(A/N: the longest chapter yet! I just couldn't find a good place to break it without really disrupting the flow. Hope you enjoy - please review!)
She held onto the dagger as her attacker fell away from her gurgling and gagging and clutching at his throat, so the weapon yanked free of him and remained in her hand. She rolled onto her side and in that moment, her overwhelming urge was to curl up in the tightest ball she could manage, clutching the bloody dagger the way a toddler might clutch a security blanket, and just let everything fall away. Let the darkness come.
But she fought through it. She couldn't rest. Not here, not now, God no. No, there was something she had to do. She had to… she had to…
Gunther.
He was shouting her name. He sounded frantic nearly to the point of madness.
She tried to push herself up onto her hands and knees. Failed. Tried again. Failed again. Groaning, she gathered herself for one more last-ditch effort. Managing some modicum of success this time, she crawled to her husband, cut his ropes, and freed him.
Instantly he was holding her. His arms shot up and yanked her to his chest and then he was crushing her to him, so tightly that she could barely breathe, dropping his face into her hair and starting to rock her slightly, his whole body shaking, and she let herself just collapse into him, inhaling his scent, allowing her eyes to fall shut and trying to burrow even deeper into his embrace, impossible as that was.
He was already holding her as hard as one person can hold another.
And whispering her name over and over and over again, Jane and Jane and Jane, oh God, Jane.
They stayed that way for what felt like a very long time. Jane never wanted to let go again, and it was pretty clear that Gunther felt the same way. But eventually reality began to reassert itself. And the reality was that they were still in a breathtaking amount of danger.
It was Gunther who stirred first, sitting up straighter and loosening his grip on Jane.
"No," she protested, fisting her hands in the rough leather of his clothing, not wanting to let go, not wanting this moment to end.
"Jane, we have to." His voice was quiet, but implacable. "We cannot stay here. You know that."
She pulled back a few inches, but she couldn't bring herself to break contact yet. With a pronounced effort, she made herself release his jerkin, but only to raise her hands to his face, holding it, framing it, smudging it with blood too, but that hardly mattered – and allowed her forehead to drop against his with a little clunk.
"I do not th...hink I can... let go of you," she said brokenly.
"We just need to get through this," he replied hoarsely, "and then you will never have to again."
She swallowed hard and nodded, foreheads still pressed together, and then shifted back a few more inches, until she was arms-length away from him, though still more or less in his lap. His eyes were dark with anger, but his fingers were incredibly careful and gentle as he pulled the laces of her jerkin tight again, tying them off, covering her. Then he shifted her carefully off of him and stood, picking up the dagger Jane had dropped when he'd pulled her into his arms. Crossing the short distance to where Hugh lay, he hunkered down beside the dying man.
"I was wrong about the screaming," he observed, as Hugh's eyes bulged and rolled with terror and pain, his mouth too full of blood to make any sound other than a wet sort of burbling. Then, with a swift thrust to the heart, he finished what Jane had begun.
Jane, meanwhile, had used the support post as leverage to pull herself to her feet. She took a single step toward where her husband was now straightening up as well – and it felt as though someone had seized hold of the ground beneath her feet and given it an almighty yank. There was another brief yet intense flash of pain in her injured leg, and then she was down on her hands and knees again, head hanging almost to the ground as the tent spun sickeningly around her.
"JANE!" Gunther was back on his knees and beside her in a second, raw panic in his voice. She managed to raise shocked, confused green eyes to his. She didn't even remember falling – just taking a step, and then being on the ground.
"Jane, what… what…" he couldn't seem to string any more words together. And God, he looked so scared. It hurt her heart. She tried to put on a brave face.
"My… my ankle. I forgot," she managed. She was going to leave it at that, but Gunther's expression indicated that he knew something else was going on. "And… dizzy," she added reluctantly. "I just feel so…"
She raised a shaking hand and pressed it to her temple, her temple which had now taken three hard blows; one in the fighting and two courtesy of Hugh. She hissed in a sharp, hurt little breath, unable to really comprehend what was happening to her. Her sense of dizziness was escalating, and her ability for rational thought seemed to be diminishing in direct relation to it.
"G-Gunther…?" All of her confusion was evident in her voice as she shifted herself, very carefully, back into a sitting position. She could not make sense of what was happening to her. Hugh was dead, but the danger wasn't past. Not at all. There was more she needed to do. She had to be okay. She had to be okay. There was too much at stake for her not to be.
"Here," he said, his voice quiet and somehow… tight. "Let me see." He cupped her chin in one hand, actually looking at her carefully for the first time since she'd freed him, his eyes narrowing as he took in the bruises already blooming on her throat, where she'd been choked, and along the side of her face where she'd been struck.
