Everything went silent then. Or at least it seemed that way to me. I found myself holding my breath in empathy with Ice until spots swirling before my eyes threatened to merge together into unconsciousness.

Gasping, I took in a fresh breath of air, then blinked.

Only the dog could be seen, paddling in useless circles in the ever widening pool, obviously too cold and too tired to even try to get a purchase on the ice surrounding him.

It's been too long. Too long. Too long.

My mind replayed this endless litany like a mantra that, instead of soothing, forced adrenaline and hopelessness through my body in equal measures.

I had just made up my mind to bolt off the dock yet again when Ice resurfaced, the small boy clenched tightly against her chest. Gasping for air, she flung her head back and opened her mouth to the sky, her hair slinging rainbow sheets into the warm, moist air. Her choking gasps were the only sounds I could hear above the joyful beating of my heart at the sight of her, alive and whole.

With a mighty heave worthy of a Titan, she threw the boy onto the firmer section of the ice. He slid several feet before stopping, a rag doll at Nature's cruel mercy. His skin was marbled purple and pasty white, his lips and the flesh around them a sullen blue, and I imagined, were I to touch him, that he would feel the way he looked, a marble statue tossed aside by a forsaken god.

Beneath his drenched parka, his chest was still and lifeless.

The group of men crept forward on tentative legs, one reaching out with a large grappling hook and snaring his jacket, tugging the lifeless boy slowly, carefully, back toward the shore.

Another splash. Another body hitting the ice.

This time, it was the dog who'd started the entire chain reaction, and of the three victims the water had captured in its gaping maw, only he looked none the worse for wear. Scrambling to his feet, he shook the water briskly from his fur, and after a moment of stumbling, trotted back toward the shoreline, seemingly without a care in the world. Another rescuer grabbed the dog and bundled him in a warm blanket.

All that was left in the middle of the half-frozen lake was my lover.

The sounds of sirens in the distance were unimportant things to me as I watched Ice try for purchase on the twisted blocks surrounding her. I could see her steady herself and take a few deep breaths for strength. My entire body clenched, a coiled spring, as I willed my strength to her from across the lake, my jaw clenched so hard I swore I could feel pieces of my teeth chipping away.

With a last, deep breath, she straightened her arms, her powerful strength managing to drag her body half out of the water and onto the ice. Her legs still dangled in the murky depths, kicking hard to give her the momentum needed to pull out fully.

The force was apparently too much for the still weakening ice to bear, and it split once again, sending a wide fissure almost to the shore and dumping my partner back into the freezing water.

When her body disappeared completely beneath the water, my paralysis broke and, without thinking, I ran out onto the ice, using my arms the way a tight-rope walker would, keeping my balance only by the strength of my will.

And where Ice was concerned, my will was pure steel.

Unfortunately, will doesn't count for much when you're tackled from behind by a bearded behemoth who's twice as strong as you'll ever dream of being.

I hit the ground hard enough to force the air from my lungs in a coughing bark, and the stars that had faded from my last meeting with the dock's splintered edge came back with a vengeance, swirling around me like multicolored fireflies.

I was hooked under the arms and unceremoniously dragged back toward the shore, my jacket and shirt rucking up around my shoulders, the ice burning my bare flesh as it slid beneath me.

The shouts of the men combined with the swiftly approaching sirens, both sounds helping to clear my head. I struggled to sit up, turning my head just in time to see a yellow nylon rope, a large loop knotted at one end, sail toward the hole where Ice had fallen.

The second fall through the ice had profoundly affected my lover, as I could tell by the slow, almost clumsy movements of her arms as she tried to reach out and grab the rope so close to her.

"Slip it over your head and under your arms!" one of the men yelled as another tied the other end off around a stout tree which hung out over the water like a flightless vulture.

I could see her dark head nod as she tried to follow her rescuer's instructions, fumbling several times with the rope before finally getting it under her arms.

"Hold on! We're gonna pull you out!"

She nodded again, trying to get a firm grip on the narrow rope with hands, I was sure, that were numb past the point of feeling anything but pain, if even that.

