Dragging a quaking Ty through a forest covered with 20 centimetres of fresh snow with only a flashlight to guide them is one of the most difficult endeavours Amy has ever undertaken. Half the time, Amy isn't sure that Grandpa knows exactly where he's going, but she trusts him invariably. Ty's clumsiness certainly doesn't help them. Not only does he shake, but after a while his legs stop working correctly. He trips and stumbles over his own two feet. Meanwhile, both Grandpa and Amy keep up a steady stream of conversation with him, discussing the weather, his condition, anything to keep him lucid. Half the time his responses are unintelligible, but at least he is responding.
"So, Ty, how are you feeling?" Amy's breath hitches in her throat as she tugs him upright for the sixth time.
"P-peachy."
"What do you think about this weather?" Grandpa tramples down a bramble so Ty doesn't entangle himself.
"B-beautif-ful. P-perfect-t f-for swim-ming-g."
Suppressing an eye-roll, Amy says, "What's your favorite drink?"
He has to think about it for a moment. "R-right-t n-now? An-nything-g h-hot-t."
"And we'll have all you can drink back at Heartland," Grandpa promises, pushing a tree limb out of their path with the barrel of his shotgun.
"Mhm."
Shining her flashlight at Ty, Amy frowns worriedly. His green eyes are glassy, focused on something a thousand miles away. "Ty?"
"Mhm?"
"What's two plus two?"
Ty scowls, brow furrowed in frustration. "W-what-t k-kinda ques-stion-n is-s th-that-t?" He stumbles again, struggling to find his footing. "T-two pl-lus-s t-two . . . "
"Ty!"
"F-four!" His eyes clear and he jerks abruptly, causing Amy to stagger. "It's four-r."
"Keep movin', Amy," Grandpa reminds her. The brumal wind tearing at her skin, Amy struggles along with renewed effort. Surely it hadn't taken them this long to get to the pond before!
Ty never complains, but he's flagging fast. At some point, Amy sheds her coat and tries to get Ty to put it on. He refuses. Prideful idiot. Amy's warm anyway, so she throws it over Ty's head and tells him quite waspishly to wear the coat or else. Wiping snow-dusted hair out of her eyes, Amy glances at Grandpa, who traipses along unwaveringly, shotgun clutched in his free hand. As steady and unflappable as a good trick horse.
"Hey, Ty," Grandpa says. "As much as you complain about it, you're lucky you live above a barn. If those horses hadn't made such a racket, you might be a Ty-sicle right now."
Ty smiles vaguely but doesn't outright answer. Apprehension gnawing at her insides, Amy asks, "Grandpa, where is the road?"
"Hang on a minute," he tells her. "We're going in the right direction."
"Then why haven't we found it yet?"
"Because it was a long ways from there to the pond," Grandpa snaps, stomping on a pile of snow with more force than necessary.
It isn't long before Grandpa starts shivering, though he tries to hide it. By this time, Amy's gelid, too, and they're practically carrying Ty, who stopped answering their questions at Grandpa's If you had a dog, would you teach it how to ride a unicycle?
"Grandpa!" Amy gasps. "Ty's—"
Shlump. Without warning, Ty sinks out of her grasp, falling gracelessly to the ground. To Amy's relief, he stirs immediately, but it's a chore getting him on his feet again.
"W-what are y-you doin'?" he slurs, glancing between them confusedly. Grandpa and Amy share a knowing look.
The Knowing Look :
If they don't get back to the truck soon,
Ty is thoroughly and utterly
Screwed.
"Up and at 'em, lazybones," Grandpa says. "We gotta get you back to Heartland."
"Oh. Oh, yeah, o-okay."
With Ty propped between them, they start off again. Snow still falls gently from the heavens, sprinkling them with flakes that melt into their clothes and freeze their skin. A slight breeze still blows, but it's nothing compared to the gale that was storming earlier. Nonetheless, Amy and Grandpa do their best to shield Ty. Any wind is dangerous to someone who just fell into a frozen pond. What happens, Amy thinks, panting with exertion, if they don't reach the truck in time? If they don't find the vehicle at all? Would they all just freeze out here? Surely Lou will search for them relentlessly, but that doesn't mean she will find them in time. A frost-coated scenario rapidly constructs before her mind's eye:
The Frost-Coated Scenario :
Lou and possibly Mallory driving around for hours
In search of Amy, Ty, and Grandpa
Finding their frostbitten corpses an eternity later
All huddled together in a futile attempt to keep warm.
