Chapter 11

Casey shrieked either from surprise or joy would be debated later, and stared at the glazed eyes of her partner. She threw herself on his still chilled body and hugged him as the water continued to drain out of the tub.

"Casey…enjoying this…beautiful…but cold…" he slurred, as he clumsily tried to wrap his arms around her.

"Come on then," quickly wiggling her way around behind him. Casey wrapped her arms around his still wet chest and after a little slipping and sliding, got her legs under her and began to pull. Using her own legs to protect his back as she dragged him out over the edge of the tub.

After that with a good bit of wiggling and wrestling on both their parts. He was dressed and wrapped in her fathers robe, the underwear transfer was done under the robe, with the shears and Casey helping remove the old ones and pulling the clean ones up onto his thighs and him pulling them the rest of the way up.

Her own soaked underwear was removed under her own t-shirt and then she put on her moms terry robe. Not bothering with her other clothes, Schraeger hurried over to Walsh and said, "Ok my parents room is closer and they have a fireplace, can you help me get you there?"

"Can try?" he said still too cold to even shiver. She was surprised he was lucid enough to talk, surprised but grateful. Casey helped him sit up and putting his arm over her shoulder she waited for him to get his feet under him before they tried standing. Walsh's feet slid out from under him and then his knees buckled and Casey barely got herself underneath before he collapsed on top of her. She grunted in pain and he let out a slow groan, before gasping her name as he realized he was practically sitting in her lap. He asked, "Ok?"

'Uhm ow?" Casey said before adding, "You remember when you said I had a fat woman trying to get out, yeah this is one time I wish I had her ass. Ok ugh I'm such an idiot. Are you okay?"

"Think so," he said sluggishly, "sorry."

"Gotta get you in the bed and warmed up," quickly grabbing warmed bath sheets off the rack she folded one and put under his head and then covered him with the others. "I'll be right back."

Casey scooted into her parents room and lighted the kindling under the fire that the caretaker had set up, she gathered more firewood while waiting impatiently for the wood to catch. Then ran to her fathers office and pushed out the rolling desk chair and after a bit of wrangling got it into her parents bathroom. She checked the fire and sighed in relief as she saw it was beginning to blaze merrily. Pulling the covers back on their bed and after piling a few more blankets on top of the bed, she went back to the bathroom.

Pulling the chair over next to Walsh and locking the tires, the pair once again engaged in a wrestling match to get Jason up onto the chair. When he was in the chair Casey wrapped her arm around his upper torso and pulled the chair backwards into the bedroom. She pulled him as close to the bed as she could and locking the wheels again she helped him pull the robe off and then she transferred him to the bed, ending up half trapped under him in the process. Quickly pushing and pulling she got him situated in the bed and under the covers. She moved the desk chair out of the way, closed the bathroom and bedroom doors to keep as much of the heat in the room as possible.

"Are you hungry or thirsty?" when Walsh opened his eyes she saw only confusion for a moment. "Never mind we'll take care of that later." She turned on a lamp and crawled into the bed, she studied him thoughtfully. "This is going to be a bit of a challenge and you really will wish for that fat woman, a little more coverage." she huffed a laugh and slowly slid across his body. Trying to position herself over him to cover as much of his body with her own as possible, "Okay, groin to groin, chest to chest, and the rest will take care of itself." She said as she laced her hands over his chest and put her chin on top of them to gaze up at him.

"Thought…it was…sposed to be…skin to skin….was best?" said Walsh as he tried once again to wrap his arms around her waist.

"Remember when I said I wasn't that bad, I'm not going to take advantage of you while you're like this. So let's work on getting you warm." Sitting up on his waist again, she took his hands and kissed them and they were still frigid against her skin. Placing his hands together, she placed them on his abdomen and then very carefully laid back down across them. The shock of that icy touch to her warm abdomen was actually not as bad as she thought it would be. "Hmmm warmm." He looked at her with those changeable eyes, that suddenly cleared for a minute as his brows furrowed. "Why…being nice…'m sposed to…pologize."

"Huh," the brunette said absently trying to position herself to cover Walsh as much as possible, "Apologize for what?"

He grunted and tried to pull his hand out Casey barely felt his hand move but she did feel it and sighed in exasperation lifting back up so he could move his hand while saying, "You know the object of this is to get you warm, and preferably not to die of hypother…"

Jason wrapped his hand around the back of her neck with surprising accuracy considering his still numb fingers. He drew her down carefully, till their eyes met and enunciated carefully, "'M sorry, Casey." He said and there was a sad look in his eyes as he repeated, "'M sorry...for making you cry."

"I think you've apologized more in the past few days than in our whole partnership." said Casey trying to avoid meeting his eyes.

"Yep…" he said earnestly, "'m a prick', why…why do you…put up…with my bull?"

"Same reason you put up with mine, I suppose." she said, trying to shrug.

"Don't joke…" he replied seriously, before a great shudder racked his body and he grimaced in pain.

"Okay no more talking for you." she said breaking his hold easily to place his hand back between their two bodies. "This is gonna hurt but you've started shivering that's good. It means you're body is warming up." She said as she pulled the covers more securely around them. "Don't worry I'm gonna take care of you," She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and kissed his throat and collar bone as the shudders began to grow in frequency and length.

"Wisssh, I cccould hold you bback." he said, "I ddon think ccan fall assssleep like thisss."

Casey tried to hold him tighter as she said, "Hopefully you'll only shiver a couple of hours at most, then you can rest. If I remember Dad keeps Ibuprofen in his nightstand for muscle aches. He likes snowmobiling a little too much for his own good."

