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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-04
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2004-11-15
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14,532
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3/3
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18
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Footprints to Nowhere

Summary:

Fifteen years after a very ugly breakup, Frostbite is trying to come home.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Arrival

Chapter Text

Category: YHIL, or 'Young Heroes in Love' published by DC comics.
Feedback: Sure.
Archive: Ask.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Off-Ramp:]

I saw him before I really SAW him.
Across the street, past the glare of the white sun on yesterday's snow, and wearing blue-jeans and a *coat* of all things. Just another nameless guy passing through town, until he turned his face to the side to check for oncoming traffic, and his profile clicked into my memory like a long-lost key.

I stopped, and watched him walk across the two-lane highway that separated us. He was deep in thought, and didn't see me until he was almost to the other side. He caught his breath for a moment, then finished crossing. We were now about thirty feet of snow-covered asphalt apart. My breath swirled white into the cold morning air, and his didn't. From this distance, we sized each other up carefully.

Then he began walking over towards me, in no hurry. His taste in clothes seemed to have mellowed over the years, but he'd kept the ponytail and earrings, and the black tank-top that he wore under the coat suited him. I was just beginning to wonder whether or not he'd also kept the nipple-rings, when it dawned on me who I was looking at: Frostbite, the guy who'd left his/his-girlfriend's KID with me, and disappeared for the past decade and a half. Needless to say, my reaction to him cooled off a bit at that point.

"You're back." I stated, neutrally.

"Yeah." Frostbite didn't seem surprised by my reaction.

"For how long?"

That hurt him, but there was a flash of anger in his eyes, downcast though they were.

"I don't know yet."

"Then go away." I told him.

"No, I've come this far." he refused, calmly.

"You wanna get a beer?" I asked.

"Okay."

Two sets of footprints ended in unbroken snow a moment later.

The bar was closed at this hour, so I took us home. Frostbite waited in the garage downstairs while I got the beer.

Opening the refrigerator door, I caught sight of a magnet that I must have seen a thousand times. It was a photograph of Tony and Snap from a camping trip this past summer. T-shirts and shorts, and hair still wet from lake Geneva. Tony had an arm draped over- -or was it *around*?- Snap's neck, tan skin contrasting with blue, and they both looked full of mischief. That had been taken after lunch but before the cooler got tipped over, I recalled.
I took it with me.

When I got back, Frostbite was looking at Snap's dirt-bike helmet. It had originally been black, but was long since covered in BMX stickers, and lightning bolts cut out of silver metallic tape. Snap had written 'AVANTI!' down the center bolt in black felt-tip pen.

"Yeah, that's his." I interrupted Frostbite's thoughts. "Catch."

He caught the beer in his left hand, and froze the magnet in mid-air with his right before catching it also. He set the beer aside un-opened, and flicked the magnet a few times to break the frost coating.

"Thi- This is him?"

"Both of them." I nodded.

"...Antonio?" he pointed to my half-Italian son.

"He goes by Tony." I popped the tab on my beer, and took a swallow.

"Selekarinin..."

"What?"

"I never even told you his NAME?!" Frostbite looked over at me, shocked.

"Jesus, that's even worse than what -I- came up with..." I muttered.

"You gave him a human name." -It wasn't a question. Frostbite looked like he wanted to yell at me, VERY badly, but he didn't.

"Doesn't matter." I shrugged. "He only answers to 'Snap' anyway."

"Snap?" asked Frostbite, somewhat amused.

"Not what you think. He may be immune to cold, but he didn't inherit your powers."

"Hm."

"He does have me real curious about what his mom could do, though."

"Why, what can Sel- -Snap do?" Frostbite asked, quickly.

"You first."

"I -don't-. Want. To talk about it."

"Too bad." I snorted.

"Monique was a witch. She could do a lot of things." Frostbite ground out.

"A name. That's a start." I took another drink from my beer. Frostbite's remained unopened. "Snap can freeze time. He keeps moving, everybody else stops for a second or three. -That ring any bells for you?"

"No." Frostbite shook his head, looking a bit sad.

"Too bad. It's a hell of a power."

"It would be..." Frostbite trailed off, "Where are they now?"

"Out skiing. The Pyrenees, probably. They've been pounding Mt. Fuji all weekend."

"They sound close."

"They're brothers."

Frostbite sighed, then closed his eyes and smiled.

"Thank you."

