Disclaimer: I'm merely playing in Mr. Flanagan's sandbox, I don't own anything.

"Will?" Halt called from where he stood at the stove, stirring a pot of soup. He took a spoonful and blew on it slightly before tasting it, nodding in satisfaction at the flavour.

"I'm out here," Will responded after a moment. There was a strange note in his apprentice's voice that caused Halt's brows to scrunch together in concern. He turned quickly, hissing at the twinge of pain that his movement had caused.

It had been a day since they had returned from their mission with the bandits. Well, a day since he, Will, Hannah, Sarah, a knight named Sir Gerald, and the captured bandits had returned to Redmont. The other knights, aided by Ranger Leon from the adjoining fief, had stayed to round up the rest of the gang.

The wound Halt had received during the mission was still healing, and he was reminded of that fact every time he moved incautiously. Making a mental note to move slower, he made his way out to the veranda. Will was sitting on the steps in the light of the fading sunset. He was curled in on himself and had his cloak wrapped tightly around him as if he were freezing.

Halt's concern rose as he noticed that Will was shivering—it was a balmy summer evening, nothing that should warrant a reaction like Will was having.

"Will." Halt's voice was uncharacteristically soft, yet it still caused Will to startle. He jerked his head up and Halt could see that Will's eyes were glazed over and faintly unfocused. "Supper's ready," Halt said.

Will nodded and rose. Throughout the meal Halt's concern turned to worry. Will barely said a word and he clung to the heat of the soup as if it were a lifeline.

After the meal Halt made coffee and bought both cups over to the comfier chairs by the fireplace, purposefully leaving the one closest to the fire open for Will. "Come over here Will. We need to talk," Halt said.

Will got up reluctantly, his eyes wide at Halt's words. Nevertheless, he settled into the chair, relishing in the warmth of the nearby flames. As Halt handed him the coffee he was pleased to see that although Will's shivering was still noticeable, it had lessened.

The two sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Finally Halt broke the stillness. "How are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm fi—" Will started to reply automatically, but Halt interrupted him with a wave of his hand.

"Don't say that you're fine, Will. You and I both know that isn't true. You've been acting withdrawn and distant ever since we came back from the mission."

Will didn't say anything, he just looked at Halt with pain-filled eyes. As he did so, the pieces fell into place in Halt's mind and he cursed himself for not figuring it out sooner.

"Warmweed?" he said quietly, the single word being all that was needed.

Will nodded mutely, then found his voice. "I had to use the warmweed salve to treat your wound. It wasn't easy, but I had to—there was no one else who could help you and I wasn't about to let you die." Will's voice was shaking.

Halt looked at his apprentice sadly, his youth all too apparent as the boy curled up in his chair, trying to conserve body heat. At that moment he seemed so fragile and broken, tormented by the horrors of his past that were seeping into the present. Halt felt completely out of his depth. While he had dealt with soldiers mentally and emotionally scarred by war, none of them had been this broken or this young.

"I'm sorry Will," he said, feeling that the words were so very inadequate. "I knew how much warmweed affects you, yet I forgot to replace the one in the medical kit." Will nodded, accepting the apology. "And Will," Halt continued, "Thank you for doing what you did. I can't imagine how hard it was, and you did it for me."

Halt's words brought a warm glow to Will—Halt didn't give praise or thanks lightly, and when he did it was always well earned. However, the warmth quickly dissipated as his thoughts returned to the cold and the warmweed.

"After I treated you I was doing okay until we got back here," Will admitted. "Now I can't stop remembering the cold of the slave yard and the warmth of the warmweed." As he gazed at his mentor, Halt could see that his eyes were haunted and he had begun to shiver again. The unspoken question 'why?' was clear in the way Will looked at Halt.

Halt got up quickly and grabbed the blanket from his bed, making another mental note to stick to his previous mental note as his side twinged again. Will looked up gratefully as Halt wrapped the blanket around him.

"I would guess that you're only being affected now because during the mission you were so focused that your mind repressed the memories. Now that you have time to relax, your mind is probably trying to sort through everything that happened," Halt explained, then suggested softly, "You might find it helps to talk about it."

Will was silent for several long minutes, staring into the depths of the fire as he attempted to make sense of his turbulent mind. "I was always cold. But it was so much… more than any cold I'd felt before." He clutched the blanket tighter around him, seeking more warmth from the thick fabric, then continued. "At first I held on to memories of being here, of training and laughing in the sun. They helped me to remember a time when my reality was more than just cold and hurt, but after just a few days those started to fade."

