Author's Note: It seems this fandom has gone quiet, especially with the newest season of HoW (which is almost over, strangely enough). I'm still not sure of what to make of it all. It's obviously not the same show as the previous two seasons which isn't necessarily a bad thing but also means that (personally) it hasn't produced much to remember. However, the first scenes of the premiere have really stuck with me and this is what came out of it. There are a couple others that may inspire me in the future, but this is all I've got so far. :P I don't own How or its characters; just a fan here. If you're reading, thanks.

All Alone in December

Whoever told you that Hell is always hot was a goddamn liar. Winter's on and it's colder and harsher than any weather or hardship you've ever had to suffer through. And you are suffering.

Everything gleams, white and armored in ice under a pallid sky. Any surface you touch clings to your exposed fingertips, as if to pull you in and never let you go. You've hunted down your meals and made their pelts into clothes, trying to keep what little warmth is left close to your own skinny carcass; but no matter how much you pile on, no matter how long you let your hair grow, you remain skeletal underneath and constantly aware of your mortality. You should have left with the others but something has long since held you back. You've trapped yourself here, sketching out indeterminable plans by candlelight in the middle of the day while specters loom, plucking and poking at you to join them, and couldn't they just fuck off for a while and leave you to your work?

You can still remember the look that Elam gave you, almost as if he were actually uttering, "You a damn fool" before he turned and left you to these ruins. But you never blamed him and you still don't — he got to keep what he could've lost and you had no right asking him to stay. Those who did provided some comfort even if you didn't really want it. They helped board up a few boxcars and resurrect a couple of tents. Progress. As slow-going as the tracks that longed for the west, but it was something.

Then the army rolled in and didn't do much but question your every action, intentional or otherwise, insisting after the interrogation that you abandon the post. They weren't going to help you through the winter — no more men would be sent to build over such fresh wounds so soon. It didn't matter to you, though. With the last of the provisions given by the government, you decided you would hold out and promptly bid them farewell. One bluebelly smirked so hard that had you been less weary you would have pistol-whipped his mouth clear off his smug face. Bastards, all of them. You weren't sad to see them walk.

But no word from the board of directors or any other authority or associate ever came. Just the snow, and it hit camp with the fury of the Indian raid you'd barely outlived. More men up and left before the going got rough but you'll never know if they made it back to Omaha or not. Eventually it got down to you and Sparky the engineer, though you haven't seen him in some days and from time to time you wonder if he's gone wandering, too.

So you sit alone here, shivering in your skins but still making your plans. Nothing inspires you except for some tugging notion that you're the one who can and will return order to this railroad. Despite the blizzard you see the tracks clearly in the distance, laying themselves out mile by mile all the way to Utah. And it's moments like these that almost push you to find a way to return to civilization so you can show someone the future that this place is capable of.

But as you attempt to rise, the cold forces you back down. A hand on your shoulder freezes you to the spot and all of your fears of failure and guilt and loss well up within, holding you there for some of the longest minutes of your life. You're paralyzed, have been for months, unable to move forward the way you want the railroad to.

"Soon it'll go out," Doc says quietly. And as the spent candle's flame extinguishes itself, you find enough strength to tear away from your hovel and burst outside into the bright white world, shattering the air with your breath. You run and don't stop until you reach the riverbank and a splash of sleet over your face barely grants you your senses. Just then something catches your eye out on the water and your stone heart falls to the bottom of your ribcage with a nauseating, resonant thud.

She's perched on the frosty current, knees to her chest and chin tucked delicately into her arms, watching you with a serene smile. You shake your head, blink your eyes, will her away. But she remains, draws closer, and you can see wildflowers in her hair and around her fingers, the very same ones you dressed her in on the day of her burial. Tears freeze on your lower lashes as you look up at her and she takes your head in her hands, pressing her warmth to you. Where once you were so cold, now you are a little less so. When the moment is over, she's gone.

You're grasping at the snow, releasing it slowly as your knuckles recover from the numbness that has settled within. A howl tears itself from some unknown depth, the loudest sound you've made in weeks, and painfully it bounces off of tree trunks and icicles to reverberate in your soul.

You don't even hear the wolf happen upon you, salivating for a taste of your flesh, frightening with the flash of its teeth. It rushes and you fall, stirring up fresh powder upon landing as you grapple with the beast, but you are weak from an unfruitful season and the battle between man and nature seems to last hours. Desperate eyes stare into your own but there is no conscious there, just the need to survive. Life on the verge of death. Somehow fist connects with muzzle and the wolf retreats, going hungry for another cold, long, miserable night. It crawls away with a whimper, back into the trees, eying you disappointedly as it goes.

It is some kind of wonder, watching yourself turn tail and run from one challenge while simultaneously readying for another.