Angela's eyes gradually fluttered open to a room covered in shadows. Her head slowly turned as she looked at the clock sitting on a dresser next to her bed. The first number on the clock was a one followed by a colon and the number twenty-three. There were several hours before her alarm was set to go off and it was far too early to get up to boot. Angela's head turned the other way to see if Fareeha might have woken her but the Egyptian woman was sound asleep.
Fareeha had all the blankets and sheets pulled tight around her.
Angela scowled at the sight and she grabbed a hold of the blanket's nearest corner and began wiggling it, as lightly as she could to avoid waking Fareeha, out from beneath one bronze arm. The blanket had just started to slip free when Fareeha incoherently mumbled something and she rolled onto her side, trapping the blanket beneath her.
She started to grab the blanket again but this time Fareeha lazily swatted at Angela's hand. "Stop, too cold." Angela froze with her hand outstretched as she stared at her partner. Was Fareeha actually awake? A minute slowly passed and Fareeha didn't move or say anything further.
"Parasomnia." Angela whispered under her breath to herself. Fareeha was still asleep, but apparently aware of Angela's actions on some level. She grumbled as she swung her legs off the end of the bed and stood up before heading out into the hallway. Moments later and she was unfolding another blanket and a thin sheet to go beneath it. Angela laid down on the bed before settling them over her and closing her eyes.
The next time her eyes opened shrill buzzes were coming from the alarm clock. Angela groaned and slapped the button on top to make it stop. She rolled over to look at Fareeha but the other woman was still asleep despite the alarm. Angela put a hand on Fareeha's shoulder and shook it. "Rise and shine."
Fareeha sleepily muttered in response and she disappeared beneath the blanket as she pulled it up and over her head. Angela bemusedly shook her head and got off the bed. Not only was Fareeha a blanket stealer, she also slept like a log apparently. She would wake up sooner or later Angela mused. Having breakfast ready for when that happened would be a good way to start her lover's day she decided.
When Fareeha finally came downstairs half an hour later a pan full of eggs was waiting on the next to a stack of toast along with butter and jam. Angela looked up from her plate, forkful of eggs in her mouth, and waved hello with her free hand. Fareeha sat down in the opposite chair and began shoveling eggs onto her own plate. "Good morning Angela, sleep well?"
"You hogged the blanket."
"What?"
"Last night." Angela said while setting her fork down on her plate. "You pulled the blanket off me. I woke up in the middle of the night and had to go get my own. Is that something you have a tendency to do?"
"I don't know." Fareeha admitted as she reached for the toast. "I've always had my own bed ever since I was a little girl. This is the first time I've actually shared a bed with anyone else. I guess I might. I didn't steal your other blanket did I?"
"No... I suppose not. I guess that's what we'll have to do if we sleep in the same bed again." Angela picked her fork back up but hesitated before going for more of her eggs. "Are you doing anything today? I was thinking we could spend the day together doing something." Angela said hopefully.
"No, not really. What did you have in mind, Angela?"
"Geocaching."
Fareeha frowned for a moment before shaking her head. "Never heard of it. What's geocaching?"
"It's like treasure hunting." Angela excitedly leaned forward as she began to explain. "People go out and hide caches for others to find. A cache could be anything. Sometimes they're big like an old ammo box or a tackle box. Sometimes they're small like a plastic container or a pill bottle."
"Hide them where?"
Angela pulled out her phone and started pushing buttons on it. "A rule of thumb is that you stay off private property unless you have permission from the owner. There's some places that are strictly off limits like airports for example. Common spots are along hiking trails or somewhere in a forest. If you're in a city then it's trickier but you can usually find caches in parks."
"Huh. How many... caches are there around here? I don't think you could spend an entire day searching for them." Fareeha commented before taking another bite.
The doctor turned her phone around and reached across the table so it was easier to see. Fareeha's jaw fell a few centimeters as she looked at the phone. Dozens, no hundreds of green dots decorated the screen.. "There's that many around here?" She blurted out in disbelief.
"Yep, and these are all ones I haven't found yet. Feel like looking for some with me?" Angela asked as she set her phone down on the table next to her plate.
"Sure I guess. Just give me time to finish eating then take a shower." Fareeha stabbed her fork into the eggs once again. "Hopefully I won't cramp up like the last time we went hiking."
"Well if you do then I can just rub them away like I did last time." Angela said with a teasing smile on her lips. Fareeha reddened and hurriedly shoved her fork into her mouth to spare herself having to respond. Angela chuckled once as she got back to eating her own breakfast.
After they had finished Angela was up and bustling about at her usual hectic pace while Fareeha started cleaning their dishes. By the time Fareeha was done Angela had assembled a small pile of bags and boxes near the door to the garage. Fareeha flicked water into the sink before grabbing towel and gave the pile a questioning look as she dried her hands off. "What's all of this?"
"Stuff we'll need for today." Angela said as she lifted the backpack up to double-check its contents. "Backup battery for my phone and a GPS unit just in case. Some snacks for when we're out and about. Spare clothes if we get wet, canteens, tick repellent." She pointed at a cooler still on the ground. "Would you rather I make some food to take with us or go out to eat after we're done looking for caches?"
Fareeha rubbed the back of her neck as she eyed the cooler. "Well if we're going to be running around in a forest or something then I guess we should bring some food with us to eat. I'll probably be all sweaty and gross by the time we're done. Let me go shower then I'll come help you make some stuff or did you already get some things ready?"
"I don't have anything yet but I was thinking about sandwiches." Angela said. "We can just throw the stuff we want into the cooler and make them when we get hungry. Is that all right with you, Fareeha?"
