Author's Note: Thank you for all your wonderful reviews (BTW, Sherlock'n'Hunt: don't worry, I never grow tired of them LOL), I really love hearing from all of you. :o)

And to nunquam perpetuum: It's funny that you mention that garage fight. I've had some idea in the back of my mind for that for a while now, ever since fox4mel first asked about the timeframe between the end of the fight and the meeting in Seattle. So, let me just say that, while there isn't a story yet, and I don't know when I'll get around to flesh it out, something about that garage fight/aftermath/leading up to Seattle IS in the pipes.

Anyway, to get back to this story:

As you may have noticed, it's been a while since I worked on it, because – somehow LOL – there were always some other ideas getting in my way. But this morning I made it a point to take the outline of the story out of the closet again and actually sit down to get that next chapter fleshed out. So, here it is. I hope you like it. Oh and, I already apologize for the cliffhanger at the end of this chapter. I'm mean that way, I know. ;)

Chapter 3

Once she had Ethan inside the house, there was no way to hide the truth any longer. Ethan was barely able to hold himself upright anymore. He struggled with the cuff of his jacket in an attempt to take it off, not wanting Jane to have to do it for him. In the end, though, he had to accept Jane's help. The sleeves of his jacket seemed to be stuck to him.

When Jane gave him a hand, she instantly realized why the jacket didn't come off as easily as it normally would have. The shirt beneath his jacket was practically drenched in sweat. A detail that the jacket had effectively hidden.

'You really don't do things half-way, don't you, Ethan…' Jane thought, her worry increasing yet another notch.

The man was running a bad fever, one that was obviously getting worse by the minute, and it would soon be more than Ethan could handle by himself.

"And he knows it," Jane realized.

There was no other explanation for why he had done the completely un-Ethan thing to let his guard down like that and let her in. Jane, for her part, was simply glad that he had. And that he obviously trusted her enough to accept her help.

'Alright, Jane, you got your job cut out for you…' she told herself.

But first things first. She couldn't let him go to sleep in those drenched clothes.

A shower was in order. And then new clothes. She certainly wasn't going to let him go to bed wearing nothing.

'I'm gonna have to check if I can find something comfortable that he can sleep in," she thought, and put it on her list of things to do.

As she steered him past the living room and up the stairs to the upper floor, she was glad that Ethan was pretty compliant so far. That changed when he suddenly seemed to become aware of where they were headed. Because they had just passed his upstairs bedroom.

As Ethan's feverish eyes flickered to the bedroom door they had just walked by, and then his gaze came to rest on the bathroom door just ahead of them, his softly mumbled 'wait' was almost too low to hear, but Jane instantly realized that he was gonna make her stop.

So she reluctantly came to a halt about three quarters along the upper floor hallway, no ten feet away from her goal.

Jane knew her next decision was gonna be a delicate one. She wanted to let Ethan call as many shots as he was physically still able to, because she knew he needed to have that security, that he needed to feel that he still had some control left in all of this. But she also had his less than steady constitution to consider.

So, for a moment, she debated with herself what the bigger risk was. Ethan fainting in the shower by himself, or Ethan getting agitated out here if she told him that he was not gonna make it in there alone. In the end, she decided to give it to him straight, hoping he would see the light of reason:

"Ethan, you need to take a shower before you can go to bed. And I'm not gonna let you collapse in there, if your legs suddenly don't hold you up anymore."

She could see that he was hearing her. That he was even agreeing with her up to a point. But then, somewhere – and she couldn't have said where – he seemed to find one more ounce of strength, which he was calling up now as he steadied himself against the wall.

"I can do this."

And she could see that he meant it. Really meant it.

Just from the way how Ethan kept his eyes fully focused on hers as he said it, she knew he was not willing to argue this point with her. It was Not. Gonna. Happen.

For a moment, Jane's gaze kept flickering back and forth between the bathroom door and Ethan's eyes, taking in his determined expression. Eventually, and with a sigh, she found herself compelled to make a counter-offer.

"Alright, how about I split the difference with you? You let me get you in there, so I can make sure you're steady. Then I'll let you take care of the shower yourself. But you leave the door unlocked, so I can help you if you get in trouble. Is that a deal?"

She resolutely refused to blink first, as Ethan looked at her.

After another moment, however, he seemed to give in, somehow accepting the fact that this was the best – and only – concession he'd get from her on this matter.

"Okay," Ethan nodded tiredly, as he let Jane take his now trembling arm around her shoulder once more, exhaustedly following her lead as she took him the remaining distance to the bathroom.

