Love Sprung from Words

Pain

The first time Irisviel had experienced pain was when she had met the man who would ironically also teach her of kindness. Perhaps it was the fact that kindness was such a sharp positive contrast to pain that such a thing became all the more precious to her. Nevertheless, when Kiritsugu had struck her in that first encounter, across the face, knocking her to the ground, her first impression was that of all her meticulously crafted nerve endings well…screaming.

She soon learned that the cold was painful too, when she'd been set with that test to prove her endurance, thrown unclothed into a snowstorm to fend for herself. That was when Kiritsugu had shown her kindness then, rescuing her from that, not so long after that same first meeting. Well, he wouldn't have called it kindness, at the time anyway. He hadn't thought of her that way yet, as someone who ought to be shown that. Or perhaps he did.

"Why did you do it?" she asked him one afternoon in the library, when they'd settled into their routine of teacher and student—he the wise teacher telling her of the ways of the world so she could understand anger and how it served as an impetus to fight, she the naïve student, who was simply relishing the thought of learning new things.

At the time, the two of them were discussing Chinese history, and Kiritsugu had pointed out to her a chapter in the book she had open in front of her about Wu Zetian, China's only female emperor. Kiritsugu looked up from where he was poring over a different book, searching for the next subject to teach her on ancient China, and he frowned at her. He frowned a lot.

"Why did I do what?" he asked.

"Why did you save me?" said Irisviel. "From the snowstorm?"

"Oh." Something clouded over Kiritsugu's dark eyes, and he went back to flicking through the pages of the book in front of him. "I don't know…I just…." He sighed, and his frown took on a different air, not like he was annoyed (which was usually why he frowned), but more like…it bothered him in the sense that he was thinking of something he couldn't bear thinking of.

He still didn't look at her though, even when he finally said, "The way I thought about it at the time, it was…all I could think about was the fact that I knew you felt pain…from when I hit you…and…so…drew the conclusion that you were probably out there suffering…and I…. Well, suffering is a sin of the world I have never been able to forgive. Yet, so rarely do I have the chance to take it away from someone who's enduring it so…I just…acted on that impulse."

"An impulse different from anger?"

"Actually, there was anger, but…."

Then Kiritsugu shook his head and finally met her gaze again. "The point is, I couldn't stand for it. So I did something about it." His tone suggested that the matter was closed, but Irisviel had a feeling that it wasn't out of any kind of impatience with her, like these things usually were.

He had grown from that since then. And part of that had been in how he had shown her his own pain, that in so doing, had taught her that pain could come in other forms, not just physical ones. For pain was something he had quite a lot of, and in ample variety.

In the first place, she inferred from what he told her of the pain he bore that it played in large part a role in his initial reluctance to acknowledge and act upon the love that had sprouted and flowered between them. The love he had known before loving her had brought him nothing but pain.

The very first girl he had ever loved—Shirley—had been inadvertently turned into a Dead Apostle—collateral damage incurred working as an assistant to his father, who had been researching such magic as a means towards reaching the Root. Kiritsugu hadn't had the courage to kill the girl he loved to keep the Dead Apostle infection from spreading from her to the rest of the inhabitants on the island where they lived, even as she had been beyond saving, even as she had begged him to do it, knowing she would lose her mind to the violence and slaughter all in her path, unchecked. And so the infection had spread, turning everyone on the tiny island into Dead Apostles. While the girl he'd loved had died in the fallout of that disaster, Kiritsugu had been compelled to kill his father when he realized that his father meant to escape only to keep doing that same accursed research somewhere else. In that moment, he had weighed his father's life against the many lives in the future that he might ruin, and he could not abide it.

So he had done what he had felt to be necessary.

It wasn't how he imagined evolving into a Hero of Justice, as he'd always dreamed one day he would, but it had started him on a path that he could not turn from.

But then he'd learned in his time with the woman who had taken him in and eventually taught him the skills that would make him the infamous Mage Killer, Natalia, that such tragedy was commonplace in the world. Even so, he had done his best, had not even hesitated on the day that came that in order stop that kind of tragedy from befalling the entire city of New York, and perhaps even further than that, he'd been forced to shoot down a plane full of ghouls, while Natalia, the woman who had become his mentor, and like a mother to him, had still been on it. She hadn't even been infected, not like Shirley, but the risk had been too great in his mind.

"I'd say that God was the only one who heard my screams that day, but I have a hard time believing a being like God even exists," he had told Irisviel, bitterly. "At least in any benevolent incarnation. If there is a God, then He is nothing more than a cruel tormentor, like a child who revels in destroying anthills just to watch the ants scatter in a frenzy."