"Yeah, whatever. How are you gonna do this?"

"Do what?" Frostbite looked up.

"You're back in town, you obviously wanna see Snap. What are you gonna do about it?"

"I started by talking to you first."

"That's fine as far as it goes. What are you going to do -now-?" I pressed.

"I haven't figured that out yet."

"Look, if you-" I paused, then started over. "Snap has always wanted to meet you, but if you start this thing and then bail on u- -him again, I will ramp you into the SUN, understand?"

"That's fair." agreed Frostbite, dryly.

"Glad we got that cleared up. Where are you staying?"

"I just got into town." he shrugged.

"Get a motel or something. I'll let Snap know you're here, and we'll see what happens."

"Thanks for the beer." He took the can with him when he left, still unopened.

[Frostbite:]

What. Am. I. THINKING???
Oh, no. Don't back out now...
What. Am. I. THINKING???
I can *do* this, dammit...

"Well, ~this~ ought to be interesting," purred Grisham.

"Yeah, well you can just sit back and watch, needle face!" I snapped.

"Methinks you a fool, to be in this time-zone..."

"We have a DEAL, Grisham. And we both know what happens if you break a deal." I reminded him.

"Unfortunate, yes... And with the blood, follow the blood, flows the way..."

"You get weirder every damn day." I sighed.

"And damned they are, eh?" chuckled Grisham.

"And damned they are," I agreed.

"Tehehe..."

It was time to go for that beer now, I decided.

[Off-Ramp:]

 

"-Slopers don't know what they're doing! That's why they're there in the first place!"

"That kid was good, you just didn't want to LOSE."

"Dream on, Snap."

"Thank you, I will..."

"Oh NO, don't start! If I hear the word 'Cheryl' one more time, Rice Crispies, you are goin'-"

Snap and Tony burst into the kitchen, still shedding small puffs of snow from their hair and clothing.

"-Down! ...Hi, dad." Tony made straight for the cabinet where the hot chocolate was kept.

"Leave any snow behind on the mountain?" I asked.

"With that much snow, we had to! It may not be the top of the season down there, but-"

"Australia?" I asked.

"Uh-huh." Tony nodded, his back to us.

I blinked, and Snap was now leaning against the kitchen table, orange juice in hand. I waited until Tony was done making his hot chocolate, then said,

"Snap, I need to talk to you alone."

"Wait, I can explain-" began Snap.

"-Alone- alone?" asked Tony.

"Yeah, -alone- alone." I nodded.

"Best of luck, kid." Tony patted Snap on the head, and ramped himself elsewhere.

"-Like I was saying, it's not like it-"

"Snap," I interrupted. "Sit down."

The beginnings of a curious frown settled onto Snap's face, and he sat down across from me at the table.
"What's going on?"

"Frostbite." I cut to the chase. "You still wanna see him?"

Snap made a small choking sound.
"You know where he is?!"

I nodded.

"WHERE?!"

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Where, GODDAMMIT???" demanded Snap, jumping up and pacing several circles around the table within the space of a few seconds.

"SIT DOWN." I yelled, before the cupboards started shaking.

Snap stopped pacing, and stood with his fists clenched at his sides.
"Tell. Me." he pleaded.

"I don't know where he's staying, but he'll be in Victoria park tomorrow afternoon."

"I-I-I just can't believe this. This better not be a joke. -It's not, is it?" Snap looked over at me sharply.

"Of course not. I wouldn't lie to you about something like this."

"Did he call you up, or did you see him, or what?"

"I met him on the edge of town."

"And?"

"And what?" I chuckled.

"What does he look like now? What did he say, I mean, did he tell you what he's been doing all this time?"

"He looks... well, he looks about the same. ...Except he was wearing, y'know... clothes."

"The -same- the same?"

"No, just -about- the same, the same. -He's not twenty anymore, if that's what you mean. As to what he said... he mostly asked about you, and he didn't TELL me a damn thing."

"Oh." Snap sounded like he wasn't sure whether to be disappointed or not.

"Think you're gonna get any sleep tonight?"

"Are you kidding?" Snap snorted.

"Pulp Fiction?" I suggested.

"Mission Impossible 4." Snap decided.

"Fair enough." I shrugged.

[Frostbite:]

He'll be here in an hour.
I'm pacing, but there's not much point in forcing myself to stop.
Fifteen years...
A lot can happen in fifteen years.

