Jason was watching Jeremy poke at his breakfast as he had his dinner yesterday. He was wondering how concerned he should be. The boy's listlessness was unusual, but he had endured an unusual week. As well as the physical, he was also wrestling with emotional stuff, and that could be just as, if not more difficult to deal with.

Jeremy looked at him suddenly and said in a stricken voice. "Jason. We forgot ab-bout Josh."

"That wasn't very nice of you," Josh commented.

"We did, didn't we? I guess we still have a Mystery From the Past to unravel."

"Yeah." Jeremy looked back at his plate, filled a fork, lifted it, and let the food fall off.

"I think I like the idea of being a Mystery From the Past. But where was I when you were talking about me? Or not talking about me?"

Jeremy giggled. "Asleep."

"Oh, one of those. Glad I slept through it. What weren't you not talking about me about?"

"Where you were," Jeremy replied, with a small smile.

Jason laughed.

"This conversation seems to be going in circles," Josh commented, good-humoredly. "Where was I when you were NOT talking about where was I. What the heck were you talking about?"

Jeremy decided he was hungry, after all, and filled his mouth so he wouldn't have to talk.

Jason answered for him, keeping an eye on both brothers. (Good thing he was experienced at that!) "Oh, Jeremy got around to admitting that he was running away to home, again, the night of his nightmare. He never said so but admitted it just the same. He was worried about my reaction."

"Well, he should have been. You told him not to do it again."

"Yes. I knew it would be bad."

"No wonder Da whupped him. He'd done tried everything else, I think."

"Especially after the second time he snuck out after dark," Jason agreed. "I wish Da would have let me take him back for a visit but he just kept saying 'no.' And I didn't want to rile him any more than I had to. That wouldn't have helped any of us."

"I know." Josh laughed suddenly. "Now I'm wondering where I was. I really hate it when you guys have midnight talks! I didn't know anything about it, and here I am getting all confused over it! Are we going to work?" Josh pulled on his boots.

"May as well. We're not going to build a business by not working."

"Precisely."

Jeremy raised his head. "Jason, I don' feel so g-good. C-can I stay here?"

"Come here and let me look at you."

Jason looked him over carefully. He was a little flushed, but not unduly so. He had, finally, finished his breakfast. Yes, a little feverish. Jason moved Jeremy's arms and head. No stiffness. "How do you feel?"

"Sleepy. An' my head hurts."

"Hmm. Did you cry after we got done talking?"

"M-my eyes did," Jeremy confessed reluctantly.

Jason nodded. "I think you'd better come to the camp with us. You can sleep there. I don't think I should leave you alone."

"That's a long walk," Jeremy objected. (If he'd been younger, Jason would have used the word whined. Yeah, younger, like eight months or so ago. So much growth during the dark months.)

"I could carry you," Jason suggested, with a wink at Josh.

"NO!"

"We could build a travois and drag him," Josh suggested. "Or bundle him up in blankets and drag him that way. Be hard on the blankets, though."

"I suppose we could both carry him. Do you want the head or the feet?"

"Lordy, what kind of a question is that? Do I want kicked or head-butted? I'm not sure which is worse."

"D-depends on where I hit you!"

Josh laughed. "I could stay with him .Or you could. I'm sure the men would tell me if it's safe to work or not."

"Since a few of them have more experience each than you and I combined, they probably could. What do you think, Jeremy?"

"I c-can sleep, 'thout n-nobody looking."

"It will be a lot easier to look in on you at the camp."

"On the other hand, if the men don't think it's safe, we'll have dragged him out for nothing. Maybe he's right."
"What if he's wrong?"

"Oh, come on, Jason. Why don't you just let me go? I'll talk to our men and agree with whatever they agree on, and if we don't work I'll be back. If I'm not back, we're working. Simple."

Jason was silent, considering. Josh was eager and Jeremy was scowling. "Alright," he agreed.

"Phooey." Jeremy stomped across the room and got back in bed, turning his back to his brothers (who grinned at one another) and covered his head. "I'm not a b-baby."

Jason looked at Josh and jerked his head at the door.

Whistling, and a little smug, Josh left.

