Page 15 of Love Below Zero

15

HELL FREEZES OVER

JAMES

A sticky note stuck to the downstairs bathroom:

Friendly reminder to replace the toilet paper roll when it runs out :)

It’s been two weeks, and the temperature between me and Rebecca is downright Arctic. Or Antarctic, given the circumstances. Our days in the dome quickly blur together, time becoming meaningless thanks to the constant presence of the sun, the artificial lights, and the lack of fresh air.

Still, spirits seem to be high among the crew, with the exception of Rebecca. Even I can tell she’s avoiding me. She rarely speaks to me, and when she does it’s usually one-syllable answers to questions or mission updates. I haven’t run into her again during my late-night inventory checks, a task she’s been doing without flaws since the flour incident. She’s been having trouble sleeping, the soft glow of the moon light next to her bed visible from underneath her door as I return from the kitchen well past midnight.

Every single time I open up the inventory lists I feel worse and worse. I keep seeing the hurt on her face when she discovered what I was doing that first night. Her beautiful features weighed down with pain.

Pain that I caused.

It doesn’t sit well with me, even as I tell myself I was doing it for the sake of the mission. But that became less and less true over the last two weeks. It hit me like a pile of bricks that I miss being around her, even if we were just sitting in companionable silence like we did for the plane ride. She gives out warm smiles freely to Eli and Joanna, talks to Frances about her time on the ISS, but when her gaze finds mine it’s like the sun disappearing behind a cloud.

I had been basking in her warm glow and I had taken it for granted. My hyper-focus on the mission made me oblivious to what was happening around me. It’s like a pair of blinders clapped over my vision and all I could focus on was doing a good job, while everything else fell apart around me. Again.

I have no idea how to fix it, no idea how to balance whatever this is between Rebecca and me with the priorities of the mission. I am an all-or-nothing kind of man in the worst way possible, my brain being easily overwhelmed when too much is happening at the same time.

And there always seems to be a lot happening with Rebecca. She helps Eli with his garden, she works out with Joanna, she even took on her own experiment, analysing water samples from the surrounding ice sheets that Eli collected on his first trip outside. She’s doing everything but writing, it seems.

I read over her notes and findings each night, impressed by how diligent she is. Her research skills have sharpened, and a strange mix of pride and remorse fill me. It’s my fault she feels insecure about her work. I made her insecure. I told myself I had good intentions, that she’ll become a better writer because of it, but I went about it wrong.

I never want to make anyone feel small. That’s not a hallmark of a good teacher, yet somehow my words and actions got all twisted with Rebecca. I have to make it up to her, but the how eludes me.

“Earth to James.” Eli waves a hand in front of my face. It’s Saturday night, not that it means anything. Alright, it does mean that everyone has the day off tomorrow, but in the grand scheme of things, it is all pretty meaningless. Eli and I are sprawled in front of the projector, controllers in hand. I’m losing quite terribly at Mario Kart . The dome is quiet, a slight breeze outside rattling the tarp every now and then.

“Where did you go, dude?” Eli asks, pressing the pause button.

“I was thinking about Rebecca,” I say before I can stop myself.

“Oh finally.” Eli sets his controller down, turning fully to face me. “Joanna and I have a bet going on how long she’ll be able to ignore you. I’ve got ten bucks on three weeks, and I really want to win. Let’s talk about this.”

I raise a brow at him, setting my own controller aside. “You and Joanna are betting on us now? Is that what passes as entertainment out here?”

He shrugs. “The highlight of my week was seeing a single penguin slide by the window. And I’m not entirely convinced I wasn’t hallucinating, since there shouldn’t be penguins out this side of the ice sheet. So sue me for trying to stay sane with a little friendly competition.”

He has a fair point. I’ve also seen that penguin outside. It must have gotten lost or separated from the waddle.

“You noticed that she’s ignoring me?”

“Both of you aren’t as subtle as you think. The longing glances you give her every morning at breakfast make me want to barf.”

“I don’t know what to do,” I confess. Usually I would take my problems to Jules, but she is out of reach. Am I betraying her by talking to Eli about this? Her last email was a week ago, just some updates on how our paper was doing and what was happening in the world. I was going to reply, but time slipped by me in a haze. The next thing I knew, a week had passed and I hadn’t sent a response.

I miss her. Earth and everyone else almost don’t seem real at this point. Jules is my anchor, and now I feel unmoored. Like an astronaut tumbling through space without a tether.

I resolve to respond to her immediately after this conversation.

“It’s not rocket science dude,” Eli points out.

“True. Rocket science is easy. Feelings are hard.”

“They can be complicated,” he agrees. “What did you do to make her mad?”

“I might have ... checked the inventory without consulting her first.”

“And that was wrong, why?”

“Because she asked me to treat her like a member of the team, and checking her work behind her back made her feel like I didn’t trust her.”

