Chapter 4.

Jón had warned Xander to drive slowly, especially when going over hills where he couldn't see far, because in the summer cracks could open up in the ice very quickly – some of them big enough and deep enough to swallow him and his Snowcat whole. No one would ever find his body then.

Xander Harris had gone as Captain America last Halloween. Now normally, nothing much would come of something like that, perhaps some teasing or compliments depending on who saw him. But when a spell turned everyone into their costumes, Xander was left two very special things. One was a complete set of memories of Steven Rogers, and the other was a shield made of Vibranium. Which, while awesome, did him absolutely no good. He wasn't strong or fast enough to wield it correctly, and if he tried to sell it, there would be some pointed questions about where he got it. Actually, trying to wield it or showing it to anyone would probably produce the same questions he wasn't interested in answering.

The memories were useful right now for many reasons. Firstly in that Steve Rogers received some very intense training even before becoming Captain America. That training included everything an army officer would ever need to know, including leadership, tactics, logistics, hand to hand fighting, weapons, and how to navigate using a variety of instruments. That training and those memories allowed Xander to very carefully plot the GPS coordinates of the place Steve Rogers had gone down in his plane onto a map and from there transfer that into a GPS device in the Snowcat that would take him to Captain America's final resting place.

The second thing it did was let Xander Harris know without a shadow of a doubt that Steve Rogers was alive under that ice.


Xander followed the advice he was given and drove carefully to the place marked on his GPS. It was a good thing too as he only narrowly avoided a huge fissure that surely would have killed him had he been going faster. As it was, he had to go several miles around it before he found a place were the gap was less than a foot wide and safely crossable.

Three days later his GPS beeped and Xander let off the throttle and killed the engine. He looked around at the barren wasteland around him, there was no sign of any plane anywhere. He wasn't surprised by that, he knew it would probably still be buried or someone else would have found it already. Everything was so bright, even with his goggles on. He was glad those had been included with the Snowcat. He stood up and stretched. He was exhausted and checked his watch. It was very late even though the sun looked like it was only just beginning to set. Night time tonight would only be a few hours. He settled himself on the small bed in the Snowcat and promptly fell asleep.


After a refreshing sleep, Xander set to work digging. Xander didn't just head up to the arctic without doing at least a little research first. Research into ice cutting led him to ice harvesting. Ice harvesting was a winter occupation where people would collect surface ice from lakes and rivers for storage in ice houses as a pre-refrigeration cooling method. However, ice harvesting had usually been done when there was only a foot of ice on the water. Xander had hundreds of feet of ice below him. But he also had a plan.

He started with the auger. He drilled four holes as deep as they would go. Next, he used the chainsaw to connect them. He pounded some eyelets into the ice then he used a remote-controlled winch on the Snowcat to pull the block of ice out of the hole.

Ahem.

Then he used the winch to pull the block of ice out of the hole.

Then he used the winch to pull the block of ice out of the hole! What the hell?

Oh.

He'd forgotten about that whole 'bottom edge' thing that blocks of ice had. No matter. Xander re-cut his blocks with the chainsaw. This time, he angled the saw inwards so that the cuts met in the middle. This time the winch pulled out a pyramid shaped block easily.

Starting from that first block, Xander then started cutting eight more blocks around that first one. After which, he was left with a very uneven hole in the ice. Using the auger again, he drilled down in the center of each of the holes. He was kind of hoping he'd hit something, but only found more ice. He then repeated the process, with the center of each of the nine holes forming the corners for four deeper holes. And then those four holes forming the corners for a final deepest hole. He then used the auger to drill as deeply as it would go. And... nothing.

He climbed out.

He wasn't quite sure what to do then. He'd really been hoping that the plane would be near the surface and easy to find. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch to say he was hoping he'd just 'magically' find the plane. He wondered if he should continue to dig here or move on and dig a new hole.


Xander wondered who's influence it was, Willow's or Rogers', that made him map out a logical and efficient way to find the plane. In the end, he divided the area up into a grid. He then measured out a distance that would allow him to search efficiently but wouldn't allow him to miss the plane, assuming it was still close to being in one piece. If it wasn't, he'd have to refine his search later. Then, just like his first hole, he started creating eight more test holes. For these new holes, he was much more focused on digging as deep as he could while still being able to climb back out. He'd then auger that hole. Finding nothing, he'd move on.

