A/N: Just some random Martin fangirl-ism. The end of the main plotline upsets me every single time I play the game, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy Martin beforehand. There's a chance that my PC, Elowyn, will appear in another story or two in the future because I rather like her. There could easily be typos in here. Reviews are always welcome.

Warning: Mild sexual implications.

Disclaimer: I do not own Oblivion, Martin Septim, or anything else of value. I do own Elowyn (Ella), my lovely Redguard PC.

Lifeline

She woke up in pain. That in itself wasn't surprising, and in truth she took it as a good sign. Months of beatings in the arena had conditioned her to be different from most other people she'd come across. Pain was normal for her, as much a part of the functions of life as hunger and thirst. Honestly, the young woman was relieved by the hurt – it meant she was still alive.

She hadn't expected to be. In fact, she didn't think anyone expected her to be. These last months had been survival on a knife's edge, one Redguard against Oblivion armed with a sword and a prayer. Lately the prayers had failed to inspire and the sword had grown dull so often that she could probably repair it in her sleep. At least until it had shattered and she'd been forced to buy a new one. Even progress felt like failure when more and more gates opened almost daily across Cyrodiil, bringing pain and torment to their very doors. Helplessness was not an emotion she handled well.

Then, in her half-waking stupor, she realized it. If she was here, alive, it meant the Great Sigil Stone was here as well. The last piece of the puzzle. She'd wrapped the foul thing in her cloak and curled herself around it as the spire began to collapse around her, ignoring the searing pain in her wounded legs. Foolish of her, but it some weird way she thought she was protecting it, keeping it safe with her broken body so that someone could retrieve it and continue where she had failed.

But she hadn't failed, apparently. Here she was, alive, in a dizzying amount of pain, and…lying face-down on silken sheets? The woman cracked one eye open, but the world was blurry for a long moment. She scrubbed at her eyes with a trembling fist then blinked until the world came into focus.

Martin's room. She was in Martin's room, on Martin's bed. The young Redguard suffered a small, irrational jolt of panic.

Not that it wasn't a personal fantasy of hers to wake up in this particular bed, but certainly none of her daydreams included the burning pain across the backs of her legs. Just lifting her head made the pain flare up again, and she felt the foolish and insatiable need to look at the damage. Her father always said she was bullheaded, and she proved it. Hissing back a cry, she contorted her torso to try to see her legs, and two things, aside from the agony she brought upon herself, became distressingly clear.

The first was that she was naked from the waist down. A soft sheet covered her rear end, but her bare legs, covered in scars and burns – though honestly the damage was not nearly as bad as she'd expected – lay exposed for anyone to see. Though not a particularly modest person, she felt the sudden consuming need to cover herself, but after a moment of hesitation she decided that the attempt would likely cause too much pain to be worth the effort.

The second thing that she realized was that the owner of this particular bed was sitting right beside her. Well, not exactly sitting. Martin was slumped on the other side of the bed, his body twisted at a terribly awkward angle, his face half-buried in a pillow as he breathed deeply in his sleep. In spite of her discomfort, the woman had to force back a smile at the sight of the little splotch of drool darkening the material near his mouth. Even in exhausted, apparently spontaneous slumber, he looked haggard and weary, but the worry lines around his eyes were relaxed. He looked younger than she'd ever seen him.

He was still wearing the boots and greaves of his dragon armor, the breastplate and gauntlets tossed haphazardly on the floor near him. His shirt was loose and open at the neck, giving his guest a revealing view of his chest. She wracked her brain for any fragment of memory as to how she'd ended up back at Cloud Ruler Temple, but she came up blank. All she remembered was the tower crumbling around her, darkness, then waking up in pain. Though she was loathe to disturb him, the burning in her legs was growing worse, and exacerbated the near panicked need to know how she'd gotten here.

"Martin?" His name was a whisper, and the Imperial didn't stir. Gently she reached out for his hand lying near her and gave it a squeeze. "Martin, wake up." He cringed and murmured a groan, twisted his body into a more natural position, then relaxed again with a sigh. In any other situation, she would have found it endearing to see him like this…so vulnerable. "Martin?" she whispered louder.

