RAGDOLL

He sinks to the floor with her, her back against his chest, head resting on his shoulder, her hair – that wild mass of flaming curls he used to mock, tease her about mercilessly – tickling his nose. Her body, utterly pliant and limp, folds to the cold stones so that she ends up half sprawled, half upright in his arms.

Her head falls away from him, dropping forward as he shifts her and he panics, not wanting to lose that contact, not wanting to lose any tiny point of contact now that he finally has her, he HAS her, he...

And yet – does he really? Is this even Jane, or is this just a… a remnant? A cast-off shell?

Laying her down full-length on the dirty floor is the last – the VERY LAST – thing he wants to do... yet the rational part of his mind (which is nearly – but not entirely – overwhelmed) insists that he has to. He wants nothing more than to gather her closer, and closer still, to hold her and rock her and bury his face in the little hollow where her shoulder meets her throat, and never let her go… but he forces, he forces himself to ease her the rest of the way down, slipping a hand beneath her head, shielding it from the rough rock of the cell's bare floor. He feels a tacky wetness on his fingers –

(...sticky... the back of my head is... sticky...)

– that damn near drags him under.

But he can't afford to be dragged under.

He has to assess her.

He has to determine, first and foremost, whether she's even alive.

And if she is, he has to catalogue the damage and then address the question of whether there's anything, anything at all, that he can do for her.

His first good look at her would suggest that the answer is, very little. It's patently obvious why the two guards had been debating an issue as basic as whether she's alive.

Because she doesn't look alive.

Jane looks dead.

Pressing two fingers against her throat, he feels for a pulse, desperation mounting because it's hard, it's so hard to tell. Is he actually feeling that faint thrum? Or does he just want to believe that? If it is there, it's so weak that it's nearly impossible to discern, especially because his hands are shaking, and…

He sucks in a deep, ragged breath and tries to still them, tries to will them calm and steady.

Becomes aware that he's whispering a single word over and over again, under his breath – please, please, please, please – is he begging her, or himself?

Or maybe he's begging God, although he feels about a hair's breadth away from renouncing God altogether, because what the hell kind of a God would allow THIS?

He can't seem to will his hands steady, though, no matter how he tries, so he bends close over her instead, their faces almost touching, and attempts to determine whether he can feel any stirring of breath on his own cold cheek. But once again, his body betrays him. He's panting with his fear for her, his barely suppressed fury at the people – the animals – who put her in this state, and he can't tell, he can't tell, he can't –

With a choked little cry of frustration, he pulls back a few inches, then cups her cheek in his palm and presses his forehead to hers. "Jane, breathe for me," he whispers, his lips nearly moving against hers. If she is breathing, their breath is mingling, they are so close. "Please, Jane, please… come on, come on."

There is no discernible response. Breath hitching in his throat, he straightens slightly and looks, really looks, at her still face. It's the first good look he's gotten since before they were captured.

And what he sees hurts his heart so badly it's like a physical pain in his chest.

She's so pale, her freckles standing in stark contrast to her ashen skin, each one of them its own tiny exclamation point, screaming just how wrong this entire situation is. Her cheeks are tear-streaked, and there's a blotchy bruise spreading up one side of her face. Right where her jaw meets her throat there's another bruise, smaller, darker, nearly black; Gunther recognizes it for what it is, a "love mark" that has nothing - nothing to do with love. Her slightly parted lips have taken on a ghastly bluish tinge. The bottom one is swollen; it, and her chin beneath it, are smeared with blood.

She bit herself, he realizes with fresh horror. It looks like she damn near bit through her lip, most likely in her effort to keep from screaming anymore after her first – her only – cry of pain. In a daze, moving automatically without any conscious thought whatsoever, Gunther licks his thumb and gently wipes the blood away. There are probably – no, there are certainly – a dozen more important things he should be doing right now, but… he's absolutely compelled to do this, to clean her up this little bit, at least.

"Jane," he rasps out as he rubs at her skin, surprising himself because he hadn't intended to speak aloud in this moment, "come back. I do… not know where you have gone, but –" he breaks off, gulps. "I… if our positions were reversed, I doubt I would want to come back either; maybe it is selfish of me even to ask. But… but you… you know me…" his speech is as choppy and distorted as his breathing. "I am a spoilt, selfish arse, you have suh… said… so… yourself enough times. And so I am… asking. I am. Jane. Jane…" his whole body is heaving with the force of his despair. He takes her face in both his hands, framing it, stroking her cheeks, dropping his forehead until it clunks against hers again. "Selfish or not, I am begging you – do not leave me here alone."

He has to take several deep, shuddering breaths before he can get himself even borderline calm enough to continue his assessment… and he still hasn't managed to determine with any surety whether she's alive or dead. He presses his ear to her chest next, listening for a heartbeat, eyes shut, brow furrowed as he focuses, bringing all of his concentration to bear.

It's no more productive than the other tactics he's tried. His own heart is beating too crazily, erratically; it's pounding, slamming against his ribcage in a mad, adrenaline-charged staccato, and… and he thinks he's picking up on something from Jane, but if her heart is beating he can't separate it from his own, and…

If only there were a way that his could beat for both of them.

Hell, if it could just beat for her that would be enough; he'd make that sacrifice without a second's hesitation.

But that's not the way this works, and now he has a decision to make.

Without actually knowing, he has to determine how to proceed… as if she's alive, or as if she's dead.

Although come right down to it, there's not much of a decision there after all. In the absence of proof either way, he will carry on as if she's alive. Resigning himself to the alternative is unacceptable.

Not an option at all.

So he needs to warm her up.

