A Hero's Reward

by Morrel, Amy

  In the middle of his movie he was distracted by lights outside. He saw Margaret's car turn back into the driveway beside the ruined house. He watched it for a minute or two but saw nothing else before his attention was drawn back to the show.

  Greg's attention was drawn away from the move again half an hour later. The sounds of sharp impacts carried in from outside. When he peered out it was hailing vigorously. Shaking his head at the vagaries of the weather he went back to his show. Before the movie was done he had fallen asleep on the couch once again.

  Greg awoke in the middle of the night. The television was off, as was the DVD player. He cocked his head and couldn't hear a single electrical appliance running. He kept flashlights in a few places for just such situations and reached under the couch for the small one he had clipped onto the couch leg. Armed with his flashlight he headed for the circuit breaker box to see if it was just him or if there was a major power outage occurring. Nothing was tripped so he assumed it was a full outage. He headed back to the living room and looked out the window. There was little to no light pollution and he noted that the hailstorm earlier had evidently turned into a full ice storm. It looked like there was an inch or more of ice on every surface he could see. He could feel the cold rolling off of his front window in waves and closed the curtain to keep the cold out.

  Curiously enough, he realized that his last observation was false. There was no sheeting of ice on Margaret's car. He opened the curtain again, just far enough to look out. As a matter of fact, it looked like the windows were fogged up on the inside and there were icicles hanging from the bumper and the portions of the lower trim that he could see. His last dose of painkillers was wearing off so the thought made its way to him without much effort

  She can't be sleeping in her damn car in this weather, can she? She's going to freeze to death.

  He walked over the bookshelf where he kept his thermometer. It ran on batteries to communicate with the sensor outside so it should still be working.

  Eight degrees at two thirty in the morning. It's going to get colder before dawn. Shit, should I just leave her be? I can't do that, at least I can offer to let her come in and warm up.

  * * *

  Chapter 5 – Insult to Injury

  Greg bundled up in the warmest coat he had handy, grabbed his pair of work boots and slid them on. He opened the door and was immediately struck by the cold. It was almost a physical blow after the warmth inside. He quickly closed the door to keep the heat in the house. His electric heat wasn't going to be any help in a power outage. He began to walk across the street and had slipped three times before he reached the sidewalk. The ice was coating everything and was extremely slippery to boot.

  Greg stumbled his way out across the street, finally settling on treating his boots as though they were ice skates. He stumbled less by keeping them in contact with the ice but it meant he was moving every which way as opposed to a straight line. He comforted himself by thinking that it was still quicker to move that way than to have to try to pick himself up from a fall.

  He reached the car and peered in. There was definitely someone curled up in the back seat. He slid up to the back door and knocked loudly, ready to offer the warmth of his house. There was no answer, the person lying on the back seat didn't even move. He knocked loudly once more and waited, the chill seeping in through his coat, clothing, and even the sturdy work boots he had been sure would keep his feet warm. To make matters worse, the strange sliding gait he had been using was straining muscles in his back and the whole thing was beginning to throb in a familiar manner.

  He finally gave up and opened the door, it wasn't locked but he still had to force it since it was frozen shut. He leaned in to speak to Margaret and got a good look at her. The light of the moon shining off of the ice illuminated her clearly. She was lying on her back. Her angel's face showed a hint of blue, her exposed hands were red and blue, and he could see tracks of frozen tears flowing down the sides of her face, leading from the corners of her eyes down to tiny pools of ice where the tracks intersected her ears. Her ears had redirected the freezing tears towards her ear lobes which were now decorated with miniature icicles, shimmering in the moonlight.

  Not again! What is with this lady? Doesn't she care if she lives or not?

  “Margaret!” he said shaking her shoulder lightly.

  There was no answer.

  “Margaret!” he tried again louder.

  A soft exhalation came from her mouth, but she didn't move. And didn't answer.

  Oh, Fuck! He thought, This is gonna hurt so much.

  Greg reached in and took her by the shoulders. He started to drag her out of the car, pausing momentarily when his back screamed at him. She still didn't move or react in any fashion. He continued to slide her from the car, her progress accompanied by the light tinkle of her icy tears cracking and falling away to the ice coated asphalt. When he had her all the way out and she still hadn't moved at all he considered his options and thought: Oh, to hell with it! Guess I won't be off the painkillers as quickly as I thought before slinging her into a fireman's carry again.

  Biting back a scream of agony, Greg slammed the car door and started moving towards his house. After trying two normal steps and nearly falling with each one he went back to the skating move he had used to get here in the first place. The streets were empty and no-one was in sight. With his only distraction being the internal screaming of his back, he made his way across the street. The slight incline to his front door proved a problem until he remembered the skiers' herringbone pattern. Turning one foot sideways to the slope gave him a moment or two to move his other foot, so in a hesitant, yet rapid as he could manage, shuffle he made it to his front door. Moving to open the door caused Margaret to start sliding from his shoulder. He moved through the door as quickly as he could and helped turn her slide into a gentle, controlled fall to the floor.

