The Sweetest Chill

by Thyme In Her Eyes

Author's Note: Incidentally, I just figured out that this is my fiftieth fanfic. What a milestone! Anyway, the weather's getting colder so I was inspired to write a little something about Mr. Freeze (and his beloved Nora). This is set during "Sub-Zero", sometime shortly after Barbara's first escape attempt. I hope you enjoy it! Also, just to disclaim: I don't own the characters or fandom (surprise, surprise). Happy reading!

-- THE SWEETEST CHILL --

"Fearing you – but calling your name

Icy breath – encases my skin

Fingers like a fountain of needles

Shiver along my spine

And rain down so divine."

-- Siouxsie & The Banshees (The Sweetest Chill).

x-x-x

The soothing shush of the ocean and the crash of mild waves against metal could be faintly heard outside the rig. Soon however, they and the blaring of foghorns from occasional passing ships and the rare noise of the buoys were all drowned out as Victor Fries – now Mr. Freeze – took a cherished moment alone with his dear Nora, keeping a silent vigil over her, and sweet and classic music began to play quietly and sweep through the room.

Five miles offshore in the dead humidity of a summer's night, disturbances were intermittent, as though the sea was sleeping as deeply as his Nora. However, Freeze felt there was almost an insult in how calm and peaceful the outside world was (though no doubt Gotham City would be buzzing with activity and efforts to rescue young Miss. Gordon from his clutches); how restful and at ease it could be, as if all was right with it, whilst Nora was in gravest peril.

The strains of Tchaikovsky filled the cold chamber, surrounding the two of them and wrapping them in sweeping music. The music was at a soft volume, not blaring or flooding the room but enveloping them like gentlest snowdrift. The risings and falls of the music provided a tender backdrop for their brief moment together. Freeze himself was quiet and careful in his movements, gentle and reverent in Nora's presence, as if not wanting to risk disturbing her sleep.

Rest easy and dream well, Nora. It will soon be all right, I promise you. I will keep you safe.

The softly-playing music was a production of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Sleeping Beauty; one of Nora's all-time favourite great pieces of music. He fondly recalled how whenever she'd entered any local figure-skating competition, before disease had stolen that joy away from her, this was the music she had most liked to use. It had inspired in her the most dazzling sweeps and spirals on ice. And considering Nora's current status, Freeze had also found it…appropriate that this should be the music used to keep her company as she slept and which played in her dreams. She deserved a fairy-tale.

His two recent visits to Gotham had been consumed by the acquisition of Dr. Gregory Belson and his expertise, then in acquiring proper surgical equipment and finally in acquiring Barbara Gordon, the unfortunate but necessary sacrificial lamb. However, he had also taken the little time needed in order to acquire this music, and the means to play it. It had been in the small hope that now Nora was part of the waking and moving world once more and freed from her frozen state, she could hear the music so dear to her even in her coma. Freeze hoped that somehow it would reach her, and that her dreams would be kind ones.

If only it was possible to have found yellow roses for her – another favourite of hers and close to her heart. It would have gladdened him to imagine that a part of her could perhaps sense their presence, and that her slumbering consciousness might have been comforted by them. But time was of the essence and he could not afford to misuse what little of it he had life – Nora's survival came first. Also the roses she loved so well would not have fared well in such a chilly atmosphere and it would have made his Nora sad to know that they were frosted and ruined for her sake. Some flowers were not meant for so harsh and cruel a world.

But now, they were far from Gotham in as safe a haven from the cruel world that would happily let her die as Freeze could provide at such short notice. He and Nora were in the specifically-conditioned cold room, and the freezing air hung in a blue-white mist around them. Carefully, he had arranged for the room's temperature to increase over time, gradually raising her body temperature and properly making sure that her body was fully removed from its stasis and prepared for major surgery. Feeling the full weight of his burdens, Freeze guarded Nora as she slept and silently assured her that it would be alright.