"One! Two! Three!" Several men stood on the ice, the rope firmly clenched in their gloved hands. On the final count, they pulled, snapping the rope taut and slowly dragging Ice up out of the water, their grunts combining with the ice's moaning protests at having to give up its feast and filling the air in a primal symphony.

Something happened, and to this day I don't know what, but she suddenly stopped helping and fell limp against the ice, her body half in, half out of the water. The men, still pulling, dragged her a few scant inches before her arms slipped upwards and the rope pulled away completely, leaving her stranded once again; this time totally unable to help free herself from the icy prison trapping her.

"Ice!" I screamed, trying desperately to get some reaction from her. My heart shattered into splintered fragments as the ice beneath her moaned threateningly and her body teetered on the edge of oblivion.

She lay there, limp and unheeding. My mind flashed back to another time, another place. Kneeling over her, holding her life in my hands as her blood pumped between my fingers in a red river. Begging anyone who would listen to help her; to save her.

No. Not again. Please, not again. Please. I can't go through this again.

Realizing what had happened, one of the men, throwing all caution to the wind, grabbed a long hook and ran out onto the ice with surefooted grace, straddling the fissure that was threatening to become wider as he ran.

My sigh of relief came out in a wail as he managed to hook the back of her sodden jacket and carefully pulled her away from the immediate danger. He pulled her to him, then dropped the hook and grabbed her under the arms, much as my own rescuer had grabbed me, and carefully pulled her to the safety of the shore.

I was by her side in a heartbeat, tears liberally mixing with the melting snow my knees were pressed into. "Ice?" I asked, brushing the wet hair back from her brow. "Ice? Can you hear me?"

There was no reaction, though I could tell that she was still alive by the faint movement of her chest against my free hand. I clenched the fabric of her shirt in that hand and shook her, angry at her utter stillness. "Damnit, Ice! Wake up! I didn't come this far with you for you to give up now, so you'd just better damn well wake the hell up or I swear I'll hunt you down and kill you myself!"

After a moment, her eyes fluttered open, and I've never, not even after an entire month of rainy days, been so glad to see the color blue in my life. Her gaze was dazed and glassy and, though she was looking right at me, I could tell she wasn't seeing me. But that didn't matter. Not really.

She was alive, and that was all that mattered.

And she'd stay that way if I had anything to do with it.

And, by any god ever worshipped on this planet or any other, I would have everything to do with it.

The skin of her face, the only exposed surface I could see, was pasty white. Water droplets clung there like clear, fat leeches sucking away her vitality. Her lips were the deep purple of ripe berries, and so swollen that I wondered if they weren't just going to split, right there, to expose the icewater that had replaced the blood in her veins.

Two men joined the third and bundled Ice into warm quilts they'd brought with them. They wore the rough cloth garb of Ice's rescuers and not the uniforms I was expecting. I looked up, a question in my eyes. As if in response to my silent query, a tall, bespectacled, sandy-haired man squatted down beside me, an apologetic look on his face. "The little boy your friend saved is alive, but barely. The paramedics didn't want to wait to see if she was gonna make it out of there too. There just wasn't enough time. Unfortunately, there's only the one ambulance, so it's going to take a while before they can make it back here."

I swallowed hard at the news, then nodded, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. Aware or not, Ice needed my strength, not my tears. "Is there anything we can do while we wait?"

Reaching down, I grasped her hand, taking it into my own. God, it was like touching a corpse. Or at least what I thought touching a corpse would feel like, not having had the actual experience myself. Her flesh was chilled, damp and stiff beneath my hand and I shuddered, half in revulsion, half in fear.

"Getting her someplace warm would be a good start. Where do you live?"

"With me," came Ruby's voice off to my right. The crowd parted like the Red Sea, bearing forth my diminutive neighbor in all her headmistress glory. Taking charge in her typical style, she pointed to two of the biggest men standing with us; bearded giants, both of them. "You and you, bring her up to the house. Carefully. I'll go draw a bath."

