( He's not proud of it, but by the time Kyle and Jerry manage to track him down, Jack can barely walk. He's at the very end of his physical endurance, of his mental endurance, of his general stamina. What starvation and dehydration didn't manage to sap away, the cold and the ritual finished off. His core temperature is low, the lesions on his arms aren't healing, his cheeks are gaunt. Jerry practically carries him bridal-style across the threshold of the hospital-hotel.

There, for the first time in weeks, Jack actually sleeps. It's a full six hours — which is kind of an unprecedented amount for him, given, he's accustomed to maybe an hour every other night or so. He can be found there for the duration of the recovery week, bedridden for the first few days, but eventually emerging for a pathetically weak walk around the square with a babysitter to escort him — probably solicited by the volunteers working at the time, to make sure he doesn't fall and bite the dust like a moron.

Unfortunately, those six hours of sleep are a rare feat that aren't easy to replicate. When it comes time for him to take the cure and have any extra growths cut away or lesions tended to surgically, he can't go back under again. Even the most potent sleep sap won't fully knock him out, it just puts him into an intoxicated, dream-like state where he may or may not accidentally refer to anybody in proximity as Jeeves and assume they're a British butler. Particularly if they happen to be his roommate in the infirmary.

He'll come through it fine with no memory of doing that, and you cannot convince him he did. )