It had been twenty days since Maverick left the carrier when Ice walked into the cafeteria. While he was walking to their usual table, he noticed that the atmosphere had a weird vibe. He glanced around to try to figure out what was going on, and when he saw the first man opening his letter, he sighed internally and immediately changed direction.

It was mail day and while he had had still hope at the previous mail day (that was two weeks ago), now he didn't want to deal with everyone being happy and glad about their letters so he walked to the far end of the room, sitting on a bench on his own. He ate methodically even if he had lost all appetite since day twelve. Someone put his plate on the other side of the table and Ice sent him a frosty look.

"I'm sorry, there wasn't any bench left and I just wanted to sit here instead of in between all the other happy men, as I have no letters to read," the younger man murmured but he picked his plate up again, shoulders slumped. Ice sighed a bit and rasped his throat, which was severely underused.

"It's ok," he just said and told the boy with a flick of his eyes that he could sit there if he wanted. The boy thanked him with a small smile and plonked on the seat.

For a few moments they just sat, but Ice saw that the boy was very anxious to ask something. Ice knew he had gotten many looks in the past weeks, especially when he began wearing his gloves on day ten, but he had ignored them and just went on with his days, eating, sleeping, training, sometimes a short hop or longer mission, getting back, sleeping, eating, etcetera. This boy was however not really looking at Ice with that same glance as the others and Ice looked a bit better at him. The boy was really just a boy, looking like being before his twenties. His black hair was a bit longer but now tucked in a tiny ponytail at the back of his neck. Ice tried to think if he had seen the boy before.

"You new here?" he asked, clearly surprising the boy, who almost dropped his fork because of it. The boy nodded and extended his hand to Ice.

"I'm Ryan Sandling, arrived here yesterday morning to help on deck," he said as Ice shook his hand tentatively. He didn't announce himself, as his name would make Ryan know he was the one with the MiG's and he really had no energy to answer a thousand questions. Ryan didn't seem to mind as he was focused on Ice's long gloves. They were thin, light blue, delicate gloves but perfect for their use, which was preventing anybody to see the ice that kept covering his hands since day nine until Ice had bought the gloves to mask it only a day later. The ice was still there, but at least no one saw it this way. Sometimes the ice appeared on his gloves as well, but that luckily didn't happen that often.

"Do you wear these gloves often?" Ryan asked, while still eying them curiously. Ice felt a bit flustered by his curious glance but nodded sternly.

"You should; they are really pretty," the boy said as a matter-of-fact and Ice was actually pretty taken aback by that. He blinked a few times, but cocked a smile, his first real smile in many days.

"Thank you," he said softly and he averted his gaze to his food. Ryan kept silent after that. The room was pretty silent on the whole, the most silent it could be, as everyone was intently reading their letters. Sometimes a tiny sob filled the air, but that wasn't strange and allowed for everyone, since they were sturdy and stalwart fighter pilots, but they were human as well.

After breakfast, Ice usually bolted out of the room as fast as he could, but now Slider managed to slip next to Ryan, who was also just on the cusp of leaving, before Ice could go away.

"Hey Ice, can I get more than two words out of you today?" Slider's tone was light, but his eyes told a different story. The first few days after Maverick had left, Ice had tried everything to go after him and Slider being the responsible voice in his ear was the only thing that prevented him from stealing a plane and flying to the mainland himself. After the debacle of breaking into the control room to get to the only phone on the carrier (which was for absolute and utter emergencies and therefore almost never used and, apparently, broken) and the first mail day, which left Ice totally hopeless and devastated, Slider tried to look out for him, but Ice didn't let him anymore. His coldness would blow over, he would be fine. He cut everyone out of his inner circle. Yes, he was at all the meals, but almost always kept dead silent and cold. The others didn't pry, but Ice couldn't miss the worrying glances they sent each other whenever a joke fell flat on Ice again. In the air he communicated, but not more than necessary and it seemed like Slider had had finally enough of it.

"Ice? You're the Iceman? All of the men think you've lost your mind man, after your wingman left." Ryan said to Ice, ignoring Slider for the time being.

