Kellie Ross had been on pins and needles ever since the end of Thanksgiving break.  Dakota hadn’t been at school.  In talking to his twin sister, Lakota, she learned that the bulk of the family was still in Chicago with Dakota.  Things weren’t sounding promising, but Lakota couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.  Every time they dwelled on Dakota for too long, she would simply start crying.

The anxiety had been building for three weeks.  By now, Lakota’s Aunt Marie had come to stay at the house with her.  She waited until after Thanksgiving for the sake of her own family, then arrived.

During those three weeks, Kellie found that being a superheroine living along the Great Lakes in December was a slow proposition.  The ice-themed attacks had stopped, and so had most crimes of the types superheroes deal with.  She couldn’t even take out her frustrations on bad guys.

Then, on a Friday, Kellie got a call.  “Hey, Kel,” Dakota said.

“Kota!” Kellie said.  “How are you?  Are you home?”

“To the second question, yeah,” Dakota said.  “As to the first … meet me at the first HQ, OK?”

Kellie couldn’t help her voice coming out as a tiny squeak.  “OK,” she said.

“Can you come now?” Dakota asked.

“Be right there,” Kellie answered.

The secluded section of riverbank where Kellie had made her first headquarters as Elevator Girl was less than five minutes walk from Kellie’s house.  She was there in two.  Dakota took a bit longer, but came under his own power.

Kellie almost broke down in tears at the sight of her boyfriend.  He was sallow-looking, and his right elbow was clearly swollen.  His hair, only recently returned, was gone again.  It was clear the effort of walking here had exhausted him.

Kellie darted over to Dakota.  She hugged him as tightly as she felt she dared, then helped him to the bank to sit.

For several minutes they sat on the bank, holding hands.  Dakota alternated between staring at the sky, the water, the cave that had been Elevator Girl’s first headquarters, and Kellie.  Kellie simply stared that him, trying to drink in every instant and afraid of what the news he bore might be.

Finally, Dakota patted her hand.  “Kel, you can probably guess what I’m going to say.”

Kellie’s eyes already were filling with tears.  “The news isn’t good, is it?”

Dakota smiled sadly and shook his head.  “It’s not,” he said.  “My cancer’s metastasized.  It’s spread.  That’s not a  big surprise with lymphoma, really.”

Kellie sniffled loudly, and blushed slightly at doing so.

“They tried an experimental treatment on me at the hospital in Chicago.  It didn’t work.”

Kellie had been down the road of cancer before, when it took the life of her father.  “So, what’s the prognosis?”  she asked faintly.

Now Dakota’s eyes filled with tears.  He looked away from Kellie, then looked her in the eye and patted her hand again, and she knew without him saying the words.

“Oh, no!” Kellie wailed, and wrapped her arms around him.  They wept together there, the superheroine and her dying boyfriend, for several minutes.

Then Dakota pulled back, wiping his eyes.  “It’s funny,” he said.  “I hadn’t cried since I got the news.  Mom, Dad, Sis -- they all cried.  Heck, Mom and Sis bawled.  But I hadn’t cried … until now, with you.”

“How … how long do you have?”  Kellie asked, fighting back sobs.

Dakota shrugged.  “Weeks; maybe months,” he said.  “I’ll make Christmas, New Year’s.  Easter is iffy.”  he closed his eyes before adding, “I’ve probably seen my last summer, they said.”

Kellie’s lower lip was quivering.  “Why are you home, Kota?” she asked.

Dakota patted Kellie’s hand again and looked her straight in the eye.  “They sent me home to die,” he said.

Kellie shook her head and stared at the ground.  It couldn’t be happening again!  It couldn’t be!  And not to Dakota …

Dakota took both her hands, catching Kellie’s attention.  “Kel, I cried now because of what this means for you,” he said.  “You’ve been hurt so much, and I don’t want to hurt you, too, and I don’t want to leave you.”

Kellie wrapped her arms around Dakota and held him close.  “Then don’t!” she said.  “Fight this!”

“I’ve tried,” he said.  “But the doctors are out of options.  The cancer’s spread too much.  It caught them all off-guard.  There’s nothing to fight a cancer -- set of cancers, really -- like this with.”

Gently, Dakota pushed Kellie back, then guided her chin so she was looking him in the eye.  “It’s the bottom of the ninth, and I’m down 27 to 2,” he said.  “There’s a chance of a comeback, but it isn’t very good.  I’m afraid my fight is just about over.”

Kellie’s eyes were wide and her mouth was pursed small.

