No one dared to talk loudly about what had happened in the morning. They ate breakfast in silence, and Sam and Penny were clearly trying to keep as far away from each other as possible, still haunted by the embarrassment Ellie had caused them when she had woken them up. However, both of them were unable to hide their cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It was only when they had finished breakfast and returned to their rooms to gather their things that Sam dared to address Penny.

"What happened yesterday?" He asked, trying to sound as indifferent as possible.

"We went to sleep," Penny replied, also trying to be indifferent.

"Penny, if..." Sam began, wanting to apologize, but Penny interrupted him before she even heard what he wanted to say.

"Sam, nothing happened," Penny said sharply, but her eyes remained gentle. Sam didn't know why at first, because Penny was never good at faking emotions, but he understood as soon as she smiled and added. "Besides, we were both tired and had a right to rest. Look, I couldn't let you sleep on the floor," she explained.

"But we slept together. It was more than wrong," Sam responded, running a hand through his hair in desperation. "We're..."

"Friends," Penny finished for him. "And friends take care of each other," she added, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly.

"Still... I think it might not be enough of an excuse for Ellie. You know how hard she can be on you with her jokes," Sam noted, and when he said that, he brought Penny's attention back to him. "I can fool Elvis somehow if he would start jumping to some conclusions without explanation. But you might have a harder time with Ellie, just because you wanted to help me. I don't want you to take the blame for that, Penny."

"You're too good for this world, do you know that?" Penny asked him jokingly. Sam just shrugged with a sheepish smile, while Penny turned around to check her backpack one last time. "Ellie's not dangerous, Sam. I'll be fine," she assured.

Deep down, though, she knew she was just repeating years of well-practiced lies. Her heart was rebelling quite loudly, so she sped up, passing Sam as they descended the stairs so he wouldn't hear her loudly beating heart. The fear of him telling the truth tightened her throat, but she was still able to continue the conversation normally as they left the shelter. Thankfully, their short conversation made the silence less uncomfortable for them as they stepped out and wordlessly began to look around for the rest of their friends.

"Do you think they're still packing?" Penny asked as they walked around the entire courtyard.

"Knowing them, anything is possible," Sam stated teasingly.

"Don't overdo it, Sam," Ellie admonished him, appearing behind him seemingly out of nowhere. "Elvis just had to repack his backpack," she explained as Elvis and Arnold also came into view.

"Come on, if we want to make it to a stop on the way for our makeshift lunch, we need to get out," Sam stated, leading them into the shade of the trees.

"Since when have you been so organized? If I remember correctly, plans and schedules are Penny and Arnold's area of ​​interest," Ellie reminded him teasingly as Sam led them onto the path.

"Sam has a map, so Sam leads. Simple as that," Penny replied. "Even Elvis understood," she added, teasing Ellie. And as she passed Elvis, who was engrossed in struggling with the straps of his backpack, she whispered to him, "No hard feelings."

The shelter they spent the night in was in a small clearing by the road. But the forest that surrounded the building in a wide swath was already thickly wooded. The branches of the tallest trees protected them from the sun, providing a pleasant refreshment in the shade of the forest. The path was barely visible in such conditions, and the fact that they had not yet turned onto their trail only made them look at each other uncertainly as they came to a fork in the road.

"Which way now, Sam?" Elvis asked as they all gathered around Sam to also examine the map.

"Right," Sam replied, and was just about ready to fold the map when Ellie stopped him.

"Are you sure? This path doesn't look too inviting," she stated, pointing to a narrow passage between the bushes.

"That's the way I have marked on my map," Sam replied.

"Chief Fire Officer Boyce said he wanted to give us a harder path," Arnold admitted, and explained what he had seen on the map in Chief Fire Officer Boyce's office.

"In other words, we just have to be more careful," Penny concluded before they set off.

