AN: For those of you who missed the update, I reposted last chapter because there was a minor edit. It wasn't a significant change, just a couple lines I forgot to add in the first post that are essential to this chapter, involving Nathan offering to take Audrey out for a drink if she stayed awake until the ambulance showed up. You'll see why it matters later this chapter. Cheers!

Chapter 11 - In From the Cold

Audrey looked around her desperately, searching for some way out. She was surrounded on every side by walls of ice; thick, solid ice that formed a sturdy barrier between her and the world outside. She didn't even have clothes to protect her and the cold sank into her bones as she thoroughly investigated each wall in vain. She was trapped. Surrounded. Freezing to death in her icy prison.

"Parker."

Through the ice Audrey could see a blur of colour and she hurried across the slippery floor to the spot. She could see a long-fingered pale hand pressed to the ice on the other side of the wall, the rest of the figure just an indistinct smear of white. "Nathan," she said frantically and pressed her hand against the ice over his. "Nathan, I can't get out."

"You have to," Nathan responded from the other side. As he said it Audrey looked down at her own hand and realised that the ice had spread like a plague, forming over the top of her hand and wrist, trapping her in place. She watched in horror as the icy tendrils continued to creep further up her arm, beautiful and sinister clusters of ice crystals sprouting and joining to encase her limb in a rock-hard prison.

"Nathan, help!" she said in panic, fighting to pull her arm free to no avail even as the ice crawled up toward her shoulder. It was a piercing, stabbing cold that sliced through her like razor blades. "Nathan!"

"You've got to fight it, Parker. Hold on. You can do this."

"I can't," she said hopelessly, the ice webbing together over her shoulder and collarbone, and then spreading out in every direction. Over her back, her breast, her neck, across to her other shoulder. She looked down at the sharp pain and saw that her legs were trapped up to the knees in thick ice that was defying gravity as it climbed her thighs. "I'm stuck Nathan, please."

"I'm coming, Parker, just hold on a bit longer." The ice had spread across her chest, freezing through to her heart. God it hurt so much. Every beat of her heart jostled the needles of ice and sent new spasms of pain through her. Every breath brought ice crystals into her, where they attacked her from within as well as without.

She shook with fear as the icy wall continued to swallow her whole. Fear and bone-chilling cold. The ice burnt as it crept up her neck and over the ridge of her jaw. Her cheeks, her nose, her ears. And then it crawled inward, flooding into her nostrils and her mouth until it was hard to breathe, blinding her as it gouged into her eyes. It hurt, so much pain from every direction. Make it stop, make it end...

"Parker!" The shout was loud, stinging her sensitive ears. She just wanted to sleep, couldn't they just leave her alone? "Parker! C'mon Parker...Wake up."

Something tapped sharply against her cheek, making her head toss to the side and sending agonising flashes of light through her brain. But wait, how had her head moved if she was trapped in the ice? What had touched her? It hadn't been cold, it wasn't the ice. "Open your eyes."

Groggily, Audrey tried to prise her eyelids open but the ice weighed down on them, so heavy. She moaned at the pain it sent through her ice-impaled eyes. "That's it." He sounded so happy, so grateful. Who was that again? She felt like she should know. "Parker, wake up for me."

Parker. He called her Parker. Of course, she knew who it was. Who else would it be? Who was always there to save her in the end?

"N'th." Audrey couldn't move her jaw properly and her tongue felt thick and clumsy, squashing all of the sounds almost beyond recognition. It didn't matter though. He would know. He always knew. His hand was in hers, warm and solid and steady. Nathan had come to save her again, to take her away from the icy prison.

Only it wasn't a prison at all, at least not one made of ice. No, the cold, the stiffness, it was her. Her own body was a prison of ice, trapping her in place and chilling her so deeply that it hurt. God, it hurt so much.

She felt like her eyes were open, but she couldn't see anything. It was just a shifting haze of darkness, layers of shadows dancing across each other. One of the shadows loomed closer and spoke. "Parker, I need you to stay awake, okay?" Nathan.

His large, warm hand covered her cheek and it felt like fire but it was real and she wouldn't have pulled away even if she could. She squinted and the shadows blurred into colours, sharpened until she could make out the fuzzy pale and pink and blue of her partner's face. "Nath'n," she murmured, proud of herself for managing two whole syllables, despite the effort it cost. She had to tell Nathan, let him know what was happening. If it was a Trouble, he might not know... Might not feel it... "S-sss-so c-cold."

"I know." Audrey relaxed and the rest of his sentence faded into white noise. He knew. He was going to help her, to make her better, to make it stop hurting. Her vision slipped out and she retreated inside her head, where she was safe and warm, wrapped in one of Nathan's jumpers and pine and amber and his arms. Nathan. So warm. Safe.

. . . . .

Audrey came to slowly. Every muscle in her body was protesting the effort of even breathing and she wanted nothing more than to sink back into unconsciousness, but something was dragging her steadily toward consciousness. She was powerless to stop it, letting it pull her up more fully into the persistent ache of her body reluctantly.

