Archive of Our Own

When she falls, Ashe hears her. He’s near the monastery’s wall when it happens, sniping a band of soldiers that are trying to edge around all the chaotic action of the dragon – the dragon! – showing up, and he hears a raw, fearful scream that hauntingly fades. It shocks him for a moment, because it sounds like her, oh goddess no – but no, he thinks rolling out of the way of the counterattacking archer that his moment of distraction has exposed him to, it can’t be. She’s never expressed that strong of an emotion, or sounded like that, not even when her father died. She’s fine! Their professor is the kind of person that gets thrown into a void and comes back with green hair and the power of a god. It’s nothing. It’s not her.

He’s so sure of this that he thinks it’s a joke when Dimitri bites out, bitterly, “She’s gone. She fell off the cliff.”

“That’s impossible,” someone says, and it takes him a stunned moment to realize that it’s Annette that said it, her voice high and even more child-like, and not his own inner monologue of impossible impossible she survives everything impossible –

“They took her from us,” Dimitri growls, his eyes narrowed. He’s not even looking at them. “She’s dead.”

“No,” Annette says, “no – “

Bernadetta, sweet, scared Bernie, who runs away from everyone but has become Byleth’s little shadow at the monastery recently, yells “Stop lying to us, that’s so cruel – “ at the crown prince of Faerghus like it’s nothing, because it is nothing. Because there’s nothing about this situation that Ashe can even begin to fathom.

“How,” he asks, his voice wavering, “how – “

“She survived being thrown into another dimension,” Sylvain says, laughing, “I’m sure Dimitri just took his eyes off her for a second and lost sight – “

“When the boar gets like this,” Felix says acidly, “he thinks the worst of everything because he’s blind in his stupidity.” And that sounds right. That sounds more like what happened. That has to be –

“No,” Dedue says heavily. He looks impossibly sad, in a way that Ashe has only seen when he talks about Duscur. And when Dedue, the man who it seems has never uttered a lie in his lie, wretchedly says “No. It happened. What His Highness says is true,” something in Ashe crumples and dies.

.

Bernadetta leaves without a backwards glance, immediately. Ashe doesn’t fault her. It took everything in her to stay in their house, to stay by them while her home was thrown into turmoil and her empress started a war. Without Byleth there, he doubts Bernadetta has any connection strong enough worth staying and fighting for.

The others from the Black Eagle house that their professor unsurprisingly managed to woo over to help them with their battles leave more slowly. Ferdinand is mute in shock and defeat, but he leaves with the promise to keep in touch and be there if help is needed.

“After all,” he says as straps the last of his bags to his horse, “what do I have left to do, anyway? House Aegir is dead.”

“She wouldn’t want you to think like that,” Mercedes says firmly. She and Ashe have become an unofficial departing party for everyone, because Mercedes is the only one left with energy to cook and prepare and make sure people are taken care of as they leave, and Ashe to help with the cooking and the kind words. Ingrid drops by when she can, but she’s scouting, all the time, exhausted as she takes the few Pegasus Knights that haven’t been slaughtered on patrols as often as possible.

The Imperial Army sends forces nearly every week, testing and trying to see if they’ll fall completely. Some people are determined to see it through to the end, steadfast in their belief that Garrag Mach will never fall. The goddess is watching over them, they say. This is a holy place. Edelgard wouldn’t dare. She wouldn’t dare.

For all his dreams of knighthood and valor, Ashe is no fool. He knows what a losing situation looks like.

Ferdinand laughs, quietly, bitterly. “Of course not. But without our professor to guide us, I confess I’m finding it hard to hold on to her advice.” He sighs as he swings up onto the saddle of his horse. “I will try, Mercedes, to be the man our professor thought I could be. I hope I see you all in better times.”

Petra takes off as soon as she recovers enough from her injuries to be able to travel. Caspar goes with her, promising to deliver her safely. At the last moment, Linhardt and Marianne decide to use Caspar to safely get home too.

“After?” Caspar tries to laugh at Ashe’s question, but it’s flat and fake, and he trails off. “After…I think I’ll wander. I have nothing left to go back to.” He leaves an address to send word to that he promises to check at least once every few months, and then the last of the Imperial students are gone. The monastery is getting very empty these days.

Then the news breaks of the Alliance faltering. Claude leaves, taking most of his house with him. Lorenz departs in the dead of night, confused and torn by his loyalties. Lysithea, looking older than ever, goes home to look after her parents. Dorothea and Manuela toss a coin on who should depart for the capital to check on the opera company, and though Manuela wins she’s eventually forced to concede that her wounds won’t let her travel as quickly as the younger songstress, and so Dorothea takes off. Ignatz and Raphael leave soon after, to make sure their families are alright. Of everyone that leaves, the last two are the ones that promise to come back.

“Don’t,” Ashe forces the words out. “I don’t think there’s going to be anything to come back to.”

Ignatz frowns. “Surely His Highness has plans to defeat Edelgard and restore the peace!”

Ashe thinks of how Dimitri spends all his time lately, slaughtering the Imperial troops that come near Garreg Mach, rending soldier’s heads from their bodies and crushing their necks with his bare hands. Dedue, ever his watchful shadow, does not accompany him on those trips. Ashe often wonders if Dedue truly doesn’t know what the prince is doing, or is choosing not to see.

Ashe shakes his head slowly as Ignatz’s expression falls. “No,” he says regretfully, “I don’t believe that’s happening anytime soon.”

.

Then, it’s just their own, original house left. They’re trying, they’re all trying so hard to pretend like nothing is different, like they can go on like this, but –

“I can’t do this,” Felix says bluntly at their daily morning enforced meetings. Dimitri is only there because they hold these meetings wherever he’s most likely to be. Today, as per usual, its in the knights training area. Dimitri’s whacking away at reinforced training dummies while the rest of them are clustered on benches. “I’m not going to sit around and wait for our crazy prince to come out of his own bloodthirst long enough to fight back. I have my own problems to take care of us. The boar might not spare a thought for the Kingdom, but the Kingdom is still sparing a thought for him. I need to defend my territory.”

There’s a long, uncomfortable silence before Sylvain speaks up.

“I hate to say it,” he says apologetically, “but it’s true. I need to get back to Gautier territory before all hell breaks loose.”

“Lonato’s lands are in turmoil under House Rowe,” Ashe says. “I have no claim to them, but…they’re my people. I must go help them in any way that I can.” It’s what a true knight under Lord Lonato would do, he thinks to himself.

“Galatea as well.” Ingrid shakes her head. “I know I’m one of the few with pegasi left here, but I need to take her home with me and defend our borders. I don’t know how long it’ll be until war finds us, and I need to prepare my people as best I can.”

Annette glances at Mercedes. “I…there are a lot of places that could use our help. But we can’t abandon the monastery. Can we?”

“If I may,” Catherine says, “the Knights of Seiros could really use your help – “

“The Knights of Serios are focused on finding Rhea. They couldn’t care less what happened to our professor, or what will happen to the Kingdom,” Felix drawls.

Alois holds his hands up. “Now hang on a moment!” he says, truly angry. “I made a promise to Jeralt to protect Byleth, and I will! I won’t give up on her!”

