"Mooo..."

"Moooooooooo...."

"Jane… Jane? Jane, moo!"

The second time she truly woke it was dusk, and her room was empty... but a familiar large, green shape was at her window, nearly blocking out what little light was left in the sky.

"Dragon...?" She pushed herself onto her elbows and shook her hair out of her eyes, her grogginess evaporating like water. Though she still felt weak and more than a little light headed, though she still ached and stung in more places than she could count, though her back still screamed in protest at nearly every move she made, a delighted, almost impish grin spread across her face at the sight of her dearest friend.

Dragon, for his part, looked as if he couldn't decide whether to be angry or ecstatic.

"You would think one of those shortlives, even just one of them, would have thought to call for me when you were awake before," he groused, though clearly thrilled that she was conscious, and functional, again.

"I do not think it lasted very long," Jane replied, somewhat ruefully. "In fact, I am almost certain... no more than an hour, at any rate. There would not have been time to fetch you, unless you were right outside the window... in which case you would have known I was awake anyway and... and I am babbling. Oh, Dragon."

Carefully, she sat up straighter, biting her lip against the needle-like burst of pain that accompanied this action, then swept her blankets aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Jane, what are you doing?" Concern now colored Dragon's voice. "I think you are supposed to stay in bed."

"I think so too," Jane murmured, brow furrowing as her bare feet came in contact with the cold flagstone floor, "but please do not go all Pepper on me, Dragon. I do not intend to be out of bed for long... just enough time to give my best friend a hug."

"Jane, I am really not sure - "

She took a deep breath; stood; steadied herself against the footboard of her bed. Reached up to push a few stay curls out of her face. "If you disapprove, Greenlips, then I suggest you leave now. That is the only thing that will prevent me from doing this. I was so certain I would never see you again. I have to feel my arms around you. I have to."

Dragon sighed explosively. "As if I could leave you now."

"Hah!" She flashed him another grin; wide in the gloom, if a little bit shaky. "You are nothing but a big softy!" And carefully, more than a little unsteadily, she put one foot in front of the other and crossed the short distance that separated them.

"I am not so sure," Dragon was grousing, as she reached the window, slipped to her knees and pressed her face to his warm cheek with a sigh, "that the invaders would quite agree with you about that. I believe I achieved quite the reputation as a fearsome bringer of death, in point of fact."

"Did you?" Jane murmured against him. "I am actually rather sorry to hear that, Dragon, because that is not who you really are."

"Only when I think I have lost you, Jane," he said, so quietly she nearly missed it. "Only when I think I have lost you."

OOOOO

It was impossible to say how long they stayed like that; time had no meaning for Jane as she knelt on the floor beside her window, her arms as far round Dragon as she could get them and the soft, overlarge nightgown her mother had procured for her (she would have been surprised to learn that it actually belonged to the queen) puddled out about her on the floor. She had the vaguest awareness that dusk had slipped away into something resembling true night, and that was all. In truth, she had actually begun to doze a little when her chamber door opened.

That brought her around with a start.

"Jane?" The voice was calm at first, but ratcheted up to panic unbelievably fast - presumably when its owner realized that she wasn't in her bed.

"JANE!!"

It was, of course, the voice of the one person she'd most wanted to see earlier in the day, and been unable to. The voice that had she would never forget - never forget - had pulled her back from death itself.

Gunther.

Her eyes flew open, and she shot to her feet like an arrow - which, she realized immediately as the room lurched sideways beneath her feet, was not in fact a very good idea. At all.

He didn't give her time to fall, though. He was over her bed and there - right there - before she'd done more than just sway on her feet. His arms closed round her just as her legs gave way, and they sank to their knees, both of them, together.

Behind her, Dragon muttered something highly questionable, in a mock-disgruntled voice, that included the words "smoke swappers" and "about damned time"... and then withdrew.

Jane barely noticed.

There was nothing in the world, in that moment, for her, but Gunther. Even so, it took her several heartbeats' worth of time to tune in what he was saying; she'd just been so fully immersed in the feel of his arms around her.

" – completely insane, or just stupid, Jane!? What in God's name are you doing out of bed!?"