Could I have come back sooner?
Probably.
Then again, returning now may be too soon.
Time will tell, perhaps violently.
What I wouldn't give to know for sure...

I stop walking under the brittle canopy of an elm tree. It's young, probably planted right after the forest service figured out how to make these things immune to Dutch Elm disease. I sit down in a low snow-bank piled up against the elm's base, and draw my knees up to my chest. I fold my arms over my knees, then rest my chin on them, watching.
Then I forget the whole thing and start walking again, hands shoved deep in the pockets of my coat.
It's been a long time since I noticed I was wearing a coat and found that strange, but talking to Off-Ramp yesterday knocked all sorts of things loose. 'Get a motel or something,' he said... -he's forgotten so much. Telling me to 'get a motel' would be like me telling him to 'get a cab'.
Then again, George had a life while I was gone.

I wanted to create something right then, to throw arcs of ice high over the pathways and trees of the park, to turn the playground climbing dome into a faceted snow-globe, and-

-Hell, I could have put up a life sized sculpture of the Queen Elizabeth II, if I had tried.
But I didn't.
I'm not the wizard of Oz, and that's not how I wanted my son to see me.
So I waited...

[Off-Ramp:]

By one o'clock PM we were already at the park, and Snap had searched over half of it. Me, I was in no hurry. Why should I be?

When Snap finally found him, I imagine Frostbite's first impression of his son was of a blue streak running across the snow. -That's how everyone sees Snap at first, just ask his second grade teacher.
What Snap thought when he first saw Frostbite, I'll probably never know. Wearing the same big gray coat, blue jeans, and tan lace-up work boots that I'd seen him in yesterday, Frostbite was starting to look like a ski bum to me.

I caught up with them right after they met. Neither Snap nor Frostbite did anything at first, they just stared at each other.
Snap reached up and touched one of his own pointed ears, in an unconscious gesture. Frostbite watched him do it, and from the look that crossed his face at that moment, I knew that it was going to be very hard for him to ever tell Snap 'no'.
I couldn't blame him ...but I did have the sudden urge for a smoke.

[Frostbite:]

He's here! He's really here! ...and uh... I'm here too.
Wow.

He has Monique's dark chestnut hair, but his face is mine, and the caution with which he's regarding me is definitely George.
-Funny how that all worked out.
It's taking Snap longer than I thought it would to remember that he's supposed to be angry.
...'Snap'...
I thought that name was a joke, but now I can see why he uses it. Snap moves sharply, and when he looks at something, he looks hard.
He's afraid, but he still won't look away.

Even if he weren't my son, this is not someone I'd want for an enemy.

He remembers.

"...Why?" Snap asks, searchingly.

"Why am I here, or wh-?" I begin.

"Why *EVERYTHING*!" Snap snarls back at me, finding his courage.

"I left because I had to, and I came back because I wanted to see you."

Snap is silent for a moment.

"That doesn't make any sense," He folds his arms over his chest, and glares at me with a mixture of accusation and confusion.

"I know, and I'm sorry," I tell him, simply.

Snap's face twists wordlessly, running through emotions like a string of firecrackers until he squeezes his eyes shut tight.

"That- -That's not good. Enough," he chokes.

"I thought you might say that," I sigh.

"Yeah- -no shit-"

"Snap?"

"..."

"I'm glad you have a brother."

Snap looks up at me, curiosity over the non-sequiter shading what was becoming blind anger back into the territory of questioning suspicion.

...I wasn't sure that would work.

[Off-Ramp:]

Hooo-boy... If those two hadn't been so close to home for me, I would have been laughing my ass off.

Snap thought he was going to get a simple answer, and Frostbite thought he was talking to an adult. It was the battle royale of immovable adolescent pride versus unstoppable long-nourished angst, and I -lucky me- had just bought front-row season tickets.

Oddly, they seemed to reach some kind of unspoken truce after the brother comment. I didn't know whether or not Frostbite had ever had a brother, but I figured he must have been pretty lonely these past few years, to pay so much attention to whether or not Snap had been alone.
...Then again, maybe Antonio was just the only neutral topic Frostbite could think of to keep the conversation going.

"Tony's cool." Snap nodded, warily.

Their dialogue fell flat again, and they toed various mounds of snow for inspiration.

"Hey Frostbite," I called over, "you never got around to telling me what you do."

"Do?"

"Yeah, as in 'job'?"

