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Cold Hands, Warm Heart

Summary : Bobby struggles to deal with his transformation.
Rating : PG
Pairing : Bobby Drake / Paige Guthrie
Disclaimer : None of the characters are mine. If they were, they'd be naked a lot more often. Lyrics belong to Eric Clapton.

Author's Notes : Despite being an X-Men fan for as long as I can remember, this is my first X-Fic. And it's not a pairing that I've ever read anywhere else before. Still have no idea where this one came from. Thanks to Tara for being a wonderful Beta Reader and this is dedicated to her and Lorraine.

Bobby was cold. And unlike most people, when Bobby was cold, he needed to eat, or drink, something even colder. In this case it was ice-cream. Ben and Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew to be exact, although the specific brand was choice rather than necessity.

He headed towards the kitchen, where he knew there would be a large supply of his ice-cream, as he’d been shopping only two days earlier. And at 3am, he wasn’t likely to be interrupted too much.

He wasn’t alone though. When he walked into the kitchen he noticed Paige sitting there, happily tucking into his ice-cream.

“Ah-hem”, he coughed. Paige dropped her spoon and looked up at him.

“Bobby”, she smiled. “Hi. Want some?”

Bobby could only laugh. She looked so innocent that if he didn’t know better, he’d believe that she had no idea whose ice-cream she was eating. But as they went through this exact same scenario every couple of days, she knew exactly what she was doing.

“You’re unbelievable, you know that, Hayseed?”

Bobby reached into the drawer and grabbed a spoon. He sat down next to her and took the tub out of her hands.

“Don’t call me Hayseed”, she threw back at him.

“Sorry”, Bobby grinned at her. This was part of the whole ice-cream ritual. He never understood why it was that Paige was still awake and eating ice-cream at this time. For him, it was a mutant physiological thing. It was either this or sit in a deep freeze. But Paige seemed to have no real reason. Not that it bothered him. In fact he quite enjoyed talking to her and getting to know her.

“I thought you were out tonight? Some big date with Wings?” It was no secret that Paige had been seeing Warren for a while, and Bobby felt that with Warren being one of his best friends, he was entitled to make Paige squirm a little bit about the relationship. It felt strange though. After all, Paige was much closer to his age than Warrens.

Paige fidgeted in her chair.

“Um. We’re not seeing each other anymore”, she quietly mumbled.

“What happened”, asked Bobby with genuine concern. Despite the age difference, Paige had been a good influence on Warren, pulling him out of the deep depression he’d been in recently.

“There was…..er…..someone else”, she replied.

As she expected, Bobby jumped to the wrong conclusion, assuming that Warren had cheated on her. If she was honest with herself, she wanted Bobby to think that. Better that than the alternative.

“I can’t believe he did that. I thought he’d changed. Next time I see him, I’m gonna ice him so much that he’s……….”

“Bobby. Don’t. Just leave it. I don’t want to think about it right now.”

Bobby nodded. At least that explained why Paige had been eating his ice-cream recently. With him, it was a physiological thing. With women, it was hormones. The two of them sat in silence and continued eating. Bobby took some time to look at Paige properly.

She reminded him a little of Jubilee. But a more serious Jubilee. Both had the same love of life and the desire to be the best X-Man possible. But where Jubilee was still quite childish in her outlook, Paige knew exactly what she wanted from life. She wanted to be an X-Man. That was pretty much ALL she had ever wanted. She had told Bobby one night that she had spent months when she was younger trying to force some kind of mutant ability. She tried jumping out of the barn to see if she could fly. She’d almost drowned finding out if she had the ability to breath underwater. And Bobby had almost killed himself laughing when she confessed that she had sat in a bath full of ice to see if she could regulate her body temperature!

In all, the two got on pretty well. Their friendship was limited to tubs of ice-cream in the kitchen at night, as they tended to be on different X-Teams most of the time, but it was still a friendship. They had spent some time working together recently, but Paige and Warren were just starting to notice each other, so of course Bobby didn’t get a look in.

The only thing Bobby kept a secret was the one thing he had kept from almost everyone. His secondary mutation. The fact that he was permanently turning to ice, starting with the large patch across his chest. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Paige, or anyone else, it was more that he believed that if he ignored the problem that it would somehow cure itself.

He knew that was ridiculous, but it didn’t stop him from trying. The concept of becoming a permanent ice-cube scared him to death. Not so much the ice part, after all, he’d had several years to get used to being a block of ice, but more the fact that he’d never be able to be with anyone again. Who would want to risk hypothermia for a quick kiss and cuddle? The thought of never being able to touch anyone again was what scared him. For the first time, he truly understood how Rogue must feel.

“Hey Bobby, guess what?”

Paige’s infectious laugh brought Bobby out of his self-induced misery and he looked up at her.

Due to her mutant ability, Paige could shed the outer layer of her skin and have the new layer underneath be made of any substance. In theory at least. So far, she’d only managed a few different husks : stone, metal, rubber and several others that Bobby couldn’t recall. He knew that she’d been practising husking into different things, but had no idea what she was about to do.

She shucked off the skin on her arm with ease – a trick that never ceased to make Bobby wince – and held out her arm to him.

It took a lot to shock Bobby, but this time she had truly managed it.

“Wow”, was all he could say.

Paige had managed to turn her arm into a solid block of ice.

