Chapter 14

No. How could I have been so wrong? I thought she cared about her students. Was she even actually a teacher? She seemed so genuine. Even just now, it just seemed like she wanted to make things as good as she could for those around her. It was just that her concept of how to do this was… perverse. I couldn't begin to imagine what had led her to this point, and I likely never would. Looking back I half wish that were true.

I struggled to move, but my muscles only moved like slush. I felt another surge in Permafrost's force that quickly fell, accompanied by a person's presence disappearing. Now I understood why I'd been able to get us out of the snow pile; she'd been freezing a different batch of people, and losing power in doing it. Maybe that batch was the one I'd seen on the playground. I wondered at the fact that she hadn't ended me yet as well. Ultimately I had to take her at her word; she was tending to her children first.

Hopefully this meant Robin and Nightwing would be okay. I tried to ignore what was going on in each subsequent room around me; I could do nothing until Permafrost ran low on power. Instead I tried to find my comrades. The word seemed right in such a setting. Stretching out my senses I hunted for a familiar presence.

There. On the northwestern most edge of town was Nightwing. I could tell he was focused, hyper focused, tense, but not particularly concerned. Where was Robin? I concentrated. He was there too, I just couldn't sense him as well, as his presence was less familiar to me. Strange, since I'd probably spent more time around him. Never mind that though, that they weren't frozen which was the important thing.

Permafrost froze another person, lost strength, and I felt a flash of satisfaction from the guys. I guessed that a golem had gone down as a consequence of Permafrost's efforts, but how were they to know that? With each subsequent drop in energy, the boys got closer to the town. The dips became less and less frequent, and thankfully I was not the only life still left in the building.

The boys had reached the cultural center, or there abouts. I felt them suck in breath, that didn't come out. Shock, fear, outrage, but mostly horror from both boys in equal measure. If the playground was any sampling, Permafrost had staged her victims in an activity of childhood pleasure. I could tell Robin lashed out in frustration, and then be calmed by Nightwing. Nightwing was just as disturbed, but his years of experience kept him collected.

I could move my fingers now, and I made a tugging gesture at my line with them. Sure I could have done it mentally, but it's easier with the gesture. Robin was too preoccupied to feel such a weak attempt, but Nightwing noticed something and they headed my way. In the mean time I tried to get moving. I still had a bit of power left, but the cold in my joints wasn't the sort that could be shooed away by warmth. Probably for the best since I'd likely need it if I got out.

Permafrost's power was growing again. Where did it all come from? And beyond all reason I heard… laughter from below. Were they… were they playing? How she made the children who had been so scared when I'd found them forget their situation and play I hadn't a clue. I had to do something. With a wretch I pulled myself upright and stumbled downstairs.

The sounds came from a room Irene's father and I hadn't opened. I staggered to the door and inside saw the kids running around. Permafrost was smiling and chasing after them, her hands surrounded by a blue light a few shades deeper than her skin. The kids seemed completely unaware of this and were looking over their shoulders with grins as she neared them.

She caught one who giggled. "Tag," she smiled and the child froze. I was too stunned, and too tired to move. Could the kids possibly be enjoying this? She was about to catch another of the maybe 12 kids left, five already having been solidified. I turned away, unable to move and unable to watch.

A window crashed and a black blur scooped the child out of harm's way, leaving only smoke cloud behind.

"I don't think this is how you play freeze tag," said Nightwing. And then again, in Norwegian. The child, who had been struggling, laughed.

Permafrost scowled, and said something in the same language. The child looked back and forth between the two. All the other kids were still running around, as if nothing had happened. Permafrost angrily snapped at Nightwing, but I didn't understand what she was saying. Nightwing kept her attention, and I saw Robin slip in from an open window. He caught the kids that came his way, holding his hand over their mouths when they resisted. He touched a spot on their necks and they slumped down. Robin lifted them out the window.

I never did find out what Nightwing was saying to keep Permafrost occupied, or what she said to him, only that he was saying them in very reasonable, even tones. What I did find was myself helping Robin load children onto a sled they'd acquired outside.