"I could ask you the same thing, you know," she shot back, pulling away slightly, though she kept both hands on his shoulders, fisted hard in the fabric of his shirt. Their eyes locked, green on gray, the moment breathtaking in its intensity. "I have it on very good authority that you have been making yourself sick over me, to no good purpose at all."

"No… no good purpose…" he seemed barely able to string the words together. "Jane. Oh my God, Jane." He had caught her under the arms when she'd started to fall; now he moved his hands to clasp her shoulders just as she was clasping his. His fingers dug in almost painfully; he seemed to be restraining himself, with a concerted effort, from actually shaking her.

"You… do you know… do you even understand…" his voice was rough; unsteady. "You were dying, Jane. You were not just hurt; you were not just sick. You were dying! How was I supposed to act when you were DYING!? It felt like you were taking me with you! If you died I wanted to go with you. What was left for me here if I lost you, Jane, what?"

She opened her mouth, but no sound would come. She didn't know how to answer him. What would be left for her if she lost Gunther? Nothing of consequence. Nothing at all. That was why she'd almost let that otherworldly wind take her; because Gunther had been dying, dying, dying in her mind and she'd despaired of ever seeing him, safe and whole, again.

He lifted one hand now; framed the side of her face with it, his thumb stroking the ridge of her cheekbone gently, absently. "You are right," he said simply, "I did not want food. I did not want rest. I only wanted you. That's all I've wanted for… a long time, Jane."

Suddenly he looked away, the corners of his mouth wrenching violently down. He made a sound that seemed like an attempt at a laugh, but came out instead a poor choked, strangled thing. "A really long time," he repeated, looking off into the corner of the room. "You would not believe how long if I told you."

"Gunther, I - "

His eyes snapped back to hers then, but something, she immediately saw, had shifted behind them; they were shuttered now; somehow shut off.

"You do not belong on the floor," he said abruptly, flatly. "You should be in bed."

"Gunther, wait!"

But he wasn't listening, not anymore. For whatever reason, possibly overwhelmed by the direction the conversation had begun to take, he had closed himself off from her. Jane gritted her teeth in frustration. She hated that he could do that - douse his emotions as quickly and decisively as dousing a torch - and she absolutely loathed when he did it to her.

"Damn it, Gunther, we are not - "

But he was already standing, unfolding to his feet with the lithe grace that came from a lifetime of combat training, and pulling her up with him.

"No!" Back on her own two feet now, the pale green, embroidered night dress floating around her, she wrenched herself free of him only to plant both her fists on his chest a second later with a furious whack. "We are not done... done talk... talking... about..."

She trailed off. It was happening again; the floor pitching and twisting beneath her, the walls beginning to spin. She blinked, hard, trying to bring things back into focus, but to no avail.

She'd recovered a moment ago, after bolting upright when she'd heard Gunther's voice, but only because the two of them had more or less fallen into each other's arms. This time... this time...

Everything was going hazy.

"Jane?" Suddenly there was worry in his voice again. It made her angrier than ever.

She shook her head stubbornly. "Do not patronize me, Gunther! If you think I am going to allow... allow you to just... whoa." She raised one hand slowly, almost dreamily; pressed her fingertips hard against her temple.

"Jane!" He tried to grab her, but she shoved him away again. She still had enough strength and coordination for that, at least... if only just.

"Why do you always do this!?" she demanded, wondering, even through the thick fog that was descending on her now, how things had gone so wrong so quickly. But then, that was the thing about Gunther, wasn't it? Nothing was ever easy where he was concerned, nothing was ever... straightforward. "Just shut down!? Right when the con... conversation is..."

This was it, she was at the end of her ability to cope; both physically and emotionally. She met his eyes again, and had a fleeting thought of how... just wrecked he looked in that moment; both older and younger than he was, both closed-off and vulnerable all at once. And much, much too pale.

Then everything blurred to gray and she had just enough time to murmur "oh, hell," before she was falling sideways. The blur of motion she caught from the corner of her eye must have been Gunther lunging for her, but she never did feel whether he managed to catch her or not.

Things had gone well and truly dark by then.

OOOOO

(A/N: you didn't really think it would be smooth sailing again so easily, did you? Not for those two? *evil grin*)