She was before him physically now, not encased in glass but sleeping in a deep, unbreakable sleep on a makeshift hospital bed and surrounded by machines quietly monitoring her condition, and still oblivious to the world around her. But her sleep was different now; it wasn't the ageless sleep of her cryo-stasis, but the weak and slipping rest of the dying, of those who no longer had strength enough for the waking world.

It was the interference of interlopers to blame yet again. Their foolishness had forced his hand. He had known peace and something very close to happiness in his makeshift home in the Artic, surrounded by the simple and brutal beauty of the region, but the blasted outsiders had destroyed everything. They had almost sent her away forever. Nora's cryotube had been shattered, and with it, the peace Victor had worked so hard to claim. He had very nearly lost her again. But Nora had not died; she was still clinging on to life with everything she had. Even unconscious and defenceless, she was fighting battles, holding on, and struggling through. Watching her continue to fight her disease, watching her body's refusal to give in, put his own efforts over the years to shame. Her strength astounded even him and it was all he thought of as he struggled now to save her. She hadn't given up, and so neither would he. Nora was a true miracle, and he would not let a world which knew no love or justice to snuff out her light.

Nora… His one and only. His wife, his love. His winter rose. The one blessing of his life. She who had saved him from being alone. She who through an unbelievable miracle had loved him. She who possessed a brilliant mind, the kindest heart, a beguiling spark in her eyes and a wry and curving smile forever playing on her lips. She who was composed of surpassing warmth, heartbreaking sensitivity, keen intelligence, incredible courage, stubborn spirit, gentle wisdom, unshakeable determination, humbling compassion and teasing humour. She who had all these beautiful qualities and yet wore them as lightly as air. She whose warmth, spark and fire were the most divine of interventions in his cold life. She who was certainly not perfect, but was perfect to him. She who was the rarest of roses. She who had a face merely beautiful until the moment her eyes met his, and then it was transfigured.

Even in his icy state, he longed for her. Cold as his permafrost heart had become, there would always be warmth enough for her. After all, there was no room for anyone else – Nora had invaded his very being and love still burned and ached within him. Though still overwhelmed by the fact that she hadn't perished years ago and driven to desperation by her current danger and enamoured by the serene beauty of her peaceful but sad expression, Freeze missed her animation. He missed her eyes. He missed her moods – her teasing, her bad moods, her maturity, her clarity, her laughter, her seriousness, her bravery, her pride, her playfulness, her anger, her sadness, her joy. Her love. Love like a glistening shower of snow: pure and magical.

How could he ever have doubts when he recalled such treasures? How could he not be willing to kill for all that? How could anyone who claimed to love not be willing to go so far?

Nora was no prize to be won or some reward for his various sufferings, but someone as important to him as he was to her. And in her time of greatest need, he knew the lines he was willing to cross for the sake of her safety. And if he wouldn't fight for her, then who would?

Not unlike himself, Nora had been failed by an uncaring society, by all those who claimed to have her best interests at heart but had turned away when she needed their charity and compassion most. She deserved so much better than that. Freeze had learned not to trust the easy promises of the system, and had learned that no-one out there sincerely cared for her well-being and that one dying woman's sufferings didn't really matter to anyone. The general public only wanted the sick and dying out of their way and out of their sight, to stop making them feel guilty, and to simply lie down and die quietly and with consideration for them. Her fear, pain and desperation affected no-one but him. The system had failed her, but he would not. Nora was at her most needing and helpless and had no-one looking out for her, save him and so he would not let her down.

Freeze still considered himself a simple man with simple needs – all he wanted was to be reunited with his dear wife and his one driving motivation was saving her. All he asked for was her safety and would have done anything to provide it for her. One goal, for which he was willing to sacrifice everything. She was all he had in the world, all he loved. Everything else had been stripped away from him but by some divine grace, the most important thing was the only one that had remained. She had stayed with him. He had been shut out of the world, sealed off from all hope of human contact and trapped in a frozen shell; left only to reflect on his fate and feel his loss acutely, but he refused to let go of that one desire, the one thing he had ever asked for. Nora was all he had left, all he'd ever really had, and he would not let her fall away from him.

