Author's Note: This is for the lovely and incredibly sweet YunCyn.

The first time Lucina kissed him, Gerome understood that she cared for him. The second time, that she was attracted to him. And the third time, that they were courting.

The thought was disconcerting.

"It's not that I don't feel for her," he told Minerva one morning as he tightened her saddle. Sensing that he was already on edge, she sucked in air to toy with him and he had to kick her soft underbelly to get the harness on correctly. "Stop teasing me! You know I don't know what I'm doing with her."

She swivelled her head to look at him pointedly, yellow eyes half-lidded with amusement. Of course she'd feel that way. She had obviously never courted a human woman before, either.

He found himself brooding once they were in the air, scouting before the army for the day's march. Lucina had been dear to him for many years: both a beautiful woman and a steadfast friend. In a way, it wasn't so surprising to him that she would close the distances between them, let him run his fingers through her hair while she pressed her mouth to his, take his lower lip between hers softly. There was an ease about them that cued him in; a comfort. Like there was no possibility of either of them rejecting the other.

For now, he thought.

As far as he knew, she'd never kissed before, so on that front they were equal. He'd never courted anyone, never so much as looked at anyone except for her, and even then, he never really allowed himself to look. Love was a terrible distraction on the battlefield. A man would leave his post for the woman he loved if she fell, let his mind wander if she filled him with memories, betray his allies for her if she were held hostage and that was her price. Love was dangerous, and lust was even worse. No matter what Inigo claimed, lying with someone wouldn't fuel the body like food or sleep. It was a want, not a need, and Gerome had done his best to cleanse himself of any such frivolous desires, so he could focus whole-heartedly upon his training. He had more important things to worry about.

And there was no sense in fantasizing about kissing her if that meant minutes he could have spent training to prevent her lips from stiffening and then rotting in death.

Oddly, however, now he felt that this put him at a disadvantage. It was all well and good that neither he nor Lucina had any experience with courting. But he'd never even thought about it, and he knew this set him apart from the others. He hadn't paid attention. There were small social things he was slowly realizing that he hadn't learned, once he first donned the mask and decided that society was something he needed no part of.

And now he had so many questions. When would he see her next? When could he? Would he appear overeager if he went to speak with her right after dinner, that night? Or cold if he didn't? Would she be offended if he didn't start initiating kisses of his own accord, or did she like that he refrained? Should he start keeping a closer eye on her in battle? Would that anger her, since she was capable enough on her own?

"Stop swooping," he said to Minerva through gritted teeth, but she only snorted, knowing as well as he did that the sudden jolting of his heart had nothing to do with flying.

Giving the wrong amount of attention to a woman: what a damnably stupid thing to be afraid of.

He found himself trying to relax. Letting his mind drift to a memory of her and dwelling there. The last time he saw her, he'd walked her to her tent, since the moon was new and the night was exceedingly dark. She'd given him a kiss goodnight: long, unhurried, coupled with a soft moan when he'd wrapped his arms around her. He couldn't deny the odd heat he'd felt, something sharp and fast like how air crackles after lightning strikes close by. It made him press his body against hers and got her hand clenched in his hair.

He supposed it was normal, although he'd never felt anything like it. Perhaps that was what it was like to have someone wanting to be with you, someone you didn't want to push away. Just for a moment, it was like being a child again, when he had nothing to be afraid of.

They'd parted breathlessly. She'd gone into her tent. He hadn't seen her since, and while it was only midday, it had felt like forever. Again, he wondered when it would be prudent to see her next. Or would she come to him when it was time?

Why had she wanted to court him? He was terrible at this.

In the end, he did not go, and did not see her for another day.

XxX

For the first time in his life, he sat by the cooking fire early that evening for supper, rather than training until the light was gone and eating once most people had left. He was so anxious about running into Lucina and wondering about whether he should sit at her side or not, and hoped to leave that decision up to her by arriving early enough to be sitting already. He could use a little reassurance, as stupid as it felt to acknowledge.

