Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Svalbard Islands, Norway

Present

He’s not wearing NASA gear.

By now it’s nearly dark, the snow falls steadily, and whenever I look up to the edge of the crevasse, huge snowflakes hurl straight into my eyes. But even then, I can tell: Ian is not wearing the gear NASA usually issues to AMASE scientists.

His hat and coat are The North Face, a dull black dusted with white, interrupted only by the red of his goggles and ski mask. His phone, when he takes it out to communicate with me from the edge of the crevasse, is not the standard-issue Iridium one, but a model I don’t recognize. He stares down for a long moment, as if assessing the shitfuck of a situation I managed to put myself in. Flurries circle around him, but never quite touch. His shoulders rise and fall. One, two, several times. Then, finally, he lifts his goggles and brings the phone to his mouth.

“I’ll send down the rope,” he says, in lieu of a greeting.

To say that I’m in a bit of a predicament at the moment, or that I have a few problems on my hands, would be a vast understatement. And yet, staring up from the place where I was positive I’d bite it until about five minutes ago, all I can think about is that the last time I talked with this man, I?.?.?.

I told him to fuck off.

Repeatedly.

And he did deserve it, at least for saying that I wasn’t good enough to carry out the project. But at the time he also mentioned that my mission was going to be too dangerous. And now he’s shown up to the Arctic Circle, with his deep-set blue eyes and even deeper voice, to pull me away from certain death.

I always knew I was an asshole, but I’d never quite realized the extent of it.

“Is this the most massive I told you so in history?” I ask, attempting a joke.

Ian ignores me. “Once you have the rope, I’ll build an anchor,” he says, tone calm and matter-of-fact, not a trace of panic. It’s like he’s teaching a kid how to tie their shoelaces. No urgency here, no doubt that this will go as planned and we’ll both be fine. “I’ll prepare the lip and haul you up over my shoulder. Make sure everything is clipped to your belay loop. Can you pull on the fixed side?”

I just stare up at him. I feel?.?.?. I’m not sure what. Confused. Scared. Hungry. Guilty. Cold. After what’s probably way too long, I manage to nod.

He smiles a little before throwing down the rope. I watch it uncoil, slither down toward me, and come to rest a couple of inches from where I’m huddled. Then I reach out and close my gloved hand around its end.

I’m still confused, scared, hungry, and guilty. But when I glance up at Ian, maybe I feel a little less cold.

---

?????????It’s just a sprain, I’m pretty sure. But as far as sprains go, this is a bad one.

Ian is true to his promises and manages to get me out of the crevasse in barely a couple of minutes, but the instant I’m on the surface, I try to limp around, and?.?.?. it’s not looking good. My foot touches the ground and pain spears through my entire body like lightning.

“Fu—” I press a hand against my lips, trying to hide my gasp in the fabric of my gloves, struggling to keep upright. I’m pretty sure that the loud swishing of the wind swallows my whimper, but there isn’t much I can do to help the tears flooding my eyes.

Thankfully, Ian is too busy collecting the rope to notice. “I’ll just need a second,” he says, and I welcome the reprieve. He might have just rescued me from becoming a polar bear’s dessert, but for some reason I hate the idea of him seeing me all weepy and weak. Okay, fine: I needed saving, and maybe I don’t look like much at the moment. But my pain threshold is usually pretty high, and I’ve never been a whiner. I don’t want to give Ian any reason to believe otherwise.

Except.

Except that those two lonely tears have opened the floodgates. Behind me, Ian loads his climbing gear into his backpack, his movements practiced and economical, and I?.?.?. I cannot bring myself to offer any help. I just stand awkwardly, trying to spare my throbbing ankle, on one foot, like a flamingo. My cheeks are hot and wet in the falling snow, and I look down at my stupid crevasse thinking that until a minute ago—until Ian Fucking Floyd—it was going to be the last place I saw. The last slice of sky.

