Chapter 10

Watching her lying there while the two of us could seem to do nothing to help I sat down beside her and gently pulled her upon my lap. Wrapping my wings around her I watched as Mark arose to check on the opening in the cave. I could see that he was about at his wits end and I silently prayed that she would come too soon. I covered my mouth with the tops of my wings and blew warm air on her exposed face. It wasn't long till I saw her eyelids move just a little and a soft moan escape her body.

It was then that I leaned in and whispered into her ear softly "Hey... welcome back."

I couldn't help but to smile as I saw her awake from her deep sleep. It made me realize how much joy she brings by just being alive. It was so intense that I almost didn't want her to leave the safety of my arms.

Just then Mark was by our side and she looked to both of us. "What… what happened?" she asked softly.

Marks eyes seemed to be filled with joy and relief as he responded to her. "Princess! It's great to see you awake."

She smiled but she replied weakly back to him "Mark..."

Even though I was grateful that she was alive, I couldn't help but to think of the way that I had felt less then a couple of hours ago. The thought of G-Force without her made my emotions run rampant again. So when I spoke again it was a little more harshly then I had intended. "You really frightened us, Prin."

Mark went on to explain our endeavor into this cave. "When we pulled you out of the snow you… you were unconscious. We weren't sure you were going to come out of it."

Still sounding rather weak she replied, "I'm fine… Just a little achy. It feels like I've spent an entire day fighting Spectran soldiers."

Hearing her say that she was fine and catching just a whiff of Jasmine I pulled my wings even tighter around her body. The feeling of having her on my lap was one that I felt I could endure the rest of my life. Besides I was also starting to respond to her body in ways that I hadn't paid attention to until now, and I knew that if she got up I would be found out. Still I felt the need to make Mark take notice of my position. Mischievously I reply. "I'm pretty achy myself."

Catching my double meaning Mark just shot me an evil look. I couldn't help but to smile at his discomfort. If only he knew the truth. I knew if I continued on right away Princess would see right through what was happening and then I would lose my advantage. So I quickly tried to bring the conversation back to the topic at hand."Well, we got thrown around by that avalanche pretty badly."

"Can you stand, Princess?" Mark asked her. "We need to… figure out if you've got any broken bones."

"Okay…" She agreed, shakily she pulled herself up.

If I didn't agree with Mark on his wanting to find out about Princess condition I would say that he was using it as his way to pull the upper hand. So I had helped her all I could without revealing my predicament and was happy to see her able to stand.

Shivering in the cold air she replied. "Wow! It sure is cold in here! Wings are definitely warmer!"

Seeing an opportunity to regain my advantage and to take another attack at Mark for making me lose that advantage I replied rather slyly. " Exactly what I was saying."

I could tell that Mark had heard me but he was doing his best to ignore it. Keeping his attention on Princess he suggested, "Maybe you should transmute, Princess."

"Oh… yeah… Trans… mute!" In a brief flash of light she was in her own birdstyle. "That's a little better."

She must have noticed the blocked entrance during the transmutation because right after she immediately commented. "Why is the entrance all blocked off?"

"The storm." Mark replied, "It's pretty bad, and this way most of it stays out of here."

I quickly added "Unfortunately, we couldn't find anything to start a fire with. Everything is soaked."

She continued to question us about our situation. "And how far are we from the lodge?"

"Uncertain." Mark said. "The avalanche carried us pretty far away."

"Anyhow, we didn't have much time to look, with the storm getting worse." I explained. "We had to find shelter, fast. We can try to make it back to the lodge in the morning."

"How long was I out?" she asked.

"I'm not sure… a few hours." Mark answered. "It's almost night, now."

She seemed to take a few extra moments to digest the fact that she had been out for so long, finally she seemed to relax a little and continue on with her comments. "Thanks for taking such good care of me." she said as she smiled at Mark.

