The Last Battle

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Onyx had been right: staying with others was better than good for Lupin. To start, there was so much work to do that there was barely any time to be unhappy, and loneliness was certainly not an issue when living in the Rantes' sixteen-member clan. All four of Willow and Heather's living offspring still lived at home to help out with the farm, and as years passed each had brought home a mate, which had blossomed of course into cubs of their own: two to Orange, whose cub-bearing brother Cassia had died at four years of age in a road accident, two to Ginger, and two to Sedge. Although nine of those fifteen members were at Jessamine's now, and Heather spent as much of the day there with his husband as he could, the others were so used to having to keep up with the crowd that their liveliness went undimmed by what they all hoped would be a very short respite.

Then there was the fact that the Rantes understood. More than half of their family was currently in a position to be worried over, and worry they did, but their willingness to go on in the face of that pain made Lupin ashamed to have let himself go to pieces so badly over his own grief.

Of course, Pine of the sharp eyes saw it at once and quickly and cheerfully told him he was being silly. That took care of that.

Unlike most of Jessamine's brood, who seemed to take after their silent father in their desire toward speech, Pine fit in fine with his husband's family. All of the Rantes talked freely and quite a bit, which Lupin thought ruefully was probably the greatest thing he missed about having his husband with him. Hemlock didn't talk much, but when he had something he wanted to say, he said it without qualms. Lupin was too shy of hurting someone's feelings to manage that, but he did get in a lot of comforting talks with Pine and the others before the exodus of recouperating family, sent out by Jessamine to find the same sanctuary which Lupin and Fern had, began. Oak and Spruce (they said because of their medical ineptness) had been made to escort the cubs and cub-bearers to the Rante farm, while Jessamine, Ginger, and Hemlock stayed behind with the sick ones to see out the last of the Deathfever.

Beryl's misfortune came as a shock. Lupin had expected death and a reason to grieve but he hadn't thought of what other ravages sickness could cause. Now, a day after Beryl's arrival, Fern was still struggling with the concept of blindness-what a person could or couldn't do while they couldn't see, and how many of the possibilities Beryl was up to trying out as yet. On the other hand, he hadn't shown the least discomfort about Beryl's new condition. Only curiousity fueled his constant questions.

Orange's pair, Violet and Clover (or Vi and Cloe as they were called by all and sundry), had been helping out too, playing with a light disregard of Beryl's blindness that sometimes made the grownups worry, but obviously made Beryl feel better. The chatter of his small entourage seemed to ground him, keeping him mobile and content even when he couldn't be happy. Poor Beryl was shy now in the company of anyone else, floundering in a world without pictures, but when he was with his friends he was almost as lively as he had ever been.

So for the most part, patients and healers alike were recovering nicely. Hazel and Hyssop were ready to get out of bed, though no one would let them; Amber guided his brother everywhere the same as he had always done. Even Sedge was beginning to recover his old composure, though his sense of humour was much dimmed and he had gained a few threads of silver tangled through his orange hair-an almost unheard of occurrence for a Kindred of only thirty-five years. Jade had escaped any physical reminder of his ordeal on himself, but Lupin thought that, with Beryl to take care of and worry over, it would be a long time before the experience would dull in the redhead's memory.

Lupin vowed to forget it lots faster than that just as soon as he got his husband back. He wished he could see how Hemlock was doing.

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At that very moment, miles away in the close heat of Jessamine's house, Hemlock was wishing the same thing. The elation of the winning of Birch had collapsed suddenly into the fight for Topaz, and the swift deflation had left poor Hemlock's head spinning.

Mica, as usual, pitched right in.

"Tané, we'll need more of the stuff that worked on Da," he pointed out, perched in his spot beside Topaz's uncomfortably roving head like a benificent queen. "We should move him back into his room, so he doesn't disturb Da. I'll take care of him myself when his fever is over, but you and Tané will help me in the meantime, won't you? Da will be all right by himself?"

"I guess..." Ginger thought this over doubtfully. He really didn't want to leave his husband alone after what he had been through, but on the other hand, now that Birch's crisis was over, he wanted to be with his son. Topaz was male, but he was still only half-grown and even adult males needed solid comfort now and then. That was what parents and mates were for.

"Yes," he decided at last. Nodding, Mica rose to his feet. "We'll take turns helping you, so there'll always be somebody with your da, in case he wakes up before Topaz gets better."

He paused suddenly, bewildered by his own speech. When had he lost his depressive streak?

Mica giggled; he knew what his father was thinking about. "Da, you sound optimistic," he teased, giving his bewildered parent a sparkling glance over his shoulder while he bent to gather up the necessities left over from the battle for Birch. For the hundredth time, Ginger found himself wishing that he could spring back from and into seriousness with such flexibility as his youngest had. Mica never seemed to be at a loss for anything, whether words, ideas, or just a little good advice.