Once they reached the bathroom, she was glad to see that Ethan seemed to be willing to let her do most of the work, as she got him out of his shoes and shirt. He then handled the buttons of his pants himself, but accepted her help in pulling them off his feet, so that eventually he was only clad in his shorts. She caught his eyes to make sure he was still willing to take care of the rest himself.

With a careful nod he let her know he was.

And since Ethan had been able to conserve some of his energy during the removal of his other clothes, he looked just steady enough now for Jane not to simply overrule his wish.

Giving Ethan the privacy he had asked for, she then stepped out of the bathroom, leaving him to undress the rest of himself in dignity. As she pulled the door closed behind her, she just made sure that the lock didn't engage. Jane waited outside for a moment to listen for any sounds of trouble. But as she didn't hear any subsequent crashes, and the silence in the bathroom was eventually filled with the sound of the shower running, she quickly went the few feet down the hall to take care of the matter of clothing.

-o-

Her first problem was one that set her apart from probably a decent number of women on the planet: She had never been in Ethan's bedroom.

So she had no clue where he kept what. Thankfully, though, Jane was able to tap into her knowledge of having lived with two larger brothers in her youth, and after some exploration, she soon found that – no matter how exceptional Ethan was as an agent – deep down he was still very much a man. And men tended to keep things simple, at least when it came to clothes.

Within moments she found what she was looking for. Quickly she took some dark-blue pajama shorts and a comfortable-looking grey t-shirt from one of the drawers. With her findings in hand she then returned to the bathroom, where, after making sure that the water was still running in the shower, she carefully opened the door just enough for her arm to fit through.

Without even looking in the direction of the closed shower stall, she placed the pajama shorts and the shirt onto the cabinet just inside the door, where Ethan would see them as soon as he got out of the shower.

'I just hope he doesn't break his neck as he puts them on,' Jane prayed.

And then she waited.

-o-

He didn't break his neck.

At least that's what she gathered from the muffled dressing sounds that eventually drifted through the closed door once the water was shut off. He didn't seem to be too steady, however, either, if the soft curses she could occasionally hear were any indication. But since she had promised him she would not intervene until he really needed her help, there was not much else she could do but to stay outside, and wait for him to exit the bathroom.

She did, however, breathe out a low sigh of relief when she saw him finally emerge, obviously still in one piece.

When he stepped out the door, the first thing she noticed was that he had managed to get into the shorts.

The shirt, however, was nowhere in sight.

And she could see that he was now teetering on the last end of his strength.

'Well, at least he clearly still has his priorities straight,' she realized almost with a smirk, as she took in how the shorts had obviously been at the top of his list - while the shirt was simply cancelled due to an overwhelming lack of ability to handle the trouble of any more clothes.

As she moved forward to give Ethan a hand, she did her best to ignore the way the muscles in his arms and shoulders were moving as he tightly gripped the doorframe and the wall in an attempt to stay upright. He clearly needed help now. This was not the time to appreciate Ethan's physique.

And the fact that – ever after the shower – Ethan's skin was already burning up again, brought her mind quickly back to the matter at hand.

She helped him get to his bed, where she carefully made him lie down. She then arranged a thin blanket over him, so he would not be too warm, but not completely without cover, either. She expected Ethan to perhaps object at some point. But he didn't.

Ethan was out cold by the time she pulled the cover up to his chest. The battle with sleep was one that he had clearly lost, exhausted beyond the limits of even his endurance.

'So much for part two of this mission,' Jane realized with a touch of relief.

But she knew the hardest part was still to come.

And considering how he was burning up already, she could see that it was gonna be a long night for Ethan.

Watching him sleep relatively easy for the moment, she decided to use the time and make herself a large can of coffee for the night.

'I have a feeling I'm gonna need it…' she thought, as she eventually came to rest in the comfy chair she had dragged into Ethan's bedroom, settling in for a long night. And then she kept watch.

-o-

It was three hours later, when it happened.

And she could tell the exact moment when Ethan's breathing suddenly changed.

For the past three hours, Ethan's fever had continued to climb. He had become increasingly agitated as the night went on, and his head had started turning fitfully from side to side. His legs were moving restlessly underneath the covers, getting tangled in them at times, but not kicking them off.

Then, in the darkness of the room, Ethan had suddenly stopped moving.

But it was not because he was resting easier again. In fact, he was no longer resting at all.

His eyes were open now. Only he wasn't aware of the room. Or her.

His lips were moving. Voicelessly at first. Then some slow murmurs…getting more urgent.

Ethan was no longer sleeping. But he clearly wasn't awake, either.

