#also using a few lines from the ratty and rat sr fic from a while back for the flashback bits

[sardinesandhumbugs]

“Congratulations, you have invented a new kind of stupid.”

I think you know which two characters this is for.

A/N: I know you intended this to be Ratty & Toad, but since you didn't specify (and because someone else has actually submitted the exact same prompt & characters) I'm going to play ignorant and apply this to Mole & Ratty instead. :D Also this is set after @a-place-to-come-back-to's recent ficlet, which I've very kindly been given permission to follow up because I needed to return fire the angst.

x

Rat didn't remember much of being sick.

He supposed that was a blessing of sorts.

(In the weeks that followed, fleeting déjà vu would unsettle him – in a turn of phrase, in the looks that haunted him – but right now he was simply tired and aching and borne down with the effort of waking.)

Mole entered, and Rat blearily recalled the parting words Badger had thrown his way earlier. "I've been told," he said, aiming for humour but sounding hoarse instead, "that you might have some choice words for me."

Mole sank into the chair beside the bed, and his failure to rise to the teasing tone unnerved Rat more than he cared to admit. There was a presence in the corridor beyond the room also, that of Badger and... Toad? Their shadows caught the edge of the threshold, uncharacteristically still in the latter's case. There was a heavy silence thickening the air, the kind found on hallowed ground, or libraries.

Or funerals.

Rat decided he didn't like the last comparison.

"Mole–"

"How do you feel?"

Hadn't he already answered that for Badger only a few minutes...? Or was it an hour? Hazily, Rat realised he'd dozed in Badger's leaving and Mole's arrival, and time had slipped from him. He couldn't be sure the reddened sky was dawn or dusk, or indeed if it was even the same sunrise/set that he'd previously woken to.

Better to be dusk, he thought. Wasn't that the phrase? Red sky at night, sailor's delight? Red sky at morning, sailor's... something. Mourning? No.

"Ratty?"

Mole's prompting brought Rat back to the present, and he refocused on the question. "I feel as fit as a fiddle," Rat croaked. It wasn't in the least bit convincing, but anything to curb that grieving fear that his home had seen far too much of. "Give me another hour, and I'll be doing cartwheels."

There was a harrumph from the doorway, followed by a gruff, "Least he's feeling well enough to joke about it," that Rat suspected he wasn't meant to catch. Regardless, the crotchety tone reassured Rat. It was far more familiar than the desperate relief he'd encountered upon his first waking.

Beside him, Mole gave a snuffling, tired laugh. "You've never done cartwheels in your life."

"I've just never had need to."

"You'd trip over your tail."

"Name one time–"

"On the open road," Mole answered instantly, just a smidgen too smugly for Rat's liking. "Several times. You got rather drunk that first day in the caravan."

"Oh." Rat attempted to remember it, but between the vagueness of his post-illness mind, and the inebriated haziness of the original memory, he had no hope. "Well," he grumbled, "that was the drinks' doing, not mine."

"Sure, Ratty."

They lapsed back into silence, and Rat could feel the mood shifting as Mole prepared to broach whatever subject Badger had alluded to with his 'choice words' remark.

In the emptiness, Rat's mind eddied. It swung between the cacophony outside – the birds sang, was it in their rising or their dawn chorus? – onto if it were the latter, how sparingly had his friends slept? There was certainly the fatigue of sleepless nights about in both Mole and Badger – before the train of thought slipped away entirely in a fit of exhaustion and he was momentarily only aware of how his whole form ached.

"Why didn't you tell anyone how bad it'd gotten?" Mole eventually demanded.

"Why didn't you say how bad it was?" Ratty demands. The room is warm, too warm, and still the older animal shivers. The creeping sickness is stealing his father away in inches, but only now does Ratty see how the finishing line for this fatalistic race is a matter of feet, not miles.

His father answers in that rattling breathlessness that has become so cruelly familiar. "I didn't want you to worry."

