1. Previously on An Apocalypse of Ice:
We got a li2le bit of insight into the legal world of Winterfell, where we met Brandon’s assistant, the slightly wide‐eyed Natalie
Horn, and one of the thorns in his side, the poli@cian Pius Piper (who has also been spo2ed spying on Arthur and Sabriel). Arthur
and Sabriel prepared for the day when they would assume Brandon’s posi@on as The Law, beginning to draI a governing
instrument that they would use to both summarize the le2er and the spirit of Brandon’s Code. Will and Jan kept going in their
paths, anxious about when they would meet one another again. Finally, Aliena came to blows with the resurrected Sansa when
Sansa started becoming too close to Ali’s son, Kay. That ended when Sansa was thrown out of the house—but not before
poisoning Aliena in retalia@on.
[Note: I went a li2le bit crazy with default replacement clothes, makeup, and hair in between Chapter 11 and this chapter. If a
sim looks different (and by “a sim” I mean “Will”), it’s because of that, not because I’m flou@ng the Show Business restric@on.]

2. When Will got home, no one was in the front part of the house. He picked up the newspaper and scanned for the job lis@ng.
There it was: the posi@on in the Gamer track he had been looking for. He accepted the posi@on.

3. With that done, he began to meditate by the kitchen area un@l the sun came up.

4. Julian came downstairs a few hours later to find Will by the dishwasher and turned away. How was Will already here? Julian had
thought he wasn’t supposed to arrive for a couple more days. Maybe that was just wishful thinking. It wasn’t like Jan would look
him in the eye anyway, and why would she? But things weren’t going to get any be2er now that Will was here.

5. Chris was the next one to come downstairs. By that @me, it was almost dawn, and Will had come out of his trance to get ready for
his first day on the job. “Welcome home,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s so good to have you back.” Thank goodness,
she almost said. The family needed its heir back.

6. “Thanks,” Will said. “It’s good to be home.” He wasn’t sure if it was. What if it all went wrong? But it was the right thing to say,
even if he wasn’t sure if he meant it.

7. Jan was the next one to come down the stairs.
Konstan5ne came walking down the stairs
Doesn’t she look good
Standing in her underwear?
My Konstan5ne came walking down the stairs
And all that I could do
Was touch her long blonde hair

8. It wasn’t as if Will had never seen her in her underwear before. He’d seen her undressed a lot. But this was the first @me that he
had seen her like this and known that he was supposed to marry her.
“Hi,” he said, trying not to think about how Jan would look without that underwear on. “How are you?”

9. “I guess I’m all right,” she said. “I might be up for my promo@on at work today.”
“That’s great!” Will grinned. “So, this is it, then? Mad Scien@st?”
“I hope so.”

10. “What are you going to invent once you get it?” Will asked.
Jan narrowed her eyes, thinking about it but not wan@ng to at the same @me. “I’d rather not say,” she said. “I don’t know how
well it’s going to be received.”

11. Not for the first @me, Will wondered what in the world he was supposed to say to get Jan to talk to him. “It can’t be that bad,” he
said. It came out more sharply than he had meant. “I mean, you couldn’t have go2en this far if it was, right?”
“Maybe you’re right.” Jan smiled.

12. Then she went in for a @ckle.
“Hey! No fair!” Will squirmed away.

13. AIer Will leI for work, Jan sat down on a couch with one of her books. She found herself smiling even as she paged through the
trials she had conducted of the effects of cheesecake on pregnant women.
Sooner or later, she was going to have to admit that she liked Will. It didn’t make sense, but there was something about being
around him that made her smile. Maybe this @me could be different. Jan’s heart s@ll felt so heavy, though.

14. But things went on mostly as usual at the house. Brandon and Julian s@ll teased each other over mahjong, though their jibes had
grown more good‐natured with age.

15. Chris kept working on maxing her skills. Strangely, she felt like she was growing less logical as she prac@ced chess, not more.
There was something just beyond her grasp that was going to result in a disaster for the family. What was it?

16. “Hello, this is Chris.”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Sabriel! How are you?”