It was a nice day on the arctic circle. The sun was out, it was 50°, and Xander was doing hard physical labor. His coat and then his shirt had come off first. After slathering on some sunscreen – his inner Willow insisted, just like being out on liquid water, snow reflected sunlight back at you and caused you to burn faster than normal – he also took off his hat. And then, well, there was no one around for miles, so the pants went next. He hadn't brought any shorts so he just worked in his boxers, goggles, and boots. Boots that were quickly soaking wet. Between the slushy surface ice melting with the heat of the day, ice chips from the chainsaw and the auger melting on his legs and running down into his boots, and his feet sweating from all the work; his feet squished with every step.

It was the seventh test hole where his auger ground against metal.

Xander then repeated his field clearing technique from the first hole to clear a large amount of ice from the area he was about to be working in. The plane ended up being pretty deep so he had to make it twice as big so he'd have steps of a sort so he could get back out again when he was done. Next he used an old fashioned spade to dig the ice off the plane. He had to throw it pretty high to get it to clear the lip of the hole he was in. Finally, he unpacked a blowtorch. He didn't know why it was in the Snowcat, but he was glad it was.

He'd been so intent on his cutting that he was almost surprised when the hole he was burning into the plane fell into the darkness below him. It hit the floor below with a satisfying clang.


Xander got dressed again – it wouldn't do to meet Captain America clad only in his boxers, even if said Captain would never remember it. He then set up the winch and used the remote control to lower himself and his tools (tied to a stretcher) into the dark chasm beneath him. And that was where Xander realized he'd forgotten to pack his flashlight. It was dark in the buried plane. A shaft of sunlight came down from the hole but everything else was shrouded in shadow. He made his way carefully over to one of the posts and sat down with his back to the hole he'd just cut.

It took a few minutes but his night vision slowly took hold and he could make out details that told him where in the plane he was (the cockpit was to his left) and also that the plane had miraculously survived rather intact. He got to his feet and started walking to the cockpit. He stepped around the hole that the Tesseract had melted in the floor of the plane. He briefly wondered how it hadn't just melted its way to the Earth's core if it could melt through metal like that. Then again, if it could do that, how had anything held it?

Xander shook off thoughts better left for Stark. Probably Tony Stark as Steve's friend Howard Stark was long since dead.

There, near the controls, was the frozen Capsicle. Ice had apparently melted from the friction of the crash and splashed into the plane through the broken windows where it had flash frozen there. Which also closed the hole in the windows and meant that Xander didn't have to cut through another hundred yards of ice to get to the captain. Xander didn't know what kind of gods to thank for that kind of luck.

Xander revved up the chainsaw once again and slowly and carefully cut around Captain America's icy prison. Luckily by this time, Xander had lots of practice cutting ice with his chainsaw and didn't cut off anything the captain was going to miss.

Unfortunately, the captain was not in a nice, straight position. He had been sitting at the controls of a plane and had hunched over more with the impact. Xander dragged the freed block of ice over to his stretcher. Steve didn't fit on it like he'd hoped. In fact, as Xander looked up, he didn't think the oblong soldier was going to make it through his hole. Xander attached himself to his winch and activated the controls.

Topside, Xander set to work widening his hole to make it big enough to get the captain out. When the metal fell, he watched in horror as it narrowly missed shattering Captain America to bits. Xander decided to rest a bit and get a bite to eat before finishing. He couldn't afford any more mistakes like that and the captain wasn't going anywhere.


Refreshed and re-energized, Xander lowered himself back into the pit. He secured the captain to the stretcher, then attached it to the winch. He climbed aboard himself and hit the button. The ride up was significantly slower with an extra, frozen, body. As he got to the top, he stopped the winch and pulled himself out first. Then he raised the iceman a bit more until he could reach in and pull the head of the stretcher out. After that, he let the winch do the rest of the work and he simply guided the body up and into the sun.

Xander secured him to the top of the cat before lowering himself back into the hole for his tools. After he packed those away, he checked on Captain America and found another problem. There is no shade on the icepack. Rather, sunlight bounces off of the snow to hit you from every angle. Sunlight and the warmish temperatures were combining to melt his Capsicle faster than he had intended. He hastened to get everything secure, covered the captain with a tarp, and took off at a careful pace back towards the only other point on his GPS.


Three days, Xander thought to himself. It had taken three days to reach the captain's plane and it wasn't looking like it was going to go any faster on the way back. A new fissure had opened up where none had been before. He could clearly see where his tracks were. And now they were broken by a gaping chasm.

Xander got out, stretched his legs, and checked on the icicle on the roof of his machine. Covered by a tarp, it was melting slower, but still melting. He'd never make it back to shore at this rate, much less in time to get picked up.