Ashe watches as Felix’s hand goes to the pommel of his sword, his grip white-knuckled. “You idiots aren’t getting the bigger picture,” he spits out. “There’s a war going on. If you cared, you would use your might to fight back, not search for the dead in the rubble of a place that’s fated to fall.”

Catherine stands up, angry as well, but Felix doesn’t even spare her a glance as he stands from his chair and stalks out the door. “Come back here – “ the older knight begins, but Shamir grabs her arm and pulls her down.

“Let them go, Catherine. Even the Knights are entitled to make their own choices. You choose Rhea. They choose to fight for what Rhea believed in. Is it really so different?”

Catherine sits down heavily. “And you, Shamir? What do you choose?”

Shamir looks away. “You know my loyalty was with Rhea. Not with the church. I want to find her as badly as you do, but…other people need me. Other people who are here, who haven’t disappeared.”

“So this is it, then.” Alois looks around at the people left. “This is goodbye.”

Ashe looks at Dedue. “Is it?” he asks. Say the word, he thinks silently, say his Highness needs us to fight for him. Say he’ll become the Dimitri we know, and he needs us as knights. If you say it, I will believe it.

Dedue looks back steadily. “I will follow his Highness to the end of the world,” he says. “But I cannot recommend that you all throw your lives away for that same reason. One day – “ he shakes his head and is silent for a moment, lost in thoughts. “One day, he will be glad for your choices today. Of that, I am sure.”

.

He doesn’t stay for long after that. He doesn’t want to be the only one left, and he doesn’t want to keep seeing her ghost in every move that anyone makes. It hurts to see the empty spaces where all his classmates used to be, hurts to walk past the banners of the three houses, hurts to look at the greenhouse where the gardener is faithfully watering the last plants she so carefully planted.

“Flowers,” she’d explained to him cheerfully when he’d walked past her and said hello. “I think if I give enough of these to Leonie, she’ll want to join our class for a bit before we graduate. And maybe even Lorenz.”

“Oh!” Ashe had laughed. “Interesting idea, professor. It certainly would liven up our classroom, especially if Leonie were anywhere near Sylvain.”

“I didn’t even think of that.” Her eyes had widened. She’d grown so much more expressive, almost carefree with the way she dispatched her emotions, like something in her had unlocked in the past few months. When she smiled – well, there was a reason that nearly all of the students across all the houses kept coming back to her classroom.

He wants those moments back. He wants them back so badly that he still doesn’t think she’s really dead. Some part of him is waiting for her to open up another hole in the sky and drop out, her hair even lighter this time.

“I know what you mean,” Ingrid says when he goes to say goodbye and they fall into a sorrowful conversation about the ghosts of the monastery. “It’s…hard to deal with. Especially because usually, for any problem like this…”

“We’d go to her for advice,” Ashe says, shaking his head. “I’d better head off. I’ll post letters to Count Galatea’s home?”

Ingrid nods. “That’s where you’ll find me. And, well, if you can’t reach me there, I’m probably – “

“Don’t say it,” Ashe says, shaking his head. “I don’t like that thought at all.”

“Just being practical.” Ingrid looks steadily at him for a moment. “Ashe…she’d want you to be happy.”

Ashe shakes his head. “Of course. She’d want all of us to be happy. It’s just hard to – to figure out what that means right now.”

“No, I meant she’d want you to – oh, never mind. You’ll get it one day.” Ingrid draws him in for a hug. “Be safe.”

“You too,” he says, and then that’s it. He leaves the entrance hall, nodding to the gatekeeper, climbs on a horse, and that’s the end of his time as a student of the Officer’s Academy.

He gets a few miles down the road before he looks back to see the towering spires of the monastery, and it’s a familiar enough sight but something in him breaks, to his horror, and tears begin to flow down his face.  

He misses her. He misses her so much. He misses her as the professor who read archery books by candlelight just to help him and Bernadetta figure out how to shoot further. As the friend that listened to him tripping over himself and making excuses for a valiantly foolish acts and smiled and told him he did something good. As someone who awoke something warm and longing in him whenever she smiled.

He’s never getting her back. He’s never going to see her smile, or hear her rare laugh, the sound like the first ray of the sun after a snowstorm.

Mourning, he thinks, I’m finally in mourning. And he doesn’t like how final that is, how heart-wrenchingly awful the knowledge is that she’s dead, and he can’t do anything about it.

.

War is ugly, and he spends the remaining part of the year trudging back and forth between the border, protecting people from bandits and thieves and looting, pillaging soldiers from the Empire. The instant House Rowe swears to the Empire, he resigns without a second glance backwards and fights as a knight for his village instead. He hates killing people without a team around him, hates not knowing if what he’s doing is right or wrong. Still, he’s trying his best.

But he’s so tired, all the time. He tries to be cheerful, for the sake of his brother and sister, but he mourns. He reads book after book about brave, dashing knights and imagines the kind of book he could write about her, the young woman who changed her whole life for the sake of guiding a handful of young men and women who were lost and struggling. The Ashen Demon, but to them – just Professor.

Gaspard territory is far from Fhirdiad, so the news takes time to arrive. By the time it does, the execution date has passed. When he hears it, he falls to his knees in the middle of the town square.

She would be so devastated, he thinks, and he sees it in his head, the prince, dragged into a cell, dark-eyed and furious, spitting out speeches about death and destruction. He didn’t deserve that. None of them deserve this. Nothing could be – what is Edelgard thinking, how can she do this –

The Officer’s Academy seems like a lifetime away, like a dream where they all got along and trained together. A foolish, foolish dream.

Felix was right, he thinks. Too idealistic. Too invested in that dream.

.

Time passes. A year, two years. He learns how to be himself completely again, how to fight and prepare and strategize. Sylvain requests help at one point, and Ashe makes the long trek north, skirting around the capital. Ingrid meets him when he’s near Galatea, and they fly the rest of the way there. Felix and Caspar are there as well.

“I never went back home,” Caspar says, shrugging, when Ashe asks. “It just wasn’t…right.”

“You remind me of a knight,” Ashe says, in awe at Caspar being able to defect and keep his principles. “Always willing to do the right thing.”

Caspar smiles and pumps a fist in the air. “Professor always said I could be good!” Quietly, he adds. “It’s the first rash decision I’ve made that I haven’t regretted…and it’s all thanks to her, you know? I wish she were around to see us now.”

Ashe agrees, but he thinks about Dimitri’s death. Dedue, last he heard, has disappeared. Gloucester and Riegan are at each other’s throats. Bernadetta’s too afraid to leave Varley, and for once Ashe wouldn’t want her to. Sylvain and Felix are worn out, fighting to keep the Kingdom from being overrun with few resources. Ingrid is stretched thin, flying absurd distances to get to messages, people, fights. Everyone is unhappy and acutely aware of the fact that they’re not winning.

He wishes she weren’t dead, but now, even more, he wishes that her death had meant something other than the loss of hope.

.

