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She was very, very cold.
She knew she should move. She was holding the ledge, she should hoist herself up, get out.
But she was so very, very tired. Her arms were screaming and burning even though it was much too cold for that.
She had never died before.
That seemed obvious. Of course she had never died. What made today different?
Nothing. And if nothing was different, then there was no reason she should die today.
Move, she screamed at her stubborn limbs. Get out.
But her limbs stayed frozen for far too long, and then they did move, but it was the wrong way and she was going back into the water and she couldn’t get back up.
The water was above her head now, and she wished she could feel properly sad about dying, but the cold must have been affecting her brain as well because all of her thoughts were sluggish.
Then the world tilted, which was odd when you were drifting downwards, and a hand was on her wrist and her lungs were filling with air but she was still so very tired.
The last thing she thought before she fell unconscious was that today wasn’t different, which was good because her brain was still too slow to be sad.
—-------
She woke up a little while later to the smell of burning chemicals. Every part of her was simultaneously on fire and freezing, and her lungs burned everytime she breathed. Her eyes were closed, but it was still unbearably bright.
One by one her senses returned. She could hear a crackling fire somewhere by her hands, and when she finally managed to open her eyes, the world was smooth and glistening and white. If it hadn’t been so painful, she might have thought she was in heaven.
Very, very slowly she sat up and looked around. She was still in the cave, but she was farther from the frozen water now. The wooden remnants of Rambaldi’s music box were on fire, and she supposed that the degrading liquid she had sprayed on it accounted for the chemical smell. On the other side of the miniscule bonfire, pickaxe still lodged in his leg, was Sark.
His skin was pale and his whole body kept shivering. She belatedly realised that she was wearing his jacket overtop of her own.
She opened her mouth and tried to say his name to wake him, but the words caught in her throat and all she could do was cough.
It had the same effect however, as his eyes slowly opened and he blinked at the ceiling of the cave uncomprehendingly a few times before seemingly remembering where he was.
“Agent Bristow,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “You’re awake.”
Her voice had steadied itself a bit, and she managed to choke out, “What happened?”
He braced his arms against the ground and drew himself up, wincing when his leg moved. “The cave mouth collapsed. You fell through the ice when I shot it.”
She looked over to where the hole in the wall of ice used to be, but where there now were large chunks of ice and snow blocking it. The blockage looked too thick to easily dig out of.
They were trapped.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Not long, seeing as that miserable excuse for a music box is still burning.”
She looked back at the rapidly diminishing pile of burning wood with blackened pieces of metal sticking out of it. Even though the flames were so small, thick, awful-smelling smoke still poured off of it.
“I sprayed it with a degrading chemical so it wouldn’t be playable.”
“Clever. Unfortunately, that has also provided us with less fuel.”
“How’d you light it?”
“Flint and steel.”
Sydney frowned. Who carried flint and steel anymore?
They both stared somberly at the dying flames for a long moment. At last she spoke again.
“I’m wearing your jacket.”
“Yours was soaked. You would have died of hypothermia.”
She shrugged the coat off, ignoring the sudden rush of cold air. She owed him more than she would like already. “Well, you’ll die of it now. Put it back on.”
He stared at the jacket on the floor of the cave. “Your clothes are still wet.”
“I’ll live.”
He regarded it for another long moment before finally putting it back on himself, hunching into the residual warmth.
This brought the already sparse conversation to a halt, and so she sat there, quietly considering. If someone on the outside of the cave was still alive, surely they would try to get her or Sark out.
Unless they were presumed to be dead already, of course.
“We need to make some sort of signal.”
Apparently one of the perks of being conscious was that he had already thought of that.
“I already used my gun to fire an SOS. It isn’t likely anyone would have been able to hear it over the wind, however.”
He was probably right, but…”We should try again.”
Sark shook his head. “We may need to save the bullets to get through the ice to drink. We may be trapped here for a while.”
The ‘or indefinitely’ was unspoken, but it still hung over both of their heads. She decided that maybe being muzzy-headed when faced with death wasn’t such a bad thing, compared to this slow, clear realisation that it was likely she might die here. She had known there was a good chance she might die younger than most, but she had always hoped it would have been swift and clean. A bullet to the skull, maybe, not slow like this, stuck like a rat in one of Francie’s traps, without being able to say goodbye to anyone she loved.
