Note: You may need a bit of context, dear reader. This is the bad time line. Where everything goes to hell much too fast. In my story, Chrom, without Robin to offer her counsel, ends up taking an alternate route to Valm. So the mission where they aid Say'ri doesn't happen until they are forced to pull back, to return to Regna Ferox and recover. That's it. I hope you enjoy reading. This used to be a family-fluff thing. But it turned out a bit sad. Oh well.

Why?

Lon'qu's hands felt clammy and gross. His hands clenched, opened, and clenched again and again to the rhythm of his frantic heart. He pressed his lips into a white thin line before letting out a breath, and then he, with jerky hands and a fear greater than he'd felt when he proposed, reached into the crib by the bedside.

Robin watched with a feeble smile. Here eyes were dreamy, her lashes fluttering up and down.

"Mind his head love."

Lon'qu froze mid-motion. He examined the tuft of silky and slightly wet hair atop his son's head. Lon'qu himself had dark hair, but no quite like Morgan's. He wanted to smile thinking that maybe he inherited that from his father... His fingers brushed Morgan's forehead, so delicate he barely felt the tender warmth of his skin, and before he knew it, the newborn had taken a hold of his index. For a suckling, with a highly clumsy and inaccurate hold, he had quite the pizzazz.

His expression, one up until then enraptured with marvel at what she had given him, at what they had created, fell with a dissonant pang.

"I'm sorry," he began. He knew it was useless to say it now, that he should have done as he'd promised, but deep in his heart he felt it was necessary to say. Even if the feeling was born out of craven self-interest. "I said I would be present. I failed you this time."

Arms full of gurgling tot, Lon'qu turned to face his bedridden wife. He felt a panic rise in his chest when Morgan started squiggling and had to readjust and tighten his hold. Then he looked up, and he saw nothing but an adoring smile.

"You look so handsome, holding him like that..."

Was she not... well, mad? At the time, Robin had threatened to kick him out of the house and into unforgiving Feroxy snow if he dared miss his first child's birth. Instead she gave him her most magnanimous and adoring eyes. He'd fallen in love with those eyes. They made him aware of so much. Of the immensity and tragedy of a single life. They truly told epics with a single glance; of her not-so-happy past, engulfed in shadows as it was, of her shatterproof spirit and adamantine sass, of deep deep love he'd never thought was truly intended for him.

He remembered the flourishing of fire when he realized, with choked disbelief and a racing heart, that those eyes were his. Forever.

"Let it go dear. I knew..." Robin said wit a wavering voice, tiny and broken in some parts. "I knew, when the troops were dispatched, that it was a rough journey. And with the blizzard that day..." She burrowed her head into the pillow, though she had intended to shake it. "I wish I'd kept you warm on the road."

His shadow draped over her, making her look up, as he sat by her side. The edge of the bed sank a little under the added weight and Robin rolled on her side. Lon'qu's left hand fell to land on her head. He traded his fingers through her sweaty locks.

"I wouldn't have allowed it."

Robin laughed at that. She recalled the screaming match he had with Basilio when the Khan kept insisting that they take her during the campaign to Valm. She had tried to join in at some point, since it was her they kept bickering about, like a pair of old crones, but Lon'qu just never let up. Robin never thought she'd see the day anyone shut Basilio up. If only she'd known what a zealous father-to-be Lon'qu would make.

"Oh, I know. Is Basilio talking to you yet?"

Lon'qu grumbled absentmindedly. His eyes were still on Morgan. "He got over it. At least long enough to order me who to stab during battles."

Robin huffed. "With all the things you two said... I thought he'd strip you of your title, you know?"

"We've argued over worse and with harsher words." Lon'qu said with a faint, crooked smile. He hesitated, but then added, "He is not unsympathetic to a husband's concerns."

Yes. Robin remembered that old tale. Basilio was married at some point. Lady Arasaki's remains rested within the Feroxy heartland, despite much diplomatic dispute and opposition from Chon'sin representatives. Robin liked listening to that story because it made her believe in eternal devotion, apart and in spite of the world.

Her hand crept up the swordmaster's arm with affection. When he looked down, he could see the glow of a fire in the distance reflected on her eyes. He looked out the window, towards the bleeding sunset.

"Not yet... Chrom wouldn't be so heartless to take you from me so soon."

Lon'qu looked back. His eyes were as iron.

