morning to me,” Jack admitted. “I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Maybe I should let you get more oriented first,” Calder said, turning a little red and pulling away. Jack tightened his grip on the other man’s hand to keep him there.

“No, stay,” he said, embarrassed by how desperate he sounded.

Calder stayed, lacing their fingers silently.

“You know I’m not in love with Avery,” he said. Jack looked away, his heart twisting painfully in his chest. He wished he could find the words to make how he felt make sense to Calder. He wished he could make it make sense to himself.

“It was never about Avery, was it?” Calder continued. “Not really. You’re telling yourself that you just want me to be happy, or that you want it to hurt less when I leave. Those things are probably true. But they aren’t the reason you don’t want me to stay.”

“Of course I want you to stay,” Jack interrupted, but he could feel the worm of untruth in it, pulling at the edges. He wanted Calder to stay with him. He wanted to love him, to live the life he’d been denying himself for so long. But he was afraid.

“You don’t have to hide anymore, Jack,” Calder said. “Whatever your family or anyone else says. Whether you stay with me or not. You can stop torturing yourself.”

Jack looked away, his heart aching.

“I wish it were as easy as you make it sound,” he said, watching the numbers that represented his life crawling across the monitor beside him. One for his heartbeat, one for his blood pressure, one for his breathing. That was all he was in the end. Just numbers and switches, a series of possibilities made flesh. A number for how his grandmother’s DNA met his grandfather’s. A number for his mother’s eyes, his uncle’s chin, and somewhere deep inside him a series of numbers that made him the kind of person who couldn’t look his father in the eye. The kind of man who couldn’t even be honest with the person he loved.

“Whatever else happens,” Calder said. “I’m not going back with Avery when he wakes up. There’s a reason we didn’t work out and it wasn’t because of Dan.”

He paused, hoping Jack would say something, but Jack was silent.

“I had trouble moving on,” Calder admitted. “I was scared. I didn’t know who I would be without him. I didn’t know if I wanted to be that person. But I’m not scared anymore. I’m going to figure out who I am. I’m going to build my own life.”

He squeezed Jack’s hand, but Jack still couldn’t find words. He watched the numbers on the monitor move past, wishing it were as easy to switch on or off the numbers inside him. To shake off the cowardice that paralyzed him.

“I’d like you to be a part of it,” Calder said, and Jack could hear the pleading note in his voice.

When Jack still didn’t answer, Calder slowly began to pull away.

“I’ll let you rest,” he said. He was almost to the door before Jack called out to him.

“Calder,” he said, and Calder stopped, turned to look back at him. Jack stared back at him, struggling with the words that were caught in his throat, hung up on a knot of shame and fear. He forced them past. Damn the consequences. Nothing was worse than letting Calder walk through that door not knowing.

“I love you,” he said, and saw a smile curve Calder’s lips.

“I love you too, Jack,” he said and left.

Jack sank back into his pillows, his back throbbing painfully. A glowing warmth was spreading through his chest, filling him up like sunlight. Calder’s words rang in his ears like bells. It wasn’t much, but it was progress. Maybe he didn’t need to be a coward forever.

***

“Careful, don’t get under my feet!”

“What, do you think you’re gonna step on my toes?”

Avery griped good-naturedly, leaning on Jack’s shoulder. It was almost a week since Jack had woken up. Avery had awoken not long after him and the hospital had moved them into the same room while they recovered. The two men soon realized they had a great deal in common, not the least of which was their mutual affection for Calder. Even if Avery and Calder were both content to leave their romantic relationship where it had concluded, they still cared about each other and both were determined to see the other safe and happy. Jack could respect that, even if it made the insecurity he still struggled with flare up whenever he thought about it too much.

Currently, Calder was hovering near the two of them as they limped down the hall, ready to dive in if one of them fell. Jack was supporting Avery more than the reverse, but to be honest he needed the stabilization as well. Being submerged in the ice for as long as he had been had done some serious damage to his legs that he was still recovering from. Of course, that was nothing compared to Avery.

Avery had one arm around Jack, the other on a crutch he was still learning to use properly. The heavy plastic prosthetic foot the hospital had given him clunked loudly against the floor with every unsteady step. Jack knew he’d been expecting to lose it, but he still couldn’t imagine it was anything but a nasty shock to wake up and find one of your major appendages gone. Jack, distracted watching Avery’s foot, stumbled and nearly sent them both toppling over. They stopped to steady themselves and Avery wheezed in exhaustion. Jack’s stitches were screaming.