And just like that, a rushing terror punches through me. It knocks out the fabricated quiet of my Martian ocean, and the sheer magnitude of what nearly happened, of all the things I love that I would have missed out on if Ian hadn’t come for me, sweeps through my brain like a rake.

Dogs. Three a.m. in the summer. Sadie and Mara being absolute idiots, and me laughing at them. Hiking trips, kiwi iced tea, that Greek restaurant I never got around to trying, elegant code, the next season of Stranger Things, really good sex, a Nature publication, seeing humans on Mars, the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire—

“We need to be on our way before the storm gets worse,” Ian says. “Are you—”

Ian looks at me, and I don’t even try to hide my face. I’m well past that. When he comes closer, a dark frown on his face, I let him hold my eyes, lift my chin with his fingers, inspect my cheeks. His expression shifts from urgent, to worried, to understanding. I draw in a breath that turns into a gulp. The gulp, to my horror, morphs into a sob. Two. Three. Five. And then?.?.?.

Then I’m just a fucking mess. Blubbering pitifully, like a child, and when a warm, heavy body wraps around me and grips me tightly, I offer no resistance.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur into the nylon of Ian’s jacket. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I— I have no clue what’s wrong with me, I—” It’s just that I hadn’t known. Down in the crevasse, I was able to pretend it wasn’t happening. But now that I’m out, and I don’t feel numb anymore, it’s all flooding back, and I cannot stop seeing them, all the things, all the things that I almost—

“Shh.” Ian’s hands feel impossibly large as they move up and down my back, cupping my head, stroking my snow-damp hair where it spills from under the hat. We are in the icy middle of a storm, but this close to him, I feel almost peaceful. “Shh. It’s okay.”

I cling to him. He lets me sob for long moments we cannot afford, pressing me against him with no air between us, until I can feel his heartbeat through the thick layers of our clothes. Then he mumbles “Fucking Merel” with barely restrained fury, and I think that it would be so easy to blame things on Merel, but the truth is, it’s all my fault.

When I lean back to tell him, he cups my face. “We really need to go. I’ll carry you to the coast. I have a light brace for your ankle, just to avoid messing it up even more.”

“The coast?”

“My boat is less than an hour away.”

“Your boat?”

“Come on. We have to get going before more snow falls.”

“I—maybe I can walk. I can at least try—”

He smiles, and the thought that I could have died—I could have died—without being smiled at like this, by this man, has my lips trembling. “I don’t mind carrying you.” A dimple appears. “Do try to contain your love for crevasses, please.”

I glare at him through the tears. As it turns out, it’s exactly what he wants from me.

---

?????????Ian carries me almost all the way.

To say that he does it without breaking a sweat, in the whiteout of a thickening snowstorm, in negative-ten-degree-Celsius weather, would probably be a bit of an exaggeration. He smells salty and warm as he deposits me on one of the bunks on the lower deck of the boat, a small expedition ship named M/S Sj?veien. I do spot little droplets of perspiration here and there, and they make his forehead and upper lip shine before he wipes them with the sleeves of his coat.

Still, I can’t quite get over the relative ease with which he made his way through glaciated plateaus for over an hour, wading through old and fresh snow, sidestepping rocky formations and ice algae, never once complaining about my arms coiled tight around his neck.

He almost slipped twice. Both times, I felt the steel of his muscles as they tensed to avoid the fall, his large body solid and reliable as it balanced and reoriented before picking up the pace again. Both times, I felt bizarrely, incomprehensibly safe.

“I need you to let AMASE know that you’re safe,” he tells me the second we’re on the boat. I look around, noticing for the first time that there are no other passengers on board. “And that you don’t need responders to come out once the storm lets up.”

I frown. “Wouldn’t they know that you already—”

“Right now. Please.” He stares pointedly until I compose and send a message to the entire AMASE group, in a way that reminds me that he is very much a leader. Used to people doing as he says. “We have a space heater, but it’s not going to do a whole lot in this temperature.” He takes off his jacket, revealing a black thermal underneath. His hair is messy, and bright, and beautiful. Not nearly as disgustingly hat-squished as mine, an inexplicable phenomenon which should be the object of several research studies. Maybe I’ll apply for a grant to investigate it. Then Ian will veto me, and we’ll be back to Mutual Hate square one. “The winds are more severe than I’d like, but on board is still a safer option than ashore. We’re anchored, but the waves might get nasty. There’s anti-seasickness meds next to your bunk, and—”

“Ian.”

