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The battle had been fierce and glorious, but in the end, it was the Blue Lions who remained standing.
Or at least, most of them.
Felix rolled his shoulders as he strode through the battlefield, making sure the dead were well and truly gone, and occasionally delivering a mercy strike. He would gladly take on this duty if it meant sparing some of the more squeamish Blue Lions (read: Annette, Ashe, and Ingrid, depending on the day) the task.
He noted with grim satisfaction that his and Annette’s portion of the field had been properly routed. The woman was an absolute terror on the battlefield, efficient and deadly with precise wind and faith magic, and his sword ever struck true. They made an excellent team, he noted with no small amount of pride, and Byleth had been right to make her his adjutant all those years ago (not that he’d ever tell the professor that).
And then, he heard the boar shout from across the battlefield: “Where is Sylvain?”
Felix froze, his blood going cold. He cupped his hands over his mouth to shout: “I thought he was with you?”
“He pulled right mid-formation!” Ingrid called from overhead as her Pegasus veered in that direction.
“We’ll search for him!” Ashe got to his feet and dusted off his hands on his pants, arrows forgotten in the dirt. “He can’t have gotten far.”
Felix spluttered, but it was Annette who said, “He’s on a horse. He could have gotten very far.”
That was about when the professor began shouting orders and cardinal directions to search, and Felix found himself assigned north with both Annette and a growing pit in his stomach.
“Sylvain is good, Felix,” she reminded him when she noticed his wide-eyed stare. “I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Sylvain is stupid,” Felix snapped back. “He very well might not be.”
Annette’s jaw snapped shut, and Felix immediately wished he hadn’t said it quite so brutally. But there was nothing for it, now.
Their search brought them deep into the surrounding forest, to the point they had to stop and get torches out. Unease coiled in Felix’s gut the deeper into the forest they drew. Where in the Eternal Flames was their cavalier?
He nearly jumped out of his skin when they stumbled into Sylvain’s beloved bay horse, Stumpy.
“Easy, boy,” Felix soothed, reaching out slowly so as not to startle the beast. “You know me.”
Stumpy snorted and stamped his forefeet a few times, but Felix remained undeterred. “Now,” he murmured, “where is your rider?”
With Felix busy distracting the beast, Annette came around to Stumpy’s side. Sylvain’s woolen saddle blanket was still intact, as was the saddle itself and all his belongings. The Lance of Ruin was nowhere to be seen, but his backup axe was settled neatly in its holster.
“Do you think he went ahead on foot?” Annette asked, glancing around. “It doesn't seem too dense to ride through…?”
“Maybe,” Felix admitted. “But I don’t—”
A piercing cry cut him off.
Annette looked to Felix, and Felix looked to Annette, and then they took off together towards the general direction the sound had come from.
Felix spotted Sylvain face down in the dirt only slightly before Annette did, for she gasped a few seconds after his blood froze over. The swordsman staggered towards his friend’s prone form, curses and prayers and Goddess-knew-what-else dripping from his teeth.
This couldn’t be happening.
Sylvain wasn’t supposed to die without him.
“You bastard,” Felix growled. “Get up. You aren’t funny.”
It felt like watching himself from above as he fell to his knees to check for a pulse, a heartbeat, anything. Yet he found… nothing. There was no arm in the gauntlet, no head where the gorget ended. Bile rose in his throat as Felix was faced with the grim truth:
“I think his armor is empty.”
“It’s what?” Annette was suddenly behind him, her small hand on his shoulder. “How is that…?”
That same piercing cry cut her off, but this time, it came from inside Sylvain’s armor.
“Four saints, give me that torch.” Felix reached a questioning hand up without taking his eyes off Sylvain’s armor.
He felt the torch-haft connect firmly with his palm, and then brought it around to the empty void where Sylvain’s head should have been. But there was no blood, no viscera, nothing to suggest there was simply no longer a head there. Felix’s brow furrowed and he leaned further towards the armor.
A pair of big, brown eyes stared back at him from within the breastplate.
Felix yelped and nearly dropped the torch, saved only by Annette’s quick, mage’s reflexes.
“Easy, now!” she said, setting him to rights.
Felix leaned forward again, this time braced for what lay within. The torchlight first illuminated those big, brown eyes again, followed by fiery red hair, and a chubby-cheeked frown.
And it hit him.
Felix had seen the portrait in Sylvain’s mother’s study, of course. It had been done when Sylvain had been less than a year old. He was snuggled into his mother’s side as she serenely surveyed the Gautier lands, and had some stupid name like “The Crest-Bearer and His Mother.” Beyond the fact that the Lady Gautier was not and had never been a serene woman, something about the portrait now niggled in Felix’s mind.
It looked exactly like the face now staring at him from within Sylvain’s armor.
Could it be?
“Sylvain?” Felix asked.
The baby’s head tilted in recognition, but he came no closer.
“Are you sure?” Annette was suddenly on her knees beside him, peering into Sylvain’s armor.
“He looks just like the portrait in his mother’s study,” Felix said. “So, yeah. Pretty sure.”
Annette glanced back into the armor in wonder. “Hey, Sylvain,” she cooed. “Hey, there, little one.”
The baby retreated further into the breastplate.
“Oh. “Annette frowned. “I don’t think he recognizes us.”
A horrible realization occurred to Felix: “If he’s a baby, I wasn’t born yet.”