"We've been pushed back. The first battles were ours, but then... We're as feeble waves lapping at a cliff."

Although, more than a cliff, the Valmese resembled an avalanche. Within a matter of days, they'd engulfed Fredrick's battalion, which used to be stationed between Wyvern valley and a settlement of rebel hamlets. They thought the mountains and cliffs would provide them with enough of a gap, that they'd have more time for recruiting before the cavalry made its way around. They hadn't counted on anyone being able to so utterly crush the Yllisean Pegasus Knights keeping watch at the borders of their campground. Not even the last-minute reinforcements from a scattered group of Riders which had settled on the lowlands of the valley and fed from the swales would make too positive an adherence. Lon'qu would reflect, later, with a tense jawline, about how the displaced soldiers from a fallen Rosanne lived as rats in the gutter, afraid of Walhart's boot, and emerged in hopes of making a difference only to add to the death count.

He was still waiting for the right moment to tell Robin about Sully's company... as well as Cordelia's. He had to do it before she got out of the room, or else the mourning husbands' faces would tell her everything she needed to know and she'd never forgive him for not saying anything.

Robin's hand searched and curled about his. She squeezed, hard.

"Time. We need time. Soon, I'll get out of this bed and we'll show them-"

Lon'qu's eyes had screwed shut. His voice was a stern, unshakable wall.

"I want you safe. With Morgan. I want my son's mother at his side, not latching teeth and nail on to life, struggling through the gunk of a war against a tyrant infinitely worse than that soulless worm from Plegia."

Robin made an effort to sit upright, all the while holding Lon'qu's glare.

"What good will it be if I stay, if you fall and there's no one to keep the Valmese from advancing into Regna Ferox?"

Lon'qu quickly remembered something curious he'd seen, and the even more curious information Chrom had entrusted him to deliver to his wife.

"There's a resistance forming, from Chon'sin. Chrom met a woman... Princess Say'ri herself. She was being chased by the Valmese. She was on her own, but later on she showed him alone to a secret base near the shores. Most of her followers are young and capable-"

"Chrom brought them in?"

Lon'qu nodded. "I still know the discipline. Believe me, they, Chon'sin muscle- it may not be strong in the numbers, but what they lack they more than make up for in mastery of the sword. I should know. The princess is a fine commander on her own as well-"

"Lon'qu," Robin cuddled at his side, her head resting on his shoulder. Morgan was drifting in and out of sleep. "I know you have faith. But the way you say it..."

"What is wrong with the way I say what?"

"You're not implying that I convince Chrom to let the rebels handle Walhart on their own, are you?"

Lon'qu looked down, at his son.

"They'd be, as you say, as feeble as-"

"I'm not trying to say anything so... heartless. I still don't know why Chrom feels he can fix the world, why he keeps spending lives for the sake of his righteous crusade-"

"Lon'qu." Robin warned him. This was her friend he spoke of, and she knew, perhaps inappropriately well, what was in the Exalt's mind.

"I just don't want you out there." Lon'qu stressed. "Not in the front lines, not in the rear... Not anywhere near that hell. Think of Morgan, you infuriating woman."

"I am." Robin replied. Her cheek brushed against the stubble of Lon'qu's cheek, the corner of her mouth temptingly close to his. He wouldn't move, however. If he did, he'd know she had won.

"Then promise me you'll stay here in Ferox."

"I can't."

"Why?" Lon'qu hissed, mindful of his volume "Give me this. I have asked nothing of you-"

"Because you needn't ask, love."

Robin lifted her hand for him to see how her ring(that old, rusty heirloom) shone dimly in the dying light.

"You know there is no need to ask for a thing; not adoration, or fidelity, or truth. You have it. Those are things that lose heart when demanded as in a contract."

Lon'qu looked away.

The stars were coming out.

"What you demand of me, I'll refuse."

"Why do you have to be so difficult?"

"I'm not trying to be. How would you feel if asked you to abandon your sword for me? For us?" Her hand rested on top of Morgan's head. "My heart is out there with you and Chrom and the rest. But it is also here, with Morgan. I don't want to die."

Lon'qu's heart clenched at the thought.

"I'm a mother. And a lover. And a friend. And I am also my own, and if I say I'm not letting you go without me, then I'm not."

Morgan stirred, youthful nonsense spilling from his mouth with drool on the side.