Another two years pass. He sees Ferdinand once, and convinces him to check in on Bernadetta, Linhardt, and Dorothea. That results in Linhardt penning a lengthy letter to Ashe complaining about how difficult it is to study Lysithea when the latter is a whole country away. Bewildered, Ashe writes back asking why Lysithea is being studied, and never gets an answer, but he still hunts around for a while until he manages to contact Shamir and asks her to help with connecting Lysithea and Linhardt.

Somehow, without even realizing it, Ashe becomes a go-between for their old allies. He keeps meticulous track of where people are and how to reach them, and it feels useful, to have a network of people. He manages to track down Ignatz and Raphael, who begin to pose as merchants and make it much easier to go between territories. Though the war seems never ending and cruel, it finally feels like he’s fighting for something good.

Three years to the day that the Empire attacked the monastery, he’s passing through a village near Remire when he has a dream about the Holy Tomb. That in itself isn’t unusual, but he dreams of a high, childish voice echoing around the throne, imperiously demanding that he wake her up! Wake her up! Are you a fool? Wake her up!

He shakes it off, and pays it almost no mind as he continues to Galatea. He meets with Ingrid, helps her deal with an aggressive fork of Cornelia’s army, and then travels back through the same village, when he has the same dream.

This time, the voice tells him you’re all the same! So stupid! She was stupid too, but at least she listened to me! Are you listening?

He can’t speak, can’t do anything. He doesn’t know the voice, and yet feels like he does. He shakes it off in a daze, but he spends an extra night in the village. Just in case.

That night, the voice tells him she dreams of you, you know. Pale blue hair, green eyes, freckles…you are the one I’m looking for, right?

That’s me, Ashe thinks dazedly. That’s me. She – she dreams – who is she –

She lives, the voice says. She lives. Please. She is so weak, but she lives. Her body is building itself back up again. But – she lives.

He doesn’t dare hope. He needs answers.

.

It’s unfortunate for him that despite his network of allies, when he needs them the most, the only ones he manages to find are the Knights of Seiros. And, of all the Knights, Gilbert. The tall, somber, imposing man who’s never even spoken a word to Ashe, and who Ashe is pretty sure is, for some as yet unexplained reason, Annette’s missing father.

“I got your request,” Gilbert says. He doesn’t smile. “The Holy Tomb…I did not even know it existed until the ritual Rhea commanded for Byleth. But now you want to go back.”

Under Gilbert’s withering stare, Ashe has to steel his resolve and stand taller. He’s a seasoned warrior too now. He knows what he’s doing. He’s determined to see it through.

“I had a dream,” Ashe says. “More like…a premonition. I saw the tomb, and I heard a voice. I think it’ll be clearer if I can get closer to the source.”

“And why does this dream matter?”

“Because – “ Ashe hesitates, and then forges on. “Because it implied that the battle for Garreg Mach didn’t go the way we thought it did. There’s something we’re missing.”

Gilbert is silent for so long that Ashe feels like he’s asking for something blasphemous. A knight, he thinks, I am a knight of the Kingdom. I am a champion for all that is good and just in this world. “I wouldn’t ask it of the Knights of Seiros unless I was sure it was a worthy cause. For all of us. For what you’re looking for as well.”

Gilbert bows his head. “I do not doubt that. I will accompany you on this journey.”

“Oh, thank you!” Ashe says, relieved. “I heard rumors about beasts living in the ruins of the monastery, and I wasn’t sure I could face them by myself.”

Gilbert shakes his head. “There are thieves at the base, in the old town, that is true. But in the monastery…it is no beast. And yet, I fear it all the same.”

.

The piles of dead Imperial soldiers make his skin crawl, and he retches as they pick their way past rubble and rotting corpses.

“Who could do this,” Ashe asks, “who?” But Gilbert remains silent on the subject and shakes his head sadly.

“Not yet,” he says. “It isn’t yet time confront that. If what you are looking for really is a sign, then the time will come soon.”

“That’s very cryptic,” Ashe mutters.

The Holy Tomb is, stunningly, just as he remembers it – broken from their fight in it a little over four years ago, but looking as if it’s been left along since. It looks like the thieves – and the soldiers – never quite managed to make their way to it.

It brings back terrible, terrible memories for Ashe. He hates this place. He hates what it represents. He hates that her shadow still clings to everything, but he thinks – hope. He needs hope. So he goes up to the tall, imposing throne, and he clasps his hands and prays.

Please, he thinks, and he doesn’t even know what he’s pleading for, but he knows that it hurts. Please.

There is silence.

He hears Gilbert’s breathing behind him. Everything is still in the world. Ashe can feel something desperate and sharp growing in his chest.

And then –

Finally! You are here! Are all humans this slow, or is it just my bad luck to always find the slow ones?

Ashe nearly weeps in relief as the high-pitched child’s voice comes back, louder and more insistent before.

“I thought you were a dream,” he says looking up at the throne. “I thought I was making you up.”

How could you make up something like me? I’m much smarter than you, you know!”

“You said she was alive.” A tear slips down his face, and the sharp thing in his chest shatters. “I have spent so long wishing for just that, for the impossible. I have told myself exactly what you told me, in so many ways, so many times, over the last four years.”

Four years? The voice grows quiet, and suddenly sad. Oh no. Has it really been that long?

Ashe bows his head in grief. From behind him, he can hear Gilbert mutter “Who is that boy talking to?” but he can’t bear it any mind when the weight of four years suddenly seems to land on his shoulders. Countless innocent lives, lost. Countless soldiers, just following orders, trying to make a living, dead by his own hand. So much destruction and sorrow.

I...I didn’t know the voice says. All I know is, she is alive. Byleth is alive.

His heart shatters and reforms in the space of those three words, and he collapses to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.

.

She needs more time still, the voice ends up telling him. Her body is slow to heal, like all mortals. Another year should do it.

Ashe will give her a year, a decade, a century. Anything, anything. He hadn’t realized the extent of that promise, the extent of how much she mattered, until he’d been presented with the chance for her to be alive again. It’s enough to unlock the well of emotion he’s been keeping tight control over for the last four years.

She dreams, the voice reveals to him over the next few days, getting quieter and quieter as he travels away from Garreg Mach with the promise to return soon. She is waiting for a day, a specific time. Something about a promise? It is strong enough to pull her back into the world of the living, but only on that day. We are so tired…

It’s okay, Ashe thinks, it’s okay. She remembers the promise. Even in death, she clings to helping them. She clings to loyalty. No knight that Ashe admires can say the same.

The last thing he hears before the connection with the mysterious voice cuts off is she dreams the most about you. That’s why I could reach you. In her dreams, she smiles around you.

Ashe doesn’t know what to make of that.

.

He’s bursting with the news, but he has to be careful, oh so careful. It has to be done in secret, in silence, under cover of the night so that Edelgard doesn’t know until the very last second that the one woman in the world she was afraid of killing is back. He writes and scraps letter after letter, and almost sets out himself on a year long trip to personally track down every person and force them to come back with him.

In the end, he makes one trip to Galatea, and asks Sylvain and Felix to be there too. They meet at Ingrid’s home, and Felix says, looking harried, “I know you’ve helped us out a lot, but you better have a good reason for calling us away from the battlefront at such a crucial time. I’m serious, Ashe.”

