”Anything. Even if it’s, ‘make yourself scarce for a while’ “ Tarin said, ”It’s a standing offer, all you have to do is ask.”

They agreed on the documentary and Tarin had to look for a moment before his eyes fell on the remote sitting on the coffee table what amounted to miles away.

Looking down at Lee he could see her staring at it like she could somehow summon the thing and Tarin had to chuckle just a little bit as she finally leaned forward to get it.

Lee handed him the remote and Tarin had to grin a little bit, ”Bold choice when there’s a Mets game on.” he said, but was already pulling up the streaming service where the documentary was hosted. There was a Mets game pretty much every night in the spring.

The documentary started and the part the Tarin had already seen started playing again. Oh, there they were talking about people in the past tense again…hopefully this didn’t end up being too sad.

It was a standing offer. If she ever needed him for something, anything, all she had to do was ask. That was good to know, and Lee would keep that in mind.

”Well, since you still haven’t even told me what it’s called, it would be a little difficult for me to put it on,” Lee pointed out. ”And if you did put the game on, I could just take an after dinner nap. See? Everything would work out.”

Of course that was a joke. Even if that afternoon hadn’t given her too much energy to be able to sleep, Lee had already watched a couple of games, at least partial games, with him so far that week alone.

It really didn’t take long at all for Tarin to get it started, and Lee settled in to watch. What he had said about it earlier that day, it sounded like it was going to be interesting. ”It’s never good when they use past tense…” she whispered after a couple minutes.

The beginning diving sequence finished and the documentary moved into information about the childhoods of the two characters. The woman had been driven from an early age to dive and the man had come to it more naturally after trying a number of things.

The foreshadowing was heavy and Tarin couldn’t help but think that something here wasn’t going to end well. So much for a happy ending…

Lee commented something similar, and Tarin shook his head, ”You sure you want to watch this?” he said. The day had already been heavy and he didn’t want to bring it down more. The subject wasn’t usually an issue for Tarin, who was surrounded by death on a daily basis, but Lee…

”Because I think you’re right.”

Tarin questioned if she really did want to watch the documentary since both of them seemed to be feeling that things weren’t going to end well. Though honestly, Lee thought, how many documentaries like this really ended happily?

It didn’t mean that they weren’t interesting.

”Yeah, we can watch it,” Lee said, glancing over at Tarin. ”You did say that the part you already saw today was good.”

Turning back to the TV, the documentary went on to show how the woman had started with free diving, and how well she did in it even as a teen. Good enough to be attracting serious attention in the sport at such a young age.

Well, Lee reasoned, they didn’t generally make documentaries about people who were average, did they?

Meanwhile, the man that the documentary focused on, was shown travelling around Asia and then Africa. All sorts of normal adventures, including seeing gorillas on a mountain in Africa. ”That would be cool,” Lee murmured as a picture was shown on screen of him with gorillas in focus in the background.

It was…” he said, and since Lee was committed to watching, he settled in to see what happened.

The woman had been a prodigy in the sport. The kind of person who had documentaries made about them.

The man had been a traveler, wandering the world in search for what it was he was meant to do. He had gone places and done things and the current scene focused on him on a mountain in Africa with wild gorillas in the background.

Lee thought that would be cool and Tarin had to nodd, ”It really could be cool. I always thought that the trips to Antarctica looked cool because you can’t really go there for any other reason unless you’re a researcher”

Tarin was in agreement that Africa would be cool, especially a trip to try and see wild gorillas. Africa would be doable, with planning.

Antarctica, on the other hand, wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

”I saw something a while ago,” Lee said slowly as she tried to think back and remember details. ”At least at the larger bases, they have support staff too, so it’s not just researchers. Though, I don’t imagine it would be very easy to be hired for those jobs, either.”

By this point, the documentary was showing the man setting up a diving school in Africa, while the woman was still home in Italy, competing, winning, and working towards beating her idol’s world record.

”That is…” Lee wondered as the documentary was talking about diving, without any equipment except for a nose plug, 90 metres below the surface of the water. ”How can they manage to do that?”

Tarin shook his head, ”I think it would have to be nearly impossible….” he said, ”But I’ve heard of trips you can take on a cruise ship where they give you all the gear and you get off for a couple of days and then get back on.” .

It all sounded so cool, ”You have to sail the Drake Passage though and I guess it can get really wild.”

The two divers were still separate at this point, one setting up a dive school, one working towards a world record.

Lee seemed fascinated by the whole prospect of free diving and Tarin shuddered a bit at the idea. It was okay to watch it on TV, but thinking about being that deep in the ocean, completely surrounded by the water…in the dark.

Nope.

”I have no idea. I can’t imagine willingly swimming down that deep…where you couldn’t see a thing…and knowing that there’s just water. Everywhere”

There were actually cruises where just anyone could go and stay in Antarctica for a few days? That was just wild. ”That does sound very neat,” Lee said, glancing over at Tarin again, then giving him a wink. ”But it doesn’t seem the best place to wear skirts.”

The dive school that the man was setting up looked cool, a great place for setting up what he did. And the building they (Lee assumed) had made for it was gorgeous. Small, though she realized with what they were doing and where they were, they wouldn’t really need a lot of indoor space in all reality. It was smart. Save money by making it smaller, and use some of those savings into making everything look better for the customer.

