After the initial shock and a few angry bumps against the rocks littering the river, Hyde got a grip on one of the big granite blocks and climbed out of the freezing water. Shivering like mad, he tried to find his bearings. Where were the others? Which direction had he gone, had the river been flowing with them, or against their direction? How far from the shore was he?

His teeth were clacking against each other, and added to the sounds of the river, it made it hard to listen. But after a few minutes, he spotted movement on the left bank and recognized Carter. Great, that wasn't so far away. He could totally get over to that side, and somehow, they'd get him up. Right. Just pull yourself together and move your ass. The water wasn't too deep, he could see the ground. Only around his rock was a gap with deeper water, he'd only have to get in and lean forward and he'd be able to grasp the next rock, and from there he could walk.

Easy.

Now, get to it.

Now, Hyde!

"Move it!" he tried to say but he couldn't even understand himself. Goddammit, he was so fucking cold.

He might have drifted off a little afterwards, because the next thing he noticed was Dwayne, throwing rocks at him. "Huh?"

"Get your lazy ass off that rock, you moron. Come on, or I'll leave you there and tell Brewer you wanted to nest and lay an egg, you asshole. Gimme your hand, dammit!"

Still with his chattering teeth, Hyde complied and let himself be dragged back into the water – so cold! – and over at the shallows, then towards the shore. The others had apparently made it down as well, all of them were dirty and muddy in various stages of pissed-off. But San Marco had built a pathetic little fire – how, everything was so wet? – and Carter was boiling water in the cooker and Wilson had cleaned up his dirty rain-coat somewhat and was looking at his wet pants in disgust. If Hyde hadn't been so damn cold, he'd have said something, like 'thank you', or 'what took you so long?'. But yeah, not right now.

"Get out of your clothes, you idiot. I can't believe you're this stupid, Hyde, I thought you were smart!"

"Ne-ne-ne- ne- no- not-t-t-t-t-t right n- n-ne-now," Hyde stuttered, trying to open the zipper of his jacket. His fingers wouldn't hold still, though, so Dwayne undid it for him. And since he was already on it, Dwayne also removed the jacket, shirt, undershirt and opened his pants. Hyde was vaguely aware of that, and vaguely not okay with the idea, but too out of it to do anything but stare. Dwayne sat him down on a rock and pulled a sleeping-bag around him, then untied the boots – cursing all the time – and finally dragged the pants off of Hyde.

"I guess we make camp here," Carter sighed. "Would be no use trying to climb back up now, since Mr Stupid here wouldn't make it anyway."

Someone handed Hyde a cup of hot water with sugar, and he managed to get most of it inside his mouth. Being cold really sucked.

Slowly, life was seeping back into his bones. "Sorry," he murmured after noticing the big, warm boulder behind him was in fact Dwayne, stripped down to shirt and pants and of course, boots. The both of them had the sleeping-bag over their shoulders, and someone had made a rudimentary roof with their rain-covers.

"Don't mention it, dipshit. Gonna be ok on your own now?" Hyde nodded. His skin was still chilled and he'd have murdered for a hot shower, but bit by bit, awareness was creeping back in. "Why did you do such a stupid thing anyway?"

"Uh, I wanted to get the map, man. What else did you think I was doing?"

"How should I know, I had to stare at Carter's ass the whole time, just heard you scream like a girl when you fell."

"I didn't scream like a girl!" He frogged him, like he would with Kelso. Except his fingers tingled and it felt really weird, so he supposed it wasn't actually painful. "And yeah, I went after the map. Got it, too!"

Carter jumped over. "You got the map? I thought you idiot fell in the river for nothing. Where is it?"

Hyde had to think a bit. This felt a little like coming down from a circle, the thoughts still floating around in the air over his head. Hey, he might just freeze himself half to death instead of smoking pot. Would surely cost less. "Ah, inside-pocket of the jacket."

Carter scrambled over and searched the jacket, producing the soaked, folded map like a first prize at a … whatever, something where you win prizes. "Guys, we're back on the go. Let's see how far we are off course and how fast we have to walk from now on. Wilson, come over here. You still got the compass?"

While the two were strategizing with George throwing in suggestions every now and then, Dwayne put his overshirt back on and brought Hyde another cup of water. "Shoulda brought tea, if there's no coffee. But at least it's warm and probably germ-free."

"Thanks, man. Also thanks for pulling me off that rock."

"As I said, don't mention it." He took a sip from his own cup, but soon his eyes were back on Hyde. "So, tell me about you. Got any brothers or sisters?"

Hyde grinned, then pulled the sleeping-bag closer over his shoulders. "I guess that depends."

