Disclaimer: Do I even have to say it? Yeah, I guess I do . . . Not mine, someone else's toys, if they were mine Billy would never have left, etc, etc. and so forth.

Author's Note: Okay this one was actually interesting to write because there was the challenge of making sure it didn't feel like a missing vignette from Conversations, so I tried to go somewhere different with my favorites. It kinda worked. As always a huge thanks to Dagmar who did some light betaing above and beyond the call of duty.

Author's Note 2: Despite my earlier assertions that these vignettes didn't have to be linear or in the same universe, mine somehow wound up being both, so you can actually read these with all the previous ones in mind.

Snow with Benefits

(Kat)

He probably wouldn't have noticed her except it's bitterly cold outside. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees with the sun, and there's a brisk wind coming off the mountains. Normal people, sane people, are inside, drinking hot chocolate around an aggressively cheerful fire. There might even be small talk among strangers.

So that's his reason for being out here.

Hers seems to have something to do with a tree . . . that's really taking quite a beating. He's not sure how much longer the stick she's using is going to hold out and once it breaks . . . he's a little afraid she'll move on to using her hands.

"Was it a very bad tree?"

The lame joke earns him a snort, but she doesn't stop the rhythmic thwack, thwack that's now officially progressed to scary. He stands there for a moment just watching, trying to decide if this is really something he wants to get involved in, after all he's been making a pretty good go of none involvement. On the other hand, he supposes he killed that the moment he volunteered to go on this ski-trip in the first place.

Stepping between Kat and the tree, he grabs her wrist. At first she just looks down at where his fingers press into her flesh, as though she can't understand why her arm won't follow her orders anymore. Finally she seems to connect the impediment to him, and looks up in annoyance.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't stand by and watch the brutality any longer. You want the tree? You'll have to go through me."

For a second, he almost believes she might. He can feel the tensing of her muscles, see the flash of evaluation in her eyes, and he starts to evaluate back because his spate of selfless volunteerism doesn't include getting hit. But he's spared from finding out just how out of practice he is because in the next instant the fight goes out of her in a rush, the stick dropping from her hand.

She steps away, and he lets her. Hey, he's done his job. Made the world a safer place for trees everywhere, and really that should be the end of it. Except it's not because dammit, if she doesn't look utterly lost and fragile, even in that big bulky pink coat, and he's thrown back to the time after they freed her from Rita's clutches, to those two weeks when they really weren't sure if she was going to make it, pull it all together. He'd cared then, actually cared deeply whether she would or not, because there'd been a moment or two, before it had become obvious to him that her feelings for Tommy were not going to fade with the spell, when he thought she might have cared, too. Now staring at her, just as broken as before, he finds he still cares.

So he trudges after her, crunching through the ankle-deep snow, as she makes a beeline back to her cabin. He could be the invisible man for all she acknowledges his presence, and it's so like every other day of his life that he almost turns around, but she asked him on this trip, she invited him, so she can see him, which means she's just ignoring him. At least the insult is active instead of passive. When they finally reach the cabin, she unlocks the door and goes inside, leaving him to stand on the steps like the worst kind of fool, but then she appears back in the doorway and scowls at him.

"You're letting all the warm air out."

Not quite as gracious as her last invitation, but it'll do. He comes in out of the cold.

"Would you like to explain why you were so intent on murdering a helpless California Spruce?"

Turning from having hung up her coat, she gives him a bittersweet, sardonic smile, which he actually thinks is lovely. Does that make him horrible or just a little bit messed up?

"Do I really have to?"

No, no she really doesn't. It's Tommy. It's Tommy and Kim, and Tommy and Kim and her, and probably that ski instructor thrown in there somewhere, just to round out the mix. And he doesn't want to wade into that mire, for fear he'll get stuck somehow. So he just sighs and shrugs out of his coat.

Which he realizes is a stupid move the moment he does it. Because now he's committed. To what, he's not sure, but taking off his coat implies that he's staying, and he can tell it's not going to be for the scintillating conversation.

Kat flops down on the bed, ignoring its creak of protest, and stares up at him, doesn't say anything, just watches. It's been so long since anyone paid him this much attention that he finds it strangely disconcerting. But that doesn't stop him from staring back. Her long-sleeved t-shirt has ridden up just a little bit, giving a tantalizing glimpse of her stomach. It's flat and smooth, lacking Tanya's definition, but he knows the muscles beneath are just as strong for all that they're hidden.

The fact that there might be something vaguely fetishistic about his fascination with this portion of the female anatomy flits across his brain, and suddenly he's embarrassed, blushing because Kat didn't invite this appraisal, didn't tacitly acquiesce by her presence.

He turns to go, thinking he's surely managed to work off a few of the required minutes, and if he's still being incredibly rude, well, there isn't exactly well-established social etiquette for this situation.

But she rolls up from her prone position and catches his hand, tugging him back around to look at her. "Don't go."

The words clang in his ears like warning bells, and he can see big red 'run now' signs flashing in front of his eyes. This is the worst idea in the history of incredibly bad ideas, but somehow he's already in the mire, and sinking fast.

The bed asserts an even more vigorous protest as he adds to its burden. Lying beside her, staring up at the ceiling, their hands still connected, he can smell her, and it's different than he imagined—he'd thought flowers, lilies and vanilla perhaps, but she's simple and clean, like fresh linen and the smell of ozone just before rain.

"What am I doing here, Kat?"

"Just here or here, here?"

"Here, here, in your cabin, on this bed. What am I doing here?"

Rolling on her side, she looks at him for a moment, and then leans down to press her lips to his. The kiss is questioning, offering, and though he doesn't push her away he makes no move to reciprocate because she hasn't answered his question.

She pulls away with a frown. "Does there have to be a reason?"

He traps her hand where it rests against his chest because he's not necessarily eager to break the connection, he just needs to know the rules. And there have to be rules, because if there aren't he could so easily slip, could so easily find himself waiting all over again, and though he knows he's already going to die waiting, he doesn't have to do it twice over. "Yeah, yeah there does."

She bites her lip, and he holds his breath. If she says it's because she's hurting, because she needs comfort, or anything so truthful, he'll be out the door and in the cold before she can blink. It's too nebulous, too likely to happen again. Tommy's too good at hurting people without meaning to, Kat's too good at getting hurt.

"What if I said it's because there's snow?" She looks at him as she says it, a serious, evaluating look, and he realizes she really wants to know, if this is good enough, if what she's asking and offering, is enough. Because really it's nothing, snow never comes to Angel Grove.

It's good enough for him.

A week later when he sees her attacking a rather young elm outside the youth center, in an incongruously formal pink dress, he just stands on the other side of the street, and wishes it weren't sixty degrees and clear.

Six months go by, and when he stumbles over her sitting in the dark, in his apartment, on his bed, he's confused and not in the mood to puzzle it all out. This is not the day, Jason's just come back and he's become a little bit more invisible and besides she and Tommy have been doing fine.

"Why are you here, Kat?"

She looks up at him and even in the dark he can see that her expression is serious. "Does there have to be reason?"

"Yeah, yeah there does."

"I thought there might." And she flicks on the bedside lamp, so that he can see his entire bedroom floor has been covered with what looks like tiny iridescent white confetti. He's speechless and more than a little pissed because it's going to take forever to clean up, but when he turns back to tell her this, he finds that she's stood, and they're now so close that he can smell her again. She smells exactly the same.

Reaching up above their heads, she begins to sprinkle a handful of the confetti over them, and he realizes what it looks like. She smiles.

"What if I said it's because there's snow?"

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