Picture Of You, by Lady Stetson

Picture Of You

by Lady Stetson

Spoilers: Pretty much all of Vertical Limit...

Disclaimer: Not mine... well, except for the stuff that is. Tommy McLaren, and everything you recognize from the movie Vertical Limit, belongs to Columbia Pictures and some other people, but they don't deserve him. Anything, or anyone, you don't recognize is my own creation and belongs to me, it's mine, and what it is too.

Author's Notes: There's a song that starts out "I've got a picture of you, I hold in my heart..." I can't for the life of me remember the rest of the song, but I couldn't get that phrase out of my head until it turned into this story. And always, thank you to Nick for making me care.

Beta: A million, billion thanks to Sue for the instant beta, and for the...encouragement to post *g*

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Tom could feel himself drifting in and out of consciousness. Everything had an air of unreality about it - which was okay with Tom, because right now reality sucked. He closed his eyes, blocking out the blue-white light of the ice and snow that surrounded him.

Michelle scowled up at him. He was about to get a lecture about taking stupid chances again. 'You scared me half to death, Tom,' she'd complain. But eventually she'd smile - the smile that was just for him and nobody else - slip her arms around his waist and lean her head against his shoulder, 'I'm glad you're home.'

Tom wrenched his eyes open again. He knew he wasn't going home this time. He'd known that as soon as he'd fallen, and he was reminded with every breath he forced his protesting body to take. He wondered if she'd heard about the accident yet. God, he'd never wanted to hurt her.

He had a picture of her, in an inside pocket of his coat, but he didn't need to look at it to see her. The images he held in his mind were more accurate than the picture anyway. Michelle, laughing, her long red hair pulled back into a ponytail, skipping and dancing in front of him on a hiking trail, daring him to try and catch her, then letting herself be caught; Michelle, explaining to one of the girls, for what seemed like the hundredth time, why they couldn't have birthday cake for breakfast - and looking the other way when she saw Tom sneaking a piece for himself; Michelle, chewing on the corner of her lip and muttering about certain mountain climbers who refused to grow up and get a real job, as she tried to stretch their monthly budget to fit their expenses; Michelle, repeating his name passionately, her voice muffled against his neck, as they made love….

He found himself wishing she were here. No, he corrected himself. He didn't want her to be here. He wanted her safe and at home. But he wanted to see her again - to hold her one more time. Of course he'd never, even in his wildest dreams, have to worry about Michelle being anywhere near 26,000 feet, unless she was in an airplane, and that was unlikely.

Tom thought about the weekend camping trip he and Michelle had taken together early in their relationship. He'd decided that he was going to teach the woman he was in love with how to climb. It would have been nice if she hadn't waited until she was almost ten feet off the deck before she mentioned her fear of heights. Once he'd gotten her back to solid ground, it had taken him almost half-an-hour to calm her down. "Hey,' he'd teased gently, once she'd stopped shaking, 'at least now we know why God made you so short.' Her laugh had ended with a hiccupping sob. He'd surprised them both after that by proposing to her. He'd just looked down at the dishevelled, soggy creature he held in his arms and realized that he never wanted to let her go. This was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

The rest of his life was supposed to be more than nine years. Tom was brought back to the present when his fluid-filled lungs refused to take another breath, and he started coughing. Oh, God, he hurt. He hurt forever. Make it stop, his brain screamed with every involuntary spasm of his broken body, please just make it stop.

'Make it stop hurting, Tommy,' Michelle pleaded quietly as yet another contraction started. He'd held her hand and wished with his whole heart that he could do as she requested. Minutes, or maybe days, later Tom gently stroked the velvety head of his brand new daughter. 'Another girl,' he looked at the peach coloured fuzz under his fingers, 'Another redhead.' He'd given Michelle what he knew was a dopey grin.

Gradually he stopped coughing, and he lay back weakly. He was so tired.

This was supposed to be his last season in the Himalayas. He'd promised Michelle that, after this year, Summit Expeditions would be strictly a North American outfit. There was plenty of good climbing in the Rockies, or even in the Cascades and the Olympics the mountains of his childhood. Of course that was the same promise he'd made her last year, before that son-of-a-bitch Texan had offered an insane amount of money to take him up K2.

