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He'd parked the vehicle in one of the Park defined parking areas, now, it seemed, he'd lost the last of the daylight backtracking in an attempt to relocate the parking lot. Reflectively, he should have planned for this, bought a GPS device, a torch, a change of a warm jacket.
He began to shiver. It was time to face the fact; he was lost. Reminding himself, at habitual intervals, to regulate his breathing, he fought to remain calm. There was no sense in panicking, it'd only disorient him further.
The cold was invasive now, and though he should have anticipated it, all the data had been there, he hadn't seemed to pay attention. He'd been intent on his task.
But, it seemed, it was much too cold for the fireflies, tonight.
The weather was unusual, for this time of year.
The forest might have been placating, had it not been for the cold. In a way, the darkness was subduing. He'd never been suspiciously afraid of the night, of the lack of light, he supposed, as strange as it seemed. He didn't see the point; any potential attacked could only see as well as he himself did, and, if anyone was to be a danger to him, it would be himself; he'd have to move cautiously, and of a slower pace than he'd have liked. It'd be foolish if he tripped over in the dark and hurt himself.
Invasively, the cold attacked his mounting sense of distraught, ripping it clean from under him. There was nothing, nothing, at all, to worry about here.
He'd find the car, in time, and then he'd be safely on his way back to the motel.
He would find the car.
Instead, he found a flash of light. Of a flashlight, actually.
He didn't declare himself immediately, such as it was, surprise would afford him an upper hand if it should be needed. But, in his newfound quest, he stumbled, paying too little attention to the placing of his feet, and found himself greeted by, moment's later, the torchlight again. This time, stronger. "I have lost myself, I think," he declared, blinking against the light.
"How long have you been lost?" a direct female voice asked, and the torch was lowered, revealing a thin, brunette woman, not yet old, but no longer a young woman.
She appeared to be wearing pyjamas, he thought, with confusion. Over the pyjama set, a jacket.
"I'm camping," the woman told him. She'd caught his expression, obviously.
"I see," he agreed. "It has not been long, perhaps since shortly after 2 P.M."
The woman drifted away from him, taking the downcast torchlight with her. She was walking somewhere, he guessed. Perhaps back to her camp?
"It's dark."
"Yes," he agreed. Cold, he wanted to add. It had been a while since he'd been back on Earth, and the weather seemed to have become increasingly unpredictable. On a night such as this, it should have been pleasantly warm, perhaps even unpleasantly, but it was chillingly cold.
Still, his mind did not linger upon this for too long; it seemed strange, now, that the woman should not be startled by his sudden appearance. He wondered if she camped out, a lot.
"So, what do you do? Are you with a college, or just visiting?" the woman's to-the-point voice asked, from ahead, as he struggled to keep up in the dark, disoriented now by the flashlight's beam, though it was downcast. It seemed to draw the clarity away, leaving only murkiness.
He followed her movements carefully. She had the torch, if he followed what she did, he would be fine.
"No, no, I am visitor, yes," he agreed, sort of. He wasn't sure that 'no' then 'yes' could be construed as an agreement, but the murkiness of the night seemed to cloud his thoughts.
"A tourist," the woman summed up, her voice audible in its lightness, now, as if in relief.
"Where is camp? Is far?" He was panicking; he shouldn't have been doing that.
"You're not from around here, are you?" the woman asked easily, and he felt slightly queasy, as though, were they in a horror flick, that he anticipated now as the moment she took out the hatchet, or similar implement.
He tried not to think about similar implements, or pliers. He'd not had the smoothest of acquaintances with pliers, recently. Do not worry, Radek, I am sure she is a nice woman, he assured himself. "No, not from around," he granted, with breathy amusement, but if the woman mistook it as light-hearted amusement, she would have been wrong. It was the sort of amusement that served as prelude to hysteria. "Are much far?" He shook himself mentally. "Are we very far, from camp, now?" he rephrased.
"I think we're almost there," the woman told him. "You have a cell?"
"No, no."
"Too bad; I suppose it wouldn't work, anyway. There's no coverage."
"Oh, dear."
"Oh, dear, yes," the woman concurred. "So where are you from? Originally?"
