Ice Flo
By Missy

SERIES: Ice Flo
PART: 1 of 1
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING(s): L/L
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: Drama, Romance, Humor
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Milwaukee Era.
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: The world ends. Or does it?

****

He didn't quite understand why he was alive.

It didn't make sense for a shmoe like him to still be breathing. But he could feel the painfully chilly constriction of air in his lungs reminded him that he had to be alive. Even hell couldn't be so vividly painful.

He groaned, turning over, curling against the warm body beside him.

"Len..." He heard her mumble. Then more sharply, "Lenny! Get off!"

He rolled away from her, frowning. "I'm just trying to stay warm."

She sat up, brushing down the front of her down coat. "Is it any better out there?"

He burrowed down against the bed. "Do you really wanna know?"

She shook her head, collapsing against his shoulder. "No."

They lay together in silence for a long moment before he jerked himself into a sitting position. "I gotta get something for breakfast..." He muttered.

"We've been snowed in for two weeks. There's nothing left to eat."

"Uh-uh, Laverne..." He grinned. "Come on..."

She sighed. What kind of divine justice could exist in the world that she had been reduced to following Lenny Kosnoski around?

He led her to another room in the brownstone; to what had been an abandoned apartment.

"Me and Squig, we had a plan...we were gonna start a chicken farm."

"In the middle of Milwaukee?"

"You think that matters now, Laverne?" He tossed aside a few objects, and triumphantly came forward with a box. Happily, he dug through the layers and layers of sweaters the box had been wrapped in.

And to Laverne's amazement, she heard a newborn peeping beneath.

"Whatt're we gonna feed 'em?"

"I got a box of feed here. It'll fatten 'em up, and they can breed..."

"Get 'em over by the stove." She half-ordered.

But he could hear the grudging respect in her voice.

***

"Do you think about them, sometimes?"

She stared at the flickering shadows on the wall. "A lot. My Pop..." She shivered. "I hope he went quick."

"I kinda watched Squiggy..." His voice was waterlogged with emotion, and she shocked him by turning toward his body. "The water sucked him right outta the window. I grabbed his sneaker...That's all I got left, Laverne. That's all that's left of my best friend."

It was generous of her not to mention her own lost best friend as she squeezed his hand beneath the blanket.

***

"The snow feels soft."

She heaved a sigh as she tucked the quilt in. "Len, there's ain't been sunshine fer a year now."

"So? It kinda feels all mushy..."

"Just stick the pail in and gimmie some water. Ya want me to look nice, right?"

He grinned. "Oh yeah..."

She sighed. "Do you think we're doing the right thing?"

"Vernie, there ain't no such thing as the right thing no more. We're alive, and all sortsa people are dead. Priests, and nuns, and politicians..."

"But it ain't gonna be legal. It ain't gonna be right in the eyes of the church..."

"The church is under hundreds of feet of ice."

"Good point."

"So..." He carefully knelt down on the braided rug they'd settled at the foot of the bed. "Marry me?"

She smiled. "Yeah."

They knelt together on the rug, opening her mother's Bible between them.

***

"This was my mamma's quilt."

Lenny smiled. "That was my mamma's Bible."

She buried her face against his bare shoulder. "Len, God forgot us."

"Don't say that."

"He did."

"If he forgot us..." He rubbed her cheek. "Ya think we could feel this good?"

She sniffled. "I promised Shirl I'd wait until I was married."

"And ya are."

"And I am..."

***

She waddled beneath the weight of her expanding belly. "Len, there ain't no voices. "

"I'm tellin' ya, Vernie; it sounded like someone yellin' my name."

"My ankles hurt." She whined.

"Of course! Yer fat enough!"

They both wheeled around in surprise to see Squiggy standing there.

"Hello." He said mildly.

"How'd ya find us? Where ya been?" Lenny asked thickly.

"Well, the water yanked me right outta my sneakers, so's I tried to follow them. It swept me right up to the top of the roof of the Shotz place. Shirley says hi."

"SHIRL'S ALIVE?!" Laverne screamed.

Squiggy frowned, plunging a finger into his ear, stunned by the noise.

"Yeah, we been livin' up in the break room. They got a special place in there where they grow wheat! We got bread..."

"And I got chickens!" Lenny cried.

"I think this is the beginnin' of a great big partnership, Len. Now, if you know about the law of the land, ya know that fifty per cent belongs ta me..."

Laverne stared blankly up into the sky as they slipped along the icy ground.

"Len." She tugged on his sleeve.

"Not now, Laverne. Squig's teaching me about power of attorney."

"Look up." She ordered.

And he did.

The sun was absolutely blinding off of the glistening ice and snow coating the streets of Milwaukee.


Fin











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