"Your father has got the ability to see the bright side," Hemlock agreed dryly. He was sorting through the scattered remains of the medicines Ginger had been using. "He just doesn't use it. You'll have to hold off moving your brother for a second while I get into the front pantry and grab some more meadowsweet and spicewood; what we've got here is almost all gone. I think Da has more."

He slid out the doorway and was gone before Mica or Ginger had the chance to answer him.

"I'm going to go and tell Jessamine about your Da if you can gather those things up," Ginger announced suddenly, when Hemlock had been gone a minute and he had had time to think again of the senior healer's anxiety. "I'll come back when your tané does. All right?"

"All right."

The hallway felt like a different world, changed into an unknown by hours of staring at the walls and pacing the floor of a single guest room, and when the door of Sineult's room was found shut, the strange fantasy of the setting made Ginger balk. It was a few easy yards and no more than a minute away from the room where his husband lay, but all at once he felt that if he didn't go back, something horrible would happen. He shivered.

Then he popped the door open as gently as he could and made himself go in.

For a second, his heart stopped cold in his chest. Twined together on the bed in spite of the heat, orange and gold hair mixed in a mass of glinting threads, the cub-bearer's peaceful white face tucked in the curve of his mate's throat, Onyx and Sineult were the very picture of beautiful death. When Onyx opened one electric blue eye and swiveled it sleepily toward him, Ginger thought that he might die himself with relief.

"What?" the redhead mumbled faintly.

"I-I was looking for Jessamine," Ginger stammered back in a thin whisper. "I wanted to tell him that Birch pulled through all right and he can come see him. Are you... Is Sineult okay, too?"

"Mm," Onyx agreed, nodding his head just barely so that the shift couldn't disturb Sineult. "'S fine, Jessamine says. 'M glad Birch is too. How's Topaz?"

"He woke up a minute ago. That's why I was looking for Jessamine now, before he's much worse off."

"He's probably in the kitchen."

"Okay. Thanks."

He flashed the sleepy pair a smile, his first heartfelt one since Birch had fallen sick, before heading down the hall to the kitchen. Hemlock would surely have told his da the good news already, but Ginger still wanted to see the healer, and get help with Topaz if he could.

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"Did you get anything out of him?" Jessamine was saying when Ginger walked in. "I mean, did he seem all right to you. Coherent and functioning and all of that."

"I don't know. He went right from feverish to sleeping. He seemed to have a fairly good idea of where we were while he was still sick, though, so I would assume there's nothing the matter with his brain. Sineult's got a worse chance of that if he was delirious, and that with the pregnancy, too." Hemlock, who had been burrowing into the kitchen cabinet for bags of dried spicewood leaves, turned around and set a bundle of them on the table behind him. He began sorting quickly through them, looking at the labels.

"I hope not," Jessamine murmured, rubbing absently at his forehead. "Beryl was having trouble enough before he left. Birch is too old to be dealing with a whole new lifestyle, and Mica and Topaz..." He glanced up at Ginger with a tired, rueful smile. "I'm sorry. I'm just being paranoid. Other than Beryl's eyes everything that could have gone right has... there's no reason to imagine that Birch will be any different."

"Take this, Ginger." Hemlock held out one of the bags he wanted and went on sorting out the ones he didn't without looking up. Ginger went to him and took it, his face suddenly crestfallen.

Jessamine winced.

"I'll help you with Topaz," he offered meekly in a moment, sorry to have ruined the good mood Ginger had been in when he first arrived. "There's no one else in the house except for Onyx, Sineult, Birch, and your twins; I was telling Hemlock about it before. I sent them out to the Rante farm early yesterday. I didn't realise that you didn't know."

"It's just as well," Ginger murmured. "They shouldn't stay when we don't know if it's contagious twice. And something's going to have to be done about this house once this is all over, too. Fumigation, or something like that."

"Well I hadn't thought about it, but you're right. Maybe I can get one of those human companies to come in and do it while we're staying at Willow and Heather's? A week should do it, right? We can't let the ones who have been sick get up too early anyway in case they relapse." He sighed. "I don't even know if Deathfever does relapse."

"We can't take the chance." Hemlock straightened from his perusal of the herbs to put most of them back in, gathering out a select few of the cabinet's contents into his arms. "Okay, I'm ready. We're going to move Topaz back into his room, but on the way there, why don't we give him a cool bath to get things started. Ginger, you go set up in his room. You know what you need better than I do. Send Mica in to us in the bathroom, okay?"

They scattered, each to their own job.

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