One day and a rented vehicle later, the team finally crashed at a motel for the night, all piling into one cramped, peeling room. Sherry and Banneker collapsed onto one bed, while Eli carefully set Ambrose down on the other. Despite everyone’s tired arguments, Grim remained stoic in the coffee-stained armchair by the window, glancing out every now and then through the tightly closed curtains.

Once he had tucked Ambrose under the stiff sheets, Eli settled on the corner of the bed closest to Grim and yawned.

“How much distance you think we can cover tomorrow?” he asked them, keeping his voice low as Banneker began to snore on the other side of the room. Ambrose frowned at the noise, mumbled something indistinct, and turned over in his sleep. Eli set a hand on the shape of his ankle under the cover.

“Less,” Grim grunted, running a hand over their stubble. “We’re not pulling another driving marathon like that again, not unless we want to invite an accident.” They settled back into their chair, and for a moment, Eli caught something akin to lightness in their expression. “I think we could all breathe something other than motel and gas station air for a few hours.”

#

Grim drove them through a national park the next day, winding around hairpin turns into swaths of deep evergreen and fiery autumn forests.

“We’ll come in through the south entrance and exit through the west,” Grim explained as they rolled into a parking lot. “Give us a chance to see something other than each other’s faces, while still making some progress towards Santa Barbara.”

Eli nodded and tried to shove down his remaining apprehension. They could afford this, he supposed. No one was following them up the mountain, and national parks weren’t exactly agency hubs. He absently carded his fingers through Ambrose’s hair as the man curled up against his shoulder, still dozing. If Ambrose would just wake up and look at him, he was sure he could swallow the rest of his nerves.

Banneker burst out of the car as soon as they parked, flapping a park map in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. “Let’s go, let’s go!” He grabbed Sherry’s arm and dragged her out of the backseat. “I want to do this trail, because I’m pretty sure it has some rocks I can climb on—“

“Please don’t.” Sherry groaned and cracked her back. “You know I’m out of healing potions.”

“Don’t worry.” Grim plucked the map from Banneker’s hands. “I’m sure a lifetime of clicking has prepared Banneker for his first free solo.”

Banneker snatched the map back and stuck out his tongue. “Rude. Eli, you coming with me?”

Eli bit his lip as he glanced into the car. Without anyone to prop him up, Ambrose was splayed awkwardly across the backseat. “I, um…” He turned back to the team and made a show of lifting his phone to his ear. “I think I’ll call Dawn first, then catch up with you.”

Grim raised an eyebrow. “You’re getting a signal up here?”

Eli slowly lowered the phone. “No.”

Sherry tugged Grim’s thick arm towards the path. “Come on, leave him be. Banneker’s already started running, and you know he’s going to trip over something and twist his ankle.”

Grim reluctantly turned to follow her lead. “I don’t care how much he complains, Sherry, I’m not carrying him back…”

Their conversation faded off into the trees as they rounded a bend, and Eli drummed his fingers on the roof of the car. Sherry had promised that Ambrose would wake up today. He couldn’t wait in the parking lot forever, of course, but…he could wait a few minutes.

He wandered over to a scattering of picnic tables overlooking a meadow, where the yellow and orange undergrowth rippled like fire below the towering trees. As a breeze whipped up the foliage and sent leaves rustling across his feet, he settled onto a bench and took a deep breath. If he focused hard enough on the scent of pine in the air, he could pretend he was back at the cabin. On the porch swing, maybe, swaying back and forth. Ambrose next to him, Sherry and Grim making hot cocoa, Banneker and Dawn on the couch, yelling nonsense…

He was sinking into a comfortable state of drowsiness when footsteps crashed through the leaves behind him, and he jolted upright.

“What—?”

“There you are!”

Before him was the most unhinged Ambrose he had ever seen. Tangled hair, wide stance, roadside t-shirt hanging loose off his shoulders. One hand gripped a cold cup of coffee-Grim’s, at a guess—while the other clutched at Banneker’s half-empty bag of peanut M&Ms. As his blue eyes fixed on Eli, his expression froze in a crazed mix of happiness, fear, and remorse.

“Everything hurts. I’m terribly hungry,” he croaked, “and I have some things to say.”