A pained groan escaped her as the last traces of sleep drifted away and the full pain of her sore muscles settled over her. Instantly she heard movement and then something warm and large touched her cheek. "Parker?"

"Nathan," she breathed in relief. It was Nathan, her partner, the one who had saved her. She hurt, but it wasn't the same hurt that she had been in before. That had been agonising, sharp, deadly. This was heavy and tired and tender like she'd worked her muscles too hard, but it wasn't unliveable. She was alive. "Hi."

"Jesus, Parker," Nathan responded with an airy laugh. She could feel his breath brushing warm and gentle across her face. Cinnamon and coffee and sweet. Maple. Syrup. Pancakes. "You gave me a heart attack. When you didn't answer your phone..."

It took a great deal more effort than it ought to, but Audrey forced her eyes open and squinted against the harsh fluorescents. Everything around the edges was nothing but white, but she could make out Nathan's face, less than a foot from hers. Their eyes met and she watched a wash of emotion roll through those stormy-sea orbs, finally settling on relief. He leaned in and pressed a warm kiss to her forehead before drawing away. He slid off the side of her bed – because she realised she was lying in a bed – and perched himself on a chair beside her, taking her hand in both of his.

"You're going to be okay," he said softly, and his tone suggested he was saying it as much for himself as for her. "Doc said you shouldn't have any problems, but you'll be sore for a couple days."

"What happened?" she asked, trying to shift into a more comfortable position but her muscles wouldn't cooperate.

"Hypothermia," he answered. "Moderate. No frostbite even though your hands were bare. That's why I gave you my gloves, you know." Audrey chuckled lightly and then promptly grimaced as it made her sore abdominal muscles twinge. "So are you going to stick to your martinis or are you trying something new?"

"Bit early for drinking, you think?" she asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Because I–" Nathan paused, looking confused. "You don't remember?"

"Remember what? I don't remember much of anything, really." She scowled and reached up to rub her forehead. When she touched the plaster above her left eyebrow she winced. "I fell, and I – I hit my head. And then I remember the cold, and I think I remember you saying my name, and then... that's it."

Nathan frowned and leaned forward, placing his forearms on the edge of the bed. "We had an entire conversation," he said and there was something strained in his voice. "You don't remember any of it?"

Audrey forced herself to think back, searching through the fuzzy gap in her memory. She could recall bits of her dream of being trapped in ice, being woken up and realising that she was freezing, of the relief that Nathan had found her. Then it all faded into darkness again, a blur of shadows and indistinct noises and the ever present cold, so cold. "No, nothing," she admitted. "Why?"

It was like a shutter had gone down behind his eyes, and Nathan abruptly dropped her hand and leaned back in the chair. "Nothing, it wasn't important," he said with a shrug. "Just a joke. It's fine."

She didn't get a chance to say anything before there was a light knock that made them both look over curiously. A man in a white lab coat strode in, clutching a clipboard and smiling. "Ah, Officer Parker, you're awake," he said cheerfully. "That's good. How do you feel?"

"Sore," Audrey admitted.

"You all warmed up though?" he asked, checking a monitor beside the bed. "Yes, looks like you're nearly all the way back up to a good core temperature. You're a lucky lady, you know. You've got a good partner. Much longer and you might not have been fine. According to the EMTs it sounds like he saved your life. He bought you a bit more time, enough at least for the paramedics to show up."

Audrey glanced over at her partner, whose ears had gone a lovely shade of bright pink. She knew that he had saved her, but she hadn't realised how close it had been. As he met her gaze though there was a flicker in his eyes, a haunted look that she recognised. She'd seen it in the mirror during the Sandglass case, and every time she'd had another one of those nightmares. The look of someone who had nearly watched death take someone from them.

The doctor interrupted her thoughts by starting on his checklist to make sure she was all right. He had her answer a few questions to test her memory and coherency, put her through a series of motor skills challenges that made her weary muscles shake, and then checked every last one of her vitals before finally declaring her in the clear. "We're going to keep you overnight and check on you in the morning, but you should be just fine," he said with a kindly smile. "I'll send the nurse in to give you something for the pain and to help you sleep."

With that he turned on his heel and left the room, and a tense silence boiled up between Nathan and Audrey again. After a moment Audrey looked up at him and said, "Thank you."

"I did what I had to," he said simply, shifting awkwardly and not quite able to meet her eyes. "I – You're my partner. I had to do something."

"I suppose I'm lucky you know first aid," she said, trying to diffuse the strain.

Nathan's mouth quirked up slightly on the side. "I'm a cop in Maine," he pointed out dryly. "They make sure we know how to treat people for the cold."

Audrey chuckled. "I guess I missed that class," she said. "I should probably take that one."

"Yeah, probably." He rubbed the back of his neck. "What happened to you, Parker?"

"I fell," she said and then shook her head. "No, something grabbed my ankle. I don't know what it was though. It wasn't a person. The snow was frozen, I'd have heard it if someone came up behind me." She paused and frowned. "Unless they were very small and light, enough that they didn't crack the ice."

