A/N: So, I have recently become a huge fan of the 2009, Chinese-made, live action version of Mulan. It is beautiful and very powerful and I wish it would become as famous as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero, because it is that good. It's a little different story line than the Disney version, and this has a few spoilers so I suggest you watch the movie first.

I don't own anything, nor am I making money off of this. It is simply fanfiction.

He first knows he loves her when they are sitting on the floor of a barn.

She isn't glamorous. She isn't dressed in fine silk or simpering at him from behind a fan. She is dirty, and she is tired, and she has been sentenced to death. It's not her best moment, and yet Wentai knows he has never seen a woman so beautiful.

She tells him that she joined to war to save her father. A million thoughts run across his mind. Would he have done the same? His rough relationship with his own father suggests differently, but he is a creature of duty and has ended up here anyway. Would he have been able to hide so long? Would he have admitted to thievery to preserve his secret?

This line of thinking is interrupted as she goes on to make a request: that her father never be told that she didn't die in combat.

It is in this moment, this simple request, that he knows he loves her. She is an incredible woman. She is an amazing fighter. She is strong, she is smart, she is beautiful—and she could have been anything. She could have made any request, and Wentai knows he would have carried it out for her. But she chose to think of her father, and duty, and honor. He is so filled with admiration for her that he can barely nod, and covers his overwhelmed feelings by handing her the soup. The least he could do, her final meal before the execution.

But suddenly he knows that this will not be her final meal. There is no possible way that Wentai will let her die tomorrow. He resolves to save her, right then and there. He resolves to love her, no matter what happens in the next day or the next decade. He will let her go to save her life, and for a moment he wishes that things could have been different. They could have had a family. They could have been poor together, or king and queen together, or anything else as long as they had been together.

These thoughts surprise him, a little bit. He has never considered marriage except as a duty. He has never felt quite this way about a woman. But suddenly he is feeling so much love, so much admiration, and he is overwhelmed again, this time with a strong desire to protect her.

She tells him of her fears and her wish that he personally burn her corpse, once again speaking of honor for her family. He is in awe of her again, but he cannot bring himself to commit to destroying her. Not when she is so brave, so wonderful. In just a moment, a simple moment on the floor of a barn, he has become a new man, a man who has so much love in his soul that he cannot ever let her die.

And so he does give her a promise. It is a promise that sounds simple enough in its words, and Mulan perhaps only sees the face of it. She doesn't quite understand what kind of change the man in front of her has just been through, and so she doesn't hear the layers hidden in his promise.

A promise to save her. A promise to love her. A promise to protect her, to admire her, to never let anything happen to her.

A promise to burn away her nightmares.

He first knows she loves him when they are standing in the midst of their dying brethren.

He had had inklings before. As they had become closer, working together as commanders and generals, he knew that she returned his feelings somewhat. He would catch her watching him when she thought he couldn't see, and their talk about feelings on the battle field had had hidden meanings even he couldn't quite understand.

The most recent moment had been minutes before. She had ridden up as the enemy retreated, and he could see the relief in her eyes. Joy swelled up in him as he realized it was relief that he was alive. She must care for him, to have followed him even when he told her to stay behind—wait. She had not followed his orders. She was here, and the enemy had run away far too quickly and that meant the supplies—

And so it is her words, now, that solidify the bittersweet knowledge of her love. She says she couldn't bear to lose him. She had lost so many of her brothers, and she cannot lose Wentai as well.

For a moment Wentai is hurt. Is he only a brother to her? Has their close relationship over the years only resulted in her thinking of him as a brother, when he loves her with all of his heart and soul, and would do anything in his power to protect her—oh.

With sudden clarity he understands her meaning. She cannot say the words that define their relationship any more than he can. He is her brother, her friend, her mentor, her companion, and in another moment he wishes with all his might that he could be her lover as well.

His long-thought-of daydream comes to the surface again. They could be married. They could have a family. They could end their careers in war and simply be together. She could be empress someday. Wentai has never seen Mulan in a woman's clothes, but he knows she would wear them with grace just as she does her armor. He would give her the finest silks, and they would never have to camp on the battlefield or go hungry or kill to survive again. It could be so wonderful.

But he knows that without battle, without strong generals and stronger soldiers, this dream life will never be safe. He is and always be a creature of duty. His daydream will never happen while the war goes on, and for that purpose he must continue on. He and Mulan can never let their feelings influence them on the battlefield again.

He tells her this in essence, the words forcing themselves out of his mouth. A small part of him is still in doubt about her feelings, so he says the word. There can be no love on a battlefield, he says, and her flinch behind him seals the knowledge within himself. He doesn't remember what else he says, but it no doubt cruel.

What he does remember is her question, a clear sound out of the fog of dying men and blood. She asks if he would have done the same if it had been her.

The answer is clear in his mind, as it has been since that moment on the floor of the barn. Yes. He would have run to her, and protected her, and never let her out of his sight again. He shouts the yes in his mind, over and over, savoring its purity.

But he cannot say this to her. They must be creatures of duty. They must put aside their feelings, for their own protection and for the good of their country and their people. If he tells her the truth, they can never go back to how it was, simple comrades despite their complex love for each other.

And so he tells her a lie. He would not have done the same. Through her grief and guilt she cannot hear the layers of truth behind it, and she turns away. But in his words he renews his earlier promise.

He will love her. He will protect her. He will fight alongside her and counsel her and burn away her nightmares as he resolved to do so many years ago.

But he cannot let her do the same for him.