Heart In The Grip Of Winter
by Lynx
Author's Note; Universe started off as Marvel's, Galactus sold it to me, everything is mine mine mine...except the three alluded-to-and-deceased characters, whom I don't want anyway. The named one I wouldn't mind owning but oh well.
"Lay back."
Easy enough orders to follow. Every order was easy to follow if broken down into its' component parts.
Her hands placed behind her, palms flat against the soft sheet.
Gentle hands steadied her, let her slide down cautiously, bare skin on silky-smooth synthetic material. Slender shoulderblades touching the lightly padded bench, she exhaled softly.
He slipped his hands free, stepped back a few inches. Still watching her, not with the greedy, longing look her first minder had turned on her, but with a hint of warmth in those clouded green-grey eyes.
She needed to ask him something before he left. Needed that contact. Needed to ask him how, when, why...
"Don't...go yet. Please." Her voice sounded rusty. She should do something about that. Would have to ask him next time she woke up. She didn't want to sleep yet. She was getting colder and she knew she would anyway.
There had been no time by the radiator for her today. He had _always_ allowed her a few minutes to warm up, a feeling she'd cherish as she returned to that aching, freezing void of cold/dark.
She hated the cold, truly she did.
Hated this life. Had hated it for the last year and a half, ever since she woke up here.
But she owed Them, and while she owed Them she would abide by Their rules. They had shown her and her friends what happened to people who disobeyed Them. The others had whispered that it was an accident, when they thought They weren't listening.
She knew it was, but she didn't say anything. She gave Them, and especially Her the respect and fear they demanded.
She didn't have accidents while she slept.
"I have...a few minutes before I report. I can stay for a little longer."
Guilt, now? It was more difficult to move, but she tilted her head to see him better. Guilt burning in eyes that now seemed a fiery green, a bitter twist to his mouth.
She'd seen that look before. But...never here. And she _only_ saw him here. Had met him here.
"I'm...sorry, Nidae. For everything." He reached toward her, brushed back the few strands of blueblack hair that had fallen forward onto tanned skin. His touch burned, and not like in any of those last-century romance novels where the buxom blonde heroine melted into a puddle of lust at the touch of the tall, dark and handsome hero. It was simply a matter of science. Her skin-temperature must be around freezing-point and his was warmer than usual, it came with his power.
"Sorry...for?" It would hurt far too much to blink, even if tears were forming. That would hurt, maybe scar by the time they got around to defrosting her. "Nothing to be..."
She was going to sleep now. Without those precious moments of glorious warmth that almost reached to her centre, almost drove out the cold for a second or so. They normally let her stay out for a whole day if she completed her task correctly.
Was she being punished for screwing up on her mission? She had followed orders, she had killed the old bald man and the other telepath with him, she had returned immediately, she hadn't killed anyone not a direct witness, only knocking out the Asian woman.
If she'd done wrong they would have told her, he would have told her, someone would have told her when she returned. She'd given her report and they'd bugged and traced her the whole way. They had a special interest in this killing, it hadn't been a hire-out one or else she wouldn't have received the 'with your shield or on it' injunction.
But...maybe this was a special case. Maybe they were sending her back early because the Thought Police would be after her faster than a usual case. The bald guy had been someone important, she'd learned in school. To do with the Metahuman Rights acts of '07 and '09. Maybe she shouldn't have killed him, but it would have killed her.
She wanted out. Wanted to leave. Wanted Mason to take her away, because she knew she was too stupid to survive out there alone. She'd been told that by Them, and it was true.
Except he wouldn't want to take her...Here was just a job for him, a lucrative enough one from what she'd heard.
He always acted so--familiar with her, though. As if he knew her from before. She didn't know her from before, she'd just woken up one day.
"Mason? It hurts...more...each time. Next time...can I be... out of it?" And she wasn't lying. It did hurt, more and more each time she woke and slept, but did he understand? He wasn't stupid...not like her. Eidetic memory but not much to use with it. Maybe he understood and so did everyone else listening.
"I'll...see if it can happen." He understood? Please, god, let him have understood. He lowered his hand to her cheek, gently wiped away the tears that melted beneath his fingers. Then he looked away, removed his hand. Against the fluorescent lights, she could see him nod. Almost imperceptible, but he understood. He had to.
He might take her away _now_ if she was lucky and her power to get out of things held...
"See you in the morning, love." The solid crystal cover of her icebox slammed shut over her. He'd hit the switch even as he was promising to get her out. The colourless Myristhalanite-seven gas that was pumped in even as the cover sealed started to swirl around her, so cold in her lungs, the gas becoming a misty white with frozen droplets of water.
So cold...hurt...freezing, really freezing, again, it hurt, she couldn't breathe--
--darkness--
--darkness--
****
"Have fun in there with her?"
"Shut the fuck up."
"You had a while. Long enough to..."
"We were over. _Long_ ago." No point in lying to a telepath, but he did it anyway.
"Before you sold her to Cassidy-Frost?"
"...before I sold her to your people, yeah."
"She's good. She was good. Her time's up now, she won't survive two more freezes."
"Sell or permanent ice?"
"Sell if possible. After a mindwipe. She won't be good for work, but her looks will sell. Fallen for her again?"
"No. Not at all. Will your sister kill me for it?"
"Probably. Theresa's been nasty like that since her throat got ripped out." Liam Cassidy-Frost smirked ever so slightly. "There's the catskin rug on the floor to prove it."