It hurt a lot more than he’d expected, the idea that one of his oldest friends no longer knew who the hell he was.
“He doesn't remember me,” Felix muttered, distantly. “He doesn’t remember summers at Fraldarius Manor, or winters in Galatea, or the time he broke my arm, or sneaking into the palace kitchens with Dimitri, or…”
Abruptly, he felt Annette’s soft arms come around his middle. “Easy there, Felix. Just breathe.”
“I don’t need to fucking breathe,” Felix hissed, tensing under her touch like a cat caught by the monastery children, “ I need our cavalier back.”
“Don't snap at me!” Annette said. “I’m just trying to help!”
Felix recoiled as the baby began to cry again, and Annette clamped both of her hands over her mouth. “We need to calm down,” she added, the sound muffled.
Felix drew in a deep breath and tried to steady himself. It was much easier without Annette touching him, and he tried not to dwell on that. Think, Fraldarius, think! What would calm down baby Sylvain? Honestly, if having a woman around isn't doing it, I’m at a loss. Felix scratched at his head, wincing when it tugged at his ponytail.
Another thought occurred to him.
“Okay, Sylvain,” Felix said, drawing the baby’s attention. “If you don’t recognize me, do you recognize Glenn?”
He yanked out his ponytail, wincing only slightly, and then his black hair tumbled down around his shoulders.
Baby Sylvain abruptly stopped crying, and reached out with his chubby baby hands. Felix began to maneuver his way into Sylvain’s armor to retrieve the infant.
“Well, shit,” he muttered.
-)
While Felix fussed with Stumpy and finding some way not to carry a naked baby through the forest, Annette went searching for the Lance of Ruin. She kept her eyes peeled for the telltale glint of unnatural gold and dully glowing red, and tried not to be too angry with Felix.
He’s such a jerk! Who does he think he is, snapping at me like that? I was just trying to help!
She supposed she was being uncharitable--Felix had, in one form or other, just lost one of his best friends. She wasn’t sure would be nearly so calm if something ever happened to Mercedes
But Goddess, did he have to be such a jerk about it?
Sometimes, Felix could be really sweet, offering to carry her inevitable stack of books back to the library for her when they were students, or showing up at the damndest times to assist with watering the greenhouse plants, or mucking out the stable stalls, or any number of menial tasks around the monastery that needed done. He frequently passed her his desserts in the mess hall, claiming not to be a fan (Annette still couldn’t believe there was someone who didn’t like sweets ), and he still hadn’t told everyone about her embarrassing songs, for which she was eternally grateful (and nervous).
But then he went and did things like this--seizing up when she tried to hug him or offer sympathy, or snapping at her when she didn’t immediately understand what he was getting at--and it always sent her into a tailspin.
Did he like her, or didn’t he? She could never quite tell.
She spotted the Lance of Ruin, then, stuck in a tree as though its wielder had moved to stab someone who suddenly just wasn’t there.
Explains how this happened, Annette thought grimly, reaching up to tug the lance out. He must have been fighting a mage.
Her brow furrowed when it didn’t budge, and then she remembered that, despite avoiding training as often as was physically possible with friends like Ingrid and Felix, Sylvain was actually quite strong and quite good with his weapons.
Annette made a face, drew in a deep breath, and then tried again. She wrapped both hands around the haft and firmly yanked.
It didn’t budge.
“Hold this.” Felix’s voice was suddenly behind her, and the baby--it was very difficult to think Sylvain, despite how much the baby looked like him--was thrust into her arms. He was currently wrapped in the coattails of his armor.
“Hey!” Annette said, adjusting the baby despite herself. “I was working on that.”
“We’ll be here all afternoon if you keep at it,” Felix muttered, moving to wrap his hands around the lance haft.
Annette gave an annoyed huff. “You didn’t even let me try! I was going to--”
With an awful scraping noise, Felix yanked the lance free.
Annette huffed again, and if she noticed the broad slant to his shoulders in the motion, she refused to admit it.
-)
Ingrid spotted them first, a black-haired figure and a redheaded one, leading a boneless suit of armor atop a horse out of the woods. She urged her Pegasus into its descent immediately, hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed.
Annette waved when she spotted the Pegasus knight, calling out in a voice that was too bright, given the circumstances. “Ingrid! We found him!”
Ingrid nearly choked.
She barely waited for her mount to touch ground before vaulting out of the saddle. “What happened? Where was he? Is he…?” She couldn’t bring herself to voice it.
“Ingrid,” Felix said bluntly, “you’re not gonna believe this.”
And he deposited a bundle in her arms.
A hush fell over the Pegasus knight; Felix had handed her Sylvain’s fondly-dubbed “butt-blanket” with something heavy inside. Ingrid felt bile rise in her throat as she began undoing the wrappings. What had Felix just handed her? Sylvain’s helmet? His head?
A very brown-eyed baby stared up at her for a long, almost comical moment, and then burst into tears.
“Fuck!” Felix shouted. “He was finally asleep!”
He reached out again, insistent and impatient. His expression was that of a defeated man doomed to carry baby Sylvain around for eternity.
Ingrid immediately handed the bundle back to him, and Felix brought it close to his chest. The crying almost immediately stopped, and tiny, chubby arms reached up, out of the blanket nest.
“Is that… Sylvain?” Ingrid asked.
“We think so,” Annette said. “The baby was in the breastplate of Sylvain’s armor.”