But as she was thinking this, Tarin was answering her previous question, and Lee couldn’t help but full heartedly agree. ”Oh god no,” she added her agreement verbally. ”That’s way too much. Between the darkness and not siphoning because there’s literally no one else there, I wouldn’t even know which way was up.”

”Maybe not on land…but there’d be plenty of time on the trip there and back. The ships are climate controlled…” Tarin had to say, full on grinning as Lee winked at him. ”Plus, I think you’d look awful cute all bundled up.”

Tarin wondered how Lee would react to being called, “cute”.

The dive school was a really cool idea and for a little bit Tarin just marveled at someone doing something that they were meant to do. This man had found his niche and ran with it. It was impressive.

Lee agreed about the diving, if for a different reason. ”I don’t know how they hold their breath that long…let alone know when they’re swimming up compared to swimming down…” It had to have been one of the things that made the sport so dangerous.

Lee just rolled her eyes when Tarin pointed out that the ships people would take on these cruises to Antarctica were climate controlled. But then he said that he thought she’d look cute all bundled up in the cold weather gear. Lifting her hand to scratch her cheek in an attempt to hide the blush she knew was starting to cover her face, Lee looked at the TV in front of them. ”I doubt that…” she whispered.

And just then, the documentary showed the man blacking out during a free diving competition, which is what had prompted him to become what they called a safety diver.

Lee shook her head as she watched. ”Yeah. No. Definitely never doing that,” she declared. She had somehow survived enough things that could have, should have, did kill her without doing it to herself as well.

”I don’t…” Tarin said to Lee’s skepticism. ”I can just see your little face peeking out of a giant parka….” Maybe it was a little far to tease, but Tarin couldn’t help himself. Lee, who was generally so sure of herself, seemed so uncomfortable with the idea.

Then. On screen, the man was doing a free dive and blacked out in the water. It was kind of a claustrophobics worst nightmare and Tarin found himself staring at the TV in kind of mute horror.

”Nope…” Tarin said, voice slightly strangled as he watched. ”No chance in a million years.”

Lee blushed darker when Tarin continued speaking. ”My ‘little’ face?” Lee asked, her eyebrows raised as she looked over at Tarin. Even with the blush still on her face. ”Not going to happen, Mister.”

The blackout on the documentary was bad enough in general, but when Lee heard Tarin’s voice as he said ‘nope’, she immediately reached out to grab his hand, turning to look up at him.

Seeing the expression on his face, Lee raised her other hand, gently turning his face to look at her. ”You’ll never have to,” she said gently. ”Are you good? Or should we pause it?”

Oh, this was fun. How could Lee be so composed so much of the time. How could she go out of her way to do things that purposely pushed him right over the edge of rational thought and the blush like that when he simply said she’d look cute all bundled up in cold weather gear? It definitely boggled the mind a bit.

What wasn’t fun was the thought of what was going on in the documentary.

Tarin jumped a little at the the touch of Lee’s hand on his face, but turned to look at her, blinking a few times and smiling. ”I know…” he said, shaking his head a bit self-consciously. He’d been the one to choose the movie.

Did they need to pause?

”No…” he said, looking at Lee and leaning down for a quick kiss, ”Just hold my hand through all the scary parts.”

At least Tarin wasn’t saying anything else about her looking ‘cute’ bundled up in a parka. Or anything about her blush. Oh, he had definitely noticed, she could tell by the look in his eyes as he looked back at her. But he wasn’t saying anything, so that was good.

What wasn’t good was how he jumped when she touched his face. ”Sorry,” she breathed as she saw him blinking. She hadn’t meant to startle him like that, just to get his attention away from what was happening on the screen at the moment.

Kissing him back when he leaned down, she smiled at him and squeezed his hand she was still holding from a few moments earlier. ”Of course I will,” she said, snuggling closer again.

When she turned back to the TV, Lee saw that they were thankfully past that part. They were starting to get into a rivalry between the woman the documentary was focused on and a Japanese woman. The two were going head to head, each pushing the other a metre deeper, then another metre, as they slowly pushed their way down to the world record of 101 metres.

Then the documentary cut to a newscast about the woman’s idol. They said that this woman was the best free diver, yet during a dive off the coast of Spain, she had just…disappeared.

Lee squeezed Tarin’s hand again slightly. That did not bode well combined with the bad feeling they had had at the start of the documentary.

This was getting to be a bit much, Tarin decided as Lee snuggled back into him and they proceeded to watch the documentary. The situation hadn’t even been in real life. It had been on a TV screen and just thinking about it had been enough to send Tarin into a state bad enough that Lee had noticed.

Why was he having so much trouble with tight spaces? It had been kind of bad as a kid, but it hadn’t been like this and Tarin hadn’t had these issues since all those years ago when it had been worked out of him through all of the exposure training.

Why now, and why did it seem to be getting worse? It just didn’t make sense.

The documentary was plowing on now, and the prodigy diver was competing with a rival. They were pushing each other meter by meter to get further and further down. There was a world record in reach and neither of them seemed willing to stop until they’d gotten it.

Early on in the documentary the woman had spoken about her idol. The person who had inspired her to start this whole wild hobby in the first place.

That woman had gone to train one day and had disappeared.

Just disappeared one day off the coast of Spain.

It made an uncomfortable feeling worm its way down Tarin’s back. That woman had been the best. He thought he saw where this was going and it wasn’t good. Squeezing Lee’s hand back, he shook his head slightly. This was the point where any sane people would have hung up their flippers and found a safer hobby.