  He closed the door quickly and wanted nothing more than to collapse to the floor himself. He knew, though, that if he didn't get a fresh dose of his painkillers into him he was going to be useless and he had a lot more to do. Shuffling painfully into the kitchen he grabbed his painkillers and downed two of them. Moving back out into the living room he grabbed his blanket from the couch. He placed himself on the floor next to Margaret and covered the two of them with the blanket. There was more he should be doing but until the pain in his back eased, this was going to have to suffice.

  Greg pressed himself against Margaret, trying to warm her with his body heat. He kept reviewing what he remembered of treatment for hypothermia, which he was pretty sure was the problem. The clothes would have to go. Then he would need more blankets or anything else that might get her core body temperature up. He remembered from his time as a boy scout that you needed to get the core body temperature back up slowly. Too fast and you caused even more problems. He planned as best as he could while waiting for his medication to kick in. Margaret was still breathing, but very slowly and shallowly. He had felt drips of water as the tear tracks on her face melted away so she was at least starting to warm up.

  In time his back pain eased and as soon as he noticed that, he began to move. The first thing he did was to remove his boots and outer clothing so his body heat could get out easier. Then he tried to remove Margaret's coat. It was soaking wet, not to the point of dripping but it was still frigid to the touch and would drip when it thawed out. He wrestled it off of her. In the middle of moving her to get the coat off, she let out a groan. At least she's still alive he thought. He removed her shoes as well, to find that her socks were soaking wet. She had a dress under her coat and it was damp as well. He needed to remove that, but not yet. He tucked the blankets around her and headed up the stairs, groaning at his back on the way. The worst of the pain was gone but taking the stairs still sent tiny little knives darting along his spine with each step. He grabbed as many blankets as he could carry from the hallway linen closet and headed back down.

  Once he was downstairs again, he
laid out the blanket they had been wrapped in, it was warmer than the others so he wanted it on the bottom. Then he rolled Margaret onto it. He removed her socks, then her dress. Her undergarments were moist and chilled as well and he winced when he thought of her reaction upon waking up but he removed those also. He once again hesitated at his next action but gave in and stripped himself down as well. Lying next to her, he covered them both with the other blankets he had brought downstairs. He tucked them in as best as he could to avoid any stray breezes or heat leaks and then snuggled in next to her, trying to get as much skin contact between the two of them as physically possible. He was embarrassed to find himself reacting to her, his erect penis pressing against her forcefully.

  Not a hell of a lot I can do about that if it's trying to be hard while I'm already in this much pain. Hopefully it subsides before she wakes up. It'll be difficult to explain otherwise.

  Greg simply concentrated on trying to remain still and in contact with her. His thoughts were not exactly the purely chaste ones he thought he should be having in this situation. All he could think was that this was a far more intimate position than any he had been in with his ex-wife, even when he was getting her pregnant with their children. Slowly, all thought faded and he drifted off to sleep with Margaret wrapped in a bear hug that kept them in as much contact as possible.

  Some time later he woke up to find Margaret shivering violently. He remembered that shivering after treatment could mean one of two things. Either the cold blood from the extremities was moving back in and causing it or she had been beyond the point where the body stops shivering so it can conserve energy and was coming back to that point. He reached for her hands to feel them, they were still cool but much warmer than earlier on. He couldn't get to her feet to check but he also placed a hand on her stomach to check the temperature there. Warmer than the hands, that meant that she had probably come back into the shivering stage from being worse off. Good, he knew how to deal with that, if she had been getting worse he didn't have anything else to try.

  He paused to listen and noted that the electricity was still out. He could try the phone but with the roads bad enough that he couldn't walk on them he didn't want to try to get an emergency vehicle out to someone who was improving and probably out of danger. It wasn't light out yet but in the morning he'd see if it looked better out there and call an ambulance then if the roads weren't icy any more. Even that small series of thoughts had him exhausted and he found himself drifting off once more.

  Greg woke again when daylight started peeping in around the curtains. It was a wan, pale winter type of light but at least things should start warming up again. He determined that the power was still out with a moment's pause and wondered how cold it had gotten in the house. He was toasty warm under the blankets, cuddled up with Margaret.

  Margaret, he thought, How is she doing?

  He tracked down one of Margaret's hands and felt it, cool but no longer cold to the touch. He still couldn't get to her feet to check without a lot of movement so once again, he placed his hand on her stomach to check the warmth of her torso. Her torso appeared to be the same temperature as his so evidently her core temperatures had warmed back up to normal. She moved slightly under his touch, curling up into something close to a fetal position from the straight position he had placed her in to share body heat with her. Her movement swung her breasts so that they brushed against his arm and came to rest against his hand. He carefully tried to slide his hand out from under her breast. He was embarrassed to realize that the touch of her breast on his hand had reinvigorated his erection.

  Evidently his attempt to remove his hand unnoticed failed:

  “Huh?” Margaret snorted as she awoke, “What? What's going on? Where am I?”

  As Greg removed his hand the rest of the way:

  “What are you doing?”

