Trevor: Hey, glad to see you weren't mauled by a polar bear.

Audrey: I've got a great can of bear spray.

Trevor: You applied it well, head to paws at least fifteen minutes before heading into the bear zone?

I shook my head and chuckled to myself. At least his sarcasm was a good sign.

Audrey: Like always. If your eyes aren't burning, it's not working. Slow day at work today?

Trevor: We finished a big job early. I'm just covering for Alicia until we close.

Seeing her name made me smile. When I left two years ago, Alicia had replaced me as a receptionist. She had such a kind soul, and I'd hoped that maybe she'd help or charm Trevor when I was gone, though based on his date to the wedding, that hadn't been the case.

Audrey: She's still working there? Say hi for me!

Trevor: Only until Friday. Then she's off on mat leave. Will do. The rest of the staff say hi too.

Audrey: What?! That's exciting for her. Tell them hi back for me, or maybe I'll pop by the office and say it in person before we hang out when I'm in the city.

Trevor: As long as you keep applying that bear spray :p. Have fun out there, Drea :)

I smiled and laughed again.

Audrey: Thanks Trev, have a good evening :)

The conversation left me with a warm sensation, both from Alicia's news and managing a friendly chat with Trev. I opened Messenger to shoot Alicia a congratulations message and not long after, she said that the job could be mine again if I ever missed freezing my ass off and getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. She was planning on taking 18 months off with her baby girl, who was due in three weeks. I joked back that daily the commute from Indonesia might be hectic.

"You're smiley." Caleb's friendly voice made me jump a little.

I turned to him, happy to see his relaxed expression. "Hey, how was the family?"

"Good, good. I sent you a message, but it must not have gone through."

"Let me check." I opened Messenger and sure enough, his name was in bold font underneath Trevor's with unread messages.

Caleb let out a soft 'oh' before clearing his throat.

"Everything okay?" I looked at the message that told me I could come back to the room and the pizza was still warm.

"Yeah... it's fine." He sounded about as fine as a tornado warning. Frown lines ridged his normally smooth forehead, and his eyes didn't meet mine. 

"Caleb?"

"It's none of my business."

He must have noticed I was messaging Trevor. "If this is about my ex, we were chatting about work and making ignorant comments about bear spray. I can show you the conversation if you want to see it."

He shook his head. "No, I don't want to be that couple. I trust you." Although the tension in his upper body seemed to say 'I want to trust you' more than he actually did.

I felt guilty about having started that discussion with Trevor. It was one thing to have guy friends, but another to pursue a new friendship with your ex.

"I was messaging my friends pictures of you and me from the trip, thinking how wild it was that our relationship came out of my need to get space from Trevor, then I felt bad about how it ended and messaged him just to say hi."

"You don't need to explain it. We're temporary. I understand that and that you have a life and a past." He sighed as his lips twitched to remain in a neutral position.

Was that how he thought I saw us? A bit of fun before I went back to the man whose heart I broke because it was a more stable long-term option. Did he not sense how longing every touch and kiss was for a lasting relationship?

"This is a lot more than temporary to me. The most I'd want with Trevor is friendship. With you... I know we can't have it, but I want more."

He held my hand and softly said, "Me too."

As much as I wanted to push him to see what more our far-off future might be, I left it for now.

"You hardly answered when I asked how your family was. Everything's good?"

It took him a minute to shake off his tension, and I worried that perhaps his sister's health had declined.

"Yeah, the doctor said Lily's showing some positive signs, nothing to change the situation immediately, but it's hopeful."

"Caleb, that's amazing!" I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him into a tight embrace. He held me with his usual warmth. "I'm so relieved."

"Me too... it's... the odds are stronger that she'll wake up than not."

I ran my hand along the soft fabric of his t-shirt over his back. "That's amazing. Your parents must be able to relax a little."

"The doctor warned them it'll be a long recovery."

"But they're expecting a recovery?"

He nodded and squeezed me tight. A minute later, he pulled back to look me in the eye. "My dad talked to me." He paused and massaged his temples. "Mum showed him the video you took of me at the lake. He said he wants to see a polar bear in the next one."

That smile had to mean their tension had eased. I fought the urge to consider what that meant for us as a couple. This was about Caleb and his family.

"Did you tell him we're starting with the belugas?"

"Yeah, Lily was so excited about that tour. She said it would be the highlight of the trip if she could touch one." That slightly melancholic edge to his tone broke my heart. Did that ache sit with him at each spot we visited as he carried the weight of Lily's unmet dreams? Knowing Caleb, it must.

I had to lighten his mood somehow. "Did you tell her the bacteria on her skin would be damaging to them?" I teased, as it seemed like something he'd say.

"I did, and she assured me she was joking, partly. There are other concerns with visiting them. Since they're quite curious, it can disrupt their feeding and time caring for their newborns. But you can keep your distance and continue paddling to mitigate it. I couldn't say no to Lily, and when I heard how thrilled you were about it, I couldn't bring myself to cancel it."

