By Sheila Paulson

Ice. Cold. Snow. The wind wailing like a demented soul across a landscape that was as wintry as a polar icecap, slicing like a knife through his unprotected flesh. Peter shivered, wrapping his arms around his chest and gazing dumbfounded at the vast Arctic spaces before his eyes. He was alone, frigid and alone, buffeted by the wind, pierced by the stabbing force of driving pellets of snow. He couldn't remember ever having been so miserable, so alone. And the worst of it was there was no escape. He didn't know how he'd found his way to this trackless tundra, and no matter how he searched the distant landscape with his eyes, he could see no trace of civilization. He was alone, cold and alone, there was no warmth, no comfort, no familiar voices, no reassuring sounds. Nothing but the wind, endless and tearing, burrowing into him, turning his skin blue, then white; pieces of fingers freezing and dropping away, the snow piling up over him, dying alone...dying alone...dying alone....

Peter erupted out of the tangle of blankets with a screech as the darkened bedroom of the firehouse came around him and for a long moment he sat there sucking in breath after breath to still his panicked breathing. Great, wrenching shudders tore at him, he couldn't stop them no matter how he fought them, no matter how he snatched up the blankets and wiggled back into the warmth of their nest, a vision imposing itself upon his eyes that was worse than the nightmare winter. Bodies sprawled in the aftermath of the explosion, Ray, huddled and moaning, clutching at his leg just above the ankle, whimpering with pain, too dazed to answer when Peter cried his name, Egon stretched out beyond him, ominously still.

Peter grabbed his pillow, wrapped his arms around it and held on tightly as if he were clinging to his two friends, to hold them here, to hold them safe. The shivering didn't seem to want to go away. He felt chilled and weak, filled with sudden nausea, and although the clear and rational part of his psyche identified his crisis as delayed reaction to the trauma of the previous afternoon, that didn't make it go away.

It had sounded so simple, a late afternoon bust, a call from a shop owner, driving past his closed store on the Sunday afternoon. "I know it's ghosts. You've gotta bust 'em or I'll never be able to go in there again." It had seemed an easy enough job, though Peter had wondered all the way over if the guy had seen burglars and imagined ghosts. Winston had pointed out that throwers worked just as well on burglars as they did on ghosts, depending on how they were set, and they arranged to divide into two teams, one member with a thrower set for ghosts and the other with his beam at low power if the danger should prove human.

But it wasn't burglars, it was their client himself, caught up in an insurance scam. He meant to torch the place and put the blame on the Ghostbusters' proton packs, claiming they had done the damage, but his incendiary device was faulty and it blew up before anyone could so much as fire a thrower, blew up and took Ray and Egon with it.

Ray had broken his leg, just above the ankle, and suffered from cuts and bruises, though nothing but the leg had been serious, and that a simple fracture. Ray had managed to fall light.

Not so Egon, who had pushed Ray out of the way and taken a good, healthy whack across the head, rendering him deeply unconscious and scaring the other three Ghostbusters the longer he went without reviving. While the firemen poked through the rubble seeking clues to the disaster, paramedics worked on Egon and Ray while Peter and Winston, uninjured, hovered anxiously, feeling helpless and frustrated.

Egon was unconscious for nearly twenty minutes, not reviving until he was actually in transit to the hospital, and then he was vague and confused and had no memory of the explosion at all. The doctor said that was normal; his memory in general was unaffected, but people occasionally did lose the memory of the actual accident and some never got it back.

Egon was diagnosed as having a serious concussion, one that would make him feel miserable for days, but subsequent tests proved that, if he continued to do well, there would be no serious aftereffects. He would be dizzy for a few days, stiff and sore, and inclined to throw up a lot, and the hospital planned to keep him for two nights just to be on the safe side, but there was no evidence of a skull fracture, subdural hematoma or any of those other nasty possibilities inherent in head injuries.

