Day: 11

It's early afternoon by the time she finally awakes. I disguise my relief at her startled cry at moving with a dry: "Your fault."

But honestly, I want to do somersaults…if that didn't require energy.

Andrea's skin looks better. It's the first thing I thought when I awoke this morning. That the gray is gone and her breathing is now steady.

She did it. She actually did it. Well, she always did know how to pull off the impossible—like survive an unskilled operation performed with a twisted piece of plane metal.

I tell her none of this as I gather a pile of branches. They're not much but they're the best I can find in the ever-dwindling stockpile of flora at my disposal. Each has a tiny amount of red berries on them. Not enough, my brain whispers. Not nearly enough.

It takes her a moment or two before she notices my gift. I've left her the bag of Kettle salt and vinegar chips for her to find. She did uphold her end of the bargain after all: Not dying. I sneak a peek at her, desperately craving to see a glimpse of the delight in her eyes she once expressed quite readily.

Andrea is delighted by many things, small things that I'm far too cynical to care about. And I used to enjoy her reactions quite often in the office—when she was exclaiming over tickets to a new show, or an unseasonably sunny day, or a bunch of (cheap) birthday flowers dispatched by some (unworthy) suitor in the name of love.

"Holy cow." She's looking at the bag like I've given her the Holy Grail.

I smile inwardly before I can stop. The delight, that beautiful delight, could light a room. Or an island.

"Thank you." She says it reverently as she glances to me.

I don't react, preferring to make a science of picking over the leaves off the branches I'm sorting. No need to make a fuss. Or remind either of us as to how she came to earn that bag.

With shaking hands, she's ramming chips into her mouth at an alarming rate. I say nothing. She deserves them. Every unco-ordinated, quivering mouthful.

I can't watch. I turn away.

"Have a chip!" She waves the bag at me.

"Hmph," I say because I'm not sure how to admit I'm desperately hungry, aching for some too. No, no. I didn't earn so much as a crumb. All her work, all her reward. My back's to her now, as I sit, analyzing my leaves with the intensity of a CSI expert.

Maybe if I don't look, I won't crave.

My pile of berries that I've stripped from the branches has reached an unimpressive half a cup. I eye it critically. How long will it last us?

My stomach grumbles as if offering a critique of my useless hunter-gatherer skills. Everyone's a critic.

Andrea is now shaking the bag down her throat, crumbs bouncing into and off her mouth. She saves the bag, folding it and refolding it into ever smaller squares.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Berries." Surely she can work it out. My headache has returned and I'm aching with hunger. The smell from that bag of chips has my stomach churning with need.

"Right." She squints at my berry pile. "They're edible, for sure?"

"Psh. You tell me. You ate enough of them while you were…" I stop, trying to find a euphemism for "unconscious and scaring me witless on a daily basis".

"Injured?" she suggests.

Injured? For God's sake. That was not even remotely close to how enormous the weight felt of keeping alive her battered body for days on end.

"Psh," I repeat, because I'm sure I'll say something bitter and awful otherwise. And I don't want those sad eyes back. Not right now.

"I don't remember that."

"That's interesting." I say it as neutrally as I can manage. But there was nothing interesting though about feeding a near-death, barely conscious woman and praying to any gods, real or imagined, to not let her die.

I spend the afternoon away from her, reorganizing my stash, avoiding her eye. I trust it will improve her recovery having the person who caused her so much pain far from her. I appear to her only twice, hauling her to the bushes for the necessities without being asked.

She makes no comment and for the rest of the day spends her time scanning the skies—doubtlessly for fictitious rescue planes.

Andrea and her wild dreams.

Andrea's wound must be examined. This cannot be put off. I kneel beside her, draw in a breath, careful not to inhale through my nose this time—lesson learned from days gone by—and pull back the bandage.

She scowls. "Good afternoon to you."

I hold up a tiny black bottle I'd purloined from the passengers' stash days ago. Whisky. It's all that's left from when I fed it to her before, mashed into potato crisps. It should do for "treatment" now.

She frowns. "Miranda, that's not – whisky?"

"Andrea, hold still," I tell her as she begins to squirm immediately, apparently working out exactly where this is going.

"Miranda, wait, what's—?"

Uncapping the bottle I pour it quickly onto her barely healed wound before she can fully form an objections. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, don't they say? Not that I ever asked for either in my adult life.

Her cry is half yelp, half choked scream, and then fury is burning in those indignant brown eyes. "God. The—oh, God, what the hell, Miranda?!"

Her hands fly to shield her wound as if I'm about to dump a pound of salt on it next. Charming.

"You're welcome," I snap. Her lack of trust, those hovering, wary hands stick in my craw. The idea I am doing this to be cruel is infuriating. I stalk off and toss away the now-empty bottle.

"I'm sure you have a perfectly good reason for doing what you just did, Miranda, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and not murder you in your sleep tonight."