They took a lightly trodden path, only going deeper and deeper into the forest. It was warm, and a pleasant breeze blew through their hair as they walked single file, surrounded by a wall of trees. At first, no one spoke, but after too long in silence, it began to bore them. When the path allowed them to, they began to walk side by side. While Penny fell behind with Elvis and Arnold, Ellie picked up the pace and managed to catch up with Sam, who was walking thoughtfully in front.

"How long do you think this will take us?" Ellie asked.

"At least a week, if we don't overexert ourselves. And we don't want that, so I don't think there's any rush," Sam replied.

"So we have plenty of time for your plan to go into effect," Ellie thought out loud.

"No, Ellie," Sam denied, looking at her for the first time. "I don't want this anymore," Sam replied calmly, though everything in him contradicted the decision he had made.

"Just a week ago, you had asked me to help you get over your fear and now you're saying it wasn't important?" Ellie looked at him with skepticism and confusion too.

"You said it didn't make sense," Sam corrected her. "I just thought that. What's the point of telling her if she's thinking about someone else?"

"She's not thinking about anyone else, Sam," Ellie assured calmly, despite rolling her eyes at her friends' hopeless blindness. "She's just trying to defend herself for the exact same reason you are."

"But she's defending herself against your methods," Sam objected. "We all know no one can get on Penny's nerves as much as you can."

"We all know I'm doing this to help you," Ellie teased him back.

"That's not helping, Ellie," Sam noted with a quiet sigh. "You saw her this morning. She wouldn't talk to anyone."

"Same to you, me, Arnold, or even Elvis," Ellie noted. "Besides...What happened to your come what may?" Ellie repeated, reminding him of their first conversation.

"Ellie, if she has someone, I'll just make a fool of myself. Besides, being friends with her means more to me than saying two empty words," he replied stubbornly.

"Do you know who's empty here? You two," Ellie shouted, then turned on her heel and walked to the very end with an irritated expression.

This didn't go unnoticed by Penny, who was listening quite closely to Sam and Ellie's conversation, although no matter how hard she tried to concentrate, she couldn't hear what they were saying because of the noise of the forest.

"So, Penny? Are you going to leave the fire department now?" Arnold snapped her out of her thoughts, just as Ellie passed them.

"I just passed a simple first aid training. And it was anything but basic knowledge," Penny explained. "So I'm not going to change my career completely now. I love the fire department too much to do something like that," Penny reassured him. "Excuse me for a moment," she apologized, then sped up and now she was the one who matched her pace with Sam, seeing how after talking to Ellie something clearly worried him.

"What's wrong?" She asked, gently patting his shoulder to let him know she was there.

"Nothing," Sam replied indifferently.

"I can see that something's going on. Do I have to push you every day?" She asked teasingly.

"No," Sam laughed.

"So, what's going on? You and Ellie don't look happy," Penny stated gently.

"Have I told you before that you're my best friend?" Sam asked with a smile.

"No. But I don't need to hear that, because I know it," Penny replied, returning his smile.

"If Ellie teases you..." Sam began, trying to apologize, but Penny interrupted him.

"I already told you, I can do it," she emphasized. "We're supposed to enjoy this trip and not argue with each other, right?"

"Enjoy?" Sam repeated, reaching into his trousers pocket to pull out a map. "There's a lake a few kilometers ahead of us. We could take a break there," he suggested, turning to the others.

"Good thing Elvis didn't forget to bring a shovel and bucket instead of a tent. At least we'll have something to build a sandcastle with," Ellie joked teasingly.

"I didn't bring a shovel or bucket at all," Elvis denied.

"Too bad because I really wanted to rest," Ellie sighed.

"We haven't even walked two kilometers and you're already tired?" Penny gave Ellie a surprised look.

"I was the only one of you sleeping on the couch," Ellie reminded.

"The path to the lake goes down a bit so it will be easier for us to go. Besides, it's the first day, so we can't get completely tired" Sam stated soothingly, effectively stopping Ellie from speaking.

However, the path was not pleasant at all, and instead of going down it went up and not easy at all but sharply. It took them half a day to climb up the steep slope and when they reached the lake all they could think about was rest.