"Sure, that sounds fine. I'm going to go shower if you don't need any help then." Fareeha set the towel down before heading towards the stairs. When she got out of the shower Fareeha found the outfit Angela had bought for her last week neatly stacked outside of the bedroom door. Sweater, jacket, gloves, wool socks, pants. Everything but the boots. No doubt those were waiting down by the garage door.
As Fareeha entered the kitchen Angela stood up from the table and headed over to her pile of stuff and grabbed the cooler. "All right, let's load it up and get going!"
Fareeha grabbed the backpack with one hand and a clear plastic container in the other. The latter item had a sticker reading 'Geocaching Container' slapped onto its side. "Are you placing a container of your own, Angela?"
"Sure am. First time I've done this so I'm a little nervous. I have to find a good hiding spot, figure out what to name it, write a description and all that." Angela headed into the garage and opened her car door and set the cooler on the backseat. She took the backpack and container from Fareeha before putting them next to the cooler. "Okay let's go."
Once they were both in the car Angela toggled her garage door opener and in short order they were heading away from her house. "So where are we going?" Fareeha asked as she lowered the back of her chair.
"There's a hiking trail about forty kilometers from here. There's several caches already on it but its got a few paths without a cache on them. We'll have to check them out and see if they're any good." Angela leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes as the car zoomed along towards the destination she had entered.
Twenty minutes later and the car pulled off of the motorway before ending up in a decent sized parking lot already occupied by several other cars. Angela frowned a bit as she looked around. "More people here than I was expecting. Guess we have to keep an eye out for Muggles."
"Muggles? What does Harry Potter have to do with this?" Fareeha asked with a puzzled looking expression.
"Oh. Muggles is a term for people who don't do geocaching. One of the things about geocaching is that it can look pretty suspicious. People leaving mysterious objects in random places for no apparent reason."
"Like someone planting a bomb?"
"Exactly. There's a really old story about a cache left on the edge of an airport in Los Angeles. I couldn't find out if anyone was ever arrested but at least one geocacher was detained by the police. Other times the bomb squad gets called in and they blow the cache up So one of the really big rules is that you have to keep an eye out for muggles who don't know what you're doing and could get the wrong idea."
Angela turned and grabbed the backpack and container before getting out of the car. Fareeha hesitated before joining her. "So we could get in trouble for this? Is leaving a cache here okay?"
"It's fine. The people who maintain this trail actually have a couple of their own caches on it. They don't mind people leaving their own as long as they know about it. I sent them an email while you were in the shower to tell them I was going to put a cache out here." Angela tightened one of the straps on her backpack before she headed for the nearest trail.
The worn dirt path was lined on both sides by spindly white beech trees with branches turning green as the first leaves of spring were beginning to appear. The clouds that had covered the sky for the last few days had vanished and patches of blue were visible through the tree canopy. The doctor was a few steps ahead of Fareeha, her attention split between the phone in her hand and keeping an eye on the trail for any loose rocks or roots that could pose a hazard. After several minutes she stopped and turned to her right before pointing straight ahead.. "So this cache is somewhere around here. The hint doesn't make any sense to me. It says look in the spot where Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin hid. Do you have any idea what that means?"
Fareeha put a finger over her lips as she tried to keep herself from laughing as she looked around. The ground was flat on the trail's left side but it sloped downwards on its right towards a stream below where they were standing. "I do actually. It's a reference to a movie called Fellowship of the Ring."
"Okay then... give me a couple of minutes to look around before telling me." Angela said as she tucked her phone into her pocket. She moved to the edge of the trail and painstakingly descended the slope before sweeping her gaze back and forth in search of the cache. After several long minutes she muttered to herself and waved Fareeha down. "Okay give me a clue if you can."
"So in Fellowship of the Ring those characters are traveling through a forest and Frodo realizes a monster is coming so he tells them to hide. They get off the road and take shelter beneath a tree." Fareeha explained.
"Beneath a tree..." Angela repeated as she gave the area another look. "But they're hiding so they needed somewhere to stay out of sight... there!" She pointed at a depression beneath where some tree roots were poking out of the hillside. It was hard to spot but Fareeha could see an ammo canister that had been painted to mimic its surroundings tucked away beneath the roots so that people on the trail wouldn't be able to see it. Angela excitedly pulled it out and opened it up. "Let's see what we got."
She pulled out a plastic bag containing a few round objects as well as a small notepad and pencil. Angela opened the bag and pulled the pencil, notepad, and one of the coins out. Angela scrawled something on the notepad while Fareeha picked the baggy up and looked at its contents. "What are these?" Fareeha asked.
"It's a trackable." Angela replied as she turned her coin over. "People put them into a cache then later someone takes it out and carries it to another cache. The idea is to see where, and how far, it goes." She tapped on her phone briefly before holding her coin up higher. "This one started in Scotland, made its way into France before someone dropped it off here. Let's look at the others."
The second coin appeared relatively new and hadn't yet made it very far from where it had been dropped off. Fareeha's eyes widened when Angela giggled and held her phone up for Fareeha to see. A blue line connecting multiple dots came to a halt at their present location and it began in...
"Australia!?" Fareeha blurted out.
"Yep. All the way from Sydney. Person who placed it says they're hoping that it makes a full transit of the planet." Angela tucked the coin into her pocket and stood up. "I'm not going that far but I can take it back to Geneva." The doctor put the bag back into the container and placed it back where she had found it. "Ready for the next one?"
"After you, Angela."
That was one down, but Fareeha had a hunch there would be plenty more before the day was done.