“Kel, I need to tell you something,” Dakota said.  “I’ve been on the verge of telling you a few times, but I really need to do it now.”

Dakota took a deep breath.  “Kel, I knew my life was missing something for awhile, but I thought it was due to the cancer, or something else wrong with me.  And then we found each other again … and I realized what I was missing … was you.  You complete my life, Kellie Ross.  As short as my life may be, as painful as this illness is, living’s been wonderful for me because of you.”

Their eyes locked as Dakota said, “I love you, Kellie Ross.”

Kellie’s lower lip quivered, then her whole lower jaw started to flail.  “I --  I --” she managed to stammer out.  Then bawling, she stood up, sobbed, “I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!” and ran back toward her house, leaving Dakota sitting there.

Two minutes later, Lakota walked up.  “Didn’t expect to find you here alone,” she said.

Dakota was staring at the cave.  “I think it was too much for her,” he said.

“From what you told me of your plans, it would have been pretty intense,” Lakota said.  “I mean, being told your boyfriend is dying and then having him profess his love of you …”

“Yeah,” he said.  “I knew that, but I … “

“Don’t know how much time you have,” Lakota said.

Dakota nodded.

Lakota came over to her twin.  “Let me help you up,” she said.  “Then I’ll walk you home.”

“Sounds good,” Dakota said.

Once they were walking, Dakota leaning on Lakota, the girl said, “You’re going to need to rest when we get home.”

“Yeah,” he said.  “Call and check on Kellie, will you, Sis?  Make sure she’s OK.”

“Of course,” Lakota said.  “She’s my friend, too, y’know.”

They hadn’t gotten far when Dakota said, “Hey, Sis, did you see that cave back there?”

Lakota’s brow furrowed.  “Yeah.  What about it?” she asked.

“I’ve got an odd request for you,” he said.  “In case something happens to me sometime, I want you to leave something there for Kellie.”

Kellie had gone to her room and wept into her pillow.  She was glad her mom was asleep at the time, and that she didn’t wake Gemma when she came in.

Lakota called, and let Kellie know she was welcome to come over whenever she wanted, as long as Dakota was up to it.

“Thanks,” Kellie said quietly.

“Kellie, you know, he’s been so much happier the last couple of months,” Lakota said, “and you’re most of that.  Elevator Girl started it; She gave him hope.  But you, you’ve given him joy.  Whatever else happens, he’s happier with you in his life.”

“I know,” Kellie said quietly.  She tried to respond further, but all her ideas sounded terrible if she tried to form them into words.

“It’s OK, Kellie,” Lakota said.  “I don’t always know what to say, either.  Just come when you’re ready, OK?”

“OK,” Kellie said.

Once the call was over, Kellie started to think.  Before he had tumbled to her secret identity, Dakota had told Elevator Girl that she gave him hope, too.  He told her she gave him hope with the way she thought outside the box.

Kellie’s eyes began to dart from side to side as she thought.  Her mother had reminded her recently that cancer was cells growing out of control.  Her powers as Elevator Girl let her control her growth.  Was there a way to use them here?

Running to the closet, she pulled out the specialized SCUBA gear Super Scuba’s new incarnation had given her.  Maybe there was a way.

Kellie ran to where she kept the manuals her late grandfather had given to her for maintaining the bracelet.  She began to flip though pages, until she found a section on troubleshooting and jerry-rigging.  Kellie started reading it intensely.  There had to be something here.  There just had to be!  Dakota’s life depended on it!

Kellie felt a gentle shake on her shoulder.  “Kellie.  Kellie, honey.”

Kellie sat up at the desk where she had fallen asleep.  Bits of electronics were scattered around her.  She looked up to see her mom standing over her.

“Honey, it’s three in the morning,” Gemma Ross said to her daughter.  “You need to get some sleep -- in a proper bed.”

Kellie groggily shook her head.  “Mom, I’m so close,” she said.  “I’m pretty sure I’ve got this figured out.  I just need one more piece of the puzzle, and I’ll be there.”

Gemma knelt beside her daughter.  “Kellie, I know how important this is to you --”

“Important?!” Kellie said.  “Mom, this is a matter of life and death -- Dakota’s life and death!”

Gemma nodded and closed her eyes.  “I understand that,” she said, “but wearing yourself down to a nub won’t help Dakota at all.  He needs you.”

“I’ve been seeing him,” Kellie said.

“Yeah, when you can do it with his parents or sister around,” Gemma said.  “From what I hear from the Greenes, what he really wants is to talk to you alone, and you bolt when that possibility arises.  What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Kellie said.