After a pause, his face flickered, then she was left staring over the edge of the pillows into his brilliant blue eyes. And he smiled, a dazed, half-asleep flash of white teeth behind his lips. She wanted to kick whatever god had put her into this situation, torturing her with the knowledge that this was the closest she was going to get to those daydreams that plagued her. His hand tightened around hers, and her heart leaped into her throat as he pulled it to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss against the back of her hand. "Ella…" he murmured against her dark skin.

Her mouth dropped open, her eyes wide, and she almost forgot just how much pain she was in. She knew he was still groggy, that he probably wasn't even aware of what he was doing, that he was possibly even dreaming, but she burned the memory into her mind. He had said her name, like that…surely the gods were teasing her. "Martin," she managed to breathe, "I…"

And then the moment was gone. Martin's eyes sharpened and focused on her, a little line of confusion appeared between his eyebrows, and he snapped upright suddenly, dropping her hand as if it had scalded him. "Elowyn," he said followed by a rough clearing of his throat. A blush burned across his cheeks, and she wondered if she looked as out of sorts as he did. "You're awake."

"Yes," she said quietly, burying her face in the pillow to hide her embarrassment and to save him the effort of hiding his own. "Surprisingly enough. How…how did I end up here?"

Martin cleared his throat again and dragged his hand through his disheveled brown hair. "You, um…we found you on the ground after the gate closed. Their siege engine nearly collapsed on top of you, but I…we got you out of the way in time." She tilted her face to study him, but he was staring off at the far wall, lost in memory. There was something he was holding back, but she did not press him. "Even so, I was not certain you would survive." He turned to her then, his cheeks no longer flaming as he regained that regal composure she'd come to expect from him. "Your legs were…oh, by the Nine."

He turned to face her quickly, or her legs rather, and scooted close beside her on the bed with an almost angry expression on his face. "What's wrong?" she demanded.

"I was healing you when I must have fallen asleep," he admitted with obvious consternation, and she flinched as she felt his palms slide over her sensitive, broken skin. "Here you are, the one who risks her neck to save us all, and I leave you to suffer with these injuries – forgive me."

"Martin," she admonished, even as she cringed and bit back a groan as the healing spells began to pour from his hands, "you are far too hard on yourself. I cannot even remember the last time I saw you sleep. In fact, I've never seen you sleep. It was…good for you to rest. You need it." She hadn't meant for the words to sound so tender, but when Martin's hands paused, she knew he'd heard the change in her voice.

"There will be time for rest when this is all over," he replied, though his voice was without rebuke.

She let him focus on working his magic and tried very hard to ignore the way his hands felt against a few particularly sensitive places on her thighs, but eventually she could not stand the silence. "Where is everyone?"

"Bruma," he answered and she could hear the strain in his voice. He was going to exhaust himself healing her, but she had the feeling that he wouldn't take no for an answer even if she tried to stop him.

"Even Barus?" she questioned with a teasing note in her voice. Her fellow Blade had become the Emperor's shadow of late.

"Yes. He is helping with the…clean up." She was saddened by his tone – the words were laden with the burden of the dead at Bruma, and she silently wondered how many had been lost.

"It had to be done, Martin," she said over her shoulder, wishing she could look at him, prove to him her conviction. "Without their sacrifice, the cost would be all of our lives. No one would be spared."

"I know this," he all but spat, then sighed restlessly. "But who am I to decide whose life is to be the sacrifice? Is one man's life of greater value than another's?"

She couldn't stand it, the doubt, the bitterness, the pain in his voice. It wasn't right that he should feel the weight of such things. Though her legs were still stiff, the pain was gone for the moment, and so she suddenly twisted away from his hands and lay on her back to stare up at him. She thanked any god listening that the sheet stayed in place or the situation would have been terribly awkward.

"You are the Emperor, my Lord." The words sounded harsh to her own ears, but Martin was never the kind of man who needed to be coddled and soothed. His pale blue eyes stayed locked on hers, an almost desperate sadness behind the stubbornness. He needed affirmation, and she could give him that. "You have a duty to these people, to protect them, but to do that, you must make hard decisions. Live with your decisions. Allowing your choices to weigh on you will eventually crush you."

"So what would you have me do?" She had never seen him angry like this, a despairing, painful brand of anger. "Forget the dead? Ignore the sacrifice? Bury them in my mind as they are buried in the ground?"

"No. Never." She reached for his hand in his lap, surprised to discover that he was shaking. "The remembering is not the problem, Martin. The guilt is. Your guilt must hold no sway over your heart."

