Nothing too much to say about this chapter, apart from the fact that I'm sorry this took so long.

"Dan, I think if I stab myself with this needle one more time, we're going to have bigger problems than this shirt." Ash held up a tangled mess of fabric and thread. "And this shirt is already a big sparking problem."

Dan looked up from the socks he was repairing. "I did warn you that you didn't choose an easy project to start with."

"You know how bad of a listener I am," Ash said, dramatically throwing the ball of fabric onto her lap. "Anna's coming over soon, right?"

"I think," Dan said.

"Good," she said. "Anything to get out of doing this."

"You know, you don't have to keep doing this if you don't want to."
"Nope, I'm stubborn. I'm going to see this through to the bitter, tangle-ey end."

Dan shook his head. "Whatever you say."

A knock came from the hallway. "Finally," Ash said. "An excuse."

Dan came up to greet Anna at the door, and Ash followed. "Everything okay back at home?"

Anna, her cheeks still red from the cold, frowned. "Aunt Clara had a few more patients come in with hypothermia after staying out too long gathering wood, and I stayed back to help out with that. So nothing unusual wrong. Unfortunately." She yawned. "Sorry. I didn't sleep well last night either."

"Another nightmare?" Dan said, furrowing his brow.

"Dan, you don't need to worry about me." Anna uneasily shifted her weight.

"It's been getting more frequent, hasn't it."

"Not here. Please."

Dan looked at Ash. "Right."

"On the topic of uncomfortable topics, you still haven't told your aunt about the abandoned house, have you," Ash said. Anna glared at her. "Sorry, I'm really bad at changing subjects."

"Yes," Anna said. "Yes you are. I'll get to it."

"It's been three days, Anna," Ash said. "Sooner or later, you're going to have to tell her about me."

"It can wait," Anna said. "She's got enough to worry about without me adding to it."

"Anna, I know when you're avoiding things," Dan said.

"I'll get to it," Anna said.

"Today."

"Fine. Though I'm going to wait until tonight. She's going to be tired from all the doctoring she's been doing."

"That sounds like an excuse," Ash said.

Anna gave her a look. "It probably is." She sighed. "I'm scared, honestly. She has so much on her shoulders, and the last thing I want is to add more weight."

"Though the alternative is not telling her and then having your aunt see me walking down the street." Ash frowned. "I suppose it would be wouldn't be helpful for me to come with you as moral support?"

"Now that would give her a heart attack," Anna said.

"I mean, I don't have to come in."

"Ash, you of all people should know by now how terrible of an idea waiting outside is in this weather." Anna stopped. "You don't mind horses, do you?"

"If you're trying to change the subject, this is officially the weirdest way I've heard of doing it."

"It's relevant," Anna said. "The barn we keep Buttercup in is kept fairly warm, and it's pretty close to the house, so I can get you after I explain things."

"That makes a surprising amount of sense," Ash said. "Buttercup doesn't bite, does she?" Anna gave her a weird look. "I'm from Cleveland, I don't know how horses work."

"She's pretty friendly."

"I suppose I could fight off a horse anyway. If I needed to."

Anna sighed. "I have no doubt you could. Though for everyone's sake, try not to fight ours?"

"I suppose that would cause a lot of problems." Ash, realizing what she just said, looked over at Dan, who had his face buried in his hands.

"I did the thing again, didn't I," Ash said.

"Yep, just a little bit," Dan said, clearing his throat. "I think I'm going to go make tea now."

"You have tea?" Anna said.

"If you have to know, I'm making hot water."

"And an excuse to get out of an awkward conversation," Ash said.

"That too," Dan said, getting up to make a hasty exit.

Anna pointed down to the fabric Ash was holding. "I didn't know you were into sewing."

Ash looked down at the tangled mess in her lap. "Into is kind of a strong word. I think drowning neck deep in it might be more accurate."

Anna looked closer at it. "You chose a difficult first first pattern, didn't you?"

"Dan said exactly the same thing."

"He's not wrong," Anna said. "This is your first time doing this, correct?"

"How could you tell?" Ash asked sarcastically.

"Just a hunch," Anna said.

"I guess I do have a lot of catching up to do," Ash said. "You and Dan make everything look so easy." She stopped, seeing Anna's puzzled expression. "Wait, bad wording. What I mean is I don't have a lot going for me when it comes to life skills. I didn't really care to learn them when all I wanted to do was punch innocents through walls."

"You still have time," Anna said.

Ash looked out the western window, the same way she had come from just two days earlier, and watched the snowflakes fall. "I don't know if I do," she said. She set down her sewing onto a nearby table. "So, Aunt Clara time? I promise I won't fight the horse."

