This is a day later than i wanted it to be, so I apologize for that. I promise that from here on in, this story will be updated on wednesdays.

This chapter is dedicated to William, my friend that lost his battle with cancer and its subsequent illnesses the day i wrote it. RIP 8/4/2012. I miss you.

"Dr. Possible?"

Anne raised tired, grieving eyes to the officer in front of her.

The man lowered himself to her eye level, his elbows on his knees as he squatted.

A tear fell. "Did they... find her?" She asked, her voice breaking.

The officer nodded, and a smile formed on his lips. "Yes."

"Are they..."

"I just received word that they were rushed to Tri-City Regional."

Her mind whirled in confusion, but she took her keys and followed the man outside.

When he opened his eyes again, there was more white. It wasn't cold though, and he thought maybe he was in heaven or wherever people think they go when they die.

Except... there was that incessant beeping over his head. Heaven wasn't supposed to be that annoying.

He tried to remember anything about where he was or why... and all he could come up with was cold, darkness, and... Kim.

Panic rose in his throat. Where was she, why wasn't she with him? Oh God, did she die? She did, he was there, listening to her final breaths. The last panicked thought caused him to gag. Oh please no.

"Ron?" a soft feminine voice echoed in the room, full of concern. "Ron, sweetie, you need to calm down."

"She's dead isn't she?" he croaked, his voice sounding awful from the cold he'd suffered as well as from lack of use. "Oh God, she's dead," he mumbled, tears spilling from his eyes as he read the nurse's sad expression. "No... no no no no, please no," he gasped, somehow unable to catch his breath. The nurse reached out to touch him, but he yanked his arm away. "No!" he cried. "Leave me alone! Why didn't you let me die?! Please, just let me—"

"We can help you, son, just please calm down."

"I DON'T WANT YOUR HELP! I DON'T WANT TO LIVE! SHE DIED! LET ME DIE! Please..."

The nurse, heartbroken and frightened by his outburst, didn't know what to do except hold the boy while he wrestled with his grief.

"Ron, calm down," another voice, smooth and comforting, ordered him. "She's not dead." A tall woman appeared in his line of sight. Short red hair, bright blue-green eyes.

"You look like her," he breathed. And she did. This woman looked so much like Kim that it made his heart hurt a little. "Please... who are you?"

"My name," she said with a smile, "is Dr. Anne Possible. I'm Kim's mother. It's a pleasure to meet you... and I mean it, without you my daughter would be dead. They said they found evidence that you went digging for things to burn to keep her warm... and that she'd eaten. You on the other hand seemed not to have eaten anything. You gave it all to her, didn't you? Everything you had."

He nodded. Of course. She needed it more than he did.

The woman, Anne, smiled compassionately, reaching out tentatively to push his hair away from his face. "There now," she soothed. "It's okay. You both made it out okay. The snow broke away from the wall where you two were hiding, that's how the rescuers found you. You both gave us quite the scare."

"Where is she?" he asked, his voice pleading.

Her eyes saddened and she studied her hands. "She has pneumonia. Breathing is much too difficult for her at this particular moment... and she's also had to have surgery on her hip and her knee... she's in intensive care for now, intubated and sedated, until her lungs heal properly."

"Intensive care?" he echoed, feeling a bit like a parrot.

She nodded.

He stared at the ceiling, tears blurring his vision again.

"Don't... cry," the Dr. Possible whispered, her own voice shaking. "Kimmie is a fighter. She'll be okay."

That thought gave him peace. He fell asleep.

He found out over the course of the day that he'd been in the hospital for three days before he woke up. And that he wasn't in Middleton. They'd been life-flighted to Tri-City Regional Hospital, since they apparently were better equipped to handle patients with severe hypothermia than Middleton Medical Center.

He'd begged to see Kim, but the nurses wouldn't let him out of bed. In their defense, he was much too tired and sore to really go anywhere, but he insisted anyway.

"Hi," Dr. Possible smiled at him.

"How is she?" he demanded.

"The same," the older woman answered quietly. "The nurses say you've been asking to see her all day."

He nodded desperately. "Please."

She shook her head. "I promise, in a couple days, when you're stronger and she's stronger, we'll get you a wheelchair and you can see her. But she needs you to be okay, and that won't happen if you're overexerting yourself."