“Of course it’s Sylvain,” Felix scoffed. “It looks just like the portrait in his mother's study.”
Ingrid came around to Felix’s side to get a better look at the baby. Now that he was back with Felix, he was burbling and smiling, teething on the edge of the butt-blanket and dribbling spit all down his front.
“He… really does,” Ingrid agreed after a moment. “But, how?”
“Now, see,” Felix said, “ that part, I have no idea.”
“We were discussing it on the way back,” Annette said. “It’s got to be magic. But I’ve never seen magic like this before.”
“Felix! Annette!” boomed a voice from somewhere due south. “What’s happened? Is he…?”
“A baby!” Ingrid called back.
Dimitri pulled up in a dead halt. “I beg pardon?”
Felix held the bundle out again, this time wise enough to not hand it over. “He’s a baby.”
Dimitri stared for a long moment, jaw slowly dropping in shock. “He… what?”
The rest of the Blue Lions slowly gathered and met the baby Sylvain with varying degrees of shock and amusement. Ashe immediately wiggled his fingers at him and made faces to get him to smile, and Mercedes giggled and commented on how cute he was, for once.
“I suppose we’ll need to stop by the nearest village and pick up baby clothes,” Byleth said as she studied Sylvain’s empty armor.
“And milk,” Dedue added. “And nappies.”
Felix blinked a few times, as though it had just now occurred to him that babies couldn’t eat road rations, and also couldn’t find a bush as needed.
“Maybe we should send a scouting party without the naked baby?” Ingrid put forward. “To, you know, avoid the inevitable ‘ why is the baby naked?’”
“I’ll go,” said Ashe. “I used to shop for my siblings all the time.”
“Where is the baby going to sleep?” Mercedes asked. “We need to set up camp here, soon.”
Felix blinked again, as though it had just now occurred to him that babies couldn’t sleep on bedrolls, either.
He turned to the bundle on his hip, growling, “You fucking owe me for this.”
Baby Sylvain gave a bright, watery hiccup and then spat up all over the side of Felix’s armor.
Annette stifled a giggle as she set about looking for her waterskin and a handkerchief. “Where do babies sleep while traveling?”
“You can make a makeshift cradle out of a saddle,” Dedue volunteered. The rest of the Lions turned to stare at him, but he remained undeterred. “My youngest sister practically grew up that way.”
“Great,” said Felix. “You take him.”
Baby Sylvain had settled into Dedue’s arms for a total of thirty seconds before he began to wail again.
“Aww, it must be scary not knowing what’s going on,” Ashe said as Dedue apologetically handed their pint-sized Dark Knight back to Felix. “I wonder why he likes Felix so much, if he doesn't recognize Ingrid or Dimitri?”
“It isn’t me,” Felix said flatly, tugging at his hair, “it’s my older brother he recognizes.”
“This has to be the work of Those Who Slither in the Dark,” Lysithea announced, coming back to the group from studying Sylvain’s horse and armor. She had joined the Blue Lions only weeks before everything went to shit, and her comrades had never been more grateful to have her.
“They’ve been working on Chronos magic ever since I was little,” she continued, “and probably wanted to test it out. I’ll start researching with Hanneman when we get back to Garreg Mach. See if we can turn him back.”
Everyone froze at the news.
“You mean when you can turn him back,” Felix said lowly, “ yes?”
“Hey, Felix?” Lysithea said hotly. “Do me a favor. Go recreate someone else’s fighting style, from scratch, having never seen it before when not directed at you, and let’s see how well you do.”
“Lysithea von Ordelia, I am not raising my best friend!”
“You might not have a choice, Felix Hugo Fraldarius! Even with Hanneman’s help, there’s no guarantee we can revert him. ”
“Let’s make camp!” Ingrid interrupted. “Will someone go with Ashe to scout out a village?”
“I’ll go,” said Mercedes. “Come on, Ashe. We’ll be back as soon as we can, everyone!”
Annette didn’t miss how Felix spoke with everyone but her as they set up camp, and again tried and failed not to let her anger grow.
-)
Felix spent a week’s worth of sleepless nights on the road back to the monastery with a baby for company in a tent made for one man. Every new day seemed like a crash course in parenting, from changing nappies (for which Felix owed Ashe, and Sylvain owed Felix), to feeding, to figuring how to ride a horse with a tiny creature who couldn’t support its own neck, much less its weight.
It was more exhausting than every battle Felix had ever fought, combined.
Baby Sylvain gradually warmed up to the other Lions, so at least Felix didn’t have to be holding him all the time, but he still preferred Felix for some Goddess-forsaken reason, and so the swordsman was largely stuck with him. It helped that once they had some proper baby clothes, Dedue had fashioned a sling out of the butt-blanket so that whoever was currently holding him could at least have their hands free.
That was how Felix delivered the account of finding Baby Sylvain to Hanneman, whose brow furrowed further with each word.
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Hanneman admitted slowly, his eyes lighting up at the academic challenge before him. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.”
“I believe it’s Chronos magic,” Lysithea said, now coming over to Felix to study the baby strapped to his chest.
Hanneman’s face pursed as he considered it. “That would make a certain amount of sense. But it leaves just as many questions unanswered.”
So much for getting this fixed once they got back to Garreg Mach.
“Is there anything you can do in the meantime?” Felix snapped.