Freeze was aware that didn't feel that one powerful motivation the way others felt their desires and needs – the stirrings of his soul were all the more intense and focused for their elusiveness. His heart was quieter in its longings, more secretive. A chill had been placed there which would most likely never fully melt away, and so much had been buried under layers of uncracking ice. Under that ice was endless silent depth and that was where his love lived. It was a silent and solitary kind of desperation, but it was permanent. It was etched in something harder than mountains of ice, more endless and consuming than the cold of the Poles. After more passionate hearts had flickered out or moved on, his longing would still be there, buried but forever preserved. When every other burning heart had faded, when all fire died from the world, he would still be able to picture Nora dancing under a canopy of snow, her face made radiant by her warmth.

It was an unjust world which continuously denied him and had left them both imprisoned in similar but forever separate worlds of cold; where touch and comfort and solace were impossible, and love composed of memories, dreams and undying longings. But Freeze would fight until he could realise that one need, and would never give up on Nora, no matter how hopeless it seemed. He had learned that bitterest cold and solitude were a part of life, and defined the world, but he still held on to the one spark of warmth in his existence.

But Nora was fading and could not fight forever – he needed to fight for her. Freeze was well aware that he was being pursued by the Gotham Police Department and surely by Batman also, but he would gladly battle them all for her. They would have to kill him before they took away her one last chance at survival.

How many times had she nearly been lost to him, but had held on to life regardless? No matter what happened, no matter what new ordeal she went through – terminal illness, Ferris Boyle's cursed interference at the most crucial moment of the cryogenic process, Grant Walker's retrieval of her, the destruction of Oceana, the journey to the Artic, the collapse of their frozen home, the smashing of her cryotube and one safe refuge, and the relapse of her disease. Through it all, she had still held on. Nora had not been blessed by fate with any special gifts, physical skills or powers but she still fought with everything, still managed to cling to life – just long enough for her husband to help her, to give everything and risk everything to rescue her and pull her back from the edge.

But there had been a price for Nora's unlikely survival. She had been removed incorrectly from her stasis, had been broken out into the world rather than undergoing the delicate and precise thawing process the cryogenic procedure demanded. Either the manner in which she had violently re-entered the world, or perhaps Ferris Boyle's accursed sabotage years ago, had left her in a deep coma. Freeze reflected that perhaps it was better that way – that even when out of her frozen slumber, she was still dreaming and unknowing. He wouldn't want her to see him like this, to see how far he had fallen for her sake…or how much further he was willing to fall. No, let her continue dreaming of Victor Fries and of the life she had shared with that man who seemed halfway between memory and ghost to the man who had taken his place.

Gregory Belson couldn't yet master and overcome the impulse to stare when he thought Freeze wouldn't notice. Freeze knew that the doctor couldn't quite believe what he was seeing when he looked at him – after all, they'd been colleagues once, years ago. Nora, too. Gregory had known him as he'd used to be: timid but kind-hearted. A good man. A normal man with a normal life, and happy. The furthest thing from dangerous or threatening. When Freeze thought back to the confrontation with Boyle and recalled the moment when he'd desperately grabbed at the security guard's gun, he realised that, as he'd pointed it with sweating, shaking and terrified hands at Boyle, the safety had still been on. The contrast between the quiet and caring man Belson surely remembered (and very likely disdained as being a pathetic pushover) and the icy and coldly-driven thing made of frost, bitterness and obsession that had taken his place must have been startling.

More than a monster or a murderer, he had become a liar too. He, who despised liars and hypocrites who presented one face to the public and another to their victims. He had shamelessly and easily lied to innocent Koonak, telling him that Miss. Gordon would not be hurt. Freeze was already feeling the bitter sting of that necessary deception and wondered again how much had he changed from the man he had been before his accidental transformation.

