files 6, 23, 47, 90, 99

6.

She wakes feeling that same prickle between her shoulder blades, her heart racing. The blankets are too warm and she's having nightmares about boulders, nightmares where Ned isn't there to pull her out of the way. It's a relief to open her eyes, but there's no comforting night light, just cold stars and the dying embers of the fire.

When she finds him he's sitting outside the circle, on the sandy bank of the river. The clenched fist that is her heart looses a few degrees and she rustles through the leaves before sitting down beside him. "You shouldn't have left the fire," she chides him softly.

He reaches for her hand. "Neither should you," he replies, but his voice is soft. This far out, the night is a thousand small noises, and all she can really see is the gleam of his eyes, the gleam of the moon on the water.

The silence stretches between them and his thumb strokes the back of her hand, and eventually she leans heavily against his shoulder, her breast brushing his arm. "Do you think he's watching us right now?"

"I don't know," he whispers in reply. Then he shakes his head. "I couldn't sleep, I just kept thinking about what would have happened if I hadn't gotten there in time..."

She shivers. "I was having nightmares about it," she admits.

"We should go back."

"We should," she agrees, and they don't move.

She's blinking for longer and longer, and then the world shifts and she's curled up on her side, on the sand, with Ned nestled in behind her, his arm over her, and she's pulled close. They never talk about it but they never do this when Bess and George could see them, could walk in on them, could know that their relationship has stayed anywhere near as intense as it was when they were both in high school. It's safer that way. Sometimes he tells himself that it's because she's ashamed of them and of him, and of what they sometimes can't stop themselves from doing. Sometimes he knows it's true.

And then sometimes she lays her hand across his, like now, with her fingertips resting between his, holding his palm to her belly, and she shifts, and all he can feel is the line. The line she drew for him when they realized that their attraction didn't end in holding hands and sharing milkshakes.

"Ned?"

He closes his eyes and wills himself to forget anything other than the sound of her voice, but he can smell her hair and feel the way her body fits against his and it is very, very distracting. "Hmm?"

"Do you think we're going to die," she whispers.

He weighs it all. Max killed Paula and they still don't know why; everything's going wrong and their food is running low, and this has been, bar none, the worst camping trip he's ever been on.

"No," he replies.

"Why not," she asks, and he can hear the smile in her voice.

"Because, between the two of us," he says, and brushes her hair off her neck and kisses her softly there, at the breathing yield of flesh, and she shivers, "we can get through anything."

"A day from the ranger station and no guarantee of help once we get there," she reminds him softly, and when she moves even the barest inch he can feel it all the way down to his bones. His fingers slide to her waist, to where her shirt has slid up.

"You're cold," he whispers, right against her ear, and she shivers against him again. "I told you I'd keep you warm."

She waits a long moment, as his fingers slide in gentle circles over her skin, warming her. Whatever they had been talking about, the relentless cold chains of furious logic, they all break, they are all drowned in the echo of her pulse as it sounds in her ears. She rolls over, very close against him, and she can feel the blush on his cheek when she cups him under her palm, she can feel the weight of his arousal through their jeans.

"Then keep me warm," she whispers.

23.

They leave a note for Bess and George, intentionally vague and full of innuendo, and as Ned takes their borrowed key to the ignition Nancy makes some soft excuse and heads back to her cabin and sifts through the chaos of her suitcase, the tumbled shirts and swimsuit coverups, until she finds the thin flutter of lavender silk.

"Which way is Maui?" he calls to her, over the sound of the engine, but he's smiling, and she's wrapped in a thick terrycloth robe against the harsh breeze flowing over the waves.

"Does it matter?" she teases back, leaning against the rail on her elbows and facing him, and she knows that she looks very calm and self-assured, but they do have to be back by the time the bars close, else there will be Coast Guard and questions and indelicate pictures.

My late husband and I loved that trip.

Nancy blinks and Ned's pushing the throttle, and the force pushes her to the side, her bare feet sliding on the polished hardwood. She feels free, unencumbered, the soft chant in the back of her mind

find Lisa, save Lisa, find Lisa, find her

is finally fading,