Then he'd clutched at his chest, gripping the fabric of his shirt, his face twisting as if in agony as he gazed off into the fire in the library, avoiding looking her in the eye.

Irisviel had knitted her brow, feeling an impulse to reach out and take his hand, but thinking better of it. "Does it hurt there?" she'd asked him, her voice breaking.

And then he had looked at her, and his face had said more than words would, for she had learned how to read him much better by then.

Even so, he'd said, "Yes. It does."

Meanwhile, after the eve that followed their marriage, when they had first made love together, they certainly made a habit of making love again, even after her pregnancy was confirmed. Because Irisviel still wanted to, and Kiritsugu still wanted to as well.

She had finally got up the nerve to ask him about the half-transferred Magic Crest etched into his back, but now she had different questions for him. Questions about the pale white scars that shined here and there in the moonlight…on his arms, his chest, his stomach, even a tiny one on his neck, one night in the drowsy aftermath of such lovemaking.

"Oh that? A knife point snicked me there." Kiritsugu actually smiled, which puzzled Irisviel at first until he laughed, and then she wondered if maybe he was laughing at himself and the recklessness of his youth.

She wasn't sure though, so she thought she'd ask.

Which made Kiritsugu laugh again, and amidst her inquisitiveness, Irisviel took her usual pleasure from hearing him laugh. She had come to love hearing him laugh, as she loved everything else about him, flaws and all. There was something special about it, just like when he smiled.

Especially given what had happened a few days ago.

Because then, he had wept openly in front of her for the first time. He had sounded more wounded than she'd thought a person could sound, the grief was almost inhuman, unearthly. As raw as the death cry of a deer shot through the heart. It had frightened her at first, but seeing him so agonized quickly stirred within her the compassion she'd come to feel for him that came with her love, and she'd wanted nothing more than to hold him in any way that she could. The spat he'd had with her human Einzbern kin Malte had set him off, for in some ways he grieved the sorrowful truth that one day she would have to die, and he would have to let her, almost lead her by the hand to the act. Grieved it as if she had already died.

So to hear him laugh was like a burst of light that cleaved the deepest darkness, a precious joy dredged up from a deep well of despair. Like the heat of the sun breaking through the ice of winter. When he laughed, it was like the happiness he'd once felt as a child was trying to live in him again, and his dark eyes became bright and eager.

Now, as he laughed, she was so happy she could cry (that still amazed her how that could happen), and she pressed closer to him, laying her head on his bare chest so she could hear his laughter from where it came from deep inside his heart.

"Yes, now that you mention it, I was rather reckless," he said, sounding amused, running his fingers through her silver hair. "I still am, I suppose. When I forget myself."

Irisviel flicked her eyes up to his face. "Well, don't forget yourself too much."

"You make me forget myself," he teased, at which she tried to glare at him but her smile came through anyway.

So she leaned up to accept the kiss he offered her instead. When they broke apart, she touched her forehead to his, glancing down and running the pads of her fingers over the scars on his chest and stomach again, enjoying the way her touch still made him shiver, his breath quickening just a little, like her pulse was.

"What about these? Or would that take too long to tell me?" she asked. "Or…well, it's fine if you don't want to."

"That's not so at all," he said, tracing his fingers along the length of her naked back, making her shiver too. "I do want to," he said, smiling in that way that was so open, so…boyish. It was only so strange to see something like that find its way out of him because when they had first met, he'd had a set to every line in his face, especially in his jaw, a serious and sober one, almost tense. A predator biding its time, thinking, calculating, waiting to spring. A readiness beyond his twenty years. And yet when he smiled like this, it was like he was really supposed to be doing more often, Irisviel guessed—the smile of a man who had in fact just finished his teenage years, the kind of smile he was meant to have more often than he did.

But Irisviel had brought it out of him.

She grinned, playful.

"Okay then. I'll let you say as much as you like."

"As my lady commands," said Kiritsugu, responding to her playfulness.

But first he leaned up and gave her another kiss.

Pregnancy brought its own kind of pain, even in its early stages. Irisviel was already given to understand that the actual act of childbirth was a world of pain in and of itself (though that hardly gave her second thoughts), but when her body started to really noticeably change, it did make her grumble now and then. A little.

The cramps for a start made her so moody at times it was almost like she and Kiritsugu had switched personalities in some regards—now she was the one easily annoyed and wearing a brooding set to her brow, while he spoke to her with the same carefulness as one might do while stepping around broken glass shards.

