I would have had this up earlier, but my modem kicked the bucket. New one is on the way, but I promised this would be out no later than today, so here I am at the library posting this chapter for you. You cannot say that I'm not dedicated . . . ;D More soon!

Oh, and you can thank jam2014 for the title of this chapter . . . Loved it so much, I just couldn't resist! :D

Warning: Maybe Language (I honestly can't remember at this point.) . . .


Conner had no idea how long they had walked. The snow was blinding and seemed to toy with his senses. Time and space had no meaning. Just one foot in front of the other. His eyes kept searching out the hulking shape of their rescuer and Robin's pale, pale face where he lay still as death.

He remembered what the man had told him; that the cold gave them time in which to save the boy. Had this happened in spring or summer, the Boy Wonder would have been already gone with no hope of revival. Flashes of basic first aid that Cadmus had programmed into his brain reassured him that the man hadn't been wrong in his estimate, but how much time did Robin have left before he was beyond help?

Conner suddenly bumped into the back of the man. He stumbled back and fell to one knee; one hand landing in the snow to prevent his collapse. Exhaustion lay across his shoulders heavily. His eyes drooped and suddenly the cold didn't feel so cold anymore.

If he could just rest for a minute . . .

A hand grasped his upper arm and dragged him bodily back to his feet. Conner's leg didn't want to support him, and he almost went down again; nearly dragging his rescuer with him.

"We can't have that," the woodsman was saying in his ear. "Up with you now. I didn't drag you here for you to give up outside my door."

Conner blinked and glanced around, but he couldn't see anything.

"Wh-Where . . ." He wheezed.

The man pushed him forward and there it was; a door. It was opened and the three of them stumbled inside. The old fellow turned and slammed the door shut behind them and slid a bar across it. He paused only to unhook the lead rope that had attached Conner to his belt, then he moved across the small room to lay Robin on the floor beside a cot.

Ah, God, the heat . . . He was so cold, walking into the tiny room was like walking into a furnace, but oh, it felt so good!

Conner gazed around the interior of the shack; and that was pretty much what it was. One room had a cot on one side with a trunk at the foot and a fireplace on the other. There was a table in the middle with a stool and two rustic chairs, one of which could rock. A small cupboard adorned the wall across from the door; on it was a bucket and ladle. The wall beside the door held a couple of stacked cages and three or four small traps. Lines, ropes, and a saddlebag hung on the pegs that lined the wall beside the door.

A fire was burning low in the small, stone fireplace. Cecil, wherever he was, hadn't done a very good job tending the fire, but it felt like heaven nonetheless. Conner sank to the floor where he was; his trembling legs unwilling to support him another second. There was a slight draft from the wind as it rattled the door and slid between the cracks, but nothing could compel the Boy of Steel to move from his spot.

"You need to start stripping those wet clothes off of you," the man told him without looking back. He was concentrating on Robin, and that was okay with Conner.

"Now then, let's see what we can do for your brother now that we don't have to worry about succumbing to hypothermia ourselves, what say you?" The man stopped only to remove his hat and coat, tossing them behind him on the floor. The snow on them quickly melted and formed a puddle.

His dark hair, liberally streaked with gray, was long and greasy. It was tied back with a simple leather thong. He wore a red and black plaid, flannel shirt tucked into a pair of worn blue jeans. He leaned over Robin; tilting his head back and once more blowing air into the boy's lungs several times. Quickly, he positioned himself and began chest compressions.

Conner struggled to stand up, but his legs refused to cooperate. His arms had begun shaking as his whole body started shivering violently. It took some effort, but he finally managed to pull his shirt off. He tossed it on the floor and asked their rescuer the question that had been plaguing him ever since he had first found the younger boy.

"I-Is . . . Is h-he dead?"

The mountain man grunted. "Not yet. Not in my book."

He continued the compressions for several minutes; stopping only to breathe for the boy. Conner scooted back to prop himself against the wall, and watched the actions being performed only a few feet away; feeling helpless.