"Dude. Conversations aren't just one-sentence exchanges. Go on, how does it 'depend' if you have siblings? I mean, I have four. Two brothers and two sisters, that's not so hard to understand."

"Well, I do have a sister. She's in Milwaukee, last I knew."

"You're not close?"

This was growing into the kind of 'talk' Hyde really didn't like very much. The personal one, the one where people wanted to know about feelings. He shrugged and wished desperately to have his glasses back. "Not really. We grew up apart, we don't have the same mother." Thank god for that. He wouldn't wish Edna on anyone else, least of all Angie, who was pretty cool.

"Aaah, ok. Got it." Hyde really doubted that but didn't say anything. His home-life was pretty shitty, but he knew for a fact that a lot of others had their own sob-stories and he'd never wanted to compete with anyone regarding childhood-trauma. It wasn't a damn competition – in the end, everyone had to deal with their shit on their own.
With a shudder her tried to hide, he grabbed the pants someone – either Carter or San Marco, since they fit him more or less – had laid out for him and put them on. His boots were still wet, though they did smell like smoke from the fire now. Couldn't be helped, they had to start walking. It was still daylight, only 1500, and there was time until sunset. They could make a few more miles today.

"C'mon, man. Let's pack up. I'm defrosted now and really need to get my bones back into gear or I'll start to rust."

"Fine with me. Hey, Carter! You got a plan, or are we to just toddle along the river until we fall back in?"

Turns out Carter did have a plan, and apart from how it gave everyone wet pants and boots now from crossing the river at a shallow, it was fine. At least they all had cold feet, Hyde thought. Feeling sucky was a lot better if everyone around you felt the same.

Dwayne fell back into step with him. "So, what's your sister doing in Milwaukee?"

"Really? Is this like a fetish with you? What's wrong with your family, let's talk about them for a while."

Dwayne chuckled. "Fine, I don't mind. My brothers Charlie and Ike are in the Marines, I told ya. Charlie's training to be a pilot in Cherry Point and Ike, the lucky bastard, is in Hawaii. Dolores, she's the youngest, is still in high-school. And Louise is going to be a teacher. She's really smart, goes to Bridgewater, Biology and Chemistry."

"That's cool. My brother's gonna be a teacher when he's back, too. I don't even know which subjects he'll chose, to be honest." Hyde scratched his head. Had they ever talked about that?

"You got a brother? Thought you said you had a sister?" There was a tone in Dwayne's voice, a hint of mistrust and suspicion, but Hyde didn't mind. His family-situation was a bit strange, after all.

"Yeah, well. That's where my life gets maybe a bit interesting? Forman's not my brother as my sister is my sister. We aren't related, but for the past years, I've lived with his family and he's my best friend, so … he is my brother." He grinned, remembering his and Forman's first meeting. "My skinny, twitchy, idiot of a little brother." Forman was actually six months older, but nobody who knew them ever believed that.

"Wait, Wisconsin, your brother's name is 'Forman'?" George butted in. "Man, poor guy, and I thought my Ma's totally screwed. Her name's Rosatella!"

"No, you idiot. That's his last name. He's Eric, but… for some reason I can't remember, we always called each other with our last name. Forman, Hyde, Kelso. Well, ok – there's Donna. And later we kinda adopted Fez, but don't ask me if that's short for his first name or his last. He's just Fez."

"Ah, and Donna's your sister?"

And… well, looking at his weird band of friends, that wasn't actually a dumb question. Far from the truth – well, and a little bit on the money. "Uh, no. Donna is my friend and Forman's girlfriend. We just hung out together since first grade." He grinned. "Donna kicked Eric's ass and I had to protect him from her. He paid me a quarter. We've been friends ever since."

"And Eric is the guy who's going to be a teacher?"

"Yupp, once he's back from Windhoek, he's going to college and if he doesn't screw it up, in a few years they're gonna set him loose on a bunch of innocent kids." He smirked. "Poor guy. They're gonna eat him alive."

"Wait, I'm confused." Wilson backed up to them, dodging a low-hanging branch. "What's he doing in North Carolina?"

"He's not in North Carolina, man? How'd you come up with that."

"Windhook, North Carolina. Or is there another Windhook?"

"Uh, yeah! Windhoek, Namibia. Which is in Africa, just in case you don't get it."

"Why didn't you say that he's in Africa in the first place?"

"Maybe because 'Africa' is a continent, not a place? It'd be like saying someone's in North America even though you know damn well he's in Phoenix," Washington butted in. "Africa is even bigger than the States, it's just more precise if you give an actual location."

