Disclaimer: I do not own Ranger's Apprentice, nor the characters used in this story.

(A/N): HEY SO I REALIZE I LIKE, NEVER POST ANY MORE. So here, have this one-shot that I made for the light of my life, my habibi-boo, whensthereawill.

In a situation such as the one they were in, a guard's first thought would be to shoot. The point of their job was the keep their charge safe, and that included killing the attacker if necessary. However, if someone they weren't able to kill protected the attacker, then they were in one hell of a predicament.

One wouldn't think that a situation like this would arise, especially with how tightly-knit the current grouping was. Everyone was identified, and all were within the King's trusted circle of advisers, even though the King himself wasn't actually there. And while one guard may have slipped up and let the unknown person through, no one could have messed up horribly enough to let someone else pass using the name of Will Treaty. So, obviously, when Will showed up, there wasn't the possibility of it not being Will. Meaning nothing was set up, nothing was premeditated.

All of the Redmont guards knew Will, so they let him through without a second thought. Same with Halt and Horace, who wandered in around the same time, Horace stopping to chat with a few of the guards to catch up, too, because he hadn't visited in a while and wanted to get caught up with everyone. Alyss and Pauline came together as well, talking about a case they had been working on earlier. The five of them would be meeting with Baron Arald and Rodney—a normal meeting that happened quite often. Nothing was special about it. The ID-ing was a normal occurrence, after an incident the last year in which someone had attempted to pass themselves off as Will Treaty, and had actually gotten past the guards at the gate.

Instead of meeting in Arald's office, like usual, the group had to meet in a small conference room, with a table that had quite a few too many seats for the seven of them.

The table itself was up against the wall, with the sun shining through the window and darkening everyone's faces. Baron Arald sat beside the wall on one side, with Pauline and Halt beside him. Directly across from him was Rodney. Horace sat beside him, catching up with his former teacher. Alyss sat next to Horace, and, surprisingly, Will came in last, despite being the first to be checked in with the guards. He, of course, sat down next to Alyss, taking her hand in his underneath the table, and slipping small peck on the cheek before settling down.

"So, I'm going off the assumption that no one needs to be introduced," Arald started, a sly grin on his face as he looked over his spectacles at the gathered people. While he hated having to use the glasses, it was a fact of life that he needed them, and frankly couldn't read for shit without them. He was, frankly, getting quite old, as much as he didn't want to admit it.

"Sorry, but I don't think I recognize that kid beside Rodney. Who is he and why was he let in here?" Halt sneered, tossing an old piece of charcoal across the table at Horace.

Horace scoffed, and caught the piece in his hands, "Ha ha ha," he replied, his voice monotone. Will hadn't been there for it, being on a solo mission, but apparently during a mission that just Halt and Horace were on, a spider had landed on the knight's shoulder in the dark and crawled up his neck, freaking him out and blowing their cover. Halt refused to let the younger man live that one down, and endlessly mocked him for his reaction.

Without needing to double take, Will watched out of the corner of his eye as Pauline elbowed her husband in the ribs, a small smile on her face.

"Rodney," Arald gestured towards his friend, and looked down at his papers, a smile inching across his own face.

The Battlemaster cleared his throat, and turned towards the rest of the group. "Recently, our guards have been having problems with security. Especially after last year's incident, we've been looking for ways to increase security in the needed places, but not force long hours on the guards themselves, or making it seem like we're really doing much."

"Basically, increase security without the excluded parties noticing," Will tipped his head to the side, his chin propped up by an elbow on the arm rest. Even considering the fact that the young Ranger was sitting in a straight-backed, wooden chair, he seemed to be the most comfortable in the room. He was slouched back into the seat, his knee propped up onto the chair, his other hand caressing Alyss's.

Without a second thought of his posture, Arald nodded from his seat. It was a norm. "Basically. The identification is convenient enough, but it only really works for people the guards would recognize. Say we have a courier coming from another fief; how can the guards reliably ID them? What if their clothes were stolen on the way here, and someone was impersonating them?"

Vaguely, yells could be heard through the window from the courtyard down below. Horace, distracted for a moment, turned towards the window. Arald paused as well, his eyebrows going up, while Rodney's furrowed in concern.

Only the Rangers in the room heard the door slam at the base of the tower.

Halt met Will's eyes across the table, both calculating what would be the best course of action depending on the situation.

After five minutes of waiting for something to happen, they both settled back into their chairs. The yelling had died down, and everyone else was exchanging looks of confusion.

Arald began speaking again, as if nothing had interrupted them. Pauline, Halt, or Rodney jumping in to discuss, while Horace just sat back and listened, content to take whatever the end result was and act on it. Alyss had dropped Will's hand, and was actually writing notes down, asking questions and prompting the elders.

Will, however, was no longer lounging in his seat.