Surely enough, she did sit on the ground beside him when she had her food, and gave him a greeting and an affectionate smile that he nervously returned. She didn't seem upset. She chatted with him about the day until the other soldiers left, one by one, until the moon was high and the fire was low and it was just the two of them.

They settled into silence: drifting between companionable and awkward. He thought that perhaps he should kiss her in the amber light, or at least touch her face, but he was afraid to try it.

"I didn't see you last night," she said finally.

He shifted.

"I was hoping I would," she continued when he didn't speak. "I've been thinking about our last kiss."

"I have been, as well," he finally managed.

"So why didn't you come?" She turned her head to look at him, eyes glinting in the low illumination: mismatched, charmingly marked. He liked that flaw. She would have been too intimidating to talk to, otherwise, with her commanding voice and the high tilt to her chin and how soft her hair looked and—

He realized too late that she was waiting for an answer, and knew he had to tell her the truth.

"I was afraid to appear too eager."

"There's no such thing," she said with a small laugh. "We're together now, are we not?"

He was silent.

"Look," she said as she put her hand on his arm, "I care about you. I want to see you as much as possible. But I know you prefer to be alone most of the time, so I don't want to intrude. We should come up with a plan."

"Like a battle plan?" he asked, faintly amused. Lucina was always business, it seemed, no matter the circumstance. When she blushed he realized, for the first time, that perhaps she felt as lost as he did. None of them had any time for romance, growing up. How was she to magically know how to do anything, outside of warring? Why had he expected that?

"Not like a battle plan," she said, withdrawing her hand, and he reached out to touch it. She always was terrible with jokes. It was another flaw, and he liked it as well.

"We'll figure it out, won't we?" he asked, although he felt a little foolish. "Worrying clouds the mind. There's no sense in it."

"You're right," she said as her smile returned. He lowered their hands to rest on the log between them, and after a hesitation, threaded his fingers through hers. It felt correct.

XxX

As the days passed, he started to wonder what he should be doing to actively woo her, now that they were "together," as she said. Buy her chocolates when they passed through town? Sing her songs or write her poems, as Inigo suggested? (He immediately rejected both ideas that dribbled from that irritating grin.) This would have been hard enough back home, but attempting to court during a war made the pressure to make Lucina feel happy and safe and calm a great deal worse.

And worst of all, nothing stayed a secret in such a small army. Hardly a day after they held hands in the firelight, Chrom was eyeing him suspiciously and Inigo was constantly jabbing an elbow into his ribs: "How'd you make her swoon today? Talk for hours about your wyvern? Give her the cold shoulder and put on another mask?"

Never had he felt so inadequate. He wasn't good with people, let alone someone as utterly human as Lucina. And yet, she never seemed to mind.

One day, while they were on the march, he finally got an idea, spotting daisies growing in a bright, white line along the road. She liked daisies. She insisted they grow in the garden, as a child, despite them being too simple for an Exalt to keep.

He marked the spot in his mind and flew back after the army had made camp—not after dark, for he wasn't that addled, but late enough so that he would be alone. He picked a huge armful of them and held onto Minerva with his knees the entire way back so that he wouldn't drop a single one. It was dusk by the time he returned, and Lucina was in her tent, with the flap shut and one candle burning.

He thought he should announce himself, but suddenly the idea of presenting her with the gift was too embarrassing. What if she thought him silly? What if she scolded him for wasting his time on such a transient thing when they had a war to focus on?

Before he knew it, she had opened the tent flap and was looking at him with wide eyes. He'd hesitated too long, and she had surely seen his shadow lurking there.

"I found these," he blurted, and thrust the blossoms at her, and turned on his heel.

"Gerome?" she asked, but he ducked behind the next tent and strode on.

That night, embarrassment kept him up late. He burned a single candle and mended a tear in one of his shirts close to the tiny flame, letting that envelop all of his concentration. He was quite good with a needle, thanks to Mother, and sometimes sewing ripped things back together made him feel closer to her, made him pretend that maybe Lucina was right, and they could traverse the rift they'd created to form something even stronger.