"Don't think you're getting off that easy," Jason told the lump in the bed. "You're drinking some medicine and having a good wash before you go back to sleep." Jason was looking through the bottles in the medicine cabinet and looking for the right one.

The lump shrugged and mumbled something.

"You may as well get up." Jason selected a bottle marked 'fevers', opened the lid, and sniffed it. "You know darned good and well I'll force it down your throat." Jason poured some of the mixture into a glass.

"You c-can't m-make me swallow!" Jeremy sat up, glaring.

"Wanna bet?" Jason sat on the bed beside him, holding out the glass.

When Jeremy didn't take the glass, Jason shifted position, putting one hand on the back of Jeremy's neck and holding the dose to his lips.

Jeremy clamped his mouth shut.

"You're really going to make me do this? And I was just thinking how much you've grown up."

Jeremy's slitted eyes spoke for him.

"Alrighty then." In a practiced move, Jason shifted his hold on his youngest brother.

A few minutes later, Jeremy was again a lump of covers in the bed, and Jason was examining the bite marks on his index finger. That hadn't gone too badly, and Jeremy's grown-up teeth were not nearly as sharp as his milk teeth had been.

Jason remained sitting on the bed until he was satisfied that Jeremy was asleep, before crossing the room to enjoy the book he had been reading.

When Josh came in just before dark, Jason was reading and Jeremy was sitting up in bed looking – well, looking like a kid being forced to stay in bed for his own good.

"I hope you b-brought some food."

"What? Jason didn't feed you? I can't believe that." Josh was putting the food he had indeed brought on the table.

"He wouldn't eat,"Jason explained, and turned a page.

"Josh," Jeremy said in a pained tone, "it was JASON."

Josh laughed.

"That's the gratitude I get," Jason commented.

"What did you fix for him?"

"Sandwiches."

"C-cold sandwiches. B-big fat chunks of tough m-meat and c-crumbly b-bread."

"I don't think my beans and biscuits are that much better, but probably easier to swallow. You must be feeling better if you're hungry."

"Not for b-beans."

"Starve, then. Aren't you supposed to starve a fever?"

"Huh." Jeremy dragged himself to the table.

"I think you're supposed to flood a fever, "Jason said.

"Or d-drown the p-person having it."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." Josh put a dish in front of Jeremy. "You eating, Jason?"

Jason shut his book and stood. "I don't like my food any better than you do, but it's what was here." He pulled out a chair.

"He ate th- three sammiches. A whole am-minal."

"Jealous, are you?"

Jeremy snickered and picked up his fork. "Yeah. I w-was hungry."

"So, eat up."

Josh cleared the table and poured the coffee after the food was gone. Jeremy had eaten more than his fair share, to his brothers' amusement. Talk had been general; about work, the men, the weather. Jeremy sighed and put his head on the table.

"Ready for another dose, Jeremy?" Jason asked. "Fevers tend to rise at dark, don't they?"

"Yes," Jeremy said, and took the dose when it was given to him.

"Why couldn't you do that earlier?" Jason asked, taking the glass over to the dishpan.

"You didn't ask."

Jason looked surprised.

"Playing Big Brother, was he?" Josh asked sympathetically. "No doubt he just told you you were taking it and probably forced it down your throat."

"Uh-huh."

"One of these days we might break him from being so bossy, but I think we'll have to start the process with something smaller than sickness."

"I think you're doing very well, untraining me," Jason said, with a laugh. "I'm so used to you fighting me on taking medicine I tried to prevent that. Why didn't you ask me to ask instead of just telling me 'no' and then daring me?"

Jeremy shrugged.

"Don't dare him," Josh advised. "Ever. If you can help it. He'll dare you right back, and since he has the advantage, you'll lose. I still lose on the rare occasions that I forget and do that."

Jeremy half-laughed. "He just m-makes me so mad!"

"Yeah. I know. Makes me mad, too." Josh laughed. "At least he doesn't do like Da did every time you got feverish. Sending me off to stay with the Mack's or someone else, like every illness you had was catching, and not letting me come home until you were better."

"You c-came anyway."