“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” Calder asked. “We could go back to the room and have lunch, try again tomorrow?”

“I’m fine, stop fussing,” Avery said, waving Calder off, though he was still breathless. “I have to get used to this thing anyway. It’s good practice.”

Jack said nothing, though he was thinking longingly of lunch and his bed. He took a deep breath and helped Avery straighten up again, ignoring the burning in his back and shoulder.

“Besides,” Avery said as they started limping forward again. “I need to hear what this bastard has to say for himself.”

“He only just woke up this morning,” Calder warned him. “He might not be up to talking.”

Hays, Dan and Avery’s guide up the mountain, had been in a coma since he stumbled into base camp, nearly dead of exposure. The doctors had half expected him never to wake up at all. But when a nurse had let slip that Hays was conscious, Avery had been out of bed and determined to get up there immediately.

“If I can drag myself down a mountain and up three floors to his hospital bed with one foot,” Avery replied, “he can damn well answer some questions.”

“Maybe it would be better to just let it go,” Jack suggested quietly. “Nothing he could say is going to satisfy you.”

“I need to know,” Avery answered, meeting Jack’s eye with his own firm as stone. Then he looked away, expression becoming more troubled. “Maybe if I at least know why, if I have a reason for why he abandoned us on that mountain, the reason Dan is…”

He shrugged it off, like he could just shake free the weight that had settled, immovable, on his shoulders since learning of Dan’s death.

“Maybe I’ll be able to sleep at night.”

Jack knew Avery still hadn’t really dealt with Dan’s death. He kept forcing it down, trying to act like it hadn’t happened or that it didn’t affect him. Jack knew it had been, at least partially, disbelief at first. But now it was solid denial. He was going to need to deal with it eventually, but it wasn’t Jack’s place to push him toward that. He just secured his arm around the other man and kept walking.

“I’m pretty curious to hear his reasoning myself,” he agreed.

As they approached the room, they saw two nurses and a doctor arguing over a chart.

“He didn’t have any next of kin to contact,” one of the nurses said, exasperated. “How were we supposed to know?”

“It wasn’t like he could wake up and tell us,” the other added. “We just trusted the paper work we were given. This is admin’s fuck-up. Or whoever grabbed the ID in the first place!”

“I don’t care who’s fuck-up this is,” the doctor said, exasperated. “Just get the paperwork fixed! Christ, the insurance on this is going to be a nightmare.”

Avery frowned and they limped past quickly, hoping they wouldn’t be noticed as they snuck into the room.

A man was sitting up in the bed, talking to a nurse who was leaning over him, fixing his IV. As the nurse moved out of the way, Jack felt Avery inhale sharply, freezing as though he were made of granite. The man in the bed was a little younger than Avery, blonde and handsome.

“Dan?” Avery said, his voice shaking.

Dan smiled, and Avery, laughing, let go of Jack to all but fall on the other man, showering his face in kisses.

“How in the hell?” he said through his laughing. “I thought you were dead!”

“So did I,” Dan said with a grin, happy tears in his eyes. “It was the damn coats. Hays took mine that morning, remember? He kept complaining about the hole in his and I guess he decided he deserved better. Passive aggressive bastard. So I wore his. Turns out he’d left his wallet in the pocket and nobody bothered to see if I actually matched the picture. They just assumed I was him.”

“So the person we saw in the crevasse,” Calder said, wide eyed. “That was Hays?”

Dan just shrugged, as much as he could through Avery, still hanging on to him like he was afraid the other man would vanish if he let go for a second.

“I don’t care how it happened,” Avery said, kissing Dan’s temple. “It’s a God damn miracle.”

Jack watched them, talking and laughing about what they’d been through, Avery lifting up his new foot to show Dan proudly. Jack couldn’t help a degree of awe and of envy. They kissed and hugged one another, totally unconcerned with the people walking by or the nurses coming in and out as they fixed the paper work to reflect Dan’s actual identity. They weren’t afraid. They were happy together, and unashamed. Jack wished he knew what that felt like. He supposed there was only one way to find out.

Calder, standing next to him, was watching the two men with a slightly wistful expression. Jack knew, however much Calder said he didn’t want to be in a relationship with Avery again, part of him missed it. He tried not to let that bother him. He reached out instead, taking Calder’s hand. Calder looked up at him in mild surprise and smiled. They were standing in front of the open door and as someone walked past Jack felt his face turn red, but he only squeezed Calder’s hand tighter, a strange feeling growing in his chest. It was an awkward, fledgling cousin of how he felt when he was flying. It felt like freedom.