Yes, it was good that Nora could not see the man he had become, the man of glacial temperament and icy indifference to the world. Freeze was also glad that Nora could not be aware of the immediate and terrible danger she was in. He would not have her be afraid for all the world. Now that she was free from her cryogenic sleep, her disease had progressed and entered its final and fatal stages and was attacking her vital organs, steadily killing her. This he must stop at all costs.

Under his icy exterior lay too much emotion to express. Beneath layers of bitter frost and unbreakable ice, frozen and harsh, lay sheer terror and desperation at the thought of losing her and having to go on without her. She had been through so much already, it couldn't all end now. He could not go back to that cold and joyless existence. Despite his icy and emotionless demeanour, and the monotone of his voice, Freeze was beyond desperate. Nora's sudden danger was so unexpected and deep beneath the chill of his spirit, his every movement and intonation screamed of a blind, racing panic and the fear of a loss too terrible to bear. But his terror did not paralyze him. Instead, it set him in ruthless motion. His actions were driven and deadly, his pursuit of his one goal relentless and merciless. It was Nora's hour of greatest need and he was spurred on by furious, frantic emotions.

She'd been fighting for so long all alone, and now needed his help more than ever. Nora would be lost forever, like melted snow, if he didn't do something. His darling wife was dying and he was helpless to do anything about it, just as helpless and useless as he'd been to help her or ease her pain so many years ago. To build a new cryotube in which to house Nora would take too much time. Belson's prognosis was that would be dead within a couple of weeks at the most. Even working his hardest and without rest or consideration to himself, he did not have the time or resources needed. He'd needed to find a way to give Nora that extra time, to sustain her until she could be safe again. A couple of months were all he needed, and then her stasis could be restored.

The organ transplant would grant his wish, would give his beloved Nora the time and strength she needed to keep fighting until the new cryochamber could be completed. But Nora's blood-type was extremely rare – one thing which had terribly hampered the treatments available to her in the past – and there had been no matching deceased donors available to provide her with the organ she so direly needed. The only option had been to use a living donor, or leave his beloved Nora to die. And so the old adage that desperate times called for desperate measures had been proven accurate.

It was absolutely vital that this surgery take place. He would quite literally exchange one life for another and kill Barbara Gordon so that Nora could live. So far there had been no lapse in his ice-cold determination. His use of the young Miss. Gordon was cruel, but life was also cruel. Cruel life had brought him to this moment and had confronted him with this choice.

He could not bring himself to care about Barbara Gordon, to pity her or feel the terrible wrong of what would shortly be done to the girl – not when Nora was near him, her breathing quiet and blessedly even and stable, not when he could see her body fighting so hard. Not when he was face-to-face with all he stood to lose. His pity and compassion turned coldest ice within him, and his heart dead to all emotion except devotion to his wife. The harvesting of an innocent young girl's organs was a crime which disgusted him, but in the end it didn't matter what this crime would cost him – Nora was, and always would be, more important. If possible, he would have been willing and happy to give his own life to save her, but it was not. It wasn't his death that was required.

As he gazed upon the sleeping face of his wife, wondering what her dreams were, he was aware that Gregory was preparing the operating theatre, and that soon he would be joining him and assisting in something Nora would never accept, or want. Taking a moment alone with everything he valued in the life, the only person who mattered to him, was a way of steeling himself. Gazing at Nora, he reaffirmed his determination as the room's overhanging blue lights reflected on her throat and outshone any words he could have conjured to describe his love for her.

Above all, Nora was a good woman and had made him a good man. Freeze knew that he couldn't lie to her and would not try to deceive or trick her by hiding what he'd done from her. That was how he knew he was doomed to lose her. She was grace and compassion, but Freeze knew her well enough to understand that she could not ignore or overlook what he was about to do, and that it would break a part of her heart to learn of the atrocity that had been committed for her sake. But for her safety, he was willing to risk it all. There was no depth to which he would not be willing to sink to for her sake.