"My heart," he almost sneered as he echoed the words, and his gaze skipped away from hers to stare out the window into the growing darkness outside. "Some days I wonder what has happened to my heart. I see the things I do, the choices I make, the lives I sacrifice, the people I put in danger…" his fingers clasped hers painfully, but still he did not look away from the window. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm not becoming as much of a monster as the one we struggle to defeat."

She sighed and finally forced herself to sit up, reluctantly relinquishing her hold on his hand. Her backside was uncomfortable, but not painful, and after a moment of adjustment of the sheets and her wrinkled tunic, she looked up into Martin's face. He'd moved back a little and another light blush dusted his cheeks, and she wondered if she'd accidentally given him an eyeful. "This is almost over, Martin," she said quietly, holding his searching gaze when he finally looked at her again. "We have the means to open the door to Paradise now."

"Yes, and now I must send you into danger again."

She let slip a thin, faint laugh. "You don't send me anywhere, my Lord. Emperor you may be, but I go where I wish."

Martin's gaze softened, but the guilt was still there, heavy and oppressive. "It cannot be your wish to put yourself in danger. You cannot possibly enjoy being thrown into Oblivion, not knowing what to expect, if you will even survive…"

She shrugged and took his hand in hers again, idly running her fingers across the few scars that marred his paler skin and avoiding his gaze. His posture stiffened at her unexpected familiarity, but she pretended not to notice. "It is my duty to serve, but it is not duty that binds me."

He was silent for a long moment, then his fingers tightened around hers for the briefest heartbeat. "Then what binds you, Elowyn?" he asked in a low, rough voice.

She could give him the simple answer. "It's the right thing to do." Or perhaps the coy answer. "I think you already know, my Lord." Or even the brazen answer. "You." But he deserved more than that. He deserved to know the truth, though she had a feeling it would make for an awkward explanation.

"Your father…" she started, then glanced up to see an odd confusion flit across his face. She sighed and plowed on, hoping he'd bear with her fumbling attempt to make him understand. "Uriel was…I barely knew him for a few hours, Martin. And fighting through assassin-infested tunnels is not exactly the best way to get to know anyone. But there was something about him…something that made me believe him. Believe in him."

"My father believed unerringly in the will of the Nine," Martin answered, unable to hide the hint of scorn in his voice. "They guided his every choice."

"It was not his faith that I saw when I looked at him. He knew, Martin. Somehow he knew things beyond my reasoning, the time of his own death even! He could see farther than any man I'd met before and since…aside from you."

"I cannot see what will come," the young Emperor denied vehemently. "I do not know if we will succeed! I cannot be sure that any of us will survive until tomorrow!"

"No, you can't," she agreed, still struggling to put together the thoughts in her head so that he would understand them. "Normal men see only what matters to them, what touches their lives. They see their evening meal, their child's birthday, the harvest season as it approaches." Martin was frowning out the window again, and so she reached for his face and gently turned him to look at her. His azure gaze was sad and yet she could detect the faintest hint of hope in those beautiful depths. "You see more than that." She traced the line of his strong jaw, delighted by the stark contrast of sharp stubble and warm skin beneath. "You see how everything fits together, how one movement will disrupt something leagues away. You see the cause and the effect. I trust you and your plans because you see farther, just as Uriel did. You are a Septim."

His eyes fell closed, his brow wrinkled in a deep frown, and he sighed as he slid his hand over hers still resting against his cheek. They sat in silence for a moment, then he asked softly, opening his eyes to stare into her darker gaze, "Is it wrong that sometimes I wish I were not? That sometimes I wish I were just…a man?"

Her grandmother had a saying: "When it feels as though all the lands have conspired against us, the Nine always find a way to throw us a lifeline." She understood the intentions of the words well enough, but Elowyn had never really felt the truth of them. For her, when things were at their worst, they either got better or they didn't. She'd never experienced some deeply memorable moment in the midst of a crisis that made enduring worthwhile. Maybe things had just never been bad enough for her.

But right then, staring into Martin's broken expression, her grandmother's words rang through her head. He needed that lifeline, he needed a reason, he needed hope. He needed her, much more than she needed him. A thrill of fear crept up her spine, a nagging doubt that questioned whether he would even want her help, but she shoved it aside ruthlessly.