“Dan?” Calder said when there was a break in his and Avery’s conversation. Dan looked over at him a bit warily. Calder cleared his throat, looking embarrassed. “I just wanted to apologize for the way I acted the last time I saw you. I want to apologize to both of you. I was having trouble moving on and I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.”

“It was partially my fault as well,” Avery said, looking down at his hand in Dan’s. “I was selfish as hell when we were together. I never even realized how much of your life you were giving up to devote to me. Dan never lets me get away with any of that shit.”

He laughed a little, smiling at his partner, who grinned.

“It might have been easier too,” he went on, “if I hadn’t been so set on staying in business together, staying a part of your life. Maybe if it had been a clean break…”

He shrugged, guilt in his eyes.

“I wanted us to stay friends,” he said, “and because I’m selfish I acted like that was more important than your right to move on. I’m sorry for that.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Calder said, shaking his head. “I could have left if I’d wanted to. I decided to stay.”

“The important thing,” Dan interjected, “is that you literally saved Avery’s life. I’m pretty sure any amount of party faux pas in the world can be forgiven for that.”

They laughed a little and Calder smiled, relieved that his apology had been accepted.

“I think things are going to be better now,” Calder said, looking at Jack with a small smile. “Maybe we could try again for the friends thing. Redo the whole party. Without the wine this time, maybe.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Dan said at once. “What’s the point of a party without wine?”

That brought another round of laughter.

“I don’t know. He might have a point.” Avery nudged Dan in the ribs with his elbow. “Remember that wine tasting?”

“Oh God, not this again.” Dan put his face in his hands.

“We were on a ski trip in Italy and Dan said we couldn’t possibly leave without going to a wine tasting,” Avery began, grinning from ear to ear.

“Couldn’t you at least wait until I was out of the hospital to humiliate me to death?” Dan asked.

“An hour and half a bottle of very expensive red later and he falls over the cheese table and upends the entire thing, including the fondue fountain, which gives the host second degree burns and more importantly, at least according to the host, ruins his new leather shoes.”

“Like you were any better,” Dan laughed. “He sees me lying there among the brie and decides the best course of action is to overturn another table and shout ‘disrespect your surroundings!’”

“It was an act of solidarity,” Avery laughed. “Also, I was very drunk.”

“Not as drunk as that time in Tibet.”

“Oh, no, that’s cheating. I had no idea that was even illegal.”

Jack and Calder backed out slowly as the other two men got lost in reminiscing, leaving them to enjoy each other. They were silent for a moment, both considering how to begin.

“So, is that what you’re after?” Jack asked, nodding toward the room where they’d left Dan and Avery. “All that goofy stuff?”

“Someday, yeah,” Calder said with a grin. “Hopefully with less property damage.”

“I don’t know if I can manage that,” Jack said, teasing but with a hint of honesty. “I’m a rugged Alaskan bush pilot, you know. I got rough edges.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll help,” Calder said, his smile growing sly.

“You sure you’re up for that?” Jack asked, catching Calder’s hip and pulling him a little closer. “I’m a lot of work.”

“I think I can handle you,” Calder said, turning to face him. “After all, I got you to fly me all over Mount St. Elias hunting for my ex, crashed your plane twice, and made you fight a bear. And you’re still interested. I’d say I’ve got you wrapped around my finger pretty well.”

“You make a good point,” Jack said, chuckling. “Maybe I should be running in the other direction.”

He looked around them, his heart beating a little faster at the number of people in this hall, trying not to think about how they might judge him, what they might think.

“There’s still time,” Calder said, “if you’re really worried. I won’t stop you.”

“I think I’m done running,” Jack replied, and leaned in to kiss Calder, slow and sweet. There was a spark of fear at the beginning, but it was surprising how easy it was to forget anyone was watching. How could he think about anything but Calder when those lips were on his? How could anything that felt this perfect ever be wrong?

That first feeling of freedom spread its wings in his chest, growing to fill him completely. The fear wasn’t gone, but he could feel it losing ground, being replaced. He wanted Calder more than he’d ever wanted the approval of strangers. Letting go of that fear, feeling that weight slip off of him, felt like flying for the first time. His plane was still sunk at the bottom of a river, but he was flying higher than he’d ever been. With Calder in his arms he felt like he could fly forever.