Thank goodness. Sara makes herself a hot flavoured coffee and picks up a fruit cup and a pack of four danishes to share. 

Sluuuurp. Ahhh. 

Slurp indeed.  Tim’s jealousy of her non-decaf is plain to see.  “I’m going to have to skip a couple of days, I really threw myself off the schedule.”  Hmm.  Not much open right now.  “I think unless you want to rob a store for a set of snowshoes, we should head home.” Also you look exhausted, but even I’m not dumb enough to say that.

"Mm. Yes, no need to snowshoe anywhere, I have my coffee." 

She will climb back into the truck and start in on a danish as they get moving. Mmmm lemon curd...

Lemons curd!  Tim has to focus on driving, but he can slowly nibble his way through a pastry.  It's kind of a shame that self-driving has problems in fresh snow.  Everything's so white, the LIDAR can get thrown off sometimes.  But he's got peppy club music and Sara to keep him company, driving's not so bad like this.

And so they return to civilization, short some food and plus a rock, and luckily having left no body parts behind. 

"I... Am going to take a very hot shower," Sara decides as they pull into the drive. "Do you have a fireplace in your living room, or somewhere? It's an old New England house, it should have one, yes?" 

"It's mostly decorative.  As cozy as a fireplace is, if you don't actually have a fire running, it's throwing money out the window, so the owner before the last owner blocked off the chimney.  But we do have a little electric range thingy in it.  It's not the same, but..."

"Better than nothing," she decides. "I think I want to spend some time sitting in front of the "fire", maybe with hot chocolate. And maybe nap." 

“Sounds good.  You know where the guest shower is, right?” You literally drew her a map yesterday.  Smooth.

"Mhm! I used it this morning. Do you want to join me? Em- by the fire, I mean, not in the shower."

"Um.  Sure.  I'm, um.  Not in a co-showering.  In general.  Right now.  I'll go, er.  Take a shower.  Separately."  Tim attempts to flee upstairs get in the shower, but stops when he remembers he should actually pre-warm the electric fire first.  THEN he flees upstairs.

She wasn't suggesting-!

She lets him flee while she heads for the guest bath. Silly man. 

She emerges from the shower a long and glorious thirty minutes later, bundled up in her fluffy lilac housecoat over a thin outfit of leggings and tee-shirt. Hopefully Tim doesn't mind her taking the duvet from her guest bedroom and wrapping it around her for the journey to the living room, because that is definitely happening. She wants to be toasty. 

To that end, she plops down on the floor in front of the fake fireplace and luxuriates for a little while. Hot chocolate can wait. 

HOT SHOWER.  Hot water!!!  This is so great, he forgot how wonderful it is to have a HOT SHOWER!!!  You'd think I'd be used to it, especially after camping.  But no.  The first one after getting back is always magical.  Approximately forty minutes later, he's out of the shower, yawning slightly, and heads downstairs.  He's a little tempted to spend twenty minutes at the whiteboard, but he has a Guest and you Do Not Neglect Your Guest.  "Hey."

"Hey!" She smiles up at him, still sleepy but much more cheerful. She lifts the duvet to offer him a toasty spot on the floor beside her.

"I'll be in in a minute.  You need anything to eat or to be comfy?"

Duvet flap comes down, then, to preserve the warmth. 

"Hot chocolate? If you have mix. If not I can make some out of cocoa and sugar but I will need a few more minutes." 

"Really?  I can't surprise you about anything.  Fine."  Tim huffs off to make some Childhood-Style chocolate milk: pour in a bunch of genuine artificial chocolate syrup, add milk.  Microwave for 30 seconds.  One glass for Sara, and if she doesn't like it he'll drink it himself and then figure out something else.

She giggles as she is handed the hot chocolate milk, "I did say I wanted some in the car. Hmm," she sips, frowns, then shrugs and continues drinking. It is hot and chocolatey, it will do until she feels up for making a more fancy version. 

Does he want into the blanket now? Inquiring duvet flap wants to know. 

Well...he was thinking about getting his own glass.  But honestly, standing up in the shower was a lot of work.  Maybe he can get some later.

Fine.  Tim crawls in and lays a little less than a foot away from Sara, she can close the distance if she wants to, but Tim won't be the one to apply pressure.

There's pressure? She didn't know. She is just going to scoot over a little to join him. And offer him her partly-drunk hot chocolate milk. 

"So... That was a little bit of a disaster," she smiles crookedly at him from the side. 

"Ehhhh, it was fine.  I haven't done a whiteboard about it yet, but I'm pretty sure the conclusion is going to be 'we got really unlucky, recovered adequately, and worst-case scenario I would have been regrowing toes for a couple of months.'  It's the kind of thing that happens."

She hums, "Everything was fun up until the snow started falling," she nods. "I am very glad you aren't regrowing toes, though. Next time I think I will check the nearby weather map to make sure there is nothing that could get blown our way. And perhaps bring more warm clothing." 

"It's no fun, I'm told.  Worth it in the end, but.  Apparently it feels weird."  Tim rolls onto his stomach, rests his head in the crook of his arm, and then wriggles back against Sara.  "How...bad was your backlash yesterday?  Er.  This morning.  You know."

"Mm... I have had worse, in dungeons. It was worse than I ever get on survey, though. It took an hour before I could sleep." The close air of the car did not help, but she wasn't so badly off to climb out of it into sub-zero temperatures.

"I was still sane enough to talk myself out of anything dangerous. Though, mm. Making that tea may have been partly an excuse to get out of the car. I'm not sure." 

"Psych backlashes are awful.  I know it's stupid to compare backlashes, they're all awful, but I got so lucky."