While Ray's leg was being set and put in a cast, Peter and Winston haunted the waiting room, pacing back and forth, drinking innumerable cups of coffee. Denied a chance to see either of their buddies, the two of them felt the tensions of the accident build until the time a cop came in to report the man who hired them had planned to torch his building, hoping he could write it off as an accident caused by the Ghostbusters. He was in financial difficulties and hoped to collect on the insurance and, most likely, on a lawsuit against the Ghostbusters. When Peter heard that, he went ballistic and Winston had to hold him back to keep him from heading over to the jail and showing the bastard what a proton stream at full power could do to living flesh. Sympathetic, the cop merely stepped back out of range and added the shopkeeper would probably be charged with attempted manslaughter as well as arson and an attempt to defraud the insurance company. Peter growled, sputtered and protested for a long time after he was gone while Winston tried to soothe him.

Finally a doctor had come in to say they could see Egon but one at a time and for no more than five minutes. Winston made Peter go first, suspecting only the sight of Egon, conscious and aware, could break the tension that had coiled Venkman tighter than a wound spring. He clapped Peter on the back reassuringly and sent him to see the physicist.

Of course by then Egon looked a lot better, in spite of the massive bruise forming on his forehead, and the pallor of his face that emphasized it. He took one look at Peter, who was staring at him, and they chorused, "You look terrible," in perfect unison. Fortunately for both of them, that broke the tension, making them laugh, and Peter fell into a series of quips geared to make Egon smile and relax. If he hovered a bit too anxiously, he didn't let it show in his voice or his eyes how stressed he'd been, and if he had to be pried away from Egon by the doctor and Winston, at least Peter had kept his act together so well the doctor had rewarded him by allowing him to see Ray.

While Winston went in and talked to Egon, Peter visited Ray and learned that if he progressed according to schedule, he could go home the following day. Not only was the fracture a simple one, it wasn't a complete break. It would heal quickly and cleanly and he could maneuver on crutches with the cast. The stairs at Ghostbuster Central might be a problem, but the guys could set up Ray's bed on the second floor so he could get to the TV and the dining room easily. In a few days he'd be managing the stairs to the first floor, but the spiral flight up to the third would take a little longer. Peter hastily reassured him about Egon.

Winston had come in and jollied them both with some good-natured teasing, until Ray was grinning and planning to collect autographs on his cast. They stayed at the hospital until visiting hours ended and were allowed to see Egon one more time. Most of his memory had returned by then but his head ached too much for him to carry on a lengthy conversation. Realizing this, Peter and Winston had reassured him about Ray, satisfied to see him relax when they confirmed what the hospital staff had already told him. Then the two healthy Ghostbusters returned home where they spent what seemed like hours on the phone answering questions from the police about the arsonist and reassuring Janine that Egon was going to live and recover. By the time they were done with that, it was very late and Peter was utterly drained with fatigue. He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow--

--only to awaken in the night, his body racked with the shudders of delayed reaction.

He must have yelled, or moved, or something, because next thing he knew the springs dipped on the foot of his bed and Winston sat down there, reaching out to grasp Peter by the shoulders.

"Hey, Pete? Okay?" He sounded completely wide awake, not as if he'd been awakened by Peter's nightmare but had been lying there silently in the dark. A corner of Peter's mind noticed but the rest was so caught up in the shaking, the cold, the memories, that he hardly registered it.

"Not so's you'd notice," he muttered, trying to stop the shivering. Winston ran his hands up and down Peter's arms in an attempt to warm him then hugged him reassuringly for a minute, before he settled the blanket around Peter's shoulders and pulled it tight in front of him.

"Bad dreams?"

"Just...everything catching up with me," Peter admitted, grateful for the hug even more than the blanket. He needed the reassurance right then that his friends were all alive, and Winston was the only one here to offer him that reassurance. "Just some kind of delayed reaction. I'm okay, Winston. But...God, this one was too close."

"Way too close," agreed Winston fervently. There was a tremor in his voice that was so unlikely it almost startled Peter out of his own reaction and he stared at Winston in surprise, though the hand that clutched the blankets at his throat didn't let go. His shaking began to abate.