“Kellie, something happened two weeks ago between you two,” Gemma said.  “I don’t know what it was, but it’s hurting both of you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom,” Kellie said.

Gemma stood up, sighing.  “All right,” she said.  “But remember, your time with those you love is precious, especially in a situation like Dakota’s is now.  Don’t waste it.”

Kellie looked back at her mother.  “Who said I love Dakota?”

Gemma smiled knowingly.  “All right, substitute ‘people you care about.’  It still applies.  Try and get some rest, honey.”  She left the room, closing the door behind her.

Two days later, it was as Elevator Girl that Kellie approached the Greene house.  She was wearing her pink costume, the one she knew Dakota liked.  She was 50 feet tall when she walked up, being careful to approach from a direction other than that of home.

In his room, Dakota smiled as he heard the thud of Elevator Girl’s colossal feet as she walked.  He knew that sound, and he knew that, if she was in the neighborhood, there was a good chance she was coming to see him.

Kellie shrank to her customary 7-foot height for Elevator Girl “at rest.”  The height difference made her voice sound different, and gave people a different perspective on her body so she looked less like Kellie Ross to most people.  Then she knocked on the door.

Lakota answered.  “Oh, hey!” she said.  “Elevator Girl!  What brings you here?”

“Your brother,” Kellie said.  “Are your folks here?”

“Yeah,” Lakota said.

“I’d like to talk to the family, if I can,” Kellie said.

“Absolutely,” Lakota said.  “Come on in.”

Dakota’s medication had left him temporarily too weak to stand, having taken two different prescribed medications a little too close together.  As a result, the family met in his room.

Once they were all there, Kellie started.  “I’ve heard about Dakota’s condition,” she said.  “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to help, and I think I have.  It’s using the technology of two members of the old Super 6.  But it’ll involve a risk to Dakota, and to me.”

“I don’t understand,” Dakota’s dad said.

“My size-changing powers are technology based, and that technology creates mini-warps in the time-space continuum to warp space and result in size changes.”

“That must take a tremendous amount of energy,” said Mr. Greene.

“Elevator Man found a way to harness the energy of the warps themselves to power the devices,” Kellie said.  “The challenge for him was the first warp so he could use it to power the later ones and his belt.  Anyway, using the tech available to me, I’ve been able to create a blaster that can warp space-time around individual cancer cells or cell clusters.  The thing is, I’ll have to use it in person.  I‘ll have to shrink to microscopic size and go into his body.”

Lakota frowned.  “How will you do that?” she asked.  “How will you breathe?”

“I’ve got a special environment suit from another Super 6 member,” Kellie said.  “I’ll use it.  I’ll work with the doctors to rig a communication and camera system so they can guide me to the right cells to remove.  It’ll be time consuming, and I can’t guarantee I can get everything, but I believe I can get most of the cancer.”

“But how can you do this for just Dakota?”  his mother asked.  “There are so many others with cancer, and you can’t go into them all.”

“You’re right,” Kellie said, “but I can give medical technology companies the rights to a few patents I hold, so they can work on building the technologies to share this with others.”

“Give, or sell?” asked Mr. Greene.

Kellie smiled.  “I’ll give them away on the condition that a foundation be established for cancer patients and their families -- the Dakota Greene Foundation.”

The other members of the Greene family looked at Dakota.  His expression was to their surprise, cold.

“Excuse me,” Dakota said.  “I’d like to talk to Elevator Girl alone, please.”

“All right,” said Mr. Greene.  “Let’s go, folks.”

When they were all out, Dakota said to Kellie, “Shut the door.”  She did so.

Dakota shook his head.  “Why are you doing this?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Kellie said.  “I’m a superheroine!  I save lives!  I’m trying to save yours!”

“What do you care about my life?” Dakota asked.  “You haven’t been alone with me since I told you I love you.  Now you finally are, but it’s as Elevator Girl.  First you hide behind my family, now you hide behind that mask.  I’ve exposed myself to you, and you’re still hiding from me.”

“I’m not hiding!” Kellie said.  “I’m trying to save you!”

“I can’t let you do that, Elevator Girl,” Dakota said.

“What? Why not?”

“There are millions of others with cancer like me,” Dakota said.  “They don’t have a superheroine for a girlfriend who can do this kind of thing for them.  I can’t accept this help.  It wouldn’t be fair.”