He sighed in defeat. She was right.

"Try to feel better okay? I promise you'll see her soon. Have any doctors been in to see you?"

He shook his head. His mind was blank, and he felt really out of it.

She tilted her head, watching his face. "Daytime television is that mind-numbing, huh?"

He laughed and nodded, and was rewarded with a brilliant smile.

"I can see about bringing you some books to read if you want... or if you perhaps want to see someone I can arrange it for you. Have your parents been in to see you?"

He shook his head, his expression sour.

"I take it you wouldn't like me to call them."

He shook his head again.

"Is there someone I can call for you?"

He stared at her for a moment. "Why... are you being so nice? It's my fault she's hurt," he whispered.

Dr. Possible shook her head. "No, Ron, dear. If she'd been alone, she would have died. But you were with her, and you took care of her. That's why she's still with us."

He finally conceded, scribbling a number on a napkin. "J-Josh. He's my... best friend," he whispered.

Dr. Possible smiled. "Okay. I will call him for you."

"Thank you," he whispered.

"Dude! Holy shit, you can't scare me like that."

"Sorry man. It's what I get for signing up for the ride of my life," Ron laughed lightly, wrapping his best friend Josh in a man-hug.

"How in the fuck did you end up where you did anyway? The resort isn't near the part of the mountain from where you were found."

He bit his lip to hide his smile. "I talked to her."

His friend looked confused. "Talked to who?" He stared at Ron for a moment then comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh... her her?"

"Yeah."

"Took long enough," Josh muttered. "What'd she say?"

"I sorta tagged along with her. She's... just like I thought she'd be. She laughed right along with me and introduced herself and she and I went up the mountain... on foot, you know. We hiked up... since no one would do any difficult trails with her, she decided to go find one on her own, so there are no lifts or anything, and I didn't think she should be by herself..."

"So you hiked a few thousand feet up a mountain in the snow in the bloody cold so you could... chat with the girl of your dreams." Josh smirked. "You have got it bad."

Ron shrugged. He knew that already. "We had plenty of time to chat after the avalanche," he added sourly.

Josh grew somber. "Everyone thought you two were dead. The Possibles were already planning on doing a memorial."

"I met Dr. Possible."

Josh raised an eyebrow. "Which one?"

"Um... what do you mean?"

"Dr. Possible, Kim's dad, he's a rocket scientist. And the other Dr. Possible, Kim's mom, she's a brain surgeon."

"Right, she told me that. She blames their genes for her brothers'... misadventures." Ron chuckled lightly as he remembered one of their many conversations. The worst thirty-six hours of his life had also been the best.

Josh smiled as he watched his friend think about his favorite redhead. It wasn't the first time Ron got lost in his thoughts of that girl. He often had to bring his friend back to reality, especially when she showed up at school wearing her mission clothes. It took a week to bring Ron back to the land of the living. He really did have it bad.

"Mrs. Dr. Possible."

"Huh?"

"You asked which Dr. Possible. I haven't met Kim's dad... but I met her mom, she's the one that offered to call you."

"Oh yeah... although I was planning on coming anyway, I saw on the news that you'd been found and I just... wanted to check up on you."

Ron smiled. "Thank you."

"Always, man. You know you can count on me."

"I know. Hey, will you check up on my sister for me?"

"Want me to bring her in?"

"That would be... fantastic. But I don't think my parents will let you take her."

"They haven't even bothered to check if you're alive or not. If she's signed out from daycare, all they'll care about is that someone took her off their hands," Josh said with a smirk. "They don't have to know who signed her out."

"I'll write you something to take to the day care okay?"

"Okay." Josh fist-bumped his friend. "I'm glad you're alright, man," he said quietly.

Ron smiled up at his friend, touched by his sincerity. "I'll be out of here before you know it."

Josh nodded and left the room with a smile.

"Ronald?"

He looked up from the book Dr. Possible got him from the gift shop to see a man with dark hair, hazel eyes, and a tall, thin frame. He was wearing a light green shirt and dark tie under a white lab coat. "Um... hi," he said shyly. "C-call me Ron."