The first time she threw up from morning sickness though, she felt her blood run cold with her fear, and she got so dizzy she thought she might faint. She'd known it was coming, but she hadn't expected it to feel so…violent, like something trying to fight its way out of her stomach. When Kiritsugu found her (her retching in their bathroom had woken him up in the pale gray of dawn, naturally), she was already crying. Seeing her this way, he gave her a wan smile and knelt beside her, promising to stay with her until she felt like she'd gotten the sickness out of her system. The whole time he held her hair out of her face and ran his knuckles up and down her spine, which was hypnotizingly soothing.

Maybe he was feeling guilty again.

Which made Irisviel cry again, because she hated being the reason he felt the sting of guilt. It made her feel guilty, a dark and awful feeling that consumed from the inside, a black thing that not even vomiting seemed to do anything to get rid of, though it was all it made her feel like doing.

To think that Kiritsugu had carried this kind of emotion around tenfold for most of his life, she understood even more why he'd forced himself to cut off his head from his heart.

When he himself was caught completely off-guard by a fever though, it came after he'd experienced a nightmare and woken sharply from it, awakening Irisviel beside him. She'd tried to comfort him as best as she could, but it didn't help that he fell ill soon after. He wasn't one for lingering long in inaction, and being confined to bed wasn't exactly his cup of tea. Despite his restlessness, he grew too exhausted to purge himself of it. And his nightmares came back to him in his sleep.

But Irisviel stayed with him whenever she wasn't called away for her daily examination with Acht. In moments when he managed sleep, she would lay the back of her hand against his hot, flushed cheek, as if to give him her touch as a talisman against his dark dreams. And even if that didn't seem to help all that much, any more than her reassurances at night for him to go back to sleep when he awoke from them suddenly yet again, he seemed to find peace just in seeing her when he woke, in having her near. He managed a smile, and steadily he got better again with each passing day.

Then he came up with a very fine name for their unborn daughter: Ilyasviel. It was perfect.

And Ilyasviel grew, as Irisviel could attest to as she felt herself slowly expand from within.

Well, not really. It was too gradual for that, but there were aches and pains and increasing pressures that chimed in now and then to remind her that that's what was happening, and before she knew it, she was showing. The maid, Aloisia, one of her homunculus sisters who had not been deemed fit to be in Irisviel's place, saw to taking out her gowns to accommodate. And in spite of her discomfort, Irisviel could spend a good long while at least once out of every day, examining herself in the mirror in her and Kiritsugu's room, fascinated and bewildered with herself, with the idea that within that bump was a tiny little person growing inside of her. The thought of it compelled her to run her hands over it, feeling a whisper of the kind of attachment she'd sensed within herself the very moment she'd considered having Kiritsugu's child in the first place.

She glowed with pride, in spite of herself, at the maternal affection growing within her as much and as fast as her child was.

More than that, but she really hoped that she would start to see something of the paternal equivalent in Kiritsugu, so that this was another part of this joy that they could share.

But Kiritsugu's glances at her were solicitous at best, and brooding at worst. He tried his best though, with that wan, more reluctant smile of his, when he saw that it depressed her to see him that way. Even when he felt bad about this, even when he still had his doubts and reservations, he still wanted to be able to encourage her. She was certainly glad to at least have that.

Just the same, his anxiety over her well-being was not completely without justification, as it also meant that he was being watchful. Watchful for when she got dizzy or tired, even after the morning sickness had more or less passed.

One day however, there came a pain that was unrelated to the child inside her. Or maybe it was related. The cause nonetheless was not that of the child growing, but of Irisviel's connection to Lord Justica, and the Grail for which she was the Vessel. Her blood called to it, just as she was designed, and carrying a child that was meant to share her fate one day should she fail, it was bound to complicate things where this was concerned.

While she, Kiritsugu and Acht were holding a council at Acht's behest in the alchemy chamber shortly after Acht had done another adjustment on her, the pain struck her from within, growing steadily, making her nauseous, bringing on the vertigo, until it reached her heart and flared up within her like a fire. Her insides began to burn as she'd never felt them burn before, the pain sapping her of her strength, making her light-headed. She gave a cry and fell back, enfolded into darkness. The last thing she heard was the echo of Kiritsugu calling her name.

Then she knew nothing but incredible pain. She fought against it from within, feeling herself writhe in the flames of agony, even as one who had never known what it was like to actually have her flesh burned. At the same time, she felt utterly rent from the inside out. The tangle of Magic Circuits that thrived within her blazed and screamed with pain, turning every passing second into an eon to be endured past sanity, and the voice of Lord Justica whispered to her in her ear:

What are you dreaming of, sister mine?

