The wind coming off the frozen lake was sharp enough to strip paint, but Neve didn't seem to mind. She stood on the shoreline, her oversized boots sinking slightly into the snow-crusted gravel, staring out at the expanse of white with a look of drowsy longing. The refinery loomed behind them, a skeletal cathedral of rusted pipes and smokestacks that groaned whenever the gale picked up, but here, on the ice, it was quiet. Dead quiet.
Arthur adjusted the collar of his heat cloak, the thermal coils humming against his neck. "This is the spot?"
"Mmhmm," Neve hummed, swaying slightly. "Thick ice. Deep water underneath. Fish sleep down there. Big, oily fish. Bears like oily fish."
Arthur walked out onto the surface. It was solid, a slab of black ice dusted with snow, likely three feet thick. He tapped it with the heel of his boot. It rang like steel. "We don't have an auger, Neve. How exactly did you plan on getting to the water?"
Neve blinked, looking down at her own hands. "I usually just... hit it. But I'm tired. Low energy mode."
She looked at him, her blue eyes half-lidded. "You do it, Burly Bear. You have the metal arms."
Arthur sighed, looking down at his goddesium prosthetics. They were designed for combat, for tearing through Rapture armor and enduring crushing pressure, not necessarily for ice fishing. But looking at Neve, who was already eyeing a snowdrift like it was a five-star mattress, he knew arguing was futile.
"Fine," Arthur muttered. "Stand back."
He widened his stance, the servos in his legs locking into the ice for stability. He routed power from his core to his right arm, feeling the familiar whine of the actuators charging up. The goddesium plating shifted, venting excess heat. He didn't just punch; he drove his fist downward like a pile driver.
The impact sounded like a gunshot. A spiderweb of white fractures exploded outward from his fist, and a geyser of slush and dark water erupted into the air, splashing against his coat. The ice groaned, a deep, resonant bass note that traveled across the entire lake, but the hole was punched clean through.
Neve clapped slowly, her mittens muting the sound. "Wow. Very strong. Good impact velocity."
"It's wet work," Arthur said, shaking the freezing slush from his hand. The water in the hole swirled, dark and inviting.
"Now we need a stick," Neve said, pointing to the treeline where petrified, metal-infused pines stood like jagged spears. "Pointy one."
While Neve prepared what she called a 'tactical hibernation nest' near the shoreline—gathering pine boughs and flattening a snowbank behind a large boulder to block the wind—Arthur went to work. He snapped a straight, iron-hard branch from a dead tree and used his combat knife to whittle a barb into the tip. It wasn't elegant, but it was functional.
He returned to the hole. Neve was already curled up, her massive polar bear hat pulled low, her knees drawn to her chest. She looked like a soft, white mound of snow, barely distinguishable from the landscape aside from the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.
"Wake me up... when the bears come," she mumbled, her voice already thick with sleep. "Or if you catch a whale."
"No whales, Neve. Just sleep."
Arthur settled onto a crate they had dragged from the refinery, the makeshift harpoon in hand, staring down into the black water. It was meditative. For the first time in weeks, no one was shooting at him. There were no political schemes from the Central Government, no cryptic threats from Ether, no sorrowful glances from Lyra or confused pain from Anne. Just the cold, the water, and the wait.
Hours passed. The sun dipped lower, casting long, purple shadows across the ice.
Arthur's patience—and his enhanced reflexes—paid off. A flash of silver in the deep. A thrust of the goddesium arm, faster than organic muscle could track. He pulled up a writhing, oily fish, nearly two feet long. It was mutated, its scales shimmering with a faint neon hue, likely from the Alva particles, but it smelled rich and pungent.
He added it to the pile. By the time the twilight of the surface set in, he had a dozen of them. A mound of stinking, frozen protein. Perfect bait.
Arthur wiped his hands on a rag and stood up to stretch his back. The cold was seeping through his clothes, though his limbs remained unaffected. He turned to check on Neve.
