Chapter Text
Ask anyone who climbs mountains why they do it and you'll get a hundred different answers. The prestige of making it to the summit and back, alive. The view from up on high, thousands of metres above civilization. The challenge of it all, clawing your way up bit by bit, entirely under your own power. Because it's there.
Ask Carl why he was climbing a mountain, and his answer was simple: obligation.
Carl wasn't what you'd call an outdoors person. The prospect of climbing a mountain - walking up a few thousand metres of rocky cliff, kept from falling solely by a complex metal clasp and some rope - was terrifying to him. You could do everything perfectly, and if any one piece of your equipment failed, stretched the slightest bit beyond its capabilities, then you hit the ground at terminal velocity, and if you were lucky you died on impact. If you weren't? You broke, maybe shattered a few bones, probably punched a few holes in yourself, and then it was anyone's game as to whether or not exposure or blood loss got to you first. And they'd take their sweet time getting to you. You'd be begging for it.
Not to say that he was an inactive person - he ran. He worked out. He understood taking care of your body was somewhat important if you wanted to enjoy your life past forty. He wasn't lazy. Carl was just possessed of the opinion that the incredible risks summiting a peak away from civilization posed if things went wrong outweighed any of the potential benefits.
And yet, there he was, kneeled next to his couch. Taking inventory of the food he'd scrounged up, and organizing the climbing equipment he'd purchased, and laying out the clothes he'd planned to wear. And when he finished, he was going to pack it all up into his gargantuan backpack (though, backpack felt like such an inadequate term, like calling a cruise liner a boat), and then about ten hours afterwards he was going to pile everything into his car and drive out to Mount Celeste. And then he was going to climb it, all the way to the top. The gear was purchased. The days off were approved. The car was gassed up. He was committed.
He was committed because he'd made a mistake. Not your average, garden-variety sort of mistake, the kind you could fix with an apology and recognition of what went wrong and a promise to avoid it. This was the Big One. Something that couldn't be taken back. He desperately wanted to talk to someone, anyone, about it, but the desire to reach out was tempered by the fear that he would be judged for it. And so he'd spent the past month or so stuck in a pit of despair and guilt... until a second chance arrived, right on his doorstep. A chance to right his wrong. A means that, if properly followed up on, would allow him to look in the mirror and see a person again, and not a failure. Oh, and it piled on a bit more despair and guilt, too. Y'know. For good measure.
Call it The Package.
The Package was what Carl was obligated to. It sat away from everything else he'd gathered, wrapped in a towel to prevent damage when he tucked it into the shipping container that the sporting goods store called a backpack, a thing that was obstinately not what any sane or intelligent person would bring with them when they were trying to get to the top of a thirty five hundred metre hill. But then Carl wouldn't initially reach for those words to describe himself with, and in any case that was why he was calling it The Package. If anything, he was going to the top of the mountain to get it there, rather than himself.
"Well," he spoke, mostly just to himself. "I guess... I guess that's it. Everything looks fine. I've got enough food and water." He closed his eyes, breathed deeply. "No turning back now." Carl stood, walking over to The Package. He regarded it for a moment. "Don't worry," he gulped, swallowing the lump that formed in his throat when he thought about it. "I'm not failing you this time. I'll do right by you... even if it kills me. Especially if it kills me. Not to harp on that bit, but I'm still not convinced this won't kill me, you know."
Gingerly, he lifted The Package, always surprised when it turned out to have only a third of the heft he expected it to. With all the care and caution he would ascribe to an armed nuclear warhead, he brought it over to the backpack and slipped it inside, before packing everything he needed to around it. When all was said and done, despite The Package's inconvenient volume, almost no compromise was necessary to make everything fit. The sleeping bag, the climbing axes, and the water bottle (though like the backpack, "bottle" was a bit stingy a descriptor as the damn thing was nearly a jug) were all going on the backpack, and the only thing he wasn't able to get in there was a tent. And thanks to the miracle of bivouac sacks, he didn't need one to keep the wind from freezing him to death.
Carl zipped up the backpack, then stepped back to admire his handiwork. It was the first time he had felt proud of something in the past month. He held onto that pride, because it was the first time he'd felt anything positive in about the same timeframe. And given what this was all in service of, he expected it would be the only win he was going to get until this was done.
With everything ready, he pulled out his phone and checked the time. 8:15. He still had an hour or two to kill before he needed to hit the sack. Carl thought for a good second about what he could do - what it felt appropriate to do given the immense weight of the task looming over him.
Then he headed over to the TV, and the old, veteran games console sitting next to it. He'd made his decision.
One last nostalgia trip.
"Snacks?"
"Check."
"Water?"
"Check."
"Sleeping bags?"
"Check."
"Sanitation?"
"Check."
"Camera?"
Theo didn't even flinch. "Oh, that is absolutely checked." In response, Madeline zipped up her own backpack and flashed Theo a thumbs-up. "Then it looks like we're ready to go!"
Madeline heaved her backpack up onto her couch and sat down next to it, pulling her legs up to her chest as she did. Theo, in the meanwhile, left his backpack on the floor and decided to casually sprawl out on the other end. The preparations were done, and they were both committed.
They were going back to Mount Celeste, and they were going to get Theo to the top.
"Can't believe I'm finally gonna go see the Summit," Theo said.
"I can," Madeline replied. "Think of all the great selfies you'll be able to take!"
Theo laughed, pulling out his smartphone and holding it out in front of him. "It's ya boi, Theo, just chillin' on top of this mountain! Hashtag blessed." He snickered. "The ultimate flex. Almost makes me ashamed I'm still on a social media break, that would totally be a good selfie."