Please, she thought desperately, I just don't want this to hurt the baby. Don't hurt Ilya…she's too little…too fragile….

Then a blanket of relief fell over her, spread throughout her veins and Magic Circuits, washing away the pain like a healing water. Everything within that had tensed with the pain relaxed, the fire faded, as did Justica's voice, and she fell into a liquid sleep from which she awoke to the pale grey light of dawn, judging by the window. She blinked, and found Kiritsugu in a chair beside their bed. He was holding her hand, while he had his face buried in his other, as he sat bent over in that way he did when he seemed to feel like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

She gave his hand a feeble squeeze, and his head snapped up. He blinked into alertness, but the lines around his eyes were more defined, and he even looked gaunter than usual.

But still, he smiled. It was vulnerable, but it was there, unforced and genuine.

"Iri…."

"Kiritsugu…there you are again…waiting for me to wake up…just like last time…."

"Mm…I suppose so…."

Kiritsugu ran the pad of his thumb over the back of her hand, and Irisviel found the sensation very soothing, like the rhythmic way he'd run his knuckles up and down her back when she'd been retching from morning sickness.

And then she remembered that there was something else she meant to ask her husband, but forgot until now. After she had asked him why he had saved her from that snowstorm, she'd gotten distracted, but now she remembered.

"You know…I never asked…why were you there…when that happened? Was it because…you felt responsible for me…since you'd rescued me and everything…?"

But instead of answering her, Kiritsugu withdrew into himself, like a wounded creature brooding over its injuries. And Irisviel realized that he didn't have an answer. Or maybe his silence would be affirmation enough. It turned out it was for her, anyway.

She gave his hand another squeeze, thinking maybe he was more bothered by the mysterious physical attack she'd just suffered inside of herself.

"You weren't scared, were you?" she asked, frowning with concern.

Kiritsugu came out of his ruminations, only to look away from her again. But he did tell her, very quietly, "Of course I was scared."

Irisviel bit her lip, her heart going out to him, her eyes aching with the threat of tears. "I'm sorry…." She kept causing him nothing but distress and guilt. She'd promised him that in loving him she wouldn't be a burden to him, and yet….

But then Kiritsugu looked back at her sharply, and in his dark eyes there shined the fierce affection he held for her. She didn't know how she knew it, she just knew. To anyone else, he might've appeared frightening, but to her, he was beautiful. Utterly beautiful.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He pressed his lips to her knuckles, never breaking his gaze with hers. "You will never have anything to be sorry for. Ever. The fault…will always lie with me…."

The ache in Irisviel's eyes grew, as did the one in her reaching, reaching heart. She smiled though. She would smile, so he would know that for all this trouble, he was making her so happy.

"Oh Kiritsugu…I think I love you far more than you love yourself…so we'll have to fix that if we're going to keep at this…."

She chuckled, and this seemed to warm something within her husband, coaxed out the smile he found so hard to show. But he showed it to her. Because despite his grief, he was happy too, happy with her.

"Very well then," he said. "I accept your challenge."

"Good." Irisviel nodded approval, then lifted her chin with some regality befitting an Einzbern. "After all, a true champion accepts all challenges."

Then Kiritsugu laughed, really laughed, that sunlight-through-the-darkness laugh. "Indeed. And I am honored."

Irisviel sighed, satisfied for the moment. And then she became more aware through her slight fever of her free hand resting on her belly, and she remembered with a gasp—

"Kiritsugu! The baby!"

She almost had half a mind to spring up, was just about to when Kiritsugu reached over and gently laid a restraining hand on her shoulder.

"The baby's fine," he whispered to her, letting his restraining hand move up from her shoulder to the side of her face, where he brushed her cheekbone with one knuckle as a means to help soothe her. "Acht already made sure of it. Our little Ilyasviel's none the worse for wear. She didn't even feel a thing."

"Really?" Irisviel's voice cracked, and this time the tears came before she could stop them.

"Really." Kiritsugu used his stroking knuckle to catch one of her tears. "It's all right, my Iri. Everything's all right now." Then he came up and touched his lips to her brow, before he leaned back, withdrawing the hand that held her face and laid it over her hand, so that he now held her hand in both of his. "You should try to sleep a little more. I'll be here when you wake."

