Lee Scoresby was surrounded by people who would fight for him with all their being, but the fight he now fought was one he had to fight alone.

It did not take long for Serafina Pekkala's prediction to come true. Lee Scoresby had been running a fever before, higher than comfortable but not dangerous except as a sign of the infection ravaging his weakened body. Now it was like a furnace had ignited inside him, burning him from the inside out.

He writhed under its throes, and then from pain, the beating and the fever combining to bring an agony he was powerless to fight against, too incoherent to even completely understand what happened to him, let alone fight against moaning or voicing his pain.

"Lee?" murmured Hester. Whatever spell the witch had placed on her that drew her down into a deep slumber had long since worn off. For a while, her own injuries, and Lee's, had been enough before to induce her to sleep (with much more success than Lee) and she had managed to sleep the long hours away while Lee had lain restless. Now, though, it seemed this final fever was too much, and the hare was drawn from her own exhausted, healing sleep by Lee's pain to find Lee burning with fever and half delirious.

"Th'prairie," the man said, words so slurred as to nearly be incomprehensible, "Fire…"

"Lee…the prairie en't here, the fire is put out," Lee tried to explain, her voice gentler and more tender than the others even knew it could be. While the affection between the two was obvious to any who watched them, her affection usually took the form of scolding or sarcasm; words to steady him or distract him when needed, and when something softer was called for she usually went with physical contact rather than soothing words.

She was soothing now, though, gentle, her own voiced strained from their shared pain, but not delirious as she was not the one who burned.

"You'll be alright, Mr. Scoresby," Lyra said, doing her best to help with water from the stream, but her little rag seemed quite inadequate in the face of such pain.

Lee Scoresby would not be soothed, but kept muttering words that were near incomprehensible, though Hester seemed to follow him well enough. "whe…pafir..gotta..gotta,"

"He en't in the fire, Lee, he's…he's safe as he can be," said the hare in response to what sounded utter nonsense to Iorek, Lyra, and Pan. Then Hester started to sing, something low and soft that was not exactly a lullaby. It was a familiar tune; the others had heard Lee and Hester singing it together around the camp. Lyra had fallen asleep to that tune that was not really a lullaby many nights during their trip. She found it soothing to her own nerves now, except that Lee Scoresby's voice did not join Hester's, and Lee Scoresby continued to writhe under his fever, and he was not soothed.

Lyra wiped Lee Scoresby's face, and was almost certain she felt the strength of his fever even greater than she had only a moment before. The rag was almost dry. He turned his head towards the rag as it pulled away, and then turned his fevered eyes onto Lyra.

"Lace?" he said, or something like it. Maybe it had been an attempt to say 'Lyra' but so slurred as to be incomprehensible. But he was not looking at her like he knew her, like she was his Lyra. He looked confused.

"It's Lyra, Lee," said Hester, who had come to a break in her song.

"It's alright, Mr…Scoresby…Mr. Lee," Lyra choked out, and she was good at lying but that gift seemed to have left her just then. "I'll just wet it again."

"This is not enough," said Iorek, who had hovered grimly all that time, putting out a paw to steady Lee whenever his writhing seemed likely to have him off his bed and onto the ground. "We will move him into the stream."

"Is that safe?" asked Lyra.

"Safer than not," answered Iorek. "I will carry him to the stream now."

And suiting action to words, the bear gently took Lee Scoresby up in his arms, knowing exactly where the man would most need support so as to not jostle a broken rib or put pressure on his recently healed internal bleed, and looking rather like a father lifting up his child son.

Bears can stand on two legs, though it is not their preference, mostly done to intimidate or to reach higher or see farther. Walking was more precarious in that position but could also be done, if done slowly, and Iorek had little difficulty carrying the man like that the few steps to the stream. The most difficult part was that the camp he had erected had a sort of natural wall of vines and young saplings, and this was best passed through going low, but bears, when they are of a mind to move forward and have built the momentum to do so, will not be stopped by plants, not even ones as strong as these, and the bear waded through them as if they were not there, snapping plants and ripping some up by the roots.

"Pa?" murmured Lee towards Iorek, clearly still utterly out of it because it was hard for any person to look less like his father than the beard did, "You get out of the fire?"

"We are putting the fire out now," Iorek answered, true in a metaphorical sense anyway, and he carefully squatted down into a sitting position and lowered the man into the swift flowing stream.

It was not as cold as many streams in Lapland were; its source was not snowmelt but a spring under the earth, but it felt like ice to the man being lowered into it, so cold he felt it as heat, and he shrieked as if Iorek were lowering him into a vat of boiling water.