For a moment I felt a stabbing pain of jealousy as I heard her shower Mark with all the praise. I'm not saying that he didn't help, or couldn't have done the job without me, but I distinctly remember that it was I who had performed the CPR and did all the initial checks. Just as I had considered saying something to the contrary Mark spoke up. "Well, actually… it was Jason who did most of that."

Smiling at me Princess replied "Thanks to you, too, Jason."

I grinned back at her as I remembered the past two days events. "I'd say… 'anytime'… but I don't want you ever doing that again, Prin. Two injuries in two days are enough for me!" I had forgotten that neither one of us had really told Mark much about or snowmobiling so it came as a surprise when he responded sounding rather annoyed and glaring at me.

"Two injuries?" Mark asked in surprise. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I fell off of my snowmobile yesterday, when Jason and I were fooling around." Princess explained. "It was nothing. My cerebonics fixed it up in no time."

"I see." said Mark. I could tell by the way his eyes looked, he wasn't happy to hear of a second injury. Especially one that had yet to be reported. I, for one, wasn't going to allow him to berate me for something that wasn't any of his concern.

Princess must have felt his disdain towards me, and thought that it was directed at her and responded accordingly. "Oh come on, Mark!" she cried, crossing her arms. "I'm not that much of a klutz! Like it's my fault that the avalanche overtook us!"

"No, Princess." Mark replied in a cold voice as his inflamed eyes still locked on mine. "It's not your fault."

"Then lay off!" she said defensively, "Not everything goes the way you plan it, you know."

I laughed inwardly as Princess berated Mark for his comments and even tried to get my own in. "That's what I always say." It wasn't more then two seconds after I said it that she turned on me.

"And you stop doing that, Jason." she said, as she whirled around to face me.

I tried to straighten up my actions but I somehow managed to screw that up and was caught red handed in my slam. "What?" I asked in surprise.

"I'm not stupid." She now began to berate me. "I know how you like to push Mark's buttons, and it's not fair, especially when he's stressed out enough as it is."

Not wanting the wrath of any woman let alone one that is capable of causing extreme damage I held my hands up in surrender "Okay… okay.You have a point and it's way too cold to argue."

She shivered rather loudly and replied, "True."

Then out of the blue Mark came up with a solution. "Maybe we should all get closer… share body heat."

Princess and I both dropped our jaw as we replied in unison "Huh?"

The idea of Mark wanting to allow anyone into his personal space seemed to be so unlike him. Then it dawned on me, his reason for the sharing of body heat was actually a chance for him to get closer to Princess. I was about to comment on that fact when he continued on with his explanation.

"It's in the Survival Handbook." Mark shrugged. "Section 31."

His nonchalant manner in which he spoke the facts was actually quite impressive. I then deceided to go with the flow of this, expecially since I would be able to snuggle up to her too. I glanced slyly at Mark to let him know that I had figured him out but I responded like I needed more facts "Uh huh…"

There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Princess would be in the middle, so the three of us took our place along the wall and began our long wait until morning.

Princess again broke the deafening silence with her sweet voice. "So… now what?" she asked. "Do we just wait for morning?"

"Pretty much." Mark answered. "There's not much else we can do here. I think we're reasonably safe from the storm, but there's not much else we can do until the weather lets up, and it gets light again."

"Okay." she replied and then fell silent again as if trying to find something more to talk about. A little while longer she spoke up again. "I'm sorry if I scared you guys." She said. "I promise not to black out again."

"That's okay, Princess." Mark said. "I was just glad that you were with us. I hate to think of what would have happened if you had been alone."

I was glad that the days events were almost over and that all three of us were safe and dry. So without going into any long conversation I added, "I'm just glad you're okay."

"I'm glad you guys were with me too." she said, as she gave my arm a squeeze.

Then she said something that surprised me a little. "I'm scared…"

Not totally sure where that comment came from I responded a little to quick. "Don't be scared, Prin. There's nothing out there but the storm."

She answered back in a soft and tender tone. "No, silly… not of the storm. I'm scared of dying… alone."

The cave took on a loud silence as we seemed to be absorbed into our own thoughts of death and dying. The only external sound was that of the strong winds howling outside. It brought it's own eeriness to the topic at hand. I was thankful when I heard Princess break the silence.

