There wasn't enough wood, to keep warm in the Fridge. There wasn't enough anything- Perhaps if there were bullymongs about, Gaige could slice one open and tuck herself in, like a fortress of rotting flesh and singed fur. But in this instance, all the wood had gone towards putting a splint on her leg, where she fractured her ankle. With every strangled breath, she found herself coughing either blood or spit, and neither was particularly wanted.

Sure, she could leave and return to Sanctuary- it would be warmer there, with the amount of people, the unrequited love of the citizens and their obsession with Vault Hunters. But she had left someone behind here, had left them for dead, wishing to save herself. There was no heroism on Pandora, but she strongly believed that's what he did- tried to save her. And she quickly repaid him by abandoning him to the rats.

There was no doubt he was warm- his ability to breathe fire definitely would keep him cozy here. No doubt that he survived, he was stronger than she could ever be. Sure, she had Deathtrap, but his constant deployment only resulted in his quick dematerialization with how hard it was to fight now. But she returned to thank him, to continue to work with him- even if she would never understand him, never quite get why he was so determined to kill and yet never harmed her. Being a psycho, she assumed that that was all that was to him- slaughter and money. But he was too different, and that ignited a curiosity that she could not tame, and a part of her knew that was why she stuck with him. A desire to know what had made him this way, as he was the only psycho she could really ask without having to kill shortly after.

It would wait, though, until she located him. Now that they were separated, it would be difficult to regroup, especially when the Fridge was overall so large. They had never made a plan to regroup- and if he had told her a place, she had not understood his words –and Gaige did not even know if he would still be here. But for now, she was here. For now, she would kill, and use the corpses to keep warm. The tires that littered the center of the Fridge would have been a nice place to set up camp, if the Rats didn't chase her from the proximity to begin with. Honestly, her best bet was to put a bullet through her skull and respawn, but the New-U was 'temporarily' down. How temporary was that, she questioned mockingly, when it had been down for the past week. Perhaps more, time was impossible to keep.

The taste of her own saliva was disgusting- but it built up, every time she thought of food. It would have been nice if she had some slices of pizza; Claptrap did offer, and she did take, but it was gone now. With two mouths to feed- and one mouth being the catalyst to a stomach that did not cease to intake food- it had been hard to scavenge anything for herself. She needed the psycho at his fittest, when Deathtrap could not be summoned, and when he was inevitably taken down or leaving. It left her with enough to keep going, but that wasn't enough when the energy expenditure was tenfold, with fighting. She found herself always hungry, though she did well to hide it from her... acquaintance.

She did not even know his name, taking to calling him 'That Psycho', when he was the topic of conversation. Between her and Salvador, his name mattered very little. Maya- who brought the creature to Sanctuary begin with, stirring up all the inhabitants and giving the original four Vault Hunters a scare- had wormed a name out of him, she assumed. 'Krieg'. Though... Even then, she doubted it was truly his name, not when he could not answer any simpler questions. There was no way that he had given her a name without something more.

Perhaps something like poop, Gaige thought, laughing to herself, only to frown when the white huffs of frozen air left her mouth. It was definitely too cold for jokes, but the warmth of her own breath was comforting enough. She brought her hands to her lips and breathed, only to shiver when cold air touched her metal arm. It made the flesh that it was connected to cold, and ultimately left her worse off than she already was.

Could she take a break and sleep? Or would she be dead before her eyes reopened for the morning? She wouldn't even know if she made it to morning- not in the Fridge. Perhaps she should go, keep herself alive. That is what the creature wanted, she was sure, when he screamed at her. It had been the first time he had said something... relatively normal. It had sounded harsh... though what wouldn't, coming from his mouth?

"Leave," he groaned, rubbing a bite mark on his leg. They were surrounded by corpses... ashes. The rats that had claimed they smelled delicious clearly did not take a whiff after the fire was good and done with them. It did not matter- Gaige was taken aback from the psycho's words, teeth bared but mind devoid of words to say. The smell of their surroundings did not register in her mind until the man turned away from her when she demanded to know why.