Unconsciously, Kellie added a foot to her height.  “Unfair?!  Unfair!”  she shouted.  “Don’t you talk to me about unfair, Dakota Greene!  What’s fair about a 14-year-old dying of cancer?  Nothing!  What’s unfair is when your father dies of brain cancer so fast you barely get the chance to tell him you love him, and you‘re still a kid!  What’s unfair is when you come to depend on your grandpa to be the adult male in your life and he gets sick and dies!  What’s unfair is a beautiful, special 14-year-old dying of cancer!  This is a chance to balance the scales, to make things fair for you, and maybe one that can reach others down the line!  Don’t you dare skip this chance because you say it’s not fair!”

Dakota looked up at her, stunned for a moment.  Then he looked aside for a second, processing an idea.  He looked back at Kellie.  “Oh, my God,” he said.  “Elevator Girl, I’m sorry.  I didn‘t know.”

Kellie shook her head.  “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You can’t say it,” Dakota said.  “I never realized it until now.  You can’t say you love me, even though you do.  You told your father loved him, and he died of cancer.  You told your grandpa you loved him, and he got sick and died.  You love me, but you don’t dare say it, because I have cancer, and you don’t want me to die, too.”

Without thinking, Kellie shrank to her real normal size.  Her lower lip quivered for three seconds as she nodded.

Dakota held out a hand, and Kellie took it.  “You know, saying it won’t kill me,” he said.

“I know in my head,” Kellie said quietly, “but I just can’t let myself do it.  I’m sorry.”

“Then I’ll say it for both of us,” Dakota said.  “I love you.  Is that acceptable?”

“Oh, yes,” Kellie said, louder.  She leaned forward to kiss him.

Then they heard the loud thud from the hallway, right beside the door.

In two seconds, Kellie had stood up and grown large enough to open the door.  Within another second, she had grabbed the person there -- Lakota -- hauled her into the room and pulled the door back shut.

Kellie dangled Dakota’s sister in front of her.  “You were eavesdropping,” she said angrily.

“Yes,” Lakota said faintly.

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” Lakota said.  “I know you’re … who you are.  Who I spent thanksgiving with.”

“You’re not telling anyone,” said Kellie, scowling.

“No one,” Lakota said.

“Not even Mom and Dad,” Dakota said.

“Not even them,” Lakota said.

Kellie put Lakota down and shrank to her normal size, then removed her mask.  “I don’t approve of how you found out,” she said, “but I’ve needed a girlfriend who knows.”  She hugged Lakota.

“Um, this is all very sweet, but we were in the middle of something?”  Dakota said.

“Right.  Getting out now,” Lakota said. And she did.

Kellie sat next to Dakota.  “Now, where were we?” she asked.

“About here,” Dakota said, pulling her closer and kissing her.  And, for that lingering moment, all was well.

The arrangements were made rapidly, with the help of tech companies eager to get their hands on what could be game-changing technology.  The Rosses couldn’t afford a lawyer;  the technology parts they’d purchased for this project had already hit their budget hard.  Still, Stamitos, whose gift for language allowed him to understand even legalese, designed the proposed agreements to guarantee that the company acquiring the technology patents, existing and new, would have to actually work to develop it for use, not bury it to protect their own existing products.

Dakota added one stipulation to the foundation; its name should be the Greene-Ross Foundation, also honoring Kellie’s late dad, as well as himself.

Trying to work around Kellie’s school schedule to protect her secret identity, the procedure was set to begin on Dec. 24.  Everyone involved recognized that the work would take hours, and might extend over a period of days, allowing for necessary rest breaks for Elevator Girl.

Early that morning, Kellie got suited up in the specialized gear.  It would protect her from antibodies.  She hugged her mom and Stamitos.  “Merry Christmas, honey,” Gemma said.

“I  just hope my gift gets delivered successfully,” Kellie said.

After Elevator Girl left, Stamitos looked at Gemma.  “You know, I’ve been a statue through all my Christmases before this,” he said.  “This will really be my first Christmas.”

Gemma caressed his cheek.  “I’m glad you get to spend it with me,” she said.

At the hospital, Kellie went through the surface sterilizing procedures so she could be injected into Dakota’s system.  Family would not be allowed in except between rounds of the procedure, and only family then.  Friends wouldn’t be allowed in until after everything was done.  Kellie was relieved.  It meant she didn’t have to explain why she wasn’t there.

As she was getting ready to shrink, her gaze locked with Dakota’s.  They had another one of the moments they’d been having, where each instinctively knew what the other was thinking just by looking at each other.  Dakota smiled.  “Glad you could finally tell me,” he said.