In the here and now, Rat hesitated. "I..." The memory crowded his mind, and he refused to echo the past a second time. "I thought I'd get better. Without having to wo– without having to inconvenience anyone."

Mole snorted. "Well then, congratulations," he said. "You've invented a new kind of stupid."

Even through the post-sickness, Rat had the energy to look indignant. "I find that hard to believe when we're both familiar with Toad–"

"If you'd just admitted to this earlier, we could have got the pneumonia seen to before it got this bad," Mole snapped. "Instead I had to get Toad and the doctor involved on a matter of urgency, then fetch Badger late into the day, and Mrs Otter has been round twice, and when you wouldn't wake–" Mole faltered, anger and fear choking the words. "I don't give a fig about the inconvenience of it all, but since you do, perhaps you should have considered that before deciding that hiding it away would be a kindness."

"How long have you known?" Ratty stands in the too-hot kitchen with shaking paws. He clings to the anger. It hurts less than the grief.

"Ratty–"

"How long?"

Though his nose might not have been as sensitive as Badger's or Mole's, Rat could smell it now. The fear. Potent and tearstained and the type that preceded grief. It mingled with the scent of worm stew – one of Mrs Otter's specialities when it came to home cooked offerings for Rat's housemate – and, all in a rush, he recalled another time the house had been a recipient of the otter's culinary kindness.

"For you," Mrs Otter says, pushing the dish into Ratty's paws. "Thought you might not be eating much after... well–" she glances subtly but not subtly enough to the empty chair along the jetty, "you know."

He looked back to his friend now, the past ricocheting and overlaying the present in uncomfortable parallels. "I'm sorry. I should have – should have told you sooner."

"You should've," Mole agreed. "And we won't make that mistake again, will we?"

Rat rather felt that that was a rather pointed usage of the royal 'we.' "No, we won't."

The tap of the cane denoted Badger's entrance. It sounded louder than usual, as if Badger was leaning heavily against it. "Right then, now that's all sorted out, it's time that some animals got some sleep." He laid a paw on Mole's shoulder. "You too."

"I'm fine–" Mole began.

"Dozing on and off through the wee small hours of the night does not count as fine," Badger told him. "I'm not having two animals collapse on my watch."

With only a small amount of protesting – which betrayed just how tired he was – Mole was ushered out, leaving Badger alone at the bedside.

"So," Rat said, "I guess you're on invalid duty?"

"I'm off to fetch the doctor," Badger said. He grinned. "Toad is on invalid duty until I'm back."

As if on cue – and, to be honest, Rat couldn't be sure that Toad hadn't been waiting in the wings for the perfect entrance – Toad staggered in under a small mountain of blankets. "Don't you worry, Badge, I have this all under control! I've had my staff bring over the finest blankets from Toad Hall, so much better than any ratty old throw you probably have here, no offence, Ratty–"

"Offence taken."

"–and my chef is cooking up enough chicken soup to keep you going through 'til next spring. By the time the doctor comes round, you'll be so well recovered that she'll wonder why she was summoned."

"Toad?" Rat implored Badger. "You're leaving me alone with Toad?"

"It wouldn't have come to this if you'd come clean sooner," Badger said, with just a dash of tell-tale impishness to his words.

"I'm sick! I need rest!"

"And you'll get it," Badger said. He added, in a tone that belied a semblance of pity, "I won't be long."

"This is cruel and unusual punishment!" Rat wheezed.

The door swung shut behind Badger, and Rat was left to warily eye his assigned caretaker.

Toad, in comparison, didn't seem the least bit perturbed by Rat's outburst. He patted Rat's shoulder. "All this stress will do you no good, Ratty, but fortunately, Toad is on the case and I know just what you need."

"Peace and quiet?" Rat offered hopefully.

"Entertainment! Distraction! And, luckily for you, I happen to have discovered the most intriguing hobby. You see, it began last week while I was dropping by the town, and who should I encounter, but..."

Rat didn't remember much of being sick. But, it turned out, he would remember every moment of the recovery.

Whether or not he wanted to.