I scowl before I realize her words mean she truly doesn't know what alcohol on wounds is all about. With a shrug, I give my best explanation. Which, admittedly, sounds feeble to my ears now I say it aloud. "Cowboys did it all the time."

"In movies, Miranda." Her look is pained.

Damn it. That might be true. I purse my lips. "It was better than doing nothing, which in case you hadn't noticed, is the summation of everything we have in our possession at the moment."

"I'm fine that you did it, honest, I just wish you would…"

What? What does she wish? That I give more than I already have been giving? Does she require my soul, too? I didn't do it to hurt her. Doesn't she understand anything? What sort of monster does she think I am?

Her words trail off as her eyes suddenly fix on me properly, I suspect, for the first time since this ordeal began. Her gaze takes in my face, clothes, and bare feet, before sliding up to my hair. Do I look as bad as I feel? Probably.

She seems to have so much resentment in her eyes. That's a new one. What is that about? Do I not look terrible enough for her liking? Is that it? She'd prefer to see the mighty Miranda Priestly further humbled in penance for inflicting her pain?

Her eyelids flutter closed for a moment and the fight goes out of her. She throws an arm over her eyes. "Just… just ask me next time."

Andrea's anger seems to leak away, like water evaporating on desert sand. I never even understood its source in the first place but I'm relieved it's gone.

"Andrea, wake up." I give her a shake. She's far too out of it. When did she fall asleep? I've been gone an hour and she's turned back into a boneless lump. "Wake up!"

I take her by the shoulders, terrified and furious at myself for being so easily alarmed, and shake her harder. "What were you thinking?"

"What?" she mumbles.

"Falling asleep while I was away, Andrea—don't you realize how dangerous that is?"

"No, what? How is tha—?"

"Think about it!" Is she an idiot? "You could—choke on your own vomit, lying on your back. Everyone knows that, everyone says that!"

Her look is doubtful. "I… I had a dream where we were sinking underwater, and you were eating an apple, and I was supposed to bring steak, but you can't eat steak underwater..."

Steak? Apples? Underwater? What on earth? I let go of her, stepping back, nostrils flaring.

"I feel sick," she adds.

My hand flashes out to her forehead. "You don't have a fever."

Suddenly she gazes up at me, eyes worried. "You should drink some water."

Water? Even the word makes me crave it. But today, same as yesterday and the day before, I found no sources anywhere. "Go back to sleep," I order her in my best boss voice. The snippy one that used to make her stutter.

"Well, could I have some water then, please?" She sounds so hopeful, her hand waving to Toby's cap, as if it'll be magically brim-full, and waiting.

I swallow, dry and hard. It hurts. "We're out of water." I avoid meeting her eye by flattening out the wrinkles in my lapel, as though that will make everything better. Finally, at her prolonged silence, I meet her eyes.

She holds my gaze in a way that would have been unthinkable only two weeks ago. Searching, questioning, daring me for answers I'm not in the mood to give. Because questions about water lead to questions about caps that dispense water, the source of said caps, and then—

"Where have we gotten the water from before?"

"It rained. I hung plastic bags to catch water."

She glances up when I do, and there's not a cloud in the sky. Instead of pressing me for further answers, she rolls over and says: "Sleep."

I wonder how long she'll give me a reprieve before finally asking for more.

I watch her sleep for hours, the soft brush of lashes against smooth skin, wondering what she dreams about. I trust it's not of apples and steaks, given she seems so relaxed. In this state she could be napping on a couch, having fallen asleep in front of the TV with her cheap-flowers-dispensing (presumably now ex) boyfriend at her side.

Does she dream of him? Or her—the woman I found in bed with her the day this nightmare began?

Does she dream of me, perhaps? The dragon whose need for vengeance over an ex-husband's wedding that was none of my concern dragged us both out here to our doom?

At the reminder, my jaw hardens. Guilt rises up in me. I should be tired of it now but it almost feels reassuring in its familiarity. Guilt closes over me like a blanket.

The night stars prick through black-velvet skies, a few at first, then thousands. There's nothing like the view. I shiver. It's getting cold now, so I stoke the fire.

Andrea stirs, and her teeth chatter as she struggles to warm herself with her hands. I take my coat-pillow, shake it out, and eye her. Cold, I can handle. She cannot. "Use this."

I toss the jacket to her. My East End London roots made me hardy to a little bite in the air. At least that's what I tell myself now when the truth is I'll do anything to prevent her suffering. Well, suffering more.

She splays the coat out in front of her like some animal pelt, frowning as she examines it, until her fingers hit something hard. A name tag. Derrick.

"I didn't see that." I swallow, hating how rough my voice sounds. "Let me…" It's a fumbling work of seconds to be rid of it, but the memory of the man lingers between us. Well, I have the memory. Andrea has the questions. They fill her face now and I want to lash out to shut her up before she asks a single one.