"I have to be here," Gaige argued. "Maya wants us to watch out for you. You're not sane. We can't trust you, not until you give us a reason why. Just... just saving her life is not sufficient enough for me. Who knows, you could've done it out of your own convenience." But it was only her and Salvador who shared that mutual distrust. It was Salvador's words that led her to believe this man could possibly kill them, and Axton's skepticism. Though he was more tolerant than Salvador, by far, when it came to this man. Salvador did not let the fact go by that it would have been much easier to kill things not targeting you- and to Gaige, it made sense.

"Don't want you," He snarled, turning his head back to look at her with empty eyes. "Don't need. Leave."

Gaige shook her head- and that was the end of the argument, and the death of any future conversations. They did not talk to each other, walked in silence as they fought through the Fridge. Up until their meeting with the Mutated Lab Rats, they remained silent. It was the screaming, Gaige's pain and the psycho's excitement, that broke their lingering pact of quiet. Their soulless eyes, blue when lasers shot from them, stared them in the face when they were slaughtered, but the damage had been done to Gaige's leg. She laid in the center of them, clutching her wound, the gash that definitely looked worse than it felt. It was the sprain that she had caused that hurt most, and that would heal with time. It was unfortunate that they had none to spare.

"Give me your buzz axe," Gaige demanded. "If you can find me some metal, I'll just hack it off. No big deal- I can make a prosthetic leg and we can keep going." It was her solution to everything, and she did enjoy it very much. The others did not, told her to limit it to her arm. But it was an emergency- but not really- and she figured they would understand.

Her hand was outstretched to accept the weapon, and the man was all too eager to give it to her... for a moment. He then pulled it away, and she saw a flash of restraint in his eye, for just a moment. Nevertheless, she was upset at being denied. "Give me the axe. You're wasting time."

The psycho's grunts sounded deranged, as if he was arguing with himself, against giving her the blade and doing nothing. Whatever inner fight he was having, it did not help her at the time. "Fine," Gaige hissed. "If you're not going to do that, as least find me some wood or somethin'. And something to wrap my wound. We can't sit here, they'll steal our stuff and smell the blood."

When the creature's head moved down to note the blood seeping into the snow, he did as he was told. Once she had patched herself up, the silence returned. Beyond the occasional yells of the psycho for someone to stop talking to him- Gaige had stopped responding to them, once she realized the words were not directed to her- they remained in quiet. The scent was not hidden quickly enough, and another barrage of rats swarmed them. When Deathtrap had dematerialized, they were separated. The psycho was far enough ahead to hear her asking him to wait, and he did not have to be close at all for her to hear his response.

"Run," he yelled, though it sounded equally as strangled as his other commands. She opened her mouth to retort, only letting a scream go by as she felt her shield go down, and her blood go down her back. "RUN!" He screamed, furious at... something. Gaige did not know, but she felt herself running- limping- with her makeshift crutch. She ran, looking at the ground, the only indicator that something was occurring behind her, with silhouettes of creatures going down, and flames illuminating her path, or at least that was what it seemed. She did not know when her legs stopped, only that her eyes closed when she apparently found it safe enough to stop.

When they were opened, it was near the machines Marcus used to pawn off guns, and Zed used to sell cheap vials. The doorway had been closed, and she was safe from the rats. But something compelled her to turn back. Whether it was her conscious of leaving an 'ally' behind, or a sudden wish for revenge, she did not know... but she took a few vials from the dispenser, dealt with what it healed, and reopened the gate to her frozen hell.

How far had he gone? She would never know, there was no way of contacting him. He didn't have an ECHO communicator, and she didn't feel like leaving hers behind. Ultimately, that is what she did, and she had quite a lot to say. She did not know if he would understand her words- he never gave indication that he did in the past- but for once... she said his 'name', to make sure he would know it was him that she directed this plea to.

"Krieg, if you're hearing this..."