Kellie blushed as the others in the room looked slightly confused.  The heroine recovered quickly.  “Let’s go,” she said.

The experience of being injected was surreal.  The powerful superheroine was helpless as she was sent into the cauldron of the needle’s travel, bounced around in the flow of liquid that seemed like a sea to her.

Kellie thought she was prepared for the experience of being microscopic inside the body of her boyfriend, but she quickly learned she was wrong.  The environment was so alien, and his body’s functions made so much noise on this scale, that she needed a few seconds to adjust and focus in on the sound being communicated through her headset.

“The camera seems to be working fine,” said Dr. Forrest, the first of the doctors on duty to help with the procedures.  “How are you doing, Elevator Girl?”

“OK,” Kellie answered.  “I think I’ve got my bearings.  “Where to, Doc?”

Kellie followed the doctor’s directions to the first area in which they knew the metastasized cancer was.  It was her first opportunity to try the blaster device, and it worked well.

Kellie had designed the blaster with two settings.  One was a variation on the powers she had, allowing her to shrink cells down to such small size they basically ceased to exist.  The other used a time warp to return irreplaceable cells to an earlier state.  The latter setting had to be used sparingly;  Kellie didn’t have the funds to put together the level of technology that would have been needed to make the device truly stable, and each use risked burning it out altogether.

The doctors only let Elevator Girl stay in for two hours at a time, then required her to come out for a break. Kellie would exit via whatever orifice was closest.  That was a truly strange experience in and of itself.  Tear ducts and ears weren’t so bad, and neither were skin pores.  But nostrils were gross, and the rectum was grosser.  The mouth triggered a primal fear of being eaten that Kellie found hard to suppress, and there were other primal feelings she had to deal with when exiting through that uniquely male part of Dakota’s anatomy.

Once Kellie was out, she would take short naps, or grab something to eat or drink, or go relieve herself.  Each break began and ended with a look at Dakota.  Whether he was awake (and thereore smiling at her) or asleep, each of those moments gave her strength to carry on.

It was late that evening when Kellie used one of the breaks to go to a family room and take a nap.  She was so tired the conversation at the nurses’ station as she passed it didn‘t register.

“What did she want with the Greene chart?”  one nurse said.  “She’s not an oncologist, and she’s not part of the team for this procedure.”

“I don’t know what she wanted,” another said.  “She didn’t say.”

“What did you do?” a third asked.

“What could I do?” the second said.  “She’s a doctor.  I let her look at the chart.”

Kellie staggered back and fell asleep.  When she awoke, the conversation registered.  She half-ran back to the nurses station, but the shifts had changed and no one there knew what doctor who wasn’t an oncologist had looked at Dakota’s chart.

Kellie was vaguely troubled by the situation, but then she decided the doctor’s motivation was probably just curiosity.  She went back in for the next round of Dakota’s treatment.

Early Christmas morning, the doctors injected a dye into Dakota’s system to help identify cancerous cells.  It sped the process up.  Kellie began to become more able to identify them by sight, and there were chemical sensors Super Scuba had built into her SCUBA gear that allowed her to identify them even more quickly.  It made things even quicker.  Still, the procedure went on and on.

Finally, the doctors concluded that they had done all they could for now.  The procedure seemed successful, but they wanted to take a day or two before working to finish up.

Kellie exited Dakota and regrew to Elevator Girl’s standard 7 feet tall.

Dakota was awake.  He smiled up at her.  “Hey, Ellie,” he said.

Kellie smiled.  “Hey yourself,” she said.

“Merry Christmas,” Dakota said.

“Merry Christmas,” Kellie said.

“Thank you,” Dakota said.  “Best Christmas gift ever.”

“Glad I can give it,” she replied.

Kellie came back as herself to visit Dakota that evening, her mother and Stamitos in tow.  She leaned down to kiss him, as she’d longed to do for almost two days.

“Sorry I don’t have a present for you,” Kellie said.

Dakota grinned.  “We discussed your present earlier, as I recall,” he whispered.

Mrs. Greene looked over at Stamitos.  “What about you, Mr. Stamitos?  Dakota tells me this is your first Christmas.”

“That’s true, ma’am,” Stamitos said.  “I grew up outside religion, and really hadn’t encountered Christmas.  I know that sounds strange, but it’s the truth.”

“And, actually, it’s Mr. Stone,” Gemma added.  “Stamitos is his first name.”

“Oh.  I apologize,” Mrs. Greene said.

“No need,” said Stamitos, smiling.  His wink to Dakota told the teen the new last name was his Christmas present from Gemma.  Kellie had been in on it, so she already knew.