Sark coughed and eased himself back onto the ground, where he tried to get as close to the now-very dead fire as possible without lying on top of it.
She had also really, really hoped she wouldn’t have to spend her last moments with Sark.
“Why did you pull me out of the water?”
He looked up at her, and his face said that he had been asking himself the same question. “You shouldn’t die like that,” he finally said after a long pause.
She raised an eyebrow. “I shouldn’t drown? The hell do you care?”
“It would have been pointless. I hadn’t meant to shoot the ice.”
“And if you had meant to shoot the ice…you would have been fine with me drowning?” She was struggling to follow the logic of what he was saying. If, in fact, there was any logic at all.
“Of course.”
She shook her head. “You don’t make any sense.”
Sark didn’t say anything, he just closed his eyes and attempted to get even closer to the now-mostly cool scraps of metal.
“You know, we could maybe dig our way out with that pickaxe,” Sydney mused.
He cracked open one eye again and frowned. “Why do you keep trying to start a conversation? I was under the impression that we had some sort of rivalry going on.”
“One, it’s not a rivalry if one party is clearly better than the other.” Sark snorted and Sydney continued on, “And two, you’re not supposed to sleep if you have hypothermia. Your body cools off too fast.”
He sat back up and regarded her for a long moment. “Thank you,” and then, “But no, we are not taking the axe out of my leg.”
“It could be our best shot out of here.”
“Or I could bleed out and die,” he countered.
“Would that really be so bad?”
Sark just glared at her and leaned back against the wall. “If I die first, then you may use the pickaxe.”
“We are not going to die.” She hoped. The only thing worse than a slow, painful death, apparently, was a slow, painful death whilst trapped in an enclosed area with Sark.
“I admire your optimism, though I fear it might be rather naive.”
“I am not dying with you, Sark.”
“Again, if I die first, you are more than welcome to attempt to dig your way out of here.”
“You’re not dying either, as happy as that would make me.”
“It’s so nice to be reminded of how much one is appreciated.”
Sydney just rolled her eyes and slumped against the cave wall. She was shivering uncontrollably now, and she didn’t trust her teeth not to chatter when she spoke.
When no witty rejoinder came from her, Sark turned to look at her and noticed her trembling. For the second time in far too recent history, he took his jacket off and offered it to her.
She shook her head and pushed his arm away.
In a tone that was far too exasperated in Sydney’s opinion, he hissed, “Would you just take the bloody jacket before you freeze to death?”
“You’re shivering just as much as I am, you sonuvabitch.” Which was true. Still, they glared at each other for a long moment before he finally gave up and put it back on.
They sat in silence for a blissful, wonderful half of an hour, until Sark finally turned and asked her, “What’s your favourite colour?”
Sydney was dumbfounded. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He explained impatiently. “What colour do you like? Which one’s your favourite?”
“Why do you care?” Perhaps he was going delirious from blood loss.
“I care since I almost fell asleep. Talking about your life seemed like a bad idea, seeing as there’s every likelihood you’ll die in this cave, hence, small talk.” He said it with the air of someone who believed that what they were saying made total sense.
“Well, one, I already told you we are not dying here, and two, that is the worst attempt at small talk I have ever heard.”
“I haven’t had many opportunities to practise. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
She stared at him for a long moment, slowly shaking her head. Finally, she said, “Blue. I like blue.”
He nodded his head as if he was carefully considering her answer. “I like yellow.”
“Good to know,” she remarked, deadpan. “Now I know what colour of sweater to get you for Christmas.”
He rolled his eyes, which seemed like what she should be doing, not him. “Good to see your sense of humour is still intact.”
“Unlike your sanity, apparently. Let me give you some advice: generally you don’t make small talk with your rival.”
“I thought we weren’t rivals. Besides, now we are both more awake.” This was technically true. Of course, Sydney was more awake because she was fantasising strangling him, but technically true.
“Fine.” She threw her head back and stared up at the ceiling. “Lay your crappy small talk on me.”
Sark wriggled himself into a better position, then ground his teeth together when the axe moved. “What’s your earliest memory?”
She shot him a look. “Seriously? That’s the best you’ve got? I thought we weren't talking about my life, anyway.”
