Colder than Ice

by Jane Galaxy

  Sophie leaned against the window and looked over at the cars she was currently trapped in an existential nightmare with. A minivan with a mom either screaming or singing at the top of her lungs while two school-aged kids fought over an action figure in the back seat. A man in a convertible with about three strands of thinned and graying hair yanked into a painful-looking ponytail at the back of his skull. A young man sitting in a car going through paperwork with a pencil between his teeth. A young blonde girl in a cheerleader’s uniform smirking into her cell phone—

  Sophie blinked and looked back as her driver pulled up again next to the car with the young man going through paperwork.

  That was Tristan.

  Wasn’t it?

  It was. That was his nose, his hair, even his glasses. He was right there, next to her in traffic. Just one car over.

  Sophie waved. The car he was in started to pull away, and she felt a strangled cry leap out of her mouth.

  “Yeah, these morning traffic jams are never great,” her driver said in response. He pulled forward, and traffic came to a complete halt. It was quiet for a moment, and then the honking started up.

  She stared at Tristan, willing him to look at her, but whatever he was looking at was too engrossing. A new screenplay, maybe. Or a contract.

  Whatever it was, he was right there, just three feet away, and wouldn’t look at her. She didn’t think as she started smacking her hand against the window. Then she pounded again, and just as the driver’s reflection in the rearview mirror was opening his mouth to say something, Tristan frowned.

  And turned to look right at her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Holy shit, he thought, it was Sophie, wasn’t it? The windows in the town car that had been sent to pick him up weren’t tinted, and the driver had apologized before they’d started off. And now this—serendipitously, they just happened to be next to each other on the highway. He’d had a weird morning, but this was the capper. Traffic started moving again, and Tristan nearly jumped out of his seat as Sophie’s car started to pull away—he watched her turn and say something to the driver, but their lanes didn’t even out, and pretty soon three pickups and a Maserati had filled in, obscuring any view of the car she was in.

  He looked over at the massive leather bag on the seat next to him, the one fulfilling a contract. Stuffed with clothing that was only on loan to him, the one that held a pair of shoes he was supposed to switch into so that his usual ones wouldn’t attract so much negative attention.

  Tristan didn’t hate the things that came with this life, but he realized then and there that they were just things. He could leave it all on the seat next to him, and somehow, through the efforts of a lot of other people, everything would wind up where it needed to be. A mysterious change of hands would occur without any input from him.

  Sophie, meanwhile, would pull away in the odd and cramped-looking little car, with all her things. And maybe they would wind up together, eventually, or maybe this was a sign to act now, to be active, to go after what he wanted instead of someone else once more directing the course of his life.

  He knew that already, of course, but moving 40 miles an hour it seemed like good reinforcement of the idea.

  The next time the car pulled to a stop, he leaned over the front seat and told the driver he had somewhere to be, then unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door.

  Standing in the middle of bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405 was eerily like being on stage before a play began. A few people swung their heads toward him; some were too busy looking down into their phones; and still others were arguing with the person in the passenger seat, or their children, or checking their faces in the mirror. It was even hot like it was under stage lights, even at this time of year.

  Tristan squinted in the morning light, looking for the car that had Sophie in the back. It had been white, a small one, sort of nondescript and looking like a thousand other cars—

  Tapping on a nearby window, and then the sound of a window being rolled down somehow rose above all the noise of car exhausts and distant honking.

  “Tristan!” She was somewhere behind him, and he dashed over to slide in next to her just as traffic began moving again. And then Tristan was sitting next to Sophie in a completely different car. It was cramped, mostly because of the flat television screen hanging from the back of the driver’s seat.

  “This is very interesting,” he remarked at all the signs encouraging passengers to vote in their local elections, and another one advertising the free bottled water and mints the driver had on hand. “You always get the—” He nearly said weirdest Uber drivers, but Sophie clocked his thought just as the driver himself looked at Tristan in the rearview mirror.

  “Tell me about it,” said Sophie, laughing and managing to look utterly floored at the same time. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was…” he stopped, tilted his head at her. “First tell me what you’re doing here.”

  He watched as Sophie grew uncharacteristically shy all of a sudden, looked down at her hands in her lap.

  “Hi there!” The driver took this opportunity where he could. “I have to ask—you guys know each other? This isn’t a kidnapping situation?”

  “No,” they both said at the same time. Sophie leaned over the passenger seat.

  “Listen, we’re doing kind of a makeup thing, so if you just roll with this and stay quiet, I’ll tip you extra and give you a perfect rating, okay? Sound good?”

  The driver gave her a thumbs-up as they began moving again. Tristan reached for the grab handle above the door.

  “We’re doing a makeup thing?” he echoed her, and Sophie let a beat slide by before saying very carefully,

  “Yeah.” She looked at him from under her eyelashes. “It’s literally the entire reason I flew to freaking LAX—my plane ticket cost three times the regular price just for flying out on the weekend, can you believe that?”

  “Jesus, what airline was this?” the driver piped in.

  “Okay, you’re about to lose a star, buddy,” Sophie shot back.