Hanneman paused, looking a bit like a bird whose feathers had been ruffled. “I believe when my niece and nephew were small, my sister used to freeze bits of cloth for them to teethe with.”
A vein pulsed in Felix’s temple, and he left the mages to their work.
-)
“You know, I hate to be that person,” Ingrid said as she and Felix stood in the training grounds later that week, “but it could be worse.”
Felix leveled her in a look that could have flattened her, which was a bit undermined as he mopped sweat from his brow for the umpteenth time.
It was so unbearably hot in Garreg Mach for late spring. The Blue Lions, collectively, were creatures attuned to the snowy north, and unequivocally hated summer in Garreg Mach. It was even more offensive to get that weather in mid-Harpstring Moon. Felix and Ingrid had already discarded their heavy overfurs and were working through every possible layer that left them still decent as they continued to spar.
They both kept glancing over to where Baby Sylvain was playing on his butt-blanket. They’d scrounged up a few baby toys from the Castle Town, and Gilbert was in the process of whittling a few more. The baby was happy to amuse himself and chew on various blocks and stuffed animals as “mama” and “papa” slammed into each other with various bits of dull steel.
“Besides literally dying,” Felix said, “how do you figure it could be worse?”
Ingrid reddened; it was sort of hard to tell, in the heat. “Oh, um. That was the worse.”
Felix rolled his eyes and struck again. Ingrid barely had the chance to get her lance up in time, but she quickly turned it back around on him.
“I’m just…” She grunted. “…trying to stay positive, here.”
“Please don’t.” Felix leapt from the path of the training lance before he took it to the ribs, and his body screamed at him to find shade and something cold to drink and preferably dunk his whole body into. “Just admit parenting sucks.”
Felix had seen Ingrid after the battle of Remire Village and the assault on Garreg Mach Monastery before what was meant to have been their graduation. Her dead-eyed stares then paled in comparison to her current facial expression. “I have never changed so many diapers in my life.”
Felix leveled her in a look. “Ingrid, you’re the youngest.”
“So are you!” Ingrid’s indignance came in the form of a lance to the ribs.
“Oof!” Felix began wheezing, coughing, and pressing his hands into his side.
Ingrid winced. “Sorry, those don’t normally catch you.”
The wind kicked up, and for a moment, being outside could almost be considered pleasant.
As she let him catch his breath, another thought occurred to Ingrid. “You’ve been in the library an awful lot, recently.”
“So?” Felix barked.
After a lifetime of being around him, Ingrid knew Felix’s tells very well, and she grinned at this one now.
Ingrid gave an overelaborate shrug. “You never seemed to bother when we were in school.”
“Swordplay is a physical art,” Felix muttered. “Reason magic isn’t.”
“Reason magic?” Ingrid’s eyebrows lifted. “You’ve never cared about that before.” A cheshire grin spread across her face that she knew Felix did not like. “This wouldn’t have something to do with a certain redheaded mage of ours, would it?”
Felix turned an even more violent shade of red. “Shut up.”
Ingrid opened her mouth to say something, and then came the crash.
They both snapped towards where they’d left Sylvain on his blanket, only to find the baby, quite baffled, in a mess of training weapons. His tiny fingers were wrapped as far around a lance hilt as they could possibly go, but he couldn’t hold the weight. It had bopped him in the head, near as Felix and Ingrid could tell.
And then it occurred to Baby Sylvain that he’d been injured, and he began to wail.
Both Felix and Ingrid cringed as they bolted towards the baby, kicking up sand in their wake. Felix wanted to scream, why are you so stupid? You can’t hold a lance like this! The only thing stopping him was the possibility that Sylvain might have to grow up the old-fashioned way, and Felix wasn’t about to re-traumatize him.
Ingrid reached the baby first by a hair’s breadth. “Hey, now,” she said, scooping up the baby and balancing him on her hip. “Hush, now.”
Baby Sylvain quieted as Ingrid rocked him softly back and forth, checking him over for cuts and bruises. His little fingers curled into the open hem of her jacket, the ones on the other hand going right into his mouth.
“I’ve got you,” she said softly, and Felix suddenly felt like he was intruding in something very private.
He busied himself with resetting the weapons rack, and refused to look back.
-)
“Ooooh!” Annette shouted. “I can’t stand him, Mercie!””
Mercedes blithely continued mucking out the horse stalls. She hated the heavy labor of stable duty most of all, but at least Byleth had assigned Annette with her. She wouldn’t put it past the professor to use that tactic as an apology.
Well, normally having her best friend working with her was a plus. At the moment, Annette was too angry to be reasoned with.
With a long-suffering sigh, Mercedes asked, “What has Felix done this time?”
Annette turned a truly violent shade of scarlet--“I didn't say it was Felix.”--and hurried to shovel out the next stall.
Mercedes sighed again, and glanced towards where Baby Sylvain--whom the Blue Lions had taken to calling Babyvain--lay on his butt-blanket. He was happily chewing on a wooden soldier doll Gilbert had made for him, and seemed sufficiently occupied for the moment.
“Annie,” Mercedes said, sticking her shovel into the muck to lean on it. “You’ve been out of sorts for a week.”
“I have not— whoa!”
Annette tried to stick her shovel into the ground in the same way Mercedes had, only to have it skid across the horse dung. It pitched forward instead of holding her weight, and Annette was forced to blast herself backwards with a bit of wind magic or end up with a face full of horse shit.