17. “Oh, I’m fine,” Sabriel said. “Is Will around?”

18. “He’s at work right now,” Chris said. “Apparently he got the job he wanted right away. Except the job he wanted is to sit around
and play games. I don’t understand.”
“Really? He told us that his big plan was to fix up the phones.” Sabriel laughed. “What do games have to do with that?”
“There must be some kind of connec@on.” Chris shrugged. Will would figure it out eventually. “Tell me what you’re up to at
college.”

19. “Oh, Arthur and I are just up to the usual. Classes. Exams. Planning for what we’re going to do aPer gradua5on. Pillow figh5ng.”

20. “That’s good. Are you skilling?”
“Yes, Mom. It’s like I’m chained to the damn chessboard un5l I get those last couple logic points. So’s Arthur. Skilling, I mean. I
think he likes it more.”

21. Sabriel yawned at the thought of chess. “Anyway, I’ve got to go. Class is in an hour and I need my minions to explain it to me. You
should come over some@me.”

22. “I think we will, the next @me we can get out of the house.” That was assuming that Brandon wasn’t too sick to travel, but Chris
hoped that he would be rela@vely well.

23. “Yes! I got a bulls‐eye!” Arthur cheered.
“Isn’t that great for you,” Sabriel said. “I’m s@ll in the middle of working out the Storm’s End Defense here.”

24. “I think this might be a good 5me for you to step away from the chess table.”
“I think you’re right.” Sabriel toppled the white king for good measure. “It was @me for me to step away from this thing an hour
ago.”

25. Downstairs, she saw a dormie walking by and remembered that a couple of weeks ago, Arthur had told her to make new friends.
Sabriel had brushed off his advice at the @me, saying that it was too hard to get in touch with anyone. Besides, she had both a
brother and her economics minions. But Sabriel was bored, and it couldn’t be so bad to commiserate with someone, could it?
So she walked out of the house and greeted the dormie: “Hi. I’m Sabriel Stark.”

26. “Meadow Tsang,” the girl said, smiling as she shook Sabriel’s hand. “Wait. You’re a Stark?”
“Yep. Bringing law, order, and full hygiene bars to Winterfell since…well, since my parents’ @me.”

27. “So you’re one of Sansa’s…” Meadow trailed off.
“Great‐grandkids.”
“There’s no way it’s been that long! I remember her like it was yesterday.” Meadow smiled. “She was amazing. She knew that
trouble was coming, but somehow she stayed so op@mis@c, all the same. I wish I was as strong as she was.”

28. “So you’re one of Sansa’s…” Meadow trailed off.
“Great‐grandkids.”
“There’s no way it’s been that long! I remember her like it was yesterday.” Meadow smiled. “She was amazing. She knew that
trouble was coming, but somehow she stayed so op@mis@c, all the same. I wish I was as strong as she was.”

29. Sabriel watched Meadow gush about her great‐grandmother, feeling oddly detached. Sansa Stark, the saint. Would anyone ever
think of her that way aIer she was gone? Then Sabriel remembered that Sansa wasn’t exactly gone.

30. “You should probably know that she’s come back.”
“Really?” Meadow asked. “That’s great news!”

31. Meadow was so enthusias@c that Sabriel hated to correct her, but it had to be done. “No, it’s not,” she said. “She’s…not the same
anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I haven’t seen her for myself. This is just what the woman who brought her back told my mom,” Sabriel said. “But apparently
she’s gone over the edge. She’ll do anything to get back into the house and rule Winterfell again.” At least there wasn’t any more
chance of her marrying her brother.

32. “There’s…I’m sorry. That can’t be possible.” Meadow crossed her arms. “That’s not the Sansa I know!”
“She’s not even calling herself Sansa anymore. She’s decided to go by Alayne.” Sabriel didn’t know why she thought that
ma2ered.
“She’s s@ll the same Sansa I know.”

