The next four words out of my mouth were things I'd never thought I'd say to Kate, but we were desperate.

"Take off your pants!" I shouted. Well, at least shouted as well as I could with the oxygen being sucked out of my lungs. Kate looked up at me with half-open, but nonetheless shocked eyes.

"What?"

"Just do it! We can fill them with the hydrium, inflate them, and it'll carry us out of here!"

She looked reluctant, but did as she was told. I tied off the legs as best I could in the dark and held them over a small hydrium vent. They filled almost instantly and I guided Kate's hands to hold on. Suddenly we were floating. I felt great to be sort of off the ground again, but I had to remember, we weren't out of this yet. The hole seemed to be getting slightly smaller and I had to kick off the walls to keep us going every now and then. I felt my leg kick against Kate's as I swung back and something felt slightly off about her grip. I felt the pants-balloon hit the hatch. I grabbed Kate's wrist with one of my hands to make sure she didn't fall before giving one final swing and kicking the hatch open. The pants-balloon kept us airborne for a little bit longer before it gave out and we both fell to the ground. I fell on my back, letting out a relieved, half-mad laugh. When I looked over at Kate, the smile instantly slid off my face.

She wasn't moving.

She had fallen onto her side, some of her dark-auburn hair falling to cover her too-pale face.

"Kate?"

No answer. I jumped to my hands and knees and crawled over to her. "Kate?"

I shook her shoulder gently, rolling her onto her back. Her chest wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing.

"Kate!"

Not really thinking it through, I acted on impulse. I tilted her head back slightly, parted her lips and pinched her nose shut before pressing my mouth against hers, blowing air back into her lungs. Coming back up, started the compressions.

"Come on, Kate, you can't go now! You still have to get the picture of the cloud cat!"

I moved back to her mouth again and repeated the process at least five times. I was starting to get nervous and was about to give up when she suddenly jerked back onto her side, coughing and gasping for air. I let out a sigh of relief, falling back on my feet.

"Matt?" she asked quietly. I just laughed.

"You'd better not die on me," I said. "Miss Simpkins would've had my head!"

She gave a small laugh at this and sat up slowly.

"Water?" she muttered hoarsely.

"Let's get you on your feet first," I said, holding out my hands to help her up and wrapping her arm around my shoulders. "We'll find that stream, then get back to the Aurora so we can stop Szpirglas."

"Mm." she just nodded. We stumbled along through the trees in silence for a while.

"Matt?" she asked again.

"Hmm?"

She hesitated before continuing. "Thank you."

I felt my face grow warm. "Yeah…anytime…"