Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.

Annette has never truly been in a relationship before, so she doesn’t quite know what to call whatever situation her and Felix have fallen into.

They spend time together, they’ll go on walks together, he’ll come seek her out when he’s done training far earlier than he normally does. Sometimes, when the whole army is crammed into the dining hall, he sits opposite her, or next to her, and their shoulders bump and their hips touch while they go about the meal with the rest of the class.

He even stays for desert.

“I don’t mind waiting around until you’re done with your cake.” Is his reasoning, and it’s enough to make swoon.

One time, she sat down to dinner by herself, only to be joined by Felix and Rodrigue, with the former scowling almost as intensely as the latter’s beaming smile. That meal, in particular, made her sweat and blubber and babble in front of Duke Fraldarius, with something distinctly awful about how thoughtful he looked, how immediately, with just one glance, he knew there was something between her and Felix, even if they’d never actually put any words to it.

Rodrigue, despite his cheery demeanor of sitting across from her and Felix, was a fine dining partner, more nosy than the Professor, at least, until the end came, and Annette wanted the floor to swallow her whole.

“Next time maybe Gustave can join us?” He’d said, mirth dancing in his eyes, ignoring how Felix seemed to joke on his drink. “I’m sure he’d enjoy our Houses joining… for a meal.”

But after she has stable duty with Ingrid, Felix comes to find her, pulling awkwardly at his dark collar. She likes when he seeks her out, makes her less like she’s chasing someone and actually being pursued, even if there’s no title for whatever they have.

Felix also comes to find her when he needs a song, and she sits on the side of the training arena while he thrusts and parries and jabs. He seems to be the better for it, actually smiling when he’s done, brushing her hands with his own, dusting off stray sand from her shoulders when she stands.

“Would you like to get dinner with me? Sometime? Maybe right now?” Felix asks, just as Ingrid has cleared from the stables.

“Right now?”

“My father won’t be there, if that’s what you’re wondering.” A beat of silence. “Neither will yours.”

Annette smiles at how flustered he looks. His eyes are trained on the floor beneath them, but his blush is more subtle than their time in the Greenhouse.

“Okay!” Annette replies, far too eagerly, dropping the horse comb with a resounding clang. “I mean, it’s a date!” She tries to fix it, but instead Felix just looks more flushed.

“Yeah, okay.” He says, ducking his head. “It’s a date then.”

When they get to the dining hall, it seems as if every person in Garreg Mach has suddenly found themselves here, waiting for dinner. It makes sense, even if it’s annoying, seeing the place so full, since chores and battalion training and guard rotations all finish up at the same time. Felix scowls next to her, and for a split second, Annette frets that he’ll turn on his heel and walk out, and they’ll never have their date with just the two of them, condemned to eating with their fathers until they’re grey and old.

“How about you go and find us somewhere to sit and I’ll get some food?” She suggests, following the impulse to place her hand on his arm. “Sounds good?”

Wordlessly, he nods, before walking deeper into the tables and chairs, scoping out somewhere for them to go. Annette exhales, but it doesn’t curb the butterflies taking flight in her sternum.

Annette has a boyfriend , and it’s the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to her.

Ten minutes later, with a tray of two plates and two glasses of water, Annette maneuvers her way around the busy hall, standing on her toes to navigate slipping through the chairs and tables. It’s a three way cause of stress, the first being how bad it would be if she dropped it and split everything, the second is how fast all of the knights and soldiers seem to move when they pull out of the chair, unpredictable movements making it hard for her to tell when to go forward, and the third is because on the other side of the hall, the owner of the second meal, is Felix, waiting for her, with an impatient scowl. She has to swallow down her anxiety and stress before stepping closer to him, tightening her grip on the tray.

“Ta~da!” Annette announces, looking between Felix and the meal. “I just guessed which was the spiciest for you, I hope you don’t mind!”