'Don't do this, Ethan…please…' Jane prayed silently, hoping that this wasn't what she had feared. But the truth was that she had almost expected it to happen. Hell, Brandt and Benji had, too. That's why the three of them hadn't wanted to leave Ethan by himself tonight, even though none of them had voiced the name of their fear out loud.

Hallucinations.

It was what happened when a fever became so high that the mind no longer knew what was real and what wasn't. And considering how quickly Ethan's condition had deteriorated, they had known this risk was more than just a possibility.

Now, with any common man, a mild case of hallucination would mean that perhaps that person could not remember in the morning what had happened during the night. At worst, it would be something to joke about later with your friends, once you felt better.

But in the case of someone like Ethan, the story was a bit different.

When you were trained to be able to kill – and kill, without consciously needing to think about what you were doing – even the slightest inability to differentiate between hallucination and reality was something not to be taken lightly.

It was dangerous. Deadly even, if the circumstance were unfortunate.

'Alright Jane, you wanted the job, now handle it,' Jane thought cautiously, putting aside the cup of coffee she had been holding, as she slowly straightened in her chair. She then leaned slightly forward, ready to intervene if Ethan's agitation became any worse.

She couldn't understand yet what Ethan was murmuring. But whatever it was, it was getting more intense by the second. So intense, in fact, that she realized he no longer seemed aware of where he was anymore.

It took a moment until she understood that some of the words he was mumbling were Burmese. She could identify a few individual words, like 'mission' and 'jungle'. And 'kid'.

She didn't understand much else of what he was murmuring in his fever, but from what she was wearing, she could take an educated guess. And that guess left her wondering if she was maybe just a little out of her league with this after all.

It sounded to her as if Ethan, or at least Ethan's mind, was back on some past mission, somewhere in a Burmese jungle, going after a kid, for whatever reason.

Frankly, she could think of three reasons that would make the IMF send out an agent on a mission after someone. One possibility was the rescue of an asset. Another one was the kidnapping, or 'securing', of a target, to gather valuable information. And then there was a last option that she didn't even want to consider in this case: the elimination of a threat.

Whatever Ethan had been sent out for on that mission, it obviously involved a child.

"'Need to find …" Ethan's words suddenly became more distinct, as was his agitation.

"…Kid…" he breathed restlessly, with sweat running down the side of his face, and his fingers now tightly gripping the sheet beneath his hands.

"Where is…k-?" Ethan's eyes were darting around, even looking at her now, but really looking right through her, as if he wasn't even seeing her. His shoulders were slowly coming off the mattress, as he weakly tried to raise his upper body off the bed.

Fully aware that she was approaching a man who, literally, was more than capable of killing her in his sleep, Jane carefully leaned forward, trying to move into his line of vision without getting into his immediate line of attack, should he suddenly decide to strike out against an invisible enemy.

Carefully drawing Ethan's attention with soothing words, she tried to calm him down, in an attempt to take him back to the here and now, to let him know that he wasn't back in the jungle. That he was in his home, safe, and there was nothing that was going to harm him here.

"It's alright, Ethan, you can lay back again…you are home, do you understand that? You need to go back to sleep, everything is fine. You're home. It's okay."

Jane didn't know what Ethan was seeing, but as his feverish gaze came to rest on her, the renewed frown on his face and the utter confusion in his eyes told her that he clearly could not place this room, let alone her, into a scenario that made any sense to him.

Then the expression in Ethan's eyes changed. And for the fraction of a second Jane thought she actually saw something like fear in Ethan's eyes.

In a trembling attempt to put some distance between himself and whatever he was seeing, Ethan suddenly began moving away from her, pushing himself up and back until his bare shoulders hit against the backrest of the bed. Even as he couldn't move further back, his hands kept going, blindly reaching behind himself, as if looking for something that he apparently expected to be there in his feverish state of mind.

Then, as if his mind suddenly recognized a glimpse of his current location – but in a clearly mixed up perception of reality and imagination – he seemed to remember one detail that was of use to him, as his hand accidentally hit against the drawer beside his bed.

Not wanting to make him feel cornered, Jane wisely refrained from restricting his movements in any way. But she cautiously lifted her hands in a placating gesture, showing him that there was nothing in her hands, nothing about her that he needed to be afraid of.

She was about to tell Ethan that whatever he was looking for, it was only in his mind, that he was dreaming – that there was nothing there.

She was wrong.

And from one moment to the next, she suddenly found herself face to face with a man, who not only didn't seem to know who she was - but who was now feverishly staring right at her down the barrel of a loaded handgun.

And despite the distinct tremble in his arm - his aim was frighteningly steady.

-o-o-o-o-o

To be continued… if you wanna know how this turns out. ;)