“So am I. Thank you for trusting me enough to come here,” Ashe says earnestly. He motions at the chairs set up. “Maybe you should sit down for this, though.” Ingrid and Sylvain both sit, looking curiously at him, but Felix remains stubbornly standing, narrowing his eyes. Ashe grins.

“Byleth is alive,” he says. “I know where she is.”

Felix sits down heavily.

“What?” Ingrid leans forward, her eyes growing wide. “You wouldn’t joke about this, would you?”

Sylvain’s forehead is pinched. “I want to believe this Ashe, I really do, but she’s dead. We all know.”

Ashe shakes his head. “They never found her body, did they? Remember how just before…everything, we went to the Holy Tomb because the goddess spoke to her?”

“Of course.”

“The goddess spoke to me too.”

Felix sighs and puts his head in his hands. “This is getting more and more ridiculous.”

“Trust me, I realize how crazy the entire thing sounds.” Ashe says. “But I know it’s right. I can feel it.”

There’s silence for a while as they all look away from him, wrestling with some inner demons that he feels he shouldn’t be witness to. Sylvain’s face is contorted with fury for a brief second before it smooths out.

“What the hell,” he says, “I’m in. One year, the date of when the festival should have been? I’ll be there.”

Ingrid nods. “I trust you, Ashe. And I want her to be there, so badly, so I’ll go.”

They all look expectantly at Felix, who finally, slowly raises his head. He looks – miserable, for lack of a better word.

“She did so much for me,” he says hoarsely. “Put so much faith in me. Pushed me when I needed it. Asked for nothing back. So, yeah. I’ll be there. Not for you, but for her. It’s the least I can do.”

Ashe exhales hard, relived, and beams at all of them. His heart is light, floating away somewhere in the clouds. “I’m so glad!” he says. “I just need to let everyone else know to come to the monastery – oh.” He sobers up. “There’s one more thing about Garrag Mach you should know, though.”

“Is it the beasts?” Ingrid asks, frowning. “I heard there’s some kind of monster – “

“No,” Ashe says, thinking of the flash of dirty, long blonde hair he’d caught when he and Gilbert had made their way back down the mountain. “There was never a monster. There is, however, someone else who needs to see her.”

.

A year passes in a flurry of time. Before he knows it, he is on the slopes of the monastery, his heart in his throat, when he passes by the grounds where he knows actual thieves are roaming and he hears shouting and grunting.

“Dimitri, up ahead!” someone yells, and he freezes. His heart stops beating. He knows that voice. He knows that voice.

He is five years older and five years wiser and five years more heartbroken. This time, he turns around and runs to her aid.

.

“Your hair,” is the first thing she says, serenely observing him. Well, no. The first thing she did, surprisingly, was call his name with obvious delight and pull him into a hug, just like she did for everyone. The second thing, though, when everyone breaks for the night to unroll their meager camping supplies and set up through the monastery, is to touch his shoulder as he’s walking away and look wonderingly at his new style.

“Oh!” Ashe self-consciously raises his hand and tucks more of it behind his ear. “Yes! I let it grow longer for a while. Is it bad?”

“No, no.” She smiles at him. “I like it very much. It makes you look…older.”

Ashe laughs. “I am older! You’re the one, I think, that isn’t?”

Byleth tilts her head. “I suppose so.”

“It’s hard to tell,” Ashe says. “We never could figure out your age, even five years ago, so maybe you have aged and it just doesn’t show.”

“Oh,” She self-consciously touches her face. “Don’t tease me. I was a child once too.” She begins to walk, and he follows after her, curious as she strides forward with purpose.

“Where are you going?” he asks. He should leave her alone like everyone else has, should ask if she really wants his company, but – she was the one who stopped him. He wants to believe that she wants his company. That she missed him as much as he missed her.

She’d dreamt of him. He’s still turning around what that might mean to him. (Or what that might mean to her.)

“The greenhouse,” she says. “It wasn’t destroyed, right? There’s damage to some of the walls, but most of the monastery seems intact.”

“Oh, I believe so.” Ashe looks at her and smiles. “Your first thought is for your flowers?” She doesn’t look at him, but he delights in the tinge of pink that graces her cheeks at that.

“Those flowers are what convinced so many of Edelgard’s allies to join us,” she says. “Little things matter in times like these.”

He looks away thinks of the long years they all spent without tiny flowers carefully presented to them by the fearsome Ashen Demon, her determination shining through her slight smile. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely, “little things do matter.”

There’s another, light touch to his shoulder. “Ashe?” He turns back to her and smiles at the way the moonlight is streaming over her pale hair. The heaviness in his heart is still there, but now it feels a little more bearable.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “Look, here’s the greenhouse.”

Byleth lingers for a second, looking at him, but she lets it go. They both carefully pick their way past the overgrown hedges and enter the building to see a wild, overgrown mess. Weeds and plants fight for space, carpeting the floor and the sides of the building. It smells stronger in here, like a forest in autumn, choking under the weight of dead leaves never pruned or swept away. But it’s all there, alive and intact.

Byleth strides forward and pushes her way into the mess purposefully. “Oh,” she says sadly, “they’re still here.”

Ashe follows, stepping into the narrow space behind her. He’s much taller than her now, he realizes with a jolt, and he looks over her shoulder at the flower she’s cradling in her hands. “Is that…that’s one of the plants Dedue tended to often, isn’t it?”

“A Duscur rose,” she breathes out. She tugs on the flower gently and it falls off the stem easily, already half withered-away. It’s a quiet, ethereal moment as she turns around, and they’re suddenly so close. Ashe’s breath catches. Her eyes are sad, but she’s smiling up at him, radiant in the stillness of the night.

Oh, he thinks, and his heart turns over in his chest. Oh.

“A reminder that even in the middle of adversity, beautiful things can blossom,” she says. Ashe hesitantly brings up a finger and touches a petal, thumb smoothing over it as he looks back at her.

“It’s…good to have you back Professor.”

“Byleth,” she tells him. “Call me Byleth. After all,” and there it is, that half-smile that he thought he’d never see again, “you do seem to be older than me now.”

“Oh?” Ashe’s mind races. “So you really were only twenty-one – or, no, hmm, you could have been twenty – this really is going to bother me, this timeline – “

She laughs, clear and bright. “Ashe…”

“Yes?” He smiles at her, and it’s easy again to think of everything good and right in this world, to remember what they’re fighting for suddenly.

“It’s good to see you,” she tells him. “It’s – so good to see you alive, and whole, and healthy. And I – I’m glad you held true to our promise, all those years ago.”

He swallows hard. “There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be,” and finally, finally, five years of aimless struggle has come to an end.

.

Rebuilding the monastery is hard, but what’s harder is not quite knowing what to do next. Byleth is unsure with this new version of Dimitri, and Ashe feels like she’s just one second away from wresting complete control from the prince and dictating their movements herself. But she bites her tongue, and keeps offering her hand to the brooding older man.

Ashe misses the Dimitri they all once knew, who was so righteous and committed to the ideals of knighthood. Seeing someone he admired so much become careless with his morals and actions stings in a way that makes it uncomfortable for him to spend too much time around Dimitri.