In fact, it is ill advised under most circumstances to try and lower a person's temperature by instantly transferring the person into a much colder environment, just as it is ill advised to warm up someone who is freezing by using high temperatures to combat the cold. Gradual change is the best method where temperatures are concerned, high or low.

One might suppose Iorek, being an arctic bear, would not be aware of this or that he acted foolishly. In fact, being an arctic bear, and aware of the potential affects of an extreme climate (even bears can get too cold under the right circumstances, and overheating was a real danger when they travelled south) Iorek knew better than many humans would. He also knew, firstly, that the stream was not ice melt and not freezing, but pleasantly cool, and, secondly, that Lee Scoresby was losing the fight against his fever, and doing nothing was not an option.

So he sat in the stream and held the man in the water, careful of his ribs and neck, careful that the man's face stayed above the water, and he waited. For the fever to go down. For the fever to win. He waited. Lee Scoresby did seem to be doing a bit better, if it was better that he suddenly had enough energy to fight against Iorek's hold, where before he had only writhed weakly and a baby could have held him down.

"Nn," he said, doing his best to get out of the water.

"You lie still, Lee, and let the water help," Hester ordered, not in the stream, because, while shallow by human or bear standards, she would have had to swim and likely been swept along by the current. Instead, she crouched as near as she could get, her paws getting wet at the stream's edge. She clearly wanted to be closer, moving with agitation.

"Serafina Pekkala said it would not last long," Lyra said, wading out to join Iorek and Lee Scoresby in the stream. "And he will get better fast…after."

She did not mention that the witch had also said that would only happen if he survived the burn. That did not need saying. They all already knew it, except perhaps Hester, and Hester was not so stupid as to not understand the danger had yet to pass.

"You should keep yourself dry, Lyra Silvertongue," Iorek said. "Lee Scoresby will not be happy if he regains his health and discovers you have caught a cold."

"I won't catch a cold," Lyra answered, sounding stubborn and defiant, because this was something she could fight. She rather hoped Iorek would continue the argument, but the bear did not.

"Hester?" Lee Scoresby called next, words still slurred but clearly her name.

"I'm here, Lee," the hare called. "You just…just keep fighting."

"We fighting?" asked Lee, and he did not seem to know at all what was going on. "Where's my Winchester? Hester?" His hands reached for something, one splashing in the water, the other flailing against Iorek. He felt warm, soft fur, and he looked confused, then he said again, "Hester?"

"I'm here, Lee," Hester said again, splashing her small paws against the water in frustration, and it was clear that at any moment, current or no current, she was going to go after him.

"Here," said Pan, making himself into a large turtle with a broad shell, "Get on my back."

Either Hester's recent aversion to touch did not extend to another daemon, or she was desperate enough to overcome it, because Hester leapt on at once and Pan paddled out towards the others. Lyra had to help him because the current was fast there, she could feel it sucking at her, and the animal Pan had chosen couldn't touch without submerging and dunking the hare.

Lee was still flailing, but weakly, which was just as well, or when his hand finally met Hester he might have pushed her right off Pan's back and into the water. The touch was too weak for that, though, and a moment later Lee had a handful of her fur, careful and gentle, or perhaps too weak to hold her any tighter, and he calmed.

"Mr. Lee?" asked Lyra, and she put her hand to his forehead, and his fever was still there, and she dripped water over his face where he could not be submerged.

It was difficult to judge time under such circumstances, but it felt like they sat in the water for an hour. Had they a watch, they might have seen it was about ten minutes, but what do watches know about time? Time is fluid and malleable, and in a moment of crisis, minutes stretch into hours. And all the while Lee Scoresby's flailing grew weaker, and his moans and words more incomprehensible until there were only weak moans, and then the man was silent, and all the while his fever burned hot even with the cool stream water rushing over him.

His hand never left Hester, not even when he seemed to slip into sleep. Lyra helped Pan stay in one spot with the hare on his back, and Iorek held the man, and they waited as Lee Scoresby seemed to fade further and further away no matter how tight they held him, until it seemed impossible he could survive. Lyra found herself keeping her eyes on Hester instead of Mr. Lee, fearing if she took her eyes off for a moment the hare would blow out like smoke.

And then, quite suddenly, the fever broke.

Iorek realized first, because he had felt the fever beneath his paws, and he knew fires intimately but somehow he sensed this fire that could not literally burn him as forgefire. So he knew when the burn almost seemed to melt away, like the dying of an ember.