Eli scrambled to his feet and took a step forward, already grinning—but the chaotic look in Ambrose’s eyes forced him to maintain his distance, holding his hands up as if he were approaching a wild animal. “Not that I don’t love seeing you awake, Ames, but maybe you should go rest first—”

“I’ve been resting for,” Ambrose gestured to the car, “I don’t know, weeks? Where...,” he looked around at the trees, “where are we?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I didn’t look at the sign.”

“Great.” Ambrose chugged the coffee and shuddered. “Well, I have things to say. Wait—did I already say that?”

Eli slowly sat back down at the picnic table, afraid his widening grin might break his face. “You did.”

“Good.” Ambrose nodded. “Good start. Um…”

He tossed the food on a table and tried to adopt his usual posture—stiff, upright, professional—but between the store tag hanging from his sleeve and the golden sunlight twisting through his messy hair, he cut a rather ridiculous silhouette against the meadow.

Eli set his chin on his palm and tilted his head. He had never seen anyone so handsome.

Ambrose finally took a breath and scuffed the soil with his shoe. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the plan,” he said. “Grim thought—“

“I know,” Eli said. “And they were right. I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

Ambrose looked up. “Aren’t you angry at me?”

“Oh, furious.” Eli set his elbows on the table. He couldn’t even try to look the part, not when Ambrose was alive and well in front of him. “But I didn’t re-start your heart just to yell at you, Ames.”

Ambrose rubbed his sternum, eyes staring into the middle distance. All the wild fervor with which he had entered his speech had rapidly dissolved. “I…I don’t know how to begin to thank you for that.”

Eli had some suggestions, but he bit them down. “Is that all you were going to say?”

Ambrose shook his head and re-focused on Eli. “Hm?”

“When I re-started your heart, you said,” Eli frowned, “well, you...thought that you had to wake up and tell me something.”

Ambrose set his hands on his hips. “That’s got to be some sort of HIPAA violation—“

“I didn’t mean to hear it!”

Ambrose began to pace in tight circles, trailing floating leaves in his wake. “It’s…”

Eli leaned forward. He had a sense- well, more of a hope- of what this might be. “Yes?”

“But to burden you with it after you’ve done so much for me…,” Ambrose started, then did another circle. “You wouldn’t have any time to process, it’d be entirely selfish.” Another circle, this one more frantic. “We haven’t even gone on a first date, I couldn’t possibly presume—“

Eli stood. If Ambrose did one more circle without saying it, he was going to throw him into the meadow. “Would it help if I said I loved you?”

Ambrose froze, then whipped around. “What?”

Eli spread his arms. He thought he would have been nervous saying it, his voice jittery, the phrases fumbled—but the words felt easy and simple, and he wondered why he hadn’t said them earlier. “What if I told you that I’ve loved you for months?”

Ambrose stood there, pink quickly blooming in his cheeks as he gaped at Eli.

Then he kicked the leaves at his feet.

“Bastard!” he shouted. “First you save my life, then you look at me with—with those eyes, and you say those things, and—,” he turned back to Eli, a teary smile spreading across his face. “You bastard, I was going to say it first!”

Eli closed the distance and kissed him, letting himself grow dizzy within the swirls of coffee and candy and healing potion. He couldn’t get enough of how Ambrose smiled through the kiss the entire time, nor how his heartbeat felt through the rough t-shirt.

“I love you,” Ambrose broke away with a gasp, “I’ve loved you for months, I just didn’t want to scare you away.”

Eli laughed and wrapped his arms around Ambrose’s waist. “What? Were you afraid I hadn’t...” But his lips twisted before he could finish the joke, and Ambrose immediately tried to cover Eli’s mouth.

“Whatever it is, don’t say it.”

“Afraid I hadn’t—”

“Don’t do it!”

Eli ripped his mouth away from Ambrose’s hand with a wicked grin. “Afraid I hadn’t icefallen for you?”

“Alright, that’s it!” Ambrose tried to squirm away from Eli’s iron grip. “You’ve ruined it, my dating profile specifically said no puns!”

Eli dove for Ambrose’s neck and smothered him with kisses until he melted into his shoulder, giggling uncontrollably. Eli pressed one more kiss to his ear and closed his eyes.

“Come to Santa Barbara with me?” he whispered. Ambrose tightened his grip on him.

“I’d love to.”