"Very far," he explained. "No longer United States."
"Oh, Transylvania?" Amusement touched her voice. "Are there really vampires in Transylvania?"
"Transylvania, no," he answered, taking time to pronounce the country's name carefully as she had.
Suddenly, around them, the trees seemed to retreat, and to thin, and he realised that they must have come out into a clearing – the camp site. And, yes, there was a tent.
"The parking's kind of a long walk from here, maybe it'd be wiser to just stay put for the night, do you think? Just stick it out here? I don't want to get you any more lost than you already are, and it's getting colder by the second." A frown rose in her voice. "Do you get that, too?"
"Yes, much cold," he agreed.
The woman stamped her feet in annoyance. "Staying?"
He frowned, struggling to think.
The woman laughed suddenly, and the sound startled him. "I'm not some kind of werewolf," she joked.
He turned on the spot, squinting against the darkness. Did he have any choice?
"Yeah, nope?"
He gave a short nod, turning back to face her. "Yes."
"Company, at last!" she cried in mock relief and elation.
He blinked, rapidly.
"You don't mind sharing a small tent? It's not exactly a Harry Potter affair?"
He nodded. "No, do not mind."
The woman smiled.
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The woman hummed as she tried to get off to sleep, and Zelenka thought that she was perhaps more uncomfortable than he was right now.
She was taller, but so slight, and in the tent's claustrophobic confines, her height didn't have a chance.
She had been the one to offer, he reminded himself, pushing away his own discomfort. It was almost too cold to be so uncomfortable, he thought.
A shuffling sound, and a sudden quiet announced that the woman had turned over to face him.
Apprehension prickled.
"Do you think we could share? It's freezing; my teeth hurt." There was a momentary answering silence, then the sharp beam of a flashlight filling the plastic tent, ricocheting off shiny plastic walls.
"Share?" he asked, banishing the confusion from his voice by sheer will alone.
"Can I lie with you?"
A blankness dropped suddenly down in his mind, as a curtain. He couldn't make out what it was she had in mind to share, no matter how hard he thought on it.
"I'm cold," the woman's quiet voice interrupted the ringing silence of his thoughts.
He struggled into a sitting position. "I suppose, yes," he agreed, finally, making a show of indifference.
Further shuffling ensued, followed by the sound of a sleeping bag being unzipped. The torch got lost for a moment, before its piercing beam reappeared at the front of the tent, near to the entrance. It was quickly snatched up by the woman.
Zelenka tried not to flinch as he felt the woman's shivering frame close to his own, less the shivers.
There was some time spent adjusting the blankets, and then nothing. The torch was clicked off.
Zelenka didn't move. What he was supposed to do with his arms, exactly, he wasn't clear on. The woman didn't object to how they were, though. He thought to ask her name, but it was too silent to break the quiet. He closed his eyes instead.
It would be alright in the morning.
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It wasn't the best arrangement, Neeva supposed. In fact, it was downright terrifying, but how could she help if she'd bumped into him accidentally. It wasn't as though she'd been meaning to, though, she thought, it was a strike in her court; she'd come to his planet.
Crummy, cold planet!
She wondered if someone, somewhere was determined to punish her.
The last time they'd met, after all, she had stabbed him with a plier. So, what, she'd been freaking out – that apparently didn't excuse stabbing people with stupid yellow-handled pliers, as if it was that colour for any other reason but to be noticed. But, yeah, she conceded, the intention was probably not for it to be easily accessible in body-swapped-and-busted situations.
Crappy planet! How could she know it was his planet, anyway? Surely, she couldn't be expected to know that?
Momentarily, she wished werewolves were real. Then she could have, at least, had a cute Hugh 'Van Helsing' Jackman look-alike, or David Thewlis, otherwise known as Remus Lupin. Or maybe the Enterprise, she thought, recalling the 'DVDs' she'd watched with Janie, her neighbour's little girl across the hall in the apartment she'd been set up in.
Or that spaceship she'd come on.
Not the guilt squirming in her stomach.
Why was it so cold? She would have been okay, if not for that, if not for that she was now wrapped up in the arms of someone she'd once been willing to let die, by her own hand, no less.