It rather alarmed him, in all honesty; he had gotten so used to the heat that the lack of it brought to mind a corpse. But Lee Scoresby still breathed, and Hester still rode on Pan's back, and the body did not chill to the temperature of the stream but maintained a steady warm pulse. A heart was still beating inside that chest.

"Lee?" said Hester, the second to note the change. She had felt Lee Scoresby weakening, and her own heart had beat heavy in her chest as she waited to see if she was about to vanish, and she was determined to fight it if she felt it happening, but she could not imagine what it would feel like. And now she felt a new strength flowing back into her. That was not death. That was not being severed from her Lee. That was ongoing life.

"What is it?" asked Lyra, who only knew that Lee Scoresby lay as still and calm as death, except where his hand still clutched Hester.

"His fever has broken," Iorek answered. The girl stared at him, uncomprehending, and then, when the news finally allowed itself to be understood, her eyes grew wide.

"You mean…" she said, hope in her voice, but unable to finish at first, in case she had misunderstood. Hope can sometimes be felt as pain, and those who have the strength to face fear need twice that strength to face hope. Strength Lyra had in spades, however, and she did ask. "You mean…he's going to get better?"

"I believe he will," answered Iorek. And he started to stand up to carry Lee Scoresby from the stream and back into the camp. Before he could quite stand, Hester surprised everyone by leaping from Pan's back, aiming for Iorek's arm rather than Lee (because the hare knew well landing there could hurt Lee). The bear froze, so surprised he sat back down again and nearly had all of them in the water (his balance was precarious in that position) but he did manage to catch himself by digging his hind claws into the stream's bed, and that anchored him enough to not fall back.

"Sorry," said Hester, not sounding sorry at all, and Iorek stared at the little hare, who had so recently shied away from the suggestion of his touch, now pulling herself up him to ride on his shoulder.

Then Iorek stood again, and Lyra helped Pan to the shore where he became a dog for the sole pleasure of being able to shake water droplets from his coat. Lyra shrieked when he did this, too happy not to, and laughed and gave out a whoop of pure joy.

Back in the camp (after tearing through more plants) Iorek had Lyra move the sealskin he had wanted to lay Lee Scoresby on before to a location further from his old sickbed and in the sunlight, and he lay his friend down on it. The man was wet through, of course, and the first thing to do was dry him. It would do good to have a third bed to lie him on once he was dried, but thanks to the destructive vandalism to their first camp, there were not many options.

It was also a good idea to change his bandages, and apply new bloodmoss, but those supplies were also just about gone. It would also do them all good to have a nourishing meal, something hot (Iorek would have preferred something newly killed and still warm, but fire roasted would have done). Had Iorek been alone with his friends, he would have felt hard pressed to achieve everything that needed doing. He was not alone.

"I see Lee Scoresby won his fight," said Anna Koskinen, respectfully standing at the entrance to their camp (the side still mostly fortified, not having been trampled through by a bear. "My sisters have been to your old camp to salvage what we could, what you left behind. We have set to boiling some clothes that were ruined and they may work as bandages. We also have supper cooking."

Between the afternoon sunlight, a good fire, and some good friends, they all were dried and comfortable in no time, or, in the case of Hester and Lee Scoresby, as comfortable as they could be. Lee Scoresby slept all through the changing of his bandages, a true healing sleep this time, not even wincing as fresh bloodmoss was packed into his wounds (the witches were able to supply some). His wounds still looked painful and grotesque and dangerous, but there was no sign of infection in them, and now the bloodmoss would be able to do its job in keeping new infection at bay, and Iorek seemed quite certain the man would heal.

Lyra worried, as she ate her venison, that Mr. Lee was sleeping through supper. She said nothing, but her continuous glances in his direction made it obvious.

"Do not worry, child," said Serafina Pekkala, "I have a broth prepared for him, when he is ready, nourishing and good. It is good for him to sleep as long as he can. He will be weak a while yet, but he improves. Already, I feel his strength returning."

"Do you have enough to eat?" Lyra asked Iorek next, knowing how much the bear could eat, and the tiny bit of meat offered him did not look like enough.

"I ate an entire elk earlier," came his answer. "I will be good for a while yet."

"Our elk?" Lyra asked, perhaps with some dismay; she had been looking forward to showing it off to Lee Scoresby. Of course, she realized it would not be much good by then, laying dead and untreated for two days (and had so little time passed? It seemed incomprehensible).