33. “No. She’s not! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Sabriel threw her hands in the air.
“You didn’t know her like I did. That can’t be right. Even if it is, she’s probably just trying to—”
“Marry her own great‐grandson so she could be back with the family again. That’s what she was trying to do before my parents
arranged a marriage for Will! You’re not supposed to mess with life and death, and Alayne is the perfect example of why. If you’re
so blinded by loyalty to her that you can’t see why—”

34. “I’m not blinded.” Meadow gave the lie to this conclusion by closing her eyes and turning her face away from Sabriel. “She was
my friend, and there’s no way she’d do something like that.”

35. Sabriel was going to answer, but she remembered that she was supposed to be making friends. Maybe she could persuade
Meadow if they became friends. Even if she couldn’t, it was cold out, and she didn’t want to be here anymore. “Forget it,” she
said. “You want to come in for lunch?”

36. Arthur had made his chili. Usually, Sabriel would grab a bowl right away, but she had class in an hour and didn’t have @me. So she
gave the sink a quick cleaning, then headed off to class while Arthur and Meadow talked.

37. “I haven’t seen her, either,” Arthur said. “But—Sabriel’s probably already told you this, but coming back from the dead just isn’t
right. She probably was just as great as you say she was. She just isn’t that way anymore.”

38. “I don’t want to believe it,” Meadow said more quietly than she had before.
“Neither do we. But we’re going to have to deal with it eventually.”

39. When Jan got home, she wasn’t smiling. It was because she hadn’t allowed herself to think about her promo@on for such a long
@me that she didn’t even know what to do with herself now that she had it.

40. That uncertainty evaporated as she saw Chris reading in the front room. Jan placed a lamp on the wall, then turned to Chris and
waved. “I did it! Mad Scien@st!”

41. “Congratula@ons!” Chris s@ll wished she could have done it, but she didn’t feel bi2er. “That’s your inven@on for gehng light into
the house when the sun’s s@ll up?”

42. Jan nodded. “I s@ll can’t believe I actually did it. It’s great.”

43. Will didn’t get promoted, but he was happy to congratulate Jan on her promo@on. “What are you going to do next?” he asked
her.
“My life@me want is to be a Rock God,” Jan said. “But I want to see what else I can invent first. Plus, the hours are short and I
don’t have to put in that much face @me at the lab, so it’ll be easy to hide pregnancies.”

44. “Sounds like a good enough plan to me,” Will said. “You’ve worked hard to get here, and—Jan?” She had turned from him and
closed her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Jan remembered how hard she had tried to not get pregnant. She thought of what Julian had said about her not being
the marrying kind. It was too late now to decide that he was right aIer all.

45. Will wanted Jan to like him, but he’d had enough of trying to start a conversa@on with her and gehng nothing. The words spilled
out of his mouth: “What the hell do I have to say to get you to talk to me?”
Jan didn’t say anything. Will could have predicted that.
“I want…” Will wanted everything. He kept his hands on his hips because if he didn’t, he’d reach out to touch Jan, and she would
turn away before his fingers even touched the skin of her jawline, before he could lean in and kiss her. “I don’t want you to hate
me.”

46. “I don’t hate you,” Jan said. She didn’t know how to feel about Will, but she knew that much. “I’m sorry. Stop me if you’ve heard
this before, but it’s not you, it’s me.”

47. “Well, I’m glad you don’t hate me, at least,” Will said. “I know this situa@on isn’t what either one of us wanted. But I hope it’ll
work, anyway.”

48. Sabriel was supposed to be working on the cons@tu@on, but she decided to take advantage of a computer game Jan had mailed to
her.
“Hahaha! I don’t care what your highest score was, Will! I’m going to get double your score and then trample all over you! This is
awesome!”

49. “Sabriel! Everyone’s here!”
“I just have to finish—” Sabriel turned back to the screen to find that her character had fallen off a cliff and died. “FINE. I’ll be
there.”

50. The family visit that Sabriel had proposed had materialized. Brandon couldn’t make it, but everyone else was there.

51. “Hi everyone!” Arthur said. “Welcome to our li2le house. Those of you who haven’t already seen it, of course.”

52. “Thanks!” Chris said. “I’m glad we could finally come out to see you here. I’ve been wan@ng to see the college for a while now.”
“And I never thought I’d be glad to see this place, but it’s nice to see you again,” Will said.
Oddly, Julian stayed silent.

