After nearly an hour of making their way through a slowly thinning out portion of forest south of the pod, Ian finally paused. Kyle and Lili had been hanging back with Jared, picking out a selection of fruits or berries that Jared’s analysis reported as safe for consumption. They looked up as Ian stopped, looking around with narrowed eyes.

“Yes?” Jared was the first to ask.

“You guys hear that?” Ian responded distractedly, his eyes still scanning the progressively less and less wooded area in front of them.

“Hear what?” Lili couldn’t help asking with a bit of nervousness to her tone.

“Is that…” Jared began as he stepped forward to stand near Ian.

“What is that?” Kyle offered as he too stepped forward, while Lili still hung back a few feet.

“It sounds like…Lili come here.”

“Me?” she swallowed a bit as she moved to join them.

“What does that sound like to you?” Ian asked her.

“Um, like a low rumble, sort of?” she shook her head as she bit her lip.

“Like maybe, running water, you think?” Ian returned to her with a raised brow, his words causing her face to light up in agreement.

“God, I think you’re right!” she smiled as she moved toward the sound, only to have Ian grab her arm and cut in front of her first, to make his own way toward the sound, which only caused her to roll her eyes before hurrying to follow him. Kyle and Jared simply exchanged a glance of pending hopefulness before also moving to follow their two older companions, as well.

“I’ll be damned,” Ian muttered as a large river did come into view a few minutes later, causing them all to grin in relief.

“Maybe we’re all not, after all,” Lili smiled up at him as she gently squeezed his arm before taking a few more steps toward the water’s edge.

“Could you hold up just a second, Lil?” Jared called after her with his own cautious smile as he and Kyle moved to follow her.

“It’s water!” she chimed the discovery back at the two younger men as they reached her.

“Maybe,” Jared stated quietly as the four of them stopped about ten feet from the edge, before he cautiously moved closer.

“Maybe it’s water?” she scoffed with a teasing grin.

“No, I mean, maybe it’s safe. I have to check before any of us start celebrating,” he reminded her as he approached.

“Did he actually make you come? I mean, seriously?” Ian had to ask as Lili just blushed brightly and gently smacked his arm, while Kyle looked away to avoid making any comment on that particular question, “Ow,” Ian feigned pain at the gentle smack. “And was that a yes or a no?” he prodded with a continued smirk down at her.

Shaking her head up at him in exasperation, Lili couldn’t resist providing an answer, “You’d be amazed at how good a guy can be in bed …especially if he’s psychic,” she retorted smartly.

Satisfied that she had silenced Ian for the moment, she moved away from him and Kyle to go and wait behind where Jared had to force his concentration back to the task at hand, despite the bright blush he couldn’t help forming in reaction to her review, of sorts.

Moving a few feet further from the water’s edge, Ian finally did speak to Kyle again, a few moments later, “So, did she uh, just admit it, finally?” Ian asked Kyle, who looked more than a little disturbed by her statement, as well.

“Um, sounded like it,” Kyle stammered in return.

“And she actually told you she’d take your virginity for ya?” Ian repeated, only a fraction more quietly.

“Shut up,” Kyle returned with his own blush, “And she just kind of, implied it,” he admitted as he cast another worried glance over at where Lili now kneeled beside Jared at the water’s edge.

“Implied? Ooh, you’re as good as laid.” Ian couldn’t resist teasing back.

“At least I’m already a blowjob ahead of you,” Kyle’s pride forced him to retort with his own smirk before also moving back toward the water’s edge once more, as Ian just swallowed any further response and shook his head silently before turning to take in more of their surroundings, instead.

“There’s fish!” Lili called back to Ian loudly a moment later, pointing down at the water with a smile.

“Is there anything in there with teeth?” Ian called back as he started toward a nearby incline at the river’s edge.

“Not that I’ve seen, yet,” Lili scowled at such a less than celebratory question in the midst of their most useful discovery yet.

“Then, not my concern,” he returned as he started up the incline to get a better view of the surrounding banks of the river.

“What? You don’t like fish, or something?” Lili called back to him.

“So not going there,” Ian retorted as he continued his climb.

“So very damaged,” Jared mumbled in return to Ian’s comment as he continued to run the analysis on the water as Kyle and Lili watched for him to make his declaration.

After several moments of running the sample through his own computer while Kyle looked around for a low hanging branch on one of the nearby trees, Jared’s computer finally gave him his conclusion, causing Lili to speak up before Jared even could, “So, what’s it say?” she asked impatiently.

“Well, it seems like it might actually be ok,” Jared smiled over at her.

“You mean, we can actually like swim, and stuff in there?” she asked, which did seem to cause a slight break in the concentration of all her companions, including Ian, who had now moved to a post upon a boulder at the top of the slight incline he had just made his way up to.

“Well, we don’t know what kind of fish these are yet, so I wanna get a couple samples of them if I can, before we go diving in head first.”

“Samples? Of fish?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Jared smiled back at her, “One, to see which would be a good food source, and two, to make sure there aren’t any in there that are too dangerous or aggressive. Though most fish aren’t, but then again, that’s on Earth.”

Lili just shook her head at more pessimism, though she knew it was honestly caution, but still, “So, how does one get samples of fish?”

