Her whole body jerked, and she immediately started to choke. She tried to wrench her head away, but he was having none of it.
"No, Jane!" he shouted, dropping the arrow and using his hand to hold her mouth forcibly closed. "Swallow it, you have to swallow it! Make yourself!"
"Mmmph!" She whipped her head from side to side, trying to free herself, but he held on as if… well, as if her life depended on it. He was not going to lose this fight.
Finally she gulped and he immediately let her go; she fell back against her pillows, gasping and shuddering.
"Jane? Jane!" He bent close over her and she surprised him by reaching up, wrapping both her arms around him, and giving a single hard yank that caused him, caught off-guard as he was, to literally fall on top of her.
There was no way, no WAY she should have had the strength to do that. God, this girl was amazing. And if he lost her… if he lost her, he'd be a dead man walking. There was nothing else for him, not after Jane.
She was clinging to him desperately, her hands fisted in his jerkin, her face buried in his shoulder, shaking like a leaf. Without any conscious thought whatsoever, his own arms wrapped around her and he found himself holding her just as tightly as she was holding him – perhaps even more so.
At the same time he shifted onto his side, bringing Jane with him, so that he was no longer crushing her down into the bed. He'd simply have to trust that if it was hurting her to be on her side, or to be held this tightly, she'd let him know. Because nothing else was going to induce him to let go of her now.
She didn't tell him that he was hurting her, and she didn't ask him to release her. She merely pressed her face (warm, it was so warm, too warm) against him even harder, as though actually trying to burrow into him, and when she did speak, her voice was so badly muffled that she was barely understandable.
But he'd known her forever and loved her for at least half that long, so he did understand her, perfectly.
"Why… did you… make… me do that!?" she panted brokenly.
"I am sorry. I am so sorry, Jane." He raised one hand to the back of her head and began absently stroking her tangled hair. "I knew it probably… would not be good." She shuddered again, violently. "But it was meant to help you. It is going to help you." He had to believe it. He did believe it. The alternative was simply unacceptable. "Now you just have to rest and let it work. All right?"
"Will you stay with me?" Such uncertainty in her voice.
God, it hurt. His heart.
It hurt.
"Yes. For as long as you want me to."
"But I mean… like this. Will you, will you… hold me? I am not as cold when you hold me."
"Yes, Jane. Forever."
"It was guh…going away." He realized that her teeth were starting to chatter again. "The cuh…c-cold. The hot too. It was… was all… fading. Everything was… fuh-fading. But now it… now it…"
"It is coming back? Everything is coming back?"
She nodded against him.
"But that is good." Let it be good, oh God please please let it be good. "I think things seemed to be fading because you were fading. And now things seem to be coming back because you are coming back. You are going to fight through this, Jane. You are. Right?"
"If I… cuh... can…"
"You can. You WILL."
"And you will stay?"
"You mother would have to chase me off with a stick."
"She will try."
She wasn't joking either. The flat certainty in her voice actually surprised a laugh out of him. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, but she didn't feel it; she'd lost consciousness again.
And so he settled in to wait for her to recover.
Only...
It didn't happen.