What the Winter Brings

Cold

It is the first thing that Griffith notices when he awakens. It strikes him but a second later that it is not an unpleasant coldness that surrounds him.

Even now, he can still remember the many nights spent curled up in his own waste in a dungeon so deep beneath the earth that even the cold had felt different. Now as he lies here with his eyes closed, the chill that bites at his skin feels strangely welcoming. For one thing, it bites, but it does not seep into his bones as he expects it to. Instead, the nimble fingers of frost merely travel skin deep, gliding about him in an almost comforting fashion.

Griffith decides that he likes this feeling far better than the poisonous chill that had once slithered through his bones, clogging and suffocating until he had been sure that death was but a breath away.

He drifts back to sleep, imagining chilly hands swinging him from side to side, returning him safely back into the realm of dreams.

Were his hands always this small?

It is the first thing that Guts notices when he redresses the bandages on Griffith's frail wiry fingers. Months of being locked up have made his hands so pallid that Guts fears to look directly at them lest he be blinded.

Griffith had once reminded Guts of winter with his pale complexion and blue eyes the colour of the sky reflected on ice. Ice reflects everything and yet when Guts observes their reflections, he concludes that the ice seems to add its very own essence to the images that it shines back onto the world. They appear colder and sharper as though the ice had decided a long time ago that people were much too soft and dull when left to their own devices and thus, needed to be shown the potential that they could reach by looking upon their own reflections.

He'd once shared this observation with Griffith who had in turn, observed that Guts must have had far too much to drink for one night.

A twitch brings him back from the murky shadows of his past. He looks down to see one of those cold blue eyes peering up at him from beneath a frame of black lashes. It puzzles Guts still how Griffith could have such dark lashes when his hair was so white. A small smile paints the tired cherub face, before being quickly replaced by a pained expression as his leader attempts to rise onto his elbows.

"Easy now, you've got too many wounds to even think about getting up," Guts warns, his voice the perfect combination of stern and concern.

He receives a blink in response, the leader merely nodding his consent before drifting back to sleep.

"Thank you."

Guts looks up from his work to see Griffith smiling quietly up at him from beneath the blankets. His cheeks are red and his breathing from where Guts sits seems laboured.

He walks over and places his hand on the man's forehead, recoiling at the heat that pulses beneath Griffith's sweat soaked skin.

"Shit."

For three days and three nights the fever rides its course through him, bringing forth those terrifying memories of that dank grey dungeon beneath the earth. He screams in his sleep and outside, the entire Band of the Hawk cringe at what has become of their fallen leader.

Casca and Guts take turns tending to him, giving him the occasional sip of water when he seems lucid enough and placing wet rags on his forehead in a desperate attempt to bring down the fever.

On the third day, in their most anxious moment when Griffith refuses to stop screaming, his voice cracking from its own vain attempt to rid its master of his wretched demons, does Guts swallow whatever pride he has left to pull down the covers and accompany his fallen leader.

Griffith had once said that it was a woman's duty to keep the man warm, but when Casca offers, Guts finds himself vehemently refusing. He owes this to Griffith. Casca who has always vowed to be Griffith's sword, despite never being acknowledged for doing so, was not the one who had left that fateful winter's night.

Besides, Griffith was never one to shy away from physical touches, at least where Guts was concerned. It occurs to him then, that Griffith finds a sort of comfort from being near him. With that thought in mind, he brings the smaller man closer, tucking his head into the crook of his neck.

For the first time in three days, the band sleeps peacefully.

"I want to go outside."

Guts snorts awake to the sight of Griffith's amused face peering up at him. He notes that the red splotches on his cheeks have subsided.

"I wish to go outside," Griffith says again, looking directly at Guts with a determination in his eyes that Guts has not seen (and thought he never would) since their last duel before his departure.

He feels relieved and somewhat horrified at the same time. He is relieved because these few months of scorching torture, though damaging, have not broken Griffith as thoroughly as he had initially believed.

Guts however, is also scared because he fears what Griffith will do next.