Suddenly, Robin seized up, coughing water as the woodsman turned him on his side. The boy's face, he could see, had lost its blueish cast, although he was still extremely pale.

But he wasn't dead. Gratefulness washed over the clone and he slumped in his relief.

The man looked over at him and Conner was able to glimpse his face for the first time in the light. He appeared around sixty or more with heavy lines around his eyes and creasing his forehead. His beard was long and bushy and just as salt and pepper as his oily hair.

"He's not out of the woods yet, but at least he has a fighting chance," Old Oily (as Conner began calling him in his head) told him once the coughing fit had eased. "Now, how to get these clothes off of him?" He looked at Robin's tunic in confusion. He pulled out a knife that was the size of Conner's forearm.

"H-Hey! Wh-What are y-you doing?" He gasped in alarm.

Old Oily looked back at him. "He has to get out of these clothes or everything I just did is going to be a waste of time. I can't get him warmed up like this."

Oh. "There are clasps on the front of his tunic," Conner sighed.

"You doing okay over there?" the woodsman asked him as he started working on the clasps. "You can't wear your wet clothes either."

"D-don't worry . . . about me," he answered.

"This is taking too long," the older man grumbled. He slid his knife beneath the edge of the tunic and in one swift motion sliced it open. "What's this stuff on his shirt? Looks like some kind of body armor," he muttered to himself.

In no time, Robin was stripped down to his boxers, and the extent of his injuries from the river became evident from the dark bruising that mottled his body. Old Oily slid his arms under the boy gently, and carefully lifted him onto the cot. He turned to a trunk at the bottom of the bed and tugged out several blankets and spread them over the boy. Then he turned to face Conner.

"Now then, let's see about you," he announced as he moved over to where Conner was still propped next to the door.

Old Oily kneeled down beside the clone and frowned at the slowly growing pool of blood underneath his leg. There was a jagged tear along the front of his pant leg, but the pants weren't stained . . . at least not from the front.

"What have you done to yourself, boy?" He grabbed each side of the pant leg and yanked hard exposing the ugly wound beneath the cloth. He blew out a breath, shaking his head. "If it hadn't been below freezing out there, you would have done bled to death, young un."

Conner gaped at the wound in shock. Now that he was slowly beginning to warm up, and now that he actually saw the damage, his nerve endings came alive with a vengeance. He sucked in his breath harshly. He'd seen terrible wounds on others, but never on himself. He always tried to tell the truth when he could, and was especially careful to never lie to himself. Seeing his blood slowly seeping out of the five inch tear in his thigh scared the life out of him.

"Am I . . ." he licked his lips nervously. "Am I g-going to die?"

Old Oily had gotten up after exposing the wound and was digging through the cupboard. He turned back with a small first aid kit; stopping only to pick up a small teakettle sitting on the hearth.

"I don't expect so, but you may be wanting to before we're done here," the old man told him with pursed lips peeking out from his bushy facial hair. He opened the kit and perused its contents. "The cold slowed your blood loss, thankfully, but now that you are warming up and blood flow is being restored, you are leaking a bit more. We need to stop it before you lose too much. 'Fraid I have no way to replace it out here."

The woodsman pulled out a needle and black thread. "I don't have nothing for pain except maybe some aspirin, but you can't take that while you are bleeding like that."

Conner frowned as he watched the older man threading the needle in front of him. "Why not?" He asked. His brain was insisting he knew this, but his thoughts were still foggy.

"Aspirin is a blood thinner," Old Oily explained. "It would make you bleed more."

"Right," Conner nodded. That sounded right.

"I'm going to need to clean this out. To do that, we're going to have to get these pants off of you. They're ruined anyway," he told Conner as he started unlacing the boy's boots.

After a few minutes, Conner, like Robin before him, was stripped down to his boxers.

"This water had been boiled before I heard that almighty ruckus outside," the man said. "The water's only warm now, but it's sterile."

As he poured the water over the wound, the pain of earlier flared as the warmth brought yet more feeling back.

"Wish I had some whiskey," the fellow muttered.