Nora would never forgive him, he knew. Batman had used these arguments in the past to dissuade him from acting poorly, even for his wife's sake, and those arguments had always affected Freeze. The threat of Nora's contempt never failed to turn him from the wrong path. But for the first time, Freeze couldn't care. It didn't matter if she hated him forever. He loved her more than enough to be able to endure that. At least she would be alive to hate him. If Nora was alive and well, and would live a fulfilling life, then nothing else would matter and no price would be too high. If she lived, he would be happy.

Conscience and pity would not be his weakness and would not stop him from saving his wife. Fate had dictated this, as it had so many of his actions. This was not how he wanted to be, or what he wanted, but every other choice had been cut away. But he would regret nothing if he could give back life and health to his sweet Nora.

He sat with her in silence mostly, sometimes breathing a syllable and almost speaking her name. His feelings were too intense for words, and her name too dear and precious a treasure to casually throw around. Sometimes, he spoke to her conversationally of the Artic and its wind-tortured beauty, knowing that she would have very much liked to have seen it. She so loved the snow, at both its most harsh and most delicate, and had often told him how she wanted to see the Northern Lights at least once before she died – and he had unceasingly promised her that she would, that she would be cured and afterwards they would visit the Artic together. He would not break that promise to her.

In the past, before he had known his Nora still lived, he had thrown his emotions far away from him, burying and burning them with ice-coldness, hoping to never find them again, had frozen them dead in his heart. He'd led half a life, devoid of love, and had denied to himself the extent of his deep passions for her. But no more. Even in her sleep, she called out to him and revived long-buried emotions. Not even illness, unconsciousness and impending death dimmed her beauty, or the loveliness of character he could see written in her fine features. Love still lit her like a flame and she bathed his world in rarest warmth. He would do anything to preserve that.

He was beyond morality now – he had been strung out past his breaking point and was greatly fatigued by old ideas of right and wrong. He had gone beyond all his old thoughts on good and evil. He fully knew that what he was doing was gravely wrong and did not delude himself into thinking that it was justified or right, but the consequences of his actions no longer mattered to him.

He knew it was obsession. Nora was all that was left of his hopes and dreams and humanity. When he looked at her, he saw something much better than himself. He saw everything he had ever loved, everything that was good and beautiful in the world, everything worth fighting to save. She was all his good memories, dead dreams, secret yearnings, repressed emotions and lost beliefs compressed into one beautiful form. She was all that was good in him. She was his last link, the only remaining connection to the man he had been and to the life he'd had.

Her expression was gentle and grave. Her beauty and her sadness seemed too deep for even him to fully understand or take away. Small wisps of cool air rose from her lips as she breathed; proof that her stasis and her safety truly had been broken. Even in deep unconsciousness, she seemed so vulnerable and her sleep a trembling and fragile thing that he didn't want to risk disturbing. More than ever, he was overtaken by the urge to protect her and shield her from all those who would stand by without care or concern and let her die.

With every blessing in his life had come a curse, but with this terrible curse had come with one blessing. For once, she was a touchable dream. There was no barrier of ice and glass separating them anymore. For the first time in years, after so much time spent hopelessly remembering and painfully longing, he could truly touch her.

His hand hovered over her face, desperate to close the distance between them and caress her, making a hundred aching dreams come true. He was left on the threshold, desperate for her, and yet afraid. She was within reach for the first time, and he yearned to re-learn every aspect of her features by once more tracing the lines of her much-loved and infinitely-remembered face.

He felt so close to her, but so distant. There was a gap that even the intensity of his feelings could not bridge. He would never be able to hold her again, not without his damned suit separating them with steel, cybernetics and blistering cold. His was a body which not even her great beauty could stir and he would never feel her warm and sweet breath against his mouth ever again, not without being pained by the raw heat of it made unbearable by his condition. So Freeze gloried in what might be his last chance, in his one final blessing in the small time he had left before Belson was ready to perform the impending operation.

