The signal horn sounded and she snapped back to reality. Slowly her breathing and pulse returned to normal as the scare she had received became more distant to her. But the adrenaline rush was replaced by another growing feeling; aggravation.

She knew she had hit something living before she lost control of the car, she only hoped that what ever creature it was that it had died instantly but she couldn't rely on that.

"Damn it!" she muttered after regaining her American accent and took out her gun from the glove compartment before she got out of the car. One look at the icy cold and wet mess she had gotten herself into seemed like an impossible barrier. "Son of a-" She took a deep breath, the air so much colder here than LA and she was really not dressed for this weather.

But in the back of the car was a blanket and a blanket was better than nothing against the cold so she grabbed the blanket to discover a black medical bag underneath it.

For a moment she just stared at it. She knew who it belonged to and why it was there, it belonged a friend of hers, a friend who was one medical bag short. But it was she who had managed to forget it in the car, not her.

She looked up at the sky and released a deep breath. "You are really not liking me, are you?" she muttered to no one in particular before she wrapped the blanket around herself, cocked the gun and went to find her victim.

About thirty yards further down the road was the snow dotted with blood and something had tried to crawl to safety judging by the tracks in the snow.

She wiped her face before she followed the tracks.

"She's coming for me?" a part of him was glad and another part of him had completely given up and was indifferent. It was not the first time he had felt like a walking contradiction.

"Of course she is but there will be some obstacles in her way so we'll have some more time to discuss this."

"What kind of obstacles?"

"You'd better not know."

"What will happen to her?" A slight panic was in his voice.

"Focus on yourself, Jack. She is well capable of taking care of herself. You need to figure out what your real problem is. why are you depressed? Why did you OD?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

He shook his head. Why did she continue pushing him like that? "Then tell me?"

"Is it really that hard to see? You have life, well, you have a existence. Normal people have lives, you can too if you risk grabbing it."

It was too true that he had no life, his entire life went into his work. It was more like he was existing rather than living. "It's too dangerous a risk. I can't drop my guard down."

"No one is saying that you have to drop your guard, you just have to risk to go out there. Do you know what your problem really is?"

He shook his head even though he knew what she was about to say. He wasn't quite sure if he agreed with her or not.

"You're coward."

He stared at her. "A coward?"

"Being a coward is keeping you from the things you want. You didn't use to be so cheap on emotions, nor were you scared of voicing your opinions or your views and emotions. Now you have completely shut down and retracted into your shell like a hermit crab."

"I may be many things but a coward… I have put my ass on the line more than once."

"That is not what I'm talking about and you know damn well. I'm not saying that you are acting like a schoolboy before the senior prom, afraid to ask your heart throb to the dance. You are a coward because you don't take personal risks anymore. The only way for you to get out of this mess is to start living. You're not a colt anymore, do you really want to live with the choices you have made and say that you were proud of making them?"

"So, what you are saying is that I have to tell TC that I love her?"

"There's a lot of things you have to do but that's not one of them. You have to acknowledge your feelings and dare to trust others or you will die a very lonely and miserable man. If you manage to survive tonight. Teri is only a small part of the picture. You have to look at everything. Get involved with your daughter's life, help out with the wedding, show that you are supportive. Dare to trust your friends, it works both ways, you know. Let go of the fear of getting hurt, let go of the fear of hurting others but don't deliberately hurt them."

Her words made sense to him. Perhaps he should try to let go for once. But how would he manage to get back? What did it take for him to survive?

As if she heard his thoughts she offered him her hand. "Come with me " she said.

Teri found the stag a few yards away from the road and started for it. Her shoes filled up with snow but she managed to ignore it.

The majestic creature turned its head and looked at her before it released a pained sound.

Teri raised her gun. "I'm sorry, I really am" she told the animal she knew had never hurt a soul before she squeezed the trigger. The penetrating sound of the gun rung in her ears and scared some small birds to wings.

For a heartbeat there was no sound at all other than her breathing before she stuck the gun in the waistband on her pants at the back and went back to the car.

"Son of a bitch!" she called and kicked the car as she realized that it was impossible to get it free of the snow. But she wasn't the type to give up without a fight so she tried to shuffle snow away with her bare hands. After a while she realized that it was too cold for her.

She leaned up against the car. "Someone upstairs is really not liking me" she muttered before she blew on her hands to get some warmth back into them.

Teri was in a pretty tight position but that didn't mean that she didn't have any options. She had two options but neither of them was appealing; she could either disconnect and take the part of the tracking system that traced Jack and follow the bleep on foot or she could continue fighting back the snow.

Both options demanded a lot of her time and so neither of them appealed much to her.

It was a third; she could sit down and cry over the desperate situation she was in but that was not like her, nor was it like her to stay put when it was a risk that she might freeze to death.

"Fuck that" she muttered and wrapped the blanket tighter around herself and grabbed what she needed before she locked the car down and went on foot. She would kill Jack if he wasn't at the end of the road she was now taking.

They were back at the cabin and Jack saw himself for the first time during this ludicrous experience and it was like someone had punched him in the face. Seeing himself lying motionless on the floor sent a wave of emotions through him that he couldn't explain. While it felt like he had received a punch in the face it also felt like he had swallowed a bucket of ice cubes. His knees felt strangely weak and he had an urge to throw up.

"Yeah, it's really you" Teri told him. "Go ahead if you think it's just a fantasy."

He looked at her before he looked at the body, his body, in front of him. Like a deer navigates carefully across the frozen lake he approached… himself. Just now he realized just how surreal this was.

"You don't have much time left" Teri explained to him.

He ignored what she said and crouched down and touched the body. Suddenly he panicked, seeing that empty shell in front of him, feeling how cold it was and knowing that the end was drawing nearer truly created a whirlwind of emotions. "How?"

"It's easy. All you have to do is to let go of me for once, then you have to want to live. You have to truly want it, more than anything else. It's not enough to fear death, you have to hate it, fight it, conquer it and embrace life. Fight, Jack, fight. I can't help you any more." Suddenly she vanished.