"Well, you could always put them up after your break ends," Madeline offered. "You know, if you even remember to take any. I think you and that fancy camera of yours are going to have a field day."
"Oh, absolutely," Theo puffed. "Everything you've been telling me about what the view was like up there was what convinced me to bring my fancy camera along. I don't want to miss a single detail about it."
"You'll get your money's worth out of it. All two thousand and ninety-nine American dollars of it," Madeline recalled.
"Huh. You remembered?"
"You kept going on about it being the "steal of the century"."
"'Cause it was. Seriously, have you seen how much a good, professional camera can cost?"
Madeline nodded, blanching a little as she recalled some of the numbers she'd seen just from idle perusal. "I have. I do not understand how you make enough money to afford one."
"To be honest?" Theo smirked, that same easygoing, approachable smirk he'd been sporting ever since they met in the shade of an abandoned construction zone three years ago. "I don't understand either. And I'm not really sure I care. So far as I'm concerned, I've found my calling. I finally feel like I've got a drive, you know? Like there's a direction for me to go in. Like I'm being an adult. A nice enough paycheck to cover regular visits is just the strawberry on the pie, as they say."
"I'm still happy it worked out for you," Madeline thanked. "I was pretty worried it wouldn't. That you wouldn't find enough work, or that you'd start hating what you love because it was work and not something you did for yourself."
"Well... I mean, lack of work is valid. You know I worry about that from time to time. Even so, you worry too much, Strawberry."
"I do."
Theo sat himself up. "Well, I'm still doing completely fine, so no need to worry about me. Your goth alter ego doesn't need to worry either."
A beat.
"Speaking of... how is she?"
Madeline shrugged. "The usual. We're cool, you know?" She'd already explained it before, as hard as she found it to put the complex nature of Badeline's existence into words (or as hard as she found it to explain why she willingly called herself that). But she was confident Theo understood: Badeline may have been her own separate entity, but she was still a part of Madeline, a slice of the whole. She'd learned well from the first climb, and she'd stopped suppressing those bits of herself she hated. She'd learned to accept the anger she previously viewed as rude, and the need to focus on herself that she thought was just being selfish, and the ever-present fear about everything that had pervaded her life nearly as far back as she could remember. Sometimes she listened to those things earnestly, because while it may not have been something she wanted to hear, it was something she needed to. Other times, though, she really was irrational and scared and angry and selfish. And she forgave herself for it, because it was okay to be those things. People weren't perfect. Having moments of weakness didn't make her vile and unlovable.
Even if she'd learned it through the metaphor (if you could call it that, since she did actually exist) of talking to a purple-haired, grey-skinned version of herself, Madeline had still found self-acceptance, and with it she'd been doing the best she had ever been. There were still bad days - like the month when she learned that Granny had passed - but all in all, the outliers were bad days, not good days. She could truly, earnestly say she loved herself.
But despite that, some days Madeline missed her other self. Maybe it was a little egotistical, but she made for nice company.
"Man. It'd be nice if I could talk to her more," Theo opined, clearly sharing her opinion. "I liked her."
"Me too," Madeline agreed. "I'll see if I can't coax her out when we get there. I can't guarantee anything - it's her decision. But I can try."
"Well, don't sweat it. If she doesn't wanna come out, that's fine too." There went Theo again - genuine and honest and respectful, like he was all the time. The man made being a saint look effortless. Madeline wasn't sure how he managed it. Some days she wondered if he could even feel anger. On some of her darker days she was jealous of him for how composed he was, and she'd found the solution to that to be acknowledging those feelings, then gently remembering the problems Theo had and dealt with, because he had his fair share of issues to deal with that didn't go away just because he was good at being social. Like the fear he felt some days that this idyll he'd found himself in was temporary, that one day his clients would dry up and his career with them.
It wasn't entirely rational - the still-rising quality of his work was what kept people asking for it, after all - but then that was the thing about fear, wasn't it? It was never rational.
"But, you know," Theo continued, looking at Madeline like she was trying to look at something inside of her, "if she could come out for her old pal Theo, that'd be sweet."
Madeline laughed. "Maybe that's how you bring her out. Keep buttering her up." For a moment, there was naught but comfortable silence. Madeline glanced over to the clock on her wall, analog like everything else it was possible to have that way. A quarter past eight, it read. "So. We finished packing early. Anything you wanna do before we go to bed?"
Theo thought for a moment, rubbing his beard, before shrugging. "Honestly we've been pretty active today. And we're gonna be REALLY active this weekend. I wouldn't mind sitting back for a bit, chilling out with some TV."
Madeline fetched the remote. "Well, what do you feel like watching?"
"Surprise me," Theo challenged. "I've been hogging your boob tube lately."
Madeline took a few minutes to think about what she could watch that the both of them would enjoy, but then Theo's phone rang and her train of thought derailed off a cliff. Theo, who in his classic style had never actually put his phone away after the selfie gag, took a second to look at who it was. "It's Alex."
"Go ahead," Madeline granted. "Gives me a minute to think."
Theo smiled in thanks, then headed off towards Madeline's "guest room". She called it a guest room - and on the days when she took account of her apartment, cleaning and restocking things that she might have slacked on, she did try to stock it like it was one - but really, it was Theo's room. Madeline didn't have too many guests. Her parents lived in Vancouver too, and all of her local friends usually had their own places to stay. Not that people crashing at Maddy's didn't happen, but Theo was easily the room's most frequent user, and eventually she just let Theo arrange it however he pleased. Nobody seemed to complain.
Madeline smiled. Theo was in town, they were going to revisit Celeste, and everything was packed for the trip. The only thing she had to worry about, if you could even call her brainstorming "worry", was what she was going to set on for her best friend to enjoy.
Life was good.