Winston shivered as if in sympathetic reaction then plunged on. "When that bomb went up, I couldn't see any of you, I thought all of you had bought it. When you came running out of the smoke yelling all our names, I couldn't believe it--I thought we'd been lucky again, but then Egon and Ray didn't answer." He gulped and started to shake the way Peter had when he woke up; his own delayed reaction keying in. "You three race headlong into danger and don't even stop to think what you're doing. I follow along behind trying to pull you down when somebody takes potshots at you, but every now and then I'm not fast enough and you get trashed. This time...oh, hell, Pete, this time I thought I'd lost all three of you." His face crumpled and he turned away, shaking even harder than Peter had.

Peter stared at him in astonishment. Winston kept his cool as well as Egon did as a general rule, though he could profess shock and astonishment with the best of them. He was usually fairly laid back, but at the same time he was the one the other three could rely on in a crisis, when everyone else was running around losing their heads. He'd been a tower of strength for each of the Ghostbusters at one time or another, but he usually handled his own crises in such a way that they didn't show. Peter had long since figured out Winston wasn't immune to grief, guilt, distress, anger and frustration; he just filtered it better than a lot of people did. Maybe he'd learned how to do that when he was coming to terms with his experiences in Vietnam, creating a valve he could pop mentally and keep the pressure from building. Or maybe he sounded off to his parents or one of his brothers when he needed to vent. He generally didn't do more than the usual, normal griping, fussing, or worrying the rest of them all did in a crisis, and when one of them broke down, as Peter had been in danger of doing after the nightmare, it was more often than not Winston who had a calm, practical word to disperse the tension. But when Peter thought back, he could rarely recall Winston being the one to need that calm, practical word in return, at least not to such an extent as this.

"Well, you didn't lose any of us," Peter said quickly, letting go of the blanket and gathering Winston in to return the favor of a comforting hug. "Ray and Egon are going to be fine, and there was nothing you or I could have done to have changed them getting hurt. It was just the luck of the draw we went in the directions we did." Listen to yourself, Venkman, he thought as he talked. Because this is true and you need to accept it yourself. "Nobody blames you for anything, or me, because we came away with only a cut or bruise instead of a concussion or a fractured leg. And where does it say the three of us can't take care of ourselves? You're one of the team, Zed. You're not our keeper. None of us expect you to prevent accidents. It's not what we hired you for or made you a partner for. You're one of us, and if you want to make sure we remember all those combat skills you beat into our thick skulls when you joined us, that's good. But it doesn't mean you screwed up if one of us gets hurt. Come on, I've heard you say the same thing to any of us more than once. Why isn't it true when it's your turn? And if it comes to that, why should you be more at fault than me? Are you trying to say I only make things worse or something?" He pretended huge outrage, hoping for a reaction and he got a rather watery chuckle in return. Winston's problem was ninety-nine per cent reaction, like Peter's the stronger for being delayed by the need to be in control so they could reassure the other two at the hospital.

"Don't you?" Winston returned automatically, but he caught himself as soon as he said it. "Sorry, Pete." He pulled back and sat cross- legged at the foot of Peter's bed, leaning against the footboard, the tremors fading but his face still reflecting his tensions.

"Hey, no apologies necessary, buddy. Come on, Winston, give. You can't think it's your job to look out for us every single time. Sure, you watch our backs, just like we watch yours, but this was something we never expected. We didn't know what son of a bitch was going to set us up so we'd take the fall on his arson problem so he could take the money and run. I hope he goes to prison for about a hundred years. How much do you get for attempted murder anyway?"

"I don't think they can get an attempted murder charge on him, only attempted manslaughter," Winston said practically, but he was still a little shaky and Peter could hear it in his voice. It wasn't unusual; he could hear it in his own.

"Well, I think he needs to go down for it and have somebody bounce him hard."

"Don't worry. He won't be too happy in the house of many doors," Winston returned. He essayed a grin that looked almost normal.

Peter stomped down his resentment against the man who'd nearly killed them all and who had put Egon and Ray in the hospital, if only for a short time. He'd like to go find the guy and rearrange his face so he had to breathe out of his ears, but that wouldn't do any good; it wouldn't help Ray and Egon either, though it might relieve some of Peter's frustrations. Instead he made himself concentrate on Winston.

