Reunited in the Snow

by Amalie Berlin

  Instead, she’d spent hours trying to convince herself that this new pragmatism was a sign of growth. That she was just uncovering the real Lia.

  She’d kept busy after resuscitation, arranging transport to get her resus patient back to civilization and the care he’d need. And where his family could go to him, where they wouldn’t have to worry if he was all right.

  West had gotten changed and dumped his belongings off at his new cabin in Pod A, no longer next door for her to worry about, then returned after dinner.

  “I’m going to take the night shift so you can get some sleep,” he said from the door to the office. She’d expected to have the rest of the evening to herself, to gather her wits, but there he was.

  She fisted her hands in her lap, trying to hide her white-knuckling it through the conversation, a twisting grip on her jacket better than the grip she had on her willpower. Shoving him out of the office and yelling at him would probably be a bad thing, especially as he was now there to work. And she didn’t even know if Kasey was running the transport bus now to escape.

  “You don’t have to. I’ll set alarms, keep a radio with me and go check on him every hour...”

  “Why?”

  “It’s my job. I don’t want you thinking you have to take care of me. Or that it will change things. We both probably need to stay in our lanes for a few days.”

  He made some sound of understanding, then moseyed in to lean against her desk. “So, by our lanes, you mean no hugging, no relationship talk, no random love declarations or trying to give you the ring back?”

  “For instance,” she said, but felt herself bristling when he said “love declarations.” Her nails digging into her palms made her pull them from her lap and reach for an ink pen on her desk instead. Something to fidget with that wouldn’t hurt.

  He played it too cool, but when she looked up at him, she saw worry in his brow. Another thing she couldn’t count on reading correctly. Instinct wanted to believe that you couldn’t worry about someone you didn’t love, but that wasn’t true. She was worried about her resus patient, someone she’d just met while unconscious.

  “For instance?”

  “It would be counterproductive to comment further, and definitely strays outside of what my lane should be right now when I’m trying to picture what this is going to be like, working together in close quarters for eight months,” she grumbled, giving voice to what was in her head, because why not? “Besides, it would be a lie, wouldn’t it?”

  “What would be a lie?”

  “Love declarations,” she repeated, then looked up at him, not ready to back down on that one. “It feels manipulative when you say things like that, given what I know. You never loved me. So, if you didn’t love me before, when I was actively trying to be what you wanted, you certainly don’t love me now.”

  “I did love you,” he argued, then, “You were trying to be what I wanted?”

  “I always try to be what I think people I love want me to be. Everyone does it. Some better than others.” Her energy flagged, because it had been an exhausting couple of days, and that was before the morning CPR. “And you didn’t. You told me you didn’t. You practically said it again when you told me to not cry because you dislike me having red eyes.”

  “That’s not why I said that.” He looked kind of bewildered, and that just made her want to cry again. “I lied. I lied about Charlie, I lied about loving you. And you know what? There’s more. I don’t... There’s...”

  He stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closing. “It seemed like the kindest thing to do at the time. I did love you. I do love you, as well as I’m able.”

  “Even if I wanted to believe that, I know it’s not true. How can you really love me when you don’t even know me?”

  “Of course I know you.”

  “You don’t know me. I don’t even know me.” She threw her hands up, her voice rising with them, but through her evident exhaustion, she remembered where they were and lowered her voice again. “We went over this. It’s just rehashing at this point. If you loved anything, it was on the surface, or what you thought we would become sometime in the future. When plans worked out. Living the dream. But I can’t do that anymore. I’m making changes, which no one seems to notice, anyway, so why are we even having this discussion?”

  “By changes, you mean being grumpy?”

  “Growing my hair out. Wearing pink things. Not forcing myself to project optimism that I don’t feel, though I guess that’s the same as grumpy.” She stood up to mostly close the door, leaving it open enough to hear if anyone called for help.

  “Of course I noticed the changes, but what does a haircut or pink pajamas have to do with who you are as a person?”

  “We all have reasons for the things we do. Even if they’re stupid reasons, we all have reasons. My father is on the run because he doesn’t want to deal with the vineyard anymore, or the mess. And maybe so he doesn’t have to see me succeed with it, because I will. Reasons are important for the things we do.”

  “There’s a deeper reason behind growing your hair out than you simply want to change your hair?”

  “Yes,” she said, then went to check the radios on their charging stations, to see if they were getting a full charge. “And the reason I’m calling this conversation to a close right now is that I’m tired. And disillusioned. And wishing I had a superpower right now.”

  He chuckled. “What superpower would that be?”

  She nodded toward the door. “Heal him.”

  “Ah, see, that’s why you’re a better doctor than I am,” he said, and when she turned to look at him, he reached out to take her hand. “Do you want to know what superpower I want to have?”

  “No,” she said instantly, the way he looked into her eyes and stroked her hand giving her a silly little turn in the conversation gravity. “What?”