He sees her, once, trying to talk to Dimitri in the cathedral. He can tell when she’s rebuffed, by the way her shoulders stiffen as she tries to hold in her fury and grief at the callousness that the prince displays now. She turns and walks away, defeated, and Ashe catches her eye.

She brightens visibly and Ashe immediately forgets what he came here for in the first place and drifts instead to meet her in the middle.

“Ashe! Would you walk with me? I need some air, I think.”

“Of course,” he says, smiling at her. “It would be my pleasure.”

“What have you been doing today?” she asks, and they meander around the castle walls as he tells her how much supplies they’ve been able to acquire from Ignatz and Raphael’s latest collection from their network of merchants. She talks about the requests for assistance they’ve received that week, and the careful planning she’s begun so that they can optimize their time. The conversation turns to teams of people, and then she stops suddenly.

“I never asked you,” she exclaims, “what you were up to in the five years we were apart! Ingrid, Felix, and Sylvain all mentioned how vital you were to their resistance efforts, but when I pressed Ingrid further about you, she told me I needed to ask you myself.”

Ashe’s throat goes dry at the many, many letters he penned to Ingrid pouring out his misery at still missing Byleth, trying to do good in the world for the sake of their old professor.

“Oh,” he says, and he can feel his cheeks flaming red, “she did, did she.”

Byleth leans against the castle wall. “Why do you look like you went out and committed crimes during that time?” she asks, teasing.

“No,” Ashe says hurriedly, “of course not! I – well. I served under House Rowe until they swore fealty to the Empire. Then I just helped out in the village.”

“And somehow kept a network of allies throughout the continent.”

“No, of course – well I suppose so, but I wouldn’t put it like that,” Ashe says. “That makes it seem far grander than it actually was.”

“It is grand,” Byleth insists stubbornly. “It must have been a lot of traveling and keeping inconspicuous, a lot of careful planning.”

Ashe shrugs and leans against the wall too, his shoulder barely brushing hers. “It was a good, productive thing to keep my mind focused. And all that travelling turned out to be useful, because I doubt I would have been close enough to the monastery to find you otherwise.”

Byleth stiffens next to him and, too late, Ashe replays what he said in his mind.

“Find me?” She asks incredulously. “You…found me? I thought…the promise…you all made it seem like you came back on a whim.”

“Oh,” Ashe rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “The promise was important, just not in the way you assume.” She keeps staring at him, bewildered, and so he slowly explains hearing the voice and coming to the Holy Tomb. He leaves out the part about her dreams, because he doesn’t think he was meant to know that at all.

“Ashe,” she says wonderingly when he finishes explaining, her eyes luminous and wondering, “you saved me.”

He laughs kindly. “It was nothing. I was just in the right place, at the right time – “

She shakes her head. “No,” she says forcefully, “no, I don’t think that was it. Dimitri’s been here for quite some time, and I’m sure Sothis never reached out to him. I think…she knew everything I knew. She knew all of you, and she made a choice, Ashe.”

“I’m glad she did,” Ashe tells her honestly. “I would have done anything to get you back. Losing you for the last five years…it’s been one of the hardest things that I – that any of us have had to face.”

“It wasn’t quite the same for me, was it?” she muses. “It felt like a deep, long rest…but I didn’t have to face the horror of losing all of you. I simply dreamed.”

“Good dreams, I hope,” Ashe says, heart in his throat.

She doesn’t even hesitate. “The best.”

.

He goes to Ingrid about it first, because she understands him and his ideals. She’ll know what to do.

“I think,” he tells her over a rare moment where they can sit and relax for tea before they take off for the next impossible mission a continent away, “Byleth – I think I – she – “ he groans and puts his head in his hands.

“You like her,” Ingrid says happily. “Of course. I always knew.”

Ashe stares at her in shock. “What?” Her face falls.

“Oh, was that not it? Oh no, please don’t think anything of my comment – “

“No, it,” he straightens up and clears his throat, “you’re right.”

“Oh!” Ingrid beams again. “I’m so glad you’ve figured it out!”
Ashe knocks a biscuit off the table in his nervousness and spends some time rescuing it and disposing of it before he sits back down heavily and just keeps looking at Ingrid.

“How could you have possibly known?” he asks her, bewildered. “I’m fairly sure this was recent.”

“Oh, of course, no doubt about it. But you know, the way you two looked at each other always reminded me of two knights from a tale I read as a child. The potential for more, hovering underneath the surface!” Ingrid looks so earnest and starry-eyed about it that Ashe almost forgets that this is an embarrassing conversation about him. Almost.

“The two of us? No,” he says, “I’m fairly sure I’m just…hopeless about this. She has much better things to attend to than me.”

“Ashe!” Ingrid scolds. “Byleth would never think that. She prioritizes you. I mean, she prioritizes the rest of us, but she looks more peaceful when she’s with you. You’re very good for each other. And besides, you were the one that brought us all back to her.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Ashe protests weakly.

Ingrid leans forward, her brow furrowing in thought. “I don’t know why you refuse so adamantly to seize the chances in front of you,” she says sadly, and he suddenly feels horrible for venting this problem to her unthinkingly. “We’re in the middle of a war. Nothing is guaranteed. Remember how awful it was when we thought she was dead?”

He shudders. “I never want to feel like that again.”

Ingrid nods. “We never know how much time we have. And the force of your faith to her brought us all together. No matter what you think, I believe that kind of faith is going to win the war. So please, Ashe, don’t think that what you’re feeling doesn’t matter or deserves to be silenced. It matters. You can choose to do with it what you will, but your heart matters.”

.

He’s afraid. He’s afraid of what he feels and how much he feels and how intense and deep this longing is, now that he’s allowing himself to feel it. He wants to hold her hand. He wants to win this war for her. He wants to see her smile, blooming through adversity, believing in the good in him.

He wants her to be happy. Above all else, he wants her to be happy. And the knight in him knows that that means putting his feelings aside and figuring out how to support her, no matter what it takes from him.

.

“Ashe?” she surprises him in the greenhouse late one night. “Those don’t look like any of the plants you usually tend to. And why are you up at night doing this? It’s not your turn to patrol, is it? I thought we were assigned together,” she says thoughtfully, trailing off.

“Oh, nothing like that!” he assures her. “No patrol. I just couldn’t sleep, and I thought some gardening might tire me out enough to get some rest.”

“Ah.” she smiles at him. “What a lovely idea. Would you like some help?”

“I couldn’t possibly ask that of you. You should get some rest – we march for Brigid tomorrow, don’t we?”

“Oh Ashe.” She crouches down and runs her fingers absently through some loose dirt. “All this taking care of others means you’re not taking care of yourself. You march for Brigid tomorrow with me. I’m going to garden with you until I’m satisfied you are going to sleep, and not just prepping food to cook for tomorrow like the last time I caught you out this late.”

He laughs sheepishly. “Guilty as charged.”

She rearranges herself so she’s sitting cross-legged by him, watching him as he kneels and continues to toil away. “What is this plant, anyway?” she asks.

“It’s a medicinal herb I learned about from Petra,” he says. “It’s supposed to have calming qualities, and it was given to soldiers returning from war to soothe their frayed nerves.”