"Do you think I've lost my mind?" Ice asked before he could stop himself, because for the first time, he could actually hear what somebody thought about him instead of getting pitying glances all of the time. Ryan cocked his head to the side and looked Ice all over, which Ice just blinked through. People looked at him every day when they thought he couldn't see them so getting inspected right in front of his eyes was a refreshing change.

"Nah, I think you're just lonely and sulking way too hard for your own good," Ryan shrugged, grabbed his plate, stood up and left the conversation. Ice leaned back, taken aback and blinking.

"Well, that might have been the most honest and stupidest thing someone has ever said to you. It surprises me that you didn't give him that frozen look again like all the other who as little as breath in your presence," Slider said, but a tiny smile formed on his face.

"I don't do that. And I'm not sulking," Ice huffed, mildly annoyed.

"You are mate, but that's ok, it will pass," Slider said as he nudged his foot against Ice's. Ice almost sighed from relief when it seemed that finally Slider had given up mothering him and left him to do this alone, which Ice really preferred. They walked to the planes together this time, exchanging small talk for the first time in almost half a week. Before they closed the canopy, Slider nudged his side and looked at him.

"You good?" he asked, serious, but not with prying.

"I'm good," Ice said and they headed for the sky.

It was a lie. Ice wasn't good. He wasn't even remotely good. The days after mail day he tried to maintain this supposed ceasefire with his RIO, but the small talk grew heavier and heavier every day and when the weekend passed, he was just humming a bit to what Slider said while every word surpassed him completely.

The days however were fine because when he was busy, he almost forgot what had happened. At night the reality came crashing down on him, pinning him on his bed and freezing his breath. At night he repeated the last conversation with Maverick countless of time, thinking repetition could dull the pain of waking up alone, but that was never the case. It even became worse and worse every night.

Sometimes he dreamed. Dreamed of warm arms and brown hair, but when he woke up, he always woke up in an icy bed. Even literally so because his sheets were always tangled and frozen around his body. After thirty days, he stopped falling asleep altogether, just lying there in the dark, ice creeping up all around him until it was morning and the whole room was covered in a thin layer of frozen water. A few days after that, he started to shiver. The cold bit him and tore him apart in racketing shivers. The ice settled in his bones and although Ice had always been cold, he had never felt this freezing in his life, even when they were in the sky. He trundled trough the days, hauling himself from one place to the other, from one meal to another, seconds becoming hours, hours becoming years until it sucked every bit of energy right from Ice's bones.

He woke up on the fortieth day after falling asleep (something his body started doing again after four days of no sleep around day thirty-five) with heavy eyes. He had no energy to open his frozen eyelids and just laid there, listening to the sounds of the carrier around him, completely devoid of energy. The coldness of the room crept on him and his muscles contracted. The shivers started small, but grew to bone shattering movements that almost knocked him of his bed but he just endured it, wondering why he was still alive.

"Ice?" A voice filtered through the frozen haze that had pulled over his brain and he finally opened his eyes, annoyance distracting him from the shivers.

"Ice? Are you there? Can I come in?" Ice identified the voice as Slider's and huffed. The doorhandle rattled, but the door wouldn't open. Ice turned around to eye the door, which was covered in a thick layer of Ice.

"Ice, I know the door isn't locked, please let me in!" he heard Slider bark, but the voice drifted to the back of his mind as he closed his eyes again and just succumbed to the shivers.

Suddenly a big bang burst through the room as the door flung open, the ice on it coming loose and crashing down on the ground.

"Finally, Ice what the fuck did you think you- Holy Jesus!" Slider's voice sprung from annoyance to immediate concern and Ice heard him coming closer rapidly.

"Holy shit Ice! Ice? Ice?! You still there, buddy?!" Slider asked as he tried to stop the blonde's shivers by holding his shoulders.

"You see what you have done now?!" Ice heard Slider bark but it seemed like the anger was not targeted at him. Ice tried to shake Slider's hands off his shoulders, but stopped dead in his tracks when something touched his cheek. A warmth he had thought he had lost forever blossomed in him as somebody pulled him into an awkward hug.

Ice decided he was dying.

He was dying, because there was no way Maverick had really returned.