Would she ever get any sleep tonight?
She shut her eyes. She had to try, didn't she?
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When she woke, several hours later, she didn't immediately open her eyes. It was warm, and someone was hugging her.
What? she thought suddenly. Her eyes snapped open, stinging against the sudden onslaught of brightness. Then, her mind supplied. Oh.
The scientist from Atlantis.
She blinked, shaking off the blurriness of her eyes, and turned enough so that she could see the person who was holding her. She frowned. Something was missing. She thought hard, for a moment. Oh, the glasses.
She started to look around for them, but it was hard. She prayed they hadn't been broken, wherever they were. That'd be just her luck.
She was not going to go back with him to the parking area! She was going to stay right here, thank you!
Frustrated, she gave up the visual search.
She let her head drop to Zelenka's chest. He was alive, at least, she noted. This one wasn't going to be pinned to her, if something went afoul. She had her own troubles, and she was sure he was perfectly adept at finding his own trouble, also. She didn't need his, and he didn't need hers.
If he didn't have a near death experience as a reminder of her, then he'd surely have a scar from where she'd stabbed him, she supposed. But why was she even thinking about that? He probably didn't even know her name, well, the name of the lunatic woman who'd stabbed him.
Yeah, because that's all she was – some loony!
She felt a laugh choke her throat, until she couldn't help it; she laughed.
Great, now she was laughing about it! Further incriminating herself into the role of mad, unstable, laughing person, she thought bitterly, and snuggled closer.
Crap, why had she done that?
She took a moment to solidify her choice before getting up. She needed to find those damn glasses so he could leave as soon as he woke up.
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Finally, after an hour of waiting, and reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – she'd found the glasses, they weren't broken, relief – she stilled, and looked up from her book to see that he'd woken. "Good morning," she chimed, as she'd observed was something of a custom on Earth.
Whatever it was he mumbled, she couldn't make it out, but she understood when he began looking around, and put down the book and scooted over on her knees.
She took up his hand, muttering an "It's okay," and pressed the glasses into his hand. "Here you go."
Glasses back in place, he frowned. "Thank you," he said.
"They were just there when I reached over for my book," she replied dismissively.
"What are you reading?" he asked with a nod.
"Harry Potter."
The answering frown told her that he'd never heard of Harry Potter before, which, given that it was something of a phenomenon, was almost laughable.
She cracked a grin. "Confused, teen wizard tasked with saving the entire world," she summed up.
A nod. "Have heard of, yes." The frown eased, a little. "Is any good? Am I interrupting reading?"
She shook her head. "Nope." Yes, damn it, yes! What was she saying?
"It is good, not so cold as before," he told her.
"Yes! Yes. It's great!" Have you caught some funky mind-zapping, personality-swapping… something, Neeva? What's up with you, already? Get it together, girl! "It's great!"? It's crappy – now clear out! Go on, get lost.
But it didn't appear that Zelenka had mind-reading powers, because he didn't get up and leave.
"You're good to find the parking by yourself?" Damn, I will kick you, girl! Shut up, whilst you're ahead!
"I will manage, I think."
She smiled – Don't do that! – and picked up the book she'd been reading before he'd woken up. "Reading." She shrugged, and glanced back to the page she'd opened.
"Thank you for-"
"That's fine," she cut him off, and flickered a glance up to see him nod. She lowered the book, again. "Goodbye, I guess."
Zelenka met her gaze and replied in what she recognised must be another language.
Of course, the language from his 'country'! It was suddenly blindingly obvious that not everyone would speak the same language. Except, he spoke both.
She focussed her attention back on the book.
A minute later, she was alone again. (Well, except for Harry, Ron and Hermione.)
She closed the book. She was okay, wasn't she?
Of course she was.
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In the daylight, there was a sign from the camp site directing the walker along a trail which led, as the signage indicated, to one of the parking areas. He supposed he'd start there.
It might even be his parking lot.
Oh, oops, he'd forgotten to ask the woman's name. He considered turning back around to ask, but he'd only embarrass himself, and, he sensed, she'd been only too eager to have him leave.
He hoped she would be alright on her own.
She had been before, hadn't she?
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And there it was!
The car!