"For me?"

Old Oily laughed. "Well, I'll admit that I could do with a swig or two myself, but I was thinking that it might have helped clean your wound better and, if a few swallows didn't take away your pain, it might have at least helped you not to care."

Conner didn't ask what he meant by that.

"You look like a right strong fellow, though. If I gave you something to bite on, think I could stitch you up without having to worry about you punching an old man's lights out?"

"Go ahead," Conner told him. "I can take it."

Old Oily scowled. "If it's too much, maybe I can get some snow and numb it up that way."

Conner shook his head. "It'll be okay," he assured him, and prayed this wasn't his first outright lie.

"Well, then, I don't guess we should wait any longer," the man gave him a snaggle-toothed smile. "You might not want to watch," he suggested when Conner continued to stare down at what he was doing. But when the boy didn't look away, he shrugged and put needle to flesh.

Conner hissed and threw his head back against the wall with a bang.

The wound had started burning while it was being cleaned, but as the old man squeezed the two sides shut and shoved the needle through the skin, brand-new nerve endings he didn't know he had burst to life. But not in a good way, Conner thought as he fisted his hands and clenched his jaw. The woodsman continued to work quickly over him.

"Nnngh," he grunted. It was too much . . . Too much!

"Hang on," the old man coaxed. "Almost done . . . almost . . ."

He was panting now with his eyes squeezed shut. Robin's painful coughing had him squinting in the direction of the cot. The younger boy sounded almost like he was gargling. The thought crossed his mind that this wasn't a healthy sound. Better than the silence of before, but it promised trouble on the horizon.

"Done," Oily stated; leaning back on his heels. "I swear, boy, you have some mighty tough skin. That was like sewing leather."

Conner looked at the ugly black stitches that were lined up rather neatly all considering.

Lucky thirteen.

The old man wiped the area with a piece of sterile gauze, and then put the needle aside to sterilize before he returned it to the kit. He covered the wound lightly with fresh gauze and wrapped it up; tying the ends together.

"Where did you learn how to do that?" Conner asked.

"Son, in case you didn't notice on your way in, it's a bit lonely up here in these parts. It takes a fair bit of hiking to reach the nearest town, and that's when Mother Nature is cooperating," Old Oily snorted; mildly amused. "No, boy, when you're your own best company, you learn how to handle these sorts of things for yourself."

"What about Cecil?"

The man shook his head ruefully. "It's unfortunate, but Cecil ain't much help in these kind of predicaments. A decent conversationalist, but plum worthless when it comes to doctoring." He stared into kit's meager offerings, and grumbled unhappily. "I think I'm running kind of low on things. I guess I'm going to have to plan another trip into town come spring."

"Sorry," Conner whispered.

He closed the kit with a snap and placed it onto the table as he returned the kettle to a hook over the fire. "Ain't you no nevermind," he told the boy. "It wasn't wasted. I'm just wondering if we won't be needing supplies sooner rather than later."

"Sooner . . ." Conner scowled. "You mean for us?"

"It's my fault," he shook his head. "I put off that which I knew needed done. Let's just hope I'm worrying for nothing; that we won't be needing what I don't have."

"Like what?"

"Like antibiotics, for one," he muttered as he placed the dirty needle in a bowl. "I still have a few back at my cabin, but none here." He blew out his breath heavily. "This storm blew in faster than Cecil and I expected, and is a hell of a lot stronger than anyone knew it would be."

"This isn't your cabin?" Conner asked.

Old Oily chucked. "Oh, no . . . I use this shack to overnight in when I'm out this way. Only way to have the time I need to get my work done. It's too far to hike here and back in a day and expect to accomplish anything."

He looked at Conner. "We weren't supposed to be down here, you know," he told the boy as he placed a couple of logs onto the fire. "Cecil and I were planning on heading back up to the cabin after I checked a number of traps and looked in on my pack."

"Your pack?" Conner asked, sleepily.