Lyra turned her head again to look towards Lee Scoresby, not worried about him eating anymore, just glad to be able to do it.

"Your father will be well now, child," said the closest witch, Anna Koskinen.

"I wish he was my father," said Lyra, "Any girl should be proud of such a father. But…he en't…not really." She felt she had to explain, because to do otherwise would be a sort of betrayal to the man she had known as her uncle for most of her life. Even if denying Mr. Lee also felt like a betrayal. She felt rather miserable with it all. How much easier things would have been if her mother had never told her, if she still thought herself an orphan.

"Isn't he?" asked the witch, eyes alight with curiosity. She studied Lyra closely, close enough to make the child feel uncomfortable. "Then who is your father, Lyra Silvertongue?"

For a moment, Lyra wondered if she should say, but if she couldn't trust the people who had just saved Lee Scoresby's life, then who could she trust? So she said, "Lord Asriel."

"Lord Asriel?" said the witch, with a sort of purr, as if tasting something divine or remembering something lovely. Then she studied Lyra more closely than ever. "Yes, I see his features in you now, as plain as anything. I never knew he had a daughter. Oh, things make much more sense now."

Lyra found herself blushing, both under the studied gaze and the embarrassing fact that her own father had kept her a secret. Instead of explaining, and not entirely sure she actually liked Anna Koskinen, she said, "He does," and almost left it at that, but her own curiosity had been piqued by those last words. "What makes sense, now?"

"Your father is a most interesting man," said the witch, that same look of remembered pleasure radiating through the woman's entire body. "I knew him…for a time." How intimately she knew him, she did not feel necessary to share with his daughter, and Lyra was still young enough to not guess. "He was most fascinated in me, as well, of course. He is doing very interesting research into the nature of the universe; he is quite brilliant…for a man. And of course your church does not approve what he seeks to learn because they think they already know all, and he…appreciated an outside perspective."

Lyra listened to this with interest, but also waiting to hear what the witch had found surprising, and the witch, though clearly distracted in the pleasure of her memories, did eventually explain.

"He was fascinated in how witches can…oh…how to put it so a child can understand…"

That was insulting, but Lyra still waited, because she wanted to know, and soon the witch went on.

"We can listen to the whispers beyond the world," said the witch, and perhaps it was not simplified enough, because Lyra did not understand at all, but the witch did not wait to see if she did, but continued with her story, and that was the important part anyway. "He wanted to know if it worked like an alethiometer, that is, a truth teller, and he was always asking questions for me to find the answers to. And one day he wanted to know…he said a woman had contacted him," (here she made a face, displeased, before clearing her expression to share the rest), "And she was sending him something…something he thought better off somewhere else, and he asked if he shouldn't just…send it right back. I suppose he meant you, child, but I did not know that then."

Lyra swallowed, and said nothing, and Pan crept beneath her fingers, a hare again, almost like he wanted to say 'you en't unwanted' without words.

"I listened to the…well…to the whispers beyond the world…and the answer made little sense to me but I shared it anyway. I suppose it is not a secret; it went like this: If it stays with the woman then it will be happy…but unsafe, horribly unsafe. If you go and bring it for yourself…if Lord Asriel does I mean, if he fetches it for himself, it will be horribly, hideously unhappy…but safe. But if it is allowed the journey in-between, unmolested by either, then it will find its own home where it will be both happy and safe…but it will be lost to you, Lord Asriel that is, for all time."

"And what…" said Lyra, swallowing hard and trying not to show how very much she cared, "What did Lord Asriel do then?"

"He frowned a lot and was most uncourteous to my attentions," answered the witch with a bit of a pout. "He wanted to know more, but he never would tell me that it was his own daughter this was about or I might have been able to give more. He fretted so much, I grew quite bored of him and I left and came home. That was…oh…nearly a month ago now. If you are going to him, I will be happy to escort you; perhaps he will be interesting again once you are settled."

Lyra did not give an answer to that, because she felt it might be dangerous to tell a witch she did not want her for a companion, and she went and sat by Lee Scoresby's side.

"Aren't things clearer now?" asked Pan in her lap, in a whisper, not wanting to disturb the sleeping man. "We will only be safe and happy if we stay with Mr. Lee."

"But that's just it," Lyra whispered back. "We are still going to Lord Asriel. Mr. Lee is too…too honorable to steal us. And now we know we are going to be unhappy."

"Maybe Lord Asriel will let us go…knowing that is better for us. Mrs. Coulter did."

"Maybe…or…or…maybe." And no longer looking miserable, Lyra sat and thought.