"So you really think we're gonna fall apart if you're not on top of things all the time?" he asked. "Anybody ever talk to you about the size of your ego?"

Winston goggled at him in astonishment; ego had no part in his actions or his motivations and Peter knew it. "It isn't that," Winston said. "And it's not a belief that I'm better at what I do than the rest of you guys. It isn't even the way I found I could fit in here." He grinned suddenly, and shook his head, his face full of memories. "I really wanted a job; my dad and I love each other but we don't always see eye to eye and he was steamed with me when I said I didn't want to do construction all my life even though I'd have been sure to end up in management and made major bucks. I told him I'd get another job, one that was just right for me, and then I started pounding the pavement. You know how many jobs there are out there for Vietnam vets who have a construction background and an undergrad engineering degree and not one shred of real-world experience? Add to it I'm black and people can use that against you in a lot of ways you'd never prove was discrimination-- and who the hell would want to work in a place where they were forced to take you anyway? I'm pretty comfortable with who I am and I don't think I have any major hang-ups about stupid people's attitudes but I didn't want to work in a place where I'd get all the shit jobs because some racist ran the place and where I'd be the first one to get laid off in a crisis." He shook his head. "When I saw your ad, my dad had been ragging me about when was I coming back, because nobody out there would take me and I had a place built in where I could get ahead. I got mad and said I'd take the first job I found even if it was flipping pancakes. It turned out to be here. Janine told you guys I was here about the job, and Ray said, 'Beautiful, you're hired,' and shoved a full trap at me."

"And I bet you thought we were real loony tunes," Peter said, grinning reminiscently. "How long did it take you to find out we weren't?"

Winston deliberately didn't answer, and Peter leaned over and poked him hard in the ribs. "Come on, you'd better say 'right away'."

"Within ten minutes, or never," Winston replied, grinning. "Took me about ten minutes to realize you guys at least believed you were on the up and up, and after the first time I sat through one of Egon's little lectures on the workings of a proton pack and trap, and how to store ghosts safely, I realized this wasn't a crank place. Then I saw my first ghost and I thought, 'my god, these guys are serious'. But that's not what's bugging me now."

"Okay, let me guess. I'm supposed to be a brilliant psychologist, after all." He looked at Winston consideringly. "It's because we're such wonderful people everybody loves us, right?"

"Wrong." "We're not wonderful people?" Peter filled his voice with vast affront.

"I wouldn't touch that one with a ten meter cattle prod, as Ray would say. No, it's because when I finally calmed down after a day busting ghosts and learning weird stuff and took a look at the three of you, that's the day I realized you three were brothers in every way but blood. You'd known each other for years--you were as close as I'd been to my platoon buddies in Nam, and I didn't know any guys lucky enough to have that kind of friendship carry over into the normal world. I thought, sure, they've hired me but I'm on the outside. They've got a college background, they've known each other for years, they've got Ph.D's, they're white, they're gonna dump all the grunt work on me--and the next thing I knew, I was part of the team. I think it was when we beat Gozer and we were all standing up there dripping with goo, asking if everybody was all right, and it hit me, I'd take a fall for any of you guys and never hesitate and I knew you'd do the same for me."

"Goes with being a Ghostbuster," Peter said quickly, then added, "No, it goes with being friends." He wiggled into his blanket again, a little embarrassed, but unwilling to take back the words that were genuine and from the heart. "Geez, we're getting sappy here, Zeddemore."

"True, but I had to say it. You guys must think sometimes that I can turn it off and stand back in a crisis and not care, and I--"

"Whoa! Hold it right there. Time out." Peter made the classic sign, one hand flat across the fingers of the other one. "None of us think that. Remember, I am a brilliant and gifted psychologist. I know human nature. I know everybody reacts differently to a crisis. Egon rationalizes everything, turns it into a formula--not that he doesn't care; he does, but he's got a scientific brain and that's how it hits. Ray--well, life's a big box of candy to Ray and he goes whole hog on everything. Me, well, I make things hard for myself sometimes, but as long as I've got you three, it's not as hard as it could be, because I know I've got somebody behind me. And you, you're calm in a crisis because that's what we need, because you're putting us before what you need every single time. Wouldn't help any of us if you got all bent out of shape because when we need it somebody has to step in and cool us off and talk common sense to us and the rest of us aren't as up on it as you are. We need you to take a step backward in a crisis and say all the calm, reassuring things, and you do it because you've got your act together better than most people."