She had shifted in her sleep. She lay on her side now, the tactical bodysuit she wore clinging to every contour of her body. Neve was undeniably built for survival, but the aesthetics of her design were... generous. The suit strained against the curve of her hips and the heavy swell of her chest, the zipper pulled down just enough to reveal the pale, soft skin of her cleavage against the harsh, utilitarian fabric. Her breathing was deep and slow, a small puff of steam escaping her parted lips with every exhale.
Arthur walked over, intending to shake her shoulder. "Neve. We have bait."
She didn't stir.
"Neve," he said louder, crouching down. "Wake up. Unless you want me to eat the fish."
Nothing. She was deep in her power-save cycle. Arthur sighed and reached out to nudge her shoulder.
The moment his hand touched her arm, instinct took over. Neve moved with terrifying speed. Her arms shot out, not to strike, but to snare. Before Arthur could step back, he was yanked forward, off-balance, and pulled directly into the snowbank.
"Ngh... teddy..." Neve mumbled, her grip like a hydraulic vice.
Arthur found himself pinned. Neve had wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, pulling his face directly into her chest. The world went dark, warm, and soft. He was effectively being waterboarded by the impressive assets of a hibernation-focused Nikke.
"Neve!" Arthur's voice was muffled against her skin. "Let go!"
"Warm..." she sighed, snuggling deeper, pressing his face harder into her cleavage. She smelled of vanilla and gun oil, a dizzying combination. Her heartbeat was slow and heavy against his cheek.
He tried to push back, but he was wary of using his goddesium strength against her unprotected body; if he pushed too hard, he could bruise her or worse. But he couldn't breathe.
"Neve!" He thrashed his legs, but she just purred, a low rumble in her throat, and tightened her grip. She was enjoying the struggle. To her sleeping mind, he was just a very lively pillow.
Arthur gasped for air, turning his head to the side, barely clearing her skin. This was ridiculous. He had fought Tyrant-class Raptures. He had survived the political vipers of the Ark. He was not going to die by suffocation in a hug.
He needed a shock to the system. Something biological enough to trigger her sensory wake-up protocols without hurting her.
Arthur managed to free one hand, bracing it against the snow, and tilted his head back into the soft valley of her chest. He hesitated for a fraction of a second—this was definitely not in the Commander's manual—and then stuck out his tongue, dragging it wetly up the center of her cleavage.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Neve squeaked—a high, undignified sound completely at odds with her stoic persona. Her eyes snapped open, wide and shocked. She released him instantly, scrambling backward into the snow, her hands flying to her chest.
"Cold!" she yelped, staring at him. "Wet! Why?!"
Arthur sat up, gasping for air and wiping snow off his face. "You were trying to smother me, Neve. Verbal commands were ineffective."
Neve blinked, her face flushing a deep crimson that matched the lipstick smeared slightly at the corner of her mouth. She looked down at her chest, then back at him. A slow, sleepy giggle bubbled up from her throat. "That tickled. You fight dirty, Burly Bear."
"I fight to survive," Arthur said, getting to his feet and offering her a hand. "And look. Bait."
Neve took his hand, hauling herself up. Her gaze drifted to the pile of frozen fish near the hole. Her eyes widened, the embarrassment forgotten instantly. "Whoa. You are a master hunter."
"I got lucky," Arthur said. "Now, we wait. If there's anything out here, they'll smell that."
They retreated behind the boulder, downwind from the fish. Neve sat close to him this time, shoulder to shoulder, her earlier lethargy replaced by a tense, vibrating excitement. She clutched her massive shotgun to her chest, her eyes scanning the horizon.
"Do you think they'll come?" she whispered.
"If they exist," Arthur said quietly. "They'll come."
Twenty minutes passed. The wind died down, leaving an eerie silence. Then, the sound of crunching snow.
Neve stiffened. Arthur put a hand on her arm, signaling her to hold fire.