Mallory turning to Lou
Asking if she can have Amy's room
It's such a morbid thought that Amy wants to laugh. What if—Amy gasps as her foot catches on something unyielding and sends her stumbling to the ground. Instinctively, she throws out her arms to catch herself and gets two handfuls of snow and wet jeans-knees for her trouble. Ty falls beside her in a much less self-preserving manner, twisted at an odd angle to keep from squashing Amy flat. For a frigid but blissful moment, Amy remains kneeling, her icy hands clenched into fists. She directs the flashlight beam at Ty, who's still trembling and nearly as white as the snow that surrounds them.
"Amy!"
"I'm sorry, Grandpa," Amy chokes out, struggling to her feet. "Sorry, Ty." Wiping her runny nose with a near-numb hand, Amy tilts her head toward the starless sky and says, "Grandpa, I think the storm is picking up again."
Her grandfather's attention is fixed on something else. "The road!" Grandpa snatches up the flashlight and points it behind Amy. Energy rushes through Amy like a flash flood. Scrambling to her grandfather's side, she stares in near-disbelief at the blessed sight of the highway, brightened by the beam of the flashlight.
"Thank God!" Amy breathes. "Help me, Grandpa!"
Together, they heft Ty to his feet and virtually drag his frozen body over the last dozen metres. Staggering out onto the road, Grandpa quickly spots the truck sitting not a hundred metres from their current location. And just in time, too-the wind has once again begun its keening cry, pelting them with snowflakes that drive into their skin like tiny sharp rocks.
The trip back is just as nerve-wracking as the drive to the forest, thanks to Ty. The heating system in Grandpa's ancient truck is as fickle and unreliable as an untrained colt. Never before has she heard Jack Bartlett plead with his truck as she does now. Stuffed into the seat with Ty crammed between her and Grandpa, her hands and feet like blocks of ice and her chest aching with the cold, Amy huddles next to her quivering boyfriend as gelid air blasts out of the vents. They're racing down the highway as fast as Grandpa can on a road slick with snow and frozen slush and in air thick with churning snow. Knuckles white on the steering wheel, Grandpa mutters a constant stream of expletives under his breath, squinting out into the black and white haze that the headlights barely cut through.
Amy's leg bounces incessantly (a habit for which Lou constantly reprimands her) as she twists the dials that are supposed to control the heat and air conditioner. "Grandpa, the heater doesn't feel like it's working."
Another frustrated curse. "Fiddle with the knobs a little more." Amy does.
"Ha!" Amy releases a breath of delight as warm air begins to blow softly through the vents. "Lean forward, Ty!" Flexing her achy fingers, Amy turns up the dial—and the heat vanishes. This time it's Amy who curses. "Grandpa! Your truck is a piece of junk!"
"She is not!" Grandpa protests sharply. "She's just—" They all cry out in astonishment as the pickup swerves toward the edge of the road.
"N-nah," Ty snickers. "N-not a p-piece of j-junk-k at-t all."
Adjusting his grip on the steering wheel, Grandpa regards Ty balefully but never fully takes his eyes off the highway. "Well, at least we know you haven't lost your horrible sense of humor."
"W-who s-said-d an-nyth-thing ab-bout h-horrible?"
After a bit more fiddling, some praying, and a lot more swearing, Amy gets the heater to start, albeit at it's next-to-lowest setting. Next task: Keep Ty from falling asleep. Sending a quick mental thank you to Mallory and her incessant prattling, Amy turns and tells Ty, "Let's sing a song!"
Ty, whose eyes have begun to flutter shut, pries them open reluctantly. "What?"
"Let's sing a song!"
"C-come on, Am-my," Ty mumbles. "'M t-tired."
"Which is exactly why we're singing," Amy replies briskly. She's tired too, but she would see herself frozen in a glacier before she let's Ty's bodily functions slow down. "Come on, Grandpa! Think of a song!"
Jack Bartlett does not sing often. But when he does, it's always a moment to remember. Taking a deep breath, Grandpa belts out the loudest, most irritating tune possible:
"I really can't stay . . . "
Recognizing the lyrics instantly, Amy joins in. "Baby it's cold outside."