Felix seems dazed for a second, blinking up at her. It makes her smile, how cute he looks. He comes back to his senses a second later, taking the plate she’d intended for herself off of the tray first, sliding it onto the seat next to him. It’s an endearing sight, watching him set the table for her, a strange amount of care in how he lays the fork and knife next to her bowl of food.

“Uh, thanks, that’s great.” Then Felix looks at her, his lips screwed up, his whole face frozen in some intense expression of concentration. She’s only seen him look like that when he’s training, or reading, or resisting the urge to tell the Prince off for something. “ Dearest. ” He finishes, looking like he’s just gotten out of a certificate exam.

With a small squeal, Annette drops the tray, Felix’s meal crashing to the ground between them.

ii.

Logically, Annette knows it was bound to happen, at some point or another.

She just didn’t think it would be like this, against the warm windows of the greenhouse, the sickly heat seeping into her woolen dress and woolen gloves and-

Annette realised she wears too much wool, just as Felix’s lips scrape across hers.

It’s awkward and sudden and strange, she thinks, her eyes still open as Felix’s flutter closed. Small, baby kisses against her lips that feel like they’re detached from her face. He leans down, one of his hands stiffly resting on her hip, the other wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Her fingers curl into the smooth velvet of his jacket, just hard enough that she can feel how his chest rises and falls. Idely, against his lips, Annette wonders if he feels too warm too, if the oppressive heat of the Greenhouse is getting to him too, if his neck and palms and forehead feel too sweaty for his own good-

“You’re not kissing back.” She didn’t even realise he’d pulled away. His eyes stay firmly shut, almost squeezed tightly, face scrunched up, and the insecure edge in his voice, normally disguised as irritation, is clear as day. Annette feels like she’s going to melt.

“Sorry,” She says, and rises up to press a chaste kiss to his lips, taking the initiative. “I just don’t really know how to.” Annette says, plainly, even if she feels a bit lame for saying it. She’s kissed boys before, passing students from their Garreg Mach days, friends from Dominic territory that were sent off to fight with Cornelia, but she never cared about them, not like this. She never cared if it mattered if she was good at kissing or not, but then there’s Felix in the Greenhouse, making her dizzy, making her want to be good at this so he wouldn’t pull away again.

“ Honey ,” He sighs, and it warms her from her chest, spreading through her body alongside her blood, making her knees week against the window. Felix pulls her closer, face inches from hers. His eyes are open now, the cool brown meeting hers, and Annette can feel her cheeks bloom and blossom under his stare. “Just put your lips on my lips. Like real people do.” He instructs, and it sounds so simple.

Like real people do, Annette thinks, before dragging him down to her level, sighing out through her nose when he kisses her again. His sweet lips find hers again and again, and it feels thrilling, feels natural, feels normal. It feels like something real people do, people who aren’t in the middle of a war, people who have normal, natural lives, not always on the brink of the next mission, or always on the defense from the next attack.

People Annette wishes they could be.

iii.

It’s very wordless, how after Gronder, Felix starts to stay with her, tucked into the bottom floor dormitories and into her bed. He makes a joke that it’ll save him climbing the stairs, that he’s closer to the training grounds, that he won’t have to put up with Sylvain’s snoring, but for the three days he’d spent sleeping in his own room after they returned from Gronder, Annette could tell he wasn’t sleeping, with the way the shadows under his eyes became heavier and heavier, darker and darker as each day went past.

(Before Gronder, Dimitri slept in the Church, among all the other ruined things, and now he sleeps in his old room, and even if Felix will never admit it, she can imagine he found it hard sleeping one bedroom over.)

He sleeps better now, Annette thinks, when he’s curled up around her, his back to the wall. He’s a somewhat restless sleeper; he kicks his legs and stretches his arms and hogs blankets. Her bed isn’t big, none of them really are, but he doesn’t mind sharing space with her, doesn’t mind her being the first thing he sees every morning, with his hair undone and pooling around his shoulders.

It’s endearing, but it worries Annette, because his father’s been dead for over a fortnight and he hasn’t spoken about it.