I caught the slight narrowing of Frostbite's eyes in my direction, but mercifully for him, Snap missed it.
Frostbite didn't HAVE a job at the moment. He knew it, and I knew it, and now he knew that I knew it, and vice-versa. And boy, was he pissed...

"I 'do' weather." Frostbite smiled slightly, and a few snowflakes began to fall through the air between us. Looking up, I realized that it was snowing as far as the eye could see, though the sky was blue and clear. "...and ice sculpture, and cryogenics, and lakes..." Frostbite suddenly realized that he was addressing an audience of *two*, and calmed down a bit. "-I've done a lot of different things, but what I'm best at is search and rescue."

"You mean like finding the guys who get lost on Mt. McKinley?" asked Snap, looking for a way back into the conversation.

"Exactly." Frostbite seemed encouraged by this question.

"Why haven't I ever seen you then?" challenged Snap. "-I've ripped just about every mountain with a frozen surface!"

"Because sometimes I'm doing other things, and just at a guess, *you've* never gotten lost on a snow-covered mountain."

Snap couldn't argue with that last one, but having discovered a weak spot in Frostbite's armor, he wasn't about to let it alone.

"What is it that you were doing that you won't tell me about?"

"You know that saying, 'I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you?'..." Frostbite replied, uncomfortably.

"Yeah I've heard it, but just how *dumb* do you think I am?" glared Snap.

"If I thought you were dumb-" Frostbite broke off, and looked down at the snow for a moment. Then he sighed, looked up, and began again in a quieter tone. "If you were dumb, you wouldn't be giving me this argument. I can see that you're not dumb."

"But...?"

"Some of your questions, I just can't answer without putting you in danger," Frostbite explained, seriously.

"Like hell," Snap spat.

"I can't make you believe anything you don't want to," Frostbite admitted, "but I'm not going to get you put on a HIT LIST just to get you to like me."

"Whatever." Snap shrugged. The snow was coming down thicker now, and during a particularly heavy swirl of whiteness, Frostbite vanished into it. Snap looked around quickly, saw nothing, and then turned to me with a look of horror on his face. "Where did he go???"

"Couldn't tell ya."

"But- but-"

"FROST-BITE-YOU-GOD-DAMNED-WEASEL, THAT WAS -LOW-!!!" I bellowed into the depths of the gathering storm. "ARE YOU GONNA STICK TO YOUR WORD THIS TIME, OR -WHAT-???"

Snap looked at me quizzically, amusement momentarily overshadowing the anxiety that Frostbite had left... again.

There was a pause in the wind, and the storm quieted around us unnaturally, like the eye of a hurricane.
Frostbite reappeared about five feet to the left of where I'd lost track him.

"I'm not skipping *town*, Off-Ramp. We already settled THAT much *yesterday*." Frostbite reminded me.

"WE did, but you might wanna mention that to somebody ELSE before you go report back to the North pole or wherever!"

"I... -oh." Frostbite looked over at Snap with concern. "I got the impression that you wanted the conversation to be over, but ahh... I'll still be around if you want to talk again some other time, eh?"

"Forget it." Snap said, firmly.

Frostbite's face fell.
"You won't get-"

"You're coming home with us right now." Snap decided.

Frostbite and I exchanged a panicked glance over Snap's head.
Then we looked at Snap, who looked both brave and hopeful.
Then we looked back at each other.

He didn't say it.
I didn't say it.
And in this way, the second truce of the afternoon was struck.

Decision made, I opened a gateway, and the three of us went home.

[Frostbite:]

Warmth.
It's the first thing I notice.

I step through the familiar blue gateway after Snap, into a carpeted living room. Off-Ramp goes through last, moving as though he's escorting a prisoner. He is.
Hmm... George's taste hasn't changed much, I see. Their couch looks like it's been used for a space shuttle launching pad. Just the sort of thing that you can put your boots up the arm of without thinking twice about it.
It's so warm in here.

[Off-Ramp:]

I am doomed.

Frostbite's been in town for less than twenty-four hours now, and he's already takin' over my house! -With Snap's blessing, of course.
This situation is stacking up like a house of cards, and personally I don't feel like playing.
Seriously, it's like watching crash footage. Everything seems to be going SO well, and then...
Ahh, hell. -It's still fun to watch.
Snap's bedroom, for example:

"-And this is where *I* live. Try not to step on any, um, piles. Brutus is still on the loose, so-"

"Brutus?" echoes Frostbite.

