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Will dozed fitfully, uneasily aware he was uncomfortable, but not awake enough to do anything about it. He’d gotten used to putting up with it anyway, his brain prompted, because—because he was in…?
“Will.” A low, familiar voice spoke his name, followed by an equally familiar hand on the side of his head. Will blinked awake.
“Halt?” he murmured. The half-asleep confusion vanished like mist—of course he was home, with the moonlight coming through his bedroom window and his mentor by the bed.
Said mentor’s hand moved slightly, reassuringly, over his hair. “All’s well. Go to sleep.”
“Mm.” He shut his eyes, then shivered again, and frowned slightly. “Cold,” he explained.
Halt grunted. His hand, after a second’s pause, stroked through Will’s hair again and lifted away. “Give me a moment,” he said, and was gone.
It was only a moment, or seemed like it through Will’s restless dozing, before Halt was back in the room. A heavy, reassuring weight draped evenly across his blanket, and he felt tugs on his covers, smoothing them and eliminating the drafts. The warmth grew almost at once. Will stilled, newly relaxed, and sighed in contentment.
He felt Halt’s hand on his shoulder. “All right?”
“Mm-hm.” He cracked his eyes open again, and saw his mentor crouched in front of him, gaze concerned. Will smiled, sleepily, filled with a sudden rush of pure contentment. He pushed an arm out from under the covers to wrap around Halt’s neck in a loose hug.
“Thanks,” he muttered into his shoulder.
Halt’s arm was around Will’s back, holding him in return. The older Ranger squeezed tightly instead of answering, held him for a few more moments, and then let go. “All’s well, Will,” he murmured once again. And as Will settled back into his nest, he felt Halt brush the hair away from his face.
“Now,” he said, voice dry and fond, “go to sleep.”
Already following his command, Will just grinned.
It was sheer restlessness that drove Halt to check on Will.
They had both had a long day of riding the fief in pursuit of some rumors about bandits (rumors almost certainly baseless, but still in need of investigation before debunking), on top of Will’s usual archery practice, and the boy’s own insistence on a regular cartography lesson after dinner. The Gathering was getting closer all the time, after all, and despite being repeatedly assured that allowances would be made for his time in Skandia, Will was stubbornly determined to pass a regular third-year assessment. Finally Halt had sent him to bed before turning to his own reports.
Usually, Halt was able to focus on his work quite well with the knowledge that Will was in the next room, sleeping the sleep of a growing and thoroughly exhausted boy. Tonight was…one of the worse nights, though, for reasons Halt couldn’t identify and didn’t care to examine. He found himself listening to the silence, thinking how much it reminded him of his years without an apprentice—or, much worse, of the few nights he’d spent in the empty cabin between Morgarath’s defeat and his own exile.
Finally, acknowledging he wouldn’t get any more done tonight, he swept his papers together and away and went to Will’s door. It was already open a crack—another thing which had changed since Skandia, though Halt hadn’t asked why—and he swung it open soundlessly.
Will lay there, as Halt’s rational side had already known, curled on his side underneath the covers. Halt watched for a moment, breathing in time with the rise and fall of Will’s shoulder.
Just as he was about to turn away, a low, discontented murmur came from Will.
Halt paused, and looked more closely. In the dim moonlight, it was difficult to make out an expression, but—was there a frown on Will’s face? He stole into the room, close to the bedside, and peered down. Sure enough, Will’s forehead was creased with some trouble, and another grumbling murmur came from the boy as he huddled in on himself.
Halt frowned.
Reaching a decision, he murmured, softly, “Will.” He placed his hand on the boy’s head a second behind the word—so Will would know him; the boy had a Ranger’s reflexes, after all—and stroked it in a calming motion.
Will’s expression smoothed out instantly, and his eyes half-opened to fix on Halt in sleepy recognition. “Halt?” he muttered, yawning, but attentive.
Halt smiled slightly. “All’s well,” he reassured him. “Go to sleep.”
“Mm.” Will grunted in apparent assent, closing his eyes again, but then frowned. Without opening his eyes, he muttered, “Cold.”
Ah.
Not a nightmare troubling his sleep, then, as Halt had guessed…but circumstances that could possibly lead into a nightmare, if Will’s sleeping mind were left to deal with them. He wasn’t generally that uncomfortable with cold now, after the months of navigating Skandian winter under his own power and control, but Halt would be a liar if he said he hadn’t been keeping a closer eye on him when they spent hours in the snow. And dealing with the cold while awake was an entirely different thing than trying to sleep through it.
All this passed through Halt’s mind in a moment. He patted Will’s head again. “Give me a moment,” he muttered, and went into the main room.
They were woefully unprovided with extra blankets—if this were a continuing trend, he’d have to get another for Will—so he seized on the next best thing. Ranger cloaks were high-quality wool, after all, and should keep warmth in at least as well as a thin blanket.
“There we go,” he murmured, spreading it over Will, on top of his other covers. The lad had also disarranged the bedding so it was letting in cold air, Halt noticed, frowning, and he pulled it firmly down around Will on all sides. Even as he finished, Will’s expression was smoothing out again, body language relaxing as he settled under the extra weight.
He crouched down by Will’s side anyway, resting a hand on his shoulder to double-check. “All right?” he whispered.
Will’s eyes blinked open again. “Mm-hm,” he said, meeting Halt’s gaze with a drowsy, unselfconscious smile. There was a freedom in that smile, all his barriers down, that seemed both delighted and completely unsurprised. It seemed to say at once Of course you’re here and I’m so glad you’re here. And then, in another apparently unthinking move, Will pushed his arm out from under the covers and wrapped it around Halt’s neck in a hug.
Halt let himself be pulled closer, of course, putting his own arm around Will’s back and tucking the boy’s head against his shoulder. “Thank you,” he heard muttered indistinctly—still half-asleep, still uninhibited and completely trusting—and he had to stay there for a moment, silent, as a wave of fondness for his apprentice rushed in and took his breath away.
It wasn’t any kind of major moment, of course. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t already know exactly what Will meant to him. But sometimes it was the little things that hit him—little things like the simple act of pulling a blanket over a sleeping boy, or Will’s half-asleep instinctive trust in him, or the smile that lit up his face just at Halt’s presence. The way Will’s heart lay bare and unguarded, not just because he was Will, but apparently because he recognized Halt would never knowingly hurt it.
Sometimes it was just ordinary moments like this, holding his son in a brief hug, that overwhelmed Halt with the sudden reminder of how much he’d been given.
“…All’s well, Will,” he murmured again, squeezing once and then pulling away, brushing the hair out of Will’s face as he settled down again. He smiled, inserting some mock sternness into his voice, as he added, “Now go to sleep.”
Will grinned with his eyes shut, still drowsy and unabashed, and Halt watched his breathing quickly deepen and smooth into sleep.