The man smiled kindly. "Ron, I'm Dr. Possible... but you can call me James, or Jim."

Oh, this was Kim's dad. Ron marked his page and sat up, offering the older man his hand.

He took it and wrapped the boy in a hug. "Thank you," he said quietly, and Ron wondered why the Possibles felt the need to thank him so much. He was only there because of some... cosmic accident or something.

He nodded anyway.

Dr. Possible, the male one, lifted a corner of his mouth in a smile. "Annie says you're bored here, and you're itching to see Kimmie."

He scowled at that. "I'm perfectly capable of getting into a wheelchair and seeing her. Why won't they let me?"

"Son... when they say you aren't strong enough... they aren't only speaking about physically, although I'm sure you'll tire yourself out before you get to the elevator if you try to push yourself."

He swallowed hard. "Is she... that bad?"

He shook his head. "She's not as bad as she looks... at least, that's what the doctors keep saying. But..." he stared at his hands, drawing a breath to steady himself. "Seeing her so... helpless... it's... it's very difficult."

Ron stared at his hands too. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"For what?" James asked in surprise.

"Because she's... so hurt. I... hated seeing her in pain too. I couldn't help her," he mumbled, tears blurring his vision. "She was so cold, and in pain, and all I could do was just try to keep her awake... and then that wasn't working anymore, and all I could do was just... keep her comfortable while she was dying. And then she... and all I could do was wait, because I knew I was next... and I didn't want to live after watching her die."

James watched the boy speak, feeling every tear that spilled from his eyes claw at his chest. He wondered just how attached he was to Kim. If he'd been unafraid... willing, even... to die because she was dying... then he obviously had a very deep bond with her. He wondered if he had to start hiding weapons in the coat closet. Even as the thought entered his head, he dismissed it. This boy obviously had feelings that ran much deeper than they type of feelings he had to threaten with a bat or a shotgun.

"What are you thinking?" Ron asked curiously.

James shook his head. "Nothing. Just that... you taking care of my daughter is why she's here now."

"Dr. Possible said that too."

James smiled. "Dr. Possible is a smart woman."

"When can I see KP?" Ron pleaded.

James squeezed the boy's shoulder. "Soon."

"Hi honey," Anne whispered, stepping back and allowing her husband into the small space next to his daughter's bed.

He kissed his wife and turned to where his daughter slept. The ventilator puffed and whirred, and the monitors that surrounded her bed beeped, signaling something or other. Tears filled his eyes, but he blinked them away, tenderly brushing his daughter's forehead, moving a stray strand of hair or two before kissing it softly. "Hi, Kimmie-cub," he whispered.

Silence met his ears and he straightened with a sigh.

"She's better today," Anne said quietly, pointing to the screen on the ventilator. The lines, which crested and dipped at regular intervals on a normal day, looked unevenly distanced and spiky. "Each one of those crests is a breath. When the machine is breathing for her, it does it at a regular interval, a bit slowly."

The ventilator puffed as if to emphasize the point.

"Today it looks all close together and uneven and stuff because she's been trying to breathe on her own."

That was good news, James thought to himself with a smile. He watched the monitor for a few moments. Sure enough, after three perfectly spaced puffs, the line on the monitor spiked and squiggled as his daughter drew a ragged breath that resulted in a cough.

The cough itself was pitiful, since she couldn't actually cough because of the tube in her throat.

And it made tears spring to his eyes again.

Anne took his hand, and he put his arms around her as she leaned into him. "She'll be okay," she whispered, tears straining her voice.

James smiled and nodded. She was a fighter. She would fight. He had a feeling that she would fight, if for nothing else, a chance to see the boy upstairs once more. He'd thought about the blonde young man with the kind, honey colored eyes and slumped shoulders a lot today. "I met... Ron... today."

Anne smiled. "Did you? He's such a nice boy."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered sarcastically. "He's... really traumatized. We should see to it that he gets psychological care, at least while he's here."

Anne sighed. "He all but had a panic attack when he woke up... he was yelling at the nurse to let him die. It took some time to calm him down." She pulled away from her husband and stared at her hands.

The ventilator squalled an alarm as Kim coughed again.

