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Keep breathing out. That was all he could hear, a mantra inside his own head, drilled into him from years of diving. Keep breathing out. His head was tilted back, mouth slightly open, airway as loose as he could manage so that all the pressurised air could stream from his mouth as he swam his way to the surface.
He was going to run out of oxygen. But it was better than a collapsed lung. So he kept letting the air out, and he kept kicking, ignoring the rising panic as his lungs emptied.
There came a point, maybe thirty feet down, where there simply wasn't any air left in his lungs. He could force his diaphragm all he wanted, but it was like throwing up bile. There was nothing there. His throat constricted as he struggled to get the last bubbles out.
And then he was empty. Just an ache in his chest and a growing dizziness. The surface was so close, bright white ice, ready to envelop him in its cool embrace, but he was utterly empty and there was nothing he could do.
His kicks grew fainter. Legs spasmed. One hand was outstretched, as though he could reach far enough to claw his way out of the ice, but eventually he couldn't reach any longer and he was falling.
Air was buoyant. Fat was buoyant. Barring that, the BC could've saved him. But he had no air, the physique of someone who worked out too hard and ate too little, and the BC was abandoned along with the rest of the suit inside the submarine. He was falling into the abyss.
His body curled in on itself, twitching, panicked. He fought with himself hysterically, against every instinct that told him to open his mouth and just breathe. Just concentrated on holding his mouth clamped shut. Closed his eyes. The bone chilling cold, the stabbing sensation in his chest, the utter animalian terror that he'd spent his whole life learning how to remove himself from. Just concentrate on these things. Slow. Steady. Peaceful. For once, there was not a single thing he could do to stop any of it. He was fading, and around him the blue turned to black as the ocean pulled him in.
-
“Where on earth is he?” Grace stared into the hole in the ice, but all that stared back was the dark ocean current. The little tracker on her screen blinked. They should've been right on top of him.
Tapeesa stared at the screen too, a mournful sort of expression in her eyes. She motioned down into the hole with words Grace understood in every sense but literally.
Her stomach dropped. But there was no time to be afraid. No time for hesitance. She scrambled to shrug out of her heavy coat, fingers trembling as she unbuttoned all her clothes.
Understanding what she intended, Tapeesa helped pull away her shirt, both of them working in a quick frenzy.
And then Grace was standing in her underwear beside the hole in the ice. She didn't stop to think. Just nodded at Tapeesa, and then dove.
The initial shock of the cold almost stopped her in her tracks. It took a moment for her brain to recalibrate, for her to come to her senses. But then she saw him. A blurry, dark sort of shape that she'd have missed had she been anywhere but the crystal clear waters of the Arctic.
Thank goodness, he wasn't that far down, but he was falling fast and he would be out of her range in seconds. She was no diver. Kicking her legs, she swam down to him, ignoring the vague sense of panic as she descended. The average human could hold their breath for several minutes, as long as they didn't panic, she told herself.
And then she grabbed his wrist, and all thoughts of fear were replaced with the single minded determination of needing to get him out of here.
Fixing her eyes on the darkness of the hole in the ice, she started swimming with all the strength she could muster. Closer, closer, till she could almost taste the oxygen on the tip of her tongue, and then they were out of the water, and she was gasping in massive lungfuls of freezing air.
Tapeesa grabbed Ethan's limp body by the shoulders, and heaved him out, Grace assisting from below. She was shivering now, teeth chattering, and quickly drew her coat around her the moment she climbed out. Tapeesa had already set up the decompression chamber, thank god, and together they carried Ethan inside, urging each other to be faster, faster.
He looked dead. Pale. Blue lips, broken veins visible on his paper thin eyelids. Wet hair plastered to his forehead. In a burst of panic, Grace climbed into the chamber alongside him, placing one hand on his neck, to feel for the gentle pulse of breathing. It wasn't there.
Swallowing a whimper of fear, she positioned herself over him, and started to perform CPR. Counted the beats in her head. Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin' alive, stayin’ alive . The familiar song was whispered on trembling lips, choked through tears. After the thirty compressions, she leaned down to press their lips together. Breathed into his mouth.
His lips were ice cold against hers. But soft. She breathed, and she felt his chest rise against her hers, felt the faintest thump of a heartbeat.
