AN: Felt inspired. 50 more themes (Beta, this time), some SPOILERS for CS3 and CS4, plus a few references to past (and future?) fics.

#01 – Walking

They were trudging away from the station when Emma sidled up to her vice president and quietly asked if he and Jusis were really going to engage in their cold war for the entire field study; the sharp glare she received in return was answer enough.

#02 – Waltz

"I think he's settled down," Alisa pointed out as Rean gingerly spun her, smiling at the besotted expressions that adorned the faces of Machias and Emma as they danced, blissfully unaware of everything and everyone else.

#03 – Wishes

"Look, a shooting star! You know what we do on those, don't you?" Emma whispered to the wide-eyed little girl curled in her lap, giving a fond glance to Machias as his arm slid around her shoulder to pull them both close.

#04 – Wonder

"Good morning," came the fuzzy whisper against his chest, her sapphire eyes half-lidded as they regarded him with sleepy affection, taking his breath away with a single glance.

#05 – Worry

The sharp gasp he heard made Machias look up, alarmed, before he saw Emma's hand settle onto her rounded abdomen with an awestruck look; seconds later, he felt his fear vanish into nothing when he did the same and was greeted with a forceful kick to his palm.

#06 – Whimsy

"You're actually - Goddess, you've got it bad," Celine observed drolly, her eyes locked firmly on the two fuzzy ears that proudly stuck up from the knitted hat that was being worn by a resigned Machias, and she could only wonder if the smiling witch behind him was envisioning plans for a matching tail – her projects could be a little peculiar, at times.

#07 – Waste/Wasteland

"Feel free to keep playing to the end. It would be a disappointing conclusion otherwise," Machias told her, not quite smirking, and across from him Emma narrowed her eyes and glared at her decimated forces on the wooden board; while she kept faith she'd beat him someday, today wasn't going to be it.

#08 – Whiskey and rum

"Hmm. So that's what you were doing with Rean and Crow," Emma murmured against his mouth teasingly, the faint taste of the spirits still lingering, and she kissed him again when he tried to answer, her hands taking hold of his as she pulled him down with her onto the bed.

#09 – War

Sometimes when they were studying, one would catch the other with a shadowed gaze and a furrowed brow, their eyes darkened and staring at ghosts; all it took was a warm brush of their fingers, skin on skin, to remind them that they were here, that they had survived.

#10 – Weddings

Truth be told, Machias wasn't overly fond of these affairs per se (they were noisy, crowded, and in general the antithesis of what he found enjoyable) but any internal protests he had were silenced when he caught sight of a beaming Emma in a lavender dress, raising a hand in greeting and looking resplendent all the while.

#11 – Birthday

"Yeah, it's in a week and a half. Not surprised she never mentioned it to you or the others, but now that you know… well, I'm sure you'll be able to figure out something. You're a smart guy," Celine tossed out, trying not to enjoy the obvious panic on his face too much.

#12 – Blessing

"T-They like you! They like you, they approve of you, and I'm so, so sorry about all this," Emma stammered, fighting every urge to bury her face in her hands, and if there was one thing that the exhausted - and maybe a little traumatized - Machias would take from the whole mess it was that the Hexen delighted in vetting prospective suitors to a degree that bordered on disturbing.

#13 – Bias

"Papa! Auntie Celine taught me checkers! Will you play with me?" the little girl asked excitedly, and it was a testament to how much Machias loved his daughter that he simply smiled, nodded, and stowed his well-rehearsed speech about how inferior checkers was to a real strategy game.

#14 – Burning

"Y-You'll get it eventually," Machias coughed, opening the window in the kitchen to let the smoke out as a sullen Emma stared at her latest attempt at making Crunchy Rice Crackers with sad, mournful eyes.

#15 – Breathing

It was him that usually fell asleep first, and the steady rise and fall of his chest never failed to lull her into slumber soon after.

#16 – Breaking

"No buts, Machias! You need a rest," Emma exclaimed, grabbing the startled boy by his hands and pulling him to his feet.

#17 – Belief

"Of course they're all right," Machias thought as he dashed in with Rean and the others, stopping beside his surprised link partner and Laura as he glared at the dragon that stood before Class VII. "No phantasmal beast would have been enough to stop them."

#18 – Balloon

"She's gonna be beach ball sized soon," Celine commented lazily from her position on the slumbering Emma's stomach, and she purred when the gunner gazed at his wife and reached down to give the feline a good scratch, his fingers running their way through her fine dark fur.

#19 – Balcony

"You can see the stars from here if you really look," Emma told him, gazing upward with reverence and awe, his arm curled around her waist, and Machias could only wonder why he had never taken the time before.

#20 – Bane

"… Must I? I'm sure you've done a fine job of editing already," he said, staring at Dorothee's manuscript with more than a little apprehension, but he finally sighed and opened it as Emma offered him a warm smile in thanks.

#21 – Quiet

The apology came on the train back to Thors, barely audible and genuinely regretful, and after a moment Emma accepted it with a small smile and a look of understanding; though she never wanted to go through a field study like their first again, he (and Jusis) had more than made up for it this time around.

#22 – Quirks

"I'm not fond of the crust," he told Emma upon seeing her look curiously at his handiwork, adroitly reaching out to sneak one of the blueberries that she had surgically removed from her muffin not seconds before.

#23 – Question

"May I ask you something?" and he rolled his eyes when she giggled and pointed out that technically, he already had.