"Kiritsugu…." Irisviel moaned his name, a wave of exhaustion falling upon her. Still, she ran her palm over her stomach where she felt the little bump that was Ilyasviel growing inside her, and that seemed to reassure her in its own way. Then she quit as she closed her eyes, Kiritsugu watching over her, and as she drifted off to sleep, she felt his fingers as he brushed away the rest of the tears from her face.

Later on, as the pregnancy progressed, there was the back pain, and how easily she got short of breath even when she hadn't been walking about all that much.

Acht was still performing his daily checkups on her as usual, noting everything, especially in what Irisviel told him about what she was feeling. She knew he only cared in an intellectual sense, but somehow she found some satisfaction in that. She had grown to dislike entirely the idea that she was nothing more than an experiment to him, but even so, her curious mind enjoyed this journey of self-discovery, doing so much of what no homunculus before her had ever done.

Though she was no less unsettled in the extreme when Acht had informed her that the pain she'd felt from that attack she'd had would, in all likelihood, be felt a hundredfold if not more when she actually became the Grail, she tried to keep this pressing thought by daydreaming more and more about the baby. And she still had hope that Kiritsugu would start to get more excited about their Ilya rather than just ruminate on how anxious and guilty he still was. However, even though he acted like he was excited, she could tell that deep down he was still just trying to hide what he really felt from her, so she wouldn't be sad for him.

She thought she understood better though than she had before her attack, for she sensed that Acht had told him what he'd told her, about how she would experience that pain on an even more excruciating level when her time came to perform her final act on this earth.

No wonder Kiritsugu's guilt seemed worse even than before, if he did already know all that.

Oh Kiritsugu….

More than that, but Irisviel had started to catch herself thinking more and more about how that pain would come back to her, that she was slated to face it again, only worse, despite her efforts to keep such things at bay by thinking on the baby instead. After all, that had been so terrible just as it had been…could she manage it on a level that was even worse?

Of course she could! She was built to.

She had to endure it.

For Kiritsugu.

When she thought of it that way, somehow it was an easier thought to bear again. Still awful and pressing, but easier, like when she contemplated Ilya.

And that's when the moment came when she first felt their daughter kick her from inside.

They were in the library they way they liked to be, and, as she'd begun experiencing cravings, she'd actually taken to eating, and the two of them were sharing strawberries while they were having their daily lesson, for still Kiritsugu continued to teach her about the wonders of the world.

Irisviel was still getting used to how unwieldy her body had become with how much her baby bump had swelled, but even so, she felt compelled throughout the day to run her hand over it same as when she'd examine herself in the mirror, something inside her longing more and more for the moment when she would get to cradle in her arms the life growing inside her.

Then she felt the pressure from within, movement bubbling up, so unexpected that she gave a little cry of, "Oh!"

Kiritsugu looked up, all alert. "Iri?"

Irisviel looked down, and sure enough, as she felt the movement within her again, she saw another little bump rise up from her baby bump, as the life within pushed outward with one of her developing appendages. Irisviel felt both scared and excited, wondering if it was a foot or a hand that was making that happen.

Her eyes grew very round, and she beamed at her husband. "It's—I think it's the baby. I think it's moving around inside me! Quick! Come feel!" And she beckoned him over.

Kiritsugu appeared hesitant, but then he slowly rose to his feet and came around to the other side of the table, where he knelt down in front of Irisviel, and very carefully reached out and laid his palm against her baby bump.

And there was the kick again, Ilyasviel pushing outward, and Irisviel could tell by the light that flickered in his dark eyes that Kiritsugu felt it, and that he was filled with quiet delight at it. That meant so much to her she felt herself on the edge of crying.

"You feel that?" she asked him anyway, tremulous with excitement.

"I do." Kiritsugu hesitated again, and then, very carefully, he leaned in and gently pressed his ear to her belly.

Ilyasviel pushed out again, and for a moment, Kiritsugu's eyes leapt as if in a dance. "She's eager to come out, I imagine. She'll have a great thirst for knowledge, just like her mother does."

Irisviel felt herself glowing. Her heart reached out, so she reached out with her fingers and ran them tenderly through her husband's thick dark hair, as she always loved to do. But then her mind landed on that day that she'd been attacked by that pain and collapsed, and against her will she started trembling as the fear threatened to swallow her up again.

But the most frightening thought to her was what she'd feared might've happened to the baby while that had all been happening, and how her baby was already slated for that same fate should she and Kiritsugu fail, which only hardened her resolve for her and Kiritsugu to succeed in their ultimate goal.

Even so, her fear showed, and she couldn't hide it from Kiritsugu. She knew he could see the sheen of sweat that beaded on her brow, and the way her face drained of color. She felt it.