Annette’s unsure how to go forward. He already has Sylvain and Ingrid getting onto him about how he feels, and Dimitri can’t speak to anyone at them moment without mentioning his guilt and pain over the passing of Rodrigue. Annette likes, in a strange way, how her ground floor bedroom can act as an escape from that, where all he’ll expect from her is a few short songs and someone to sleep next to at night, someone who’ll help him tie his hair up and kiss him goodnight over and over.

But he’s still hurting, and Annette can see that, maybe more than anyone else.

One evening, the rain is pelting against the monastery, the sound a nice, lulling distraction from the war councils. They’re preparing to march on Fhirdiad, the first time any of them have returned there since the start of the war, and everyone’s nerves are fried, haywired and jittery. More so for Felix, who feels like his attempts at suggesting defensive strategies aren’t being heard.

(Maybe it’s because his father was always good at it, maybe he felt like he had something to prove all of a sudden, that he too could be the Shield of Faerghus, even if defense was the last line he’d want to fight on. He’d snapped at her pretty loudly in front of all of their friends when she’d tried to calm him down, and she hates how she still feels upset about it, embarrassed as all of their friends and even her father looked at her, with such pity she never wanted them to ever see her again.)

At least he’s sleeping now, Annette thinks with a sigh. She’ll rouse him for dinner later, or make him something herself, but for the moment she’ll let him rest against the harsh rain and rolling thunder. When she returned to her room he was sound asleep, almost spitefully.

The book in her hand is engaging, until Felix stirs against her thigh, his honey eyes blinking up at her. The relief on his face equals the sight of the sun poking out from two storm clouds, almost as if he didn’t expect her to be there, waiting for him, one hand tucked into his hair. Felix tries very hard at pushing people away, and normally Annette can tell when he’s being unacceptable as opposed to when he’s lashing out.

“Hey,” She says softly, untangling her hand. He doesn’t sit up, he just stays on the mattress, peering up at her.

“I’m sorry, Annette,” Felix says, sincerely, grabbing her other hand in his. “I was. That was. I could’ve.” He starts, and Annette knows how it feels to have too many words to say but not enough ways to say them.

“I get it-”

“No,” He insists, sitting up so he’s leaning against the wall. She rarely sees him dressed with his hair down around his shoulders, the navy strands flowing over the wool of his hood. “I should’ve been better with you today, you didn’t deserve me acting like that.”

“Thanks for apologizing.” She says, hoping she doesn’t sound too grateful. She’s used to people in her life excusing their way around giving her the apologies and sorries she’s owed. But Felix is more open with her when he’s done something wrong, even if it takes him on a roundabout way. “That means a lot.”

Steadily, Felix leans forward, responding to the way Annette’s arms loop around his shoulders. He sighs against her, nice and content, when their chests are flush and he’s relaxing against her, his head tucked into her shoulder.

“Thanks, love .” He says softly, placing the gentlest kiss to her jaw.

iv.

When Annette wakes, she seemingly forgets where she is, and what put her in one of the numerous, unused bedrooms in Castle Blaidydd in the first place.

Annette remembers collapsing to the ground with the remaining golems, her magic fried, all of the energy weeping from her body as the post-battle began. She’d managed to take down two of the golems by herself, exerting every possible blast of wind and every single ounce she had of white magic during the battle. She remembers one last spell from Dimitri’s side, before her knees buckled and the rest of the world went dark.

And Dimitri brought her Cornelia dragged innocent people, her people, into a war for nothing, turned Fhirdiad into a battleground, turned soldiers against civilians. Killing Cornelia wasn’t just for Faergus or Fódlan, for all of the pain she’d put Dimitri through, for all of the threats she’d placed on the Western Faergan Lords. 

(Years ago, when all that mattered was getting into Garreg Mach and studying at the Royal School of Sorcery, Cornelia Arnim felt like the end goal, to become as powerful as her, as renowned as her, to join the ranks of the King’s most trusted sorcerers and make her father proud. This victory comes with a strange, crawling nostalgia, at the idea of facing a former hero in battle.)