She didn't answer his question with words – she let her instinct speak for her. A twinge of pain shot up one leg as she leaned forward, but she ignored it, and cradling his face in her hands, she kissed him. His lips were warm and soft, and throwing caution to the wind, she swept one hand back to touch the thick softness of his hair. She'd been itching to do that for weeks.

His reaction was what she should have expected – surprise, hesitance, the start of reciprocation, then…denial. She was a fool to expect something more. Holding her gently by the shoulders, he pushed her away and shook his head. He could barely look her in the eyes, and not even her dark skin could hide the flush of humiliation that swept over her. "I-I…we can't. It wouldn't be right. Not when…"

She swallowed hard – so much for that bloody lifeline – stumbling on an apology even as he tripped on his own excuses. She tried to scoot away from him, maybe to find some hole to hide in for the next few days, but she moved at a wrong angle and her legs screamed in pain. A whimper broke from her lips, and Martin was immediately back into his role as authority.

"Let me finish healing you," he insisted, though his discomfort was palpable. "Then I will leave you to rest."

Silent as a sullen child, she did as he instructed. He stood and moved aside to removed his boots and greaves as she adjusted herself on the bed, and she noted with a touch of bitterness that he was careful not to look at her until he was sure she was covered. She had never felt so foolish in her life.

He did not speak as he made himself comfortable beside her, and unlike the previous silences between them, this one was heavy and tense. She wanted to kick herself for her own impetuousness, and again wanted to kick the god who'd gotten her into this situation. She turned her face away from him and toward the window, and though she could not see anything but the dark sky outside, she realized she could watch Martin's face in the pale reflection.

His spells worked over her legs, binding and restoring the burned and damage skin. Focused as he was, she was startled that she could read a flurry of emotions flashing across his face. He had a very expressive face, the kind that tells a tale without the man needing to speak a word. Right then, still wallowing in her own stupidity, she could not really understand what she was seeing, but it made her feel horribly guilty nonetheless.

There was anger and frustration, then a resigned sadness written across his handsome features. After a few moments, something like a revelation flickered behind his eyes, and his hands paused, his spells frozen until he came back to himself with a fierce shake of his head. She felt worse watching him like that, tormenting himself with whatever was running through his mind. As if he didn't have enough to worry on, she just had to go and kiss him and give him more to weigh on his mind!

"Are these all of your wounds?"

His voice startled her, and she took a moment to find her voice. "I-I don't know," she answered honestly. "The spike trap destroyed my greaves, and that bastard dremora flung a fireball at me right at the end. I didn't pay attention to anything minor."

Silence again for a moment. She realized with a jolt that he was watching her reflection in the window now as well, and the weight of his hands resting idle against the back of her left thigh became horribly distracting. "Should…would you like me to check…?"

She barely heard to words, and she was pretty sure he hadn't meant to say them out loud. But there they were, hanging in the air between them. What was she supposed to answer? "Well…you're the priest," she tried to jest, but her voice was unsteady. "So…I'll trust your judgement."

His eyes danced away from the reflection and skittered across the tunic covering her back. She could all but hear the debate raging in his mind, but she didn't dare hope that he was having second thoughts. He was only being thorough, making absolutely sure that his patient was completely hale. Wasn't he?

Martin reached for the sheet and adjusted it so that her bare legs were completely covered. Her stomach sank again thinking that he would rise and leave her to rest, and she had just turned her head into the pillow when she felt his hands touch the small of her back. Gently, almost reverently he lifted the edge of her tunic, pulling it up to expose her bare skin to his eyes. A glance at the window revealed a carefully schooled expression of neutrality, and she wondered if the same disbelief were echoing in his head that was resounding in her own.

"By the Nine Divines," he breathed, his touch light as he traced the aging scars across her back with his fingers and his gaze. "Are…are these from the missions I've sent you on?"

"No, most of them aren't," she managed to explain through a pinched throat. His touch was maddening and frustrating and so wonderful all at once. She tried very hard to keep from hoping, to remind herself that he was a healer, that he'd already turned her away. "Most are from the arena."

"Ah. I forget that you are the Grand Champion." His voice sounded far away, as though he were lost in thought, and he continued to idly trace the scars with the tips of his fingers.