Eli levels me with a look. “So you know what to do. ”

I shake my head. “I don’t. I know what I did wrong, but not how to fix it. She won’t talk to me.”

And if she doesn’t talk to me, then I can’t apologise. Again. Not that she will take any apology I make seriously.

“You need to let your actions speak louder than your words.” Eli stretches out beside me, raising his arms over his head as he yawns. “Figure out a way to show her you don’t think she’s incompetent. And when you’ve done that, you can start seducing her with interesting science facts or whatever it is that you nerds like.”

I rear back. “Who said anything about seduce? I don’t want to seduce her.”

Perhaps I want to seduce her a little bit. My body has become increasingly aware of hers in these last few weeks. I try not to let my mind drift to the incident in Cape Town, to the way her strong, curvy body moulded into mine like we were made for each other. What would it feel like to touch her smooth skin? To run my fingers up her full hips, to trace the soft peaks of her breasts ...

I shake my head, dispersing my lustful thoughts. Lust isn’t an emotion I have any experience with. I’ve only felt it once before in my lifetime, and feeling it now again is very inconvenient.

“Sure you don’t,” Eli says drily.

“I don’t,” I confirm, though I’m not sure who I’m trying to convince at this point: him or me. “I just want her to be comfortable around me again. We’ve still got three and a half months to go in here. I’m being practical.”

I am not being practical. I want her attention. I want her smiles and her banter again. I might even go so far as to pick a fight with her, if it means I’m on the receiving end of an emotion other than apathy .

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Eli chuckles, getting to his feet. “I’m off. Use that big brain of yours to figure this out, Doctor Reid.” He taps my head as he passes before disappearing up the stairs.

I sit in silence for a moment, letting my thoughts drift back to Rebecca, the feel of her body under my hands. Would she even want me in that way? As far as I know, she is allosexual, and relationships between allo and asexual people don’t always work out. My own experience tells me they don’t work. And what if I show her what I like? Will she turn away from me? Be disgusted by my limited sexual preferences?

If her books are anything to go by, she must enjoy sex much more than I do. Are we even compatible in that area? Will it be a deal breaker for her if we aren’t?

These are all hypotheticals of course. I can’t speculate with the knowledge I have, and there is one crucial factor I’m overlooking. Rebecca won’t even speak to me. Sleeping together isn’t even on the table. Hell, it isn’t even on the entire continent.

I have to find a way back into her good graces, no matter what.

The next morning, I wake up to an unusual chill in the air. The dome is temperature-controlled, kept comfortable enough for us to walk around in regular sweats and thermals. Today the temperature is much lower than it should have been.

Shit.

I extract myself from the warm bed, pulling on my trousers and shoving my feet into my shoes. I’m still wearing the shirt Frances gave us. Spending two weeks in one shirt is no easy feat. It’s definitely starting to smell. I shrug on an extra jacket before making my way downstairs to our makeshift command centre.

Every morning I receive system updates from our ground crew, but nothing has come through today. I manually check everything until I find the problem. One of the solar panels is disconnected, and the backup generator didn’t kick in. It’s supposed to be our day off, but looks like I will be going outside to fix the solar and check on the generator.

It might seem like no big deal, but going outside is the same as taking a spacewalk. We have to wear bulky hazmat suits over our bulky cold weather gear, and someone has to act as capcom.

“Already hard at work, I see.”

I look up from the monitor as Frances makes her way down the stairs. She’s also wearing extra layers this morning. She must have noticed the sharp drop in temperature as well.

“A solar panel failed, and the backup generator didn’t kick in. We lost heating and comms.”

“Figured it was something like that. Do we have enough power for coffee?”

I double-check the levels before nodding. “Yes, it should be fine.”

“Good, I don’t like solving problems before I’ve had my caffeine.” She turns on the kettle, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard. The lights dim slightly as the kettle boils, but stabilise once it’s done. She hands me a cup of coffee before sitting down next to me, eyes trained on the monitor.

“I’m more concerned about the generator,” she says. “ We have plenty of sunlight for now, but soon we’ll be having regular night cycles again. We can’t afford to lose heating when it gets colder and darker.”

“I agree. Something probably went wrong on the switch-over. I’ll have to head outside to check it out.”

“Go after breakfast, and take Becky with you.”

I raise a brow. “I was going to take Joanna.” She would have made more sense, being the engineer among us.

Frances raises a brow back at me. “It wasn’t a request. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the tension between you two. Think of this as an opportunity to clear the air, away from prying eyes and ears.” Her tone brokers no arguments. Frances might be calm and generally easy-going, but she is still our commander. She knows when to give orders and when to make suggestions. It’s probably what made her such an accomplished astronaut. I am not about to question her, so I concede.

“Alright, I’ll take Rebecca.”