“Really? Is it native?”

He shakes his head. “No. That’s why I’m having so much difficulty with it. It requires some very finicky conditions to grow. I’m hoping I’ve done enough to have this first batch turn out alright, but I’m no Dedue.”

Byleth shakes her head ruefully. “I think Dedue just stared imposingly at the plants until they grew accordingly. If only he…”

Ashe finishes his careful pruning and sits back too, crossing his legs. “Me too,” he says quietly. They sit for a few minutes in silence, watching the plants. “I – but I hope Dedue would be proud of these. I thought they might help his Highness.”

Byleth looks surprised. “You grew these for him? You don’t even – I was under the impression you didn’t really like him, these days.”

“I don’t like what he’s become, but it’s more that I used to look up to him so much,” he says slowly. “I’m trying to hold onto that memory for as long as possible, and not replace it with this version of the prince. And besides,” he adds as an afterthought, “I know that getting his Highness better is important to you. You look so stressed all the time. I thought that I should at least try this, even if there’s not much of a chance it’ll work.”

“You…” Byleth sounds choked up. “You did this…for me?”

Ashe looks at her, taking in the way she’s beginning to smile, slow and soft and genuine, a private little moment just for him. He loves her, he thinks. He’d do anything for this moment to last forever.

“Of course,” he says honestly, but his voice comes out heavy with emotion and something in her gaze changes just as the scant light in the greenhouse shifts, illuminating them both in a dewy glow. Her pale eyes are flickering across his face, and her hair is nearly luminescent as it frames her face, and she is so – everything about her is intoxicating. So much so that it doesn’t register that she’s drifting slowly, intently closer to him until without warning –

“Ashe,” she breathes out, and then she pitches forward and she’s kissing him, one of her hands finding purchase in the front of his shirt as she leans forward. He inhales sharply, elation running through his veins like lighting at the soft press of her lips against his.

He’s imagined this scenario in his head a thousand times since he realized what she meant to him, imagined how lovely it would be to get to kiss her like this and get a part of her that is vulnerable and private and all for him. Never once, in his dreams, did he think that it would feel like this; so right and obvious, like a missing piece slotting perfectly back into his heart. She kisses him and he reacts in the only way he knows how, reaching out and snaking an arm around her shoulder to haul her slighter frame closer, desperately kissing back and holding on – always holding on to her.

The shadow that hangs ever-present over his heart is quiet, for the first time in five years, and instead a warm, molten heat pools in the space around their bodies and drips down through his skin. He understands now, that all-encompassing love that knights in tales always come back to, because the sound of her muffled breathing at the graze of his teeth against her lower lip, her trembling fingers cupping his cheek, her solid weight against his – they are his home and his hearth. His heart beats frantically, drumming out a steady litany of unsung messages that he tries to press into Byleth’s mouth; don’t leave me again. Don’t ever leave me. I need you, I need you, I need you.

He’s never been able to let her go. He’ll never meet anyone like her in his life, so noble and good and true in her belief in them. This, Ashe thinks, is what makes all the death and destruction worth it. She kisses him and kisses him and keeps kissing him and he kisses back until the tension in the air changes, becomes gentle and slow as she slides her hands up into his hair and cards her fingers through.

The touch is soft and sweet enough to pull Ashe out of the reverie of kissing her, and he pulls back with a blush to stare at her, sighing at the wonderful sight of her looking at him bright-eyed, lips red from Ashe biting them and hair slightly mussed.

“That was…oh,” he murmurs, and he’s shocked to hear the sound of his own voice, lower and heavy with intent. Byleth laughs and shifts from where she’s somehow migrated to holding herself up over his lap, leaning forward precariously on her knees.

“Just oh?” she teases. “I must be losing my touch.”

Ashe laughs and brings his hands to her waist, steadying her, and she looks down at him adoringly. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to do that.”

She frowns. “Why ever not? Even Raphael told me that I should quit agonizing over this and simply go get him, as he so charmingly put it.”

“Oh?” Ashe stares at her in surprise. She begins to blush, charmingly.

“I’ve been told my affections were rather obvious,” she says, but then she begins to laugh in earnest. “Are you telling me they weren’t obvious?”

“N – no!” Ashe says, but he can’t help but smile in the face of her laughter, always.

She slowly drags her thumb across his (much to his chagrin) smooth cheek. “I thought you kissed back because you understood how I felt.”

“Oh,” Ashe presses his forehead gently to hers. “I kissed back because I wanted to kiss you. I didn’t think you knew how I felt, I – I was almost certain I was going to go my whole life without you knowing.”

She presses closer, settling fully into his lap, and heat jolts through his body even as she tells him, “Now that would have been a shame. Really, Ashe, how could you not have seen that I’ve had eyes for no one but you since I woke up?”

He laughs breathlessly. “There are so many wonderful people who you’ve met here. People who can offer a lot more than I can. I’m just a former thief trying his best.”

She kisses him, quick and chaste. “You’re a knight. You’re a good man. And, more importantly, you’re my choice.”

.

They still have to leave for Brigid in the morning, so they both drift off to their respective rooms with a kiss goodnight. His heart is like a jackrabbit in his chest the entire day, and he feels as though he’s never going to get used to the sight of her looking at him.

“What has gotten into you?” Sylvain asks as they march, pulling his horse alongside Ashe’s. “You’re usually not this much of a nervous blusher. You look like you’re about the faint. Is it getting too hot for you?”

“No, of course not,” Ashe says hurriedly. “Honestly, Sylvain, you do worse in the heat than me. All that fur-lined armor you carry around isn’t very practical.”

“I fight in northern-most Faerghus!” Sylvain protests. “And I brought along one of my breastplates without fur, see?”

“I can see that, but it doesn’t look like you remembered to do the same for your poor horse,” Ashe looks pointedly down. Sylvain startles.

“Oh no,” he says in dismay, patting his horse’s side. “Oh my lovely Em, I’ll fix you up better next time we stop for a rest. I’m so sorry, my poor baby.”

As if summoned by Sylvain’s use of the word baby, Ingrid suddenly appears, flying low. “Sylvain, are you serious? Flirting on the road? To war? Don’t you have a limit?”

“I’m not,” Sylvain protests, “I’m talking to the one true love of my life, Em.”

“Oh,” Ingrid says in relief. “Emmeline, your horse. Well, that particular lady does deserve all of your love and attention. Carry on.”

Sylvain frowns. “Oh, hang on. Ashe distracted me from my original question. What’s gotten into him? He’s all nervous and blushing today, like a schoolboy with his first crush.”

Ashe’s traitorously pale cheeks heat up quickly at the somewhat accurate statement. Any redder than this, he thinks miserably, and he’s going to be able to light the way through fog-covered terrain.

“It’s nothing,” he says, even as Sylvain lets out an undignified shout and points.

“Did you see that, Ingrid?” he demands. “Ashe, are you actually a schoolboy with your first crush?”

Ashe is torn between denying it – which Sylvain will override – or staying silent – which Sylvain will take as confirmation. He opens his mouth, and then closes it. What is he supposed to say? That he was up last night kissing their former professor until her lips were swelling slightly from Ashe’s overzealousness? That she smells like honey and mint? That she makes breathless little quiet noises that drive him crazy?