A rustle outside broke him from his thoughts: too human, too deliberate, too late at night. He grabbed his axe and burst out of his tent, but the intruder was gone, and he found his right foot crushing the stem of a violet. There were practically two dozen of them heaped in a pile.

At first he wondered why Lucina didn't ask for him, since the candlelight would have showed that he was awake, but maybe she realized that would have made him uncomfortable. Slowly, he stooped to pick up the bunch and stared off in the direction of her tent. He didn't deserve her.

The next morning she had a daisy behind her ear, and he'd woven the violets around Minerva's neck (which she rather liked). And when Inigo began to tease, he punched him right in the chest and knocked him on his arse.

The teasing stopped.

XxX

The next day, she almost died.

She was so engaged with her opponent on the field, which was so dry the grass cracked underfoot, that she didn't see the other assailant behind her, axe raised to cleave her head right off. Gerome was too far away.

He didn't remember making any noise, but later the others told him he'd screamed the loudest they'd ever heard him, and hurled his hand-axe so hard that it cut the arm off of Lucina's attacker. It thumped to the ground and the blade grazed her arm as it followed, and she turned only to be pushed over by the bleeding, panicking body of its owner. Her first opponent tried to swoop down and finish the job, but Gerome was there by then, hacking off his head while Lucina finished off the man pinning her.

In the tide of battle she was swept from his side, and his heart refused to calm itself from the gallop it had gotten into. She had been so close to death once; it could easily happen again. And no matter how high he flew, he couldn't spot her anywhere.

It was only afterward that he grabbed Owain's false mother by the shoulder—too roughly, for she cringed—and demanded whether she had seen Lucina.

"She's in her tent," she replied with wide eyes. "I just fixed that scratch on her arm."

"My thanks." He left without a backward glance.

When he made it to her tent he pulled it open without pretence, and she shot up from the edge of the cot like she'd been expecting him.

"I'm fine," she tried to say, but he was ordering her to shut up and then he was kissing her hard and she was melting into his arms.

"How could you," he practically growled when he finally tore his lips away, and then only to push them against her jaw and neck: "He almost had you. We need to train. Another hour. Every day."

"No amount of training will help me grow eyes in the back of my head!" she protested, and her eyes where shining when he pulled back to look at her. "And besides, I'm a better warrior than you!"

"Skill has nothing to do with this. You should be more aware."

"That's what you're for."

"Lucina, if I lost you—" He couldn't even finish the sentence. He kissed her again, desperately. She wound her fingers into his hair and her grip only tightened when he pulled her flush against him, as close as he could get her, mind racing as she pushed back eagerly:

The walls of her tent—no, they won't support us; the ground—perhaps she'd be uncomfortable; if I lay down my cloak—

He stopped abruptly and took a full step back, realizing just then how far he'd gone: trying to figure out how to make love to her. Could he act any more irresponsibly? They were fighting a war for the sake of the entire world and he had, for a moment, been willing to jeopardize it. Right after lecturing her about being more aware of their circumstances.

He felt his face burn with shame. She was red too, and tousle-haired, and staring at him like she might actually eat him (in a manner quite different than that same stare from Minerva). That was his fault as well.

"I'm so sorry," he said hoarsely.

"For what?"

"I was about to act out of turn. I've never felt this way before."

"Nor I," she said. The breathless note in her voice made him want to grab her again. "Is this normal? This desperation?"

"I don't know."

"It's so pleasant," she confessed, and he did grab her then, by the hips. She was kissing him again before he could make the same confession.

They remained responsible, he could say with pride a few hours later, when he finally stumbled back to his own tent. But they hadn't remained completely innocent. He was rather proud of that, too—but unlike Inigo, he would be keeping those details entirely to himself.

XxX

As the weeks passed, he found himself improving in everything: fighting, sleeping, comfortable silences, kissing, making Lucina smile with slight touches. He was beginning to believe that he could handle any obstacle.