“Okay, okay,” Annette admitted as she floated back down clear across the courtyard. “Maybe I’ve been… a little out of it. But I’m fine! Felix is just an absolute fiend!”
Neither of the women noticed it, but Babyvain suddenly stopped chewing on the toy soldier.
“But what did he do?” Mercedes pressed.
Annette blushed an even-more-furious crimson, and muttered something to her shoes.
Forgoing their chores entirely for a moment, Mercedes left her shovel in the muck and came over to steer her best friend towards the wall. “Come again?”
It was a testament to how frazzled Annette felt that she allowed herself to be corralled. “I said, he heard me singing the Library Song.”
It came out in such a hushed, mortified whisper that Mercedes had to struggle not to laugh. She had seen the way Felix looked at Annette when he thought no one was paying him any attention. His normally pinched facial expression would relax, his eyes going soft instead of sharp, and he always managed to find a spot near her in the dining hall or when pitching tents on the road. Annette really had nothing to fear, but no amount of logic was ever going to convince her of it.
But Mercedes had been fighting this war for years, now. She wasn’t about to give up now.
“And?” Mercedes pressed.
Annette buried her face in her hands. “He wanted to know what happened after the library was blown away.”
Mercedes blinked a few times. “Isn’t… that a good thing?”
"No!” Annette shouted so loudly, she startled the horses, and Babyvain fell over. “Eep! Sylvain! I’m sorry.”
She hurried over to where the confused baby had begun crying, and hoisted him up onto her hip. “Ah, it’s okay! You’re okay! Don’t cry!”
Again, Mercedes tried not to laugh, and instead reached for the baby. “Annie, you’re startling him.”
Annette’s rocking grew slightly more furious. “I don’t know how to deal with babies!”
“Let me see him.” Mercedes deftly pulled the baby from her friend’s arms before he spit up.
Babyvain quieted as Mercedes began to rock him gently, but he quickly began to struggle in her arms.
“What’s the matter, Sylvain?” Mercedes asked him.
He started fussing louder, and Mercedes’ brow furrowed. “What's gotten into you?”
“Mercie, he’s grabbing for something!”
Mercedes braced for her veiled hat to come clean off her head, and for a moment, she merely stood there with her eyes screwed shut, waiting. But it never came, and so she carefully opened her eyes again, looking confusedly towards the baby. He was still grabbing for something over her shoulder, trying his best to wiggle out of her arms.
Then Annette said, very quietly, “Oh.”
Mercedes turned, and realized what exactly Sylvain had been grabbing for.
“He wants Stumpy,” Annette murmured.
Mercedes smoothed Sylvain’s baby-fine, fiery red hair as she carefully approached his charger. The horse snorted softly, pawing at the ground at her approach. Babyvain perked up in her arms, reaching out towards Stumpy with his chubby little hands.
“That’s your horse,” Mercedes said, quietly. “That's Stumpy.”
Babyvain babbled a noise that may or may not have been his horse’s name, and Mercedes wondered, not for the first time, if he was going to be stuck like this. There were still battles to fight and a war to win, and not only was Sylvain one of their most talented soldiers, he was the linchpin of their humanity. He brightened rooms with his confident presence, drew Dimitri out of his hollow-eyed shell, and just generally made a comedic nuisance of himself.
Witnessing Felix and Annette’s current struggle, Mercedes couldn’t help but think she could use a bit of Sylvain’s scheming right about now. He was always up for that sort of thing, and Mercedes did not relish the fact that she was going to have to do this alone.
-)
Weeks passed, and the Blue Lions were forced to strike out without their cavalry general on more than one occasion. But as spring turned to summer and the war continued on, the Lions were forced to consider the possibility that they might just have to finish out this war without him.
Dimitri had announced that while it was his turn to hold Babyvain, and Felix had felt vindicated when the baby spat up all over his armor.
That said, Felix felt no better about charging onto the battlefield without Sylvain. They had been watching each other’s backs for almost ten years now, and going into battle without him felt… off, somehow, like he’d forgotten his sword or his armor or something.
He still had Annette deployed alongside him, thank the Goddess, although he’d been avoiding her everywhere else ever since she’d blown up at him for catching her singing in the library. He would never understand why she was so embarrassed; her songs were cute, and so were her little dances. It seemed his fate to always stumble upon her at the worst possible moment, so he’d concluded that maybe it was better to just not put himself in the position of overhearing her in the first place.
He didn’t really like it, though. He missed her silly songs, her bright laugh, the way her face screwed up when she realized he was teasing. He missed the quiet moments where they chatted in the greenhouse while watering plants, missed listening to her talk about her day and her studies over dinner, missed that she seemed to be the only person who didn’t irritate him, these days.
With a sigh, Felix rolled over for what felt like the millionth time that night as sleep continued to elude him. Babyvain kept snoozing in the makeshift cradle they’d made in Felix’s dresser drawer (not that Felix had ever agreed to getting up all night with him, thank you very much).
“Do you think she’s still mad at me for the library thing?” Felix heard himself ask.
The baby, naturally, gave no answer.
“Saints, why am I asking you? Even if you weren’t a baby, your advice would be stupidly unhelpful.”
Felix rolled back onto his back and tried not to contemplate the mess that was his life. He just needed to finish out this war, find a cure for Sylvain, and maybe, possibly, figure out the weird stutter-stop thing his chest did whenever Annette was around.