"Wolves," he explained. "See, I'm a wildlife biologist and I've been studying the wolves in this area for the past twenty-five years. I trap some of the animals when their population grows too great for the local environment to support and arrange for them to be transported to a new location. But this storm forced us to hole up here in the shack."

Once the fire flared back into life, the man dug out another blanket and laid it over Conner. "You think you can move or are you fine where you're at right now?"

Conner answered by huddling under the blanket.

The kettle started whistling, and Old Oily picked it up carefully and poured the boiling water into the bowl. He swished the needle around for a minute and then set it aside to cool. He produced a thermometer and stuck it under Conner's tongue.

"Ninety-seven," he grunted. "Not sure if that's good or not." He laid a hand across the boy's forehead. "You're almost back to a normal temperature already. You managed that pretty darned fast."

He moved back over to the cot to check on Robin; repeating his actions. Robin didn't even react, and Conner worried over that. Shouldn't he be waking up?

"Ninety-two," he grumbled. "Well, there ain't no call for it. We need to get you tucked in here beside him. Fastest, safest way to bring his temperature up," he explained when Conner blinked at him.

He helped Conner maneuver in behind Robin and the wall and then covered them both up again. The cot was made for a large man, and if Conner lay on his side, there was just enough room for the two of them. Adjusting Robin's head on his bicep, Conner shivered at the feel of the younger boy's cool skin against his own.

"You'll feel more comfortable once he starts warming up," Old Oily assured him; standing up and stretching.

He ran a hand through Robin's hair, thoughtfully. "I can feel a knot here," the old man noted, indicating a place hidden by the boy's dark locks.

"It was bleeding a little when I found him," Conner offered. "Is it a concern?"

"It doesn't appear too serious, but you can't always tell with head wounds," the woodsman acknowledged. "We'll know more when he regains consciousness."

Almost in response to their conversation, Robin began coughing again. He seemed to curl in on himself, and Conner gently pulled the boy closer to him.

"That doesn't sound good," Conner remarked, hoping that the older man would mutter something comforting to ease his worry.

Old Oily sighed. "The boy nearly drowned. I'm fairly sure he didn't cough enough water out earlier, but I'm hoping that carrying over my shoulder might have allowed some of it to seep out on the walk back here."

"Will he be okay?"

The man picked up his coat and hat to hang up on the pegs near the door.

"He might get worse before he gets better," he admitted reluctantly. "We've done all we can at this point. We can only wait and see now. We want to try and not to shuffle him around too much. Movement will hurt him at this point, so, now would be a good time for you to try and get a bit of shut eye."

Conner's eyelids drooped at the suggestion. But something niggled at the back of his brain. When it presented itself, he asked.

"Where is your friend, Cecil? He's not out in the blizzard, is he?"

Old Oily grinned suddenly. "Oh no, Cecil's just shy. He hid when he heard us come in."

Conner's eyes flitted around the small space. There wasn't another room except the one they were in. Certainly, there wasn't anything large enough to hide a full grown man.

The old man stepped over to a wicker basket next to the fireplace and gave it a gentle kick. Immediately a white fox popped its head up and chittered at him and squawked. It jumped out of the basket and wound its way around the man's ankles. Old Oily chuckled and picked up the animal. It rolled onto its back while in his arms, and the woodsman obliged by scratching his belly.

"That's right, Cecil," he murmured. "We're going to have guests for a little while. You need to do your part to make them welcome."

The fox squirmed happily now that his person was back safely. Old Oily sat down in the rickety, old rocking chair. It creaked under his weight, but stood fast.

Conner fell asleep to the howl of the wind rattling the timbers of the shack and the rhythmic creaking noises of the wildlife biologist rocking his pet in front of the fire.


REACTIONS?

Do I get a reward for all this extra work? If so, let it be a review, please . . . LOL!

If it seems detailed to you, that's because it is! I researched this and even though 'Old Oily' wasn't able to do everything (not for lack of trying), he did the best he could with what he had. Poor Conner! Welcome to the human race, buddy!

Did you expect Cecil to be a fox? Love Cecil . . .