It scares him to think of how quickly Griffith's dreams had turned to ash. He often finds himself wondering at night whether or not his friend's actions had really been spurred by his sudden departure. It astounds him still how deeply affected Griffith seemed to have been by his leave.

"Guts?"

He looks down at the man currently taking up his thoughts; Griffith looks tired with lines and purple bruises beneath hungry blue eyes that are all together too large on his thin, gaunt face. His once beautiful long hair had been shorn short during his time in the dungeons and was now hanging in patches, limp and thin atop his skull-shaped head.

Despite this, Guts is happy. Appearances were just appearances and Griffith, with time and care, would be back to looking pretty and healthy in no time.

Pretty?

"You're not listening are you?" Griffith huffs, eyes slanting in mock annoyance at Guts' unresponsive figure.

In truth he has heard every word and is now merely choosing his own words. This is a skill that he has only just recently acquired. It would not do to think so rashly when it was Griffith's life on the line. That had been Casca's scolding, but Guts, in a state of worry and panic, readily agreed that it would be best that they tread lightly around him for the time being.

So it was with some contemplation that he says:

"No."

He has never admitted, and probably never will, to being particularly adept at the skill.

This earns him a frown. Griffith is no fool. He is aware, has been for quite some time, of the near silent shift in power that has been slowly making itself known between the two of them even before their untimely duel those many months ago.

"It is not in your place to disobey orders Guts."

He wishes to test this modification, to see how Guts will react.

"I don't think it's in your place to be giving any-"

Griffith nods internally, so his assumptions had been correct.

"-but if you insist on pushing yourself, I'm sure as hell you won't let anyone stop you."

And once again, he finds himself baffled by the anomaly that is Guts.

The walk, if you could even call it that Guts thinks drily, is slow and laborious. Griffiths' legs are all together too thin to support even his own measly weight. It is night time and most of the band members are asleep save for the ones on guard duty. Corkus and Rickert turn when they hear their footsteps.

Rickert is the first to get up, dashing towards them with a beaming grin fitting of a youngster his age. Guts finds himself sometimes envious of the boy's childish innocence. Rickert at the early age of eleven has found a family that Guts can only wish that Gambino had been able to provide.

Griffith smiles warmly, flinching only briefly when Rickert tackles him with a massive hug around his waist. He bends down and combs through the boy's yellowy hair as he begins to sob into his stomach.

Guts notes that he goes about comforting Rickert as well as he does everything else in life, hushing cries of "I missed you" and brushing over all of the boy's worries with a reassuring voice.

For despite his innocence, Rickert is still a child who kills and Guts is all too familiar with his need to be reassured.

Blue eyes peer up at him and a small smile graces chapped lips.

Guts tightens his hold on Griffith's waist.

Corkus watches them from afar. He knows that he ought to go as well, but he cannot bring himself to do so. Griffith even from this distance looks tired and ill, and Corkus needs time, time to realize and accept the fact that Griffith is not the man he had once been.

He knows that he is not the only one who has realized this. He knows despite how hard he tries to convince himself and the people around him otherwise, that Griffith has changed. Of course, he does not doubt that the man is still capable of miracles, he only fears that Griffith has lost the resolve to perform them.

Corkus knows how it feels to depend on others and to have your views shifted so drastically by them. It is a dangerous endeavour, he thinks in his own world-wearied mind, to place your trust in the hands of men.

Rickert chats amiably, filling him in on everything that he has missed in the past few months. They have returned back to the prairie schooner where Griffith lies comfortably against rucksacks filled with beans and a blanket draped over his thin frame.

"We were all really worried...A lot of people left after the attack...Did you know that Casca is a terrible cook?"

Rickert's happy voice fills the silence. He sits next to his leader, dutifully reporting everything that his frazzled mind can recall of those ten bleak months. Griffith smiles dutifully back, playing his part in this game of make believe. Rickert needs this and no matter how hard he tries to deny it, somewhere deep inside his own tired heart, he needs it too.