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“Not going there either,” Ian called back down to them, causing all three of them to just shake their heads again.

“Probably with one of these,” Kyle offered an answer as he brought a few thick branches over to the water’s edge.

“Limbs?” Lili asked as she looked up at his response.

“Well, they will be spears…as in spear-fishing?” he offered with a pointed raise of the brow. “All I need is a knife,” he added as he looked up at Ian. “Think you could find, say a dozen of those anywhere?” he asked the older man, who had now claimed a seat on that boulder to survey the area more efficiently.

“A knife, huh?” he called back down to them.

“Well you’re the one who’s always trying to arm us,” Kyle returned.

“So, where you want it?” Ian returned smartly as he pulled one out of his boot.

“Preferably not imbedded in my flesh?” Kyle returned as Ian absently tossed it into the air a few times before just smirking and hurling it down to impale the ground in front of Kyle’s feet, causing them all to jump a bit.

“Fuck! Ian!” Lili exclaimed as she looked up at him exasperatedly.

“Is that an offer? Cause, any time you want, Lil.” he just had to tease.

“You coulda killed him!” she complained as she stood upright again as Jared shook his head while Kyle let out a deep breath and bent down to pry the blade out of the ground.

“Please, I never miss the spot. And I’m not even psychic,” he just had to add with another smirk. The other three then sighed before Jared and Kyle moved to begin sharpening the branches, Jared more than a bit thankful that he had held onto the knife that Ian had given him on their first day there. Lili just shook her head again, as she moved to leave the younger members of the team to their task and instead, started up the incline as well.

Once she reached his side after several moments of making the climb, “No, don’t get up,” she told Ian smartly as she took a seat next to him.

“Wouldn’t wanna imply you need a man’s help or anything, Lilith,” he told her smartly.

She just scoffed as she brushed some dirt from her hands and looked around, “So, we found it.”

“What would that be?” he told her disinterestedly.

“Plants, animals, frigging running water. These are all good things, last I checked,” she stated slowly as if leading him to the obvious reaction.

“Go team go,” he returned sarcastically.

“Gee, I’m getting the impression you’re not in a very good mood today, Ian,” she stated the obvious.

“Damn, I guess I forgot to start the day with a blowjob. I hear that’s good for the spirit, or something.”

Only another slight blush as she shook her head, “And you guys thought Jared was the one who’d be pissed about any type of ‘birthday present,’ huh?”

“Didn’t say I was pissed, just cause, like every other guy on the planet seems to have gotten your ‘attention,’ besides me.”

“Oh lord, Ian…are you serious here?”

“Whatever Lil, it’s cool. I can live with it.” he scoffed.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Lili returned with a soft smile.

“Yeah, I believe I just mentioned that,” he returned smartly.

Lili just took a breath as she glanced down at the two men in question before dropping her volume a great deal to begin an attempt at explaining herself to the one who now sat next to her, “Jared and Kyle, they are a completely different story than you.”

“Obviously,” he mumbled.

“First of all, I’ve never even slept with Kyle. It was his birthday, and…we’re all stuck in this horrible situation, and…” she just shook her head, “And secondly, me and Jared were together one time: One time when we were both too scared about what was about to happen, that it just…we both just really needed that,” she told him more quietly. “You gotta remember, they are so different from you. I mean, Kyle got put in a position of so much responsibility and pressure and demands, at only thirteen years old that he never even had a chance to be close to anyone at all. And Jared, the stuff in his head, it scared him so bad, he was afraid to even try to get close to anyone, ever.”

“You saying you just felt sorry for them?” he scoffed with a raised brow, though at least spoke too quietly for either of the boys in question to hear.

“No, Ian. I do care greatly about Jared, and even Kyle too. It’s not about feeling sorry for them. I mean, my life wasn’t much better, but my life was what I made it. Theirs were pretty much made for them, by things they couldn’t control,” she took a breath. “The reason I let myself get close to them, while holding you at arm’s length for so long, it’s just because…” she sighed, trying to find the right words.

“Because…?” he had to prod after she took another moment trying to find her own words.

“Because, I wasn’t as afraid, with either of them.”

“Afraid?” he asked with a bit more than his fair share of confusion.

“Just…with them…I didn’t feel like, like I would get…hurt.”

Ian’s breath then caught in his throat as he looked over at where she cast her eyes downwards in fear of seeing his reaction to her confession, “Hurt?” was all he could say, though softly as he tried to capture her gaze for even a moment.

“Come on Ian, I know how it was up there. You had a different lover every time I turned around. None ever seemed to last for more than a weekend, if that. I mean, I was not like that, like at all. I mean, how could I have ever been any different, lasted any longer than any of them? I didn’t just wanna be another casualty of your love life. It scared me,” another shallow breath. “Especially, considering how much I really did wanna be with you, Ian. It was just too scary to think I’d lose you just as fast as I could give myself to you…so I just…never let myself.” she whispered with a slight sniffle.

Ian looked down as he took his own breath, taking in her words, “I guess you didn’t get it either,” he finally stated, softly.

“Get what?” she stammered, finally looking slightly towards him.

“That the reason I pushed them all away, so fast, it was because none of them were you.”