He had partially gotten up when the door had slammed, alarm evident in his eyes. Much more than the situation would call for. Now he sat on a leg, with the other propped up like it had been before. The young Ranger continuously eyed the door, distrust coloring his face. One hand rubbed the arm rest—while the other rested on the hilt of his saxe. Of course the others had noticed this, but they wrote it off as nerves, which would be reasonable under all of the circumstances he was in: upcoming Gathering, solo missions, fief work, proposals, planning, meeting with monarchs, only to name a few.

That being said, the others were deep in discussion, ironically about security, when the door slammed open, admitting a young man with a haunted face and holding a wicked sharp butterfly knife.

Will was on his feet first.

Before the knife could be thrown, Will's body stood between the man and the rest of the table—and his arms were up, bare of weapons.

"HEY!" Halt yelled first, rocketing the others into delayed reactions. Guards from out in the hall were already reacting, short swords drawn, and stepping forward. But no one got far.

Despite the ruckus, Will's voice still cut through the sound, sharp and demanding. "STOP."

Silence fell. No one moved.

Will and the unknown person stood facing each other for a moment, taking each other in. With a look, Will warned off the guards that were coming up behind them, jerking his head in the direction down the stairs.

"Ranger Treaty," the boy murmured, the voice as thin as his body. The kid was skinny, wearing a brown shirt and pants, normal for the farming community. His light brown hair was dirty and greasy, though, with dark circles underneath his eyes. He was taller than the Ranger, making him look older than he was. "Move."

"You know that I won't," Will murmured, watching as the kid swung the blade, with the safe handle in his grip and the bite flying and hitting his knuckles. He flipped it back and forth, back and forth, the back of the blade bumping into his fingers. Will knew, watching the blade, that in one flick, the two handles would be together and above his head, launching into a throw. I hate butterfly knives, Will thought darkly, that was a stupid idea.

"Move," the boy repeated, his eyes flicking over Will's shoulder.

A foot scuffed the stone behind him. "Horace," Will hissed, "step closer and I will take you down after this."

"There won't be an after if you don't move, Ranger," the kid said, his voice higher pitched. The arm that held the knife was now shaking, with the handles snapped together and held balanced at Will's throat. It hadn't been like that before.

Will sighed. "Levi, please. You didn't give me a chance to help."

"You said yourself that there wasn't much you could do!" Levi cried, inching forward again. Will backed up a step, his lower back bumping into the table.

"Not much doesn't mean nothing," Will implored, nearly leaning into the blade now.

Behind him, Alyss only saw the blade. The butterfly. The razor sharpness. At night, sometimes Will would talk about his work, but not always. Something that had come up a few times though are butterfly blades. He always complained of how valuable they were in a fight, and how versatile. But at the same time, they're a pain in the ass to fight against. He hated butterfly blades, despite having on clipped to the back of his belt. He couldn't argue against their usefulness.

And then it clicked.

Where would a kid find a butterfly blade, an expensive and modern knife that even a Ranger had trouble getting a hold of?

Alyss raked her eyes down her boyfriend's back, dreading what she knew she was going to see. Will wasn't wearing his cloak, so it was clear as day that there was no butterfly clipped at his back.

"We wouldn't be in this position if those in charge would actually do something about these things," Levi snapped, drawing Alyss's attention back to the problem.

"Levi, why do you think I have a job? This kind of thing is what I do daily, and—"

"NO! They're supposed to prevent it, Ranger. What's the point of having you, if only because they," he waggled the knife at the group standing frozen behind Will, "can't do their own jobs?"

Hands still above his head, they slowly curled into fists. Will let out a tight breath. "Levi, you won't solve that by killing someone. You don't solve a dead body by creating another. Especially with something I gave you for self-defense."

The boy hesitated. There was a conflicted look in his eyes, as they flicked from Will, to the blade proffered between them, to the people Will stood in front of, protecting without a weapon in hand. Of course, if Will intended to, he would have his saxe out in less than a second, and Levi would be on the ground.

"Levi, I will help," Will whispered, "I haven't been working on anything else except your brother's murder, I promise. It kills me to know that his life was cut so short, especially so young, and these people were going to help me. But if you don't back down now, I can't do anything, and neither will they."

Silence stretched.

Will slowly dropped his hands to his sides, but purposely put them flat against his thighs so the boy would see that he wasn't planning on drawing a weapon. A few more seconds went by, before Will slowly extended his hand. "Can I have the knife, Levi?"

Levi looked at Will's hand, eyes wide. He looked back up to Will, his eyes shining.

"I'm sorry."

The kid's hand closed over Will's wrist, jerking him forward and off his feet. Searing pain ripped through Will's side, a blade of ice stabbing into him. Before anyone could do anything, Levi pushed himself away from Will, who stumbled and fell to the floor with the knife still in him. Cursing, Halt pushed away from his position at the table, yelling for the guards to catch him. Alyss and Horace moved towards Will, not caring what happened to the kid.