There were just two moving kids now, plus the one Nightwing had on his hip, who was now sucking her thumb complacently. But these two were staying in Permafrost's line of sight. Robin motioned that he would herd them my way, and moved across the room.

But she saw him, recognized that he was with us.

And she went ballistic.

She started screaming in her native tongue and icy wind whipped around the room in front of her. The two remaining kids were instantly frozen by the blast but Robin jumped over it, as did Nightwing. She lost sight of anything but Robin, held her hands over her head and whipped a column of snowflakes at him. The floor had turned to an ice rink, and Robin was skating away from the blasts. Nightwing caught my attention with a whistle, and tossed the kid he still held to me after sedating it as Robin had been doing. Because I wasn't thinking about it I actually managed to catch the child, and lower it out the window.

Permafrost was still ranting. I heard Robin say, "I wasn't forced into this life, I chose it!" but it was clear she could tell it wasn't the complete truth. "You need to 'Let it go!'" he shouted, with just a hint of the song in his voice.

She heard that hint, and as bad as she had been, the Frozen reference sent her to a new level. The temperature of the room dropped a solid 20 degrees, and it was already subzero. Fahrenheit. I felt like I'd been punched from inside my lungs and gasped. Robin did too, but Nightwing had already covered his mouth with a facemask from his suit. He tossed some more explosive birdarangs at her feet, but they froze without exploding.

Robin was up again, and skating away. Permafrost didn't have skates, but was moving more smoothly on the uneven ice than her quarry. She was crying again, and the tears were freezing in sharp daggers as they tried to fall from her cheeks. Her ranting sounded different now. More childish. I heard the word "Far" over and over in her sobs, and felt her grief.

Running wasn't working. Robin stopped to face her, but as she approached, Nightwing knocked her away with his half-staff. It stuck to her, and he was forced to let go as ice crept up it towards him.

"No, she wants you! Best way to keep her off balance is to keep away." He was right; despite his assault, Permafrost still only had eyes for Robin. "I'll figure out something, just don't let her close."

Robin nodded but didn't entirely comply quietly. "Why does she want me?" He asked. "I can't catch everything she's saying."

"Neither can I. Something about being stolen. I couldn't get her to makes sense even when she was talking." And because he was Nightwing he had to add, "I agree with her though, that the Frozen thing was taking it too far. It's so overdone." All this exchange happened as they evaded her icy shots.

I felt useless. I was still having trouble breathing. I coughed, and clenched my fists in frustration that I was unable to help.

Permafrost was getting more erratic now, and icicles were rising from the floor and walls, ready to spear anyone who fell. They weren't just encroaching on us; they were headed to her as well.

Robin's skate caught on a newly forming spur and he sprawled. The skate broke and the shard sliced him in the face. Permafrost had him in her sights.

Nightwing looked on. He had lost his other escarima stick attempting to knock out Permafrost. I could tell he was ready to take this hit to save Robin.

I beat him to it.

As if I were underwater, I pushed off the wall and slid into place. I jammed my foot into an icicle to stop my momentum and held my hands, palms towards her. I gathered the last of my flame and shot it forward. It was a marginally better defense than a human body.

The fire and ice crashed together, her grief fueling her blast, my terror for my friends strengthening mine. I wasn't even close to a match, and soon I'd be completely overwhelmed.

So I followed my instincts and did the only thing I could think of.

I let out a flash that blinded everyone, dispelling the last of my energy to the room at large. The icy blast hit me, hit my dark center.

It didn't hurt.

Not more than being me normally did.

It had the same flavor, the same comforting texture as the loneliness I lived with in my lies. The physical world faded from my senses, and all that was left was the darkness I lived and loved. The darkness, greeting its cousin the cold. That's where Maureen was, where she'd gotten her strength, from this nothingness at the end of sanity. She'd been slowly slipping here for a long, long time. I saw her now as a child of no more than eight, who she had been the last time she'd truly felt warmth.