He falls quiet.

“Why are you not wearing a NASA survival suit?”

He doesn’t look at me. Instead he drops on his knees in front of me and begins to work on my brace. His large hands are firm but delicate on my calf. “Are you sure it’s not broken? Is it painful?”

“Yes. And yes, but getting better.” The heat, or at least the lack of freezing winds, is helping. Ian’s grip, comforting and warm around my swollen ankle, doesn’t hurt, either. “This isn’t a NASA boat, either.” Not that I expected it to be. I think I know what’s going on here.

“It’s what we had at our disposal.”

“We?”

He still doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead he tightens the brace and pulls a thick woolen sock over my foot. I think I feel the ghosts of fingertips trailing briefly across my toe, but maybe it’s my impression. It must be.

“You should drink. And eat.” He straightens. “I’ll get you—”

“Ian,” I interrupt softly. He pauses, and we both seem simultaneously taken aback at my tone. It’s just?.?.?. pleading. Tired. I’m usually not one for displays of vulnerability, but?.?.?. Ian has come for me, in a small rocking boat, across the fjords. We are alone in the Arctic Basin, surrounded by twenty-thousand-year-old glaciers and shrieking winds. There is nothing usual about this. “Why are you here?”

He lifts one eyebrow. “What? You miss your crevasse? I can take you back if—”

“No, really—why are you here? On this boat? You’re not part of this year’s AMASE. You shouldn’t even be in Norway. Don’t they need you at JPL?”

“They’ll be fine. Plus, sailing is a passion of mine.” He’s obviously being evasive, but the cold must have frozen my brain cells, because all I want right now is to find out more about Ian Floyd’s passions. True or made up.

“Is it really?”

He shrugs, noncommittal. “We used to sail a lot when I was a kid.”

“We?”

“My dad and I.” He stands and turns away from me, starting to rummage in the little compartments in the hull. “He’d bring me along when he had to work.”

“Oh. Was he a fisherman?”

I hear a fond snort. “He smuggled drugs.”

“He what?”

“He smuggled drugs. Weed, for the most—”

“No, I heard you the first time, but?.?.?. seriously?”

“Yup.”

I frown. “Are you?.?.?. Are you okay? Is that even?.?.?. Is that a thing, smuggling weed on boats?”

He’s tinkering with something, giving me his back, but he turns just enough for me to catch the curve of his smile. “Yeah. Illegal, but a thing.”

“And your father would take you?”

“Sometimes.” He turns around, holding a small tray. He always looks big, but hunched in the too-low deck he feels like the Great Barrier Reef. “It would drive my mom crazy.”

I laugh. “She didn’t like her son being part of the family criminal enterprise?”

“Go figure.” His dimple disappears. “They’d yell about it for hours. No wonder Mars began sounding so attractive.”

I cock my head and study his expression. “Is that why you grew up not knowing Mara?”

“Who is M— Oh. Yeah. For the most part. Mom isn’t very fond of the Floyd side of the family. Though I’m sure he’s the black sheep by their standards, too. I wasn’t really allowed to spend time with him, so?.?.?.” He shakes his head, as if to change the topic. “Here. It’s not much, but you should eat.”

I have to force myself to look away from his face, but when I notice the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made, my stomach cramps with happiness. I wiggle in the bunk until I’m sitting straighter, take off my jacket, and then immediately attack the food. My relationship with eating is much less complicated than the one with Ian Floyd, after all, and I lose myself in the straightforward, soothing act of chewing for?.?.?. for a long time, probably.

When I swallow the last bite, I remember that I’m not alone and notice him staring at me with an amused expression.