She watched him track the discoloration up her jawline… and then abruptly he went very, very still. His eyes widened, and he raised a hand to brush the hair away from her temple. Jane stared, uncomprehending, as his fingers came away wet and red.
That made no sense. Her hands were bloody, not his.
Well, no, that wasn't exactly true. His hands did have blood on them, from the wound to his arm that he'd taken in the fighting. But this was decidedly fresher.
And then of course, there was the expression on his face. Really, that was all she needed to tell her that this blood was different, this blood was hers.
"Jane," he said, suddenly sounding as if Hugh had just kicked him in the stomach all over again, as if he couldn't quite catch his breath, "does your head hurt?"
"Nuh… n-no," she said. Right at that moment, it didn't. It felt strange and sort of floaty, but it didn't exactly hurt, per se.
"Do you feel sleepy?"
"Do I… Gunther, what –"
"Jane, do you!?"
She paused for a moment, thinking about it, trying to assess. She was completely and totally physically and emotionally exhausted, but she didn't think that was what he was asking. That wasn't quite the same as… sleepy. "I do not th…think so."
He started at her hard, searching, his slate-colored eyes boring into hers.
"But you do feel dizzy," he said at length. It was not a question.
"I… a… a little."
"Goddam it," he swore softly, shooting a look of such seething, roiling hatred at Hugh's body that Jane actually shrank back a little. It was frightening, that look.
It passed, though. And he looked back at her, and opened his mouth to speak – and then, to her horror, his face just… crumpled, he was suddenly pulling for air as if he were suffocating, drowning; and then he was dropping his head onto his knees and fisting his bloodied hands in his hair and just... well, going to pieces.
"Gunther! Gunther, what..." her voice dropped to a whisper. "You are scaring me."
"Sorry," he gasped, and he sounded so... lost, and then he was reaching out, pulling her back into his arms with desperate fierceness, clinging to her as a series of hard shudders wracked his body. They were pressed so tightly together that she could actually feel his heart beating – it was pounding, racing.
"I cannot lose you," he said, his voice muffled, speaking into her bruised, aching neck. "I cannot, Jane, I… it would kill me. I know you said I could, that I would, if I had to and I thought… I thought… there would be no reason anymore, no purpose but I… could go on putting one… foot… in front of the other, at least long enough to… to… but I was wrong! I cannot DO it, I – I – am not strong enough. Not on my own. Not without you. I am not, Jane, I am not."
He was nearly panting. He was completely beside himself. "Gunther," she managed, "You are not losing me. I am here, I am right here."
He shuddered again and tightened his arms around her still further, convulsively, frantically. "You are not… going to lose me," she repeated desperately. "Not… not today. Gunther, you have me. I am right here. We are going to get through this together. We are."
Slowly, he raised his head. Her heart gave a painful lurch inside her chest when their eyes met. She had never in her life seen him look this terrified, this vulnerable. He looked… he looked destroyed.
"Gunther!" It was a scream inside her mind, but only a bare whisper passed her lips. She was so sucker-punched by the expression in his eyes that she could barely even breathe, let alone speak.
He swallowed hard, slammed his eyes shut and dropped his face to her shoulder – but just for a few seconds, this time. When he raised his head again, he had regained at least partial mastery of himself.
"I love you," he said hoarsely, raising one hand to frame the side of her face. The less bruised and bloody side.
"I love you too," she breathed, still completely overwhelmed by… whatever it was that was happening with him right now.
"Jane." He took a shaky breath. "I… your head, it… I am very – concerned – that there might be –" he broke off, looked away for a moment. His jawline hardened, the corners of his mouth wrenching downward as he fought for control. He took a couple of deep, if unsteady, breaths before facing her again.
"If you start to feel sleepy," he said, "you have to tell me. You have to. Immediately. All right?"
That was when she finally understood. "I have a concussion…?"
"Not sure. But I think… your eyes, there… is something about your eyes, something… different. Jane, I just… promise. To tell me. Please?" His voice broke jaggedly on that last word.
"Yes," she said numbly. She'd have promised him anything in that moment, anything to make him stop looking like that, so lost, so haunted, she'd have promised to deliver the kingdom into his hands, the moon, the stars, anything at all.
"Good," he said hoarsely. "Good, all right, I…" he glanced around the tent as if not quite sure where he was, as if he were coming out of some sort of trance. "We need to figure out what to do, we need… weapons, and…"
And then both of them went very, very still, listening hard, eyes first narrowing in concentration, then meeting and widening as the sound – distant but approaching fast – resolved into something familiar and unmistakable.
Wingbeats.