"If you're not comfortable kayaking, we can still cancel."

"I trust us to be responsible, and I am quite excited."

I grinned and held his hand. "Me too!"

"So, before I interrupted our evening, we planned to have supper. Do you want to eat in the room or bring the food out here?"

The surrounding scenery had changed from the city of Thompson to a boreal forest featuring many pot lakes interspersed with trees. Sometimes I forgot we were a province of over 100,000 lakes, but out here, it was easy to see given how many we passed and the variation in their sizes.

"It's quite nice here. And if we commit to these spots, there could be Northern Lights."

He looked into my eyes with such a sincere smile. "Have I told you I adore you?"

Now my expression matched his. "I don't tire of hearing it, and I adore you too."

Once we'd enjoyed our supper on the lower level, more seats opened up in the upper observation area, so we claimed a spot. Windows and a glass dome ceiling, which made for spectacular sights, surrounded the entire car. Caleb kept an eye out for beavers, moose, caribou and bears, but instead, we saw birds soaring above the treetops.

The trees grew thinner, shorter, and sparser and the land more marsh-like. We passed through a few tiny communities with handfuls of houses well-spaced out, most along waterways, but most of the ride was through the natural landscape. In the towns, a few people would hop out to meet the others in trucks or ATVs who welcomed them.

As the daylight dwindled near 10 pm and the train car grew emptier, Caleb coaxed me back to the cabin, promising we'd return if the northern lights came out. The clouds that lurked in the sky didn't look too encouraging, and the lure of cuddle-sleeping was too good to pass up. Once we'd nestled into the bottom bunk together, I fell asleep in his arms almost instantly.

With the train stopping and starting at different stations, I'd wake up in a daze here and there. I must have fallen asleep for a while since the next time I awoke, it was growing brighter. Caleb was still sleeping, his breathing escaping him in a slow, relaxed manner. The burden that had been lifted off him with both the news about his sister and his father being less distant was significant, and it showed in the lessening of his heavy silences yesterday.

Outside, the landscape had gone from dense forests to sparsely treed, with small groupings of them here in there near the pot lakes. The trees were stunted in growth and missing limbs because of the strong winds that swept through the tundra. The train line followed an old wooden pole system, and at one point I did a double take, sitting up straighter and edging closer to the window. There was a person out there in a chair! I kept my eyes peeled, and another chair and 'person' appeared, more stuffed and scarecrow-like than my tired vision had picked up on the first time.

As I perched on the edge of the bed, I grinned and laughed, enjoying the atomic green hues of the lichen and mosses, the grasses and bushes on the exposed ground, and the various pot lakes that kept appearing. I had plenty of time to enjoy the scenery as the current speed of the train could was joggable on any other terrain as it struggled over the muskeg landscape.

After an hour, Caleb stretched out, shifting the bed as he sat up and pulling the blankets with him to join me near the window in a cozy, shared cocoon. He ran a gentle hand up and down my back.

"See polar bears yet?"

"Fifteen of them. One was riding a large bear like a soldier charging into battle. Even had a metal helmet and spear."

He chuckled. "Cute. So, no?"

I shook my head, but told him about the odd staged scenes we'd passed. We were still a distance from Churchill so whoever set them up had either walked the tracks quite a way or dragged them out by snowmobile in the winter.

He studied the scenery out the window. "This place is so unique." With the cloud cover, it felt barren and bleak, but it was surreal to see. "We have the Nullarbor in Southern and Western Australia. It's similar in that there are few trees and it's very flat, but it has a coast instead of lakes."

"Are there whales there too?"

"Southern right whales that come up from Antarctica in winter to breed and raise their calves."

"That's so cool! Are there penguins too?" That was probably an ignorant question, but I couldn't help but ask.

"Not there, but a few islands around the mainland that have blue penguins, as well as Tassie, and if you go south of Tassie to Macquarie Island, there are four species, royal, king, gentoo, and rockhopper that call it home, along with Southern elephant seals, New Zealand sea lions, albatross, and petrels."

As if he just had an encyclopedic knowledge of animals in his country. It took me a while to get the hang of identifying all the marine life at each dive site even if I'd gone there all week. If I had his mind, it would save me a lot of time.

"Have you been?"

"That's a rich people's trip or a dream job posting."

"We'll have to save up and go there someday."

He kissed me on the cheek. "I would love that."

I hoped he meant that and wanted it to become a reality as much as I did. Not just the trip, but the entire future like Marcela and Yannick had. The news about his sister meant that may be a possibility, and I'd do what I could to talk to him about it before the trip ended.

A few photos of the morning tundra view and the Churchill train station :) 

And just a disclaimer for those unfamiliar with bear spray (and because I had Audrey and Caleb making misleading jokes about it), it's as a deterrent like pepper spray that's sprayed at the bear to get it to run off if you're unable to scare it off with your voice and never applied to yourself.