“Sorry.” My cheeks warm. I brush the crumbs from my thermal shirt and lick some jam off the corner of my mouth. “I’m a fan of peanut butter.”

“I know.”

He does? “You do?”

“Wasn’t your graduation cake just a giant Reese’s cup?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, taken aback. It was the one Mara and Sadie got me after I defended my thesis. They got tired of me licking frosting and peanut butter filling off the Costco sheet cakes they usually bought and just ordered me a giant cup. But I have no recollection of ever telling Ian. I barely think of it, honestly. I remember about it only when I log into my barely used Instagram, because the picture of the three of us digging in is the last thing I ever posted—

“You should rest while you can,” Ian tells me. “The storm should ease up by early tomorrow morning and we’ll sail out. I’ll need your help in this shit visibility.”

“Okay,” I agree. “Yeah. But I still don’t understand how you can be here alone if—”

“I’ll go check that everything is all right. I’ll be back in a minute.” He disappears before I can ask exactly what he needs to check on. And he’s not back in a minute—or even before I lean back in the bunk, decide to rest my eyes for just a couple of minutes, and fall asleep, dead to the world.

---

?????????The bark of the wind and the rhythmic rocking of the boat rouse me, but what keeps me awake is the chill.

I look around in the blue glow of the emergency lamp and find Ian a few feet away from me, sleeping on the other bunk. It’s too short, and barely wide enough to accommodate him, but he seems to make do. His hands are folded neatly on his stomach, and the covers are kicked to his feet, which tells me that the cabin is probably not as cold as I currently feel.

Not that it matters: it’s as if the hours spent outside have seeped into my bones to keep on icing me from the inside. I try to huddle under the covers for a few minutes, but the shivering only gets worse. Perhaps strong enough to dislodge some kind of important cerebral pathway, because without really knowing why, I get out of my bunk, wrap the blanket around myself, and limp across the rolling floor in Ian’s direction.

When I lie down next to him, he blinks, groggy and mildly startled. And yet his first reaction is not to throw me in the sea but to push toward the bulkhead to make room for me.

He’s a way better person than I’ll ever be.

“Hannah?”

“I just?.?.?.” My teeth are chattering. Again. “I can’t get warm.”

He doesn’t hesitate. Or maybe he does, but just a fraction of a second. He opens his arms and pulls me to his chest, and?.?.?. I fit inside them so perfectly, it’s as though there were a spot ready for me all along. A five-year-old spot, familiar and cozy. A delicious, warm nook that smells of soap and sleep, freckles and pale, sweaty skin.

It makes me want to cry again. Or laugh. I cannot remember the last time I felt this fragile and confused.

“Ian?”

“Hm?” His voice is rough, all chest. This is what he sounds like when he wakes up. What he would have sounded like the morning after if I’d agreed to go to dinner with him.

“How long have you been in Svalbard?”

He sighs, a warm chuff on the crown of my hair. I must be catching him off guard, because this time he answers the question. “Six days.”

Six days. That’s one day before I arrived. “Why?”

“Vacation.” He nuzzles my head with his chin.

“Vacation,” I repeat. His thermal is soft under my lips.

“Yeah. I had”—he yawns against my scalp—“lots of time left over.”

“And you decided to spend it in Norway?”

“Why do you sound incredulous? Norway’s a good place. It has fjords and ski resorts and museums.”

Except that’s not where he is. Not at a ski resort, and most definitely not at a museum. “Ian.” It feels so intimate, to say his name so close to him. To press it into his chest as my fingers curve into his shirt. “How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That my project was going to be such a shitshow. That I?.?.?. That I wasn’t going to be able to finish my project.” I am going to start crying again. Possibly. Likely. “Was it—was it that obvious? Am I just this total, giant, incompetent asshole who decided to do whatever the fuck she wanted despite everyone else telling her that she was going to—”

“No, no, shh.” His arms tighten around me, and I realize that I am, in fact, crying. “You are not an asshole, Hannah. And you are the opposite of incompetent.”