"You really are persistent, aren't you?" Anna said. "Let's do it in an hour or so. I have a few things to show you that might make that a bit easier." Anna gestured down at the mess on Ash's lap.

Ash looked at Anna. She was definitely stalling, but Ash did want to learn what Anna had to say. "I suppose."

Despite knowing to the contrary it was a very bad idea, Anna wished that literally anyone else could be the one to talk to her aunt. She took a deep breath. "This is going to be awkward, but it will turn out fine," she mumbled to herself. Steeling her nerves, she opened the door.

"Aunt Clara?" She said. "You aren't too busy right now?"

"For once," Clara said. "No. Did something happen?"

"Maybe," Anna said. She sighed. "I've been leaving some stuff out about my run two days ago. The one where I dropped off Ash."

Her aunt's face fell. "Did you get hurt again? You need to tell me these things so I can keep them from getting worse."

"I know. It's not that." She took her gaze off of her shoes, looking up at her aunt. "We accidentally startled someone when we were out there, and he shot at me." Clara jumped back, startled. "And Ash took the bullet. She's fine, don't worry. Healing and all. It was a bit touchy for a while, but she's mostly back to normal." Anna frowned. "As normal as Ash gets, anyway. Non-murderey, anyway. Still does a lot of unintentionally ominous foot in mouth stuff, but at this point, I think that's just her."

"You waited two days to tell me you nearly got shot? And you could've been killed with that Epic using her powers like that!" Clara took Anna into a very tight hug. "Also, what do you mean by 'still'".

Crap, Anna thought. I thought she was going to miss that part. "I didn't think it was a good idea to leave her on her own after that. At best, I thought she might hurt herself."

"And at worst, she may have gone back to being like any other Epic. Dammit, Anna, what if she'd done that here?" She sighed. "I'm glad you're okay. Where is she?"

"She's been staying with Dan. Don't worry, I got his permission. Right now, she's in the barn with Buttercup." Anna smiled. "She's actually the one who made me come over and tell you this."

Aunt Clara shook her head. "She is definitely full of surprises," she said. "How long is she going to be with Dan?"

"We don't know," Anna said. "It might be a while." Until Permafrost is dead.

Her aunt rubbed her temples. "At least tell me you have a plan for what to do if this ever happens again. Not that you're getting into any situations where you'll need it."

"We do. She ran out of the place when she got shot before anything serious could happen, so we figured setting up a place to run to would be the best option. And we've got a backup if she can't or won't get away."

"This whole thing still has me worried, but I suppose it's the best it can be for now."

"We're trying," Anna said. "I don't think it's ever going to be perfect, unfortunately." She cleared her throat. "I should probably go see how Ash is doing. She doesn't know how to deal with large animals."

"Buttercup is fairly gentle. Particularly at her age."

"I don't think it's her I need to worry about." Anna frowned, realizing the implications of what she just said. "Though I'm pretty sure both of them will be fine."

"You'd better be sure of that."

"You know I am, Aunt Clara." With that, Anna turned and left, heading out towards the barn.

She arrived to find Ash gently patting Buttercup on the nose. Buttercup, for her part, seemed to be tolerating it, despite the nervous look on the Epic's face. "I'm doing it right, aren't I? I feel like I'm screwing this up, but she hasn't kicked me yet."

"You didn't fight her, so there's something, I guess?" Anna said.

"I wasn't going to actually fight the horse. Unless she fought me first, I guess."

"Something tells me Buttercup probably wouldn't do that." Anna leaned against one of the walls.

"So has your aunt decided whether I should live or die?" Ash said.

"I don't know," Anna said. "It's complicated with her, and with what we've experienced in the past few months, much less since Calamity. Though I think she's happy you were there in the abandoned building."

Ash shrugged. "I guess that's the best I can hope for."

"Also, I may have gotten my head slightly bitten off for getting into that situation in the first place."

"To be fair, you could've been a lot more cautious about it."

Anna chuckled. "Maybe so. Though I can't change it now."

"You never did tell me the whole story about what happened with the Epic you tried to save. It was Permafrost, wasn't it?"

Anna looked down and sighed. "Yeah. Which kind of makes this whole mess we're in my fault."

"And you see your plan with Dan as a way of correcting it, don't you," Ash said.

"Or maybe I just wanted to help people who were in danger," Anna said, not meeting Ash's eyes.

Ash put up her hands. "Fine, I won't push it. It does make a lot of things make more sense." Anna glared at Ash. "Right. Different subject?" Ash said, taking a step back. Looking out the window, she frowned. "I suppose this isn't the right time to talk about the weather."

Anna shook her head. "No, not really." Her expression softened. "I apologize," she said. "There's just some stuff that even I don't want to think about."