He raised his head and looked up at her.

"What is it?"

The way Kirtsugu regarded her with painful, earnest concern, made her even more scared, thinking again of the agony that one day would come to claim her, and her shaking worsened, despite her usual instinct to think of Ilysaviel, and of her husband. It took him taking her hands in his warm ones to calm them, and little by little, her.

"It's all right. Just speak slowly."

His voice was so gentle, so loving, everything welled up in Irisviel's heart, and she started crying before she could stop. Crying because she was so sad and frightened, and at the same time so joyfully grateful for this man.

"Not even when I was facing those wolves in that blizzard," she gasped, "did I know anything like what I felt…I was scared…I was so scared…and the pain…." She gulped. "Grandpapa said…that's how it will be…when my time comes…."

Her voice trailed off when she saw the shadow of pain in her husband's eyes again. Then he swallowed and held her hands tighter, fixing her again with that fierce look that he'd fixed her with when he'd told her that nothing would ever be her fault. It was a burning fire that lit one inside her, burned her to ash…but it was such an exquisite burn.

"Iri, look at me."

"Yes?"

"Remember when I asked you…if you wanted to know more about the world? When I gave you the choice to walk away from fate?"

"Yes…."

"Do you still want to do this?"

"I—"

At first she actually didn't know what to say, but then she saw in that look of ferocious love that he was giving that there was a steadfast loyalty to him as well, one that told her that he would stand by her whatever she decided, a loyalty that equaled her own to him. He was as devoted to her happiness as much as he was to his dream of saving the world.

This was another part of what it meant to be bound as a couple in love.

So for his sake, even though she knew that it caused him pain, she knew there could be no other way for him to live than to be given the greatest chance for victory in the Grail War—and she was the one who could do it, she could feel it. The happiest life he could have would be the life he would share with their daughter, the daughter they would save as well as the world.

For that—for her husband, for her child—she knew what it felt like then to be unwavering on the commitment to give her life for them, they whom she loved most dearly. And finally, at long last, her thoughts of them served to banish her fear, once and for all, in a burst of radiant light.

She smiled, and felt her love mingled with grief as she said, "Of course I do. Because I'm doing it for you."

There was pang at the veil of resignation that fell across Kiritsugu's eyes, but he smiled nonetheless, and it was a true and tender smile. "Hm." Then he kissed both of her hands with loving reverence, and for her it was just enough that right now, she was the most important person in the world to him.

One morning, Irisviel slept late, with a vague recollection of Kiritsugu rising early and leaving her with a kiss and a whispered promise to see her in the library come lunchtime as usual. Irisviel thought she might've muttered back, "Okay," and then that Kiritsugu might've touched his forehead to hers, lingering there and sort of nuzzling her even, just a little, just for a breath.

And then Irisviel opened her eyes, finding herself alone in her and Kiritsugu's room. Outside it was snowing thickly, and everything felt peacefully quiet. Aloisia had lit a fire in the fireplace, and it crackled warmly and merrily there. Thinking she might read for a little, she rolled over and pushed herself up, pulling on a fluffy terrycloth maternity-size robe Kiritsugu had bought for her. Then she slid her feet into a pair of slippers and lifted the weight of herself up so she could hobble over to the chairs by the fire.

On the little table she found the book she'd been reading last night before going to sleep. After she sank into the chair and put her feet up on the footstool, she picked up the book and went back to reading.

The book itself was a novel written by one Charlotte Brontë, entitled, Jane Eyre, and Irisviel was having especial fun with it as she read it, as she found herself, in her head, inserting herself in the title role of Jane Eyre, and casting Kiritsugu in the role of the brooding and troubled Mr. Rochester. Even if in some ways his character acted oppositely of how Kiritsugu did in terms of the progression of his and Jane's romance. While Kiritsugu had been stand-offish, Rochester had sought Jane's affection without qualms, if through eccentric and mysterious means. Actually, without qualms was an understatement, as he had been doing so while keeping from Jane the secret that he was already married, albeit to a madwoman whom he kept locked in his attic.

Irisviel had left off where Jane was wandering the English moors, having run away in shame from Rochester after discovering this horrifying secret of his, despite his imploring her not to leave him, leaving her homeless and penniless and near dead from starvation. It brought to mind how she had wandered for hours in the cold snowstorm before the wolves had come…and then Kiritsugu had found her and saved her….

Then Ilyasviel kicked her from inside.