Sylvain definitely takes the extended silence as confirmation. He whoops and leans forward in his saddle, narrowing his eyes at Ashe.

“I bet I can figure this out,” he says gleefully. “It wouldn’t be someone we know, Ashe is too noble to go around randomly kissing people we might be travelling with. One of the village girls? But no, I didn’t see you going out to the village yesterday.”

Ashe leans away in his own saddle. “I don’t kiss and tell!” he protests. He looks at Ingrid pleadingly. Her gaze is thoughtful as she looks at him, and then she begins to smile. He has a sinking feeling that she’s caught on to what he’s really starry-eyed about.

“Leave him alone, Sylvain,” Ingrid says seriously. Sylvain opens his mouth to protest, but Ingrid says, “I’d think you’d be more interested in the fact that Ferdinand’s cozying up to Dorothea up ahead anyway.”

That catches Sylvain off-guard, and he immediately kicks his horse into a gallop to catch up to the ones in front. There’s some sort of competitive teasing and flirting going on between Dorothea and Sylvain that they take very seriously, to the point that they’ve stopped flirting with anyone else almost completely. It’s disconcerting, but oddly charming.

Ingrid drifts even lower with her pegasus as soon as Sylvain’s out of earshot. “Don’t kiss and tell, huh?” she asks. “Is that why you and the professor keep looking at each other and looking away?”

“Ingrid!” Ashe says, astonished, and in his shock he almost falls off his horse. “Don’t just say things like that.”

“What, like the truth?”

Ashe groans and settles himself in for a very long ride. But, he thinks ruefully as Ingrid begins to pester him for details and he catches a flash of green hair as Byleth turns around from up front to look at him and hurriedly turns back with a pleased smile when Ashe gives a small wave, there are worse things to be dwelling on.

.

It feels almost wrong to have something as delicate and fragile as a new relationship in the middle of the war, especially when Byleth is the tenuous head of the church. They fight their way through Fodlan over and over again, gaining and losing allies, dealing with unending heartbreak as their friends have to cut down their families on opposite sides of the war. In all of that, Ashe feels like he’s stealing something sacred when Byleth kisses him.

“Nonsense,” she says when he brings it up to her on one of their many walks around the monastery. “I’m a leader, not a nun. I should think I can kiss who I like.”

“No,” Ashe protests, “that’s not my point.” He sees the corners of her lips curve up, her ever-so-slight smile, and his breath catches in his throat. “You’re teasing me.”

She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, looking pleased. “You blush so prettily when I do, though.”

“You’re making it worse!” he says, fighting to keep his own smile from breaking through. He doesn’t succeed though, and he laughs quietly instead. “I do blush like a tomato,” he says cheerfully.

“One of the many things I like about you,” she murmurs, and he feels the hesitant brush of her hand against his. Despite his misgivings about this pocket of happiness, he doesn’t hesitate in capturing her fingers in his and intertwining their hands together, always willing to give her anything she asks for.

“Ashe,” she continues, her tone growing more serious, “I don’t regret kissing you that night. You are – so important to me. And I’ve learned that none of us know just how much time we have left. No matter what happens, I want these memories of you. If that’s selfish, well…” she trails off.

Ashe looks at her thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t be selfish to claim some happiness for yourself, of course. I just…I feel guilty about me doing that.”

She stops at that and turns to face him fully. The sun is setting, and there’s no one around this little corner of the monastery because it’s more ruined rubble than anything. She’s ethereal in the golden glow, her smile small and sweet with its sincerity.

“That’s just like you,” she says, “putting everyone else’s needs above your own. Sylvain and Felix are right in some respects, you know. Not all of knighthood is about giving all of yourself away. Sometimes, it’s about taking care of yourself and taking the things you want and need to make sure that there’s enough of you left to give to others.”

He bows his head. It’s true. “I’ll…try to remember,” he says slowly. “And,” he adds, looking back at her, “after all, it’s you. Despite the guilt, I don’t really want to stop this.” He leans in hesitantly, and she meets him halfway, sighing into the kiss and curling her free hand around his neck, pulling him down more insistently. Every kiss still feels like the first; the rush of warmth and satisfaction, the feeling of her fitting perfectly in his arms.

She draws back to look at him dreamily. “One day,” she says, her voice breathless, “the war is going to be over. And then, this life won’t be so selfish after all.”

.

Life is fleeting, but even more so during the war. He wants to tell her the depth of his emotion, let her know how much she’s cared for. On some level, she knows implicitly, just as he knows that she cares for him, but – she deserves the words, the grand gestures, the romantic ideals that he’s been dreaming of for so long.

Those three damned words are on the tip of his tongue so often - when she invites him to a meal that looks strange but is spiced so delicately that he knows she’s been practicing just for him; when he laughs at something she says and she blushes the color of pale roses; when she reaches over while they’re both studying battle maneuvers and silently pushes the fringe of his hair back, her eyes so serious as she contemplates him. But it feels overwhelming, sometimes, the intensity of his longing, sharpening with every night they spend together, every night that he wants to promise to her that he will grow old and die with her.

“Ashe,” she says one night, exhausted and satisfied in a bone-deep way as she lies on his bare chest with her chin propped on her arms, “you look so mournful sometimes. I wish you’d tell me what was bothering you.”

“Ah.” He predictably blushes, his fingers stilling momentarily where he’s drawing delicate patterns up and down her ribs. “Really? I look mournful?”

“Well, actually,” she says, raising an eyebrow, “you certainly didn’t look mournful a few minutes ago when you were – well, you know.” He closes his eyes as his senses are flooded with the exquisite memory of him inside her, the pressure and heat and electric feeling of it all.

“Byleth,” he groans lowly.

“Just like that,” she says cheerfully. He feels her brush a finger over his collarbone and press down delicately on the bruise she’s left with her teeth. She’d discovered fairly early on that his skin blossomed red with even the faintest of ministrations, and she’s been abusing that power ever since, confident in the knowledge that his daily leather armor covers everything.

He opens his eyes and gazes down at her mischievous expression. “You’re adorable,” he says fondly, even as heat pools low in his gut. He curves his hands lower, around her waist, and shifts slightly so his thigh falls between her legs. He’s no Sylvain, but he’s picked up some tricks he thinks as she squirms in his hold.

“Ah,” she sighs. “Don’t avoid the topic with such a nice distraction.”

“You want me to stop?” he asks, smiling. Despite his words, he doesn’t stop, applying a gently pressure as she begins to grind down slightly.

“Mm,” she sighs, her eyes fluttering shut as she grips him harder. “If something…ah…was wrong…you’d tell me…right?” She says the sentence languidly, punctuated with little gasps as he slips one of his hands lower and feels along the silky heat of her thighs to find what he’s looking for.

“Of course,” he says, watching her face intently for signs of her pleasure. As if sensing his gaze, she opens his eyes and looks at him, her pupils slightly darker.

“Ashe,” she murmurs, “the night is still young.”

.