  “Time-travel,” he said softly. “But I can’t fix the past. All I can try to do is do better. We have eight months to work this out, don’t we? I’m not a patient man, so don’t expect me to just give up and wait, but I can do something for you tonight, and take the night shift, keep an eye on our patient so you can get eight hours. I think after twenty-one hours of straight sleep I can manage that.”

  She opened her mouth to argue, but suddenly couldn’t think of why. Instead, she nodded her agreement, and when he tugged her over to wrap his arms around her, she leaned in. But she couldn’t bring herself to put her arms around him in return. Her hands and cheek rested against his chest, and he propped his bearded chin atop her pink knitted hat, and there they stood, swaying together for far too long.

  Up close, she could see the shape of her ring under the thermal shirt he wore, and felt that pit open back up in her stomach.

  Hugging was definitely to be avoided. And she’d tell him that, too. Tomorrow.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WEST WAITED UNTIL THEN, when it was likely that Lia would wake up on her own and be ticked at him, before he elbow-knocked on her door.

  From the cacophony that preceded her opening the door, he could only assume that the new layout of the cabin was throwing her.

  “G’mornin’...” He gave his best smile, then stretched out the hand holding her gadgets. “Brought these back.”

  “Brought back?” she repeated, then picked them up as if they were foreign gizmos she’d never seen before. “Did I leave them out?”

  He shook his head, then held out the mug of tea he’d brought in offering. “I came in and stole them last night so you could get a little extra sleep. Have tea, and get woken up a little. I’ve had a whole night of thinking, and you know I’m an impatient man.”

  She took both offerings, pausing to toss the phone and radio behind her onto the bed, but kept the steaming mug in her hands. “You came and took them?”

  “Aye,” he said, then nodded. “And
I’m on duty still. It’s only ten, so I need to make this quick. May I come in?”

  Last evening, he’d seen her run the emotional gamut from sad, to incredulous, to seriously annoyed, to far too quiet. It was the last one that had stayed with him. The one that had informed this morning’s decision.

  “Why?” she asked, still not awake. Still adorably squinty-faced and now missing a hat, he could see how much her hair had grown out. Something he needed to ask her about. Those reasons she’d so passionately referenced.

  “Because I have to say something...”

  Last night, he hadn’t been able to properly appreciate how much roomier these quarters were, or the view. The room might end up colder than the ones at the end of the pods, as one wall had an immense, outwardly bending bubble of a window. Could’ve been on a submarine, or one of those retro midcentury designs for what they expected the future to look like: all modern lines and bubble windows. Would be hard to cover in the summer. Which might account for some of Tony’s insomnia. But that wasn’t why he was here.

  He closed the door behind her and waited for her to take a perch on the corner of the bed with her cup, then just launched into it. He was rubbish at talking about bad things, and doing it like ripping off a bandage seemed the cleanest way. Put it on the table, then go back to work.

  Confessing during your morning break, it was also kind of safer. No long drawn-out discussions could happen in such a short time period.

  “I thought about this all night, and as far as I could come up with, I have only two options on how to handle this,” he said. “I can repeat myself until you punch me in the junk, which is neither productive nor fun. For me. Might be fun for you, depending on how angry you are.”

  “Pretty angry.”

  He nodded. “Or I can explain why I do... stupid things.”

  That didn’t get a verbal response. She just looked instantly worried, and as alert as someone who’d been up for hours, and smartly stretched across the bed to put her tea down on the bedside table.

  When she resumed a normal seated position before him, he instantly regretted not having tried to script it out, be eloquent.

  “The reason I always look forward is because my rear view is... Pompeii, Sumatra and San Francisco, you know?”

  “Volcanos?”

  “Catastrophes. Earth-moving catastrophes,” he explained, already off to a banging start. “Only most of the catastrophes I see when I look back have been my own doin’. So, I don’t like to look back. I don’t like to talk about it, any of it. Or think about it. Or answer questions. Because of that, I’ve given you the impression I don’t want to know you. I still want to believe that none of that in the past matters, only what people can build together, but that hasn’t worked out so well.”

  She shook her head, still saying nothing, and still worried, though he could see a spark of hope growing in her eyes.

  “I shut down subjects I think might lead back to those things I don’t want to talk about. I know it’s a coping mechanism, but it’s helped me get over a lot of bad since I was a boy—focusing on the next good thing to replace the current bad thing.”

  He paused to make sure she was still with him, but before she could say anything, he held up one finger to let her know there was more coming.

  “When your city is buried under tons of ash, all you can do—the easiest thing, the cleanest thing you can do—is move on and start over.” God, he hoped she didn’t start asking for details on those bad things.

  “How many times?” she asked, taking advantage of the pause he had to make to take a breath and get ready to say the big thing, the thing he prayed she’d hear and believe.

  It only took him a couple seconds’ consideration to know he couldn’t possibly put a number to it. “I don’t know the answer to that. But that’s not the point, love.”

  She frowned, but nodded in a way that said she was going to let him continue for now, but she wasn’t done with the number-of-moves thing.