Not necessarily in that order.
The longer he lay there, unfortunately awake, the more Felix gradually became aware that the baby’s breathing was not normal.
That wasn’t to say it was abnormal, exactly. But after so many nights with only the owls’ hooting and Babyvain’s tiny snoring for company, Felix was fairly certain what nighttime in his room was supposed to sound like.
This wasn’t it.
Felix’s bare feet made no sound on the flagstones as he crept towards the dresser. He swallowed a spike of panic as he approached-- he’s fine, he’s fine, Gautier men are made of, what was it, stone? Iron? Snow? He’ll be fine.
But it was not a man nestled in a heap of Felix’s old uniform shirts, but a very fussy baby with a stuffy nose. And when Felix (more gently than he had perhaps done anything in his life) set his hand on the baby’s forehead, it burned.
Felix cursed, loud and low. This was not good. He needed expert help.
Now.
-)
Annette awoke to pounding on her door. She nearly tumbled from her bed, heart racing and head throbbing. Gathering herself, she scrambled towards the door.
“What could possibly be so important that--oh!” She pulled up short at the sight of Felix, hair a mess, nightshirt loose, and Babyvain cradled in his arms. “Felix? What are you doing--”
“I think the baby’s sick,” he interrupted, which Annette took to be Felix-speak for HELP .
“Mercie will know what to do.” Annette was immediately out of her room and heading towards Mercedes’ room.
Felix fell in behind her immediately, pivoting out of the way as she pushed past him out her door.
“Um, Annette?” he called, even as he fell into step behind her.
“Come on!” Annette called back over her shoulder.
Felix tried again: “Annette, you forgot your--”
She shrieked when her bare feet hit the chilly, wet flagstones outside the dorms.
“--boots,” Felix finished, somewhat offhandedly, as the baby began to cry.
“Oooooh, I hate this!” Annette said as she hopped from foot to foot over towards Mercedes’ room.
“Don’t you know better than to walk outside barefoot?”
“I don’t need your advice, Felix!”
Who did he think he was, showing up at her room at this hour of the night? Baby or not, it was incredibly improper. And besides, Ingrid’s room was closer and Dimitri’s was literally next door. Couldn’t he have bothered them? Why did it always have to be her he tormented?
“Why are you being difficult?” he grumbled. “I’m trying to spare you.”
Annette made an annoyed noise as she pounded on Mercedes’ door. “Mercie! Open up, please!”
Mercedes took one look at her frazzled best friend and Felix with the baby and ushered them wordlessly inside.
“Felix thinks he’s sick,” Annette said to Mercedes the instant her door shut.
“I don’t think he’s sick ,” Felix corrected. “He is sick.”
“Lay him down, please, Felix,” Mercedes said as she stretched her blankets taut over her bed. “I want to look him over.”
Felix obeyed and unslung the baby carrier from his shoulder, laying the baby down more gently than Annette had seen him do perhaps anything. (Certainly more gently than he’d ever treated her, not that she was angry about it whatsoever). He stepped back, crossing his arms across his chest where Sylvain had once been.
He suddenly looked very small.
Mercedes made short work of checking the baby’s temperature, temperament, and all the rest. She wasn't the Blue Lions’ Cleric for nothing.
“I think he’s caught Ingrid’s cold from the other day,” Mercedes said as she straightened up. “I know just the thing to help him.”
Felix stifled a yawn. “Great. I’m going back to bed.”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Annette retorted at the same time Mercedes said, “Please don’t, yet.”
Felix froze, staring at the two mages with sharp amber eyes ringed in black. “Beg pardon.”
He didn’t even bother to make it a question.
“I know just the thing to help him,” Mercedes said again, “but I need to go brew the potion. It shouldn’t take long, but I need you to keep him awake until I get back.”
It was perhaps a thin conceit at the best of times, but Mercedes breathed in relief when Felix merely blinked at her again, and then, by pained degrees, lowered himself into her desk chair.
“Thank the Goddess,” Mercedes muttered, so lowly Annette nearly missed it.
“We’ll watch him,” Annette said firmly. “Please hurry.”
Mercedes nodded, then grabbed her shawl and boots and was out the door--leaving Annette and Felix alone in a room with a fussy baby Sylvain.
Annette realized too late what Mercedes had just done. Exasperated, she tried not to stomp as she went to sit down beside the baby. Babyvain curled towards her as the bed dipped under her weight, but remained put, his little baby wheezes filling the silence that had settled over Mercedes’ room.
It occurred to Annette that she was wearing nothing but her nightdress, and she immediately folded her arms self-consciously across her chest. She may not have been as well-endowed as some of the other Lion girls, but she had her standards, thank you. She cursed that she’d forgotten both her boots and her dressing gown in her room. What was worse, she couldn't go back to get them without crossing the cold, wet flagstones again.
(She also tried not to stare at the way Felix’s loose, white nightshirt hung on his thin frame, revealing the pale column of his neck and his oh-so-sharp collar bones. She failed dismally.)
Felix didn’t seem to notice, staring tiredly into nothingness. And the longer their silence stretched, the angrier Annette grew. He did not get to sit there and look so attractive with his hair a mess, sneak up on her in the library, the greenhouse, and mealtimes, overhear her embarrassing songs, sometimes be maybe-okay-kind-of-sweet, and then wake her up in the middle of the night with no explanation.
