Suffered from a lot of writers block with this chapter. Hopefully I'll get my act together for the next one... :p

Dorothy Ann's stomach was doing cartwheels; she had no real idea what was happening. The cold hands around her neck, his lips on his, his warm body pressed up to hers - it was all telling her she was making out with Carlos. Making out with Carlos?! But that couldn't possibly be right - could it? Okay, so maybe it was a dream, but that didn't mean she couldn't enjoy every second of it.

Her heart was pounding violently as her tongue explored his teeth, the roof of his mouth, his tongue.. He was so warm and responsive.. Her stomach contracted when she felt one of his hands slide up her back towards her head; the trail left behind where he had touched him burned. It had begun to rain, she hardly noticed the raindrops until she felt Carlos' damp hair beneath her fingertips.

Then, at length, they finally broke apart, both in desperate need of air. Carlos bent his head so his forehead was touching hers and she felt his warm breath brushing against her lips. She could smell his minty toothpaste. Neither of them spoke for quite a while; they simply stayed close together, arms around each other. The fact that she was lost in the thick wilderness, lost with him, freezing cold, didn't seem to be bothering her anymore. It felt like she had been lifted out of that world and been placed in some sort of heaven and she never wanted to leave.

It wasn't possible, she knew, but could the universe have given her at least a few more moments of utter bliss?! Before she could catch her breath again and have a chance to kiss him again, she heard something that made her stomach clench and her breath come in shorter gasps.

Her hands instinctively clutched the front of his shirt and bumped her forehead against his.

"Ow, DA what - "

"Did you hear that?" she whispered, anxiously, pressing one ear into his chest; she could feel his heart beating beneath her cheek. A growl, a low growl. From the direction of the cave. She was ruining it; why was she ruining the moment?! So what if their lives might possibly in danger, stop it DA!

"I didn't hear anything..." Carlos said slowly. There was a hassled undertone in his voice; he was obviously feeling as confused as she was. Like he was wondering why she'd stop him and rip him out of the bliss, even if their lives was in danger. It made her calm down slightly and almost smirk. That is, until she heard the noise again.

"There!" she hissed. "Did you hear it!"

"I see it!"

"Carlos, for the love of God, shush!" DA clamped a hand frantically to his mouth and pushed him back into the safety of the trees. "What is it!? Is it a bear?!"

"I think it was a cat..." Carlos said slowly, and suddenly Dorothy Ann felt his arms tighten around her. His toothbrush was digging into the small of her back.

Then suddenly she realized. "A mountain lion!?!" she squeaked. "That's even worse than a bear!"

"Shut up!" Now it was Carlos' turn to clamp a rain soaked hand to her mouth. "It'll hear you!"

"Oh, as if it didn't hear you already!" DA snapped. "What do we do?! Is it in the cave? We need our stuff!"

"We need our lives! Let's just go- "

"Carlos, no! I left my brand new book in there!"

Carlos groaned and DA felt his body vibrate against hers. "What'd you bring a new book on a camping trip?!"

"One of them's a survival guide on what to do if you run into a cougar!" Dorothy Ann said, pulling herself out of his grip. "I'm not leaving without it!"

Carlos grabbed onto her arm before she could get very far. "That book's not going to help us now!"

"And you're not helping now!" Dorothy Ann fumed. "I'm not leaving all my clothes behind either. You expect me to spend the rest of the week in these sodden pants?!"

"Urg! Fine! Let's just - " he poked his head out from the trees to look back at the cave. Still holding onto his shirt tightly, Dorothy Ann followed, keeping close.

The fire was still burning in the cave, it emitted enough light for her to see the dim outline of the whole mouth, jagged rock teeth and all. She saw no shadow of a cougar however.

Neither did Carlos apparently. "Where do you think it went?" he asked, quietly.

"I don't know," and the two of them subconsciously shifted closer to one another. Her cheek hit his warm shoulder and his scent mingled with the pine all around. Dorothy Ann's eyes suddenly widened fearfully. "You - you don't think it's out here do you? Out of the cave?"

"I have no idea," Carlos turned to look at her and his shoulder left her cheek. "Let's just go then."

Dorothy Ann jumped in front of him and pushed back the branches of the pine tree. Her eyes were already well adjusted to the dark, but even so it was difficult to make out certain things. A solitary cat for one. But no dark shape she saw came close to resembling a savage wildcat so she took a deep breath and started walking towards the cave, Carlos right next to her.