“You said to ‘lay it on you’, I have done precisely that.” Then, after a beat he added, "It's not your whole life, either."
She shook her head again. Next time she would have to make sure she got trapped with Dixon. Or Vaughn.
She missed Vaughn. The part of her that had accepted the possibility of her dying in here was sorry that she would never get to see him again, never hear him laugh or work with him on a mission or-
Stop, she told herself firmly, you are not dying here.
She turned back to Sark, who was waiting with a patient, almost bored look on his face.
“My mother. Making snow tops.”
“What’s a snow top?” His face scrunched up in confusion.
“You’re supposed to be a renowned terrorist and you don’t even know what a snow top is?”
“You’ll have to excuse me for not memorising the name of every arts and crafts project your mother made.” If the look on his face was any indication, Sark really did not like being confused about things.
Which was understandable, she guessed.
“Well first off, it’s a food, so that might be your problem. It’s a hotdog with mashed potatoes and cheese on top.”
Most of his confusion gone, Sark mainly just looked curious now. “Is it good?”
“I used to love them when I was little.”
“Which doesn’t answer the question.”
Sydney ignored him. “What’s yours?”
“My what?”
“Your earliest memory.”
He paused and thought for a moment. “I used to have a stuffed rabbit. I don’t remember having it, I just remember the night I lost it. I was so worried about where it had gone and if it would be alright.”
It was weird thinking of Sark as a normal kid, before any murders or weapons trading. She mulled it over in her head for a moment, and he used her silence to lean over and whisper, “Don’t worry, I got over it a while ago.”
She pushed away his face, which currently had a very satisfied grin on it.
“From now on, I’m leading the conversation.”
“Lay it on me,” he said, grin still firmly in place.
God, she hated him.
—-----------
An hour later, the cave was much darker, both of them were shivering excessively, Sark was making small pained noises every time a particularly violent fit dislodged his leg, there was a slowly growing pool of blood under him, and Sydney discovered that underneath the worldly-assassin demeanour, Sark really needed a life.
Apparently he only saw movies while on aeroplanes, his one hobby was shooting (which didn’t count in her opinion because he was a literal assassin), and the last book he read was about iguanas. When asked about the iguanas, he had shrugged and said the book had been on a bench he was sitting on while waiting for a mark.
Finally, after ten minutes of trying to explain why someone would have a hobby that wasn’t just their job, Sydney had given up and they had lapsed into silence.
What with the dark and the quiet, Sydney found herself growing more and more tired, and it got harder and harder to keep her eyes open.
Well, she amended after another pained yelp came from Sark’s direction, mostly quiet.
She glared at the vague outline of his shivering form, and tried willing him with her mind to stop.
It didn’t work.
Finally, after another half hour, she couldn’t take it any more.
“Get over here, you sonuvabitch.”
“Pardon?” His voice was sleepy and muffled.
“I can’t take your annoying whining any more, and I know you’re too much of a proud bastard to ask me yourself.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, clearly confused.
Sydney rolled her eyes and stood up. She hated this plan so much already, she was not going to dignify it or him by explaining it. She walked over to where he lay shivering on the ice, and scooped him up in her arms. She sat back down, holding him in her arms with his head on her lap.
Sark’s entire body froze, she wasn’t even quite sure he was breathing anymore. That would certainly fix the noise problem, at least.
After a long moment he cautiously started, “Sydney?”
“What?”
He tried very hard to keep his voice level. “Have you gone mad?”
Yes, whispered part of Sydney’s brain, but it was most likely the insane part that didn’t mind listening to what sounded like a whining dog every thirty seconds.
“No, I just don’t want to hear your yelping all night long. Besides, you’re warm.”
The last bit was only semi true. She was cold, but the point of her ill-advised plan was to get him warm enough that he would stop shivering and whining.
It was dark in the cave, but she could feel his eyes staring up at her.
“Sydney-” he began again, but she cut him off.
“Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up if you start dying.” She was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to sleep at all if you had hypothermia, but a), he clearly needed to sleep, and b), this was Sark. If he died, she would just be ridding the world of one more rat.
A very pathetic rat, she admitted to herself, but a rat nonetheless.
He was still frozen in her arms, as if she had been holding a knife to his throat. Finally, after what felt like hours, he cautiously relaxed.