"Just..."

Robin waited. There was a prickling in her eyes.

"Don't... don't you dare die out there. Or I swear... I'll kill you myself, for hurting us like that."

Robin felt like laughing. But it was too inappropriate. He meant what he said. Lon'qu was not a person to just throw words around.

"I promise."

He would have smiled. If only he could believe she was invincible. He settled for a rueful sigh, though he had little more time to admire his toddler and enjoy her tinkling voice as she kissed him on the cheek - I promise - before a knock came to the door. He wasn't feeling forgiving at the moment, so he handed Robin their baby and strode like a golem ready to follow its bloody bidding.

At the door stood Chrom. He kept a respectful distance from the threshold, however. He knew Robin had just given birth the night prior to their arrival.

Lon'qu regarded him like a pesky fly.

"Reagna Ferox is a progressive country," Lon'qu began. "But not so much so that any man can come into an enclosed woman's room. She's not yet presentable."

Chrom tried smiling through the guilt and awkwardness.

"I'm aware of where I stand, Lon'qu. I know I interrupt a very intimate moment of your lives. I simply came to make sure you are filling her in about-"

"Not yet." Lon'qu responded, and the way he said it made it sound like he was rebuking a loose-mouthed kid. "She's delicate. Just give me the night."

Chrom repressed a grunt.

"Understood. Don't make her wait too long, though. The sooner she knows, the sooner she can heal."

"I'm waiting for her to recover from childbirth before hurting her again." Lon'qu said, and that made Chrom so much more conflicted. "Good-bye now."

"Wait," Chrom put his palm against the wooden door before Lon'qu slammed it on his face.

"What?"

"Congratulations... I heard from Basilio-"

One of Lon'qu's eyebrows raised curiously.

"Who heard from the midwife, that it's a boy. So, congratulations on becoming a father."

Lon'qu stood motionless for a moment. Then, unceremoniously, conceded a gruff nod.

"Thank you."

Chrom smiled.

"Good-bye."

When he returned to the bed, Robin was struggling to adjust he chemise to cover the top of her chest while keeping a firm hold on Morgan.

"Who was it?"

"Chrom," he said, curtly.

"Oh, I would have liked to say hello to him. How is he looking? Has he grown grey hairs without me yet?"

Lon'qu stayed silent as he sat back by Robin's side. He considered Chrom's words, and Robin's words. And then his own. He looked at Robin, at her beautiful paleness, her dainty features. He couldn't bear to break something so peaceful. She was such a gorgeous woman. Specially when she smiled. But she only smiled outside of battle or when she finished strategics. He wanted to keep her that way for a bit longer.

"Well?"

Lon'qu dived in for a kiss.

"Thank you," he said as he pecked her lips. "For marrying me, for making me a father... a true man."

Robin melted against the harsh kisses, but she tried to keep up as well.

"Love... the baby..."

His hand clamped over her mouth. His eyes pierced hers in the muted light of their room.

"Shhh... Just let me look at you. Just a bit longer."

There was a desperation in hi stone. Something forlorn that knew the cold truth of the world outside the room was going nowhere, and that Robin was strong. Much too strong to remain in bed for long, and too sentimental to deny a visit from a friend.

Robin sagged. Her breath warmed his skin. Her hand, colorless like a statue's, curled around his wrist to take his hand away. She kept quiet and met his gaze as the minutes passed them by.

Finally, although something in her gut told her she didn't want to know, she asked him, "What's wrong?"

Lon'qu's eyes fell. Then, determinedly, he took Morgan back. He went to place him on his crib and placed a kiss on his brow. He steeled himself, and turned around.

He whispered, as if in a funeral, "Frederick is dead. And his wife... Cordelia. Her unit fell first."

He watched her face fall into detached incomprehension. Perhaps she wasn't assimilating it right. Couldn't understand what those words he was saying meant. But he couldn't stop.

"Then Sully's. We couldn't find her body, but there wasn't much left-"

A sharp intake of breath interrupted him. Slowly, she was falling into the grief. Into the hurt.

She was crying. Her trembling body about to collapse as she fought to keep her disbelieving shrieks bottled for the sake of her sleeping baby.

Lon'qu enveloped her. He hugged her through the night and wiped the tears away, as they came. But Robin couldn't stop.

Her heart was broken.

So was his.