He'd convinced himself that he was thinking of his daughters when he took the money, but of course Michelle had been right when she insisted, through furious tears, that a chance to climb K2 was what really made the decision for him. Inanely, Tom suddenly thought of a line from the movie Top Gun, 'Your ego's writing cheques your body can't cash.' He managed to squash the hysterical laugh that tried to escape him. He should have followed his original instinct and told Vaughn to kiss his ass.

He wondered vaguely if Hillary and Taylor would think that the million-dollar cheque deposited into the bank was a fair exchange for their daddy. The image was burned into Tom's mind of the last time he'd been with his little girls, at Vancouver's International Airport. 'Daddy go in the sky,' two-year-old Taylor excitedly told everybody who would listen. At five, though, Hillary knew from long experience that when Daddy left it could be months before he came home. She insisted that he carry her, and kept covering his face in kisses. 'So you don't forget me,' she explained.

"Tom?" Annie's soft voice roused him. He must have fallen asleep. "I brought you some water." He wasn't sure how long they'd been here, in this hole in the snow. Was it hours? Days? Had there ever been anywhere else? He almost felt as if his body and brain weren't connected anymore. His dreams, his memories, seemed more real than anything he could actually see or touch. But they seemed so far away; maybe he'd only ever dreamed Michelle and the girls, imagined a world off the mountain.

Tom had to grit his teeth to keep from crying out, as he struggled to sit up far enough to drink. In a way, the pain was less than it had been earlier. He couldn't feel his feet or lower legs at all, and that scared him, although he knew that it was a little late to be worried about frostbite. A detached part of his brain told him that he was going into shock. It was almost like he could feel himself dying from the toes up. He knew that he should refuse the water, make Annie keep it for herself, but the words wouldn't form. He couldn't force himself to just lie back and die, so he drank.

When the water in the cup was gone, he lay down again and closed his eyes. When he opened his eyes, Annie was dozing next to him. He didn't remember falling asleep again.

"Annie," he spoke as quietly as he could, not wanting to startle her. She opened her eyes and turned towards him.

"Tom, are you okay?"

"Annie, I'm sorry."

"For what?" She asked blankly.

"For this." He looked around, indicating their surroundings with his eyes.

"This." Realization finally dawned on her face. "No, Tom, this isn't your fault. Don't blame yourself. I already told you that."

She did? Tom didn't remember her saying anything like that. He shook his head. Of course it was his fault; who else could be to blame? Was someone else at fault? He couldn't even remember, any more, exactly what had happened. He remembered talking to Skip on the radio. Something about a storm coming in. Then he remembered falling. He fell out of his tree house once, when he was twelve, and broke his arm. No. Wait. That had nothing to do with this. He tried to concentrate. He was too tired; if he could just get a few hours sleep he knew that he'd feel much better. His eyes slipped shut. He knew that he must have done something wrong, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't remember what it was.

"I'm sorry, Mom, I didn't mean to," he mumbled just before he lost consciousness again.

Tom's head hurt, his stomach threatened to get up and walk out of the room without him and his tongue was at least three sizes too big for his mouth. He'd known before he started, that putting Skip in charge of the bachelor party was a bad idea. He also knew that if he missed the wedding rehearsal because he was hung over that Michelle was going to kill him, so he'd managed to get himself upright somehow and made it to the church only a few minutes late.

He'd been a bundle of nerves before the wedding and standing in the front of the church he'd been worried that everyone sitting in the pews could see him shaking. But as soon as he saw Michelle, walking down the aisle with her father, he forgot everything but her. His own father had smiled, winked at him from where he sat. Tom thought of his daughters; he'd wanted to be the one to walk them down the aisle when they got married. Would they even remember him by then? They were so young.

He wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep. He heard a woman's voice, was she talking to him? He tried to pay attention to what she was saying. At first, he'd thought it was Michelle he heard. But then he realized that it couldn't be; not up here on top of the world. He was married to a woman who got vertigo if she had to wear high heels. On top of the world. That was a strange expression. People said they were on top of the world when they were happy. Tom had literally been on top of the world, twice. It was an amazing feeling being on top of the world, but he'd been happier at sea level. Whenever he kissed the woman he loved, every time one of his baby girls called him Daddy. There was no mountain, no summit in the world that could match a high like that.

