Chapter XI

Jane stirred from a very deep slumber feeling quite strange indeed.

Her body felt very heavy and her mind didn't seem to want to cooperate at all. Even so, she forced her eyes open to peer around her for she had the peculiar feeling that she wasn't in her own bedchambers.

Even with her mind not functioning at its full capacity she could clearly see even in the dim light of night that she wasn't in her bedchamber. In fact, it appeared as she was in fact in the Court Physician's chambers. But why would she be there?

She tried to remember what had happened at the Ball, but she had only vague recollection of the night and those recollection mainly included feelings of annoyance and frustration. And pain. A great deal of pain…

"Jane?"

She twisted her head in the darkness, not yet feeling strong enough to lift her head from the pillow.

"Jester?"

She smiled weakly at his sigh of relief as he moved to lean on the bed near her head.

"How are you feeling?" He asked quietly.

"Um," She thought for a moment. How did she feel? Heavy, weak and an odd numbing sensation in her arm, her injured one. All of which she informed Jester of and in the dark she could see him nodding.

"Yes, they said that was all perfectly normal."

"They?"

"The physician and the wizard. They've been monitoring your condition closely."

"My condition?"

"Jane, you're arm, it was hurt with some powerful magic. Evil magic. It took a lot to remove all of its evil from you."

"My arm?" She squeaked in fear. They hadn't cut it off had they?

She tried to look for her arm in the dark, tried wiggling her fingers or moving it in front of her. She could do none of these things and she felt a surge of terror.

"Your arm is fine Jane."

"But I can't…"

"And you won't for a little while. As I said, it took a lot to get all of the magic out of the wound. You're lucky… very lucky to be alive." She looked back at him and even though she couldn't see him in the darkness, she heard the fear and sadness in his voice, along with unshed tears.

"Jester." She reached up with her uninjured arm and touched his cheek and without thinking on his part, Jester leaned in to it, his eyes closing in relief at the feeling of her touch.

"I'm-I'm sorry for worrying you."

"Yes," Jester agreed solemnly, "and you should be." He pressed his own hand on top of hers, "you have no idea how worried we've been about you. The only reason your parents are not here and by your side now is because they have not slept properly for three days and for their health the physician order them to return to their chambers and sleep. He even prescribed a sleeping draught for them both. I was told that if you woke during my watch, I was to go and wake them immediately." He made as if to go and do just that but Jane gripped his wrist, trying to make him stay.

"Don't, don't go." She whispered.

"Jane…"

"Please."

She felt him return to leaning on her bed. She wished he'd light a candle so that she could see his face but then, did she really want to see all the worry she had caused him?

"How-how long have I been sleeping?"

"Three days." He replied simply.

"Three days!"

"Mmm hmm. You had us all very worried."

"I'm sorry." She whispered.

"Don't be," his voice as soft, gentle as he ran a finger down her face, "Don't be sorry Jane. I would rather you sleeping than…" he trailed off and she felt frighten once more.

"Was it really that bad?" She asked desperately but he made no reply. "Jester?"

"Your mother asked us not to speak of it, not until you're well." Or ever, he thought quietly to himself.

They were the only words Lady Adeline had spoken to him during those horrible three days. She said nothing about his almost constant presence by her daughter's side; nothing regarding the fact that her daughter actually grew fretful in her slumber whenever he left her; nothing about how neither the physician or the wizard tried to kick him out while they told her to get some rest.

Truth be told, Jester wasn't sure why they didn't either and when he asked them about it they simply looked at each other and shrugged, though Jester didn't miss the meaningful looks they shot each other when they thought he wasn't looking.

"Jester." Jane pleaded and he sighed. He could never deny her for long.

"You were in a very bad place for a time Jane," He whispered, "a very bad, very dark place and the wizard; he was only just able to pull you back into the light."

"Because of what is-was wrong with my arm?"

"Yes."

"What is-was wrong with it?" He sighed, rubbing his eyes wearily.

"It's a long story, the wizard is the best one to explain it to you but basically the wound you received from the battle you had with the Shadow Knights was somehow infected with dark magic."

Jane felt her head swim at the thought.

Dark magic? Well, that would explain why her arm was taking so long to heal and why it hurt so much more than the time she had broken her arm when she was ten from falling out of a tree.

"But you don't have to worry." She heard Jester babble out quickly, "the wizard has removed all of the dark magic from your body. You are well on your way to making a full recovering now."

"Anyone else? Has anyone else suffered from their injuries from the Shadow Knights like me?"

"Ah," Jester wasn't sure what to say to that since he actually didn't know. For even though the old wizard had all but ordered the Knights to send him all who had been hurt during the battle of the Shadow Knights, from what Jester could gather, none had been sent to him so far. It was annoying the wizard and Sir Theodore was not impressed with their conduct with the matter at all.

Jester could not understand why the Knights were being so stubborn about seeing the Wizard over this. Did they think they would be considered weak if they went to the wizard for help?

Jester worried for the Kingdom if all their knights proved to be this bull-headed over something as serious as this!

Jester simply shook his head. The fools, they had no understanding, no real concept of how dangerous magic truly was when it was used for evil.

"Jester?"

"I don't know Jane." He replied honestly, "I really don't and in all truths, I don't really care." He added before waiting for Jane to chide him as she usually would for saying something less than respectful towards knights. But she said nothing.