Oddly enough, Felix ends up being the most helpful about the whole thing – and Ashe doesn’t even ask him. He just shows up at the corner of the bow range where Ashe is practicing, crosses his arms, and sulks and looks appropriately threatening until Ashe lowers his bow and trots over.
“Felix!” he calls out cheerfully. “Are you here to practice?” He’s found that the best way to deal with the dour man is often just unmitigated cheer.

(When he’d told Byleth, she’d buried her face in his chest and snickered. “I often imagined that your optimism and cheer were carefully wielded diplomacy tools,” she’d told him through her precious laughter, “but actually hearing you admit that it is and it works is something else.”)

“Practice the bow?” Felix looks offended. “Not a chance.” Ashe doesn’t take it to heart, because he’s seen Felix’s skill at tossing things when he’s trying to aggravate Sylvain, and – well. Ashe firmly believes that Felix’s precision lies in holding his weapon in his hand.

“Oh. Then…is there any reason you’re here?” he asks. Felix sighs, and the dour look melts off his face.

“I…actually wanted to talk to you. About, uh…ugh.” Felix trails off and pinches the bridge of his nose. “The things I do for that woman.”

Ashe’s eyes widen. “Annette?” he asks, incredulously. It’s common knowledge by now that for some unfathomable reason, Felix and Annette eat together and walk together all the time, and somehow Felix looks…enchanted, any time they do. And, even more improbably, Annette is often singing some sort of inane tune on their walks, and Felix hangs on to every word like it’s a divine opera. It’s quite endearing, if only because everyone wants the best for Annette, and Felix clearly wants the same.

“Yes. Obviously Annette,” Felix says, not even denying his weakness. Ashe admires him immensely for that. (And that quality is, ironically, exactly like the knight from the tale he told Felix about. Felix really never changes). “Look, you know people talk, and we both heard through…well, it doesn’t matter how or who, but. You and the professor.”

“Oh,” Ashe feels the ever-present blush come back, full force. “People  - people talk about that?”

“You both hold hands and she looks at you like you hung the moon, it’s sickeningly sweet,” Felix says dismissively. “Anyway. I know you, and I know your altruistic complexes, so I’m just here to make sure you’re not messing this thing up.”

Ashe blinks. “Huh?”

Felix sighs, and his expression changes to one of – almost sympathy. “Look,” he says, lowering his voice. “I honestly…get it. You want to do good in the world. You want her to be happy. You hold back from saying everything at once, because you’re afraid of what it all means.”

“I’m not – “ Ashe begins, and then he gives up and shakes his head sadly. “I don’t know what I am about this whole thing.”

“You’re afraid,” Felix presses. “But you know, your faith brought her back, Ashe. Why do you keep forgetting that? Your dedication and loyalty made us all keep a five-year old promise to the ghost of our professor, our friend. And now she’s here, alive, and you’re taking it slow because, what, you’re being noble? Forget noble. Be the man she fell for, not the knight you want to be.”

It feels like a revelation, like the world shifting on its axis and rearranging. Oh. He is going about this as if he’s a knight and she’s his next mission. But this isn’t that. This is another person, a person he cherishes more than anything, a person he wants to learn everything about, good and bad. This is his everything.

“Oh,” he says out loud. “I’ve been…a fool. I – thank you, Felix.” He sounds bewildered, even to his own ears, and Felix looks at him strangely.

“Whatever,” he says, and the dour expressions returns to the other man’s face as if he’s decided he’s shown enough emotion for the day. “I just didn’t think it was fair that only Annette and I are happy. And the professor’s no good as a training partner when she’s sighing about you the whole time.”

“Why is she still the professor…?” Ashe asks, not even bothering to unpack the rest of that sentence. Felix, done with the interaction doesn’t even bother answering; he just walks away.

Ashe doesn’t mind. He has something else to do.

.

He runs through the monastery, searching for her, and bursts through the greenhouse to see her tending to the cooking herbs they’ve been growing together. He feels like his heart might burst from the way she looks up, surprised, and then her expression melts into what now feels like an ever-present smile around him. She’s so beautiful, so earnest and sincere in everything she does. He wants her to know. He wants her to know.

“I love you,” he says. Her mouth parts in shock, and her eyes widen.

He feels like a wall has broken in his heart, and everything – all the fragments of his heart he’d kept hidden away and let grown lonely during the long five years he was miserable – comes pouring out. “I love you,” he repeats, “and the five years you were gone were awful. I don’t want to feel anything like that again. I think I’ve loved you for longer than I’ve known it. I think I’m going to love you forever, and I’m a little afraid at what that means. At what we risk each time we go out into the battlefield in the name of restoring peace someday. And I want – a life together when that someday comes, a life where I’m by your side, no matter what happens. A life where I get to love you and hold you until the end of our time.”

He realizes dumbly that Byleth’s eyes are shining at the end of his speech. Something glistens on her cheek, and he steps forward hesitantly.

“Are you – are you crying?” he asks, awed. She doesn’t respond; instead he hears the distinct click-clack of her boots as she starts running, and then throws herself into his arms, her shoulders heaving as she buries her face in the junction of his neck. He catches her, surprised, but holds her tight and presses a kiss to the top of her head, smiling.

She’s trembling in his arms, but he feels her lips moving against his skin. Not quite a kiss – he focuses, and it’s a whisper, something she’s repeating over and over as she clutches him.

I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.

.

When he was younger, before Lonato changed his life forever, he’d watched silently from the doorway as his parents had balanced the books for their restaurant, their heads bent low over the candlelight. His father had sighed and muttered that it didn’t look so good.

It was a solemn, serious moment, broken only by the way his mother had reached for his father’s hand, smiled, and promised that they’d work through it together. In that second, both of his parents had looked like all their worries melted away as they looked at each other, caught up in their own private world where the heaviness in their hearts could be eclipsed by a smile from the person they’d loved.

No book he’s read has ever captured that same sweet sincerity that his parents had for each other, and he’s been waiting for a moment like that. He’s been longing for what seems like forever, dreaming of heroic tale after tale.

But love, he’s coming to realize, is different. It’s everything he wanted and more. It’s the curl of Byleth’s lips, more and more common as Dedue reappears, Dimitri starts to heal, and the war begins to draw to some sort of final act, one they’re hopeful they’re going to win. It’s her little deadpan quips, each so surprising and each tailored just so to draw a blush from him. It’s the flowers she leaves for him. It’s her hand, holding on to his, every time. It’s everything.

It’s enough. It’s enough to lift the darkness of five years spent drifting, bitter and afraid, trying so hard for optimism in the middle of drowning.

He’s startled from his reverie by a hand carding through his hair, fingers dragging along the shorn part. She has a fascination with his hair that he find utterly, ridiculously charming.

“Well, what can I do for my commander?” Ashe asks, leaning back and smiling up at her.

She bends over and kisses him. “My favorite solider can come to bed, for a start.” She whispers the words against his mouth. “It’s late, and I find I’m now incapable of sleeping without a hand to hold.”

He smiles and stands up, offering his hand to her and pulling her closer when she grabs it.

“Ashe!” she exclaims, and he presses a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“I love you,” he says, and when she smiles at him he knows that he’s found everything he’s ever been looking for.