Hearing Will's revelation caused Halt a stab of pain. The fact that Will had held onto the memories of his time training to be a Ranger meant that he considered those to be among his happiest times. Will's life hadn't been long, but it had contained more than a fair share of loneliness and pain. Couldn't the kid just have things go right for him?

"Even when I was sleeping I was still shivering. I was just as much a captive to the cold as I was to the Skandians. Even now that I'm free, it still comes back to haunt me," Will said bitterly. "I'm so weak when anything about Skandia comes up. I couldn't even treat a single cut without going to pieces." The self-reproach was evident in his voice and he refused to meet Halt's eyes, unable to bear seeing the disappointment that he knew would be there, staring instead at the contrastingly cheerful flames, letting dark thoughts flood his mind. Halt probably won't want me to be his apprentice now that he can see how fragile I am. I mean, the faintest scent of a tiny plant can render me helpless.

"Will." There was a tone of command in Halt's voice that Will was unable to resist. Against his will his gaze shifted to meet Halt's. When he did, he was confused to find that there was no disappointment or condemnation in his mentor's eyes, only a mixture of sadness and determination.

"Let me ask you this," Halt said, "When you were treating my cut, what happened?"

"I already told you," Will replied with a touch of frustration. "I went to pieces—I started to shake and the cold came flooding back."

"But you managed to use the salve and then bandage me, despite all of that," Halt pointed out. He leaned forward, wanting his apprentice to take his next words to heart. "Will, that's not weakness, that's strength. Even when everything was against you, you were able to carry on."

"You really think so?" Will asked, desperate for Halt's reassurance. In spite of Halt's words, there was still a small part of his brain that whispered a never-ending chorus of 'weak, weak, weak'.

"I do," Halt said.

And with those two words, the niggling whisper in Will's head was silenced. The truth was simple: at that moment Will trusted Halt more than he trusted his own mind, and if Halt said that Will was brave, who was he to argue?

Suddenly Will moved from his chair and almost crashed into Halt, his arms wrapping around his mentor. "Thank you," he breathed, his voice muffled by tears. Halt tensed at the unexpected contact, then returned the hug.

Eventually Will pulled back, rubbing at his red and puffy eyes. He seemed embarrassed by his display of emotion, but Halt hurried to put him at ease. "Will, I know it may seem hard, but the fact that you're fighting through this means that you are not weak."

"Will it ever end?" Will asked, a tinge of hopelessness colouring his words. "Will I ever be truly free of this?"

"I'm not an expert," Halt said, "But I think that over time the memories will fade and won't have the same power over you that they do right now. They'll still be a part of you, but they won't control you."

Halt's words mollified Will and as he settled back into his chair a slight smile played across his face. For a long moment the two of them merely watched the flames flicker over the glowing-red coals. Then Will stirred and looked at his mentor.

"Can I stay here—" he gestured to his chair and the fireplace— "for a bit?"

"As long as you want," Halt replied.

"And you'll stay with me? I don't want to be alone."

"I'll stay, Will," Halt promised. The knowledge of his own shortcomings at Will's mentor—forgetting to replace the warmweed salve in the med kit and not quickly figuring out what was bothering Will—weighed heavily on him and he was determined to do things better. If what Will needed was to for him to sit by the fire, then that was what Halt would do.

Eventually Will's eyes began to take longer to open after every blink, and his head started on a slow descent towards his chest. Halt stood and pulled his apprentice's arm over his shoulders. "Come on Will, let's get you to bed."

"M'kay," Will mumbled sleepily, "Bed sounds like a good place."

After Halt deposited Will in bed with blankets wrapped snugly around him, he sat on the edge of the bed, his hand on Will's shoulder. "Thanks Halt," Will murmured.

Halt stayed beside his apprentice until Will's breaths were deep and even and his eyes were tightly shut. Then he got up slowly and walked out to the main room, his tread soft so as to not wake Will. He found the med kit, pulled out the bottle of warmweed salve, and placed it in one of the drawers in his room. Then he picked a different painkilling salve—one that contained no warmweed—from a cupboard and put it in the med kit.

A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing! This chapter was giving me trouble and I was sort of avoiding it, but then I would get a review and be encouraged to sit down and write some more. You guys are amazing, thank you so much!