A/N: Okay, I know I said 15 chapters, but I just finished Ch. 15 and I'm barely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Actually, chapters 11-13 were meant originally to be one chapter and what I've written for 15 was kind of spur of the moment, so I'd say there are at least a few more chapters to go. (Hope you're not too disappointed that it's not over, yet, lol)

This and the next chapter are probably my personal favorites so far, at least in terms of being satisfied with how they turned out. Let me know what ya' think :)

"We were drawn from the weeds,
we were brave like soldiers
falling down under the pale moonlight...

Now it's cold and we're scared,
and we've both been shaken.
Hey, look at us -
this doesn't need to be the end...

Fall on me -
tell me everything you want me to be.
Forever with you, forever in me,
ever the same."

-Rob Thomas

Lizzie sat down in the snow and pulled Fred into her arms. Her hand felt for his heartbeat, but found instead a horrible stillness, and as she watched, his lips slowly turned pale and blue. She brought her heavy cloak around his shoulders and clutched him to her. As she held him and wept, the soft notes of a horn rolled across the plain from the east, echoing back at her from the north, south, and west so that it seemed to surround the two of them. Then a sound like far off thunder rolled across the sky, growing louder and louder until she recognized it as the sound of hoof beats. The only horse in sight was Llewyn, who had stayed some distance away, but she seemed not to notice.

"Llewyn," she called, "do you hear that?"

The horse's head swung up to look at her. "I hear nothing."

Lizzie's eyes scanned the horizon in every direction, the sound was so loud that she feared being trampled - a white figure draped in a white cloak, huddled against the snow. The day had turned clear, the sky a brilliant blue above the snow covered land, but there was nothing to be seen. Then a movement caught her eye. She looked up and with a startled cry beheld a horse coming at them from above, bearing straight down through the sky.

Lizzie screamed and closed her eyes, expecting to be crushed by the animal, but felt only a gentle brush as though touched by the wind as it passed and came to a stop before her. She looked up to see a horse and rider the likes of which she'd never beheld before. The horse was white, but his coat glistened like gossamer and his golden mane shimmered as though it were lit by a thousand tiny suns. The rider was a woman, her face fair and flawless, but ageless – without line or mark, though her lips were the color of blood – striking against her complexion. Her hair was like that of the horse, and it wound around the animal and over the ground, like a living, breathing soul, caressing all it touched. Braided though it were strands of gold and silver. A golden circlet sat upon her brow, and her gown was pure white. Upon her back sat a quiver of arrows and a golden bow.

She made no motion towards Lizzie, indeed did not even seem aware of her presence. As she watched, the woman took out a golden arrow, the point of it catching the sun. She unslung the bow and nocked the arrow, drew it back, and aimed it at Freddie.

"No!" Lizzie screamed, drawing him closer to her and trying her best to shelter him with her own arms and body.

The woman hesitated and lowered the bow, though she made no move to put it away. "How is it that you see me, daughter of Eve?" Her voice was like a rushing stream of water, bubbling over the rocks. "Your time has not come, though I have watched you from afar."

Lizzie, her grip on Fred not lessening looked up at the woman and shook her head. "Not him...Please..."

"Many have begged for the lives of others though the price is great, yet the one you cling to is already dead. Tell me, though - is this a price you would have paid? Your life for his?"

"I would gladly give my life for his..." she hesitated, then shook her head sadly, "but the destiny of his son is not mine to choose."

The woman smiled slightly. "An interesting answer," she replied. "Indeed, each carries his own, though it is often the destiny which chooses the man, and he is left with only the choice to accept it or resist." She again raised the bow. "Do you not wish his soul to sleep in peace?"

Lizzie could only weep. The body she held was as cold as the snow now, and she knew he was gone - yet to give him over seemed the ultimate finality. She nodded her head sadly. "Yes," she said, softly, "I want him to be at peace." She closed her eyes, waiting to hear the whisper of the arrow as it flew. Instead there was only silence, and she raised her head once more. The woman was watching her, a curious expression on her face.

"How is it that you love this man when you have no memories of him?"