"Or else I've seen so much between this job and Nam that nothing can shock me," Winston replied.

"Whatever, it works. Anybody gets hurt, okay, that freaks us. Part of us wants to be macho and tough and slough off all the feelings with a joke, part wants to grab tight and hang on with all our strength because we came so close. So we mostly wind up somewhere in between. And there you are, hanging in there for us because somebody has to and that gives the rest of us the luxury to fall apart if we need to. Probably me." He grimaced. "I think I'm still hung up on the way my dad would do a disappearing act when I needed him, so even though I know you guys won't pull that on me on purpose, when somebody gets hurt bad, in a way it reminds me of all that and I think somebody else is going to leave. I understand where I'm coming from and why I want to grab on too hard, but that doesn't make it easier to face it. And I know it's just as tough for you. But somebody's got to hang in there and be strong, and you do it. I guess you just ought to know the rest of us understand and appreciate it. We just don't say it enough."

Winston grinned tiredly. "Thanks, Pete, that means a lot. I said before it wasn't the way I could fit in here that made me want to be there for you three clowns. But it is in a way. Because you didn't have to open ranks and take me in. I could have been your employee straight and simple, do the job, collect the paycheck, go home at night, just like a million other guys do. But instead, I got myself three more brothers I wasn't expecting."

"Three loony tunes," Peter reminded him, relaxed enough for teasing.

"True," confirmed Winston. "And I thought about that at first-do I really want to get mixed up with these characters? And then, before I realized it, I was mixed up with you three idiots and if somebody had come along and offered me $50,000 a year, I'd probably have said no."

"Only probably?" Peter asked.

"Well, that was right at first. Now I'd tell 'em to take a hike because this isn't just my job it's my life and my home."

"I know how that feels," Peter agreed, grabbing his pillow and fluffing it up. "But you ought to know that none of us ever thought you were hanging back because you weren't involved enough to run around bent out of shape. You're just too together to have to, and we're grateful for it."

Winston stretched hard enough to make his joints pop. "That being said, what about you, Pete? That sounded like a nasty nightmare."

Peter was startled because, without realizing it, he had completely unwound from the tension; either knowing Winston shared it or the midnight confessions had relaxed him, as midnight confessions always did. Maybe it was the thought that at the darkest and loneliest hours of the night there was someone standing by for him when he needed it that had eased his tensions. Egon could sense it half the time Peter was restless and unhappy in the night, and Ray was always gung ho for a midnight TV marathon if Peter wanted someone to be there. Now here was Winston, offering the same strength, and at the same time evoking strength from Peter so that he could look past his own distress at the memories of the day and face them more positively.

Egon and Ray were going to be just fine and the nutcase who had injured them was behind bars where he belonged. There had been a ton of sympathy calls for Janine to fend off and the upshot of all of it would probably be a lot of very favorable Ghostbuster publicity, but Peter would happily have forgone that if Egon and Ray had not been hurt. Still, they'd be home soon and the strange half-empty feeling of the old firehouse would ease with their return.

"I'm okay," he said, "but kind of wide awake. I tell you what. Why don't we go down and I'll commit blasphemy or sacrilege or whatever it is and try to make some of Egon's famous hot cocoa and we can track down one of Ray's creature features on the tube."

"And be zombies ourselves in the morning," Winston replied, shaking his head, though not in a rejection of the suggestion.

"Well, we're hardly doing any busts for a few days, just the two of us, and visiting hours don't start till ten," Peter confirmed. "So we sleep in. I'm used to that. Come on, Zed. Race you downstairs."

"Last one down has to make the cocoa," Winston returned and they set off at a mad scramble for the staircase.