End-of-game spoilers. I don't own Legend of Zelda and if I did there would be about one million percent more angst. A million thanks to embyr-75 for beta-ing this and encouraging me to actually...do the thing.

Canon: Breath of the Wild

Pairings: Zelink, kind of

Warnings: Brief mentions of violence and gore, panic attacks and temporary muteness

His silence, she'd realized, was far less voluntary than he'd like others to believe.

She hadn't put too much thought into the explanation when he'd first given it: that his silence was self-imposed, an effort to shoulder the burden placed squarely upon him. The seriousness in his tone and the somber expression—both far too old for someone so young—told her that he was telling the truth, and she'd never questioned it. Zelda had had to pry the information from him, carefully opening him up without pushing the knight too far, and when he'd finally graced her with an answer, she felt no reason to disagree. His burden, and his silence, were both achingly familiar.

It makes the revelation that perhaps he didn't entirely choose silence that much more jarring.

The thought strikes her as they sit by the fire after a grueling day of travel and combat. Link was sitting across from her, nursing the slice he'd received as payback from a lizalfos for stepping in when it caught her unaware. He'd been quiet since he'd found her trapped between the door of the shrine she was studying and the group of monsters, and though she could feel the relief poring from him when the creatures had been dispatched something else just wasn't right.

Zelda watches him as he struggles to wrap a bandage around the wound with one hand and, when she can take it no longer, slides herself across the dry dirt to be closer to him. She catches his fingers in hers, takes the smooth linen gauze and wraps it neatly around his arm. His eyes flick towards her, glowing the same azure blue of the slate in the low light of the moon and fire. He turns his face away a breath later, shying away from her prying gaze.

"It isn't too deep," she murmurs, tucking the end of the wrap beneath itself and wrapping her fingers loosely around his arm. "Thank you, for earlier."

She feels the movement of muscle beneath her fingertips, sees the tension build through him, senses his desperation to keep her away. Where she suspects he was hoping she'd pull back, she stays, her hands wrapped around him. Every conversation, every interaction—it all feels so hard-won. She absolutely refuses to let this one incident undo all that hard work. The two spend a considerable amount of time in comfortable silence, but this is unlike any time before; ordinarily it's nowhere near so oppressive. So heavy. Link's eyes are boring into the fire, oblivious to her musings. And while she tries to think of how to coax him into talking to her she comes up short, as lost for words as he seems to be.

"Link," she releases his arm, looks to the cooking pot still packed away and thinks to offer to make supper, watching him in the periphery of her vision. "Are you all right?"

It startles them both, she thinks. The question, and the concern that prompts it. He shifts where he sits, just enough to show that her question unnerves him, and his eyes trail to the shield and sword leaning neatly against the tree. He nods, slowly. It's not convincing.

She moves closer still, their shoulders just barely touching, and follows his gaze to the sword that bound them together in fate. He hadn't really answered, and the pieces fall together before she can truly see the full picture. Before she understands how it is that she knows he's lying, trying to keep something from her.

"I wish you wouldn't lie to me."

Their eyes catch when he turns to face her, his conflicted and uncertain and hers determined. Propriety be damned, she catches his face before he can shift away again and smooths dirty hair from his forehead. There's still shreds of grime and flesh from the earlier combat in his sandy blonde hair; her fingers linger, absentmindedly combing the dirt away.

"It's all right if you can't talk now," she murmurs, and can feel the sharp inhale when he realizes he's been figured out. Zelda doesn't give him a chance to skitter away, fingers tightening. She leans close, presses her forehead against his, closes her eyes. Their noses touch, just barely. "I'll be here when you can."

When he finally storms the castle, a fear he hadn't let himself process begins to spread through his chest like wildfire. He had failed her once, a lifetime ago—how could he face her now? His failure was the direct cause of her century-long battle with evil incarnate, the direct cause of Hyrule's destruction. And though her words have been nothing but kind as he'd trekked across Hyrule, it isn't impossible to suspect that had been an act of self-preservation.

The Calamity, in all its iterations, causes hardly any fear in him compared to seeing her again.

When her sandals gently touch down to the grass before him, he forgets how to breathe for a long few moments, unaware of the stuttering gasp he takes in. Her emerald green eyes shine in the setting sun, and he stands transfixed by them, as if seeing her for the first time. When the deep gash on his forehead bleeds into his eye and he swipes his vision clear, he stiffens against the broken ribs that crack in his chest.

"May I ask…"

The fear catches in his throat. Where have you been? What took you so long? How could you have let the kingdom down so catastrophically? Why did you leave me? All seem like appropriate questions, and he steels himself against the righteous and deserved onslaught. Forget the kingdom, the people he'd let down. He had failed her, and that stung more than any other defeat.

"Do you really remember me?"

This is entirely not what he was expecting, and the relief that she didn't seem to hate him takes his breath away. Zelda, the only person he felt like he could remember in any meaningful way—of course he remembers her. He knows that the gaping holes in his memory suggest that he doesn't, that he can't. Still, something deep within him recognized the name on her lips when he hadn't even known it was his. Something knew the voice that woke him from a century of slumber, something that couldn't forget.

He sheaths the Master Sword, takes a painful step forward. Of course, of course, of course. I remember you. How could I ever forget you? At some point he's wrapping his hands around her arms, barely able to keep himself from crushing her against his chest and feeling that she's real. The relief chokes him, and his fingers dig into her arms to ensure she isn't ripped away from him again.

But he opens his mouth (of course, of course, of course) and finds he can't speak. His throat is painfully raw from the smoke and ash of earlier, but it hadn't stopped him before. And now when it matters the most, he can't create a sound.

She must have seen the panic flicker across his face, seen it settle in his eyes as he releases her and blindly feels for a wound he'll never find. Stumbling forward, she reaches for him, exhaustion leaving her unsteady and tears in her eyes as he stood silent before her. Despite his panic, he still catches her arms in his, steadying her while simultaneously clinging to her like a lifeline.

(I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.)

He repeats it over and again in his mind. He can imagine himself saying the words, can almost hear the gravelly, stuttering speech as he bears his soul to her. But his attempts bring nothing, and the panic swells in his chest, threatening to overtake everything. He can't even manage this for the Princess he'd left to die.

Zelda extricates her arms from the grip he didn't realize had grown tight and catches his face in her palms. Beneath the heels of her hands she can feel his heart racing, can sense the tremors coursing through him, feels his jaw working the words silently through clenched teeth. "Breathe, Link," she whispers, and feels the staccato inhale of breath beneath her fingertips. "It will pass. It always has."

She knows from before, from lifetimes ago, that words never truly reach him when he's like this. So, she presses her forehead to his, revels in the familiarity of their noses brushing against one another, feels his shaking breaths on her face.

And he senses something painfully, achingly familiar in the gesture. A memory he can't reach of having done this before, and somehow, he's sure that they have; something within him breaks at the thought of another memory he just can't recall. He can feel hot tears, her tears, falling onto his cheeks, trailing clean lines into the muck of a hard-won battle. He wraps his hands around hers and tries to remember how to breathe. (I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.)

"It's all right." She lets him anchor himself against her and tries desperately to ignore his strangled sobs. "I'll be here when it does."