I do not own American Horror Story: Freak Show.

And I fear winter will never end.

A Winter in Wisconsin

March Madness

The Wisconsin winter dragged on and on without any foreseeable end in sight.

The days and nights moved in their courses in the most repetitively dull, excruciatingly mind-numbing cycle Fraulein Elsa's Cabinet of Curiosities had ever experienced.

Suffocating summer swelter had nothing over this forlorn frigid foreverness.

Snow didn't really seem to fall so much anymore so much as just sit there and stare at them.

And Jimmy, along with all the others, was absolutely sick of staring back.

And so the days of frozen February wandered on into miserable March.

Then as teasingly as a burlesque star fluttering aside a strategically placed plume, something revealed itself.

Jimmy was shoveling snow (again) when he noticed it. And realized he'd been listening to it for sometime without being aware that he was.

Drip.

And he thought of busted water pipes.

Drip.

And spilled breakfast cups.

Drip.

And lazy rain drops.

He looked around.

Dropped the shovel.

And ran for it.

"Ma! Elsa! It's melting! The snow is melting!"

Both women smiled at him. Like mothers accommodating an overexcited child.

"Yes, Jimmy, it is," Ma admitted, a little smile on her bearded face.

And Elsa sighed.

"But then tonight, it will freeze again. And we'll be right back where we were. Frozen."

Jimmy's excitement and eagerness faded before the unwelcome revelation.

And sure enough, that night, all the drips and drops refroze.

And turned back to ice.

Just like they said it would.

They saw a brown bear one day during water patrol.

The ever helpful Paul of course immediately devised a strategy.

"Go kill it, mate. We'll eat like kings for weeks."

Jimmy couldn't respond because the bear turned and stared right at them. Fear struck deep that they might be mauled to death or at the very least he'd need to change his shorts when all was said and done.

But the powerful beast snorted steam from his nostrils and shuffled on. As if they were too pathetic to be bothered with eating.

Maybe they were.

Just as they were beginning to think they were doomed to live out their days forever in the frozen wasteland of the snow-buried Wisconsin tundra, their luck finally changed.

It happened one afternoon as he, Paul, and a few roustabouts were sitting huddled around a wheezing, moaning shamble of a heater, playing poker.

So they wouldn't have to pretend not to be watching the melting snow and listening to the drips and drops of the cruelly teasing meltings.

It was the most cut-throat card game Jimmy'd ever been a part of.

The stakes were high.

Brutally high.

Nothing so pointless as pennies or strip down.

No, not these devilishly feverish men.

They were betting against all the riches they owned.

Water patrol.

They sat, shivering, and huddled up against their cards.

"Man, I miss Florida," Jimmy mumbled against the constant chill.

Paul, ever the one to look on the bright side of life, snorted in derision.

"Oh really? You miss hurricanes, lightning storms, and straight line winds?"

Jimmy snorted at him.

"No, I miss being able to feel my balls!"

They all burst out in shivering laughter, their breaths puffing out into the chilled air like little clouds of ice.

"Oh yeah, this winter's been a challenge, make no mistake," Paul admitted evenly. "But we've managed alright, I think."

Jimmy tossed him an irritated glare.

"Sure, freezing solid for months and months. Hunting for our food and fighting off wolves like cavemen. Like that?"

Paul shrugged amicably at the boy.

"Eh, what can you do? Sometimes life just throws shit at you and you can't do anything about it. Dignity is about how you deal with that shit, mate."

Against his will, those words struck Jimmy like a load of bricks to the heart. He felt the weight of them, depth and sincerity of them.

And he knew he was in the presence of a good, wise man. A much better man than he.

Silence reigned over the card game, nobody quite daring to speak and break the sanctity of the moment that had descended upon them with the soothsayings of the short-armed, tattooed Englishman.

Then one of the roustabouts cleared his throat, appearing just as affected by Paul's words as Jimmy was.

And absolutely refusing to show it.

"Oh, lookie here, boys, Paul's gone all philosophical and spiritual. Have to open up his own 'Mystic Miss' show now, I reckon."

That broke the emotional tension none of them were willing to admit and they laughed again.

The game continued on for awhile until another unexpected event presented itself in the form of one tiny, nearly baldheaded member of their group.

Who excitedly slapped down his hand.

"Meep!"

And the gathered men stared in mute horror at the cards on the table.

The pair of black eights and a pair of black aces. And a fifth red suit card Jimmy couldn't quite see clearly.

The little geek grinned happily around his dumbfounded audience, believing they were stunned and impressed at his poker prowess.

"Meep!"

He was partially right.

Unbeknownst to him, the egg adoring freak had just presented the entire group of superstitious carnies with a dead man's hand.

The very hand Wild Bill Hickok had been holding when he was shot dead in the back by 'Crooked Nose' Jack McCall in Deadwood, South Dakota in 1876.

Very bad luck indeed.

Death cards.

"Meep?"

Jimmy chewed his lower lip in contemplation for a second then burst forth in surprise, pointing out the window.

"Whoa, Meep! Is that Bigfoot?!"

The little man jerked around and craned his neck to see out of the smeary window.

The others did as well. Then, seeing nothing there, looked back at Jimmy in puzzlement.

Jimmy, meanwhile, had taken the opportune moment to reach out a fused hand and deftly snatch the top ace from the pile. And toss his eight of diamonds down in its place.

Thus turning Meep's infamously dark hand into something much less ominous and foreboding.

And was nonchalantly scratching his left ear when Meep turned back to him, baffled.