  “Sorry, sorry,” the man said, and focused on muttering under his breath at the truck that was obviously trying to sneak in front of them without announcing it.

  Tristan’s whole heart felt like it was glowing, or about to be on fire, or jump out of his chest, or all three. Sophie eyed him for a long moment, like she knew exactly how she wanted this to go, and he was ready to follow.

  “You have to go first.”

  “That’s fair,” Tristan admitted. He breathed in. “I’m sorry I lied to you about being involved with the script. I should have come clean about it much sooner—at least then you would’ve known what you were dealing with, and could have made the corrections you wanted in good faith.”

  “We could have talked it out,” Sophie said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have run off and left the country like that—it felt great at the time, but…” She trailed off, and his thoughts turned to all the publicity that had been going on surrounding the two of them. He was used to it, and used to having a group of people who could both shelter him from it and respond to it for him, but Sophie… Sophie’d had nothing but herself in all of this. “It hasn’t been fun trying to ease my way back into life.”

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “Holed up in my best friend’s guest room without Internet.”

  Tristan’s eyes went wide, knowing how connected she was in general.

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah, I had to get a new phone, it was a whole thing.” Sophie waved a hand. “So why are you here? I called Prasad; I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he didn’t seem to have a good idea of where you were going.”

  “Oh, that.” Tristan shifted on the bench seat to dislodge his knee from the edge of the video game console. It was flashing through the store demo for a re-release of a platform scroller. “Well, he got this new job opportunity and was telling me about it at the wedding, and he said something that
got me thinking, so I flew back in to town to work on that, and I was going to hedge my bets and fly out to Omaha tonight in case you were there, but then I realized I didn’t know exactly where you were—”

  “Dude, slow down!” their driver hollered, and Sophie had opened her mouth again, but the screech of brakes around them seemed to indicate that he might not have been talking to them.

  “Start over,” Sophie told him, “Because I have no idea what you just told me.”

  “I think Prasad’s giving up his job with the studio for some independent projects.”

  “Didn’t it take him a long time to get that?”

  “People move around in Hollywood—I think he wanted to do something closer to his heart.”

  Sophie nodded, but looked a little skeptical, like she wasn’t sure how this all tied back in to why he was in town.

  “Anyway, he mentioned at the wedding—Joanna said to tell you hi if we ever came face to face again, by the way—”

  “Oh, well, hi to her too.”

  “Right,” Tristan said with a chuckle. “He mentioned that Card One had asked him to script the next film, but he said he was moving on to something else, and asked me if I wanted to do it instead.”

  He stopped to see if she was following his train of thought.

  “See, because I think that you should do it.”

  Sophie’s face telegraphed the words that came out of her mouth first.

  “Me? I don’t have any experience with screenwriting.”

  “But you’ve got comics writing experience—which already puts you ahead. Writing a superhero movie isn’t the same as writing a comedy or a drama. Plus you’ve already spent so much time working with Prasad that you understand the structure, the beats, how it all works.”

  He waited, a bit anxiously, to see how she’d respond before telling her the next part.

  “And I suggested to Colin Younger that you’d be a great choice going forward.”

  Now Sophie really was surprised.

  “Not without you saying yes first, of course,” Tristan said quickly, “It’s your decision. But… I really think you should do it.”

  “Why?” She was asking about his level of conviction this time. Tristan couldn’t stop himself from saying the next part, even though he’d been sworn to secrecy.

  “They’re making a Lucius-centric film.”

  From the way the driver was eyeing the two of them in the rearview mirror, he was definitely listening in. Sophie’s mouth dropped open.

  “I… based on what?”

  “Issue 47.”

  Issue 47 was the last of the original Imperium comics from the 1970s that Gerhig had written. Comics fans generally agreed that it was among the best story arcs from the series, maybe even from the decade itself, but it was a shame that it remained unfinished after the series was canceled. Lucius, stranded in Alaska after being cast out from the Toluma’a by his father Mordred, began to live among humans and started showing promise for a redemption story.

  “And you should finish the original comic,” Tristan said. “Nobody in their right mind would want to miss how it ends.”

  “You did all this since last night?!”

  “I’ve been here since Tuesday,” he replied. “Who told you I got in last night?”

  “Prasad needs a memory check; either that or he’s really wrapped up in this new job already,” Sophie said. “That’s… a lot to take in.”

  “Does it help if I tell you that Colin thinks your sense of humor and writing style is exactly what they’re looking for?”

  Sophie squirmed under the weight of the compliment.

  “Really?” she said in a little voice.

  “Exact wording.”

  “It’s hard to turn down an idea like that, especially after the writer’s block I’ve been suffering. Maybe a break from Morganna to focus on Lucius for a while would be fun, and we could hire Natasha Archer, and…” she trailed off, looking stunned.

  “So you’ll do it? Because we could go to the studio right now and tell Colin.”

  “You’re really into this, aren’t you?”

  There was something he’d been waiting to tell her, and now Tristan found himself on the side of being a bit bashful in the moment.