"How could you know that?"

"In the north you stood betwixt life and death, and I waited to see if I would be needed. You were found to be with child and so our paths did not meet. The woman there took your memories of this man."

Lizzie thought over all that had happened between them during the months they'd spent in Southern – all the nights spent talking until the break of day, all the laughter, all the tears. "We made new ones," she said, quietly.

"Your mind has been touched by the child you carry, otherwise you would not see me. Though still, even with that – you are the only one not marked for death who ever has. His father was touched as well, was he not?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"He was a seer, a clairvoyant?"

"Yes..." Lizzie wasn't sure why any of that mattered.

As though sensing her confusion, the woman went on. "I ask because he knew his fate, and yet he still chose to accept it. It is rare enough for a man to give up his life for another, but most do so without knowing until the deed is finished that they themselves did not survive." The horse tossed its mane as though it were impatient to leave while the woman seemed to ponder over her own words. Finally she looked at Lizzie and spoke again. "Because you carry a life that is not yours, I cannot ask you for that, but perhaps there is a trade that can be made."

Lizzie felt her mouth go dry and her body numb. Stories of people making deals with death never turned out well for the one in question, though her heart skipped a beat at the hope of saving Freddie. "What kind of a trade?"

"After you die. Your service for my freedom."

"I don't understand."

"My task is to ferry souls from the land of the living. I must serve until, at their death, another willingly takes my place. For this, I will leave him be."

Lizzie failed to see how the deal wasn't worth taking. "And he will live?"

"That is up to him. I cannot heal what was not broken."

"Then I accept," said Lizzie determinedly, but the woman shook her head.

"Before you make this pledge, I would not have you be ignorant," she said. "It is...a lonely task. You will yearn for sleep, but it will not come. You will take the warriors in the battle and the babe at its mother's breast. Neither young nor old, rich or poor, well or infirm will be a stranger to you, and if this man dies after you, you will have to send his soul on to a place where you cannot go – not until another willingly takes your place. "

Lizzie was quiet for a moment, but as she weighed the choice, she knew she had already made her decision. "I understand," she said solemnly, "but I still accept the trade."

The woman smiled and Lizzie thought she looked as though she might cry tears of joy. She swung from the horse's back and knelt before her and reached out her hand, gently brushing Lizzie's cheek. "Thank you," she whispered as both she and the horse faded away.

At her touch, the pieces and fragments of memories that were all that was left of Lizzie's life before Iracebeth took her, blossomed and grew. Like tendrils of ivy, each thought and feeling intertwined with one another – meeting, melding, reforming - until the darkness of her past was filled again with life and love...and Fred.

In her arms, he began to gasp repeatedly, hyperventilating - like a man drowning as his body fought to save itself from oxygen deprivation. He showed no other signs of life, and his lips were blue and cold. Lizzie, dressed in the warmer riding clothes, unclasped her cloak and wrapped it around him instead. She pressed her hand to his chest, still cold as ice, but to her relief felt a slow, sluggish heartbeat. She held him as tightly to her as she could, though she knew her own body heat wouldn't be near enough. A sad tale it would be for her to make a deal for his life only to have him freeze to death. She looked around for Llewyn.

"Llewyn," she called, "I need your help!" The mare galloped over. "Can you lie down next to him? We need to keep him warm until we can get him back to Marmoreal."

"Of course." Carefully, the horse lay down next to them on the snow. Lizzie scooted as close to her as she could, pulling Fred up beside her as well. "Fred," she spoke in his ear, "just hold on, surely someone else will wonder where you are soon." His breathing had taken on a less desperate measure, but he wasn't shivering and Lizzie remembered from her first aid class in college that it was a bad sign as cold as he was. She didn't know if he could hear her or not, but if he could, maybe it would help him hold on until help arrived. There was so much to say...so she picked the first thing that came to her mind and began to talk...