"They went through a lot, both mentally and physically. I can't imagine what it's like being trapped in such a small space, wondering when you or the person with you is going to kick the bucket. In the cold, running out of food, and ways to stay warm... and then knowing that this person that you've... shared this experience with isn't going to make it."

James nodded heavily in agreement. "And I think he's lonely."

"He misses her."

They both looked toward their daughter's bed. The ventilator and the machines beeped and puffed and whirred.

Anne drew a shaky breath. "I wish we could fast forward to the part where she's okay and smiling and talking about her latest adventures again."

James held his wife close. "Me too, Annie."

He sat up in his bed, shaking and drenched in sweat. Taking a moment to steady himself, he tried to breathe deeply. He couldn't.

One hand clutching at his throat desperately, he pressed the nurse call button. Horrible images of cold and death swirled in his mind, causing tears to spill from his eyes as he struggled to catch his breath.

A couple of nurses came and helped him calm down. They brought him a cup of iced water before they left, but he glared at it. He hated ice. He hated ice and cold and snow and—

"Are you alright, Ron?"

"Dr. Possible—what are you...?"

"I was downstairs getting coffee and a nurse paged me to let me know that you were having some trouble sleeping."

He glared at the iced water again. "I hate the cold," he said dully. "I hate cold and snow and I hate winter. And I hate this... I wish I could see her! When I wake up I always think she's..."

Anne simply hugged him. For the first time, he felt that everything would be okay.

A couple days later, a voice startled Ron from the book he was reading."Hey."

He looked up. "Hi... Lilith?"

She looked surprised. "How'd you know?"

He grinned. "KP told me all about you guys. Let's see... You're Lilith, you must be Monique."

She curtseyed. "In the flesh."

"And you're the quiet one. Paige?"

The girl nodded and smiled. She studied his face for a moment then laughed.

Ron looked confused, and Lilith rolled her eyes. "Don't mind Paige. We just wanted to meet you. They said you were with Kim when the whole thing went down..."

Ron stared at his hands.

"We... just wanted to say we're glad you're okay, and get well soon," Monique said quietly.

He smiled up at her. "Thank you."

Lilith watched him for a moment, and Paige said something in her ear. She smirked. "So spill."

He raised an eyebrow.

"How long have you liked her?"

He choked, coughing. "It's... uh... what?"

Paige grinned. "Yes it's that obvious."

He felt his cheeks flood with heat. "A while."

"Why?" Monique asked. "I mean, I've never seen you near our lunch table... or I don't think any of her classes... have you talked to her? I mean how did you come to the conclusion that you like her?"

He stared out the window. "It was the spring fling in sixth grade."

"Oh and I made Kim that dress," Monique interjected excitedly.

Ron smirked. "Yes, you did. You made her her mission clothes too." She tipped an imaginary hat and he laughed. "That mission outfit had all the guys in MAGIC drooling like dogs. I freely admit that that includes me."

The girls giggled.

He smiled at them before looking out the window again. "I didn't really notice the dress at first... the thing that hit me the most was that she's so graceful. She was dancing with someone, and then she danced with her friends... you guys, I guess, I can't be sure. But I can't ever forget watching her dance that night. And every time I saw her after that, she was always smiling. She never talked down to anyone, even people who said shit to her. She treats everyone the same. And I guess... the more I saw her around, the more I..."

They all let out a sigh. "That's so sweet," Monique cooed.

"Yeah yeah," Ron grunted, "Enough with the warm and fuzzy."

"Wait," Lilith interjected. "So you never actually talked to her in all those years?"

"Not until the day of the avalanche."

"Idiot. You could be her man by now. She'd like you."

"And she wouldn'ta had to deal with that douche bag Eric," Monique mumbled.

Ron rolled his eyes. "So you're all MAGIC girls, huh?"

They all nodded.

"Those two cheer," Lilith said, "but you wouldn't catch me dead with fucking pom-poms in my hands... and I don't feel the need to prove to the world that I can spell either."

Ron, Monique, and Paige all snickered. "Kim will be so pleased to know how highly you think of what she does."

Lilith smiled softly, staring out the window. "What Kim does is art." Kind blue eyes met his. "You were right about her being graceful. She could be standing perfectly still and she still looks like a model off the runway in Paris or some shit. But watching her do all her tricks and flips and splits and moves and shit is nothing short of dazzling. She's the reason MAGIC wins all the time at cheer Nationals and such."