  He stepped closer, then squatted down so he was on eye level with her sitting on the corner of her bed. “I never look back at what’s been buried. When I said I never loved you, I thought you needed to hear that so that you could move on, too. But it was a lie. And I really need you to hear this...”

  She nodded slowly, and waited, but the completely undisguised fear he saw in her eyes almost made him turn back. Illuminated another instance where he understood how much he’d hurt her.

  “Besides the death of my brother,” he said, his throat thickening, and he could feel the water coming to his eyes, “You are the only disaster I’ve ever wanted to dig out from and rebuild.” He licked his lips, nodding, as much to himself as for her to see. “I do want that.”

  “West...” She said his name, but he could see it wasn’t going to be followed up with other words. It was shock, and joy, and sorrow rolled into one syllable, and a year’s worth of feeling in her eyes.

  “I know I referred to you as a disaster, and maybe that’s not the best romantic thing to say, but it was over in my mind, and there was no going back. So, not artful, but—”

  She shot forward, arms shooting out to wrap around his shoulders. He would’ve fallen, but even in these more spacious quarters, he still only had a few inches behind him of space before the wall caught them both, then it was only a matter of straightening his legs to slide his back up the door, and pull them both to their feet. It was either that, or lie down with her in the floor, and if he did that, more would follow. And no one would be minding the clinic.

  “You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s...kind of a lot to put on you first thing when you wake, but if you decide you want to give it another go—today, two months from now or the day we leave to go back to the world—I will say yes and count myself lucky.”

  She nodded, and as much as he didn’t want to move from where they stood, arms locked around one another, he said, “No one’s mindin’ the store. I should get back out there.”

  Although her arms loosened, she didn’t let go, actually cupping his shoulders to hold on to him. “Wait. I need to know...about the moves.”

  “That matters?”

  “Yes. I don’t understand—how can you not know how many times you’ve made big moves?”

  The number wasn’t important, but the reason it was so high... Yeah, she was right about the reasons. “I’ll think about it, see if I can make a list. But give me a time frame. Does that just mean as an adult? Or as a child, too?”

  “Is it more than five times?”

  He nodded. “Let me work on that number, right? You get ready for work, have your lunch, then you can come on duty. I’ll hold the fort until. Maybe later I’ll have a figure for you.”

  He wouldn’t have a figure later, but he would make generalizations which might give her an even bigger shock. Later. He’d worry about it later.

  A hug wasn’t a promise. He couldn’t just take the ring off the chain at his neck and slide it back onto her finger, but it was something.

  * * *

  Lia had said her goodbye to West outside of Kasey’s bus less than a week ago, but it could’ve been months. Or even a different lifetime, and different people.

  She hadn’t even gone on duty today until around noon, and now, at the end of the day and having seen him exactly once in the hours in between, it could’ve been a week. Like a child counting down to Christmas, she’d counted half-hour increments until she’d be off official duty, and could talk to him alone again. Because she’d had some thoughts, once her brain kicked back in. And they were good thoughts. They might not sound like some kind of Highland poetry as his words had done, but no one could compete with that.

  So, at half past six, she’d called for him over the radio, doing her utmost to sound terribly official, asking him to come speak with her. So probably everyone now knew it was anything but official, but when e
veryone was fifty-six other people, it didn’t much matter.

  A knock came within minutes to her private cabin door and she peeked out quickly, noticed him there looking curious and like he’d fallen for the officiality. She also took note there was no one in the clinic to see them, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him inside.

  She had taken off her insulated suit, the thin one she even tended to wear inside, and set up the heater he’d brought her to get the room warm. Because it was time for dinner, and she wanted to be alone with him, she’d laid out a little picnic on the bed, with grub from the galley. Stuff that wouldn’t wreck her bedclothes if a dish tilted. Mostly hearty sandwiches and sides light on sauces.

  He took all this in silently, then gave a cautious smile before asking, “So, are we picking up right where we left off? Before it all went badly wrong?”

  “Not exactly,” she said, then felt the need to add, “Because we are changing things, right?”

  “We are.” He punctuated his quiet words with a single nod, but then followed up. “Is it going to throw a wrench in the works if I steal a kiss before we get started changing things? You wouldn’t...mind terribly, would you?”

  And when he said it that way, with a quirk to his mouth and his head tilted so his blue eyes were full of meaningful sidelong flirting, she couldn’t say no.

  She leaned in to meet him halfway, intending a quick kiss of greeting, but he steered her backward until her back was against the door, and cupped both of her cheeks to press the sweetest, slowest kiss to her lips.

  West’s kisses always made statements. Usually, that statement was I want you. Right now. Sometimes the statement was I want you and I’m cranky that I have to wait because of Reasons.

  But at that moment, the statement could not have more clearly been anything but I missed you.

  Tenho saudades...tambem.

  There may have been shades of I love you in that kiss. She couldn’t be sure if it was there, or if she just really wanted it to be there.