Thaw is Not the End (Except of Winter)
He wasn't Reverb. It wasn't just that the breacher's tone was different, or his clothes, or the obvious fact that Reverb was dead and this man wasn't, that he'd been born a world away, with no idea what this world or the people in it were like. It was just that he wasn't Reverb. Not all seeing (not that Reverb had been), not strong enough to stop anyone dead with one word and a twitch of fingers. This Ramon, for all he bore a similar face—not the same—was not Reverb And that was probably why she was doing this.
She'd run, the ice in her veins numbing her hands, her legs, her heart, freezing the tears she didn't dare shed. She wouldn't shed. She was Killer Frost, not some weak trembling girl-child brought low by the world falling out from under her. (Only, the world had fallen out from under her and she understood now the stories from the Rabbi's lips when she was young and still fearful of the world, of wanting sackcloth and ash—she wanted ash now.) She was the one who stalked the night streets and made others shake in their stockings, she was the one to be feared, not the one who feared.
Except Zoom. All feared Zoom, and all who knew of Reverb feared that one, too. No one crossed them and lived. Ronnie was proof of that. Ronnie, gleaming flame in each hand just as dark as her own ice—or just as bright. Her heart creaked like a frozen river surface splintering and freezing over again, again, again. There was no time for anything but Away, cold, afraid. Reverb dead, Ronnie dead, Zoom crackling with lightning like the worst of warmth, a false heat.
"The Rules have changed," he'd said in his voice that echoed like crashing stone in her bones, making her teeth ache. "Any breachers are to be brought to me. Alive. And. functional. You know what will happen if you fail me in this, Frost."
Failure was not tolerated. It had never been so. The choice should have been easy. Betray the breachers, return to the hole in the wall she called home, Tumnus and White Witch in one. But Ramon met her eyes, not behind a mask or shades, and there was no fear in him. He took Ronnie, he said in that familiar voice, that different tone. This was no command demanding fear and cowering that was to be covered up like any good soldier of Zoom but still felt deep down. This was no anger-hatred-order. He was reasoning. Asking. Reminding her of the reason she sometimes didn't mind the heat that melted frozen sweat, frozen blood. The choice should have been easy. But it wasn't.
I'll show you where it is, she said, freezing down the flood of emotions she wouldn't let free, couldn't let free. This was not a choice made, a fear rejected or embraced and accepted, it was only delaying. She could live with that—her life meant more than these strangers. But that's all.
That should have been all, she could not risk betraying Zoom. Zoom killed Ronnie, he killed Ronnie, he killed Ronnie, and the tears should have been hot enough to melt glaciers but they stayed, frozen fast, held in check. Still, if she left—Zoom might think she had not done as he asked, and she told herself that was the only reason even as she freed the girl's wrist from the chain. It was only right, she decided, white hair a heavy weight against the back of her neck. She had not gotten to say goodbye to Ronnie. One who did not fear Zoom as he should, this Wells, was brave or stupid or both, and no matter which option, he deserved the chance to do what she could not.
He killed Ronnie, the voice that was her and yet not her said, soft, the voice that was downy Snow, the fluffy flakes that caught on tree branches like fat winter squirrels. Ronnie did not deserve to die, attacked from behind with no warning, no chance. He would not have stood a chance, no one could. Not even these people: Wells and his desperate daughter, faces painted with fear, or the CSI who had stood up to her and called her by a forgotten name and now wore a hero's suit, or the cop whose hands held steady despite the cold metal and tremble of rage in her voice, or Ramon who was not Reverb and asked instead of ordering and looked at her the way Ronnie had, as if he could see what lay under the surface permafrost. None of them could dream of fighting Zoom. Zoom, who had killed Ronnie and left him in a heap like nothing more than cooling flesh, the fires gone.
She had left him, too. Too afraid of Zoom's return, of the reminder of what failing and disobedience meant to stay, and the knowing that if she pressed a hand to him now, here was nothing to keep her ice at bay. She could not see him shatter like so many others. She could not see the coldness in closed eyes. So she had run, a scared child, alone again. Alone again. The world out from under her and nowhere to run, nothing to hold against the fear that crept through her veins and limbs like her own ice.
Zoom was the only thing to fear, and failing him, and then in a spray of sparks, he was there. Thanking her. Heat rose in her belly as bile twitched—she had played the coward's choice, winning her life but for what. For more fear, and more again, a life that was only blue and white and black, an ice pit with no bottom.
He killed Ronnie, her own thoughts echoed as Ramon said it, and she could see his skin paling, could see before her the world Zoom wanted, the world Zoom promised. Numb lips called her heart ice and stone, but flame lit and the ice screamed as it split—he killed Ronnie. He took Ronnie and I chose fear and ice and I am done.
Her hands filled, smoking with cold and pale gleaming blue, like lightning, like flame as she forced the ice from her blood, from her core, from every bit of her skin, from the air around her, from her heart. Her voice rose high and shrill, an order from her open lips: GO, Get out of here, you were right, he killed Ronnie, there is no time!
Fact: there is never time, not even when the world is frozen solid. The speedster and the man with his face, Wells and the scared-defiant girl, the detective and Ramon (kind voice, seeing past the ice to the heart of things as it were) fled and still she poured in all she had, draining every reserve to hold, hold, hold. The ice would hold as long as she could. Tears dripped, no frost to spare to stick them solid, nothing to stop the flush in her cheeks, but she was past fear now. It did not matter. Her choice was made, the slick path set.
The iceshards broke, and she did not quiver, did not falter or flicker but stood surrounded by melting ice and the water stains of frost sunk into stone. Blue eyes fading brown met black eyes, skittering with sparks, and she held her head aloft. Lightning tore through her, white with heat.
She welcomed it, grasping at it with one dripping hand, imagining for the heartbeat she had left that it was another hand, familiar with callouses, warm with flame.
Hope you liked it. Fun to get into her head.