And then a general's lance had torn into Chrom's middle and yanked out his entrails, and Lucina had screamed and wept as his sheet-white, unmoving body was jostled back to camp on a litter, Lissa's staff glowing and eyes overflowing the entire way. Gerome had never felt so powerless or so at a loss of what to do.

Lucina wasn't allowed into the healer's tent while they worked on the man she called father again—or what was left of him—so she paced before it like an enraged animal. He kept his distance, guessing that she needed time alone, although he wished he could stop her with a hard embrace.

He returned at dusk to ask if she'd eaten yet and found her simply standing there, staring off into nothing.

"Lucina," he ventured softly.

"What if he's dead," she whispered. "What if they don't let me in because they know I will go mad when I see his body. I feel that I must. We had come so far."

"Don't speak that way," he said harshly. "He is not your father and you can continue without him, for the sake of your real father."

"How—!" She had Falchion half-drawn before she remembered herself, and her eyes were livid with pain. "He will not grow into the same man, Gerome, but he was, at some point! His path diverged when my mask came off. And I will not lose him!"

The feelings of immaturity, of worthlessness, were back. He could make her cry out in delight with only his fingertips, but when it came to something truly important, he offered no comfort.

"Forgive me," he said, and forced out a weakness: "It frightens me to hear you say that you will lose yourself."

"So tether me," she whispered, and he understood she was admitting weakness as well. His hands felt awkward at his sides. For a while they just looked at each other, until the silence was broken by a muffled sob from Lissa, within the tent, and a stern reprimand from Maribelle to pull herself together. Lucina did not bite her lip or quiver with forming tears; her face only hardened. Gerome was the one who cringed. That was why he wore a mask and she did not.

"I would like to hold you," he said finally, feeling extremely foolish. "To…to cradle you. But I know that to do so would be an insult."

"An insult?" Her eyebrows drew together. "Why?"

"Because you are strong. You don't need anyone to hold you. It is simply a selfish desire of mine."

Her reaction confused him: a bitter laugh.

"Gerome," she said, "sometimes you are so funny."

He wasn't sure whether to be indignant or bewildered, and didn't get a chance to be either because she put her arms around his neck. Hesitantly, he wrapped one of his arms around her waist and the other around her upper back, covering the back of her head with his hand. The stance nestled her face deeper into his shoulder. It made him feel tall.

"Is this all right?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," she said back, with a sigh that pushed her chest harder against his for just a moment. "This is perfectly all right. Please don't let go."

He had no intention to. He held her for a long, long while, until the moon rose and Lissa emerged from the tent, drying tears from her face.

Gerome jumped away immediately, but Lissa didn't seem to even notice his presence at all.

"Oh, Lucina," she said weakly, "Chrom'll be just fine. I'm killing him when he wakes up, though. Do you think they've saved any dinner?"

"I'm sure they have, Aunt Lissa," she assured, ten years dropping from her tight face, and put an arm around her shoulders to lead her off. Before she left, however, she looked to Gerome and said, "You know, it's fine if people see us embracing. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

He only flushed, and both women looked tiredly amused as they left him.

XxX

Her words bothered him until he couldn't stand it any longer, and that night before bed he slipped into her tent.

"Gerome," she said, sounding a little shaken still. She was halfway done unbuttoning her tunic but he barely even noticed. "What—"

"I was ashamed," he confessed. "Embarrassed to be seen with you like that. Is that wrong of me?"

"I suppose that is a little hurtful." That look crossed her face: the one that appeared when she was perturbed, both confused and somehow precocious. He was quick to backpedal:

"That's not—it isn't you, I just—I felt—the embrace was so intimate—"

"And you want our intimate moments to remain between us? I can understand that. I just don't mind if anybody sees us. We're in—"

She cut herself off and he was glad for it. It wasn't wise to say such things. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.

The silence that followed was very tense.

"If you don't mind," he whispered to break it, "then I shall try not to."

"We can compromise," she whispered back. "Allow embraces and refrain from letting anyone see me undressing in front of you."

He blinked and eyed her bare collarbone while she went back to work at the buttons just under her breasts. "Was that a joke?"