"Right." Hyde nodded. "Now, did I satiate your curiosity? Can we move on now, or do you need to see my highschool-diploma and my dental-records as well?"

"Ooooh, someone is a bit touchyyy," San Marco sang, but before Hyde could frog him on the shoulder, George slipped and fell face-first into the moss. "Cazzo!"

Laughing, they helped him up and Carter decided to make a stop. It was getting dark and they'd made good progress, considering Hyde's little dip and the subsequent drying-phase. They found a fairly dry spot beneath a copse of small spruces, strung up the rain-coats again as a cover and started to build camp. Despite the make-shift tarp, they couldn't possibly stay dry at night, especially since they only had three sleeping-bags. His bath had earned Hyde the first watch, and San Marco was his lucky company.
The two of them sat at the edge of the cover and stared into the night, listening to the raindrops falling through the needles and branches and hitting the ground with quiet but audible thuds.

God, he hated rain.

Day Two of their hike started with quite a surprise.

After crawling out from under the tarp and the spruces, actual sunlight hit their heads. It was still wet all around, but there seemed to be no clouds in the near future, since the sky over the trees was blue and clear.

Walking through a forest without getting wet like … wet things, whatever, was much more fun. Still not fun, but it beat doing the same in the rain. Hyde winced when at around 10:00, they reached a nice clearing that gave them a good view over the countryside and a new reference-point on the map. They were still on course and they'd be in time tomorrow. Hyde rubbed over one of the bruises from his tumble down the hill, or maybe from the stream. He didn't know, he was black and blue in too many places to remember which came from which.

"At what point do we expect to be ambushed?" Dwayne seemed to be looking forward to this, his hands twitched towards his sidearm. "I mean, they can't have set them up all over the place, there's too much ground to cover."

Wilson put the map on a fallen tree and they assembled around it. With a pebble, Carter marked the base, as if they didn't know where it was otherwise. "This is our starting-point, and this is where we are now." He set two more pebbles. "Our route so far has taken us in this direction, so we'd be coming more or less towards the east entrance. Which is where they'll set up their traps, maybe so far as to cover the south and north entrance as well. But I doubt they'll cover the west. I thought about this, and … We're not good enough to avoid being taken out by Brewer and his men. We have barely enough knowledge still to get from point A to B, there's no way the five of us can outsmart the trap Brewer has set for us. We're already fewer than the other units are to begin with, and he won't make it easy."

Hyde scratched his head. Dammit, he wanted his hair back! "I agree. The bastard's gonna massacre us to make a point, but we already know the point here, right?" At the baffled look from George, Dwayne and Wilson, he clarified. "The point is: we're dumbasses. We've been here seven weeks, all of us more or less without a clue about what we're doing. There's no way we can outsmart people who've been doing this shit for years already. That's what he wants us to understand – or well, that's what I'd want us to understand in his place. We're rookies, man. Everyone's better at this than us right now. By throwing us out there alone, he's giving us confidence in our skills – and then he'll destroy that confidence so completely that we'll never dare to set foot out of line again, because we know nothing, and we'll always have to rely on someone smarter if we want to survive."
They stared at him as if he'd murdered a puppy in front of their eyes.
"What? That's basic psychology, man! It's what they've been doing all along with us. Give a little, take a lot. Didn't you notice that?"

Dwayne was shaking his head, but his smile was rueful. Wilson glared at Steven, apparently still with the puppy-killing here. San Marco frowned as if he was thinking about what he'd heard. Only Carter smiled. Not a happy smile, but it was clear he knew what Steven was talking about. Oh yeah, Carter knew this, all right. Maybe his father the Colonel had been teaching him this way all along, or maybe he was just a smart cookie. Either way, after a moment where nobody said anything, Dwayne slapped Steven on the back. There was quite some power behind it, but it was still a friendly slap, no damage intended. "You're a paranoid bastard, Wisconsin. But you might have a point there."

"He has." Carter nodded towards the map. "Which is why we're going to show Brewer that we know just fine what we can and what we can't do. We'll out-trick him." He smirked evilly. "We're going to go around, use the west-gate and avoid the traps. He'll expect us not using the east-gate, but he won't expect us taking the furthest. But to do that, we need to head north pretty soon, if not right now. If we make the circle big enough, we can outrun anyone set up between here," he circled around the base "and here." He drew another perimeter with the light pencil. "That's the furthest out for the ambush to be, since I don't think he'll put his men out too far from base. So, we'll take this route," he drew a wide circular line from where they were now to the west gate "and walk right in, without dying." Carters eyes were dancing – he was actually having fun with this.

