Disclaimer: Still don't own. Never will, sadly enough. This fanfiction is as close as I'll ever get…

She had thanked him for saving her life.

Sam Hall's head was spinning. His hair was soaked, he was freezing, and he was trapped in the middle of what could possibly turn into a death-ridden nightmare.

But she had thanked him. More than that, she had called him brave.

He resisted the urge to bounce in his seat. Brave. Him, brave. Only in his dreams had he ever heard Laura call him that. Only in his dreams had she looked at him with that quiet intensity in her eyes, an expression that begged love and…something else?

He shook his head. He was getting ahead of himself. He had saved her life, had been brave, out of sheer instinct. The only thing that had been going in his mind had been a little mantra: I won't lose her. I won't lose her. I won't lose her.

She'd been trying to get a woman's bag out of a taxi. Her back was to a wall of water, one that would have swallowed her, washed her away forever, without a care. There had only been one thing to do.

Sam had leapt into the rising waves, frantic, and run to her. He had grabbed her hand and tugged her through the water, up the stairs, into the library…just in the nick of time. One second later, and they would have been fish food. His hands were still trembling ever so slightly.

"Tell her how you feel," J.D. had said. Sure, that was easy for him to say. He was rich, suave, handsome. Sam wasn't any of that. Even being in the general vicinity of Laura made him so nervous that he could barely keep a hold on his textbooks. Telling her how he felt…that was impossible. Completely. Besides, he had bigger things to worry about.

There was a pay phone that he had to reach. Of course, it couldn't be on the upper floors—that would have been simple. No, this phone was downstairs, beneath a literal ocean. Sam had to get to it. It was his only chance.

He rushed past Laura, who asked, "Where are you going? The power's out."

"Older pay phones draw their power directly from telephone lines," he explained, moving as fast as his legs could carry him. She followed just behind him, grabbing a flashlight from a nearby table.

They worked their way down the stairs in relative silence. Suddenly, he asked, "Do you think I'm crazy?"

She looked up, surprised. "What?"

"Crazy. Do you think I'm insane? For trying this." He stared at her, pleading for the truth.

Laura's eyes widened slightly. "Crazy?" she repeated. "Why would I think you're crazy?"

Sam frowned and shook his head. "Never mind. This is it." He gestured.

"Are you sure about this?" Laura asked, shining the thin beam of light down into the pool. Sam frowned a bit more deeply. No, his mind answered. In you go, his body replied, and he waded into the cold water.

"Ahh," he gasped. Very cold, his mind scolded. Stupid jackass, what kind of idea was this? He dragged himself over to the phones and picked one up apprehensively.

Dial tone.

"It works!" he announced happily, feeding twenty-five cents in and punching in his father's work number. Laura looked on from the stairs, biting her lip nervously.

Jack Hall's voice came through the line, sounding shocked. "Sam?"

"Dad!" Sam yelled back.

"Where are you?" Jack demanded. "Are you all right?"
"Fine," Sam replied. "We're at the public library."

"Sam, its Mom," his mother's voice cried. She sounded more choked up than her seventeen year old had ever heard her. "I'm so happy you're okay," she continued and Sam felt that ancient urge to be held.

"Mom! Can you call Laura and Brian's parents and tell them that we're all right?" His teeth were chattering. He clutched the phone more tightly.

"Yes, of course," she answered. He smiled against the receiver and started to reply, only to find the floor being yanked out from under him. He went under the waves, coughing and choking. A warped sound came out of the phone, but he couldn't tell what it was. He heard a twisted version of Laura's voice cry, "Sam?" She sounded worried.

He broke the surface as she cried, "Sam!" again. Wiping his wet hair from his eyes and gasping, he pulled the phone back to his ear. "What is going on out there, Dad?" he demanded, trying to breathe.

"Sam? Sam, listen to me. Listen very carefully. Forget what I said about trying to head south. Its too late for that. The storm is just going to get worse."

Sam sighed and closed his eyes. His father's tone left no room for argument. Comforting… He shuddered in the cold.

Jack continued: "Its going to turn into a massive blizzard with an eye in the center of it, just like a hurricane."

It was getting hard to focus around the cold. "Uh huh…"

"Only the air's going to be so cold you could freeze to death in seconds."