"I tried," she said with a shrug.

It wasn't even funny, but he laughed a little despite himself. "You need more practice."

"I'm learning." She sounded pleased with herself.

"We both are," he said, and kissed her cheek, and left.

He would be diligent, he swore on the way back to his own tent. Just as he trained his body for the war, and his senses to feel beyond the edges of his mask, he would have to train his mind to accept an emotion he had pushed away for the majority of his life.

Love had always seemed so foolish, to him. Something that would be ripped away the instant you admitted to it.

But now that he was experiencing it for the first time since his parents' deaths, he remembered how good it was. It would be a struggle to block all his fears and allow that feeling to grow, but it was necessary. If anything happened to Chrom, Lucina might not need him, but she would probably want him around. And he had to admit that he fought better, when her life was on the line, like when he had saved her the other day. He'd never hewn clean through an enemy's neck before. She made him fight like a maniac.

But most of all, she deserved love. Love was a luxury, the privilege of people who were sheltered and safe and naïve. She was none of those things, but she deserved to be. He wanted her to be able to become that sort of person again, like they all were as children. Perhaps it wasn't possible, but he would try.

XxX

He'd bought the ring weeks and weeks ago: gold and intricately engraved, for he knew she hated extravagances like earrings and ornaments, but always oohed over fine detail on sword hilts and furniture legs and paperweights, things of use.

He would propose after they felled Grima, he'd decided. A part of him wondered if he should the night before, but that would be too cruel, if both—or even worse, only one—of them perished. Instead he went to her tent and slept with her, merely slept, both of them pressed together on her cot, clinging. He was sure without her warmth and the rhythm of her breath, he would've gotten no sleep at all. She told him in the morning that his presence soothed her, too, and that made him feel stronger. As strong as a full night of sleep would have.

After the battle he had the thought that perhaps he should postpone his proposal for another day. A week. Forever. But he recognized this as cowardice. Lucina had done everything she'd come back to do, but that left her without purpose, without stability, for she'd confided to him that she would not remain in Ylisstol, where her presence could meddle with the "true Lucina."

"Don't call her that," he'd said. "You are the true Lucina, the one who fought. She is the one who receives the reward."

But he agreed that staying with Chrom and her mother would cause too many conflicts, just as he couldn't stay with his parents. He'd known from the start that such contact was dangerous. So his plan was to return to Wyvern Valley with Minerva, find mercenary work where nobody had ever met him so it didn't matter if he took off the mask, buy a house and care for Lucina. Give her the future she was searching for.

That night at camp there was feasting and dancing and a bonfire on the shoreline. Lucina was having a good time with the others but Gerome pulled her away with a look, a talent she'd taught to him and he was starting to pick up on. They walked together down the sand, her barefoot in the surf and him fully dressed at the very edge of the waves' lapping, close enough to touch, but one on land and one in the sea. Finally, when the army's music was a faint sound and the bonfire was hardly larger than his fist, he stopped and turned to her, fingering the ring in his pocket.

"Lucina."

"Yes?" she asked as she stopped as well.

"We've done it."

"We have," she said, and he watched her lips curve up into a broad, easy smile.

"What are your plans, now?"

She was silent from a while, and looked away from him, over the black ocean, before she spoke. "I haven't really thought about it. I never allowed myself to plan farther than today. Today was all that mattered."

"Then let me—" he began, but that wasn't quite right. "Lucina, I—" His mind blanked once again. She turned back to look at him, and that made everything even more difficult. He dropped to a knee, beginning to understand why such a gesture had become the norm for a proposal. He needed her in his life so badly that he was not above even begging. He heard her gasp but started to speak quickly, afraid she'd reject him before he could even begin:

"Lucina, I have nothing to offer you. I'm not the heir to Roseanne anymore, and I have nothing to my name but my axe and Minerva, and it's no use to say that I can protect you, since you can easily protect yourself. But I am a determined man. You know that. I can make a life for us, now that we have to start over. I can make you happy. You've been through so much; you deserve happiness. I'll do whatever it takes."