"My king snake."

"-Ah." Frostbite looks around at the drifts of dirty clothes and half-finished projects on the floor of Snap's room with a newfound level of suspicion.

"Usually he's in that cage over there, but he's pretty resourceful." Snap explains.

Frostbite looks up at the ceiling.
"Is that why you have the hammock?"

"Nahh, that's just something I do because I feel like it. Hey, I wonder if-" Snap looks thoughtful for a moment, then he's suddenly standing in front of Frostbite with his hand pressed against the side of Frostbite's face. Snap's back where he was first standing before either of us can blink. "I knew it. You're the same temperature as me."

"Freezin'-ass cold..." I mutter under my breath.

Frostbite gives me a side-long look, but doesn't comment. -I'd forgotten about those ears of his, he can hear a candy wrapper crinkle through a foot of concrete.
...But Snap doesn't seem to have heard anything, which means that whoever this 'Monique' person is, her hearing range is pretty close to normal. -Another point for the theory that she's human.

I wander away around the time Snap starts describing the plot of 'The Lord of the Rings'.

Opening a ramp to a certain patch of water located in the Gulf of Mexico, I step through onto the heli-pad of a deserted oil rig. The late afternoon sun falls hot on my face, and the only sounds I can hear are the crash of the waves on the rusting pilings below my feet, and the cries of the surprised gulls wheeling over head.

[Frostbite:]

I don't know who taught Snap to talk, but it definitely wasn't George. It's all I can do to keep up with him, but I hardly feel like slowing down. I suspect this won't last, but for now we speak the same language- -quickly. Within the past half hour, I've learned about the relative merits of Stockholm, Michigan, and Rome. I've also learned that Brutus eats mice (fresh-caught, if possible), and that Snap worships the Harley-Davidson company as a god.

Snap is easy to talk to.
Too easy.
I found myself telling him about the fate of the 'White Crane', an Irish sailing ship that I'd found ice-bound on the Northern rim of Hudson Bay. It is a sad story, but also something of a murder mystery, because the captain's record of what had occurred on board didn't match half the evidence I found. -The scene in the galley, for instance. According to the logbook, the third mate was the first among the officers to die, but I found the man who matched his description head down at the galley table, which points to him having been one of the LAST to die. Snap came up with the theory that the actual last man to die had gone raving mad, decided that HE was the captain, and started writing the remainder of the Captain's logbook based on his own delusions.

"Well, that would explain the Selkie..." I admitted.

"You're kidding, right?" Snap looked at me skeptically.

"Yes." I grinned.

"Great. Was *any* of that story true?" sighed Snap, downcast.

I blinked.
In the whirlwind of easy camaraderie we'd established, I hadn't realized that Snap was still taking everything I said literally. Damn it, that is *not* what I meant to do!

"Yeah, most of it was. The 'White Crane' is on display at a museum in Ottawa, unless they've taken it on tour or something." I told him.

Neither of us said anything for a minute or two.

"Sorry about that." Snap apologized, finally.

"...Don't." I told him.

"Come on, I mean... you finally tell me something about your past, and I call you a liar..."

"Snap?"

"Yes?"

"Don't."

Snap looked at me strangely.
"You're serious."

"About this, I am. It's not your fault that you don't trust me. Never think otherwise."

"...You think you have this all figured out, don't you?" Snap observed.

"Maybe and maybe not, but I've got a pretty good idea of what DOESN'T thaw situations like these." I shrugged.

"I've got it!" Snap exclaimed.

"--What?"

"I know how to get Brutus back in his tank."

"How?"

"Heat lamp."

[Off-Ramp:]

The house was silent when I got home. Snap's door was shut, and all the lights were off except for the one in the kitchen. Frostbite was stretched out along the length of the couch asleep, completely still except for the slight rise and fall of his chest, and the quick, flickering motions that his eyes made beneath closed blue lids.
I created a quiet micro-portal, and checked Snap's room. He was asleep too.

...So far, so good, apparently.

It took me a long time to get to sleep that night, and when I finally did, I dreamed.
The only thing that I remember clearly from those dreams was the touch of cool, smooth fingers moving down the skin of my face, and I blame that entirely on Brutus.
Brutus opted to crawl into bed with me sometime during the night, and I woke up the next morning to find him coiled in a contented ball against the warm pulse of my throat.

