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All it took was one moment, a split-second of carelessness and it could all end. And it hadn’t ended, sure, but with the ashen pallor to Jane’s face as Katherine fretted into the early hours of the morning, that wasn’t much comfort right now.
She had tried to sleep in her own bed, tried pacing, tried fresh air. Not a damn thing could ease the panic that pulsed in shadowy waves, threatening to close in the world around her. Nothing except lying beside Jane on the bed, where she could see and hear her breathing, match the steady pace with her own breathing to settle her panic.
The moonlight did nothing to bring any sort of glow to Jane’s cheeks.
“You better not go dying on me,” Katherine murmured, sure she was half-incoherent from exhaustion.
If—
When Jane woke up, Katherine was going to make a point of telling her that Katherine had damn near carried her for half an hour — on and off — until they reached the nearest town. That should shut down any suggestions that Katherine might be going soft.
A sharp inhale from Jane in her sleep had Katherine’s hand checking the pulse on her wrist, the spike of panic in her chest already bringing ragged breaths to her throat. Jane's pulse was as steady as it had been the last time Katherine checked.
It wasn’t a fatal wound, that’s what the doctor had said. Serious, yes, but not fatal. Then again, people died of so-called non-fatal wounds all the time, and Katherine hadn’t much appreciated the way the doctor had glanced at Jane’s prosthetic and said, “Looks like she’s been through worse before.”
Asshole.
Should she had taken it off? Jane never slept in her prosthetic; said it was goddamn uncomfortable. Katherine should ask, for next time. Not that there would be a next time, if she could help it — and she couldn’t, she knew she couldn’t promise something like that — but she’d ask all the same.
“You scowl any harder, you gonna stick like that.” Jane grinned at Katherine’s startle and shifted on the bed with a grimace. “Now, we weren’t here last I remember.” The feather-soft words could not have sounded better had they been shouted from a rooftop.
“We’re about half an hour from where you remember being,” Katherine replied, reaching for the matches at the bedside to light the lamp. Jane’s hand on her arm stopped her.
“It’s okay, just lay here a moment, will you?”
Jane’s injury needed to be checked, she probably needed some water, and—
“Just for a moment?”
Katherine let herself drop back into the bed, taking Jane’s hand and squeezing, getting the same back in kind. “Just a moment.”