Two Lost Souls

Stay Alive

She wakes with a start and looks around her in a frenzied panic, gasping, her mind not really understanding what her eyes are seeing until firm fingers grasp her chin and make her turn her head and she finds herself looking into familiar blue eyes.

"Calm down, sweetheart," a soft voice says, and she can't help but comply as her surroundings start to register.

Right. Car. Wilderness. Klaus. She's fine.

Her breathing slows down, her heartbeat gradually returning to a normal rate. Seeing this, he releases her and turns his attention back to the road.

"Nightmare?" he asks knowingly.

"Yeah."

He doesn't ask her if she wants to talk about it, doesn't tell her that she's going to be okay, doesn't offer words of comfort, doesn't try to talk about the nightmare that woke him up a few hours ago on the plane. She's grateful for the silence in the small space while she gathers her bearings. Looking out the window, she lets a soft smile graze her lips at her first glimpse of snow, but then she turns to look at him, confused.

He must sense her stare, for he glances at her and asks, "What?"

"Isn't it supposed to be summer here?"

Granted, she doesn't know where 'here' is exactly, but she does know that they landed in Peru and she's pretty sure it's summer in the southern hemisphere right now.

"Summer doesn't mean much at this altitude, love."

"How high are we?"

"About 12 000 feet."

"How long have you been driving?"

"Six hours."

"Do you want me to take over?"

"It's fine, we're almost there."

"And where is 'there'?"

He gives a half-smile at her question, clearly having expected her to ask much sooner. She has to admit it took all of her self-control not to pester him during the 10 hours plus flight, but she knew he was waiting for her to cave and it quickly turned into an unspoken battle of wills. Even though she was dying of curiosity, she was also determined to lay her control freak tendencies to rest for a while.

"Huascarán National Park."

"That helps," she says sarcastically.

His lips twitch up once again.

"We're in the Cordillera Blanca, in the middle of the western Andes. I own a small cabin there."

Her mouth falls open as a memory invades her mind at his words, laced with so many conflicting emotions she has to hold her breath to keep them at bay.

"I was on a trek in the Andes, and a hummingbird flew up to me."

His eyes, honest and soft as he shared one of his most private moments with her. Her gaze quickly darting to Tyler and Hayley as the weight of what she was doing started crushing her. His smile, vulnerable and open as he silently conveyed his understanding at her lack of a verbal response. The tears clouding her vision as her guilt threatened – if only for a blink – to make her spill everything to him right there and then.

"You... brought me to the Andes," she says slowly, her tone half awed, half unsure.

He throws her a sideways look but says nothing, clearly knowing that she's aware of how much it means to him. To them. For them.

"I thought what a thing. You know, to have to work that hard every day, just to stay alive. To be constantly on the verge of death. And how satisfying every day must be that it survived."