There’s a note on her dresser, next to a pitcher of water, Mercedes’ distinct, curling handwriting scrawled across yellow parchment.

‘We’re in the banquet hall :) Come find us!’

They were overdue for a celebration, Annette reasons, rising to her feet unsteadily, a sudden burst of energy starting from her toes and growing up through her body. There’s no magic cure for when the body overexerts itself, there is only rest, the deep kind, and with how dark it looks outside, Annette can assume she spent most of the day asleep.

The dark of Castle Blaidydd is easy enough to navigate. The dark has cast a blue hue on the stone walls, making it feel colder than it already is. With one hand on the wall, she descends the grand staircase, trying to look for the brightest light to show her where the banquet hall is. She’d visited Castle Blaidydd as a child, when her and her mother and her uncle were guests of her father. There was some event, or some award for her father, that brought them there, and Annette was too young to go exploring on her own, and too young to remember her way around.

Then she hears the voices, shrill and jovial, a warm light emitting from east of the grand staircase. Retaking Fhirdiad, among all of their other successes, has been the one that really matters the most, and Annette can tell from 

Her friends only take up the top corner of the banquet table, the rest of the marble table stretching down the hall, so far back it’s difficult to see where it ends. The sloping, stone arches that wrap around the very end of the room casts a glimpse into Fhirdiad at night, the fires still smouldering in the streets, the celebrations ringing out into the starless night. Cautiously, at the door, Annette waits and watches her friends talk and laugh and sing together, a humble meal spread out in front of them, made from their marching rations.

Felix sees her first, looking up from his drink with a scarlet flush across his cheeks. He’s stripped down to his billowing white shirt over his black turtleneck, looking more at ease and relaxed than she’s ever seen him before.

There’s also the wine, she supposes, but she pushes that out of her head when the entire war council flocks to her.

“You’re awake! Finally!” Mercie rushes to her side, bringing her in closer. “We’ve all been waiting for you!”

“Waiting for me?” Annette splutters, letting Ingrid take her by the arm. Felix is still looking at her, straddling the wooden bench, and Annette wishes he’d come closer, hold her up too, explain why everyone is looking at her with smiles so wide they look like their face might crack. “Why?”

Even Dimitri is standing for her, and his hand comes down on her shoulder, his eye creasing as he smiles down at her. “Well it’s not a real celebration if the most valuable-”

“Annette!” It’s a loud proclamation, almost like something he’d yell from across the battlefield, rather than in the center of the banquet hall. “ My sun and stars! The moon of my life!” With a huff, Felix gets up from the bench, pushes past his highness to get to her, gripping her upper arms. He’s only a little bit drunk, she can tell, because he’s not wobbling and none of his words are slurred. “You did so well.” He finishes, almost lamely, before bringing her into the sloppiest kiss she’s ever had in her life.

She pulls away just as their friends’ cheering gets too loud and she feels too embarrassed to keep going. Her father is standing there, for Seiros’ sake, sitting at the end with Seteth and a very amused Flayn. If Felix is bothered, she doesn’t let it show, instead drags her back to the table with him, sitting her on his lap while the rest of them assemble a plate for her.

“Just to say,” Sylvain leans across the table, a dangerous twinkle in his eye. “He’s had like three cups of wine and nothing to eat.”

That explains it, she thinks, accepting a grand portion from Ingrid.

“I think a toast is in order?” Dimitri asks, now seated at the head of the table. The Professor beams at him, then turns to her. Annette remembers the days when the Professor’s smile was a coveted thing, and getting any sort of praise felt like pulling teeth. “To celebrate the victory?” Everyone nods, and even Annette raises her glass of water, her other hand wrapped around Felix’s arm on her waist.

“To Annette!” They all cry, and lean back when Annette’s class collides with the table.