Five minutes after that, he had fallen asleep.
And five minutes after that, she learned a wonderful bit of intel for blackmailing purposes.
Sark was very snuggly.
He had wriggled his way up until his arms were around her waist and his face was buried in her jacket. From there he had slept contentedly for several hours, thankfully without much whining or shivering, besides the occasional odd fit.
She supposed that this would generally be pretty awkward, firstly touching Sark in any way besides to attack him, but furthermore to have him hugging her for a few long hours. However, mostly she was just very, very cold, and if having a terrorist on her lap would fix that, so be it.
If she closed her eyes, she could even tell herself it was someone else, someone normal. That Francie had fallen asleep on her lap while they were watching tv.
She had to put a stop to that train of thought when she noticed she had been unconsciously playing with his hair.
After a few hours of listening to him breathe, she could tell when he woke up, but he didn’t move from her arms. He seemed rather happy to just lie there and pretend he was asleep.
She waited to see how long this would last. Fifteen minutes later, and the only time he had moved was when she had shifted her legs underneath him. She decided that enough was enough and shook his shoulder.
“Get up, Sark.”
He sat up carefully, and though it was too dark to properly see his face, she could practically feel his embarrassment.
Or quite possibly it was her embarrassment, it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended.
“Sydney-” he tried once more, but again she cut him off.
“Save it, Sark. I’m going to go to sleep, will you wake me up if I start dying?”
The light was dim in the cave, but she could faintly see his outline nodding.
“Good.” She lay down on the ice a few inches away. She’d be damned if she cuddled with him while she was asleep.
—-----------
When Sydney woke, she was wholly confused.
The world was much too bright, even with her eyes closed. She was freezing, but her head was resting atop something warm, and something was tenderly running through her hair.
She opened her eyes and blinked at the harsh light. Right. The cave. That explained half of her list, and the other half was explained when she noticed her head was on Sark’s lap and he awkwardly took his hands off of her head.
“You’re awake,” he said, with a look on his face that said god-please-don't-talk-about-any-of-this-ever.
“Evidently,” she said dryly, sitting up. Her level of fatigue had gone down, but her muscles still felt shaky and weak. She was famished and could feel another shivering fit coming on.
However, seeing as they didn’t have the solution to any of these problems, she decided to join Sark in his ignorance of everything that happened last night and see if they could get some water.
They took turns, one carefully shooting a spot close to the shore and then watching to make sure the ice didn’t crack while the other drank. The water was freezing and burned her throat, but at least she didn’t have to worry about dehydration.
Until they ran out of bullets, that is.
As it so turned out, playing with your rival’s hair while they slept kind of introduced an air of awkwardness to everything, so most of the day was passed in silence. Or mostly silence with the occasional chattering of teeth or muffled yelp.
Finally, Sark turned to her.
“Agent Bristow.”
She sighed and shut her eyes. “What is it, Sark?”
He paused for a moment, and then, “I think you should remove the pickaxe from my leg.”
Her eyes flew back open, and she raised an eyebrow. “If I did that now, you could bleed out and die. I’m not killing you, Sark.”
“Why not?” he countered. “What do you care if I die?”
“I don’t care if you die. I just won’t be the one to kill you.”
He gritted his teeth in frustration. “If you wait until I die to remove the pickaxe, you will most likely be too weak to dig out of here. The only way you will be able to escape is if you remove it now.”
“Forget it. The CIA isn’t in the business of cold-blooded murder.”
Sark laughed without any humour. “Beyond the obvious falsehood of that statement, what does it matter? You. Will. Die.” He hissed the last words out. “Don’t be a fool and think my life is worth more than yours.”
“I don’t think that,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not removing it. End of discussion.”
Sark stared at her with more venom in his eyes than she had thought possible for the usually annoyingly calm man. “Fine,” he spat at long last. “I’ll do it for you.” And with that he gripped the handle and adjusted his hands on it with a wince.
He was interrupted a moment later by Sydney hitting him across the face, hard.
“Stop that, you son of a bitch.” Her entire body was filled with fury, and she none-too gently gripped his wrists in her hands. “You will leave it alone. Do you hear me?”
