Disclaimer: I don't own this. You know I don't.

Dedication: This is for my Aunt Hannah, simply because every night before I go to sleep, I hear her voice coming out of the dark saying those words that did so much to make me who I am today: "Well, Sugarfoot, tell me a story." Rest in peace, Aunt Hammer. May 1906-September 2006.

What is Forever?

Forever. Was there ever a word more meaningless to human beings, whose lifespans were but a blink of an eye in the timeframe of the greater world? When an ice age could last a hundred generations and bury even the memory of countless human lives, what was one man's concept of forever?

And yet, he had found it in the warm, loving eyes of his beautiful wife. He knew he would love her forever, beyond the limitations of life and death. Forever.

He was a scientist, devoted to his intellect, not an artist. He was not a man given to strong emotion. Some called him cold, but not Nora, his beloved. She knew him, and she roused in him the passion that was otherwise controlled, and tenderness, and joy. His greatest pleasure was simply to be near her, to feel the heat of her body next to his, to look at her and know that there was a reason to live this life of his, as long as she was in it. Moving with a dancer's grace or sleeping as soundly as a child, laughing, crying, angry, or amused, to him she was always the most beautiful sight in the world.

She was sleeping now, her slender body pressed against his. The early morning sun painted her body with a soft golden glow. He loved waking early to hold her in his arms for a few minutes before his alarm went off and summoned him to work. His time with her was so short.

He could tell by the sound of her breathing that the new doctor's treatments were not helping her as they should. She had been ill for only a short time, but the stress and pain were already taking a toll on her, although her gentle smile was as ready as ever when she was with him.

A cure would be found, he told her often, never speaking aloud the rest of his thought, before it's too late. She always smiled and told him, of course, she had no intention of leaving him to face this cold, cruel world alone. And he always laughed because he knew she didn't believe the world was cold or cruel, and after all, how could anything be so with her around?

He could not let her leave this world. He could not endure emptiness where she had been. There must be a way to save her. Forever could not be so brief.

"I love you, Nora," he whispered into her hair. She opened her eyes, coming slowly out of sleep.

"I love you, too, Victor. Always and forever."

--

In his frozen room at Arkham Asylum, Mr. Freeze sleeps, dreaming of a warm day in summer and a warm body next to his. One hand is flung across his face, the other outstretched as if seeking something lost. On the table next to his bed is a snowglobe, his one personal item in this barren cell. In the softly falling snow, the figure of a lovely dancer slowly twirls, around and around, forever.

Because the tears are frozen inside him, he only sighs a little in his sleep.