"I've got to go away!"
"But baby, it's cold outside! Sing, Ty!" Amy has never felt so ridiculous, but she can't deny the effectiveness of her plan: Ty's huddled in the seat, still quivering, but he's grinding out the words with her and Grandpa the best he can.
"I-it's not e-even Chr-ristmas," he whines.
Amy glances at him. "Since when have you been all about seasonal correctness?"
"S-since I'm-m f-freezing m-my b-butt off in-n J-jack's sc-crap heap-p of a t-truck."
"Take off your socks," Amy orders. "You gotta keep moving."
With a tired groan, Ty leans down and tries to peel off his socks. Studying him discreetly, Amy notices how his hand clutches at his ribs as he moves—a gesture of discomfort he tries and fails to hide. Amy waits expectantly. And waits. His hands are probably frozen stiff, she realises. But he'd rather be boiled in horse dung than admit it.
"Havin' problems down there, Ty?" Grandpa finally asks. No answer.
"I'll do it," Amy volunteers, and bends down. Ty doesn't even argue aside from an inarticulate half-hearted complaint. As she peels off Ty's socks, which are freezing and soaked with pond water, a little voice in the back of her head—the little voice invariably associated with her ability to blush—informs her quite sinisterly that she hasn't seen Ty's bare feet before. At least not this close. The little voice also tells her that under different circumstances, Grandpa might be less lenient about the absence of personal space between them.
The ride back to Heartland probably takes about twenty minutes, thanks to the veritable blizzard raging outside the flatbed. To Amy, it feels like an eternity—even with all three of them screeching Christmas songs at the top of their lungs. Despite the meagre efforts of the truck's heater, they're all quaking as Grandpa rolls to an unceremonious halt outside the house. Lou bursts out the door and rushes over to them, Mallory following close behind. Amy hasn't even got the passenger door open before Mallory begins her tirade of questions.
"What happened?" Mallory cries, staring at them with wide eyes.
"Ty took a little dip in a pond," Grandpa replies bluntly, dashing around the front of the truck. Amy slides off the seat and into the piercing wind, her chest immediately clenching against the cold.
"Let's get inside," Lou urges. Amy doesn't need to be told twice. Mallory takes up the rear as Lou sprints to the door, holding it open for Grandpa and Ty.
"Nice coat, Ty," Mallory comments, eyes trained on Amy's coat as they struggle through the door. A blast of warm air envelopes Amy like a thick blanket. With a relieved sigh, she kicks off her boots and shuffles to the couch.
"Th-thanks." Without pausing to remove his boots, Grandpa shambles past the kitchen and eases Ty onto the couch next to Amy.
"Get him out of those clothes," Mallory commands indignantly. "Don't you know anything about hypothermia?"
With that—Amy will never forget this for as long as she lives—Lou pushes Ty to his feet and pulls down his pajama pants. Then goes his shirt. Thus, a little battle initiates inside Amy's brain:
Ty Borden is standing in his underwear in my living room.
Your boyfriend just fell into a frozen lake and you're thinking about that?
Yes, but it's Ty.
Amy all of a sudden feels very warm. Staring very determinedly at the ground, she folds her hands innocuously in her lap and wills herself not to blush. By the time she musters enough courage to look up, Lou's got a blanket thrown over him and is rummaging in the wardrobe for more. There is a fire started in the hearth, thanks to Grandpa, who prods at the burning logs with a poker. Finally glancing at Ty, Amy is slightly pleased to notice that she is not the only one flushed red. In spite of having recently been dunked into a ice-covered pond, Ty's entire face is the colour of a tomato (a phenomenon not often witnessed by most of civilised world).
"Here, Amy." Twisting her head toward her sister's voice, Amy barely manages to catch the blanket Lou tosses her way. "Grandpa, sit down. You must be freezing." With an armful of blankets, Lou strides over to Ty and begins laying them meticulously over him, going as far as tucking in corners and smoothing out wrinkles. Wrapping the fluffy comforter around herself, Amy privately thinks that Lou resembles a fussy mom.
"I'll sit down when this fire's goin' nice and hot," Grandpa promises.