She started to reach for the bedside table when Walsh called out, "Don't…don't mmmove."

"Jason, if you're trying to tell me that even in this state you can get an…"

"Nno, I jusst like you there, pleasse." With the final word he nearly bent in half, almost throwing Schraeger off the bed. The groan that came from him after that was so pained, it caused Casey's eyes to sting with sympathy. "Ok, alright meds, food and coffee or hot cocoa after sleep."

"Coccoa with whipped ccream…yum." he said with a child-like look that shouldn't be possible on a grown man, especially not one who was in so much pain and recovering from hypothermia.

"Arrms back around," he enunciated carefully, Between the shivering, shuddering and chattering teeth, he was still trying to talk to her.

She lifted her head from her carefully folded hands and shook her head before saying. "You have to stop talking first."

His brow furrowed and she knew that meant he wouldn't stop talking anytime soon. "Whyy?" The whine was just a little too close to a five year old for Schraegers comfort but she answered.

"If I answer you I have to have my chin on my hands to protect your chest from being bruised." she explained. He wiggled his eyebrows as though asking for an explanation. "Davis told me I had a bony chin and that I was a restless sleeper. That's why he didn't want me to stay over after…."

"Putz," Jason said very succinctly, "If you don't want the woman in bbed with you when you wwake up, don't take her ttto…" a painful full body shudder, stopped his speaking for a moment..

"Bed in the first place." finished Schraeger helpfully.

Walsh nodded vigorously. "Ok fine no more talk about Davis or how to treat a woman or anything. Sleep." she commanded.

He nodded but being Walsh had to have the final word, "Finissh laterrr."

"Fine, later. Now sleep Walsh," Casey reiterated before laying her head on his chest and wrapping her arms around his torso. Eventually Jason did stop shuddering and shivering and dozed off. Casey followed soon after.

Xxxxxxxxx

Casey woke up the next morning gradually, warm and comfy. The bed was comfortable and the blanket wrapped around her was very warm…and breathing. Casey stiffened for a moment before her memory worked its way through her tired mind. Walsh,

Who was much better apparently as he was no longer shivering. As a matter of fact he was currently cocooned around her, one arm under her neck wrapped around her shoulders, the other draped over her abdomen. One of his legs was wrapped over both of hers and his nose was burrowed into her hair behind her ear. This while very comforting (he must be better as he wasn't shivering anymore) and comfortable (he was a big blanket), he was also uncomfortable and a little daunting. One she really had to go to the bathroom and sometime during the night he had shucked the boxers he had been wearing.

Casey tried moving the limbs she was trapped under. That didn't work Walsh apparently wasn't budging. She tried wiggling her way out from under Walsh's hold that only wakened him enough to tighten his hold and whine quietly. "Too early Casey. Go back to sleep."

"Jason I have to go to the bathroom. Like now or this is going to get really embarrassing."

He grumbled irritably but unwrapped his arms and leg, which she swore had grown a few inches and she actually trotted to the bathroom. When she came back out Walsh seemed to have dozed back off. Which was actually fine with her, taking the glass on her fathers bedside table, she went to rinse it out in the bathroom sink. Going back into the bedroom she nearly tripped over the office chair in the early morning gloom, grunting as she stubbed her toe. Walking over to the bedside table, she set the water on the table and rummaged in the drawer before fishing out the bottle of Ibuprofen and putting them beside the water.

Shaking her head, she considered suggesting her father invest in pharmaceutical companies considering how much she and Walsh went through them alone it would be a good investment. Grabbing the office chair she pushed it as quietly as possible, which actually wasn't very quiet at all, back to her fathers office. Wrangling it through the door was a bit challenging, when she finally got it through the door, she glanced up at the wall she had tacked the information up on and noticed her family picture was missing.

Walking further into the room she leaned over and looked on the desk to see if possibly it had gotten knocked down in the chaos of the night. An incredibly strong

arm suddenly wrapped around her waist and one arm and she saw the flash of a knife. Her hand was near the stapler that she had grabbed when Walsh had startled her the other night. Acting on instinct Shraeger flipped the stapler and screamed as she slammed it into the hand holding her, with a startled yelp her attacker released her shaking his hand. She whirled and slammed the stapler into his forehead, not really seeing him until he lurched back in surprise. Lawson!

Seeing the knife in his hand she swung the still open stapler down on his wrist, this time the serial killer gave an unmanly shriek and dropping the knife stepped further back. He lunged forward furiously scrabbling to get his bleeding hand around Casey's throat. He threw his body weight at her and slammed her into her fathers desk, finally using the bleeding hand to backhand her. Using his right forearm, the wrist of which she had possibly broken.

He said, "You read the letters, why are you fighting me, we're destined to be together, why can't you see that?" Pulling the family photo out of his parka pocket, with the bleeding hand, he shoved it in her face. "This could be us, our child, we could have it all." She couldn't breath and her vision was starting to become dark around the edges. "No one would stand in our way, Cassandra. Not our families, not the police, not even that Neanderthal partner of yours, no one." He continued as they struggled with each other, "But you couldn't see it, could you Cassandra, you've been…"

Casey saw something slam into Lawson's head, with a glancing blow, that still stunned the psycho, who slid to the floor in a stupor, she heard Walsh's voice say, "Her name is Casey, asshole!" Before he lost his grip on the door jam of the office and fell on top of Lawson. His elbow fell right on Lawson's face and neck, knocking him out cold.