Instead, I place the name tag gently to face the fire, wishing to symbolically warm the man in death in a way I didn't achieve in life.

I'm sorry.

He deserves better. I left him for Andrea. I'm not sorry for that, though.

"I don't suppose we could live here forever, could we?" Andrea pipes up.

"Unless there is a vast wealth of food I have yet to discover on this island..." I aim for my usual droll tone but I can't keep it going. "No, Andrea. I think not." I wish I could give her an answer that contains an ounce of hope.

Is she wishing me to lie? What does she want? From this? From me? She used to be as easy to read as an upside-down piece of paper. A single tilt of my head and I could see so much of what flitted through her mind. I could…ask.

"Tell me what you're thinking." It comes out like a demand.

Andrea eyes me uncertainly, her lower lip sucked in between her teeth.

"Tell me," I try again, less commanding, more…well, not quite a plea. Things aren't that dire yet that Miranda Priestly pleads for things. I snort to myself.

"I suppose… I suppose I've been thinking…" She stops, looking fearful. "I don't even know what I'm thinking."

It's a lie, that much is plain. I glower and stare at the back of Derrick's name tag. It looks warmer now. Good.

"It's just so hard to believe that there's been no one," Andrea says after a while. "No one at all. Come to get us, I mean."

"Hm." Thoughts of rescue? Still? My God, I thought I lived on hope. Andrea is raising that bar to nose-bleeding heights.

"The only thing I can think of is that they rescued everyone else. All those people that escaped in their life jackets. We weren't with them. Everyone must think we sunk to the bottom of the ocean with the rest of those poor people."

I go very, very still, terrified any twitch will give away the truth. The awful sights from that cove flash before my eyes and I shut them, trying to blank them out.

It's useless. Toby snickers in my ear. "That won't help you forget us, you know."

I know. Damn it, I know.

"It's comforting, though, to think that all those people in life jackets made it to safety," Andrea adds guilelessly. "They're with their families right now, out there somewhere. Eating whatever they want."

I'm on my feet before she's finished speaking, unable to bear that hopeful note, unwilling to let her look at what must be starting to leak. The horror coursing through me. Honestly, how can a few careless sentences be so crushing?

I'm gone before she can protest. A tactical retreat, I tell myself. It's for the best, whatever this mad dash is.

I find a space on a rock on a cliff, and stare out to sea. It's black. I only know the ocean is below from the crashing waves. Oddly it sounds magnified tonight. Closer. How curious the tricks the mind plays.

"What if it's not a trick?" Nigel asks idly. He's wearing a cravat now. Some garish purple affair, part of a phase he went through in the late nineties. His pants are mustard, his shirt paisley. Was he ever in the closet with an outfit like that?

Oceans don't move, Nigel, I remind him. We're up here, and the waves are down there.

"You don't say," he says, with a grin. "Thanks for the exposition."

Cheeky.

His smile drops away. "Why don't you tell her about Derrick and the others? She has a right to know."

Does she?

No. I picture the last of the hope in her eyes extinguishing. No. Just no. "I'd sooner eat grass."

"You may have to at this rate." He sounds smug.

I roll my eyes. He's not even remotely funny anymore.

"That hurts," he tells me, clutching his chest in fake wounded pride. Seriously, how did the man think paisley was a good look? "You're not exactly on fire yourself."

Oh. I've forgotten he can read minds, because he is my mind. Well, I trust he enjoyed my dig about his shirt.

"Not really," he pouts. "I'll have you know this was chic once."

Chic? Not on my watch. "Is she asleep?" I ask him.

"Yes," he says, although how can he know that if he's me? "Probably," he adds, seeing the flaw in the logic.

I wait another half hour to be sure, then join her. It's cold now. I didn't have my—Derrick's—coat and I've foolishly let my core temperature drop. The wind picks up and a shudder ripples through me.

Idiot, I tell myself.

Someone in my subconscious snickers. I'm not sure who. Toby or Nigel. Does it matter?

I ignore them, and lie a few feet from Andrea. It's the closest I've been to her for days, aside from health and bathroom assistance. This close, it feels more real. How I'm responsible for her. How vulnerable she is.

I estimate three feet are between us. The exact amount of space for propriety.

A shiver runs through me again, then another. I can barely feel my toes.

Staring at Andrea's back, softly rising and falling, I wonder if she'd object if I pressed a little closer. I really have no right. No right to her heat. No right to her. I took her rights away, didn't I? Stranding her here. It'd serve me right to shiver all night until I awake in a frozen block.

She needs you alive, Nigel reminds me with so much incredulity in his tone I can almost hear an eye roll.

I slide close enough to touch, then closer still. I'll just stay long enough to warm up, I tell myself. Then I'll give her space.

My eyes flutter closed. The last thought I have before unconsciousness claims me is haunting. Andrea Sachs feels delicious in my arms.