"Oh! Hello." Irisviel giggled, and then, musingly beaming, she ran her hand over her belly now grown to the size of one of those massive beach balls (she imagined), falling into contemplation once more of the life inside her.

Ilyasviel kicked again.

"Hello, baby," she cooed, and suddenly her heart filled with an incredible ache for the day when she would finally see this child and hold her. She wanted to see all those little toes and fingers she would have, see her open her tiny eyes, see if even if Grandfather Acht had modeled her after herself and her sisters, as he done for them all since long past, that there would still be something in her daughter's expression or other part of her physicality that would resemble her father, Kiritsugu.

She really, really wanted that.

And she wanted Acht to see it, so he would see that this child was theirs.

She wanted Kiritsugu to see it too, to see his face when he met their daughter for the first time, when he would hold her and realize that he had become a father.

For herself, she wanted just to be able to look into her daughter's face and feel everything that tied the two of them together, already proud of the fact that this child would be unique from her predecessors, and for that, she would be able to break free, and live the dream that none of her predecessors—her mother included—could live.

Surely any amount of pain was worth that at least?

And as her heart filled and filled with of this, so did her eyes fill with tears. But she just laughed. Laughed and cried all at once, feeling a surge of joy with every kick, as though Ilyasviel was trying to reach out to her, that maybe she too was dreaming of the day that she would finally meet her mother.

Later that evening, Irisviel sank down onto their bed and admitted how much she ached all over, especially in her feet, legs, and back.

Kiritsugu looked over at her, having just removed his jacket and tie. "Is there anything I can do to make it better?" he asked her.

Irisviel swung her legs up and stretched out on the bedspread, propping herself up against the pillows and headboard. "Well…the book I've been reading says it isn't really a good idea to give any kind of massage unless it's done professionally, otherwise it might induce labor or dislodge blood clots…but there's always ice."

Kiritsugu's smile was small, and just a little regretful. "Well, an ice pack I can do at least." He considered his hands. "I'm only sorry these are still so unpracticed in gentility."

"Don't be that way," Irisviel chided softly. "You're always very gentle."

"Ah Iri…as usual you give me far too much credit." Kiritsugu shook his head, but his smile didn't disappear.

When Aloisia delivered them the ice packs at Kiritsugu's request and then took her leave, Kiritsugu had finished stripping down to his boxers and thrown on a sleeping shirt. Then he brought the ice packs over to Irisviel on the bed, perched himself on the edge of it next to her feet, and set about and applying the ice to them.

"Ooooh, that's much better," sighed Irisviel.

"Hm." Kiritsugu smiled, glad it seemed to see her face relax after it was pinched with pain. "I'm sorry this is all I can do." He was even very gingerly handling the ice packs as if that too would be enough to trigger a pressure point that could accidentally induce labor too early, or cause some other internal catastrophe.

"Mmm, that is a pity," said Irisviel, beaming. "You have such skilled hands. So gentle."

A little color crept up Kiritsugu's cheeks, and he turned just a little bit aside, and pretended to be adjusting the ice packs on her feet when they didn't really need it, but it didn't hurt either. After the time they had spent together, she could still catch him off-guard like this and make him blush with both pleasure and modesty.

Then he looked at her again, and his smile was a little wider, his dark eyes a little brighter. "It's you that made them that way. Before you…they had no reason to be gentle."

Now it was Irisviel's turn to blush and avert her eyes for a moment. "No, I think you have it backwards. How could I have shown you gentility, when I was nothing more than an emotionless doll when I began? You had to show it to me first."

This made Kiritsugu laugh that laugh she dearly loved to hear, and he grinned outright at her. "We could go around in circles arguing this point, couldn't we?"

"Yes." Irisviel looked at him again, fluttering her eyelashes. "And I'd win."

"But of course you would." Then Kiritsugu spoke with quiet affection. "You always do. You're the only one who can ever prove me wrong." He traced his forefingers up along the length of the back of her shin, and Irisviel shivered, her insides stirring with that hunger that came with her need to be touched like this.

Then Kiritsugu leaned over and touched his lips to her leg, his dark eyes never leaving her red ones, until he withdrew and then closed his eyes as he leaned his rough cheek against her smooth skin, nuzzling her like a cat. It felt like the soothing polish of a pumice stone.

"You're so soft and sweet," he murmured, and his breath tickled her.

She shivered again, but she felt it reach deeper inside of her.

And then he whispered, "I love you," and opened his eyes.