He unzipped to relieve himself. A deep, yellowish hole in the ice was his reward when he finished. And suddenly his brain cells were working.

The problem with thawing someone who's been frozen (apart from crystallization, which the cap avoided) is that they don't thaw evenly. The outer cells thaw first, and by the time the brain and the heart are thawed and ready to pump blood, half the cells in the body are dead from lack of oxygen. Not to mention the difficulty in thawing the brain and the heart at the same time. So that neither die waiting for the other to start.


Fortunately Xander had something that could be described as a rudimentary plan for this. He'd been experimented on (slightly differently than Captain America had) during this past year and gotten some fish DNA introduced into his system. He also knew that some fish were able to survive being frozen and thawed with no ill effects. So he set up a blood transfusion. He was pretty sure it was safe as they both had the same blood type.

He placed the captain in the tub and turned on the hot water. He turned the temp down, and back up again until he found a temperature that wouldn't leave Captain America with third degree burns after he woke up. He kept Steve's head out of the water for now as that would probably defrost too fast due to being smaller than his chest.

Steve's legs started to warm up first. Xander inserted his output needle to first one, then the other leg. He then massaged them both to get the blood flowing. He then moved up his legs and added his blood to Steve's thighs. Xander kept moving where the blood was going and massaging each area to keep blood flowing. He also went back to thawed areas again and again to give them fresh blood. The tub looked like a murder scene with the blood dripping out of the needle between injections splashing everywhere. Finally, Xander injected Rogers right in the neck. Into the carotid artery and then the jugular vein. One would take his blood straight to the brain and the other would take it straight to the heart. Xander said a prayer to whatever god was listening as he massaged the other man's neck.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

It was faint. But that was a pulse Xander felt in the hero's neck!

And that was a cough.

Oh god, he's coughing up blood. Xander thought as blood dribbled out of the man's mouth and then splattered on the walls of the tub/shower with the next cough. Freezing of the moisture in his lungs had left said lungs in rather rough shape.

Xander wasn't sure what to do but he did pull out his transfusion needle, spraying blood everywhere before he remembered to pull the other needle out of his own arm.

By the time he had the bleeding stopped on Captain Roger's neck and his own arm, the coughing had subsided.

Xander pulled the plug on the tub, but kept the shower's hot water running for now. The added heat would probably help the Captain and he also used it to splash water around to wash all the blood down the drain.

Xander turned off the water. He bent his knees to lift the other man and swayed with the effort. What happened? I lifted him earlier? Oh, yeah. Then I donated a couple pints... were the last thoughts of Xander Harris before he passed out.


"Hey. Xander." the words were rather insistent even if they were whispered. But they weren't yelling and no one was shaking him so he safely ignored him.

"Xander." Again. Leave me alone.

"Xander. Wake up." Where had he heard that voice before?

"Xander." Stronger this time. No longer whispered.

Xander opened a bleary eye. There, standing over him was Captain America. Oh good, he was still dreaming, he could could go back to sleep.

"Xander!" This time he sounded rather disappointed.

Things came rushing back rather fast. The plane, the snow, the revival, the passing out. Xander took a sharp breath and sat up quickly. He rather wished he hadn't as his head spun to the point where he was a moment away from puking his guts out. A minute later and the tiny room finally stopped spinning.

"You good?" Steve Rogers asked.

Steve Rogers just asked me a question! Xander was not above a fan-girl squee, as long as he kept it inside. "I think so. How did you know my name?" the question occurred to him.

"To be honest, I'm kind of hoping I'm still dreaming if even half the things I saw in your memories are true. But since you're here and you found me in that huge ice sheet, I'm going to guess that you got a few memories of mine as well." A pause. "Also, I checked your ID just to be sure." Steve flipped him his wallet.

Xander caught it easily. It was then that he noticed his arm had another piece of gauze it hadn't had before. He had used his left arm for the transfusions to keep his right arm free to move things and massage the muscles. But now his right arm and a piece of gauze taped over it too. He looked at Rogers.

"I woke up in a warm tub with you unconscious next to me and the transfusion tube between us. I could still feel most of the pokes." he rubbed his neck. "And I'm very grateful if that's what it took to revive me. I felt that returning the favor was the right thing to do."

"You mean...?"

"You've got a little Captain in you."

For the second time in an hour, Xander Harris fainted. As he lay on the ground, his knee spasmed and came up to his waist.


A/N: I'm not sure if that was Captain Morgan's slogan yet then, but I don't care. It was too funny to pass up.