I looked on in awe as the men, without hesitation, simply did as she ordered, lifting Ice's limp body in their massive arms. A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with the snow I was kneeling in.

Never had I seen my lover looking so small, so helpless, so utterly defenseless.

It was a scene that, if I should live to five times the age I am now, I wish to never view again. At the time, I was sure the scene would haunt my dreams. And, true to my word, it has.

"No, no baths," the man squatting next to me interceded. "Just light a fire and warm some blankets. We'll need to warm her up slowly or the shock could kill her." Standing, he reached down and helped me to my feet. "I'm Steve, by the way. The town calls me 'Doc', so I guess that's what I am." His smile was charming and I found myself warming up to him.

"I'm Tyler. This is Morgan."

"Well, Tyler, you have a very brave friend. Let's see what we can do about keeping her that way, ok?"

I nodded, the words stolen from me as I watched the men haul Ice's body back towards Ruby's house.

"Let's go, then."

The house was overwarm as I entered, shedding my jacket like a snake's second skin and walking over to the fireplace to be at Ice's side as she was gently laid on the hearth rug. As the men stepped away, I took their place, grasping her hand once again and looking into eyes that seemed to be staring into eternity. "Stay with me, Morgan. You're gonna be ok. Just stay with me."

The fire blazed high and hot within its stone confines, sending out a heat which caused beads of sweat to form on my forehead, dripping and stinging my wide, staring eyes. I wiped them away without thought, looking to the doctor who came to kneel beside me as one might a Savior, with bright hope and a subtle sense of doom lurking in the shadows of my heart.

He unbuttoned her jacket quickly, then disposed of her shirt by renting it from hem to collar with one savage tug, and exposing belly and breasts which were as pasty white and marbled as the flesh of her immobile face.

I felt a moment's discomfort at the action, remembering her dispassionate tale of men who had stripped her and posed her for their own pleasures. Suddenly, I felt the almost overwhelming need to cover her, to preserve a dignity which she had never thought overmuch of, given the rude circumstances of her benumbed youth.

A plush towel dropped into my hands, and I used it as much to dry her as to cover her from eyes which, I felt, had no right to look upon such vulnerability.

As I was drying her upper body, the doctor reached for the button of her jeans. I immediately dropped my hands, easily displacing his on the soaked fabric. "Let me," I said in a voice which brooked no argument.

He looked at me and I swore there was understanding in his eyes before he grabbed my towel and resumed my forgotten task as I worked to undo the frozen zipper.

Within moments, it was done and she was covered with quilts heated by the fire, as warm and dry as we could possibly make her. The doctor withdrew his hand from beneath the quilts, bearing a thermometer which he looked at, brows drawn in a pensive frown, before shaking it down and placing it back in his case.

She lay still as death beneath her vestments of cloth and down, too deep within her own mind to even react to the intimate touches she was receiving from a stranger. My heart hurt looking at her. My guts twisted and roiled inside me as I stared on, helpless.

"Why isn't she shivering?" I managed to finally get out from between lips which seemed to forget how to form words.

"Her body can't waste the energy that would take. Everything's going to keeping her vital organs alive. She was in that water a long time." He turned to meet my gaze. "When she warms up, she'll start shivering."

When. Not if.

I smiled a little, bolstered by his confidence.

He returned my smile, then turned away, reaching into his medical bag and pulling out an object wrapped in plastic. Opening the wrapping, he removed a long, flexible tube that was closed on one end, open on the other. "What's that?"

"We need to warm up her on the inside too, but she's too weak to be able to take anything in by mouth right now, so I'm going to slip this tube into her stomach through her nose and introduce some water that Ruby's got heating up on the stove. That should help bring her core body temperature up."

The warming up the inside part sounded good. The sticking a garden hose down the nose, however, didn't. "Will it hurt her?"

The doctor smiled slightly as he lubed up one end of the tube from a foil packet he'd ripped open. "Well, most people gag when it's going down, but I don't think we have to worry about that in this case. She's pretty out of it. It shouldn't hurt, no."