“What?! Why me?! I passed out before it was over!” She says, looking the length of the table. Everyone’s still smiling at her. “Shouldn’t we toast to Dimitri? He’s reclaimed Fhirdiad, he’s the King now, he killed Cornelia-”

“Annette,” Dimitri cuts her off, raising his glass to her. “You were the one that took Cornelia out, not me.”

Annette gasps, dragging her hands to her face. “I did? Really?” She doesn’t think she’s ever felt this much joy in her life for being informed she murdered someone. “Did I really?”

“You were so great.” Felix mutters against her shoulder, tightening his grip around her.

“You also took down two golems, by yourself.” Ashe points out from the end of the table, a nice rose spread across his cheeks.

“You healed me.” Dedue states calmly, but the gratitude on his face makes her want to jump across the table and hug him, but she’s too wrapped up in Felix, and Dedue’s arm is draped over Ashe’s shoulder. “Thank you for that.”

Annette chances a quick glance down the table, lingering over to where Flayn leans on Seteth’s shoulder, where Seteth and Hanneman and Manuela are all caught up in their own conversations, where her father is looking at her, prouder than she can ever remember.

(Words would be nice too, but it feels like asking too much from him.)

“I mean it you know,” Felix says, a little later, when they’ve both eaten.

“Hum?”

His face is bright red, that sweet blush from the Greenhouse, and he lets her slide off his lap so he can hold her hands. What she likes about being with Felix, against the weight of the war, against the celebrations of their friends, is that sometimes the world shifts and stops, and it’s just them, sitting on a bench in Castle Blaidydd, their hands in one another’s.

“You are my sun and stars.” Felix says simply. “And the moon of my life. And I want to stay with you when the war is over, and hear all of your songs, if that’s okay.”

Felix is normally the last person to ever mention the end of the war, but knowing that’s what he wants when--not if, anymore, but when --it ends makes her heart burst, sending her head reeling.

“I’d like that, very much.” Annette says, bringing her forehead to rest against his. “And you are all of those things for me too.”

“Hey, don’t steal my lines!”

“I’m not stealing!”

v.

The room he’s brought her into is one of the biggest bedrooms she’s ever seen, the wooden Crest of Fraldarius adorning the headboard, the large, marble fireplace already alight and beaming. There’s a portrait of a fresh winter scene hung above, with breaks in the white snow to accommodate the native elk population. It;s a lovely painting, with wide brush strokes and muted colors, and she can’t help but wonder is the artist the same one who painted the Fraldarius family portrait in the reception hall.

The first time Annette visited Fradlarius, far too soon after the end of the war, she’d stared at the faces of the painting until they felt real enough. The Duke and Duchess, dressed in their finest, sat on chairs, and their sons, with matching teal doublets and bored expressions, stood next to them, Felix next to his mother, and Glenn next to Rodrigue.

(It was the first time Annette ever saw Glenn, and even if he was only sixteen to Felix’s ten, it’s not hard to imagine what he’d look like now, taller than Felix, broader than Felix, with sky blue eyes.)

“So,” Felix clears his throat behind her, looking pointedly at the ground below them. “Is it to your liking?”

Annette turns again, tugging on her orange and cream skirts so she can move properly. She’s never normally this dressed up, at least not for Felix, but there’s a certain amount of propriety and tradition required with this, and that includes wearing the colors of House Dominic. Downstairs, her mother and uncle are following Felix’s uncle around the Castle, a small tour, introducing them to the house Annette would soon become the Lady of.

Felix wanted to show her their bedroom first, just so it wouldn’t be a surprise in less than two week’s time.

“Oh, it’s lovely!” Annette says. The washroom to the left has a large bath, the fireplace is big, the bed is even bigger, and while Dominic is a wealthy house by Faerghus standards, it’s much smaller than Fraldarius, and this whole room feels too big for her. If she puts her ear to the wall, she can hear the rushing sound of the water running through the walls, keeping the Castle warm from the underground springs, deep into the earth.