It was three days after Christmas when Elevator Girl reported for Round 2 of the treatment.  Things had worked as well as they could have hoped for in Round 1.  If Round 2 was successful, Dakota might be able to resume normal treatments;  if it was really successful, he might even be cancer-free.

Kellie braced herself for the cauldron of injection and went through the process once again.  It was time for another marathon session to begin.

The hours passed more quickly this time.  Very soon, it was the next day, and all the cancer cells they could locate had been targeted and either deleted or restored to normal.

An exhausted Kellie emerged through Dakota’s mouth, so tired that even her instinctive fear was suppressed.  “We done?” she asked.

Dr. Forrest, there at the beginning of the process, was there again at the end.  “Yep,” he said.  “We’re done.  You did great, Elevator Girl.”

Dakota was released from the hospital.  He was still weakened, but already feeling better.

The Greenes, the Rosses and Stamitos all were there to bring Dakota home.  He was glad to see all of them, but his parents could see he was interested only in one person.

During the drive home in the Greene’s car, Lakota leaned over to her brother.  “Hope your New Year’s Eve is free, Bro,” she said.  “A certain mutual friend of ours has big plans for you that night.”

Dakota smiled.  “And who would that be?” he asked.

Lakota just smiled and turned toward the window, saying nothing.

On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Greene drove Dakota to a place he didn’t expect:  the riverside.  Dakota looked curiously at his father.

“Your sister tells me this place is special for you and Kellie,” Mr. Greene said, “and, on a night like tonight, I can see why.  Of course, it’s a little nippy this time of year, so we got this set up for you.

Dakota grinned when he saw the small tent set up on the spot overlooking the headquarters cave.  Peeking out from inside was Kellie, looking as beautiful as he had ever seen her look.  She waved and ducked back in.

“We’re only a cell phone call away,” Mr. Greene said, “ and not too much past midnight, please.  And behave yourself with her, please?”

“I will, Dad,” Dakota said.  “I don’t want anything happening to her, you know.”

“I know,” Mr. Greene said, “and I trust you, son.  Have a great night -- but not too great.”

Dakota chuckled.  “I will, Dad.  Thanks.”

Dakota walked around to the open side of the tent, facing the river.  It was a simple arrangement, with a pair of comfortable looking chairs, a small folding table and a space heater.  To one side was a small cooler with bottles of sparkling grape juice.

From Dakota’s perspective, best of all was that Kellie was there, wearing a simple, warm outfit.  The jeans showed off her body well, and the sweater she wore looked soft and comfy -- and good to hug.

Kellie looked up at him invitingly.  “Welcome,” she said.

“All this for a New Year’s date?” Dakota said, smiling.

Kellie shrugged.  “It wasn’t that pricey,” she said.  “And I wanted to do something special for what I believe will be the first of many New Years to come for a very special young man.”

Dakota chuckled.  “Not that the young lady is at all special,” he said jokingly.

Kellie slowly shook her head.  “Not compared to the fellow,” she said.

Then she leaned in and kissed him.  He kissed back, and slipped his arms around her, finding that the sweater was indeed very huggable; he already knew that the girl in it was.

Kellie looked at Dakota.  “It’s a public place, so we can’t go too far,” she said.  “But we have some time to midnight, and I want to honor an old tradition then.”

“What’s that?” Dakota asked.

“If a couple kisses for a minute at midnight, their love will be true,” Kellie said.

“Oh,” said Dakota.  “So you’re suggesting an experiment to prove that theory?”

Kellie nodded.  “And I’m thinking we should practice for awhile ahead of time to make sure we can make the experiment work.”

“Well, they say practice makes perfect,” Dakota said.  “So, let’s practice.”

The two fell into each other’s arms, kissing each other again and again, and enjoying the warmth of their love and the view of the moonlight reflecting on the water of the river.  At midnight, they completed their mission, kissing for well over a minute.

Elsewhere, the woman who had hired, then murdered, the Planner; hired Mammoth; and built various ice-themed monsters and machines looked at the data she’d collected.  She was now sure she had all the data she needed to defeat Elevator Girl once and for all, and capture even greater power than she had now in the process.

Now it was just a question of getting the equipment put together. That would take time, but that was all right.  It was cold now; the equipment was best used when people thought they would be feeling the full bloom of spring.  That was when the cold would sting the most.  This would be the year the cold conquered at last.

Yes, she could wait.  After all, cold is patient, she thought.  And, sooner or later, cold always wins.