Sick Day, Rangers apprentice by Elfpen (Fanfiction )

Chapter 5: Fever

Author's Note: You may or may not have noticed, but I went back and gave each individual chapter an actual title! Shocker, huh? And I even surprised myself by figuring out how many more chapters there are going to be to this story. Including those already posted, this should wrap up to be a seven-chapter story, and if I'm feeling good about it, there might just be a fancy-smancy epilogue-y type thing. This story is too short to have a real epilogue, but... You get the idea. Anyway, without further ado, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

"Halt did what?!"

"You heard me - he tied the man to a tree while he dealt with his friends, then he bound and gagged them all and tied them up by their necks like a bunch of dogs and led them all the way back to castle Redmont."

Will was having trouble breathing, he was laughing so hard. Halt groaned.

"Gilan, stop poisoning the boy's mind with your exaggerated tales. You know they're not true."

"Nonsense, Halt - I was there, after all. You tied those seven men up and dragged them across country. You even made me help."

Halt sighed. "There were six, and they weren't gagged."

"No, until you stuffed the leader's mouth full with your sock when he wouldn't stop babbling."

Halt began to protest, but Will was holding his sides with laughter, and pained tears were streaming down his face. Halt's lips pressed together in annoyance, and he cocked a pepper-grey eyebrow at his apprentice.

"Think that's funny, do you?"

"F-funny?!" Will sounded out between giggles, "It's stinking hilarious! I didn't know... Tree... Dogs... Socks!" He dissolved into another fit of laughter.

Halt stood from where he'd been sitting. "If you weren't sick, you'd have a sock in your mouth right now." He grumbled. Begrudgingly, he took Will's half-eaten breakfast plate back to the kitchen, mumbling about disrespectful apprentices as he went.

Gilan was sitting back in his seat, smiling and looking particularly amused with the situation he had brought about. Until, that is, Will started coughing.

It started as lingering laughter, but Gilan's eyebrows twitched together in concern when he heard the rough wheezing noise that came with each breath Will took. The younger boy noticed it, too, and his expression changed from a wide smile to a mixture of pain and confusion. In a quick turn of events, the laughs melted into coughs - Rough, painful, deep-chested coughs that made Gilan wince at the sound of them. And they didn't stop. Once one cough was over, Will was so out of breath that he had to inhale, but his body refused to exhale in any other way besides another harsh cough, and the cycle started over. Realizing his predicament, a sense of panic overtook Will's features, and he sent a quick, pleading look up at Gilan. Immediately, the ranger was on his feet, and stepped over to Will.

"Breathe, Will." Gilan urged. He could tell that Will was already trying to breathe normally, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. His face grew more alarmed as Will started choking and gagging, taking in sudden breaths as if he was going to suffocate. Gilan grabbed the boy by the shoulder and guided him to bend over his waist to reduce the convulsive action that came each time he coughed. The coughing and gagging didn't stop, however, and Gilan patted Will firmly on the back, not knowing what else to do.

Desperately gasping for breath between coughs, panic having set in, Will reached out blindly and grabbed at Gilan's shirt, clinging on to it as if it was his lifeline. He bent almost flat over his lap at a particularly jarring cough.

Halt entered the room, his previous annoyance gone, concern in its place. He quickly stepped around Gilan and grabbed Will's forearm.

"Hold you breath, Will. It will delay the coughing." He said firmly, making sure that Will heard and understood him. Will tried to obey, but his immediate attempts were broken through by more coughs. "Keep trying." Halt urged. Will did, taking quick breaths in between. Slowly, the coughs dissipated, and Will's breathing was reduced to desperate, tired gasps as he tried to fill his lungs with clean air. He still clung to Gilan's shirt, and now exhausted and out of breath from the fit, he let his head fall on the tall ranger's shoulder, shaking and heaving for breath. Instinctively, Gilan put a protective arm around the boy's shoulders and his free hand went up to Will's head. Even through his shirt, Gilan could feel the heat radiating from Will's forehead where it touched his shoulder.