“I know it’s very big.”

“I didn’t say it was very big.”

“I know, but I did.” Felix settles on the bed next to her, his own teal doublet and white fur cloak making him look much older. He looks like a Duke, Annette thought, when he came to meet the Dominic convoy in the courtyard. Annette almost tripped removing her hoop skirt from the carriage door, and compared to how collected he looked, she felt like a child playing dress up. “No one’s slept here in years, so I had to replace most of the furniture.”

“You’re father didn’t sleep here?” Annette asks, stepping towards him. She stands above Felix, resting her satin gloved hands on his shoulders, rubbing small circles.

“No, he moved into the room he had when he was a teenager after my mother passed.” Felix explains patiently. He’s easier to talk to about his family now, as if she’s pried her way into his past, until he feels comfortable with telling her. “That must’ve been, hum, maybe fourteen years ago.”

“And the furniture is new?” Annette asks, looking around at the deep ash bed frame, and the ash chairs at the fireplace, and the matching dressers at the bedside.

“Would you believe me if I said I carved the wood myself?” He says, his forehead resting against her ribs.

“No,” She says, grinning at the way she can feel his laugh through her chest. “But I’m sure if given the chance you’d do a good job.” Annette presses a quick kiss to his head, before looping her arms around his shoulders. The reality of where they sit becomes more and more apparent the longer they stay there, and soon this bed will be their bed, and soon she’ll carry with her all of the grace and airs of a Duchess, and maybe she’ll get to pose for a portrait with Felix that will welcome their guests into their home with their-

“Is this really our room?” Annette asks, somewhat dazed, pulling herself out of a future that hasn’t even begun yet.

“That’s right,” He murmurs, then looks up at her. “ Darling, why are you asking?”

“I like when you do that.” Annette says before she can help herself, and it feels like nearly a year and a half between them has come to a head. “I’ve never said that before, but I like when you say things like that.”

“You do?” Felix asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course I do.” She nods. “For someone who doesn’t like sugar, you can say the sweetest things sometimes.” And just because she can, she tucks a strand of his hair behind his ear. “I like when you call me dear or dearest, or even my love , or when you say really lovely poetic things. It’s like if you like my songs, I like the little names you have for me.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to do that more often.” He swears, his smile bright, then his face flushes. “Sylvain said you might like it.” Felix mutters, ducking his head.

“You asked Sylvain about me?”

“Before the war. When we were students.”

“Oh, Felix!” Annette coos, and before she can help it, pushes him back on the bed so she can hug him properly. “That’s so cute!” The corners of her lips are turned so high her cheeks start to hurt.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Felix says, even if his eyes are fond. He puts a hand on her waist, pulling her closer to him, and it doesn’t go over her head that this is the first time their lying in their own bed.

She just can’t help herself. “You had a crush on me when we were students, didn’t you?”

“Annette,” He deadpans, taking her hand in his. “We’re getting married in two weeks.”

“I know! But still!”

+i

“You are a villian! I cannot believe I let you do this to me!”

“You are an awful criminal!”

“ FUCK! I hate you so much right now!”

“You’re doing fine Annie, just keep breathing~” Mercedes says warmly, rubbing Annette’s shoulder. “Just keep breathing.”

Felix blinks, as Mercedes passes over him and goes back to assembling her towels and potions. In the Fraldarius baths under the Castle, they have an abundance of hot water, but Felix was in the understanding that he’d sit at the side of the pool while Annette got in. Fourteen hours in, Felix sits with her, the hot water up to his shoulders, his white shirt soaked through with Annette leaning against him, crushing his hand while the crest of Dominic blinks every few hours. There’s two more midwives with them, a whole team flocking from Fhirdiad along with the King and Queen, but Annette wanted Mercedes before everyone else.