"Do you remember the summers I stayed with my grandma when I was little? Remember the trees, how we used to climb them up to the tallest branches, until they were so narrow we swayed with them when the wind blew? That's one of my favorite memories. I don't know if I ever told you that...there's so many things that I haven't told you. After you were gone, I never climbed those trees again. It wasn't the same without you, Fred. Nothing was ever the same without you. When I got older, I started believing I'd just made you up and I'd halfway convinced myself of it. Until you came back though, I always felt like a part of me was missing, part of my heart that I always seemed to be searching for. When I was in college, I used to go to the mall and sit and just watch people, wondering if there was someone out there, feeling the same way that I did. There were nights I cried myself to sleep, and I couldn't figure out why I felt so alone or why I only felt half alive.
We're a part of each other, Fred, in so many ways. You've always been the keeper of my spirit – since I was a little girl, and I don't know what I'd do without you now that I've found you again. You walked back into my life and suddenly, for the first time since I could remember, I felt like everything was right.
Do you remember when we were in Elphyne, when I woke you up and we came here? You were sitting up, sleeping against the wall. You seemed so different – so young and...I don't know, I guess innocent in a way - so far removed from Drop Dead Fred that you were almost a different person altogether. I wanted to reach out and touch you then, but I caught myself before I did. Something changed that night, and I didn't understand it until later. In one way or another, I've loved you my whole life."
She reached inside the cloak, relieved to find his body felt noticeably warmer. She took his hand in hers. "You know, I wouldn't change anything about the past. Even the bad things - if my mother hadn't locked you in the jack-in-the-box, you would have left me when I was still a child. You'd still be out there somewhere, wandering through my world, running away from a world you couldn't remember you loved." Her eyes burned with tears at the thought. "I love you, Fred, and I love Underland, and I'm so glad I got hit by that truck."

The sound of horses echoed from over the hill facing Marmoreal and Lizzie looked up to see a dozen riders coming towards them. As they neared, she recognized the flaming hair and top hat of his brother, Tarrant, in the lead. He stopped beside them and jumped down. She was sure they must be an odd sight to see, a woman in riding gear, a horse sitting in the snow, and between them a bundle in a white cloak.

"Wha' th' Bloody Hell hap'n'd here?" asked Tarrant. "Th' cat told us ya' were out 'n th' snow freezin' yer..." He stopped short as Lizzie pulled the hood of the cloak back to reveal a deathly pale Fred. Tarrant knelt and felt his neck for a pulse, his eyes whirling a dangerous amber.

"He's alive, Tarrant, but he's freezing."

Tarrant tucked the cloak back around Fred and picked him up in his arms. He hadn't noticed the door until now, standing wide open as Fred had left it. His eyes, still with a trace of madness, met Lizzie's. "What th' hell has he done?"

She shook her head. "I don't have time to explain it now, you have to take him back first." He hesitated only an instant before giving her a curt nod. With the other riders help, Tarrant hoisted his brother up in front of him on his horse and left for the castle. Lizzie went over to the door and kicked the snow out of the way to let it swing shut before she and Llewyn rode for Marmoreal as well.

Llewyn caught up easily with Tarrant's horse and together they rode towards the gates. The air around the castle was thick with a choking bluish-gray smoke that hung close to the ground and smelled of burning tires. The courtyard was littered with an army of dead huntsmen and horses. The combined smell of death and smoke made Lizzie gag and it was only by sheer determination and focusing her thoughts on getting Fred into the castle as quickly as possible that kept her nausea at bay. They rode up to the main steps and Tarrant hopped down from his horse, catching Fred as he fell off behind him. Lizzie followed him inside.

"Fetch a healer and th' Queen," Tarrant told one of the footmen by the door. He carried his brother up to the second level, to the room she and Fred used when they needed to stay at Marmoreal and lay him on the bed. "He's soaked to th' bone, Lizzie. Does he have any dry clothes here?"

Lizzie pulled open the drawers until she found them. With Fred down for the count, it took the two of them working together to strip him of the wet ones and get him into the dry ones. Tarrant bundled him into the bed while Lizzy started a fire, counting it as luck they actually had one of the larger rooms with a separate fireplace. It was already warming up nicely by the time Mirana and the healer rushed in.