  “Well, it would be rather nice having you around—on set, in town, all that.”

  “I see,” said Sophie with a smile that kept getting bigger. “So you want to get back together.”

  “You said we were doing a make-up thing!”

  “I wanted to see if you even wanted to talk to me first.”

  “Of course I’d talk to you again, of course I want to be with you. Besides—”

  Sophie smiled, leaned forward, and pressed her mouth against his. It was several moments before anybody said anything.

  “—I’ve signed a four-picture contract with Card One, and if you came to work with the studio, you could move to Los Angeles and we could really be together,” said Tristan with his eyes still closed. He opened them to find Sophie admiring his face. Had she heard him?

  “So you’re not going back to England to do what your dad wants, be in more plays, more theater work?”

  “No.”

  “Because that’s a big leap, going from live drama to popcorn superhero films.” She smiled teasingly. “What on earth will Rufus say?”

  “Hopefully he’ll be so apoplectic that the dreaded book will never see the light of day.”

  “How do you feel about it?” She meant the contract. Tristan thought about it.

  “Like something huge has been lifted off my shoulders. I can just do what I love, completely out in the open.”

  “Sounds like quite a commitment.”

  “I’m hoping so.”

  The two of them beamed at each other, even through all the bad traffic and even worse luck, because it felt like nothing could possibly ruin this kind of happiness.

  “Hey, I know you,” said the driver finally, “You’re the guy from that movie—what is your name again?”

  “Did you know this is Sophie Markes, the comic book author?” said Tristan, not taking his eyes off her as she started to laugh.

  Epilogue

  Lucius looked down his nose at the young woman standing in front of him, her feet planted firmly in the packed snow and ice that was rapidly growing around them by the second. She didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised—or inconvenienced by it—considering that she’d been living in Denali for quite a while now. Snow was snow, ice was ice. The fact that the massive alien currently sneering at her was making more of it didn’t particularly matter. After all, she had duck boots and snowshoes to get her through whatever he could throw at her. She wasn’t afraid of anyone, which definitely included him, giant space ice alien with a god complex or not.

  “You aren’t like other humans, are you,” he said archly, as though one couldn’t possibly get any lower than that. Humans were already such a curious little species—they willfully drank poisons, pierced holes in themselves, ate foods that vibrated at certain frequencies for fun, glued metal onto their teeth for aesthetic purposes, and… they would pack-bond with literally anything under proper conditions.

  Including him, apparently.

  The woman crossed her arms over her front and eyed him dryly. This idiot had spent five days out in the snow-packed hills before he’d thought to come anywhere close to town for provisions—the fact that he’d been alive when she’d found him was one thing, the fact that he’d been an asshole about it was another, but the absolute worst part of all of it was that she’d begrudgingly, against her higher sense of self and against all logic, grown fond of him.

  Sort of. Not, like, attracted to him. He was just a tall man. Well, humanoid. With great hair and a perfectly-shaped nose and the ability to throw paths of ice in front of him or make it snow. Like Jack Frost come to life, but with a really shitty attitude.

  Except for when he’d actually frozen Derek, the guy who’d been bugging her outside of the Pum
p N Run while she was gassing up the snowmobile, into a 6-foot-tall block of ice. Somehow they’d quickly partnered up to pile snow up against the sides of the cube and taken off before Ernie the station attendant could notice. Derek would be a problem for when the spring melt came, but for now, Mira’s problems rested solely with the white-haired guy in front of her.

  “When I first saw you, I thought how easily this planet could be invaded and conquered for the sake of Mordred’s ever-expanding empire, long may he rule the galaxies above,” Lucius went on, making a strange sign over himself with one hand casually, like a religious gesture. “But having spent time around you and your ridiculous customs and constant feelings, well…” He took a step closer. “Unfortunately, I think it’s become contagious.”

  He wrapped one long arm around her and kissed her deeply.

  “Cut!” Natasha Archer got up from her director’s chair and went over to the preview screen to watch a playback very closely. “I’ll be just a sec, Tristan, hang out for a bit.”

  Tristan released the girl in his arms.

  “How was that?”

  Sophie smiled.

  “The kiss, or the take?”

  “Either? Both? You nervous? You’re shaking.”

  “I mean, it is cold out here—and I thought it was a good take. Hopefully they didn’t get too much of the side of my face in the shot.”

  They were filming the pivotal mid-movie climax where Lucius reluctantly revealed his attraction to the human Mira who’d taken him in as a charity case when he’d crash-landed in Alaska at the end of Dark Magic. He’d say all the wrong things, make her angry, and then be left alone and bewildered as he’d become obsessed with gaining the approval and validation of one puny little human being.

  And Sophie got to be the stand-in today for Mira. Just for a little scene, but even a few seconds on screen took all day. Her back was constantly to the camera, but she was about the same height and size as Gina Clairmont, who’d been hired out of obscurity to be Lucius’s love interest. Sophie was on set otherwise full-time as a screenwriter for Card One. She got to spend all day making movies of her favorite stories, and watch her handsome and kind and generally superlative boyfriend act in something he loved, too.