She was silent. He wasn't sure what that meant. He raised his eyes to hers, wondering so intensely what she was thinking, and realized then that she must be wondering the same. She was hard to read, but he wasn't. And for years he'd worn a mask to cover that fact.

So he took it off.

"I love you. I regret our past, and I want to give you a better future. Will you have me as your husband?"

She didn't join him on his knee. Lucina had never had to kneel to anybody but her lord father. But she pulled him up suddenly and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his chest.

"Of course," she whispered. "Oh, Gerome, I love you too. I always have. I should have said it sooner."

"No," he whispered back as he held her and rested his cheek against her hair. He understood. To say it sooner would have crippled them, would have made them fear this last battle more than anything. But that was all behind them, now.

He pulled away to show her the ring, and she slid it on with a wobbly smile that he wondered at, until he saw the tears in her eyes. She didn't let them fall.

"I'm sorry I had to be so blunt," he said. "I've never had any skill with words."

Her smile widened, but her retort was cut off by a massive, hot roar that ruffled his hair. He felt a thump behind him and winced as flying sand stung the back of his neck. Lucina was looking amusedly at a point behind him with more sand in her hair.

"Minerva," he said through gritted teeth as he turned to face her. She lowered her head to stare at him through one yellow eye, reproachfully. He stared back for a while, but when she showed no signs of blinking (and then rather deliberately darted her tongue out to flick against his uncovered cheekbone), he sighed and turned back to Lucina.

"She wanted to be present," he explained. "As far as she is concerned, she and I are one, which means that—now that you've agreed—you both are also one."

It sounded so stupid. Sometimes wyverns could be. Minerva huffed air onto the back of his neck again as if she could read his thoughts.

"I told you," he grumbled to her, "that this was to be a private moment."

"It's all right," said Lucina. "I have her to thank for keeping you alive all this time, and for always being your friend before I could be." She stretched out her hand as if there was nothing strange about the situation, and Minerva pushed her nose into it for a brief second. Then she took off as if there was nothing left on the scene to interest her.

"Forgive her," said Gerome. "She can be difficult and she will outlive either of us, I'm afraid."

"I think that's wonderful," said Lucina. "I already knew that if we ever married, she would be part of our family."

He was touched by this understanding, and laced their fingers together. After a while she said softly,

"Did you ask Father for my hand?"

"Lucina…Chrom is not the father I would need to ask."

"I know." There was pain in her eyes, but also understanding. "I wanted to hear you say it. To make sure you weren't an imposter."

"Another joke?" he surmised, and she nodded.

"I'm still learning." She looked at him then, and he found that for the first time—now with no mission to complete, no parents to avenge, no world to save—she looked quite lost. "I haven't any idea how to be a wife."

"And I don't know how to be a husband. But we'll learn, just as we've figured out everything else."

As she had soothed his fears a million times, he saw his words wipe hers away. "Yes, I suppose we shall." She tugged on his hand a little. "Come, let's return to the others."

"I don't like them."

"Who?"

"Everyone."

"I know," she laughed, knowing it was mostly a lie, "but we should tell them the news. And after a while you won't have to deal with anyone but me."

That was a nice thought. A peaceful life in the valley. She leaned up to kiss him: the first time, Gerome understood that she agreed. The second time, that she was happy. And the third time, that he deserved happiness too. He slipped his mask into his pocket and followed her back to the fire and the laughter.

Author's Note: I know I missed a lot of opportunities for Minerva to start shenanigans, but I wanted this to be a more serious piece. (Maybe I'll write Meddling Minervykins fic later.)

This was originally going to continue into The Most Awkward Wedding Night Ever, because torturing Gerome is fun, but I didn't want to make the entire fic rated-M for the sake of one scene, so I split it and their wedding night will be a different fic altogether that I'll post at a later date. (I also like the idea of the story essentially ending just after the war, in any case, since Lucina's purpose in the past is over then.)

If you've made it this far, congrats! This was 14 pages. Thank you for getting through it all. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have!