"Fine. I'm going to go and make some hot cocoa." The eldest Fleming sister turns to leave, then twists back around and examines Ty more closely. "What on earth happened to your eye?" Amy manoeuvres so that she can see the injury more clearly. It's there; she doesn't know how she missed it before: A large red splotch on his right cheekbone, swollen and undoubtedly painful. She wishes Grandpa had taken a shot at those madmen before they got away.
"A c-crazy guy p-punched me," Ty responds matter-of-factly.
"I'm assuming you don't want ice for that at the moment."
"R-right now, I w-want j-just about an-nything b-but." Shifting under the mountain of blankets, Ty reaches up and probes the wound carefully. "I don't th-think anyth-thing's b-broken."
"Including your ribs?" Grandpa asks archly.
"Your ribs," Lou echoes disbelievingly.
"L-like I said. C-crazy p-people." Ty's quiet for a moment, but when it becomes apparent that no one will let the matter drop until someone gets a proper answer, he sighs and says, "No. N-nothing's b-broken."
"And the people staying at the dude ranch did this?" Mallory asks, folding her arms. Ty just nods.
"And to think I let those lunatics stay at here," Lou says mournfully. "I knew there was something was off about them!"
"We all did, I think," Amy puts in. "It's okay, Lou. You couldn't have known that they were homicidal maniacs." Ty nods vigorously in agreement.
"If the phone lines weren't down the police would already be on their tails," Lou grumbles.
"We'll deal with all that once the storm passes," Grandpa vows.
"Oh, we most definitely will," Lou mutters darkly. After scanning her patients one more time, Lou bustles from the room.
"Ty, I promise you can eat all of my bagels you want as long as you don't die," Mallory pleads, gazing at Ty like he might disappear if she blinks.
"He ain't gonna die, Mallory," Grandpa says exasperatedly. "Just a little dunk in the pond, is all." As her grandfather adds more wood to the fire, Amy eyes him carefully as she surreptitiously scoots closer to Ty.
"No funny business, you two."
Not bothering to conceal an irritated huff, Amy throws off her comforter in one giant, sweeping movement. "I'm going to change," she announces, and stalks off to her room.
Mallory glares at Jack Bartlett resentfully. "Way to kill the mood, Jack."
Grandpa just huffs and grumbles under his breath.
Amy emerges from her room bearing a fresh set of pyjamas and a cooled temper. Squaring her shoulders, she marches back into the living room and plonks herself on the couch as close as humanly possible to Ty—which still isn't obscenely close, thanks to the boatload of blankets piled on him. From his customary chair, Grandpa observes them silently. Amy doesn't meet his gaze.
"I'm gonna change, too," Grandpa informs them, and strides purposefully into the hall. Lou says nothing, but a little smirk stretches her lips as she hands Amy a mug of steaming hot cocoa.
"Shouldn't Ty go to the hospital or something?" Lou asks once Grandpa returns in a pair of comfy winter nightclothes. Smacking Mallory's grabbing hands away from the last cup on her tray, Lou passes the cup to Grandpa.
"No," both chime simultaneously.
"There's no way I'm riskin' driving in that again unless it is absolutely necessary," Grandpa says firmly.
"You d-don't!" Ty assures him, wriggling under his blankets. "I'll b-be fine."
"Still cold?" Amy inquires.
"Yeah." He shifts again, face tight with discomfort. "My h-hands and f-feet are starting t-to hurt."
"You probably have frostbite," Mallory pipes up. "And a mild case of hypothermia." She flops down in the chair opposite Grandpa, studying Ty shrewdly.
Ty snorts derisively. "No k-kidding."
"The storm is bound to let up, the way it's been blowin'," Grandpa remarks. "If things are still lookin' bad by then, we'll take you into Hudson."
"Things w-won't be looking bad," Ty vows. Amy sure hopes so.
It turns out that Grandpa does have a heart, seeing as he allows Ty to sleep in the house on the couch instead of banishing him to the lonely, gelid confines of his loft. Filled to the brim with painkillers and hot cocoa, Ty dozes on the couch, clad in a pair of Grandpa's pyjama bottoms and an old shirt. Long after everyone else is sleeping, Amy quietly pads into the living room to check on Ty. A pile of blankets lay on the floor, gradually discarded as their user grew warmer. Feeling a bit stalkerish, Amy allows herself to gaze at Ty for a few moments more, taking in his peaceful expression. When he's sleeping he looks so vulnerable, so innocent, Amy muses. There is none of the terror and stress that was so prevalent just a few hours earlier.