  Margaret sat up, dragging the blankets with her. They slid down off of her upper torso, exposing her breasts to the cool air in the house. When the cool air of the house hit Greg's back, he involuntarily flinched and let out a groan of pain. His back had stiffened up as he slept and moving it was excruciating. Margaret glanced at him when he groaned, noticing his erection as it collapsed from the pain.

  “What the hell is going on? What are you doing?”

  Margaret appeared to be trying to build up a head of anger and it was reflected in her voice.

  “Where am I, what's going on?” she said, tugging the blanket back up to cover herself.

  Greg groaned again and mumbled out an answer:

  “You're in my house because you were freezing to death. I had to treat you for hypothermia.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “Go look outside the window, but don't open the curtains too much, the power is off and we need to try to keep the heat inside.”

  Margaret got up, wrapped a blanket around herself like a toga, and stalked over to the window. Pulling it open and glancing outside, she gasped:

  “Oh my god, I never noticed any of that happening last night.”

  “Well, I woke up when the power went out and realized that you were still in your car. I was going to go over and offer you my spare bedroom but when I got there you were totally out of it, unconscious and unresponsive. Your body temperature was dangerously low and the only thing I could think that it might be was hypothermia, so I carried you back over here and treated you for it. I'm sorry, but your clothes were wet so they had to come off. I took mine off so I could share my body heat better. Nothing else happened. Even if I had wanted to do something like that, I'm in way too much pain. I strained my back again by carrying you across the street last night.”

  “Again? Wait, you're Greg aren't you? You're the one that saved Jack and me from my house when it was burning. Then you saved my life again last night? You injured yourself more to save me again?”

  Margaret sank to the floor and burst out in tears. Through her sobs Greg could make out the words she was muttering quietly to herself:

  “You're still a danger to everyone else. You can't get anything right. Daddy was right, Freddy was right, you're a total incompetent. You endanger anyone who comes near you. Jack is probably better off with Freddy.”

  With that last sentence, Margaret broke down into a full-throated sobbing that prevented her from doing anything else at all.

  Greg took the remaining blanket from underneath himself and wrapped it around his body to try to retain warmth and preserve whatever modesty remained in the situation. He moved himself over to Margaret and, tentatively, leaned in and put his arms around her. When she didn't pull away from him he spoke:

  “It'll be alright, everything will be okay.”

  Margaret's sobs became, if anything, louder and more vigorous. Greg continued to softly speak calming phrases while holding her in his arms. It was quite a while before she finally stopped crying and when she did she continued to sniffle, her nose running badly. Greg stood with a soft groan and retrieved a box of tissues which he handed to her.

  “Here, let me go get some of my painkillers into myself. I think the last batch I took has worn off. Then I'll see if I can find my camping stove and Sterno and we can make some coffee or oatmeal or something to help warm up. Your clothes are draped over the couch and chair, you can see if they're dry and get dressed again while I'm out of the room, if that'll make you feel better.”

  Greg shuffled off to the kitchen and downed a pair of painkillers. He kept his camping gear in the garage right off of the kitchen so he went to get the camp stove and Sterno. When he got it into the kitchen, he set the stove up on top of his electric range and lit the Sterno. He set a percolator on top of it and filled it from one of the gallons of distilled water he kept in the kitchen for making coffee. Once the water was warming, he headed back out to the living room.

  Margaret was still draped in the blankets, but at least she was on the couch and not on the floor any more. Her clothes had been moved so he figured they were still too wet to p
ut on.

  “If you give me long enough for these painkillers to kick in, I'll go upstairs and get you some clothes to wear for now. They'll be too big but probably warmer and more comfortable than the blankets.”

  “Thank you, I'd appreciate that.”

  Greg recovered his own clothing from where he had piled it the night before and slid it on under his blanket. He offered the blanket to Margaret, in case she was still cold, but she shook her head. He thought he'd try to make small talk until his back was up to taking the stairs again.

  “So, why were you sleeping in your car last night?”

  “I didn't have anywhere else to go. My purse was in the house so all my ID, credit cards, cash, and all that are gone. I don't have any friends that I could impose on to let me stay with them and, and...”

  Margaret started crying again. This time the sobs were not the deep, heart wrenching ones from earlier but were higher pitched and interspersed with hiccups. This time she sounded as though she were bordering on hysteria.

  Greg moved over and sat down beside her. He went to put his arms around her again but this time she pulled away. She glared at him and through the sobs asked:

  “Why are you being so nice to me? What do you want from me? I'm a total failure. I was a failure as a daughter. I was a failure as a wife! And now I'm a failure as a mother as well!”

  Her voice rose in volume throughout her recitation until she was shouting the last. Greg shook his head and stared at her:

  “I'm being nice to you because you're a person. I seriously doubt you're a failure the way you say you are. You've been raising your son as a single mother for how long? How exactly did you fail with that?”

  “I almost killed him because I didn't get the proper maintenance done on the heater! They told me that the heater exploded and caused the house fire. I almost killed my son!”

  Once again Margaret fell into deep-throated sobs. The pain and agony she was feeling was made tangible by the sobs and Greg wasn't immune to it. He decided that he had to do what he could to help her. No-one, especially his sorrowful angel, should be subjected to feeling what she was experiencing.