53. Then, Arthur turned to greet Jan. He barely knew her, but he wanted to both get to know her be2er and prevent any poten@al
family fisiights from breaking out.

54. As they talked, the rest of the family began to smustle, and the classmate Arthur had invited arrived at the door.

55. Sullivan Livingston was a fellow drama major who Arthur had a crush on. It looked like the feeling was mutual.

56. He looked a li2le confused by the family’s decision to do the smustle outside, but since it looked like Arthur was having a good
@me leading everyone in the dance, Sullivan joined in.

57. At first, he thought Arthur’s uncle was poking him in the stomach, since Arthur had warned him that some of his rela@ves were a
li2le low on nice points. It turned out that Julian was just trying to do the smustle correctly, though.

58. Eventually, though, everyone caught on. With everybody doing a reasonably synchronized smustle, bringing back par@es can’t be
too far behind.

59. Meanwhile, Sabriel was playing chess with Jan. Playing against a new opponent made the game marginally less boring, but she
didn’t like Jan for some reason that she couldn’t quite explain. This bothered Sabriel, because usually she could describe exactly
why she disliked someone in no uncertain terms.

60. Jan didn’t seem thrilled by the game, either.

61. “Your brother is really hot,” she said almost to herself as Will walked up the stairs.
Sabriel probably wasn’t supposed to respond to that, but she didn’t care. “Whatever. Life’s so much be2er without all these
roman@c dilemmas. That’s definitely one point for not being the heir.”

62. “I’m really glad somebody thinks you’re hot, Will,” Sabriel said as Jan went downstairs for salad.
“Who? Jan?”
“No, the dartboard. Yes, Jan.”

63. “Huh.” That probably made him sound even more stupid, but Jan was s@ll within earshot, so Will didn’t want to say what he was
thinking: Could have fooled me.

64. Downstairs, Arthur would be well‐advised to rein in the drama@c gestures before his salad winds up all over the kitchen.
“Do you think it’s overkill if I wave my hands around like this during the monologue, Sullivan?”

65. “I don’t think so,” Sullivan said. “It is a drama@c scene, and a li2le hand‐waving is in order. Plus, it’s fun.”

66. “So, what do you think of the hot tub?” Sabriel asked Meadow, who had also come to the party.
“It’s great. AIer three genera@ons of restric@ons, it’s a relief to sit back and relax there. You must be there all the @me.”

67. “Not really. It’s more of Arthur’s thing,” Sabriel said. “I—can’t remember the last @me I sat back and relaxed. Shoo@ng things on
the computer is pre2y relaxing, though. You don’t seem like a shoo@ng kind of person—”
“I’m not. But other people like it, and I see how it could be fun.”

68. Meanwhile, Julian was distracted by the bubble blower.

69. Chris, Sullivan, and Arthur had taken over the hot tub.

70. Downstairs, if you put two Romance Sims with fiIeen playful points together, then you get a pillow fight where Will seems to be
aiming for Jan’s bu2. It’s the closest he’s go2en to feeling her up so far.

71. “So, Sabriel was congratula@ng me on somebody thinking I’m hot,” Will said as he watched the feathers fall.

72. “She was?” Jan asked, not paying a2en@on to what Will was actually saying.

73. “Yeah. I think I should congratulate you, too. Somebody also thinks you’re hot.”

74. Without any further ado, Will stepped forward and kissed Jan.

75. “That was all right, wasn’t it?” Will’s hand lingered on the fabric of Jan’s coat.

76. “Yeah.” Jan paused to think. “Be2er than all right.”

77. “That wasn’t fair! Stop that right now!”
“But everything’s fair in love and pillow figh@ng!” Will grinned.
Chris sipped her coffee as she watched them. She couldn’t focus on skilling anymore.
“No it—wait, love and pillow figh@ng? Did you really just say that?”

78. It took a while before the double entendre dawned on Will. “Yes, I just did,” he said, stepping closer to Jan.
“Oh, Will. You’re funny. In a good way.”