He smiled at that. It was true.

"Bitches be jellin on her too. She don't gotta try to be pretty or stay in shape or whatever. She just herself, an' she modest about it. Girls hate that shit." He had to chuckle at the way Monique spoke.

"Yeah. Bonnie's been looking for a way to make her fall from grace for ages now. Kim... ignores it. She treats her and her little friends just the same as she treats the rest of us. Well... she tells them off a bit more often. But whatever. Bonnie wishes she had half the... magnetism... that Kim has. She'd run the school."

Ron met Lilith's eyes again. "I think Kim is tired of Bonnie and company. She told me she was tired of Bonnie... trampling her dignity."

Paige's eyes lit up with understanding. "If there's one thing about Kim, it's that she can hold a grudge if she wants to." She turned to the other two girls. "She said that because she knows about Bonnie and Eric."

"I've told her a million times to stop wasting her energy on Eric, but I think she likes being angry at him."

"I knew 'bout her and Eric," Monique said. "I been waiting for Kim to let me pound that hoe..."

"She won't let you do that," Ron chuckled. "Besides, I think she's rather proud of all her teen-hero kung-fu. She'd rather beat the crap out of Bonnie herself, if it came down to that."

"True dat."

"Have you guys gotten to see her?"

"Um... Moni and I went yesterday. Lilith went this morning."

"How is she?"

"Improving, they say. She's fighting the breathing thing, so they might take it out soon. She breathes on her own the machine says like ninety-five percent of the time now. They are scaling back the sedatives to wake her up so that they can take it out."

Ron stared at his hands. "I want to see her so bad... they keep telling me to wait."

Monique got a rather aggressive look on her face. "Don't worry. I'll talk to 'em."

Whatever Monique said to the nurses worked, because as soon as they left, someone arrived to take him down stairs to Kim's room.

The elevator ride was long and tedious, and then the door dinged and opened to reveal Dr. Possible. The lady Dr. Possible. "Hi Ron."

"Hi, Anne." He called her by her first name, but he still referred to her husband as Dr. Possible. Maybe it was because he had a feeling Kim's dad was on to him.

Anne smiled, taking the wheel chair from the man. "I'll take it from here, thank you. How do you feel?"

"Okay. Getting my strength back. Doctors say I can go home in a couple days."

"That's wonderful." She stopped the chair and came around to face him. "Ron... I know this has affected you very deeply."

He raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"And I've told you a couple times that she's not as bad as she looks..."

"Look... Anne—Dr. Possible... I'm not a little kid. Just say it to me straight."

"I just want you to be prepared, that's all."

"And I just want to see her. Please."

Anne nodded.

As much as she'd warned him, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Her left arm was in a cast. She was naked, covered only by the white hospital blankets and the tubes and wires that seemed to protrude from everywhere: There were wires attached to her chest and IV lines came from her functioning arm. One of them was the purest white. The others were clear. One transparent tube contained an antibiotic, and the other contained regular saline. Her leg, still healing from all the surgery, was wrapped in gauze and a brace.

There were tubes in her mouth too, and her nose. There was all kinds of beeping and whirring and the ventilator puffed away.

He gagged, stumbling from the wheelchair and into the bathroom. Anne rubbed his back while he heaved. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

Eventually he made his way back to the room. Anne pulled up a chair near the bed and helped him into it. He took her good hand in his, rubbing circles on it gently. Her hand was cold. "You must be cold still," he whispered, his voice raw.

Her eye lids fluttered, and an alarm sounded.

He ignored it, not wanting to get his hopes up. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly. "I'm sorry you're so sick."

Pressure in his hand. She could hear him. A huge grin spread over his face and his flimsy restraint on his emotions snapped as he stood, ignoring his body's protests as he leaned as close to her as he could. "You're going to be okay," he said in her ear as tears wet his face. "I love you," he added in a whisper, before kissing her forehead.

Anne looked on in silence. She didn't know what he'd said to her there at the end, but her reaction was evident on her heart monitor. That boy made her heart skip as much as she did his...