Satisfied with her findings, Amy starts to return to her room. She turns back when she hears movement.
"Can't sleep?" she murmurs, walking over to him. Easing down on the couch, she cards a hand through Ty's dark hair.
Ty shakes his head. "I'm still a little cold." He sticks his leg out of the blankets, revealing a freshly socked foot. "Jack sure wears some heavy-duty socks."
Amy smiles. "He does, doesn't he?" Twisting so she can look her boyfriend in the eye, she asks, "What did those psychos want with you, anyway?"
There's a moment of silence during which Ty is clearly gauging how much he wants to tell Amy. Knowing that pressing won't get anymore answers, not in this situation, Amy waits patiently.
"Some thugs were after my dad," he finally answers. "Thought he hid money here."
"At Heartland," Amy says skeptically. "And they thought you knew where it was?"
"Yeah. Apparently they found out he was here. But they didn't know why, obviously, or they never would've come." His eyes and tone darken with bitterness. Amy knows that he still hasn't forgiven himself for letting Brad Borden get away with her family's money all those months ago.
"Those guys were obviously crazy," Amy says. "They wouldn't have taken you if they were sane."
"Honestly, I think they were just desperate." Ty has that shrewd look in his eye, the one that transcends the look of a classic juvenile delinquent or even a bright veterinary assistant. It's the look of someone who's seen and experienced things beyond his years.
"One of them tried to shoot you." Amy grabs one of his hands and squeezes it gently, relieved to see that, although his hand is cold, it's returning to a normal colour. Jack's borrowed shirt is a bit too large for Ty; the sleeves slips down over his hands in a way Amy finds oddly endearing.
"Okay, I'm pretty sure that guy's lost a few of his marbles," Ty concedes. "But one of them . . . he tried to get the other guy to let me go."
Amy exhales slowly. "So, what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know." Ty shrugs, then winces.
"Ty, they were going to let you drown," Amy says emphatically.
"I know. And it was terrifying." Carefully, Amy lies down next to Ty, relishing the warmth that rushes through her when he pulls her closer. "But right now, I'm just thankful to be home."
Home. The word makes Amy's insides bloom with happiness. "Me too," she sighs.
Together, kept warm by each other and by the heat of a crackling fire, they wait for the storm to pass.
You may notice that the amount of drama in this story shoots through the roof. Well, I have two reasons (read: excuses) for that:
1) Heartland is literally called "a Canadian and U.S family drama television series" on Wikipedia. If I didn't make it nauseatingly histrionic it wouldn't be anything like the show (which is kinda lame but we still watch it anyway).
2) I am physically incapable of writing anything but drama because let's face it: I am a giant drama queen.
I thought of this story a while back and honestly berated myself for even entertaining the idea of writing something so self-serving. But hey, I indulge myself every once in awhile. It might not be my zenith of literary achievements, but it was fun to write. This composition is set during the winter between season two and three of Heartland and addresses some unused plot bunnies inspired by said programme. Like what sort of trouble Ty's dad had gotten himself into over the years. And how everyone would deal with it.
The format in which I chose to write this piece was inspired by The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. His writing style is one of my favorites and I love that book. In fact, I considered the notion of writing Death's point of view for at least one section. Why didn't I? Laziness, of course. The bane of my existence. That, and the fact that I wanted this composition to be of mediocre quality at bare minimum. Writing from a such a unique, foreign point of view and making it qualify as decent literature would be difficult to say the least, considering that I'm an amateur with zero experience in that domain.
Speaking of zero experience, I have never fallen into a pond in the middle of winter. All of the occurrences transpiring in this piece were written in near ignorance, because I sure ain't jumping into no frozen lake. So any inaccuracies you see were not written on purpose.
The circumstance involving the heat in Jack's vehicle can actually happen. I was once in a van in which the heating system only worked if you set it on the lower setting. Nevertheless, I froze my rear end off.
Well, this might be my first fully completed fanfiction, you guys! And who'd have thought that it would be a Heartland piece, of all things?
As always, comments are appreciated!