“I have a plan now, I’m gonna go back to the School of Sorcery, I’m going to train exclusively in Faith, and then I’ll become a Gremory, and then I’ll start making my own spells, and then I’ll make a spell that’ll take all of the pain away and no one will ever have to go through this again.” She sends Felix one desperate, pleading look, that turns into absolute rage. “We are never doing this again! I am never doing this again, you will never touch me again, you-”

“I know you’re in pain Annie,” Mercedes sooths, bringing a cool cloth to her forehead. “But insulting your husband isn’t going to get you anywhere, and the baby’s not gonna come out any quicker.”

“Or breaking his hand.” Felix mutters, taking the cloth from Mercedes. “Anything you can do for me, Mercie?” He asks, attempting to pry himself from Annette’s grasp.

“Sorry Felix, can’t waste any white magic, but one of these lovely women has just said you need to push one more time and then you’ll have your baby, isn’t that nice?” Mercedes coos, and even Felix feels himself reassured by her voice.

“Come on sweetheart ,” Felix says against her wet forehead, her hair pulled into a loose bun. “You can do it.”

“I can do it.” Annette repeats, panting heavily. “I can. I can do it. I’m your girl!”

The world seems to speed up in the time it takes for Annette to open her mouth and push, because in the next second, there’s a baby’s cry echoing around the baths, Annette collapsing into sobs beside him.

“Annie look, look at your girl!” Mercedes cries, placing the baby on her chest.

“My girl?” Annette asks, her hands coming up to hold her.

A girl, Felix thinks, watching the little red baby cling to Annette. There hasn’t been a firstborn girl in House Fraldarius since his great aunt, passed over for inheritance for her younger brother.

Felix wipes away the tears on his cheeks, instead coming to peer down at the baby. Her face is bright red, squished, the faintest smear of blood on her back.

“Felix, look at our girl, look at her she has your hair!” Annette sobs, and only then does Felix notice the dark tuft of hair on her head, how she fits sweetly under Annette’s chin.

“She’s beautiful.” He says, but the words aren’t really enough.

Time speeds up again, until they’re both changed and dry, sitting in one of the downstairs rooms that’s been converted into a suite for Annette’s recovery. It’s where she’ll present the baby to their friends, to their families, but for now it’s just the three of them, with his daughter tucked under his chin, snoozing on his bare chest. He wonders is it too soon to ask Annette to sing for her, let one of her first and earliest sounds be one of his favourite, but Annette's too concerned with a different kind of chant.

“Gracia Eponine.” Annette repeats, over and over again, just as she’s been doing since they decided on names. “Or Grace Eponine, which one sounds nicer?”

Felix took to referring to their child exclusively as baby, and now it’s strange that she has a name, has a face outside of his imagination, is breathing and shifting and squirming against him, wrapped in teal and orange blankets.

“I like Gracia.” He says. Grace came from Gráinne, Annette's mother’s name, but Eponine was the Duchess Fraldarius before her, and honoring their mothers before anyone else felt fitting, felt right, for the new generation they were raising. “It sounds very regal.”

“We’ll probably end up just calling her Grace,” Annette says with a yawn, tracing the tip of her finger over the shell of Gracia’s ear. Annette looks mesmerized, just as captivated as Felix feels. Her smile is tired, but fond, a satisfied exhaustion clinging to her bones. “Though, I’m sure you’ll have another name for her.”

Against him, Gracia stirs, one of her curled hands escaping from the blanket. She lets out one distressed wail, impossibly loud for someone with such a little body, but Felix reacts quickly.

“There, there baby ,” he says quietly, rubbing her back in slow, easy circles. “I’ll hand you over to your mama now.”

“Oh, I like that one.” Annette sighs, taking Gracia into her arms carefully. “Sorry for all of the mean stuff I called you earlier.”

“It’s fine,” He hums, too tired, too full of love, to even pay any mind to anything she said during labour. “Just don’t make a habit out of it, they’re kinda my thing.”

“Okay, dearest .”

“Annette-”

“Alright, honey .”

“This isn’t very-”

“Sure thing, my sun and stars, the moon of my life- ”