"You and me both." Ash kicked a piece of hay on the ground. "I should probably be getting back to Dan's." At Anna's worried expression, she continued. "It's a bit of a walk, but I think I know the way, and I won't do anything stupid on the way there. I promise."

"You think you know the way?" Anna said.

"Yeah, 99 percent certain. Ninety. Eighty."

"You know, you can just wait five minutes and I can get you a map."

"Right. We should probably do that. I'm a slontze."

"You're not, really. It's just I've seen Dan do the exact same thing way too many times."

"To his own house?" Anna raised her eyebrows. "I suppose going to other places would make more sense."

"It's actually a bit of both," Anna said, chuckling a bit. "Anyway, I'll be right back."

Several hours later, Anna looked warily at the buildings around her.

It was rare that Anna got to go to the center of town. Most of the things in the abandoned buildings had been pretty well picked over, and it was one of the places Permafrost patrolled more carefully. Though if Anna were really being honest with herself, the worst part was the memories. Even more than the outskirts, which were far between and had shown their age even before Calamity rose, the image of all the city used to be shone in her mind. That was gone, now. All that remained was ice, ruins, and streets that were far too silent.

She looked wistfully up towards a dead tree, branches heavy with snow. In the time when there were springs, it had bloomed with small, white, heavily scented flowers that had always made Dan sneeze. Not dead, Anna thought. Just dormant. And it will bloom again, if I have anything to say about it. Anna shook her head, as if to clear her head of the memories. Her job, a delivery to one of the few remaining residents, was done, and she needed to get back as quickly, and as safely, as possible.

Her eyes darted back and forth around the abandoned buildings. The university was the place in town with the largest, most impressive buildings that still stood, and as such, Permafrost had taken up residence here. The specific building he had chosen, a towering former dormitory, was on the other side, but he was occasionally known for talking walks. And this time I don't have a six foot tall, buff High Epic to save me. And sparks was that a rare sentence.

As Anna hurried past a large iceberg that somewhere, deep beneath, held a statue of the school's mascot, she saw a group of figures coming out from behind one of the buildings. She hastened to a run in their direction. They didn't seem as organized as Permafrost's men were, and the Epic preferred to do most of his patrolling alone.

When Anna caught up to them, she got a better look at the group. They dressed the part of people in the wastes, but one look at them told her that they were recent arrivals. Besides the fact that she recognized none of them, none of them had the gaunt look of one who had stayed too long in Bozeman's eternal winter. The oldest of the group, a woman of about fifty, stared at her with a look of caution.

"Sorry for bothering you," Anna said quickly. "It's so rare I see people in this area of town. Most people here avoid it like the plague. You're new here, I take it?"

"Lydia, we need to get going," a man behind her started.

"Charlie, she might have some useful information," the woman, Lydia, replied. "I want to hear what she has to say."

"Can we walk and talk? We're like a block from Permafrost's lair. I try to never stick around here if I can." Anna stopped. "Permafrost. He's the ruling Epic around here. Really bad idea to run into him."

Charlie took a notebook from his pack and slowly, fighting his thick gloves, wrote down a few sentences. "Permafrost. I assume from the name he's responsible for this?" He waved his hand around at the snow around them. Anna nodded. "Interesting." He jotted down a few more notes.

"Apologies," Lydia said. "He likes to keep a log of his travels."

"It's okay," Anna said. "I would too, if I ever got out of here." He reminds me of Dan, she thought. Older, but the energy is still there. "So what are you here for? We don't get a lot of travelers around here. There were a few people a month or two ago trying to brave what's left of I-90, but nothing after that, apart from the woman I rescued a few days ago."

At the mention of Ash's rescue, Anna couldn't help but notice the youngest of the group, a sandy-haired man about Anna's age, look at Anna in interest.

"We're passing through as well," Lydia said. "Heading east."

That explains nothing, but I'm not going to press it, Anna thought. The sandy-haired man seemed shaky. Was he cold? There seemed to be something more to it than that, but she didn't know if it was safe to ask. "I can help lead you through here if you'd like. It can be a bit treacherous if you don't know the place."

"What's your name?" The sandy-haired man said. "I don't think I caught it."

"Anna. Anna Carpenter. Yours?"

"Evan Harris."

"Good to meet you," Anna said.

"This woman you rescued," Evan said. "What was she like? Is she still around?" Noticing Anna's puzzled expression, he continued. "I heard a friend of mine came this way."

"Yeah," Anna said. "Tall, dark hair, kind of morbid."

Evan turned to Lydia. A knowing expression passed between their faces. "Thanks," he said. "That's actually a lot of help."