He grabbed a hold of her wrist.

"This is insane DA..."

DA continued walking forward; she reached the cave entrance with Carlos a few seconds later. "No cougar," she whispered. "Maybe you just imagined seeing it."

"I didn't," Carlos said, and in the dim light the fire gave off, DA could see him grab his own pack from the ground. She did the same with hers.

"Okay, I knew we'd be fine. Now let's go, quickly!" DA said, already starting to move back out the cave. "Then we can - " she suddenly gasped and felt Carlos' hands grab her shoulders and pull her back.

"It's outside the cave! Right outside!"

"Shut up, it'll hear you!"

Dorothy Ann was having trouble breathing, and this time not because of the bitter cold burning her throat whenever she inhaled. There was a dark, slender outline of what could only have been a large cat with it's pointed ears and long tail. She racked her brain, trying to remember what she had read in her book on cougar attacks. They went for the neck, right in between the vertebrae and the spinal chord.

Dorothy Ann reached up nervously with one hand and rubbed her neck. How to avoid an attack... Don't look it in the eyes - she turned to Carlos and saw his eyes were locked on it.

"Don't look at it!" Dorothy Ann cried frantically and pushed him back towards the trees, as far away as possible from the cougar.

"Don't look at it?! Then how are we supposed to know when it's going to lunge at one of us?!"

"You can't look it directly in the eye or it'll think you're attacking it!"

Carlos snorted. "Yeah, right. It'll see us and think we'd look pretty good on his plate with an apple stuck in our mouths - "

"Carlos," DA hissed angrily. "Just move backwards and don't - "

Dorothy Ann's heart almost stopped. It had seen them; it was moving closer. Carlos noticed too. She felt his rain soaked hand grasp hers once more and he pulled her back into the trees, out of the open clearing.

"What else did your book say?!" he asked as they backed up, not daring to take their eyes off the cougar now.

"Don't run, and - um, make yourself big.."

"Make yourself big?!"

"I dunno, it's supposed to scare them."

"How are you do that?!"

"Carlos!" Dorothy Ann suddenly shrieked and started backing up faster. The cougar had picked up it's pace; if it started running, they were doomed.

"Okay, DA," Carlos said briskly, in a tone that sounded as though he was doing some quick thinking. Well at least one of them was. "I know you hate prickle bushes, but I think it's the only way - "

Dorothy Ann's eyes widened in the darkness as she finally tore her eyes away from the cougar and looked behind her where a horrendously prickly looking blackberry bush was growing. DA swallowed and nodded determindly.

Too panicked to really notice or care much about the thorns cutting through her skin and catching some of her hair, DA let herself be pulled along by Carlos, just praying the cougar wasn't stupid enough to follow them. She never did find out.

The prickle bushes weren't positioned next to another clearing, or even solid ground. The second the last thorn brushed painfully past her, Dorothy Ann felt the earth disappear beneath her feet sharply and she fell.

The air disappeared to and DA found herself inhaling ice cold water instead. She coughed and spluttered as her head broke through the surface of the water.

"C-c-Carlos?!" she shouted, trying not to panic as all the feeling disappeared from her limbs. It was so cold.

"D - DA! O - over here!"

Dorothy Ann forced herself to move over to the sound of his voice.

"Come on," Carlos said; and she felt a hand close on her shoulder. She blindly paddled with him, praying that the edge of the water was near. A few metres away, the lake turned smoothly into sand without any sharp cliffs and DA and Carlos managed to make it over there and struggle, shivering and wet, onto the beach. Their water logged clothes trying to drag them back down.

Shivering and panting madly, Dorothy Ann slid her dripping wet pack onto the ground.

"Well," Carlos said, collapsing onto the ground next to her, "At least it's better than being eaten by a cougar..."

DA didn't reply. She just pulled her arms around herself trying to get warm, though knew it'd be impossible without a fire.

"And DA?" Carlos suddenly spoke.

"Yeah?"

"Don't take this as a sign or anything."

"Sign?"

"That we shouldn't have - "

"Carlos," Dorothy Ann said, interrupting him, a thought suddenly occuring.

"What?"

"D - do you think this is the lake?"

She saw his eyes widen in excitement and look around the waters edge wildly.