"Have you stayed, the whole time I've been in here?" She asked instead, her voice surprisingly small and shy.

"Yes Jane." He said with a small smile that she couldn't see due to the darkness of the chamber.

"Why?"

"Because you're my best friend Jane. Would you not do the same for me?" He asked with a slight teasing note to his voice. He heard her struggling to sit up.

"Jane, be careful, you might…" He was cut off by soft, full lips being pressed against his. His mind all but shut down when she didn't pull back straight away.

"Thank you Jester." She mumbled, her voice small and shy, so unlike her and yet… without thinking, he reached out, catching her soft, warm face in his hands and brought his lips back down upon her mouth.

She let out a surprised little gasp but didn't pull away as he gently kissed her.

Neither exactly knew what they were doing for neither had much experience with kissing. Jane had none for she had never been kissed. And while Jester had some experience in the area of kissing, nearly all of the kisses he had received during his fifteen years of life had been forced upon him. For instance, noble born girls dared to kiss the Castle Fool. And of course, there had been that one kiss Sara had given him while Jane was away. He had politely informed her that he was not interested in her in that way and thankfully they were now good friends – he was even helping to match-make her with Smithy. But otherwise his kissing experiences were not many and usually far and few between. And the few that he had received were nothing like this.

Yes, neither of them knew exactly what they were doing, so the kiss shared was a little sloppy and awkward but then, that was how they'd both unconsciously suspected their first kiss to be like, so neither were truly bothered by it.

Jane's good arm was around his neck, holding him close, her still injured arm was tucked in against her body while his hands ran themselves threw her wild red hair.

"Jane…" he mumbled softly into her mouth. He didn't want to break their kiss, he never wanted it to end, but he knew it had to. There were things to do, like waking Jane's parents and informing them that Jane was awake. And he knew that neither of her parents would be thrilled to find their daughter in the arms of the Court Jester. Even with all that he had done in the past few days, he knew Lady Adeline in particular would not accept him.

Sighing, he pulled himself away from her and even though it was too dark to see, he knew she was confused and a trifle hurt by his actions.

"Jester?" He ran his fingers gently over her face, closing his eyes as he tranced her beautiful features.

"I'm going to get your parents now. I'll wake up the physician first, tell him you're awake and so you won't be alone." He started to gently disentangle himself from her.

"Jester?" he closed his eyes and without a thought – and he didn't really know how he aimed it so well what with how dark the chambers were – pressed a quick kiss against her mouth before shooting himself across the room to where the Physician's private chambers were, having a quick chat with him before darting from the room, Jane staring after him rather blankly, her fingers lightly tracing her lips.

"You short-lives are so strange, one smack on the lips and you all go gooey." Jane jumped at Dragon's amused, if not sleepy voice.

"Dragon?" Jane twisted her head around to see one of his big yellow eyes peering in at her from the window behind her head.

"And a big hello to you too! You had us all worried, you do realise, sleeping for three days like that." He informed her sounding quite like a stern father.

She hung her head in shame.

"I'm sor-"

"Oh shush, none of that. S'not your fault for what happen to you, it's all the fault of whoever did this to you."

"Whoever they are." Jane mumbled.

Dragon only grumbled in agreement.

"We'll catch them and we'll make them pay." He said and Jane couldn't help but shuddered. He sounded so dark and dangerous when he spoke like that.

"But you're feeling better now?" He asked, his voice changing back to his usual light and cheerful tone, if not with a bit of worry thrown in.

"Yes, I'm fine." She paused for a moment, feeling her cheeks heat up, "how long have you been awake?"

Her blush only intensified when he let out a short, cheeky laugh.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He teased and Jane pressed a hand to her burning face.

"Dragon!"

"What? I thought you humans' like making smooshy faces at each other." He teased

"Ah…"

"I won't tell a soul… especially not your mother." He added in a completely different tone.

Jane opened her mouth to ask him what he meant by that when her mother came flying into the chamber, her father close on her heels carrying a large touch in his hand, making the room glow far more brightly than the dim light that the few candles that the physician himself had lit while Jane was talking to Dragon.

"Jane! Oh, Jane." Jane accepted her parents' hugs and kisses without complaint, though she quickly tired of her mother's sobs and the repeated questioning if she was alright.

She glanced over their shoulders to the Physician chamber door, her eyes meeting with a pair of soft grey eyes that smiled back at her before slipping away into the night. She wasn't sure why but his leaving left her with the feeling of wanting to cry.

Author's Note: Yup, I had them kiss. Sorry Gunther/Jane shippers, I just... I love these two (And Jester is besides, from Dragon, by far my favourite character on the show.). And yes, I do know that in the real world this pairing would probably never ever happen and if it ever did, it was extremely rare and probably only under the extremist of circumstances.
But this is first and foremost fanfiction... anything can happen and it doesn't have to make sense in our world because again, its fanfiction and secondly... talking dragon. There's a dragon that talks and we're worrying about two kids of different social standing having a crush on each other? It is what it is.
But just reassure those who don't like/approve or just not overly keen on Jester/Jane this isn't a romance fic, so I, hopefully, will not be overly rubbing in your face Jane/Jester mush. It is and always meant to be an adventure fanfic with some Jane/Jester thrown in for my own kicks. So if you can just grit your teeth and bear some of the Jane/Jester stuff, hopefully you'll enjoy the epic adventure story I am trying to tell.

Thank you for reading and please review.