Since Elliot's reveal yesterday (at least, I thought it was yesterday) and my outburst at Fenton, I had been in a sour mood. No one could blame me for it, in my opinion. Anyone would be rotten after going through the time I had. Now, Elliot was back, leaning against the wall that was outside of the cell bars. He had been there for a good ten minutes, at the minimum, and had done nothing but stare inside the cell, though I couldn't tell if he was paying more attention to me or Fenton. Finally, I had to break the silence and demand what he wanted.

"What do you want?" I growled.

Elliot shrugged – something that he hadn't often done, but was a common trait of Phantom's. "I just thought I might stop by."

"For what purpose?" I snapped, wondering why Fenton was so silent. I thought that he would seize the opportunity to shout at Elliot.

"Do you want to know what's going on in Amity?" Elliot asked instead of answering me.

I could only nod; those questions had been plaguing me. I wanted to know how my parents were doing. I wanted to know what Jazz's and Tucker's conditions were. I wanted information nearly as much as I wanted to be out of the cell.

"Both Danny's and your parents have launched search efforts of course. And," he added, returning to the Hungarian accent he had been using when I first met him, back when I knew him as 'Gregor', "as your doting boyfriend, Sam, I'm very involved in the search efforts."

I made a face and resisted throwing a shoe at him again.

"Someone started a rumour, though I don't know who it was."

"What rumour?" I ground out through my teeth when it became clear that he wasn't going to simply tell me.

"That you and Danny ran away together! I'm heartbroken, obviously, and I can't believe you would do such a thing. Your friends – Leslie and, oh, that despicable one that thinks I'm 'delicious'. What's her name?"

"Tara."

"Yes. Well, Leslie and Tara both agree that you were utterly smitten with me. Tucker and Mikey both said that you didn't like Danny. Yet, the both of you disappeared at the same time. What are people supposed to think?"

Elliot said all of this in a sympathetic tone. It must have been the same voice that he used on my parents and my friends; the voice that made them think that he was trustworthy. If I hadn't been the one detained, I probably would have believed that tone as well. He seemed so genuine with his hurt; with the idea that I had left him and run off with another guy.

It made me want to strangle him.

Suddenly, Elliot rolled his eyes. "It's a crock of shit, if you ask me. I don't know why I have to keep putting up with your parents when Vlad is already on the in with Danny's."

He then turned his back on me to face Fenton.

"Danny," he said, prompting Fenton to finally look up.

"I've a question for you," Elliot began.

Fenton leaned his head back on the wall, shuffling his feet around. He didn't say a word to Elliot.

"It's something Vlad wanted me to ask," Elliot sighed, when he realized Fenton wasn't going to speak to him. "He wanted to know: did you ever give your sister a proper goodbye?"

The shuffling of feet ceased and a tense silence was all that could be heard.

Elliot cackled at Fenton's sudden rigidity.

"I'll tell you something." Elliot dropped his voice and approached the cell bars, getting as close to Fenton as he could without entering our cell. "Your opportunity is gone."

Fenton let out a strangled shriek, hiding his face away. I picked up my remaining shoe, not having fetched the other one yesterday, and threw at him again. Elliot looked back at me, shaking his head.

"Such bad habits," he sighed. "I must go – Vlad is going to visit Maddie and Jack soon, because of you know, this and I'm going with him."

He walked away.

I didn't know what to do.

Jazz was dead. He hadn't come right out and said it, but he didn't have to. What he had said was enough. Jazz was gone. He had killed her; had caused enough damage to her fragile body to end her life.

It didn't seem real to me. Jazz was always so bright; so unending. It was hard to imagine that she wasn't out there, vivacious hair flying as she went about her business. I didn't know how to process what I was feeling, and so I decided that I would do something I thought I never would: I was going to take care of Fenton.

He was still curled in the corner of the cell. His legs were tightly held to his chest and his head was wedged between his knees. His entire body was shaking violently, though his sobs were relatively silent. He hadn't made much noise since Elliot had asked his question.

I crossed the cell slowly, not knowing if I had a limit on my chain like Fenton did. It seemed that I didn't; I was allowed to move freely about the cell, as my ankle chain would reach to all four corners. I went to his side and crouched down next to him, not knowing how to proceed. It was awkward, with the history between us, but I was trying to push that aside. Right now, this was not Fenton; the ass hat who had destroyed me. This was Danny; the little brother who had lost his big sister.

I gently placed my hand on his shoulder and Fenton flinched under my touch, as though I'd burned him.

"It's just me," I soothed him. "I'm here for you, okay?"

Fenton peeked at me, eyes already bloodshot.

I knew there was nothing I could say to make this better. I wouldn't know the words, even if they were out there. I wasn't going to even think the words 'it's okay' would suffice because it was most certainly not okay, and it was a dumb thing to say, anyhow. Rather than use my voice to express anything, I opened my arms to him.