I looked at him doubtfully, but as he seemed pretty certain of his words, I didn't argue.

I should have.

After he measured from her nose, to her ear, and down to the tip of her sternum, he tilted her head back and deftly pushed the tube into her right nostril, feeding it through a little at a time.

Ice reacted the way I half expected her to, the way I imagined a wildcat would when trapped in a hunter's snare; snarling, twisting her face away from the offending object, and lashing out blindly with both arms.

In her unthinking rage, she managed to crack one muscled forearm hard against the doctor's cheek and send him flying back toward the fireplace, where only the upraised stone hearth kept him from being pitched headfirst into the flames.

I immediately dove into the fray, trying with all my strength to pin Ice's arms down to her sides while laying my body atop hers to somehow stop her insane struggling.

She threw me off her body as if I were a child, and a small one at that, but I scrambled back on top of her, forgoing the useless attempt to hold her arms down and instead using my hands to gently cradle her face. "Ice, it's me. It's Angel. You need to relax. You're safe here. No one's going to hurt you. Please. You need to relax."

My soothing tones seemed to be penetrating the thick fog of her mind, because gradually she began to slow her struggles, her tense body softening beneath my own. Her eyes opened once again, and though her gaze was still dazed, I could see the faintest glimmer of the woman I loved looking back at me.

I smiled with probably more relief than I've ever known, before or since. "Welcome back, my love," I whispered, tears sparkling in my eyes once again.

Her arm moved up slowly, but before I could stop her, she ripped the NG tube out of her nose and flung it away, gagging. She turned her head just in time as her chest heaved and a great glut of lake water spilled out onto the towel next to her head.

I clambered off of her and stroked her brow as she continued to retch weakly, gagging until nothing more was left to expel. Then she started to shiver, violently, her tremors so strong that she almost seemed to be having some sort of seizure.

I looked up, alarmed, at the doctor who was just now getting back to his feet and wiping the bleeding cut Ice had given his cheek. "She packs a mean punch," he muttered, shaking his head and coming to kneel beside us both.

Even in her misery, Ice managed to turn her head in his direction and narrow her eyes in a murderous glare before turning back to me, an eternity's worth of questions in her eyes.

"His name is Steve. He's a doctor, and he's here to help." My smile became wider as I gently caressed a cheek which was already becoming warmer. "So don't go turning him into dog meat just yet, huh?"

She shot him another glare, but remained calm, if still wracked with violent spasms, beneath my hands.

At my nod, Steve came closer, bringing his head into Ice's field of vision. "I'd ask how you're feeling, but it's pretty obvious what the answer's gonna be, so I think we'll just skip that one. You're suffering from severe hypothermia. Your shivering is a good sign, but your body temperature wouldn't even register on my thermometer, so I'm gonna have to put that tube back down into your stomach so we can warm you up, ok?"

The good doctor had obviously learned a painful lesson on how to respect his patients, if his calm, coherent and logical explanation to my partner was any indication. I couldn't help an internal smirk. Ice had a way of teaching people things they'd never dreamed of learning. And not always in ways they'd expect to be taught, either.

By some superhuman strength of will, she managed to unclench her jaw and force words out from a raw throat. "N-no t-t-tube."

He smiled then. That patently false "And just where did you get your medical degree" doctor smile that's issued, I believe, with the diploma and Hippocratic Oath upon graduation from Medical School. Hippocrates himself probably practiced that expression while looking into still pools and waiting for his latest crop of peasants with foot rot to arrive.

I laid a quick hand on his arm, hoping to forestall the storm I could see brewing in Ice's eyes. Eyes which were becoming more clear and more aware, and yes, more icy as the seconds passed. "Look. It's probably better if you just ... ."

He raised his eyes to mine. "If there were any other way, I'd use it. But she's shivering too hard to be able to drink. The tube goes back in."

Then his face paled as an incredibly strong hand clamped down on his wrist. He tried to pull away, but to no avail.

"No. Tube." She didn't even look at him. Just continued to clamp down on his arm while the rest of her continued to shiver violently.

Oh boy.