Without help, Will got to his feet, clutching the hilt of the knife where it dug into his hip.

Guards were running down the hall, and there were yells coming from further down to where Levi must have run.

"DON'T HURT HIM," Will yelled, doubling over with the effort. Horace grabbed Will's shoulder, ready to help him, but Will shrugged his hand off. "I'm fine," he snapped, looking down at the blade.

"You have a damn knife in your side, Will, you're not 'fine'," Alyss retorted, going around to face Will. A scream traveled up the steps, and the young Ranger clenched his jaw, a sob racking his body. Will doubled over, another sob shuddering through his body.

Without a second thought seemingly, the Ranger straightened and pulled the knife out of the wound, his face paling in seconds. Blood pooled on the floor, dripping through his fingers and down his front. He gripped the knife for a moment, looking at the blood on the blade. Flipping the safe handle, the bite snapped around, and covered the blade, folding back into itself. He studied it, his mouth in a firm line, with tears falling into the lines and tracks of his face. Alyss just then realized how dirty his face was. How messy he was, and how it had obviously been a while since he had cleaned up.

Something had been keeping him from his routines. Like the new mission, of a murdered boy, he had mentioned last week, where he refused to stop until he found the killer.

Suddenly, Will cursed loudly, throwing the knife, still shut, at the floor, and watched as the damned thing skidded across the room.

"Will, the doctor said you needed rest," Alyss murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder. Just like with Horace, Will shrugged it off. He stood frozen in her kitchenette, in her rooms in Redmont. The Ranger had refused to stay the night in the infirmary, and he wasn't allowed to travel back to his cabin. After hearing what had happened to Levi, Will hadn't wanted to even stay in the castle, but wasn't given much of a choice.

Levi had killed himself by jumping from a window, before a guard could stop him. His body was being kept in the infirmary, and there was no way in hell that Will would stay anywhere near it.

Like a statue, Will stood with his arms limp at his sides, staring at nothing. He wore only his pajama pants, with bare feet. His chest was bare as well, except for the bandages that wrapped tightly around his abdomen. His eyes were partially swollen from the tears. Everyone thought he would be angry, with how desperately he had tried to protect the boy, even going as far as allowing himself to get stabbed. But instead, he had just silently taken it, nodded and stood up from his spot—tears splashing on the floor, but no one saying a word.

"I'm fine," he whispered back, his head tilting with his words. He seemed to be studying something out the window.

Alyss sighed, not sure what to do. "Talk to me, Will. Tell me what happened."

"You were there. You saw what happened." Now his head dropped, his hands curling around his front to play with a loose bandage. He began to pick strings off of it.

"No, not that," Alyss tried, "Before. What happened that caused this? You mentioned a brother."

Her question had the reaction of a slap to Will. He flinched, and jerked away from her. "I—I, no. Alyss, I don't want to talk about it."

Resting a hand on his arm, Alyss smiled sadly, and nodded. "Then come to bed, babe. You need to rest."

When he didn't move, Alyss slid her hand down his arm, and took his hand. She tugged his wrist, and started to lead him towards her bedroom. He followed without a word, studying the back of her head with a small pout. She dropped Will's hand as she climbed into bed, but turned and gestured for him to get in bed beside her when she had settled. Will hesitated, but slowly got in beside her, favoring the side that had been stabbed. Before he settled, however, he paused, and slipped a hand into a back pocket. He set something metal on the nightstand beside him.

Then he fell into the bed, his body sinking into the padding as if it were a cloud.

He laid still for a moment, before shifting his head so he could look at Alyss. "Alyss?" he murmured, his voice tired.

"Hmm?" she responded, rolling over so she could look at him.

"Can . . . Can you come closer?" He chuckled, his voice getting softer. "I can't move that much," he added as he lifted his arm partially, and brushed it against his thigh.

A smile flickered across Alyss's face. She scooted across the bed a little, twining her legs with Will's. Cupping the back of his head, she leaned him against her chest, and put her head atop his. Will's arms slipped around her waist, pulling her closer until they were as close as his injury could handle.

"Thank . . ." Will trailed off, his head dipping down partially. His breath evened out, his body going completely limp.

Alyss stayed awake, trailing her free hand up and down his spine, hoping that it would help his taunt muscles.

A few hours after Will had dozed off, she was still awake. Her eyes had flicked over to the item Will had placed on the nightstand, and had stuck, freezing her there.

She had once asked Will, during one of his complaining sessions, why it was called a butterfly knife. He had come up with flimsy explanation that the dual handles protecting the blade mimicked the body and wings of the butterfly. And, while that was probably completely off, she could see it. It unnerved her, honestly, seeing such a wicked knife, and having it look similar to such a peaceful, beautiful creature. She no longer liked butterflies, not after what happened this day.

But, still. Butterflies had their purposes. And so did knives.