Steven grinned along. He wanted to do this. Wanted to kick Brewer's ass for being such a dick, for putting them down all the time they tried to grow a little, for yanking the carpet from underneath their feet every time they'd learned to stand up. Even if there was method behind the cruelty – no, especially because there was method behind this cruelty.
He never knew if Edna had a method; he supposed not, but he wouldn't know.
Putting someone down was the one trait about Red Forman he couldn't really stand. He knew Red loved Eric – he'd seen it often enough when they'd been younger, and nowadays when Eric wasn't looking. But the last year or so, he'd kicked Forman in the face whenever he tried to stand up for himself, set him up to fail or put him down in other ways. It sometimes seemed like he wanted to stamp on the goodness that was Eric and leave only bitterness behind. Maybe he was scared of Eric being too soft, wanted to protect him. Or maybe it was because he didn't even notice what he was doing, maybe his inner alpha-male couldn't have another strong male in the family even though he kept saying that Eric needed to have more confidence.
If there was one thing Steven knew, it was that confidence didn't come from being kicked down repeatedly. Having a shell around your soul didn't make you confident – it just prevented you from connecting to the rest of the world.
He didn't think Red actually wanted to hold Eric down. As said before, he loved his son, and if Eric didn't see that – well, Forman wasn't always the sharpest observer. He sometimes needed verbal assurance, and Red was terrible with words. Maybe even more so than Steven himself. Getting out of Point Place – even if Namibia was quite far out – was the right step for Forman. It was pretty smart, actually. He'd have to be on his own, learn a skill he didn't have yet, learn to rely on others that weren't family, connect with people who might not even speak English. Whenever Steven had – secretly! – wished Forman would stay – and whenever he wished to have him to share a joint with now – he'd also wished he'd have the balls to go with him. Except that he never wanted to be a teacher, and he didn't think Namibia was the place for him. At the time, there'd also still been Jackie, and he'd wanted to stick to her and to the comfort of Mrs Forman and his little store, where he'd felt safe. It had taken a lot more than a year of slumming to give him the kick in the ass needed to leave that safety-zone.
Then again, sitting in the dirt, eating disgusting processed food, drinking river-water – nearly drowning in river-water – and being yelled at and sent along gruelling exercise-courses might in a way be even further out than Namibia.

"We'd need to walk a lot faster, though," Wilson interrupted Steven's thoughts. "We'd be cutting it close to midnight tomorrow with our pace now, and we'll need some time in reserve in case we have to rescue a drowned kitten again." He smirked when Hyde slapped his head. "My calculations: we'll have to keep walking until the sun actually sets and we can't see anymore, be up even earlier than today and walk faster, talk less. It's been fun so far, but we need to lose the fun and get with the action. So – I'd suggest we'll hop to it, guys."

Without complaint they'd all set a faster pace, skipped lunch-break for eating on the go. The hard cookies were terrible anyway, so it wasn't actually worth stopping for. Their boots had dried a bit during the night, but they were still chafing. At around two, they made a short pause for everyone to apply blister-pads to their feet. There wasn't one of them without, but when Hyde took off his socks, Carter grabbed his foot and yanked the pant-leg up. "Jesus, what happened to you leg, Hyde?"

Angrily, he pulled it back. "Nothing, man. Guess it's from the river, or the hill. 's just bruised, I can walk just fine." He hadn't looked at himself after the tumble, but from the way his limbs and ribs kinda ached, he was probably black and blue all over. "Man, don't you have bruises from all the bumping into the climbing-wall, or punching each other during hand-to-hand?"

"Sure we do, but that's the great thing about being black, dude." Dwayne grinned like a loon. "I don't look like the victim of spousal abuse like you do, Wisconsin."

"Hey, those bruises are hard-earned, man. Don't mock my hard-earned marks of honour."

Wilson snorted and held out his hand for a low-five. "True, man. But if the rest of you looks like your leg, you probably should hope they fade until they let us out of here. Someone might call the police or send you to one of those women-shelters. Cute as you are, no-one will even notice."

"What the hell? I'm not cute, you dipstick!"

San Marco looked him over. "I honestly couldn't tell. What with you being so delicate and all…" He cackled, until Hyde sprang up and grabbed him to throw him over his shoulder or just into the dirt, whatever came first. Then, George was just squeaking like a guinea-pig.

Carter stepped in. "Stop it, guys. We need to move again. Hyde, put your boots back on and let San Marco up. Brewer might not like it if we come back one man short."
Reluctantly, Hyde backed away but held out his hand to pull George up. He wasn't really angry, in fact he didn't mind being mocked. It was his own fault for falling in the river.

Definitely not delicate, though. Idiots.