79. As they leI the room, Chris set down her cup and let out the sob that she had been holding in.

80. If Will was thinking anything as he touched Jan, it was that he didn’t know why he’d ever thought about not marrying her.

81. So aIerward, they had a quick wedding to make it official.

82. Then, Jan prepared a cheesecake. As a theorist, she had conducted an experiment to determine how cheesecake caused one
zygote to become two. She wanted to get her pregnancies over with so that they wouldn’t disrupt her career, so using the recipe
on herself made sense.

83. While Jan baked, Chris came up to Will. She had thought about saying any number of things, but the only ques@on she could ask
was, “Are you happy?”

84. “Yeah.” His mom wouldn’t stop looking at him. “I love her, Mom.”
“Good.”

85. AIer all, whenever Jan was in the room, Will couldn’t stop looking at her. He had trouble not thinking about her when she was
out of the room, too.

86. And with Jan, Will never had to be lonely.

87. Julian might have been out of the house carrying on with his job as Educa@on Minister, but he wasn’t stupid. He saw Will and Jan
talking at the dining table and turned toward the phone, trying not to feel so sad.

88. Could things between Julian and Jan have been different if he had just accepted her insistence that what she did to earn a living
didn’t ma2er?

89. Brandon stopped trying to tease Julian completely, so much that Julian wondered if the figh@ng spirit had gone out of Brandon
with his illness.

90. Chris also wondered if she was star@ng to lose the figh@ng spirit. She thought back to how everything had started with the fire
and mee@ng Addison aIerward. Too many people had died or were about to die.

91. Jan helped Will with his logic.
“Stop and think before you move that pawn. You know what’s going to happen when you play against yourself, but that doesn’t
work when you have an opponent. What do you think will happen when you move it? How is that going to help you five moves
from now?”

92. And not long aIer that, she got empirical proof of her pregnancy.

93. “See, I told you she thought you were hot,” Sabriel said when she found out.
Will didn’t say anything.

94. “Yes, I am going to congratulate you. Congratula@ons. And that’s all I’m going to say because I s@ll can’t stand the thought of you
boinking anybody.”
“Well, the same goes for you. I guess I’m supposed to beat up anybody who threatens my liWle sister’s virtue.”

95. “Well, I’m glad you’re not going to have that problem. No one’s going to threaten my so‐called virtue, and if they do, I can do my
own bea@ng up. Oh, plumbob, I’m going to be an aunt. I’m too young to be an aunt.”

96. “Sihng around? Why aren’t you working out?”
Was this man going to insist on disturbing Arthur’s hot tub @me? Apparently. He opened his eyes a sliver. “Because I have ten
body points and I don’t need to. Please stop yelling at me.” Arthur closed his eyes again.

97. Later that semester, Sabriel achieved her independence from the chess table aIer she gained her ninth logic point.

98. She celebrated by purchasing a television. Unfortunately, while the technology might have been invented, there weren’t very
many things to watch.

99. “YOU SUCK,” Sabriel shouted at both Angela and Lilith Pleasant. She couldn’t decide which one she hated more. She sympathized
with Lilith a li2le, but then Lilith turned around and started sleeping with every guy in sight just to get a2en@on.

100. “Great. Now I’m emo@onally invested in this crap.”

101. “Arthur, you need your own TV show when you graduate,” Sabriel said. “All this dreck is really depressing.”
“Dreck? I haven’t been watching,” Arthur said.

102. “You know. Watching other people’s sibling drama, watching some guy who doesn’t know how to cook—he actually set himself
on fire, which was pre2y funny even though I felt kind of ashamed of myself for laughing—it’s a nice escape from studying, but I
feel like I’m losing skill points just by watching it. You’d own all those other shows.”
Arthur added the face to the snowman as Sabriel talked. “Sounds like that’s the place to start for bringing a few fun and games
into people’s lives again,” he said. “Maybe I should start watching.”
“Go for it. I need to be able to talk to someone about how ridiculous the Pleasants are and lament why I can’t stop watching
them.”

103. To be con5nued in Part 2…