The water was rising. Sam could hear Laura's breath quicken behind him; panic was starting to set in for her. Him too, if it came to that. "Sam," she said, voice trembling as badly as his body.

"W-what do we do?" he demanded.

"Listen to me, son. Do not go outside. Just burn whatever you can to say warm and try to wait it out. I will come for you. Do you understand me? I will come for you!"

Sam made a noise of pain and braced his hand against the arch above his head. It was closing in far too quickly, making him more nervous than he could bear. He spluttered as a mouthful of water gagged him.

"Sam!" Laura cried, a defined note of agony in her voice. "Sam, come back!"

He was under. Blackness surrounded him. There no longer was an up or a down, only dark wetness. Where to go, where to go…

The last thing he had heard was his father demanding to know if he was still there. The briefest bout of guilt swept over him, berating him for not saying something profound or meaningful—hell, even a simple "I love you". Then he was overcome with the purely human need for survival. He swam blindly away from the phone, listening all the while for the sounds of Laura's voice over the rushing water. She was like a beacon, drawing him to salvation…or at least to air.

"Sam?" he heard. There…almost there…

She gasped as though she had been the one trapped beneath the waves and reached for him, dragging him out of the water. He gulped air.

She gripped his shoulders tightly. "I thought you drowned," she cried…actually cried, he realized; tears were dripping down from her cheeks onto his already-soaked face.

"Hey," was all he could get out by means of comfort. She grasped his head, leaning down and pressing her face against his. He was in her lap, he realized, the whole upper portion of his body. And she was snuggling her nose against his cheek, emitting little whimpers, soft sounds of fear and relief. He shivered uncontrollably, wishing that he could stop and thanking God for this.

He was grinning, he knew, which probably looked a little odd to her. Somehow, he didn't care; he was alive, in the lap of the girl he was in love with, and she was holding him tightly. If that wasn't cause for joy, Sam couldn't imagine what was.

Her hands moved lightly against his cheek for a moment before she seemed to come to herself. Grabbing his shoulders once more, she said, "Let's get some dry clothes for you" and made to haul him to his unsteady feet.

"Yeah," he forced himself to say, pulling himself up and leaning against her warm body for support. Her long hair tickled his face and he gave a small sigh.

She pulled him upstairs and left him with instructions to strip before ducking into a nearby employee closet and returning with a large overcoat. Shivering worse than ever before, Sam shucked off his jacket and hoodie. He glanced up as he unbelted his pants and pulled them down, feeling only slightly self-conscious about being nearly-naked in front of the one girl who held his heart in the palm of her hand. Sorry, slightly? How about horrified? Not to mention frozen…

He grunted. "M-my hands are shaking," he admitted, stepping out of his jeans.

She nodded. "That's okay," she whispered, hefting the coat. "Here." She draped it over his shoulders, ignoring the fact that he was bent over and nearly nude. Then she shocked him by wriggling out of her own jacket and coming forward so suddenly that he nearly stepped back. At first, he couldn't figure out if she was coming on to him; then he realized that there was no sensuality in her movements.

Her arms went around him tightly and he couldn't stop himself from leaning backward. "W-what are you doing?"

She shook back her hair and held him more tightly, pressing her body against his bare chest without any apparent qualms. "I'm using my body heat to warm you," she explained, tucking her chin against his shoulder. "If we let the blood from your arms and legs rush back to your heart too quickly…" Her voice faltered, then returned, quiet and clearly terrified. "Your heart could fail." There was a sob just behind her words and he felt her shudder just as badly as he was.

He rubbed his cheek against her hair, relishing the soft silk of the curls, the gentle strength of her arms around him, the unintentional seduction of her body against his. "W-where did you learn that?" he asked, trying to pump a bit of humor into the situation. Anything to keep her from crying…God, don't let me be the one to make her cry.

She laughed softly against his shoulder and he gave himself a silent pat on the back. "Some of us were actually paying attention in health class." She laughed again, nuzzling his shoulder with her face. Her arms tightened around him and he felt the warmth seep into his body. He pressed his face against her hair.

"How are you feeling?" she asked tenderly. He debated telling her then, telling her exact what emotions she sparked in him…

"M-much better," he answered, grinning stupidly. He became conscious of the fact that he was dripping on her. Yet, somehow, she didn't seem to mind. He closed his eyes, basking in the momentary euphoria.