Tom knew he was awake now. He realized that the voice he'd heard was Annie. She was talking to her brother on the radio. Tom didn't mean to eavesdrop on the conversation, but he couldn't help himself. Annie was giving up, trying to talk what was his name? Peter. Trying to talk Peter into turning back without her. God, she sounded tired - as tired as he felt. Who would have imagined that dying took so much energy. Tom didn't mind having been killed so much, not really, but he hadn't meant to kill Annie. He hoped she hung on until Wick and the others got her out of here.

Listening to Annie and her brother talk about their father, Tom found his mind drifting again. His mother used to tell people that she hadn't raised a son; she'd raised a mountain goat. Most of his childhood memories seemed to consist of his mom calling out anxiously, 'be careful, Tommy, you'll fall.' He rarely did, though. There was the incident with the tree house when he was twelve, and a few other times when he'd suffered little more than skinned palms and bruised knees.

His attention was brought back to Annie. She was saying goodbye to Peter, telling him that she loved him. When she fell quiet it was all Tom could do not to ask her for the radio. It would be a waste of time; he knew that. Even if he could reach base camp, and all the conditions were perfect, there was no way the battery would last until they could patch him through, by satellite phone, to Michelle.

It hurt, a pain as fierce as any his injuries had caused him, to know that he'd never talk to her again. Never hold her again. Never hear her voice. He'd give anything to hear her complain about the bills, with the girls yelling in the background, 'Daddy, I wanna talk to Daddy.'

When Hillary had been a little younger than Taylor was now, Tom had come home after having been gone for two months. For the next few days, his little girl had followed him around the house pretending to talk to him on a toy phone. Michelle had pointed to this as evidence that he should spend more time at home. Maybe she'd been right in the end. Then again, she usually was.

Tom was cold. He thought drowsily that he should turn up the heat, but he didn't want to get out of bed. He was leaving for Nepal in the morning, and he didn't want to let go of Chelle until he absolutely had to. He knew that there were people who thought he was crazy for wanting to climb Everest. But Michelle, his incredible, acrophobic, wife, had never been anything less than supportive of his dream. Everest. Tom practically tingled with excitement at the thought of climbing her.

'You asleep?' Michelle had asked quietly. She'd never admit that she worried about him, but Tom could hear it in her voice. He rolled over so that he was looking down at her. 'I'm going to miss you,' he said, and kissed the end of her freckled nose. 'I'm going to miss you too.' She said, 'We both will.' Tom looked at her curiously. 'Both? He asked. Michelle giggled, 'I was going to wait until you got home to surprise you.' Tom grinned; he didn't dare to hope that she was saying what he thought she was saying. 'Surprise me with what, Mrs. McLaren?' Michelle had just smirked, and refused to answer him directly but had said, 'just be careful up there, Daddy.'

Later, Michelle had whispered in his ear what had become a ritualized good luck wish, "Promise me you won't die, Tommy."

Something startled Tom awake. The confused fog that had plagued him for the past several hours had vanished completely. Tom's mind was clear. Every detail of his surroundings stood out in stark detail. Including Elliot Vaughn standing over him, with a wild look on his face, and an empty syringe in his hand.

Tom looked him in the eye,

"Are you going to kill me now?"

"Yes."

Tom had known this moment was coming. He was taking too long to die. Vaughn wasn't going to let human compassion get in the way of his own survival; Tom was wasting valuable resources that Vaughn himself needed. 'I'm sorry, Michelle,' he apologized silently, 'I wanted to keep my promise.' Maybe this was the best way. It had been Tom's job to keep his clients from harm, he'd failed in this, but if it took his death to give them a chance at life, then Tom was willing to accept that. He refused to look away from Vaughn. He had no reason to be ashamed of his life, or his death.

Still, he couldn't give in without a fight. He knew it was useless, but as Vaughn leaned over him Tom began to struggle. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die. He didn't…

Tom was falling. But it wasn't like before. This time there was no fear, no pain.

"I love you, Michelle. Hold my babies for me; tell them their Daddy loves them."

He wasn't falling now. He was floating.

"I love you, Tommy." He heard Michelle whisper.

Then he was at peace.

End

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