As he reached for her face, his hand froze in midair, poised just above the soft curve of her cheekbone, and was slowly retracted. Her sleeping face was the image of innocence, and Freeze momentarily withdrew his hand, feeling deeply unworthy. Without trying or meaning to, she completely disarmed him.

Freeze was aware that although his touch would be light and moderate, with the enhanced strength his protective suit accorded him he could very easily crush her skull if he so desired, and the thought repelled him. His capacity to hurt her halted him. Again, he couldn't bring him himself to let his hand reach her. There was no way of telling if touching Nora would cleanse him or taint her.

But then, she shifted her face slightly in her sleep, sighing softly, as if missing the faint phantom of a touch, the caress that had almost been bestowed upon her, and was gently seeking it out. At that point, he couldn't hold himself back, couldn't hold back the emotions thawed by the sight and sound of her, and relented to that sweetly insistent sigh. Slowly, he touched Nora's face with sensitivity and reverence. He was tentative and unsure at first, and the first touch of his hand upon her face was no heavier than a snowflake.

His gloved fingertips whispered over her soft skin – skin softer than he remembered. For so long it had been the glass of her cryotube his hands had touched, imagining the slender curves of her face, desperately clinging to those phantasms. The sensation of finally meeting skin, the skin he had once worshipped with his own a lifetime ago, was quickening, sweetening and shocking, like a sublime drowning.

The sensation was beautiful, like the first days of falling in love. It had been so long – years – and despite so long a time spent immersing himself in treasured memories, he had forgotten what it was like to truly feel her, to touch such perfect beauty. He caressed her, cherishing every instant of it and too aware of the fragility of the moment and of how she could be taken away from him again. He tried to memorise her by touch, tried to somehow absorb the still-hale rosiness of her skin into his soul by that contact.

Her hair was blooming yellow on her pillow. He swept his hands through the long, golden strands, slowly sifting through their softness and wishing he could breathe in her scent. He watched honey-blonde caress his gloved fingers and thought of the melting and thawing power of sunlight.

His touch moved from her smooth forehead and drifted downwards in a soft journey to her jaw; the movement a tender descent. He lingered on the sweep of her throat until he reached the cheek which rested perfectly in the scoop of his palm, thumbs lightly grazing her. Freeze remembered this so well, the face he had so often cupped in his large hands, the smooth jaw he had caressed, fingers curling under her chin and thumbs caressing her cheeks, as he pulled her into a kiss.

As if the memory of such kisses were tugging his hands, he began to trace her soft, full mouth. Cherishingly, he followed the seam of her rosebud lips, and then traversed the delicate curves of the corner of her mouth, as if trying to encourage and caress all the smiles she'd given him in all the time they'd had together.

Gazing down at the full sensuous structure of Nora's face, Freeze felt at a loss. Was it not Plato who had said that at the touch of a lover, everyone became a poet? It was the opposite for him – finally being given the miracle of touch again robbed him of his words. There was nothing that could describe the perfection of the moment, or the heartache it stirred in him at the thought of Nora in danger.

Nora had asked him once, after an experimental treatment had failed and blighted the hopes they had both built over months, if one day he would forget her. He had fervently denied that it would ever happen, didn't want to even entertain the possibility that she might die, and had insisted that he would find a way to help her. But,Nora had asked, What if? She'd then asked him what, after a few years, would he remember. He didn't have an answer for her at the time – there was too much of her, he couldn't imagine distilling any of her qualities, or summing them up in a few words, and couldn't bear to think of having to lose and only remember her. Did people only remember light, colour and images after losing their eyes?

But if she could ask him again, he knew how he would answer her. This, Nora. This.