Annette Fantine Dominic had had it with him.
“Why did you wake me?”
Was it her imagination, or was that a faint blush creeping across his face?
“You were the first person I thought of,” Felix muttered.
Her plan backfired when heat rushed to Annette’s face and she suddenly couldn’t look at him. She tried to focus on Babyvain, whose little fingers were curled into the blankets and whose fine, red hair was sticking to his forehead.
“Can you grab Mercedes’ washcloth from over there?” Annette gestured to where Mercedes’ washbasin sat on her dresser. “We should try to break his fever.”
Felix’s thin brows immediately came together over the bridge of his nose. “Cold water doesn’t break a fever.”
“What? Of course it does.”
“ Medicine breaks a fever. There's nothing for it until Mercedes gets back.”
Annette was suddenly on her feet, hands on her hips. “Well, we need to do something! He could be dying! Or choke on his own spit-up! Or… or….!”
“Or he could be laying there doing nothing, like he is currently.”
They both glanced to where the baby still lay, breathing in little fits and starts.
Annette gave an angry huff, and for a moment, they simply stared at each other, locked in the eternal combat of a not-quite-relationship.
“Never mind,” Felix muttered. “I’ll get the fucking washcloth.”
Annette snapped.
“No.”
The force of it physically startled Felix, and he reached for his hip, reflexively going for the sword that, for once, wasn’t there.
“You will not blow me off, Felix Hugo Fraldarius! This is serious and you need to treat it like it is!”
He was frozen, a deer in the hunter’s sights, but Annette wasn’t finished. She was trembling now, her fists curled in on themselves like it would do a damn thing.
“You say whatever you like to the others--to Ingrid, to the professor, to our king, your hated boar --but as soon as it’s me, you shut up. You run. You disengage. Why? Why am I different?”
Annette didn’t realize she was crying until the tears began dotting her nightgown.
“Why am I not enough?”
Felix startled her with how quickly he moved, snapping out of his stupor like he hadn’t just been nearly dozing in his chair. Annette tried to focus on the baby instead of him, but it backfired when she turned her head and suddenly found him very much in her personal space.
He was staring at her intently, now; those sharp amber eyes boring holes in her soul and lighting her face on fire. “Look at me.”
Annette could only stare at her boots, the baby, the door—anywhere but him.
“‘Nette,” Felix said, his voice soft and rough and doing things to her heart, “look at me.”
“I can’t.” Her voice was a whisper, nearly lost in the sobs she was trying desperately to contain.
She would not cry. Not in front of him.
But he was suddenly in her field of vision anyway, shoulders bent to look her in the eye. She had never seen his edges so soft, his expression so open. She wondered, errantly, if his hair was as feather-fine as the baby’s, or if it was as rough as the rest of him.
“You have it backwards,” he said, quietly. “I thought you wanted me away from you.”
Why? Why would he ever think such a thing?
“Because you’re always getting mad at me for finding you singing,” Felix said sheepishly, and Annette realized she’d said that out loud. “I thought you hated me.”
Annette shook her head. “I don’t hate you, Felix. I could never. You’re just so frustrating sometimes.”
He cocked his head to look at her for a long, quiet moment, and Annette decided that the warmth in those amber eyes would be the death of her. Her heart leapt into her throat when he reached out to her and tentatively settled his hand on her cheek. He dragged his calloused thumb across her face, wiping away the tears he’d been causing with the same sort of delicate care he ordinarily used to clean his deadly blades.
And then he said the thing Felix Hugo Fraldairus never said:
“I’m sorry. Let me try again.”
And then he kissed her, more softly than Annette had previously thought possible. His lips filled in the spaces between hers like it was the most natural thing in the world, and she was stunned, pinned in place, frozen between acting and reacting.
He pulled back, just far enough to add, “It’s me, okay? Not you.”
Several things passed through Annette’s mind at that moment:
I… have it backwards?
Did he just kiss me? Did I just want him to?
Goddess, I hope the baby isn’t awake.
And rather than address any of them, she threw her arms around his shoulders and pulled him back flush against her. She pressed her forehead against his, both terrifyingly sure and unsure.
“It’s never you.” Felix sounded out of breath, like he’d just come off the battlefield, and his other hand, calloused from his unending weapons training, came up to cradle the rest of her face. “Okay?
Annette bit her lip, and found it tasted of him. She was pretty sure she liked it, but needed more evidence to confirm. “Okay.”
They held each other there for a long moment, unsure of the way forward.
Held against him like this, she could feel how fast his heart was beating, could feel the jittery nervousness in his hands. Felix, nervous! She was learning all sorts of things about him today, and found herself hoping for a lifetime of continuing the trend.
“Are we okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Annette softly, burying her face in his neck. “We’re okay.”
Felix hesitantly moved to cradle her head there. She was so warm, so good, nestled against him like this, and he suddenly found that he didn’t want to let go, maybe ever.
The baby let out a soft wail, then, and they were forced to let go.
“He’s so fucking needy,” Felix muttered, although he still reached out to smooth back the baby’s fine hair and check his fever. “I weep for his future wife.”
Annette found herself laughing, just a little. “I mean, every pain a baby feels is the worst pain they’ve ever felt.”
“Guess that depends on your theory of Sylvain’s consciousness,” Felix said.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Hanneman thinks Sylvain is actually in there, trapped in a baby’s body. Lysithea figures he’s actually a baby and won’t remember any of this.”