He stared up at her for a moment that went on for far too long, blood trickling from his nose. At long last, he dropped his gaze and said, “Fine.”
She studied him a moment longer, before finally dropping his hands. She went back to her spot by the wall and slumped against it, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t move for a long while, staring sightlessly at the dark, frozen water.
She was beginning to be very, very glad it was Sark, and not Dixon or Will or Vaughn trapped with her. She couldn’t bear to watch them die.
Of course, some part of her also couldn’t bear to watch Sark die. Which made no sense, by all accounts she should kill him herself. She should have let him pull the pickaxe out of his leg and dug her way to safety. But for some reason, maybe it was the terror of knowing whatever happened to him would probably happen to her, or the fear of dying here alone, or maybe even just wanting someone to run their fingers through her hair one last time; she couldn’t let him die.
That was probably problematic.
Sydney couldn’t sit alone with her thoughts any longer, so she went back over to where he was sitting. Blood was still running from his nose, and she used the tail of her coat to clean his face. His eyes were blank and tired, and she guessed he looked about as bad as she felt. They sat quietly next to each other for a while, neither of them saying anything. Then, hesitantly, he leaned his head onto her shoulder, and even though she knew that she should mind it, she couldn’t.
The thought she had been desperately trying to bury refused to be ignored any longer.
They were going to die in this cave.
Together.
Admitting it to herself was…interesting. It was a terrifying thought, dying. Even more terrifying was to die without getting to say goodbye to anyone. It wouldn’t be lonely, though. The company might not be her first choice, but she wouldn’t die alone. That thought was nice, then, in a morbid sort of way.
Mostly, though, the thought just made her tired.
She couldn’t fight death. She was stuck, and there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t pull the axe out of his leg and get herself out, couldn’t even let him pull it out for her.
She wanted to. She wanted not to care so badly. He had done horrible, horrible things, no one would miss him if he died.
But then the curls in his hair were brushing her face, and his hands found one of hers and he was holding it and rubbing it in little circles, and she realised in a rush that she would miss him, which was absurd, but then so was this whole scenario.
So she put her other hand on his shoulder, and leaned her head on top of his, and comforted herself with the fact that none of this would matter because sooner or later they would both be dead.
This was definitely very, very problematic.
And still Sark sat there, rubbing her hand until it actually felt warm, and after a while he murmured into her ear, “If you ever tell anyone about this, I’ll have to kill you.”
“We’re not leaving.” Her voice was tired. “Who could I possibly tell?”
He lifted his head from her shoulder to look at her. “I thought you believed we would escape,” he said carefully, watching her face.
She tried to focus on what he was saying, but all she could think about was how his eyes were too bright and his skin was too pale, and the smell of iron from the pool of blood on the ground and how stiff and weak her own muscles were, and how cold everything was except for the hand that he was still clinging on to.
“It’s too late,” she said dully. “We’re dying here. Together.”
She had thought that he might like that. To hear that she had finally accepted it. But instead, for some mad, incomprehensible reason, he looked angry.
“No,” he said sharply. “We’re not. You are going to get out.”
Even though her brain was getting progressively more sluggish, she still had enough presence of mind to yet again grab his wrists and shove him onto his back on the ice before he could grab the axe again. They both winced as his head hit the hard ground, but she didn’t have time to worry about that now.
“Sark.” She straddled him and pinned his wrists to the ground as she spat the name out. “You said you’d leave it. Now leave it.”
This time he returned her glare. “I am not letting you die.”
“Why not? What do you care? You’ve killed so many people, you can’t honestly think saving my life will change any of it.”
“That’s what you think I care about? My soul?” he spat. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might not want you to die because of you?”
“What the hell does that mean?”
He paused, then, “Nothing. It just means I don’t want to see you throw away your life for no good reason.”
“You care enough about me wasting my life that you’d risk your own death, just on the slim chance I’d make it out of here alive?” she asked, disbelief evident in her voice.
“We’re both going to die anyway. I’d rather my death got you out.”
“Even if we got out, there’s no guarantee anyone would find us. There’s still every likelihood we’d die.”
He scowled up at her a moment longer, then dropped his gaze. “You’re impossible.”
“Deal with it.” She let go of his wrists and got off from on top of him. She sat on the ice with Sark still lying down next to her for a long, dragging moment.