He stands just long enough to strip off his breeches, then hunkers down beside her again and tugs them, as gently as he can, up over her slim legs. He's biting his own lip now in an attempt to keep himself grounded, because the bruises – dear God, the bruises and the blood and the… it all tells a story that's brutal beyond belief, almost beyond comprehension. He can't let himself think about it or really even acknowledge it, not right now; he has to shelve it for later because…

Because.

Jane is relying on him to be as calm and collected as he can manage to be. If there's to be any hope of saving her, he has to be methodical. He has to – well, it's a fine line. He has to abandon rationality to the point where he can convince himself that she can be saved – because logic says otherwise right now. But he also has to retain just enough rationality, enough clarity, to think his way through what needs to be done next.

And dwelling on the physical evidence of her ordeal would not be conducive to that.

So he covers it up. He covers her up. And pauses, calculating what course of action to take now.

The best way to warm her – (to warm both of them because now, divested of all clothing except for his undergarments, which offer scant protection against the chill of this place, his teeth are rattling from the cold) – would be to engineer as much skin-to-skin contact as he possibly can.

With a muttered apology to her modesty – she's been violated enough, God damn it, but it's necessary – he seizes the collar of the shirt, his shirt which currently encases her body, and rips.

He tears it open right down the center and then goes stock-still, sucker-punched all over again by the fresh horrors this action reveals.

"Oh, no," he says, inflectionless, his voice almost dead. They hurt my ribs, she'd told him, and Christ, she hadn't been lying. The bruising is… extensive. He's not sure how many more of these blows he can sustain, and keep functioning in any capacity at all. "Jane…"

Swallowing hard, he skates his fingers lightly along the edge of the bruising, then presses his palms gently down over the discolored area, exerting just the slightest amount of pressure, trying to determine whether there's actual breakage.

After a moment's examination he doesn't think so… but he'd bet a fair coin that there's cracking, and to more than just one bone, at that.

Had this happened during the struggle? Or was this what what they'd done to her when she'd cried out?

He's lightheaded with rage. Queasy with it. He fights it back. He won't throw up, he won't.

It takes him a minute to collect himself enough to even remember why he'd ripped the shirt in the first place. He's too arrested by these new injuries he's just uncovered, trying – without much success – to process them.

It goes beyond even the damage to her ribcage; more finger-shaped bruises mar her shoulders; circle the base of her throat like some ghastly necklace. God, they'd had their filthy fucking hands everywhere, and not just their hands either, are those... bite marks...? How had she not screamed the entire time? He wonders briefly how badly damaged her arms must be, inside the sleeves of his shirt. Surely that's where they would have exerted the most pressure, to hold her down, to keep her still. It's… he can't…

"Jane," he says again, and it comes out as a groan.

Then he's gathering her to him, because that was the whole point, he belatedly remembers; that was why he'd torn the shirt open to begin with. So he can press her against himself, no barrier of clothing between them, from the waist up, at any rate; just his skin to hers and maybe… just maybe…

He pulls her into his arms and it's difficult, trying to position her against himself when she's so totally, heart-achingly limp… he remembers Pepper sewing a ragdoll while she was pregnant and that, more than anything, is what Jane reminds him of in this moment. That's how… how floppy she is, how unresisting, how…

Absent.

A life-sized ragdoll of his partner... his childhood rival... the eternal thorn in his side... the woman he loves.

"You ARE alive," he tells her desperately, as if by willing it hard enough, by vocalizing it, by launching those words out into the universe, he can make it be true. "You are… you are."

It takes a good deal of maneuvering, but he manages to tug her over to the corner; the one his mind has dubbed as theirs. It feels safer there somehow, and familiar, and the horrendous, the appalling inaccuracy of those feelings is not lost on him, but he pushes such thoughts away because he needs a corner so he can prop himself up.

He settles himself with his back against the place where the two walls join, and pulls Jane into his lap. It's awkward and her body lists dangerously with each movement, but he draws her legs up as best he can, noting with some relief that her feet are entirely hidden within the folds of his trousers, which are much too long for her. He's glad they're not exposed to the cold air, the cold stone. So much precious body heat can be lost through bare feet.

He then angles her in his arms so that her chest is pressed against his own, her head a solid weight against his shoulder, and tucks the ragged edges of the ripped shirt around them both. It seems like a position he can maintain for some time, and he thinks – he hopes – that he can warm her this way. That maybe, after a little while, she'll recover some of her own heat and (please Jane oh please) they can warm each other.

Burrowing his arms between the fabric and her skin, he wraps her in a tight embrace, hands splayed out over her back; one down by her waist, the other across her shoulder blades. He starts rubbing her in absent circles, creating friction, trying to generate a little bit of additional heat. "Jane," he murmurs, "enough now. You have more than repaid me for the time I lodged that arrow in my armor, made you think... I had been shot... I am... so sorry I scared you that way. It was stupid and thoughtless and not a bit funny. It was... cruel... I did not realize then, but... that slap was wholly justified, I understand now, I do. So you can open your eyes. Jane –" his arms tighten around her even further, before he remembers the state of her ribs and forces himself, with a concerted effort, to ease off. It's hard because he just wants to press her closer and closer and –

He shifts her a bit, struggling slightly with her weight. He's either going to cramp up or go numb at some point; he hopes for numb. "A little help… here… Jane… would be appreciated," he grits out. "All your high… talk about… part...nership and… each pulling our weight… teamwork... and res...ponsibility. I cannot help but notice that right at the moment you… are sticking me with all the work." He pauses, breathing hard, then buries his face in her hair before continuing. "I do not appreciate it at all, and Jane… for God's sake – wake up. I need you to wake UP!"

She does not wake up.