"That's not surprising," she smiled wryly into her pillow. "I don't exactly look like Champion material. Do…" she rolled the edge of corner of the pillowcase between her fingers, struck with an uncharacteristic shyness that annoyed her deeply, "do my scars bother you?" Yes, that was vanity talking, proof that no matter how tough or capable she became, some insecurities were simply inescapable.

He was silent for a pause, his fingers slowed to a stop against her shoulder blade, and the other rested against the curve of her hip. "No," he answered quietly. "I…hate to think of you in pain, of someone hurting you. But, no, the scars themselves are…well, beautiful in some way. You are beautiful."

She had to remind herself to breathe. She wasn't sure what to do, what to say, if anything at all. Words would spoil the moment, but she couldn't just say nothing. She didn't even dare try to look at his refection in the glass. "Martin…I…"

"Why did you kiss me?" he abruptly demanded with a haggard sigh.

The bluntness of the question – blunt even by her standards – caught Elowyn off guard, and honestly upset her a little. She could have been misinterpreting his tone, but it sounded as though he were accusing her of something. Where before she'd opted for a long explanation that ended in an embarrassing blunder, this time she settled for brevity. "I wanted to," she answered, tilting her face toward where he sat on her left side.

She couldn't really see his face from that angle, and she had to admit that she was enjoying the weight of his hands on her back too much to try to roll over. "That seems to be reason enough for you to do almost anything," he murmured, though she didn't sense anything unpleasant in his tone.

"And why shouldn't it be? I only have one life, and I've seen far too many people die who never took the time to live." She hadn't intended to sound so forceful, but she meant the words firmly. "Besides," she wiggled a little to get more comfortable, and was pleased when Martin's hands shifted but did not move away from her, "you needed to be kissed."

"Did I?" he sounded almost amused. "And how could you know that?"

She couldn't stand it anymore. Careful to keep her tunic just low enough for modesty sake, she rolled onto her back again. Martin returned one of his hands to his lap, but the right hand, the one that had rested on her hip, tickled across her middle as she turned and came to a stop against the flat of her stomach. "It's written in your eyes," she murmured almost lazily.

Martin's gaze traced the angles of her face as if he were memorizing her features, paused on her lips, then returned to her eyes. "Am I so transparent?"

She had to laugh at that, a light, sweet sound, and his hand twitched against the smooth skin of her belly. "No. Absolutely not." She hesitated, then decided she'd already thoroughly embarrassed herself and nothing she did now could possibly make it worse. She raised her hand to his face, touched his cheek again, traced a crooked trail to the edge of his mouth, across his bottom lip. "You said you wanted to just be a man sometimes, Martin." His breathing deepened and he did not pull away from her touch. "I was throwing you a lifeline."

He frowned, possibly confused by her reference, but his eyes burned into her own for several long heartbeats. "I am…afraid," he finally admitted, then snatched her hand from his face and pressed a firm kiss against her open palm. "I fear that if I…it will be all the more difficult if we…" His face was grave and troubled. "Gods, how could I send you after Camoran, knowing that I might be sending you to your grave?"

Laughing gently again, Elowyn sat up to bring her face level with his. "Haven't I already told you? You do not send me anywhere, my dear Emperor. I do as I please."

The ragged edge faded from his expression, and his blue eyes softened as he ran his thumb over the slope of her cheek. "Would that I could be as carefree as you seem, my lady."

"No," she smiled as she whispered, "then you would not be Martin."

She could not be sure who kissed whom this time, so she choose to believe it was all Martin's doing. There was no restraint or surprise, no holding back for either of them, and the passionate kisses soon grew to passion touches and explorations. Elowyn delighted in the way Martin sighed against her lips when her hands slipped beneath the edge of his shirt and wandered the planes of his chest. An urgency began to build between them, and she was smiling as he tugged her tunic over her head.

"I swear by any god or daedra listening right now," she whispered hotly against his mouth in between kisses, "if Barus interrupts us, I will kill him myself."

At that, Martin laughed – a deep, full-throated rumble from his chest, and the sound took the Redguard's breath away. She had never heard him laugh, and a random stray notion made her wonder if she'd ever hear it again after this night. Still smiling, the young Emperor cradled her face in his hands and kissed her with a deep desire, murmuring her name like a prayer as their bodies pressed together and tumbled into his bed.

Somewhere in the dark reaches of the night, Elowyn discovered that she'd been wrong. She did need Martin as much as he needed her. In reaching out to save him, she had in fact found her own lifeline.