Vision came to me. Her birthday, rosy candles, a father beaming, an older brother ruffling her hair.

Her brother on the phone, face too tight. She tugs at his sleeve and he pushes her off.

The hospital, her father still with that eternal smell of coal, trying to smile, and grimacing. Her, grabbing his hand, and not having him squeeze it back. He shakily lifts his other arm and covers her hand with his good one.

He brother in a hard hat, descending into the abyss. She begs him not to go, but he smiles sadly and says he must. Each day he came back to her, but each day he left a little more of himself in the mine. Less playing, less hugging. He never reads her stories anymore. And he was taking more and more out of that cabinet.

Her father, lying in bed. She would help him, lovingly, tenderly, and he, always encouraging her, promising that her brother was fine.

She grew. Her male friends leaving school one by one for the mine, her girlfriends becoming more and more remote, marrying, having kids of their own to care for.

And then the day that her brother didn't come back up. Nor eight others she knew.

It nearly broke her completely then. But she still had her father.

"You can change this, lille, if it hurts you so." And she believed him, wanted so badly to make him proud. So she became a teacher.

At first she saw a reflection of light for the for time in years. Smiling, young, innocent faces, ready to learn about the world outside this tiny town. She could set them free.

But they never left. Just like her friends, they became miners and wives, miners and wives. Sure, occasionally one would become a dentist, or a store owner, but business was a hard life in this small town. Less deadly on the body, but no less so on the mine.

Still, she smiled and brought home stories of the younglings back home to her father. It made him laugh, and it was this that she truly lived for.

The day he died was the day she lost it. She held his hand as he coughed, coal dust still rotting his lungs though he'd been out of the mines for forty years. She held it as he gasped, as she tried to give him water. Then he stopped breathing, and she couldn't take it. She had run out into the barren wastes of winter, willing herself to follow her beloved father. She would have been amazed if she had not been so torn apart when the Norse gods Skadi and Ull appeared to her. They knew her plight, they knew her pain, and they took pity on her. They granted her the power to preserve eternally the childhoods she saw stolen year after year, the power to numb the pain. She'd frozen her father and put him before the statue of Lenin here in Pyramiden where he could rest in reverence.

And then she's planned. She planned how to save as many of her little ones as possible, them and their families if she could. And she was so close. She couldn't understand why I was trying to stop her, now that she saw how damaged I was too.

Under all this, she just wanted the pain to stop, for her, and for those she loved without choice. Cold was the only thing that had numbed her, and now it wasn't enough: she needed more. She didn't know what to do, and the little eight-year-old that she was asked me. I didn't have an answer for her.

Then the cold squeezed tighter, if that was even possible, and she was gone.

And so was I, lost in the memory that had been Maureen Connor.

I woke, and didn't care how long I'd been out because my headache was raging. Sadly, this was good news as it meant the sunlight had snapped back to me after the flash and that my companions didn't know what I actually looked like. But it hurt like a bitch, and so did my heart.

True, we knew each other's lives, but I coped better than she had. I'd embraced it and she'd fought it til the last. That's what you were supposed to do, fight the cold and dark, but look at how she'd come away. I shut my eyes against the world and just wanted to sink back to where I belonged.

"You up?" Nightwing asked.

I tried to answer but found my voice caught. I nodded and let the pain cross my face so I wouldn't have to answer.

He saw and let me sit for a minute, until I'd collected myself and actually opened my eyes. I'd been moved to the corner, but I could still see Maureen's frozen form where it'd last been, except now it was nearly impaled on icicles. "What happened?" I managed to ask. In response he held up a small blue pelt. "Is that...?" I asked, recognizing it from our first spar.

"It worked for you; I figured it could work again." He shrugged. "It did. Thanks for the idea." He was thanking me for the time I'd given for him to come up with it. I'd seen the look in his eyes; he was nearly as ready to throw himself into the line of ice.

"Robin?"

"Fine, catching up with the transport." I raised an eyebrow. "We saw the tracks. S' a good plan to get so many people back."