[Frostbite:]

"WHAT THE -FUCK- ARE YOU DOING IN *MILWAUKEE*?!?"

I hold the receiver as far away from my ear as possible until Off-Ramp's done yelling.

"Never mind that, just come and get me, please?" I say, tiredly.

Silence.

 

I sigh, and hang up the phone. Outside the glass walls of the phone booth, the lights of downtown Milwaukee are beginning to go out.
Maybe I should have waited until it was daylight to call him.
'Maybe' -HA!
...He's going to kill me.
So why did I call him...?

"Because you could." yawns Grisham, interrupting my thoughts.

"I wasn't asking -you-." I growl back.

"So don't think so loud!" Grisham laughs. "-And by the way, I *do* know you're trying to kill me, so stop agonizing about it."

"..."

"-Not that I blame you, of course. My company can become tiresome, or so I've been lead to believe..."

"Grisham, I've been wondering something."

"Yes? -This ought to be good..."

"Where will you go if you die?"

[Off-Ramp:]

Milwaukee.
Thousands of cities and two countries in this area, and he calls me from *Milwaukee*. This man has no class.

The streets are deserted at this hour, which is good, all things considered. I don't know what kind of trouble Frostbite is in, but unless he levels with me... well, I'll just have to take a peek for myself, won't I?

He's standing against a phone booth, head down. The snow that fell last night has left a sprinkling of stars on the shadow of his dark blue hair, un-melted. -And he hasn't tied his hair back in the ponytail, for a change.
Frostbite's clothes are different too. Light blue sweatpants, a black 'Hard Rock Cafe: Toronto Skydome' t-shirt, and black high-top sneakers.
"You look like shit." I observe. He looks up, and looks surprised to see me there, but recovers quickly.

"Ah, the charm of an honest opinion."

I see a long sparring session around the corner, so I cut to the chase.
"Frostbite, if I had any sense I wouldn't be here at all."

"Why are you then?"

"To see if I can get a straight answer out of you. Snap's not here, it's just us. What are you in to?"

"What am I 'in to'?" Frostbite echoes.

"Yeah, that's what I said. Answer it."

"I can't. What I told snap about hit lists applies to you too."

I grab him by the shoulders, slam him against the phone booth, and demand,

"Where do you get off thinking I can't protect my own?!"

"Ever the watchman at the gates..." Frostbite whispers, strangely.

I drop him into the snow beside the phone booth, disgusted.

"What is it, and how long have you been snorting it?"

Frostbite picks himself up, looking a little more in touch with reality.
"It's not that simple. If it was, I would have dealt with this -long- ago."

"So what -IS- this almighty *IT* you keep talkin' about???"

"There are some things that-" Frostbite begins.

"You know what?" I interrupt, holding up a hand, "Just stop. Just- -forget it, okay? You're WALKIN' home!"

I turn my back on him, and walk through a ramp into a nightclub in Istanbul.

...Which in hindsight was pretty stupid, because it's only one in the afternoon in Istanbul, and the club is closed.

[Frostbite:]

Damn.

WHY can't I do this RIGHT???
I'm BACK, I'm TRYING, I'm- -in Milwaukee...

Damn.

I start walking.
It's a beautiful morning, and as the city wakes up I feel like smiling at everyone I see. Just a week ago, that was me. I make a point of enjoying days like this, because I never know when I'm going to wake up a hundred miles away, and remember...
No.
Today is not about the last few days, or about last year, or about forever, for that matter. Today is just about today.

On the outskirts of town, I start running.
Slowly, at first. Then faster, as I leave the sidewalks behind and head out into open country.
I pass a long row of cranberry bushes.
A small town flashes by between one breath and the next.
I am flying-

It's quiet out here, and it's quiet in my head, too.
Up ahead I see a low hill, unremarkable except that the slope of it looks just about perfect. I run towards it, and up the first part of the incline-
-I am fooling the hill into thinking I will pass right over it...
And then I find where I need to be, and I allow my foot to turn just a few degrees too far before it lands again, and then I'm falling, rolling, cutting into the snow-pack like a drill-bit...
Until it's quiet again, and I can feel the sheltering warmth of heavy, compacted snow pressing against my wind-chilled skin.
Safe.

I am sitting in a snow-bank somewhere outside of Milwaukee, and as I realize that I'm going to see my son again before the day is out, I start to cry- -because I've never had so much to lose.