"Are you all right?"
She is in a haze. She's just standing there, and has no concept, really, of how long she's been just standing there. She doesn't even properly register the first words he speaks to her, so a second later, true to nature, he's shouting.
"Jane! JANE!"
"Wh…what?" She spins toward the sound of his voice. She's still reeling from everything that's just happened. She stumbles again, almost unable to stop herself from spinning once she starts, and her stomach drops as she realizes that she's still clutching the arrow in one hand. Thrusting her arm behind herself, she drops it quickly, guiltily – like a child caught holding some forbidden object, an expensive bauble or purloined sweet.
He doesn't notice, thank God. His gaze is riveted on her face.
"I said, are you –" he breaks off, eyes narrowing to slits. "You are bleeding."
Before Jane can even begin to process what he's doing, he's caught her chin in one hand and is running the thumb of his other hand across her lower lip, wiping away the blood which she herself had only managed to smear around. She winces. She hates that she does it, but she can't help it.
His eyes are burning into her. "What happened?"
"I –"
"You bit yourself. There must be a reason. Something happened. Are you hurt somehow?"
"No."
"Jane –"
"Gunther, I said no!"
She yanks her head back; he drops his hand. She glances around and realizes that the skirmish is over, just that quickly. There are no more active combatants left in the clearing; a couple of the outlaws have fallen, but most have fled. Three have surrendered and her people are even now disarming and securing them.
It happened so fast. All of it happened so fast. She can hardly make sense of it.
She returns her attention to Gunther, to find that he's taken a step back and is looking her over, critically, from head to foot and back again.
Visibly, there is nothing wrong with her at all. (Well, except for her stupid bitten lip.) She knows this, and is grateful for it, although her shoulder is throbbing with bright, hot pulses of pain and she can still feel blood seeping from the wound to soak her clothes beneath the jerkin. She really needs to get away for a few minutes, to peel back the stiff leather, assess the wound and staunch the blood flow.
But Gunther still doesn't seem entirely convinced.
"Jane, if you –"
Damnit, damnit, DAMNIT, why does he have to read her so well? He has no right, not when he's capable of shutting her out completely, of becoming a perfect enigma to her, at will, the way he had just this morning. Just when she'd finally thought she knew where they stood, and – and –
He doesn't get to do this. He doesn't.
"I said I am fine –" she snaps, although the horrifying truth is that she's very nearly in tears – "and what do you care, anyway!?"
It's like a mask drops over his face. One instant there is expression there – a mixture of perplexity, irritation, but also concern – in fact, mostly concern – and the next there is nothing, nothing at all.
And as exasperated as Jane is with him, as much as she doesn't want to care that he's capable of doing that, it still hurts her.
But not as much as what he says next.
"Fine then. I felt duty-bound to ask. So since everything is all right," and now his voice is positively oozing contempt, "may I suggest you pull yourself the hell together, stop daydreaming or whatever it is you were doing just now, and actually make yourself useful? There is still work to be done. Oh and by the way," he throws over his shoulder as he turns to stalk off, "you might want to remember to pick up your SWORD!"