Disclaimer: I do not own The Day After Tomorrow or any of the characters. The ideas are mostly mine, though!

Author's Note: This is my first The Day After Tomorrow story, and I hope you like it. Please review and let me know how you felt about it. I have several other stories written, and I need to know if I should post them or not! Thanks and enjoy!

Summary: Sam, Brian and JD had been running from the freezing cold of the eye of the super cell. But, instead of them all making it back just fine, Sam breathes in the incredibly cold air, and gets very sick. Laura wakes up to see him dying, but awake, and they share their feelings while the others rest. Will Jack make it to them in time to save his son? PG-13 for mild language and tense scenes

Review Responses: Thank you sooo much to those of you who reviewed…I've never had any reviews on the first week I posted a story…let alone the first day! I love you all you make me feel so special…lol. But there were a couple questions/comments that I wanted to respond to:

Sarah: I believe that Brian is the other kid from the decathlon team, Sam and Laura's friend. Thank you so much for your encouraging reviews! They mean a lot to me!!!

SparkingDiamond: I have e-mailed already and asked for a category, so maybe if more people e-mail them that they will get the hint and make a category! I hope they do, more people will read the stories and make some of their own! Thanks for the review…please post more on your story too I loved it!

And now, on to the next chapter of my story, with an interesting twist…


CHAPTER 4: Not So Stable

LAURA

For three hours Brian, JD and I talked, mostly about Sam or the situation at hand. After I had almost lost it in Brian's arms, I had gotten my act back together and kept most of my emotions hidden. I knew I had to be strong, at least for a little while. I didn't want to break down in front of them, but I knew I wouldn't last much longer.

"Laura, how did you first meet Sam? I mean, I met him at the first meeting for the decathlon, but he's told me you knew him a while before," Brian questioned softly. I smiled, remembering the day we had met. We had never been really close, but I'd known him for a couple of years.

"Well, in the seventh grade, there was this guy that really liked me and wouldn't leave me alone. One day, he had been harassing me, and shoved me into the wall. Sam just happened to have been walking by, and saw the whole argument we had. The guy was getting ready to hit me, because I told him to get away from me, and Sam stepped in." I laughed, seeing Brian's surprise, and JD's amusement, and continued. "He grabbed the guy's arm and pulled him back, telling me to move behind him. Sam then pushed the guy into the wall and got close in his face, and said: 'If you touch her again, I swear to you that you'll regret it.' I was shocked that some guy that I didn't even know was sticking up for me."

Brian laughed hysterically for a moment, before catching his breath. "Are you sure we're talking about Sam Hall here? Well, okay, for you, I guess I understand, but I never saw Sam as a physical kind of guy. He's too quiet and smart to get into that kind of stuff."

"Yeah, well, he stuck up for me, and after that, the guy left me alone save for one time, when Sam wasn't anywhere around, but this was in the eight grade. I got away from him, and Sam found out what happened the next day, and gave the guy a black eye and a bloody nose."

"How much trouble did he get in?" JD questioned, laughing a bit. I smiled again, remembering that he told me that he never got in trouble until that day. "He got three days suspension for it. The first and only time he had ever gotten in trouble at school."

"And obviously you two became friends after that?" Brian offered. I looked him, nodding.

"We didn't get close until we both joined the team, but we talked every once in a while. He was there whenever something was wrong or I needed an ear. And I did the same for him. But I never knew until a few months ago that he liked me. He was never as obvious as he has been recently, never so straightforward. The shame of it is, had I have known, I would have told him that I liked him myself." As soon as those last words came out of my mouth, I froze. I had just told his best friend and a new friend the way I felt about Sam. A blush rushed to my cheeks as the other two looked at each other and laughed. "Oops…"

"Wow…thanks for telling me, Laura," Brian chuckled. He rubbed his stomach and sighed. "But I'm hungry, we need to look for more food."

I looked at him, confused. "But everything would be frozen, you felt more of the eye's cold than I did."

"Yeah, Brian, there would be no food left," JD agreed.

My friend shook his head. "The glass would have shattered, so the food would have been exposed, but still in the wrappers. It would be easy to find any vending machines, so all we have to do is heat it by the fire."

"It makes sense. Bri, why don't you stay here and keep an eye on Sam and the others, we'll go find it. We shouldn't be gone for more than an hour, so if we aren't back by then, just come looking for us."

"Be careful, you two. Who knows how stable the building is," Brian warned, placing a hand on my and JD's shoulders. We both nodded, and headed out the door.

"I think we should start out one floor up, then go up a couple of floors then down as far as we can," JD suggested. I agreed silently, and we both began looking for the stairs. I found then easily, and we ran up them. Everything was covered in a blanket of snow and ice, so it was slippery. JD caught me a couple of times, and I grabbed his arm when he tripped on the top step of the stairwell.

"Let's look over here, it looks like there's something over here." I pointed to a room across the way, and started heading over.

As soon as I stepped foot into the room, I knew something was wrong. There was a crack along the floor, and it was sagging underneath a desk that was also covered in snow. My footsteps were timid and slow, and JD saw what I was doing and did the same. "JD, we need to get out of here, the floor isn't going to hold out much longer."

"I agree, c'mon, back out slow and easy."

Even as he spoke, I knew there was no way we would get out in time. The floor gave a big crack, and gave out underneath us. I screamed, gasping when I hit the ground below. JD moaned softly, and I had to close my eyes for a minute to let the world slow its spinning.

"Laura, are…are you okay?" he questioned. I heard him moving, and through the dust and ice, saw him stand.

"I think so…I'm not really hurt, I just think I strained my neck a little. Are you hurt?"

I stood as well, yelping when the floor shifted. I jumped off of it, and walked over to JD.

"I'm fine. I guess the building's not so stable after all, just like Brian said. It's a miracle that neither of us got hurt, though. Look at all the debris that fell from the room." I followed his suggestion, and had to look again. There were only a few spots of the fallen floor that weren't covered with some object or another, including shards of ice. I glanced around the room once more, looking for the door, and cursed when I saw it. It was blocked by the desk, which had been weighing down on the floor.

"Oh great, look at the door. It's blocked. Brian and the others probably heard the crash, but they won't be able to get in here. We're trapped."