His Regret Can’t Bring Us Back Chapter 13
When Nicole woke up, it was already that afternoon.
Her head felt like it was splitting, and her mouth tasted bitter.
She found herself lying on a bed in the base dormitory, the sky outside the window overcast.
“Awake?” Conor was keeping watch by the bed. When he saw her open her eyes, he hurried over with a cup of warm water. “You scared us to death! You kid—no matter how hard you push yourself at work, you can’t burn yourself out like this. You just fainted right in the office! Good thing Captain Carlson and the others got back in time…”
Nicole propped herself up and sat, took the cup, and looked a little dazed.
All she remembered was how unusually sleepy she had been while sorting data last night; after that, everything was blank.
“I… fainted?”
“Didn’t you just! Captain Carlson helped you back and said you were dead tired.” Conor kept rambling. “You can’t do this again. Your body is your capital!”
Nicole rubbed her temples. Something felt off, but the lingering fatigue in her body left her unable to think too hard.
Maybe she really was just too tired.
She did not see Sebastian again.
Conor mentioned it now and then, saying that the detective captain from New York seemed to have already left.
She gave a soft “Mm,” and did not ask any further.
Life returned to its old track.
The injury on Ronald’s back healed quickly, and within days he showed up at the worksite again.
He did not say anything to Nicole. His attitude toward her remained the same as ever—steady, dependable, strictly professional.
Only, now and then, when assigning tasks, he would place her as much as possible in work that was relatively safe, or that let her meticulous strengths shine.
A few days later, Nicole heard a bit of gossip.
“I heard that guy got detained, and his post was revoked too.”
“Who knows what he did? Anyway, it’s useless to regret it now!”
She stood where she was for a while, silent.
With how unwell she had felt those days, and Sebastian’s sudden disappearance, Nicole could more or less guess what had happened.
But she did not ask.
Some things—once they were past—should be allowed to pass completely.
People included.
Half a month later, the base received an emergency survey assignment.
They needed to measure an area on the edge of the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, where the geology was relatively complex.
Quicksand shifted frequently there. With ordinary team members lacking experience, Ronald decided to lead it in person.
“Stay by my side and handle the data recording and route markers.”
Before setting out, Ronald checked the gear as he spoke to Nicole. “Stick close, and watch your footing.”
Nicole nodded seriously and packed her measuring tools and notebook securely.
The group rode camels deep into the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes.
At first, everything went smoothly. Ronald was experienced, always able to avoid patches of sand that looked flat but were actually loose.
Nicole followed closely behind, carefully recording every feature point he indicated and all the measurement data.
But the weather in the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes changed in an instant.
It had been only a light breeze; by afternoon, a gale suddenly rose, whipping up sand and dust until visibility plummeted.
“A sandstorm’s coming! Everyone—find shelter on the spot. Form a circle with the camels and hold tight to the reins!”
Ronald shouted orders, his voice blurred by wind and grit.
Everyone scrambled to do as told.
Nicole had just slid down from the camel when the ground beneath her suddenly softened!
It was not firm sand at all, but the hidden edge of a quicksand patch!
The gale stripped away the hardened crust on top, exposing the trap beneath that swallowed everything.
“Ah!” She managed only a short cry before her whole body sank sharply downward, the quicksand instantly swallowing her calves.
“Nicole!” Ronald was closest; his pupils constricted.
He lunged without hesitation and grabbed her arm.
But the quicksand’s pull was astonishing. Nicole’s sinking did not slow at all—if anything, it dragged Ronald with her as he began sliding toward the center!
“Ronald! Let go!” Nicole shouted in panic.
Cold sweat sprang up on Ronald’s forehead. Not only did he not let go, he locked his other hand around her wrist as well.
He kicked and clawed with his feet, trying desperately to find purchase.
“Hold on to me! Don’t move around!”
Blocked by the wind and sand, the other team members could not get close for the moment; they could only shout anxiously.
The quicksand had already reached Nicole’s waist, and more than half of Ronald’s body had been dragged in too.
At the critical moment, he suddenly spotted, not far off to one side, what looked like a hard rock half-buried at the quicksand’s edge.
A flicker of resolve flashed in his eyes.
“Listen!” he roared at Nicole. “When I count to three, kick up with everything you’ve got! I’ll shove you out!”
“Then what about you?!” Her face went deathly pale as she yelled.
“Don’t worry about me! Ready—one, two, three!”
Ronald threw all his strength into it. His arms surged with startling power as he flung Nicole upward.
She felt a tremendous force, her body lifted into the air, and she crashed hard onto the firm rock at the edge, out of the quicksand’s reach.
Ignoring the pain, she rolled and scrambled up at once. Ronald had already been swallowed to the neck; yellow sand kept surging, about to cover his mouth and nose.
“Ronald—!”
Nicole was terrified to the core, tears bursting from her eyes.
Like a madwoman, she tore the rope used to lash tools from her waist and threw herself toward Ronald, hurling one end of the rope at him with all her might.
“Grab it! Ronald, grab it!”
With difficulty, he lifted the arm he could still move and caught the rope.
At that moment, the other team members finally fought through the wind and sand. Several of them joined forces and hauled on the rope with everything they had.
An inch, then another!
Little by little, Ronald’s body was pulled back from the edge of death.
Nicole knelt beside him, fumbling as she brushed sand from his face and from his mouth and nose.
His face was ashen and his breathing faint. Multiple cuts on his back and arms from sand and stones seeped with blood.
“Ronald! Ronald, wake up!”
Nicole’s voice shook with sobs; her hands were trembling badly.
Ronald slowly opened his eyes. Seeing the tears and terror all over her face, he tugged at the corner of his mouth. “…What are you crying for? I’m fine.”
The sensation of surviving disaster washed over her all at once. She could not hold back anymore and gathered him into her arms.
Even Nicole herself had not realized that Ronald’s place in her heart had become so important.
Off to the side, Sebastian—just released, rushing through the wind and sand after getting the news—saw the scene.
He froze, his face turning paler inch by inch.
Because in Nicole’s eyes, he saw love surging up.
He stood in the blowing sand for a long time, then turned away and left, defeated.
He knew she had put him down completely.
From that day on, nothing in Nicole’s life would ever have anything to do with him again.
That love that had been tightly entwined since youth had finally scattered away, worn down by the mistakes he made again and again.
***
A month later.
In the hospital, the setting sun poured through the ward window, dyeing the room a warm orange-gold.
After finishing a set of rehab exercises, Ronald rested against the headboard.
Nicole packed up the insulated lunch container, ready to leave and return to the base for work.
“Nikki.” Ronald suddenly called to her.
She turned back. “What is it?”
“When this leg of mine is properly better,” Ronald said as he looked at her, his gaze calm and far-reaching, “our base has taken on a new assignment—farther west, near the border. We’re going to build a meteorological observation station and a supply point. Conditions will be harsher than they are now. We might be there a year or two, maybe longer.”
He paused, then asked, “Are you willing to come with me… with everyone, together?”
Nicole stood in the doorway against the light, her outline blurred.
She did not answer right away, only turned her head to look out the window.
There, the last band of rosy light was reflecting off the eternal snowcapped peaks in the distance—vast and magnificent.
After a moment, she turned back to Ronald and smiled—very lightly, but unmistakably.
“Sure. We’ll go together.”
Some things did not need to be said, and did not need to be asked.
On this immense, unforgiving land, once feelings took root between people, they were like a saxaul tree, gripping deep underground.
And as the years carved onward, they only grew more vigorous and strong.
The end.