“But you vetoed me because I—”

“Because of the intrinsic danger of a project like yours. For the past few months, I tried to get this project stopped in about ten different ways. Personal meetings, emails, appeals—I tried it all. And even the people who agreed with me that it was too dangerous would not step in to prevent it. So no, you’re not the asshole, Hannah. They are.”

“What?” I shift on my elbow to hold his eyes. The blue is pitch-black in the night. “Why?”

“Because it’s a great project. It’s absolutely brilliant, and it has the potential to revolutionize future space exploration missions. High risk, high reward.” His fingers push a strand behind my ear, then run down my hair. “Too high risk.”

“But Merel said that—”

“Merel is a fucking idiot.”

My eyes widen. Ian’s tone is exasperated and furious and not at all what I’d expect from his usually calm, aloof self. “Well, Dr. Merel has a doctorate from Oxford and I believe is a MENSA member, so—”

“He’s a moron.” I shouldn’t laugh, or burrow even closer to Ian, but I cannot help myself. “He was at AMASE when I was here, too. There were two serious injuries during my second expedition, and both of them happened because he pushed scientists to finish fieldwork when conditions weren’t optimal.”

“Wait, seriously?” He nods curtly. “Why is he still at NASA?”

“Because his negligence was hard to prove, and because AMASE members sign waivers. Like you did.” He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. “Why were you out there alone?”

“I needed to drop off the equipment. The storm wasn’t forecasted. But then there was an avalanche nearby, I got scared that my mini-rover would get damaged, started running away without looking, and—”

“No—why were you alone, Hannah? You were supposed to have someone else with you. That’s what the proposal said.”

“Oh.” I swallow. “Merel was supposed to come for backup. But he wasn’t feeling well. I offered to wait for him, but he said we’d be losing valuable days of data and that I should just go alone, and I?.?.?.” I squeeze my fingers around the material of Ian’s shirt. “I went. And then, when I called in for help, he told me that the weather was turning, and?.?.?.”

“Fuck,” he mutters. His arms tighten around me, nearly painful. “Fuck.”

I wince. “I know you’re mad at me. And you have every right—”

“I’m not mad at you,” he says, sounding mad at me. “I’m mad at fucking—” I study him, skeptical, as he inhales deeply. Exhales. Inhales again. He seems to cycle through a few emotions that I’m not sure I understand, and ends with: “I’m sorry. I apologize. I usually don’t?.?.?.”

“Get mad?”

He nods. “I’m usually better at?.?.?.”

“Caring less?” I finish for him, and he closes his eyes and nods again.

Okay. This is starting to make sense.

“AMASE didn’t send you,” I say. It’s not a question. Ian won’t admit it to me, but in this bunk, next to him, it’s so obvious what happened. He came to Norway to keep me safe. Every step of the way, all he did was to keep me safe. “How did you know that I was going to need you?”

“I didn’t, Hannah.” His chest rises and falls in a deep sigh. Another man would be gloating by now. Ian?.?.?. I think he just wishes he could have spared me this. “I was just afraid that something might happen to you. And I don’t trust Merel. Not with you.” He says it—you—like I am a remarkable and important thing. The most precious data point; his favorite town; the loveliest, starkest Martian landscape. Even though I pushed him away, over and over, he still came in a rocking boat in the middle of the coldest ocean on planet Earth, just to get me warm.

I try to lift my head and look up at him, but he presses on it gently and keeps stroking my hair. “You really should rest.”

He’s right. We both should. So I push a leg between his, and he lets me. Like his body is a thing of mine. “I am sorry. About what I said to you back in Houston.”

“Shh.”

“And that I’ve put you in danger—”

“Shh, it’s okay.” He kisses my temple. It’s wet from the slide of my tears. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not. You could be working with your team, or asleep in your own bed, but you’re here because of me, and—”

“Hannah, there is nowhere else I’d rather be.”

I laugh, watery. “Not even—not even literally anywhere else?”

I hear him chuckle just before I fall asleep.