Irisviel watched him lift his head from nuzzling her leg, and found her heart so loud in her chest she felt it in her ears, and she could scarcely breathe. It was even harder when she felt a painful lump rise up from the back of her throat. She reached up and absently massaged it between her thumb and fingers, even as her eyes stung and she was suddenly on the edge of crying.

Damn these stupid, crazy hormones.

"I love you," she echoed him just so, and then the tears spilled, trailing glassily down her cheeks.

Kiritsugu smiled, that particular smile that held no sadness, the one he only showed to her. It was reserved, but glowing with tenderness. Then he came and crawled around her feet and up to the front of the bed, settling himself beside her. At the invitation of his arm sliding around behind her and curling around her shoulders, she leaned into him and looked up into his eyes as he pressed her close against him. With his other arm, he reached up and stroked back a few strands of her silver hair, and then he cupped her cheek in his hand, running the pad of his thumb over her skin.

And the brightness shining out of his dark irises told her that he was on the edge of tears too.

But before they could break free, he shut his eyes again, and leaned in and caught her lips in his. Irisviel though, she reached up and held his face in both of her hands, responding to the kiss he offered her…and she felt them there, as wet and beautiful as hers…tears trailing down his face. Tears where joy and pain mingled together.

She kissed him harder, and he did the same back to her, his leathery, smoky scent filling her with warmth, making her heart flutter even as he made her feel safe

When they broke apart for air, Kiritsugu touched his forehead to hers, giving her another little nuzzle, just against the bridge of her nose.

"Tell me you love me again," she whispered to him. "Please. I love it when you say it. No one says it the way you do."

Kiritsugu chuckled. "But I'm the only one you hear say it."

"Kiritsugu…" Irisviel moaned, fighting back a laugh of her own. "Please."

"Hmmm." Kiritsugu hesitated and then came around and brushed his lips against her cheek, tasting the tear tracks there. Then he pressed his cheek against hers, the bristles, again, not unpleasant, and murmured low in her ear, "Iri…kimi wa…aishteru…."

Irisviel sucked in her breath, felt her pounding heart stop, just for a moment. She knew enough of Japanese now to know what he'd said, and more than that, by the tone of reverent love, she knew that it was a version of "I love you" that was utterly special…saved only for when one truly meant it from the very bottom of the heart and soul.

Of course, Kiritsugu always meant it that way, at the very least, when he told her in German. But to hear it in the tongue of the land of his birth, to hear it in that particular way that had that particular meaning attached to it…it left Irisviel breathless with wondrous affection.

She pressed closer to him, pressed him closer to her. Somehow, she seemed to have come to love him, always love him as if she were going to lose him. Of course, one day, she would, when they would have to part ways so she could embark on her final journey.

That's when it occurred to her that he had always loved everyone in his life whom he had loved in that very same way. Obviously it made sense, and she'd always had a sense of it before, how he hid pain behind his smile, underneath his laughter, but even so…she'd never thought of it so concretely until now, until she realized she was loving him just as he did her now.

And he became all the dearer to her for it.

"Here's another one I can take with me," she whispered.

"Hm?" Kiritsugu pulled back and looked at her quizzically. "Another one what?"

"Good memory." Irisviel smiled. "Another good memory I can take with me when I—"

Kiritsugu laid a finger over her lips. "No. Don't say it. Please. I don't want to think about that now." Even so, the hurt he always tried to hide flickered in his eyes, and Irisviel felt a stab of guilt.

And then a kick inside her from Ilya.

"Oh!"

They both regarded her baby bump, and then each other, and then they both laughed. Somehow, they were both able to laugh again.

Then Kiritsugu said, "There's a good girl, Ilya…there's my good baby girl," and he leaned over and kissed Irisviel's baby bump. "I'll bet you want so much to meet your mama. Well, she's worth the wait, I promise you that."

It was like he knew what she'd been thinking about earlier that day.

Irisviel beamed, feeling herself glow, as she watched her husband turn and lay his ear against her belly after he spoke soft words to their unborn daughter. And then Ilya kicked again, and Kiritsugu's face illuminated like he'd been injected with an elixir of joy. And Irisviel reached over and ran her fingers through his dark hair that way she liked, and he looked up at her, smiling that smile of his again.

Then she stroked his cheek with her knuckles.

"There's my beautiful man," she murmured.

"Hm." Kiritsugu closed his eyes. "Here's my beautiful woman."

Irisviel stroked his hair again, feeling that she could look at him forever this way, and it still wouldn't be enough.

And for a while, she simply smiled and watched him fall asleep against her, fully understanding then what it meant to watch over the person you cared for most in the world in that moment, while an icy storm raged and howled outside.