"Wasn't mine," I added honestly, and turned partially away. Something was sticking into my butt, and it wasn't ice. I pulled the thing out of my pocket: Irene's bracelet. I clenched it tightly and the charms bit into my palms. Breathe. Eyes closed against my will, and against the threat of tears. I'd still failed them.

Nightwing was saying something else, but stopped abruptly. I could feel his gaze on my hand.

"Arne said to keep it, if you still had it. In thanks."

My eyes flew open, as did my mouth to ask the question: you mean?

I didn't actually get the chance. "People started to thaw once she..." he pointed with a move of his head, casually, to the one remaining statue. I sighed in relief, expecting a reprieve. All I felt was crushed, and I realized how much weight I still carried.

I was mourning for Maureen.

I managed to fake a smile for Nightwing's benefit, but I had no words. All I could do was cradle her hurt since she could no longer. "There's still one frozen person, an old man in front of Lenin's bust." I don't know if it was his maturity or the situation, but he didn't laugh at the word like most boys I'd known.

"He won't melt, he wasn't alive," I assured deadly flat.

He let that sit for a moment, let me steady. Eventually he sat down next to me.

"Who was he?"

"Her dad." I swallowed hard and didn't sniffle. The stuff running from my nose was only from the cold.

"Permafrost, she was Maureen, wasn't she?" He asked with a softness unfitting for the murderess she would have been. I pressed my lips and nodded. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not particularly." I managed. He put his hand on mine, warm, strong, anchoring.

"Would you?" He looked me in the eye, trustingly. He deserved to understand, if it was possible to. I told him what I could, not really specifying how I knew. He accepted it as truth. By the time I finished he was looking down at his knees. "You couldn't have helped her any more, Nova."

I stared at him.

"You couldn't save her, not after all that. She'd been lost for a long time." I knew that, but hearing it from someone else, it, it made it real. How could he know? Well, he was good at inferring. But how could he know I needed to hear it? Because he's a good person. Because he gets you. Not possible. I looked down.

He couldn't know. He was just saying this because it was what you said, not because he meant it. I tensed and angry heat radiated off me. All this meant nothing anyways. "Nova, you saved a lot of people. Focus on what you can do, not on what you can't." Sure I'd saved the kids from her, but not from the life she feared for them.

I was supposed to say something, but I didn't know what. There was nothing to say. My quiet was bothering him. "Nova," I didn't respond. He looped a finger in the bracelet I was still holding and tugged.

To my surprise, I couldn't let it go. No, not couldn't. I wouldn't. I felt a wave of satisfaction and understanding through the connection.

"Nova," he said again. I wish he'd stop saying the false name. He did. "Look at me." I did. His mask still hid his beautiful, deep blue eyes, but not their intensity, sincerity. He pulled the bracelet up to eye level, and my hand along with it. "She'll get to make her own choices because of you. You know that's what's right." I looked at him, and I did know it. I took a deep breath through my nose and anchored myself, came back from the brink a bit. He threw me a roguish smile as he saw me begin to truly settle. I let out a little sigh of exasperation and pulled my hand—and the bracelet—back. I rose, really wishing he wouldn't do that and knowing he didn't realize that he was. It wasn't his fault that I couldn't do any more emotions today, couldn't deal with boulders and crushed butterflies.

The transport took us back to town. Without Maureen temperatures settled back to their normal low twenties, positive this time. Sphere caught back up to us, and we stayed a few days in town. There was a service for those who had died the first day, and on the second Robin and Nightwing helped fix the satellite dish. I stayed out of the way, still wanting quiet and to stay to myself despite the fact that this time, I'd done good. I forced myself to be a little social and eat a mean with Arne and Irene. It was well enough, but Maureen's fatalism still skimmed under my surface and I worried for her future.

We said our goodbyes and left the fourth day.

I wish I could say that I wanted my next mission to be somewhere warm, but if I was really, really honest, I was going to miss the comfort of the cold.