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Schneizel had taken me somewhere cold, just like I asked. It had taken me less than five minutes to regret my hasty decision.

I exhaled a cloud out of my mouth and watched it evaporate into the chilly air.

It was so cold outside that my ears and the ends of my limbs alternated between stinging and feeling numb.

Not even the earmuffs or the thick wool gloves I wore made much of a difference.

And here I thought New York in the winter was cold.

I heard the crunching of his feet in the snow before I sensed his presence behind me.

"It's not like you to wake up early." he said, coming to stand directly behind me. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine. You're the one who got shot." I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but I knew he'd heard the note of guilt and self-loathing I'd been trying to conceal from him.

"And I'll get better." he assured me softly, confidently.

"Then shouldn't you be back in bed? You did get shot like before yesterday, remember?

" I inhaled deeply, then turned around and finally met his gaze.

I'd been avoiding looking into his eyes ever since we barely made it off the island.

Knowing that he was hurt because of me tortured me on the inside, and it was finally showing on the outside too.

When I woke up this morning and saw him lying next to me with a bandage plastered to his abdomen, still peacefully sleeping, I couldn't take it.

It broke my heart to a million pieces, knowing he'd gotten hurt while trying to save my pathetic ass.

So I'd left the bed, and the room, and the cabin, and had come trudging up here looking for. .. looking for...

Looking for relief from the guilt that was eating me up alive.

"This isn't your fault-"

"Yes it is!" I cried, feeling tears wet my cheeks.

He grabbed my face with both hands and bent a little so that our eyes were level. "No, it's not. I needed it to look real; so the world would believe we're really dead."

Stunned, I stared at him, tongue-tied.

Dead?

"You mean..."

"Not only that, but I'd planned the whole thing.

I had someone... powerful I know pull strings and have INTERPOL swarm us on the island.

Then I got myself purposely shot so that our death looked believable, even if there weren't any bodies found.

When I had us run all the way to that cliff and jump off into the river, I wanted them to assume that our bodies drifted into the ocean when they couldn't be found.

Do you understand now? It isn't your fault. "

No-one ever made me quite as speechless as Schneizel did. He certainly had a way of shocking me into absolute, dumbfounded silence.

"It's the only way for me to be free, and for you to be free of those who would come after you because of me." he explained, a sad look in his eyes. "I'm sorry." And he meant it; I could see it in his furrowed eyebrows and the lines marring his forehead.

A weight was suddenly lifted off my shoulders.

Schneizel thought that I'd sacrificed much just to be with him, when I really hadn't.

In the few months we were away from each other, I'd lived a solitary, rather unremarkable existence.

I no longer had any family that I could speak of, the painfully few friends I'd had before going to prison were all gone now, which left me with just about nothing.

Really, I was the one getting a bargain here.

I reached a hand to caress his stubbled cheek, feeling the tiny prickling against the sensitive skin of my palm.

Schneizel with a few days' worth of beard was a look I could really get behind, especially when he was rubbing those cheeks against the inside of my thighs.

I looked up into his gorgeous eyes and said, "There's nothing to be sorry for.

I chose this, Schneizel Cross. I chose you. Never forget that."

"I won't." He smiled like he'd never smiled at me before, giving me a glance into what lay behind all the iron and steel.

Pure love. He pulled me into a kiss that curled my toes and made my mind go blissfully blank.

As always, our tongues dueled for dominance, and as always, I surrendered to him like a flower opening up to the sun.

When we parted, Schneizel wrapped his hands around me from behind, instantly engulfing me in his warmth.

Instinctively, I leaned into him. Like pieces of a puzzle, we fit together perfectly.

We stayed like that for a very long time, staring at the very small village whose population was less than a hundred from the top of a snow-covered hill in mutual silence.

I was finally, truly content. Oh, what an absolute dream it was to be content.

Or was it a dream? Could this really be happening?

I was afraid that any moment now, I'd wake up and realize that I was still on the island.

Being happy together with Schneizel was something I'd never truly expected, even though I'd certainly prayed for it every waking moment.

If I thought I knew true satisfaction and contentment before, I did now, so much so that I was never letting go no matter what happened.

I was the first to break the silence, unsurprisingly.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to me "So the bullet and all that blood were fake, and this injury is fake too?"

"No, that's real."

"Dammit."

Schneizel laughed, a gleeful, melodious sound that tickled me somewhere dangerous.

In an effort to distract myself from my rather promiscuous thoughts, I asked, "Are we going to stay in the North Pole forever?" I shivered in his arms.

"You're the one who wanted to go somewhere cold." Schneizel gently reminded me as he came to stand next to me. "And quit exaggerating; this isn't the North Pole."

"In my mind I was picturing somewhere like Greenland or Canada."

"Those aren't non-extradition countries. Russia is."

"Right. It isn't very idle for gays though, or so I've heard."

Shortly after, it began to snow for the hundredth time today, and it wasn't even ten in the morning yet.

"Do you think you can find another non-extradition country that's a bit warmer? China, maybe?"

He chuckled, then leaned into my ear and whispered, "China isn't very big about gays either. Tell you what," -he nuzzled my neck- "why don't I warm you up?"

Without missing a heartbeat, I said, "Yes, daddy."