DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel has never been mine…and it still ain't.

A/N: 3rd installment of the ABC Challenge thing. Hope this makes some sort of sense.

Cold

Her cheeks were like ice.

The trail of tears ran hot then cold as the brisk air chilled the wetness. The weight in her arms was getting heavier. Getting colder. And yet, she still couldn't let go.

"I thought I'd lost you,"

"Never."

She had promised him.

Her breaths came in white puffs in front of her, the mist almost turning into crystalline ice right before her very eyes. The ground was wet, slick, so very cold beneath her bare feet.

But she couldn't stop.

The sounds of the search group were relentless behind her. The spotlights from the helicopters dotted the landscape.

She stayed in the shadows and in the safety and cover of the forest. And she ran.

She ran as fast as her transgenic body would allow.

The landscape was nothing but a blur of white and black around her. Her eyes were focused straight ahead, seeking a clear path for her progress through the woods. She leapt over fallen tree trunks, she crunched through ice and snow, her arms pumped her forward, and all along she swallowed the cold air.

She suddenly heard a snowmobile's roar to her right. It was close. Too close.

In a split second decision, she changed her course. A small boulder blocked her path and she leapt over it effortlessly.

CRACK!

She felt the ground break beneath her, felt the painful scratch of ice tearing and scratching her as she fell through.

And then she felt the cold.

So cold. The dark waters wrapped around her like lead bands. The iciness threatened to squeeze the very warmth from inside of her. The air in her lungs threatened to freeze, threatened to kill her from the inside out.

The cold tendrils of panic filtered through her mind. Every instinct for survival told her to move, to get out of the cold, cold water. But she fought her instincts. She fought the pain.

She stayed under water and looked up as ice quickly formed over the hole she had fallen into. With the temperature continuously dropping, it would only take a couple of minutes before a hard pack of ice would cover her. Her nerve endings screamed in pain as ice threatened to freeze the very blood rushing through her veins. Her light blue sleeping gown became a frozen wrap around her body.

But she could hear them above her, the muted sounds of snowmobiles zooming past, the heavy thud of the soldiers' footsteps, the barking of the hounds.

She would rather be cold forever than go back.

Her dark brown eyes watched as the ice thickened, flecks of snow slowly covering the ice. Her last thought was that soon…she would disappear forever.

They would be here soon, to take him away.

The wind ruffled his light brown hair. Her tears trailed down his perfect face. She had never really thought about it, but he was handsome. Manticore-perfection.

His brow was strong, his cheekbones high and strong. He had a jaw line of perfect angles, softened by a trace of his youth. It would have become more pronounced and stronger as he grew older. And his lips, full and supple. He used to express so much with those lips: a smile, a smirk, a sneer. She had made those lips bleed just yesterday. Today, they were perfect again.

Max would always remember the color of his eyes. They would flash green. Then gold. She would always remember the last look he gave her: a pleading look, begging her. She would also remember the gleam of hate and anger, too. But most of all, she would remember how those hazel eyes used to look at her tenderly. She remembered that the best.

"Max!" The voice was edged with pure desperation. "Please, Maxie…don't die! Please, wake up!" It was hoarse from sheer grief. She had never heard his raspy young voice sound so panicked. She needed to reassure him. She needed to tell him it was okay.

She drifted into consciousness and felt pain. Oh, it hurt. Every part of her hurt. Her nerve endings were raw as they thawed from the cold. Warm hands rubbed her up and down waking up her senses. She started to shiver uncontrollably.

"Oh, Maxie!"

Her eyes fluttered open and were instantly met with the glow of green eyes covered with the sheen of unshed tears. His face was dirty, there was a small gash on the side of his head, the short buzz cut of his hair not hiding the matted blood.

The hand that he raised to cup her face was bloodied.

"Ben? A..a…arre…y- y-you…?"

"Shhh….Maxie….don't say a word," whispered Ben, his young face suddenly relieved. He flashed her a smile, so sweet, so relieved. He turned away for a moment, and suddenly a large canvas blanket was thrown over her body.

There was a small fire next to them. It made things so warm, thawing her, easing the pain of her frozen limbs. It made things so bright, so clear.

He continued to rub warmth into her through the rough canvas. She watched him bring her back to life. She frowned when she noticed just how bloody and raw his hands really were. They were swollen to twice their size. She realized that a couple of his fingers and knuckles must have been broken, too.

But he never stopped moving them against her body to keep her alive.

"Ben," she rasped, her throat so painfully dry from the cold. "You're hurt."

"I'm okay, Max," he whispered hoarsely.

"You broke through the ice," she whispered, her tone almost accusing. "You hurt yourself. You punched through the ice."

His golden-green eyes stared intently into hers, blazing with emotion. "I thought I'd lost you."

She shook her head vehemently. "Never," she vowed. She reached her hand to gingerly touch his broken hands. "You will never lose me."

"Do you promise?" his young face was so intent, his eyes blazed with tenderness.

"I promise."

"Good."

"Tell me a story, Ben,"

And he told her a story of a little princess named, Max, and the boy who loved her best.

He hadn't left her behind for Manticore. Now, she was going to leave him just as the blades of the Manticore choppers whipped the cold air around them to a frenzy and the familiar sounds of the search parties hunting them down were closing in.

She took his cold hand in hers. He had saved her with these hands. She had killed him with her own.

She had promised him he would never lose her.

But along the way, she had lost him instead.

"I'm so sorry, Ben," With a final soft kiss on his forehead, she laid him down on the cold ground. Then she stood up and took a deep breath of the chilly air. And just as she did so many years ago, she ran away.

The air was cold as she blurred through the forest, but that didn't matter, because Max knew that inside, she would be cold forever.

THE END.