The ice was moulded into a perfect recreation of how she looked when he'd first seen her. She wore the same skirt, the same blouse with the frilly sleeves captured on delicate flakes of frost. The sudden shock of seeing the statue made him halt in his tracks before he almost recoiled as if he'd been punched in the gut. A sudden mass of feelings bubbled up from within him and he soon felt tears begin to freeze on his cheeks. He'd lost her. She'd been everything to him and he'd Lost her. It was a loss that had made his world as empty as the Ice Queen's castle.

Holding back the pain of that loss was suddenly too difficult to bear and William stumbled forth to the feet of where the statue remained as a still sentinel of Lost love. William crumpled down to the feet of the image of his wife and wept for a long time.

The eventual cool touch of delicate fingertips on his bare shoulder brought him abruptly to his senses, though the emptiness still felt heavy in his heart.

“You did this?" He asked Lady Winter as he looked up at her unforgettable naked beauty.

"Yes." She replied with her own hint of sadness as she turned her gaze from him to Look upon the statue.

“Why?" After all they had done he couldn't quite believe that she'd hurt him so much.

“Because she is still in your head and in your heart. Her presence should only linger in the Latter where it should sit as a memory and not as a shard of pain." There was a slight edge of envy in her expression as she Looked upon the lifeless ice sculpture.

"She was all I wanted." William wiped the frozen tears from his cheeks and looked upon the statue. His voice shook as a fresh pulse of pain clawed at his throat. "Th-this isn't h-how I thought I'd see her again."

“You wanted to be with her. Not with me." Lady Winter surmised and lowered her head.

“I wanted to be with her. I didn't expect you." He corrected her quickly.

“But now I am not enough. Your heart still longs for her and you cannot give yourself to me fully. You hold back even in our most passionate moments from releasing her and accepting me." Lady Winter stood still, her eyes distant and lost amidst troubling thoughts.

"I don't, I..." William started to protest.

“Do not lie to me, human." Her voice was so cold that the snow at her feet hardened and Long thin shards of ice began to rise from the ground around her.

William was about to protest, anger arose in him as the frustration and the weakness of his heightened emotions got the better of him. He was about to scream at her and tell her that she didn't know anything. His hands clenched into fists and he prepared to steel himself for whatever her wrath might be. Then he remembered the statue of the woman he had loved and thought of just how much of an ass she'd think he was.

It didn't help matters at all when he realised that Lady Winter was perfectly correct.

So, William lifted himself to his feet in a slow loping set of movements before rising to face the cerulean visage of his lover.

“She died before she was forty. Road accident. It wasn't the driver's fault. No one to blame. It was just...I couldn't deal with it. I blocked myself off. Drank a lot. When I started working again I just pushed everything down...until now." He looked back at the statue with a hint of wonder that it had made him unleash all that pent up pain.

“Loss is never kind to mortals. It makes you do stupid things. It makes you forget what you've lost. It made you forget that she would not want to see you suffer so..." Lady Winter's hands slipped up along his back to settle upon his shoulders and offer a gentle squeeze of reassurance when she heard him stifle a sob at her words.

“I just didn't want to forget her." William said.

"You won't, William. I know nothing of heaven. I doubt it exists. The souls of your kind seem to fade back into the world that made them as their bodies pass. Yet your wife still remains with you in your memories of her. She always will. I ask that you move on and live a life with me. It will be a long life. It will last until the end of time. Then, if I am wrong, we will both see Lisa together. I would like to meet her." The Lady nuzzled her Lips against the nape of his neck as she finished her words.