As the healer set to work checking Fred over, Tarrant drew Lizzie aside while Mirana followed them.

"Now," he said, "please tell me what the bloody hell m' brother was doin' half dead in th' snow beside a door that shouldn't work anymore and where th' army that was followin' him went."

Lizzie was about to tell them the whole story, but stopped. They hadn't mentioned the horn and she wondered if maybe they didn't realize that he'd died when he let it go. Fred certainly wouldn't have volunteered that kind of information, otherwise he never would have been allowed to go roaming off all by himself. Everyone knew Freddie was stubborn and when he decided on some plan, no matter how dangerous or hair-brained, he wasn't easily thwarted. "He thought the dead might just follow the horn instead of him, so he propped the door open and threw it in. They followed it right through, I suppose they're still in there somewhere, or wherever it leads to now." Lizzie inwardly commended herself for not technically lying.

Mirana shook her head and looked at her, confused. "That explains the door and the missing army," she said, "but why is he in such bad shape and nearly frozen to death?"

Lizzie knew for a fact that he hadn't slept more than a few hours in days and was sure he hadn't bothered to rest here at Marmoreal. "Well, he was pretty tired last time I saw him and that was yesterday morning. He just collapsed."

"I told him to rest when he got here," huffed Mirana.

Tarrant rolled his eyes. "Ya' know Freddie can't sleep when there's somethin' to stick his fingers into." He looked around as though he was trying to remember something. "I was going t' go and see if I could torch th' door. I'm not sure they can be destroyed, but we'd be best t' just get rid of it." He nodded to her and Mirana and turned towards the door.

"Tarrant," Lizzie called after him, "his claymore, he dropped it beside the door."

"I'll find it," he told her as he left the room.

Together Lizzie and Mirana went back over to the bed where the healer was smearing some sort of smelly ointment on his fingers and toes. "He's done a number on hisself, fer sure," she told them. "Don't know how 'e didn't get frostbitten worse'n 'e did."

"How bad is it?" asked Lizzie, worried.

"Ah, not bad, though I dannae like how he's still gettin' warmer. He's gonna make hisself sick a galavantin' out in th' cold an' wet." She turned to Lizzie. "Are ya' stayin' here wit him, ma'am?"

Lizzie nodded. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Good," she said, tucking the covers back around him. "Keep 'im bundled up fer now, but if he gets much hotter, have someone fetch me. Otherwise, he needs t' sleep. I kin see from his face he's exhausted." She pulled down the bottom of his eyelid and looked at it. "Needs some tonic, too."

"I'll have someone bring you some food, Lizzie," said Mirana as she followed the healer out the door.

Lizzie got up and closed it behind them. She rubbed her eyes, not realizing until then just how tired she herself was. She had just sat back down in the chair by the bed when Chess popped in beside her.

"So," he began, "that drivel about being dreadfully tired might have fooled Tarrant and Mirana, but I want to know what really happened."

"Why," she asked, irritated, "you certainly didn't do much explaining to me."

"Ah, but where would Freddie be now if I hadn't come in the first place, hmm...? I suppose he'd still be out there dead in the snow." The cat swam around her and came to a stop upside down in front of her. "He looks remarkably alive, and you and I both know he shouldn't be."

"I might tell you if you weren't such a horrible gossip. Everyone knows you can't keep a secret."

The cat's eyes narrowed angrily. "That's a lie, and you know it."

"No, Chess. With you, everything has a price. If Freddie knew, it would break his heart."

Chess gave her a long look, when he spoke again his voice was quiet and low. "You made a deal with death, didn't you?"

She stared back at him. "He's alive, and that's all you need to know."

He blinked and began to sharpen his claws on the covers of the bed. "I hope he was worth it..," he said as he faded from view.

Lizzie pulled off her boots and the riding gear and dress underneath and found a dress she'd stowed away in the armoire earlier that summer in case she needed to change there. She slipped it on and pulled back the covers on the other side of the bed and slid in beside Fred. She rolled him over so that his head rested against her shoulder and put her arms around him.

Soon they both slept.