From behind the ruined refinery, a shape emerged. It was massive—easily a thousand pounds. White fur, matted slightly with oil but thick and lush. It moved with a rolling, confident gait, its black nose twitching in the air.
A polar bear.
It wasn't a cyborg. It wasn't a Rapture mimic. It was biological. A living, breathing relic of the old world.
Neve stopped breathing. Her hand gripped Arthur's forearm so hard he could hear the servos in his prosthetic whine under the pressure. She stared, her mouth slightly open, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
The bear ignored them. It was focused entirely on the fish. It lumbered up to the pile, sniffed it suspiciously, and then began to eat. The sound of tearing flesh and crunching bones echoed across the ice. It ate with efficient brutality, devouring the catch Arthur had spent hours acquiring.
"It's real," Neve whispered, her voice trembling. "It's so... big."
She made a move to stand up, her instinct to hug overriding her tactical logic.
Arthur pulled her back down. "No, Neve. Look at the claws. That's an apex predator. It's not for hugging."
Neve watched, mesmerized. "But it looks so soft."
"It will take your head off," Arthur warned gently. "Let it eat."
The bear finished the fish. It licked its chops, lifted its head, and looked directly at the boulder where they were hiding. Arthur tensed, his hand hovering over his pistol. The bear huffed—a cloud of steam erupting from its snout—and then turned away. It began to walk back toward the ruins, its belly full, disappearing into the shadows of the industrial wreckage.
Only when it was gone did Neve let out a breath. She slumped against the rock, looking devastated and elated all at once.
"I didn't hug it," she said miserably. "I found it. And I let it go."
"You saw it," Arthur said. "That's more than anyone else has done in hundred years."
Neve looked at her empty hands. "But I wanted to feel it. I wanted to know it was solid."
Arthur looked at her—the legendary wandering soldier who slept in snowbanks and fought Raptures with her bare hands, now looking like a child who had dropped her ice cream. He shifted, turning to face her fully.
"Come here," he said.
Neve looked up. "Burly Bear?"
"I'm not as soft," Arthur said, opening his arms. "And I'm half metal. But I don't break. Squeeze as hard as you want."
Neve didn't hesitate. She launched herself at him again, but this time there was no playfulness. She buried her face in his neck, wrapping her arms around his torso and squeezing with everything she had. Arthur felt his ribs creak, the goddesium plating groaning under the strain, but he held his ground. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against the cold and the loneliness of the surface.
She shook slightly, whether from the cold or emotion he couldn't tell. She nuzzled into his neck, her cold nose pressing against his skin, her lips brushing against his collarbone.
"Solid," she whispered into his coat. "You're real."
"I'm real," Arthur confirmed, resting his chin on top of her fluffy hat. "And I'm not going anywhere."
They stayed like that for a long time, until the cold began to bite too deep even for the heat cloak.
***
The return journey was quieter. Neve seemed recharged, her mood light and dreamy. She hummed a strange, tuneless melody all the way back to the extraction point where the Monarks' transport was waiting.
When Arthur finally walked through the doors of his office at the Outpost, exhausted and smelling of fish and pine, his datapad chimed.
It was a message from Ludmilla.
*"Commander. Alice is overjoyed with the story of the bear. Neve has gone into deep hibernation in the freezer, claiming she needs to process the data. However, I must inquire... why did Neve return with her lipstick smeared across half her face? And why does your collar bear a matching shade of 'Frostbite Pink'? I expect a full report. Proper protocol, Arthur."*
Arthur froze. He scrambled to the small mirror hanging by his locker.
There, on the side of his neck and smudged onto his collar, was a distinct, messy imprint of pink lipstick—the result of Neve's aggressive snuggling and nuzzling during the 'bear substitute' session.
He stared at his reflection, rubbing at the mark frantically with his thumb.
"Goddammit," Arthur muttered, a small, tired smile fighting its way onto his face. "How am I going to explain this to girls?"