Mistakes

by Kyra4

Gunther's bewildering behavior frustrates Jane to the point where she flatly refuses to ask him for help– possibly at the cost of her very life. "He could sense time stretching out ahead of him– days, weeks, months. Years. Time that, according to the laughing bandit, wouldn't include Jane. He didn't want it. He didn't want ANY of it, not a single, solitary moment." J/G *Complete*

30. Chapter 30

(A/N: well, this is a little sooner than I'd planned to update, but y'all was freakin out, so here ya go!)

OOOOO

At least, not right away.

There was a long, long, agonizingly long period of uncertainty first, as she fought desperately against a fever that seemed bent on consuming her, antidote or no antidote.

It was a period of torture for Gunther, the like of which he'd never experienced before, had never even imagined. Half the time, he was left in silence to grapple with his own guilt-ravaged conscience, the outlaw's words – I cannot say for certain; the girl is already far gone – running through his mind over and over and over again, an endless loop. Hundreds of times. Thousands.

He had recovered the antidote. And it had been no easy feat. And valuable time had been sacrificed because Dragon hadn't been able to find him under the heavy tree cover; he'd had to circle overhead until Gunther had emerged from the thickest part of the woods and used Jane's sword again to broadcast his location. And riding back on Dragon had been the second most terrifying experience of his life. (The most terrifying experience of his life was what he was going through right the hell now.) But he'd done it. He'd recovered that goddamned antidote and made her drink it.

And yet all he could think was... what if it didn't even matter in the end? What if it was just too late?

Then, when he managed to subdue that voice, the outlaw's terrible laughing voice, for even a moment or two at a time, the images came.

Jane standing there, just standing there, in the aftermath of the skirmish, not even responding when he'd called her name, looking lost in thought, or maybe just lost period. And wrong, he'd known it even then, she'd looked so wrong somehow, but when he'd asked her she'd said she was fine, so what had he done, had he followed his instinct and pressed harder? No, he'd accused her of daydreaming and had shouted at her to do something useful and pick up her goddamned sword.

And that had only been the beginning.

Jane near the fire that night, sitting apart from him - apart from everyone - silent and hunched forward and hugging herself as if trying to hold herself together by force. And he'd assumed she'd been sulking. For God's sake! Sulking!

Jane on her knees in the bushes, violently ill. That must have been when the poison had really begun to go to work on her.

Jane refusing to eat anything – anything! – during their homeward journey. Barely even drinking water.

Jane dismounting at their final campsite, dismounting and then just standing there, her face buried in the neck of her beast, as if she'd simply been enjoying a moment of quiet companionship with her animal at the end of a long day's ride. But she'd been holding onto the reins so tightly – her knuckles had been white, she'd been holding on so tightly. As if – in hindsight it was horrifyingly clear – as if those reins had been the only thing holding her up.

Jane collapsing as she'd carried wood for the fire. There hadn't been any root, she hadn't tripped – her legs had just buckled; he'd seen the whole thing.

And then – worse than any of the others – worse than all the others put together – the sight of Jane lying crumpled in the road. It had felt like being plunged into icy water, having it close over the top of his head. He hadn't been able to breathe. He'd hardly been able to breathe since.

Without question, that had been the single most horrifying instant of his life. He was, in fact, convinced that that single instant had taken years off his life.

The images – those hellish images that paraded before his exhausted eyes – they were almost enough to drag him under, just to overwhelm him completely. So he'd fight them off, push them back, for a little while at least, and then the voice would return, filling up the space they'd left; the outlaw's voice saying I cannot say for certain – the girl is already far gone – and laughing, laughing as he spoke.

Hell. It was hell.

Gunther was in hell.

OOOOO

Those were the quiet times, the times of silence, when the only words he had to contend with were the ones that his own tormented mind dragged up and presented for examination over and over again.

But there were other times too.

Times when Jane, caught in the throes of delirium, said things that he was sure she was unaware of – and most of which he fervently hoped she wouldn't remember later.