"I'm not afraid of dying. I know it could happen anytime in our fight against Spectra. But… I don't want to be alone. If we had to die… I would want it to be together."

I heard her comment and even listened intently as Mark responded back to her. "I don't want to die alone, either." Mark admitted. "But my biggest fear is that I might let one of you die… "

I knew that we had talked about things of this caliber before but it never seemed to effect me as much. Maybe it was the fact that we almost lost Princess, or could it be that I had never spent this much down time with any of my teammates? Whatever it was I had started to see my comrades in a new light. One that brought my own feelings to the surface. Still I listened to the conversation between Mark and Princess and waited for my turn.

"You would never let one of us die, Mark." Princess protested. "We all knew what we signed up for when we joined G-Force. We've chosen this path."

How true she was on that. I may not have known at first what Anderson had wanted with me when I was a child, but when I found out that I could essentially avenge my parents' useless murder I was totally for it. Still I think it was their death that makes me feel like dying isn't the problem, it's surviving this life alone that is. With this thought in my mind I commented quietly on the conversation btween the other two. "Dying doesn't scare me at all. Even dying alone…" I continued my inner thought process. "That's nothing. But living alone… that's another thing altogether."

I felt Princess hand on my shoulder as she responded with a bit of concern. "What do you mean, Jason?"

"I mean… sometimes I hate this life. The way it separates us from everyone else. It's so… solitary." I felt some of my external barriers crash down as the pain of the path I have chosen rears it's ugly head.

Princess' words were full of compassion and understanding as she tried to reassure me, "You're not alone, Jason. I'm here with you. I'm here to live life with you. For as long as we have." Still I could not hide the tears that had formed in my eyes.

In a split second she reached out and gave me a warm embrace. It felt as reassuring as the ones that my mother had once given me in childhood. I could barely utter my words. "Thanks, Prin."

She seemed to hear the pain in my voice and reinforced her statement. "I meant it, Jase."

"And the same goes for you." she said as she turned towards Mark. "You're not letting me do anything. Whatever I do, it's because I want to follow you. Got it?"

"Yes, Princess." Mark grinned.

I wanted to return the gesture that Princess had just given me, and to let them both know that they are my family now. "I'm here for you guys too. I'll protect you, no matter what."

"I thought that was my job." Mark protested, in an amused tone.

"And here I thought you two needed me to protect you!" Princess laughed.

Even though the air outside was bitterly cold, there was so much warmth and love in that cave as the three of us laughed together. When we did calm down and sit once again in silence it wasn't long before sleep started to overtake me. It appeared that Princess felt the same way.

Mark sttod up one last time and back in his commanding voice he said. "I'm just going to take one more look outside. To make sure everything's okay."

When he left the group I asked Princess "I could use some shut-eye. How about you?"

"Yeah… I'm pretty tired." she admitted. "But the idea of sleeping on these rocks doesn't thrill me."

Using my own boyscout training to my advantage I responded "I have an idea." Gently I removed her wings and laid them down on the ground. Then just as she was starting to shiver from the cold, I pulled her down next to me and wrapped my wings around her.

As soon as I finished snuggling up with her Mark turned and again spoke in his authoritative tone. "Watch yourself, Condor!"

I mocked his tone with my reply "I'd rather watch Prin."

Mark seemed to ignore my comment and came back with another decisive remark. "As Commander, I should be sharing my wings with Princess."

"Don't worry about it, Mark." I replied. "I've got her covered, besides my wings are longer than yours anyway."

I saw him wince in the dim light and I knew that he got my understated meaning. One that I hoped Princess wouldn't catch. She seemed not to notice the reason for his distress because she smiled when she commented. "That's okay, Mark. I'm happy to share both of your wings."

Once we finally got settled down for the night I heard Princess tell Mark to slide in closer. I for one wasn't going to move away from her backside. Burying my face into the feel of her hair and neck, I drifted off fast to sleep.