Missing

Chapter 13

About 20 years ago

Athali gazed into the lenses of the binoculars once again, magnifying the ant-like base below their snow-covered ledge. Soldiers marched to and fro – transporting goods or shouting orders into the frost-bitten night, seemingly unaware of the cold. She suspected they had been up since the early hours of the Russian morning and trained to hold until well into the night – whether it was cold or not. Athali herself didn't so much as feel the chill as enjoy it. She had never particularly liked warm weather, always too hot or sticky. She knew Aaron, on the other hand, loved the heat, and felt as he shivered slightly beside her as they lay low in the snow.

She lowered the binoculars and shifted as her arm began to tingle with the onset of pins and needles, and caught Aaron glancing at her, his spiked-red hair flopping into his face. He propped his chin up on to his hands, his eyes glinting in the distant floodlights.

Athali turned away again, smiling. "Hi." she said.

"Hi." He paused. "Kind of nice, isn't it?"

"What?"

"The two of us alone... in the woods..."

Athali chuckled and nudged him playfully. "No. Not here. Not now." She gave him a sideways glance and smirked. "Though, I like the way you think."

He grinned and pulled the collar of his coat up further as he shuffled closer. Probably trying to steal her warmth, she thought. For a Fire elemental, you would have thought he would have been able to do this by himself, without the need for 'Frosty', as he called her. Even Dawn was cuddled up next to her and Spock.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Frosty." he muttered sleepily. They had been on stakeout since God-knows-when and hadn't gotten a moment of sleep yet. Between secretly hitch-hiking on an army truck to disguising themselves as janitors, this was understandable. "I was just trying to recall the last time we went away together on a proper vacation."

She put the binoculars down, still gazing at the base but intent on what Aaron had to say.

"Well, let's see..." She snapped her fingers. "Rio. Caesar Park Hotel."

He shook his head. "On a mission. Stakeout."

"Norway, then."

"Visiting your mum doesn't count."

She paused for a few moments, racking her brain. "Florence?"

"That wasn't me. The word you're looking for is 'never'."

Athali scoffed, a tad louder than she meant. Aaron sometimes had a way of making her forget where she was for a second, so that there was only the two of them. She shook her head, returning herself to the present. They had to have gone somewhere at some point.

"No, not never. You're exaggerating."

"Fine. I'm exaggerating." He flopped on to his arms, gazing out across the snowy plain, glinting in the harsh lights. The rumble of trucks still echoed

up to the pair, but the distance quietened the sound, like a blanket. She breathed deeply through her nose, the sharp scent of pine waking her up even more.

"This is the job," she sighed. "Our life now. We have to make certain sacrifices, like free time. A normal life." Her words hung heavy in the air, neither of them quite happy at how fast the mood had turned sour.

"Where do you draw the line? The sacrifices we've made, the compromises we've made..."

"Where's this coming from?" she asked, not liking the heated undertone his voice carried.