"To be fair," Jason said mildly, "most of what made him sick was something catching. And Da was afraid for both of you."

"I didn't get sick all that much."

"No, but Jeremy had never been around so many people for so long. Seemed like he caught every sniffle or tummy ache anyone in town had. Not to mention what all the upset at being there did for him. For Jeremy, not Da. He made his choice."

"And ours, too," Jeremy opined.

"Yes, ours, too," Jason agreed. "That's something parents –"

"And b-bossy big b-brothers –"

"-do. Bossy big brothers are still the parent's children, whether they like it or not. Besides, if I hadn't been there, you'd have been alone with Da all day, and that didn't bear thinking of. He didn't have much patience."

"He was scared, I th-think," Jeremy said slowly. "S-sometimes he din't know I was there. And sometimes he just l-looked at me. Dunno which was baddest."

"Oh, yes, he was scared. He was afraid you'd die, and that somehow meant Mom would think he was a failure as a parent when you joined her, and then SHE wouldn't want anything to do with HIM."

"Mostly when he'd had a few," Josh said.

"Mostly when he'd had a few," Jason agreed, with a head shake. "Those first few months in town were bad for all four of us. None of us knew how to get along without her. He thought it would be easier in a place she'd never lived. It wasn't."

"We brought her with us," Josh said soberly.

"How could we not? It was like trying to run away from your shadow."

The brothers fell silent.

"M-maybe you m-made me sick. I d-d-didn't get sick when you weren't there." Jeremy decided to change the subject.

"Is he talking to me?" the two older brothers asked each other. And laughed.

Jeremy laughed, too. "I was talking to Jason. Ms. Amelia said that. She said it was b-beautiful to see how much I t-trusted you, because I c-couldn't let myself b-be sick unless you were around."

"She didn't tell me exactly the same thing, but she said something similar. She said I was safe for you to be unsafe around. Old lady jibber-jab. Or so I thought at the time."

"That wasn't exactly true," Josh said. "There was one time you got sick when Jason was gone. I don't know what it was, but it must have been bad. Da woke me up in the middle of the night and sent me off to the Macks. Told me to sleep in the barn if no one was would have been alright if it hadn't started a regular storm when I was almost there. I banged on the door and woke them up. I suppose I was afraid I'd catch whatever you had that was so bad if I took a chill. I did, too, Had a couple miserable days, but I was luckier than you. I had Mrs. Mack taking care of me. You had Da."

"I d-don't remember that."

"Well, you were sick."

"First I've heard of it," Jason said. "Or is it? I wonder. Do you remember where I was, Josh?"

"Just on a job, as usual."

"You don't remember which job? Or when it happened?"

"Nope. Probably near the start of the Dark, though, since it stormed and I took a chill from the storm. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"Well, I don't remember. I just remember the day, day-and-a-half I spent on the Mack's feather bed all wrapped up in quilts being spoon fed nice thick beef broth. It was nice, but she wasn't Mom, and I wasn't really sick – maybe because she warmed me up so good, and I got bored. I was worried about him –" Josh nodded toward Jeremy, who was wilting against the table "- and a little surprised when Da never checked on me. I was afraid Jeremy was dying, too."

"I wasn't."

"Yeah, ghosts don't generally keep growing, although I hear some of them moan and whine a lot."

"I th-think I'll g-go to bed. Do you wanna feel me first, Jason?"

"I want to check your fever, yes. I sometimes wish you'd be more proficient with your words."

"What does fish have to do with anything?" Jeremy dragged himself to bed after Jason approved of his temperature.

"How is he?" Josh asked, pouring heated water into the dishpan.

"About the same. We may have got ahead of it this time. There's hope for the future."

"Wonder if it has anything to do with the cold soak you made him take."

"Possibly. Probably from getting medicine into him before it had time to get too high."

"I c-can still hear you."

"Go to sleep."

"D-don' t-talk about me."

"How will you know what we think of you if you can't listen in on us?" Josh started washing the dishes, whistling while he did so.

"Oh. Yeah. G'night." Jeremy yawned and closed his eyes.

Jason grabbed a towel and stepped in to dry and put away the dishes. He had some thinking to do.