"The killer," he concluded darkly. "Damn it, I knew you should've have gone alone. When you didn't answer my calls, I thought..." he faltered, swallowing hard, like he was forcing the words back down. "Don't scare me like that again."

"I didn't mean to," she said.

"You never mean to, but then you keep provoking all of these people, all of these Troubled people. You make yourself a target and then things like this happen. You could've died, Parker. I thought you were dead."

"But I'm not," she said.

"But you could've been," he snapped back. He scrubbed a hand over his face and stood up, pacing the length of the bed. "They put a lock on the doors. They didn't want to just hurt you, they wanted you dead."

"I'm sorry, okay?!" she shouted, sitting up despite the cries of her muscles and her cheeks flushed indignantly. "I'm sorry that I scared you. But that's part of the job, Nathan. We risk our lives, that's what we do. You're not the only one who's almost lost someone. When the sandglass... I thought you were going to die in that hospital. I was so scared. But you don't hear me shouting at you because you got caught in the cross-fire of some Troubled psycho."

Nathan had frozen and he stared at her with wide eyes, the look of shock on his face almost comical. He opened and closed his mouth twice, and then sank down into the chair again. Not looking up from his hands, he said, "Sorry. I just – I was worried."

Audrey felt the anger rush out of her at his defeated expression. "I know, I'm sorry too," she said. With the rush of emotion gone, the exhaustion settled back into place and she slumped back against the pillows with a groan, shaking with exertion.

Nathan's head snapped up at the noise and he immediately stood, leaning over her and fidgeting uncertainly. "God, Parker, are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine, just tired," she said, waving a dismissive hand. Nathan still looked anxious so she grabbed his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. "I'm fine, Nathan."

A throat cleared from the doorway and they both looked up to see an elderly nurse carrying a thick syringe. "I don't mean to interrupt, but Miss Parker needs to rest now," she said gently. "The doctor says you can stay, if you'd like," she added to Nathan.

Nathan hesitated, shifting his weight, but Audrey tightened her grip on his hand instinctively. "Stay," she said and then blushed, trying to cover the sudden, inexplicable panic that had filled her at the idea of being left alone in that hospital room. "I mean, if you don't mind." He nodded and sat back down in the chair beside her bed, not letting go of her hand.

The nurse came over and inserted the syringe into the IV attached to Audrey's other arm. "Alright, dear, you get some sleep and we'll see how you are in the morning," she said and patted Audrey's shoulder. With a kindly smile, she turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

"Thank you," Audrey said once they were alone again. "For staying, I mean. I just – I really hate hospitals. If you have somewhere else to be, you can go." Even as she said it, she held onto his hand just a little tighter. She couldn't tell him why she was terrified of being in the hospital; that it conjured too many memories of his slacken face as he collapsed against her, the pure fear in his voice as her name was the last thing he said, the sight of him stark white and comatose in the pale bed, the deeply wrapped bandages around his neck where they'd cut into his skull.

But it seemed like she didn't need to when he returned the pressure on her hand. "It's fine, Parker," he said and smiled. "I understand. I don't like them either." They lapsed into a steady quiet for a few moments, and Audrey felt a fuzzy weightlessness spreading through her as the morphine began to take effect. Her tense muscles began to uncoil and she relaxed into the pillows with a lazy smile.

As she lay there and let the drugs soften her body and mind, she felt her eyes drifting to the man keeping a silent vigil at her bedside. His expression was casual and disinterested, almost bored as he stared down at their entwined hands, but months of experience had taught her better. There was a certain slump of his shoulders, a set of lines around his temples, and a look in his distant eyes: it was a look she'd seen once before, the day Jess Minion packed up and trod on his heart as she headed out of town.

"Nathan?" she prompted gently, a burr of sleepiness in her voice that she didn't remember being there before. He glanced up, an eyebrow lifted in silent question. "You sure you're okay?"

"Fine," he said, almost as if by instinct, and she narrowed her eyes at him sceptically. "Long night," he relented.

"Didn't answer my question," she pointed out.

His lips curved into a diagonal slash and he puffed out a soft laugh. "Good observation, detective," he teased. She squeezed his hand and he sighed. "I will be," he finally acquiesced. "I'll be okay. Always am. Always will be." For some reason he said the final words with a sardonic twist that felt like a bitter knife cutting through the air. Before Audrey could ask what he meant, he leaned back in the chair and offered her a weak grin. "You can barely keep your eyes open."

"It's fine," she said even as the gravitational pull on her eyelids seemed to triple. A foggy haze had slunk into her brain and the pull of exhaustion and medication was getting harder to resist with every second, but she was fighting it. Something was wrong with Nathan and she needed to know what it was. She couldn't shake the feeling that it was something she'd done, that she had been the one to put the bitter resignation in his tone. "Nathan..."

"You heard the doc," he said and cradled her hand in both of his. With the pad of his thumb he began rubbing gentle circles into the inside of her wrist that felt so relaxing and comforting and good. "Sleep, Parker. I'll be here when you wake up."

And she couldn't fight it any longer, letting herself slip into the morphine-induced mist.