Another thirty compressions. Always the Bee Gees. Another breath. This time he coughed against her lips, spasmed like his body was rejecting the air entirely. Then he turned onto his side and threw up.
She bit back a choked sob of relief, shoulders shaking, wiping back tears.
“Ethan,” she gasped, massaging his back as he coughed for all he was worth. Then he slumped back down. Curled up against her, trembling, eyes tightly shut. Trying to take little, shallow breaths.
She pulled him close, arms wrapped around him. He groaned. Shaking. The bends must be setting in now. But he'd be alright in here.
He looked suddenly so small in her arms, something newborn and frail, shivering in pain. She stroked his wet hair.
“It's alright, Ethan,” she murmured. “It's gonna be alright.”
“Hurts,” he whined like a mewling kitten, usually powerful muscles all tense, frozen with nowhere to run to.
“I've got you,” she promised.
His twitching fingers curled weakly in the fur of her coat. “Mom,” he whimpered. Voice wracked with pain.
Her heart swelled, a sense of protectiveness washing over her, and with it, peace. Power. She knew where she stood, now. And it was here. Fighting for her family.
“Shhh,” she murmured. “It's gonna be okay, sweetheart.”
-
Ethan was floating. Everything was dark, but here, it was safe, painless. The water filled his lungs, holding him close in its warmth. A lamb before the slaughter. Still innocent, still pure. He could float here forever, he thought.
Then he felt the hands. They grabbed him by the shoulders. Pulled him up, into the light, and he didn't want that, he struggled, shying away from the cold and the bite of reality. The ceremonial knife bit into flesh. Suddenly it wasn't water pooling in his lungs but blood, and he felt the serrated urge drag down his chest down to his stomach, and all his guts were falling out into the open.
He opened his mouth to scream, and instead felt soft lips against his. The kiss hurt, it was splitting his lungs into cracked little pieces, bloody porcelain. But he kissed back anyway. He wanted that mouth to swallow him whole, so that he could be rid of this pain, of this sweaty, feverish agony.
Eventually the sensation faded a little. He became vaguely aware of his body. The rise and fall of his chest. The uncomfortable nausea in his stomach. His mouth was dry. Slowly, he opened his eyes. It took about as much effort as lifting a ten tonne weight.
There was an oxygen mask over his face. And the warmth of another body pressed against him. Brown hair. Ilsa? No. Grace.
He mentally kicked himself for thinking her name. Of course it wasn't Ilsa. This was nothing like Ilsa.
Grace was holding him tightly, his head resting in her arms. She blinked up at him, a soft smile playing on her lips.
“How do you feel?” She said gently.
He thought about it. Each breath of the pure oxygen felt like he was sucking hot razorblades into his lungs. His head ached. His joints ached. Little tremors kept wracking his body, twitches in his hands, his legs. He didn't think he could sit up if he tried.
“Fine,” he said. His voice rasped. “Are the others alright?”
“Yeah,” Grace said. She reached up, brushed some of the hair out of his eyes.
“Did I- did I get the source code?”
She grinned. “You absolutely did. And scared me half to death in the process.”
He breathed out a sigh of relief. Then winced when it felt like pure agony. He was so tired. So mind numbingly, bone wearily tired.
“We need to go to South Africa,” he said.
She shook her head. “You're not getting on a plane for a while yet, Ethan.”
“How long?”
“Not sure. A couple hours, maybe.”
“Oh.” He thought about how he could work around that. Came up empty. Some things, you just had to wait out. Ethan hated those things.
“It's alright,” Grace said. “Go to sleep. The time will pass faster.”
It felt safe here. It felt warm, and soft, and safe, although he was in the middle of the Arctic, in a decompression chamber, while thousands of nitrogen bubbles wreaked havoc on his nervous system.
He curled up against her, buried his face in her chest. Still twitching. Closed his eyes. She stroked a hand across his waist, the hardness of his body, like a well oiled machine. Across the scars that marred his skin. Reached down, and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. She smelled like lavender, all soft curves and gentle touches.
The aches of nitrogen poisoning still bit at his body. But it was only pain. Right now, he had survived, had been brought back to life by the woman beside him. They could deal with the consequences later, the brain damage, the risk of paralysis if he ever dove again. He had survived. So, for once in his life, he kept his eyes closed, and let sleep take him.