"Of course! The lake by the cabin!" he stood up, looking around. "We're close DA!" He held up a hand for her. "Hurry before we freeze."

Dorothy Ann took it, suddenly feeling more energetic.

"This is a good sign then," Carlos said, and DA saw him smile and they began walking, hand in hand.

xxx

Ralphie clenched his hands together into a tight ball. Fifteen minutes had already passed since Keesha and Tim's return with more water and he could not have been feeling more annoyed and frustrated.

First of all, it had started raining rather heavily, so naturally, their pathetic little fire has been put out and now the four of them were huddling, soaked under a few pines trees that couldn't act as umbrella's to save their lives. And second, well, him and Wanda had broken apart almost a second before Keesha and Tim decided to arrive. Nick of time, Wanda had whispered.

Ralphie didn't get it. They had been having fun right? It had felt right hadn't it? Why did Wanda feel they had to hide it?! She wasn't even huddling up to him any more. Ralphie huffed and crossed him arms across his chest. Though she was close. Infuriatingly close. He could smell the faint shampoo from her hair wafting up towards his nose. He turned away.

"So..." Tim started, trying to break the awkward silence. "Um... how about those... er..." he sighed. "What do you say we just go to bed?"

"It's only seven though..." Keesha said, looking at her watch. But she was yawning already.

"We could tell ghost stories?!" Wanda suggested and Ralphie felt her shift next to him.

"I've had enough scares for one night," Keesha said sourly.

Wanda shrugged. "We could go to bed then."

Keesha sighed. "Too bad we don't have a bed..."

"The rain's softening the earth up a bit," Tim observed, sticking one hand into a pool of mud where water dripping from a nearby tree was collecting.

While the others shifted around to get themselves comfortable and moved some of their clothes over onto the ground to make a warm blanket, Ralphie tired to get into a cosy sleeping position, and tried to ignore the fact his imagination was zooming into overdrive with scenes of him and Wanda and...

"Ralphie!"

Ralphie glanced up guilty at Keesha.

"You're on my sleeping bag - I mean sweatshirt," she said, tugging at the cloth he was resting on.

"Oh, sorry..."

He saw Keesha frown at him in the dim light. "Are you alright? You look really flustered."

"I'm fine!" Ralphie said quickly. And he couldn't help but glance over at Wanda just then. "Fine.."

Wanda looked back at him with piercing eyes, but he couldn't quite read them. He swallowed again. It seemed like this was going to be a long night.

xxx

Phoebe shivered slightly and huddled closer towards Arnold. For some reason she was finding it so much easier to get closer to him than it was in a school setting or even her home when they were all alone. It was almost... safer... for some odd reason. It was a wonderfully strange feeling...

Phoebe suddenly felt Arnold shift next to her and his curled hand rested against her back. The two were lying on the floor of the cabin, the oil lamp had been burnt out, and they were both trying to get to sleep. Or at least was. Judging by the gentle snores brushing through her hair and onto her ear, Arnold had already fallen asleep.

She could tell him tonight.. Now... Now that she was lying so close to him she could feel the heat radiating off of him. And he was fast asleep.

"I like you Arnold," she said quietly. "More than a friend. For years."

There, she had said it. He couldn't hear her, but she said it. That wasn't too difficult now was it? And maybe one day she'd get the courage to tell an Arnold that wasn't fast asleep, instead fully conscious with his arms around her lovingly...

xxx

Carlos and DA had probably walked for less than five minutes, but due to the cold chilling and numbing every limb, it felt more like hours. The thin ray of hope they both had was starting to disappear as the cold got to them.

And just as they were beginning to lose hope, Dorothy Ann saw something that almost made her heart stop.

"Carlos..." she whispered. "Carlos!" she shouted, her voice rising as she became more and more aware that what she was seeing wasn't just a figment of her imagination. "Come quick! Hurry!!!"

She heard him frantically rushing towards her through the brambles calling, "What?! What is it?!"

She grabbed him by the arm the moment he was in her view and reach and looked at him excitedly. "The bed and breakfast! We found it! Look, there it is!"

And slowly, as though hardly daring to believe it, Carlos followed her gaze and his eyes landed on the wonderfully welcoming building DA had stopped. He broke into a wide grin. "Yes! I told you I knew we took the right trial!"

And DA, after rolling her eyes, hurried after him in a run towards their destination.