(I wrote this almost a month ago, but here it is.)
Late night. Edelgard knew she should have been asleep, but she couldn't help it. That wasn't a normal day; there haven't been normal days in a while. She had been anxious and strange for how long now? A week? And she could see Byleth worrying, the looks she gave her from time to time, the cautious questions that she had dodged or, sometimes, ineffectively struggled to answer. She owed her an answer, at least one of the oh-so-many she had been looking for. So there she was, in the middle of the night, a piece of paper in front of her, an opened bottle of ink that had clearly been judging her for a few hours now, a pen that had been held long enough to feel warm and leave signs on her skin. She sighed.
"I realized that I owe you at least an attempt to an explanation. That and and apology for all the worrying I caused.
There is a part of my mind constantly reminding me that I only have little time to spend with the people I love, that at a certain point they will leave, be taken away from me or I will lose them somehow.
It never bothered me too much in the past, with other people. I had accepted it and behaved accordingly. I just learned to take it into consideration and keep my distance. But not with you. You are different. You changed everything. Our beings are so intertwined that I can feel you. You are my soulmate and I love you with every heartbeat, with everything I am and could be again thanks to you.
So I get scared. I get scared and my mind frantically yells at me not to waste the little time I have. But there are laws to work on and things to organize and just...so much every day.
And then...then I remember that we have all the time, because you are not leaving, because you will be my wife and we'll grow old together. We have all the rest of our life. Together.
And the part of me that fears losing you is still there, but not so loud, not so powerful. There are days when it's louder and stronger and days when it's tiny and feeble. There are moments when it disappears completely. And more than just moments.
Every time you hold me...I almost forget it ever existed. Every time a bit more, every time a bit longer.
Now I know, I know that our future is real. At the same time, as close as I get to this dream coming true, the more that part of my mind fights, too scared of believing and of the consequences of losing it all. But I do believe. And I won't lose it. So...I promise to do better. I promise to be better.
She stared at her own handwriting for a while, not even sure if she was rereading those words or just pretending to. She was tired, too tired for something like that. Too tired not to do it.
She forced herself to get up and get changed. She was still wearing her red regalia. She found something more comfortable.
She moved very carefully, not to wake Byleth up. Tomorrow was going to be a very important day for them both, a beautiful, long day, so she needed rest. Edelgard had to prevent herself from laughing: she was thinking that knowing that she was going to sleep - or attempt to sleep - for more or less 4 hours.
She looked at the letter again. She was definitely too tired. She crumpled it and took another sheet.
"Please, forgive me for my strage behavior these past few days. It just felt too good to be true sometimes. But it is. You are. And you make me happy.
She left that on Byleth's bedside table instead.
Three hours and fourty-two minutes.
She barely slept two; falling asleep was a pain. Only a few hours... How could she not think about it? It felt so real... She didn't want to let that reassuring thought go.
When she opened her eyes, she suddenly felt scared and cold again: Byleth wasn't in the bed. Was it all a dream? Was everything until that day just a desperate trick of her mind?
She was still only half awake when she felt the sound of paper being handled. For too long. The relieved sigh and smile that had formed on her lips when she had felt Byleth's presence again left their place to a sense of dread.
Byleth was at their desk, standing, a still half crumpled sheet of refined paper in her hands. Edelgard froze. Her mind was trying to recall all the embarrassing things she had written when her self control had faded.
The time Byleth spent reading felt like hours, hours during which Edelgard held her breath. Then Byleth moved, very slowly and very fast, making it hard for her blurry vision to follow. Her mind was far more awake than her body was: unnerving. She was going to curse, but warm arms wrapped around her and Byleth's hair tickled her cheek. "Forget."
Edelgard brain needed a few moments to even try to process. "What?"
Byleth's voice was sweet and soft. "I'm here. Forget that fear. I'm not going anywhere. Not without you."
El's breath shook. She felt warm and safe, again. That warmth pushed her fears so far away they couldn't hurt her anymore.
The rest of the day was chaos, a beautiful chaos.
In the evening, she couldn't help laughing at herself. She had always thought she would have remembered every detail of her wedding: every decoration, every word spoken, every emotion. She did't. Her emotions had been such a hurricane and she was so happy she could barely process. The only things Edelgard could clearly remember were Byleth's smile and the warmth. The same warmth she had felt in the morning, when Byleth had held her. The same warmth she could still feel radiating from her new ring. She had been staring at it for at least ten minutes now, wondering how something made of metal could feel that warm. Then it hit her: she wasn't going to be truly cold ever again. When Byleth came out of the bathtub, Edelgard was smiling so brightly that her wife stopped a few steps after passing the door, smiling back the same way she had done a few hours before, while everyone around her was cheering. She looked even more beautiful.
Edelgard looked in that part of her mind many times from that day: silence.