He looked at me, hesitantly, all that I'd said to him in the past and all that he'd done to me, weighing heavily on us in that moment.

"Come here," I encouraged, dry swallowing. My heart was racing at the thought of him touching me again in such an intimate and familiar way. "It's not about the two of us right now. I cared for her too and that's what it's about."

There was a flash of understanding in Fenton's face and he leaned into me. His arms went around my waist, pulling me into a tight grip. Automatically, my arms wrapped around his neck, as they had countless times before. He rested his forehead on my shoulder, his nose pointing into my collarbone. I rested my cheek on the crown of his head and closed my eyes. He was still crying; his tears leaking onto my bare shoulder. I slowly began to rub his back, not knowing what else to do.

The exposure to him was not only making me cold, but it was bringing back memories as well - the ones I had tried to suppress during my time in New Orleans. There was one moment that kept welling to my mind. It was insignificant at the time and, in the grand scheme of our relationship, was still insignificant, but it was the one that kept coming back to me now.

(-.-)

Phantom's cold fingers brushed against my upper arm. Instantly, I shivered.

"Do you have to do that?" I demanded, brushing his touch away.

Not that I didn't want him to touch me, because I did. I loved the feel of Phantom's chilly fingers drawing me close. It was when he caught me unaware or without a sweater, like now, that, sometimes I became annoyed with him. It wasn't his fault that he was cold but it also wasn't my fault that I liked not freezing to death, something that he, with his particular body temperature, might tamper.

"What?" Phantom teased, cocking an eyebrow. "You don't like this?"

He reached out again, his fingers catching the side of my neck before I escaped him by curling up on my pillows, leaving him in the middle of my bed, opposite me.

"No!" I giggled.

Phantom slowly shifted from his original position and I knew that he was planning on touching me again. I glanced at the sweater I'd tossed on the floor before he'd shown up and it was still warm in my bedroom. If I could grab it before he grabbed me, I would be fine. The trouble was, Phantom moved faster than clumsy little me ever could.

Still, I jumped from my bed toward my sweater. In a flash, Phantom was tackling me to the floor, though laying me down gently so I didn't hurt my head. He was straddling my upper thighs, keeping me underneath. I stretched to the side, trying to grab the sleeve of my sweater, but it was just out of reach.

"You're completely under my control," Phantom teased.

I struggled against him.

Phantom held up his hand so that I could see the tips of his gloves. Before I could ask if he was losing it, tiny little snowflakes were appearing on his fingertips. I remembered him mentioning ice powers before, and suddenly, I knew that his finger-icicles were going to be placed on my skin.

I shrieked, trying to think of something to threaten him with, before I realized that he was laughing at me.

"I'm not that mean," Phantom assured me, the snowflakes disappearing from his hands.

"Really?" I questioned. "Because you seemed that mean a moment ago."

Phantom placed one hand on either side of my body so that he was leaning over me.

"No," he shook his hair. "I want you to like the cold."

The way he was positioned, I could feel every inch of his body against mine. I could feel the cold radiating from him, where a living person would have heat. I reached up and tugged his lips a bit closer to mine so that I could kiss him, not telling him what I was thinking.

I already adored the cold.

(-.-)

Fenton had slithered from the hug. I was now sitting cross legged, back against the wall. Fenton had moved so that his head was in my lap, nearly lost among the immense skirt that belonged to my dress. He had stopped crying but was now unnaturally silent. I knew it wasn't good to keep quiet, to dwell, and I didn't really want to sit around and focus on my own thoughts anymore. My own thoughts were morbid; concerned with funerals and deaths beyond the one that had just occurred.

"Do you want to talk about anything?"

Fenton sighed. "Like what?" He rasped, voice thick.

"Anything that might make you feel better," I offered.

Fenton was quiet, and then he asked, "Do you want to know what the last thing I said to Jazz was?"

"What?"

"I don't know," Fenton admitted. "I keep thinking that I should remember it perfectly, you know but I just can't seem to get a grip on it. She was going out somewhere, to the library or something. I was in the kitchen, grumbling about Vlad. I was fucking talking about Vlad. She was probably offering me comfort, saying that Vlad was something that could be taken care of, and I just went on complaining. I knew Vlad was threatening me, but that's what it had been limited to: me. Not once had Vlad said anything about hurting Jazz or Tucker. I'd told them to be careful, of course, getting involved with him is not something to be taken lightly. We knew we were interfering with some kind of plot of his. I was the only one who talked to the ghosts, but Tuck and Jazz helped me and now … now all of this has happened and I don't know what to do."

I listened to his discombobulated ramble patiently.

"I did all of this," Fenton finished, his voice cracking. "I killed my sister."

I don't own anything recognizable. Thanks to my betas: Forever Sky,

~TLL~