"Meep?"

Jimmy shrugged.

"No? Oh, well. Guess he ran off."

Cast an innocent glance at Paul who grinned knowingly.

And turned his attention to the cards strewn upon the scarred table.

"Hey, look, Meep! You've got a full house! Way to go, mate!"

He did indeed. The final hidden card had been the ace of hearts.

They had just settled comfortably down to another game of five card draw when the trailer door creaked open and Elsa Mars' fur hatted head came into view.

She spoke for once without preamble.

"I've found us another place in Florida. We have to pack up and leave as soon as possible. The snow's melted enough we can push it out."

The men sat stunned before this new revelation.

Finally Jimmy spoke.

"Tampa?"

Elsa stared irritably at him as if the destination were unimportant. Which it was.

"No. St. Petersburg. Very close to Tampa."

They sat as if finally frozen to Wisconsin after months and months of desiring to escape.

Elsa raised her eyebrows at them and then turned away, waving her hand dismissively.

"Unless you wish to stay in this godforsaken wasteland. I hear it is supposed to snow again in two days' time."

She slammed the door closed again and was gone.

They sat there a moment longer, statues in the icy trailer.

Then they dropped their cards and scrambled all at once.

"We never did . . . ice . . . fish."

Jimmy let that confusing sentence linger in the chilly air for a bit. Mostly because he was too busy huffing and puffing trying to push the rumbling truck out of yet another ice filled pothole.

He'd fished before, of course, who hadn't? But did people really fish for ice up here? Wasn't it enough that it was all over the ground? Did they really have to search under it for ice too?

"What . . . the . . . hell's . . . ice fishing?"

Paul didn't respond right away. He was too busying rearranging the slates under the tires.

They'd all be easy and fine once they got onto the main road. It was less than half a mile away.

They'd be fine if they could just get there.

And they would. They had to.

Because Jimmy wanted to go home.

And so did everyone else. They were, all of them, working to get there. Elsa was yards away, steering one truck, Suzi at her side in the cab. Ma in another on their other side, keeping ever patient company with the excited, blabbering Salty and Pepper.

The roustabouts and Jimmy and Paul were pushing and laying down slats to keep the tires out of the slosh as much as possible.

Paul banged now on the side of their truck.

"Okay, Evie! Nice and slow there, yeah?"

Evie waved from the driver's seat and pressed slowly down on the accelerator, her face a mask of sober determination.

The aged vehicle finally moved and Jimmy trotted along behind it, side by side with Paul who resumed his previous train of thought.

"Ice fishing, yeah. You sit out on a frozen lake, cut a hole in the ice and drop a line down it and wait for the fish to bite."

It hadn't been too difficult to break camp. Back in early November, they'd spent a few days pulling down all the absolutely unnecessary tents and decorations in preparation for the real winter they didn't realize they would be so desperate to escape come March.

And now Jimmy had discovered yet another mindboggling fact about their frozen north.

"You sit . . . and stare . . . at a hole . . . in the ice?"

Paul nodded without answering. Then swore under his breath.

The truck was stuck again.

They resuming pushing until Jimmy could see spots.

Still, he just couldn't get the thought out of his mind.

Damn, they really are crazy up here.

"So . . . whaddya . . . say . . . mate?" Paul grunted as he pushed. "Wanna . . . blow this . . . popsicle stand . . . and . . . give it . . . a whirl?"

Florida. Sunshine. Warmth.

"Push harder, Paul."

They did and the truck eased forward.

Jimmy lost his balance and stumbled forward into the slushy mess.

And heard a familiar high pitched call drifting on the frozen air.

"Jimmy! Are you okay?"

He looked up and saw his tiny Indian warrior princess even now in her rabbit fur coat leaning out of the passenger window of Evie's truck.

Jimmy faked a scowl at her.

"Get back in that cab, Ma Petite! You'll fall out into snow drift and we'll never find you! You'll have to tunnel around under the snow like a little groundhog until July!"

She giggled with a hand over her mouth and ducked back into the truck.

Jimmy rose to his feet and heard another familiar sound behind him.

"Meep!"

Turning around, he saw his little bundled snowman friend clamoring toward him, triumphantly holding two small ovals straight up over his head in his thickly gloved hands.

Eggs.

Bird eggs.

God only knew how he had found them under all this snow and ice.

But the little man's huge needle-toothed grin was undeniable.

He had his winter souvenir and he was proud.

Jimmy threw out his own hands in frozen exasperation.

"What the hell? Get in the damn truck, Meep!"

And flung a gloved hand in the direction of the slow moving truck in front of him, unable to entirely refuse the smile that broke over his numb face.

"Meep!"

And that's that, my friends.

I believe they got to Florida safe and sound. I believe they were more than thrilled to be where it was warm and sunny after such a harsh winter.

And I believe they had some good times (along with some bad times) before they reached Jupiter in 1952 and all hell broke loose.

Farewell, my beautiful freak family. I enjoyed you while I had you.

And most sincerely, rest in peace, Ben Woolf. Your brave spirit was inspiring to me and I pray you are now at peace. I know your students will miss you as will your friends and families.

Thanks to brigid1318, the1upguy, The Cry-Wank Kid, Gracious Guest, Jurana Keri, and Mira SeverusSirius Black-Snape for all your supportive reviews with this rambling tale. You're the best! :D

Thanks as well to the silent readers of this story and I hope you all find joy in whatever you do.

See you again sometime and happy reading! :D