Annette froze. “He will never let us live it down that the entire house has changed his diaper.”
“Except he’ll say we’ve all seen his dick, and make it weird.”
Annette giggled, because it was better than the alternative. “And then Ingrid will hit him.”
“And then I will hit him,” Felix said. “He owes me a province, at this point.”
They receded into silence, then, and each unbeknownst to the other, wished desperately to hold and be held again.
“We should… talk about this later,” Felix said. “When things are less…” He struggled to find a word.
Annette took pity on him. “I’d like that.”
A soft smile crossed his face, and Annette wasn’t sure how she didn’t melt into the floor right then.
“Okay,” Felix said.
An hour later, Mercedes returned with the medicinal potion and found the three of them curled in a heap on her bedcovers, Annette’s head on Felix’s shoulder and snuggled under his arm, his head atop hers, and the snoozing baby cradled in their arms.
She hated to wake them up only slightly more than she hated the idea of sleeping on her floor. And as she administered the medicine and then shooed them away, Mercedes grinned to herself at her Sylvain-level scheming.
-)
It was a very tired Felix who came down to breakfast the following morning, as ever with Babyvain slung across his chest. Annette was faring no better, with bags under her eyes dark as ravens. She nearly fell asleep in her morning porridge twice, and Felix was pretty sure it was the most adorable thing he had ever seen.
He still nudged her back awake and kept her food out of her hair, and she smiled so sleepily up at him that stomach flipped over and threatened to upend his breakfast across the table.
“Good morning,” Mercedes said pleasantly. She was entirely too chipper.
Felix grunted something that may or may not have been a hello.
Ingrid arrived a few minutes later, the first thing out of her mouth: “How is Sylvain doing?”
“Fine.” Felix was already unslinging the baby and pushing him towards her. “Please take him.”
Ingrid picked him up, and the baby happily settled onto her lap. “He sounds better! His breathing’s easier.”
“I think he had your cold, Ingrid,” Mercedes said. “I gave him some medicine last night.”
“Oh, what a relief, I—wait. Last night?”
“Don’t ask,” Felix threatened over the rim of his coffee mug.
He felt a small hand squeeze his knee, and realized it was Annette thanking him. It was strange, having her smile up at him for his glowering instead of being annoyed at him about it, but a man could get used to it.
She moved to pull away, but he didn’t let her, settling his hand over hers and holding it there.
Ingrid wisely turned back to her breakfast, and began alternating feeding herself and the baby (with much, much smaller bites).
That was about that time that Lysithea burst through the door, slamming it into the wall in her haste. “Where is Babyvain?”
All eyes turned to Felix, who jerked his thumb at Ingrid.
“We have him,” Ingrid said. “What’s up?”
Lysithea’s pale red eyes gleamed. “We’ve got it.”
-)
Which was how Felix came to be standing in Hanneman’s cramped office as the two mages fiddled with a disturbing-looking apparatus that looked not unlike Hanneman’s crest identifying machine.
“And you’re sure this will work?” he asked as he entertained the fussy baby. “And not, I don’t know, kill him instead?”
“Reasonably,” Hanneman said. “Keep him in that magic circle, would you kindly?”
“Oh, reasonably,” Felix muttered. “Incredible.”
“This is magic never studied before,” Lysithea said sharply. “Be grateful we found anything at all.”
“Sure,” said Felix. “Cheers, I guess.”
Lysithea rolled her eyes—“I don’t get what Annette sees in you.”—and then Hanneman hit the switch.
Magic choked the small room, like humid air before a storm. It skittered across the exposed skin on Felix’s face and neck, and some deep, primal instinct screamed for him to run.
“Get out of the circle on my count!” Hanneman shouted. “One… two… three!”
Felix dove out of the way, landing hard on his shoulder. Lightning seared into his closed eyes.
The apparatus stopped.
The storm-like air stopped.
The world held its breath.
“Y’know,” said a blessedly familiar voice, “if you just wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
Felix was up in a heartbeat, drawing back to punch.
And there stood Sylvain, naked as his name day, fully-grown and smiling like a bastard.
Felix had never been so relieved to punch him.
“It worked!” Hanneman shouted, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
A very red-faced Lysithea was already halfway out the door. “I’ll get you some clothes!”
“Ouch,” Sylvain said, rubbing at his shoulder. “Good to see you, too, Fe.”
“You bastard,” Felix swore, jabbing at the cavalier with a finger, “you owe me.”
“Yeah, I know.” Sylvian flashed a sheepish smile. “I really do. But hey, you owe me, too.”
The look Felix gave him was murderous, and intent to kill dripped from every syllable. “For what?”
“For giving you the opportunity to make out with Annette, of course.” Adult Sylvain wore his cocky grin better, but in that moment, Felix almost wished they had the baby still.
Lysithea found Hanneman physically restraining a red-faced Felix from a giggling Sylvain when she returned with the cavalry and pants about ten minutes later.
“Ah,” said Ingrid with exasperated fondness, “and all is right with the world.”
“Felix?” Annette asked. “Are you…?”
The swordsman pivoted under Hanneman’s arm, forgoing throttling Sylvain entirely in favor of grabbing Annette by the arm and hauling her towards the door. “I’m leaving. Come with?”
Annette laughed—loudly, freely, openly—and allowed herself to be pulled along. “Sure, Felix.”