Touch. Warmth. Love. The sensation of her breath feathering against his hand was like a caress. Feeling her skin once more brought back countless treasured memories of their days together and their nights together. The tenderness and desperation she stirred in him was unbelievable, making him feel young again. The good man he had once been was ruined, Freeze knew, but Nora never failed to make him feel that perhaps the ruin wasn't permanent and that the damage done to his spirit might one day be repaired.

He was cut off from her by his frozen condition and his suit, sealed off in a world of howling cold which should never touch her, and he despised it bitterly. As she shivered beneath him, he yearned to be able to kiss her just one more time.

Her lips softly parted under his cold touch and Nora leaned into his caress, stirring ever so slightly in her deep sleep. It was almost as if she sensed him and still wanted him despite everything. For a fleeting second, his heart had stopped as he irrationally thought that she might wake up – fearing it, and yet wanting it all the same. He was afraid, yet felt his spirit calling out to her in spite of that shocking fear.

Nora was answering his call, he knew. His misery and his longing were thawing the encasing frost of her sleep and she was faintly rousing and responding to the world around her, as if trying to find her way back to him. Freeze wished that he could have made the world a better place for her, so that her journey back to it would be worthwhile for her. The frozen and emotionless thing he had become was a very poor prize for her to claim at the end of such a long and hard road, and he wished he could have had more to offer her.

If he felt anything, it was all for her. These familiar emotions belonged as much to him as the air he breathed, but were just as ephemeral and out of reach. They existed from somewhere in his past, but had slipped away from him, lost in time. But he could not escape that he had never stopped loving her.

Feeling the divine contours of her face again and feeling the soothed and slumbering peace written on her expression mirrored in the silken softness of her skin, Victor felt a chill pass through him sweeter than anything he'd ever known. It was a chill that melted, an icy mist laden with concealed heat. It made all the misery and loneliness he had endured seem worthwhile.

His touch was cold to her, he knew. His containment suit was still cold to the touch of a normal person. The fingertips drawing soft invisible patterns, writing an unknown language of pining pain and tender craving on her skin, would feel like freezing and sharp needles, even through his suit. He wished he could warm her but it would have been easier to try and bring a blush to snow than it was for him to try and bring warmth and comfort to his wife.

He caressed the line of her cheekbone again, aware that even through the thick and heavy material of his suit, his touch would pinch at her skin like fierce prickings of a needle, cold enough to sting. The icy bite of his hands on her would feel raw, and would eventually numb and nip bitterly at her with contained cold. Nora used to love the frosty cold of winter nights, even though their sharpness hurt her and the piercingly chilly weather scratched at her cheeks and throat. She'd said that walking in a frigid wind or under a falling sheet of snow made her feel alive. Freeze himself knew well how the cold could be so intense that it scorched. How would she feel now, shivering under his skin? Would his touch burn her, bring her to life?

What he felt touching her, lonely hands sweeping over her face and hair, after so long a time completely alone and cut off from contact, was nothing less than fire and life. But better than the sweetest chill was the soul-shocking and blissful warmth that consumed him when his hands left her face and took her small hands in both if his. His grip was firm, comforting and supporting; the embrace familiar to both of them. Lightly caressing her knuckles with his thumbs, he tenderly held Nora's hands as he so often had as she slept in hospital, exhausted by the pain she'd had to bravely endure.

Her hands; every bit as beautiful and dear to him as her face and soul. The warm hands he had longed for on his coldest days. The hands he could wait for forever. Hands which had broken his loneliness, hands which had reached out to him, comforted him, caressed him. Hands which had held him fast to her. Hands which had written scientific papers which astounded him. Hands which had helped make the house they'd once had into a home. Hands which had touched every part of him. Hands which had created his world and had surrounded him – interlocking with his own, cupping his face, touching his shoulder, roving over his body or wandering through his hair. Hands that gave support and solace, and received support and solace in return. Hands that had held his, hands that had thrown snowballs at him, hands that had spoken a thousand beautiful things to him without needing words. The hand that wore his ring. He strongly recollected the feel of tracing the delicate terrain of those soft hands with his mouth, and counting each hidden bone with his lips.