“I didn’t know if I could do it or not, so I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure. But I managed it yesterday for the first time.”

Bobby was completely astonished. During his time with the X-Men, he’d encountered hundreds of other mutants, but for some reason, he had never met another one with ice abilities. The closest really was Storm, who could conjure up a snow storm. He cautiously reached out his hand and touched her arm.

Without his ice covering, she actually felt cold to him. He wanted to try something.

He iced up his hand and let it rest on Paige’s arm.

“Warm. It feels warm. Like………”

“Like flesh”, Paige finished for him. “I thought that might happen, but I wasn’t sure. I wanted to talk to Mr McCoy and find out why.”

For almost a minute Bobby sat there, his hand on Paige’s arm, not moving, just feeling the warmth of her skin. Even when Bobby wasn’t iced up, other people didn’t feel right to him anymore. They always felt too hot, like they had a fever. He knew that it was because his body temperature was different from theirs and he learned to ignore it most of the time, but this just reminded him of how ……. perfect human flesh felt.

Suddenly, he snatched his hand away and ran out of the kitchen. He could hear Paige calling after him, but he needed to get away.

“What did I do wrong?” Paige wondered to herself. She couldn’t understand what the problem was. All she’d wanted to do was make Bobby smile. He’d been so down recently and no-one could work out why. Hell, even Jubilee had commented, and no-one was ever going to accuse her of being Miss Sensitive.

Unsure whether to follow Bobby or leave him alone, Paige put herself in his place. There was obviously something seriously wrong, else he wouldn’t have run off like that. If it were her, she’d probably try and deny that anything was up, but inside she’d be dying to talk to a friend.

With her mind made up, she followed him to his room. Knocking on the door, she called out quietly.

“Bobby? Are you in there?”

She knew that he was, of course. She could hear the radio playing some classic 80’s tunes. She just couldn’t think what else to say.

“I’m fine. I just need some sleep” was the reply that came back. He was lying.

It was time to take a leaf out of her mother’s book.

“Robert Drake. You open this door immediately.”

Whether from surprise or because he was actually worried what she’d do if he didn’t, he unlocked the door.

Paige opened the door and walked in.

She looked at Bobby. He was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room. He had completely iced over, and Paige suspected that he’d done that to disguise the fact he’d been crying. She hoped not. If there was one thing guaranteed to make her cry, it was seeing a grown man crying in front of her.

Just then, a thought hit her. Maybe she’d done something wrong. Maybe it was her fault that Bobby was alone, perhaps crying.

Anyone that knew Paige understood that a large part of her was all about making other people happy. She couldn’t bear to think that she’d upset someone. Her eyes welled with tears and a single one rolled down her cheek.

“Paige. Don’t”, Bobby stood up and walked to her.

“Wha…..wha….what did I do?”, she sobbed.

Bobby de-iced and wrapped his arms around her.

He took a deep breath.

“It’s not you, Paige. Honest. It’s just that touching you like that before made me remember that I wont be able to do that for much longer.”

There. He’d said it. He’d finally told someone. Strange how it didn’t feel any better. So much for that whole ‘problem shared is a problem halved’ theory.

Paige sniffed, very unladylike, and looked up at him, the question clear on her face.

Instead of a verbal answer, Bobby stepped back and undid his shirt, exposing the area of his chest that was now permanently ice.

“It wont change back”, he explained. “No matter what I do, eventually I’ll become completely ice. For good.”

“Oh my god……..”

“And touching you before made me realise that I’ll never be able to touch anyone again.”

Paige shook her head. For as long as she’d known Bobby, there was always a barrier of sorts between them. For a while it was that she’d been dating Warren, one of Bobby’s best friends. More recently it seemed to be more complex. Of course she was attracted to him. Who wouldn’t be. But he always appeared to have everything he could ever want. He seemed content. And what was the point in a relationship, Paige had always wondered, if there was nothing to be gained.

Finally she realised the one thing that she could provide Bobby that no-one else could.

“I’ve got a confession to make”, Paige started. “When I said that there was someone else involved in the break-up, you assumed Warren had cheated on me. That’s not true. I finished with him because I was interested in someone else. I had found someone who could make me laugh. Make me feel good about myself. Remind me why I’m putting myself through this training and why I want to be an X-Man. Someone who is braver than I could ever hope to be.”

“Wha….who?” Bobby mumbled, rather incoherently.

”You”, she smiled at him. “I fell in love with you.”

The silence between them was interrupted by a change in music.

It’s late in the evening
She’s wondering what clothes to wear
She puts on her make up
And brushes her long blonde hair
And then she asks me
Do I look alright?
And I say yes, you look wonderful tonight.

I feel wonderful
Because I see the love light in your eyes
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don’t realize
How much I love you

“Dance with me?”, she asked, hesitantly.

As Bobby stepped towards her, she husked her skin off, leaving a solid ice form underneath. Icing himself up, Bobby felt the warmth of her ice-skin as he reached out a hand to her. She pulled him closer and slid her arms around his neck.

They stood together, barely moving, until finally Bobby knew what he wanted to do. He leant in towards her and brushed her lips with his. Feeling Paige’s arms tighten around him, he realised that he wasn’t so scared anymore.

Paige whispered in his ear.

“No matter what happens, there will always be someone you can touch.”

The End.