“Sark?”
“Yes?”
“If you ever try to do something like that again, I’ll…” she trailed off, realising that it was rather hard to think of a suitable punishment when you were both going to die in a cave.
“You’ll do what?” he prompted after a pause.
“...I’ll think of something,” she said at last.
Sark nodded slowly. “Well, now that I’m properly threatened, I shall take great care not to meet that horrible punishment.”
She shot him her worst look, but his eyes were closed and his hands were holding one of hers again, like he was comforting her.
Damn the man.
Maybe she would snatch it back. That’d teach him.
That would also mean that the rubbing on the back of her hand would stop, however, so maybe she’d leave it for a little while longer.
Hours passed by in a haze. She could feel the cold growing deeper and deeper, and eventually she was so tired she couldn’t sit up any longer and she joined Sark on the ground. This was getting dangerous. Both of them were trembling uncontrollably, and something in the back of her mind was yelling at her not to fall asleep, but the voice was faint and her head was fuzzy and she was so very, very tired.
So she didn’t move, and her limbs grew stiffer and stiffer and her eyelids began to droop. The last thing she was aware of as she drifted off to sleep was Sark’s hands shakily combing through her hair and he was whispering something into her ear that she couldn’t quite make out, and all she could think was that she hoped he died in his sleep so he didn’t have to feel anything.
—-----------
The cell was freezing.
Not literally freezing, of course. He had spent the last several days in a Siberian ice cave, and this was nothing compared to that.
Still, you’d think that maybe they would have had a little bit of pity on him and turned the heat up.
He didn’t remember leaving the cave, he had already been asleep by that time. They told him that Dixon had survived, had called for a team to come dig into the cave and get Sydney out, that they had been surprised that he was there and alive, but that they weren’t going to pass up an opportunity to get information out of him. Hence, the lovely, freezing cell.
He had asked if Sydney was alive. If she was alright. They hadn’t answered his questions, not that he had really expected them to. Still, every time he heard footsteps coming down the corridor, something stupid and wildly illogical flared in his chest, and he hoped that maybe, this time, it would be her coming to question him.
It never was, of course, it was idiotic of him to think it would be. It was always someone coming to ask him questions that he answered without hesitation, or the doctor coming to make sure his leg wasn’t infected.
After a while, he had tried bargaining with them. He’d answer their questions if they just told him whether or not Sydney was alive. They had politely informed him that no, he would answer their questions or they would torture him.
So his life settled into a routine of waiting in the frigid cell until someone came to take him to the interrogation room where he answered all of their questions honestly. The exception was the one day when Sloane had come in and asked him what he knew about a man named Messner, and he had told Sloane he was an arms dealer who lived in Switzerland, which was true, and then Sloane had asked why he kept inquiring after the status of Agent Bristow, and he had told Sloane that he wanted revenge on her for injuring him, which was a great deal less than true.
Not that he could have answered honestly if he had wanted to, of course. He himself didn’t know why he cared so much. It shouldn’t have bothered him whether she lived or died, but for some mad reason the thought of her being dead made his throat close up.
He tried to push it out of his head, but being stuck in a cell didn’t really leave a lot of options for distraction.
He was lying on the bed one day when he heard someone coming down the corridor and stopping in front of his cell. He sat up and walked over to the bars with a sigh.
“What do they want to know this time?”
The guard didn’t answer or open the door, but instead slid open the metal grate that they pushed in food from and slid a parcel in, all wrapped up in paper.
Sark was surprised. He didn’t know that they let you get packages in SD-6’s prison, nor did he know who would even send him a package. Maybe it was from Irina, he thought. Perhaps it would be some sort of message, somehow.
Or perhaps it was a trap and it would kill him as soon as he opened it.
He unwrapped the parcel and the breath got stuck in his throat. Some strange emotion started clawing at his chest, and while Sark didn’t know a lot about what he was feeling, admittedly, he thought that it was probably a bad sign that he was crying.
In the parcel there was a bright, sunshiney yellow sweater.
This entire situation was very wrong.
He should not feel relieved, he should not be crying, he definitely should not be putting the sweater on and snuggling up inside of it.
But he was, against all of his better judgement and some of his worse, and the only thing that he could think as he lay back down on his bed was that he was very, very screwed.