Softly, Freeze caressed those hands, unconsciously trying to nourish warmth in them, his fingers interlacing with hers. In her sleep, Nora tightened her grip as if reluctant to let go, fingers gliding over his as if she savoured the chill rain of his cold caresses falling on her skin.

Feeling such echoes of warmth and the astonishing heartbreak of being able to hold her hand again, Freeze knew that it had all been worth it – and that to take that final step would be worth it too, no matter what happened to him afterwards. To save the life of this incredible woman, whom he loved with all his being, there could be no regrets. He burned the moment and the cacophony of feelings it inspired into his memory, desperately trying to hold it there, wishing he could encase it in ice and preserve it and its timeless beauty forever. He hadn't felt this way in so long, and yet under it all lay a horrifying loneliness that would have brought tears to his eyes if it was still possible.

Despite the feeling of being teased by fate by being so close to the one he loved and yet never so far away, he wanted the moment to last forever, to be able to spend all eternity with her, but time was ticking away – time which was so precious to her. It was the time for action, not for reflection. He would not sit in loneliness, silently and impotently questioning if his demands for some measure of happiness and peace would be coldly denied by a world that had taken them both, had broken them both, and forsaken them both.

He would not be robbed of her again. He would not be cheated again. His heart would not be broken again. Nora would someday bloom again, blossom into a frigid world once more and light it up with the sunlight of her smile. Many men talked of love, but very few acted as silently, steadily, defiantly and unrepentantly on it as Victor had and would again, not expecting anything in return or giving thought or consideration to how his actions were viewed.

He gently settled her hands by her sides again, patting them lightly and allowing his thumbs to give them the smallest and quickest of caresses before abandoning them. For one last time, his hands found her face again, and his right hand traced her mouth, softly and delicately gliding over her parted lips, before bringing his hand to his helmet and pressing it to the glass over his mouth, like a tiny kiss; the closest he could ever expect.

The silence between them was heavy with unspoken words; with words of love he didn't have the strength to say, only feel and hope that somehow she sensed his meaning too, and could understand. So often had he intoned sorrowing and lonely laments for her, but now he felt he had to choose his words most carefully. His silence whispered a thousand assurances that she was not alone, that he would always be by her side, that he would always love her, that she was going to be fine, that she would dance under the falling snow again, that he would never give up on her, and that he would do anything for her and would save her no matter what, and loved her – desperately, achingly, passionately loved her.

Before leaving to aid Belson and make the final preparations for surgery and hopefully sedate Barbara Gordon without too much of a struggle, he finally found the words for Nora; what mattered most and what he most needed to say to her.

"Forgive me, my love."

The hollow sound of his deep voice resonated throughout the room, but the only answer he received was the sound of the mechanical whirring and beeping of the machinery monitoring her status – sounds which at that moment seemed colder than even he could imagine.

Nora's head turned slightly so that she faced him, as if listening, understanding and accepting. Her serene expression was all compassion, all sympathy as she faintly stirred, but did not wake. There was the slightest and most tender hint of a smile on her lips, and Freeze imagined that somehow despite everything, she knew that he was doing it all for her, and for love.

About to depart and leave Nora with her Tchaikovsky, Freeze looked down at her sleeping face, contemplating how softly unaware she seemed to be of all the pain and danger around her, and he regretted nothing. She was worth all loneliness and pain. She was worth the white and hollow void of an eternally frozen life. And as he gazed at Nora's closed eyes and gathered into his memory the beautiful image of blue – brilliant blue, caring blue, glowing blue, determined blue, deep blue, intimate blue, electric blue, laughing blue, endless blue, wet blue, warm blue, shining blue, the blue of eyes he couldn't see, blue he was in danger of losing forever, everywhere and always blue, blue that had made him cry, touched him to his very soul and had melted his heart, blue more valuable than his life – Victor knew he would do it all again.

All for her.

-- FIN --