Breathe
They should have known better than to go walking on the frozen lake.
Grif had suggested it, because it was a shortcut, and he just wanted to get home. Home to the Chorus base where they were currently staying at, with its comfortable bed and large stash of junk food.
Things had been fine until they reached the middle.
Grif was not a winter person in any way, shape or form. He missed Hawaii all the time; snow was something foreign and suspicious to him. He had never put thought into how ice sheets formed.
He’d never thought about that they would be thinner in the center of a lake.
Simmons was heavy, due to all of the metal and mechanics of his cyborg parts. One step, and there was a horrible crack that they both ignored. Another step, and crash.
“Simmons!” Grif saw it out of the corner of his eye. One minute, they were walking, the next, Simmons was dropping out of sight, into the icy water.
Grif scrambled to reach him, trying to see if he could see Simmons at all.
Sarge would say that Grif wasn’t particularly strong, but normally Grif would protest that.
But when it came to lifting a heavy cyborg out of the water, things were another story.
Scrabbling not to lose his balance and fall in too, Grif managed to lug Simmons out of the water over the course of several minutes.
It was then that he noticed that Simmons’ chest wasn’t moving.