A/N: I'm sorry, I had to do this! "Fix You" by Coldplay is in here. Jester/Jane hurt/comfort story. One-shot; Review please!
Disclaimer: nothing.
I sat there holding the girl I had admired so long. I was stroking her flaming red, curly untamable hair as I had dreamed of doing so many times before; her head was on my shoulder.
But it wasn't how I had imagined it at all. Not in the slightest. Not in the tiniest bit of an ounce! She was crying so hard over the war we had won. In fact I do not think she even stopped crying since she came back from the battlefield!
All because of three things:
The blasted war.
Love.
And Gunther.
I remember how Jane came back. She was hysterically crying; no one could calm her down. At first, people thought it was the wounds she received, that was partially true in a sense. Her armor was torn; she was bleeding, part of her hair frizzled from fire, and sweat rained down from her forehead. It hurt watching her come back with the Knights and holding back tears; but not as much as it would have if I had not known that before the war she and Sir Gunther were courting.
But as they came back in rows, I noticed that Gunther was not among them. I was puzzled about why Gunther wasn't there, or why Jane was crying.
As the last rows came through the gates, Knights carried bodies covered in cloth. People cried over the loss. Somehow my beloved Jane came and stood next to me. She pointed to one of the covered bodies, silently.
I nodded not understanding. Then it dawned on me, how could I have been so thick? I looked back at Jane, and saw her head in her hands; her shoulders were heaving. I put my hand on her back and started rubbing it gently, leading her away from the mourning crowd.
Gunther couldn't have died, could he? He couldn't just leave my Jane, could he? But he obviously did, there was evidence.
So I lead her to a grey wall protecting the castle that had stayed standing, and I sat her down on the dirt. The Castle was now in half-rubble half-standing formation. Tiny fires still burned but were no big offense to the landscape. Kippernia nearly fell to the invaders, but the Knights would hear none of it and kept attacking the foreigners. They fought fiercely and quickly diminished the foe's numbers, but at a cost. Lives were lost, damaged, changed for the worst. A heavy toll for what we have gained.
So Jane sat there quietly sobbing and I rubbing her back and stroking her hair. She occasionally mumbled, "It is not fair! He should not have died!"
I reply, "Shhh, I know, I know. Loved ones should not be taken, but it is life."
Then she falls back into weeping.
It has been two hours since then, and she still did not stop crying. I have been at war with myself over whether I should sing a tune my mother had once taught me when a friend of mine had died in a caravan raid when I was six. She had a lute when she sang it, it sounded so pretty. But I do not have a lute with me at the moment, and I don't think it wise to sing it without it either!
But Jane needs some sort of…of...reinforcement. A song would do, but… I don't have my lute and I won't do well without it!
"Jester," Jane muffles in my shoulder. Her crying has subsided.
"Yes?"
"I-I tried. I really did! I tried to save Gun-Gunther, b-but the enemy was surrounding us an-and I couldn't save him! It's my entire fault! I sho-should have pro-protected him, and oh!" she started to wail again. "I failed h-him! He was-was injured and I wanted to live, so I tried guarding myself and him, hoping he could live too. But it was all too much! It's my entire fault!"
A moment of silence fell before I started singing, "When you try your best but you don't succeed. When you get what you want but not what you need. When you feel so tired but you can't sleep – stuck in reverse.
"And the tears come streaming down your face, when you lose something you can't replace - when you love someone but it goes to waste. Could it be worse?
"Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you." I felt Jane lift her head up from my shoulder; she had stopped crying. I smiled inwardly; at least I got her attention.
"And high up above or down below, when you're too in love to let it go. But if you never try you'll never know, just what you were.
"Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you."
"Jester?" she asks, but I do not respond. I feel far away, distant. In a memory so deep I see my friend's face, all torn up. I want to cry, and suddenly it vanishes and I remember that I am doing this for Jane, not for myself!
So I continue to sing as dusk comes around and stars start to shine brilliantly, "Tears stream down your face, when you lose something you cannot replace! Tears stream down your face and I…
"Tears stream down your face. I promise you I will look for the mistakes! Tears stream down your face and I…
"Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones. And I will try to fix you."