#24 – Quarrel

They counted themselves fortunate only to have had one serious fight; the rest of the time, what passed for relationship strife usually involved snippy asides after a particularly rough day, asides that would inevitably be forgiven and forgotten long before the sun set.

#25 – Quitting

"You?!" Emma yelped in what could only be described as poleaxed indignance, and Machias groaned and ran his fingers through his hair, pointing out that it had only been once on a dare from Patiry, he had nearly coughed up a lung because the smoke had tasted disgusting, and he hadn't touched them again since so could she please drop the subject, already?

#26 – Jump

"D-Don't do that!" Machias exclaimed, his heart pounding as Emma tried and failed to keep herself from dissolving into a fit of laughter at seeing him virtually leap off the couch at her touch; the gunner was more than a little ticklish, it seemed.

#27 – Jester

There were two things that were guaranteed to eke a laugh out of their little girl; Emma making funny faces and Machias trying to make funny faces and failing miserably at it.

#28 – Jousting

"A lifetime of this. I'm in for a lifetime of this," Celine lamented, listening as the pair launched into yet another debate about the superiority of tea or coffee and was there an echo in the building or had she heard this crap before?!

#29 – Jewel

She loved his eyes the most; dark, infinitely serious, gleaming like jade under the last vestiges of twilight.

#30 – Just

"This isn't right," Emma thought, her heart in her throat as she helplessly watched a resigned Machias be marched away by the guards. "This isn't right."

#31 – Smirk

"Someone needs to explain to you the concept of being a gracious winner one of these days," Emma grumbled, setting down her losing hand and pointedly trying to look anywhere but the final card that had sealed her fate or the expression on his face.

#32 – Sorrow

She hid behind the tree and listened to Machias baring his soul to the twin gravestones, her heart breaking a little more with every word.

#33 – Stupidity

"S'the last night before everything goes sideways and you're gonna babysit a drunk guy. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Crow told him, sounding remarkably lucid for someone that had indulged as much as he had. "C'mon, man. Don't you have someone else you'd rather be seeing now?"

#34 – Serenade

In all honestly, no one really knew what to expect – while Jusis might have had some musical training given his upbringing, the other half of the duet was a question mark at best – but when Machias took a deep breath and let his first bars fly, Emma found herself unable to look away; he could really sing!

#35 – Sarcasm

There were times when it seemed like Celine and Machias were in a silent competition to see who could outdo each other when it came to snark, much to Emma's everlasting chagrin.

#36 – Sordid

While Machias had ended up experiencing a decent chunk of Dorothee's work (whether he wanted to or not) by the time they left Thors, there were certain volumes that Emma knew could never ever see the light of day in his presence – proofreading them was one thing, but seeing himself in a starring role with a token name change would probably be a bridge too far.

#37 – Soliloquy

He learned that she would occasionally talk when she slept, and more than once Machias had to refrain from answering back.

#38 – Sojourn

"I-I mean, it's quite a distance to travel back," he pointed out, marshaling his courage even as her eyes widened, "and furthermore, Heimdallr's far more central to the Empire than your village is. If you're so inclined… you could always stay here for a little while."

#39 – Share

"I could just make you a cup, you know," Machias told Emma with a long suffering sigh, a small grin on her face as she returned the purloined mug of hot chocolate as quickly as she had snuck it away from him for a quick sip.

#40 – Solitary

Emma had considering asking the gunner if he would be interested in joint study sessions, but she'd dismissed it out of hand each time; after all, he appeared perfectly content sitting at his table in the library, the serious expression never leaving his face as he pored through their textbooks, and the last thing she wanted to do was intrude on her new classmate's routine.

#41 – Nowhere

"Oh no. Nice try, but you're not going anywhere," Emma cooed at the giggling infant as she happily cuddled her, and Machias was starting to get unnerved at how their newly crawling daughter seemed to get closer and closer to the stairs every time she made a break for it.

#42 – Neutral

"They're both idiots. No one's right and no one's wrong here, they're just both idiots. We can agree on that, right?" Fie grumbled as Jusis and Machias started bickering again, and beside her a weary Emma and resigned Gaius simply nodded in agreement.

#43 – Nuance

Emma had many smiles, and somewhere along the way Machias had learned the meaning behind every single one of them.

#44 – Near

"Stay close!" Rean cautioned from the front of the air vent, and the gunner studiously focused on the alloy beneath him because if he was being perfectly honest staying close presented its own set of problems, especially considering who was in front of him – he hadn't meant for things to be arranged like this, really!

#45 – Natural

It never ceased to amaze her how perfectly their fingers fit together, even years later.

#46 – Horizon

There was still a lot to do, there was no doubting that, but for Machias and Emma it was enough that they had survived to see another sunrise.

#47 – Valiant

Being brave against creatures out of a nightmare was one thing; trying to muster that same courage to ask a simple question with ring in hand was something else entirely.

#48 – Virtuous

"Sorry, kid. I don't think your Mama and Papa have a lot of funny stories to tell – but then again, straight arrows usually don't," Celine told the girl, chuckling a little at her disappointed pout while ignoring the indignant expressions on the faces of her parents.

#49 – Victory

"Hehe. I told you 'she', didn't I?" an utterly drained Emma whispered, tenderly cradling the newborn as her relieved husband sat beside her, all the tension draining from his shoulders in an instant.

#50 – Defeat

"Hmph. This may as well be a loss for me and we both know it," Machias muttered, glaring at their tied scores for the last set of exams they would ever take at Thors, and Emma could only sigh and shake her head fondly; for all his growth and maturation, he was still the same Machias at heart (and she wouldn't have him any other way).