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It's been five years since Dorothea's last seen Ingrid Brandl Galatea.
She'd dreamed of the day - some soft dreams, others nightmares, but one thing they all had in common was the fire in Ingrid's eyes, for better or worse, when she saw Dorothea again.
These aren't dreams, though. Not anymore. And Ingrid's eyes are cold and gray as stone.
Her hair is longer now than it was back when Dorothea cut it all those years ago. Not long enough for her to have grown it out, forgetting to trim it for half a decade, but short enough that it was a choice. Dorothea hates the churning pit of something like jealousy in her stomach when she wonders who cut it for her.
She's handsome even now, above on her pegasus, looking down at Dorothea with a face that's smooth and passive, a boulder forcing a stream to carve a path around it. Her lance is raised, poised to attack.
Dorothea thinks Ingrid might just strike her down, right then and there, until Ingrid soars past her, plunging her lance into an Empire soldier's chest and circling around to land in the next motion.
"What in Seiros' name are you doing here?" Ingrid asks by way of greeting.
Dorothea stares, mouth agape. "I'm a general in Edelgard's army. What the fuck are you doing here?"
"I'm a general in the Kingdom Army," Ingrid quips.
"The Kingdom doesn't have a fucking army," Dorothea says. "You barely have a king."
She regrets saying it as soon as it's out, hates the way the fire finally enters Ingrid's eyes again as she lifts her lance with a garbled scream. Dorothea shrinks back, instinctively preparing a thunder spell.
They both freeze.
Ingrid watches her, hair wild in the cold Faerghus wind, eyes wary and angry. "Don't you dare," she takes a shuddering breath. "Don’t you dare talk about him like that. Don't."
Dorothea would apologize, but she knows neither of them would believe it.
So instead, she drops her hands, letting the spell fall flat. Ingrid hesitates, then lowers her lance.
Dorothea wants to tell her she misses her. She wants to ask if Ingrid misses her, too.
Instead, they stand in silence, the battle raging on around them, the knowledge that either of them could be dead a thousand times over during this very conversation heavy in Dorothea's mind.
"Why did you leave?" Ingrid has to practically yell to be heard over the combined din of the gales and the people raging around them.
The unspoken 'me' rattles Dorothea, and she can't think of what to say. She can't think of what to do. She doesn't have an answer.
"I don't know," she says, then pauses. "But you could've stayed with me, too."
Ingrid's running one hand through her hair now, and it's a motion so familiar that Dorothea might just cry. "I couldn't have- You don't understand."
"What isn't there to understand?" Dorothea pleads. "Felix joined us. Ashe joined us. Why couldn't you?"
"You know nothing about my life." It cuts like a knife, but Ingrid digs deeper still. "It's not like I can just walk away from my family, from my country, from my king. You could've joined us if I was so damn important to you."
This isn't how Dorothea had dreamed of this conversation going. "You know I couldn't have, Ingrid. You have your family, your country, your king, but I have nothing. I have nothing because my jackass father threw me out as a goddamn baby for not having a crest. I have nothing and I had to claw my way out of poverty inch by bloody inch. So while you speak of duty to a family that doesn't love you and a country that only sees you for your crest, I will work my hardest for a cause I believe in. I hate war. I hate fighting you. But I won't listen to you sit there and pretend like I don't understand a higher cause."
Ingrid looks as though she's been slapped. "Dorothea, I-"
"Don't."
They stand in silence.
"I don't want you to die," Ingrid says so quietly that Dorothea has to strain to hear it.
"I don't want you to die, either."
They stand, both waiting for a confession that will never come.
Dorothea recalls their final day with perfect clarity.
It had been two months of blissful nothing after everything had been smoothed over at the ball, the two of them reunited with tearful confessions and renewed promises. They walked through the halls, hand in hand, and shared kisses beneath the eaves of the courtyard, between classes, behind the stables.
That is, until Edelgard had ascended the throne, revealed herself to be the Flame Emperor, and declared war on the Church of Seiros.
The morning after, Ingrid had found Dorothea in her room. There they sat, hand in hand, silence enveloping them, suffocating them with the words neither knew how to say.
"I'm going with her," Dorothea said.
Ingrid jerked away. "What? You can't be serious."
"I think what she's trying to achieve-"
"It doesn't matter what she's trying to do," Ingrid spat. "If she's going to do it by massacring anyone in her way, it doesn't matter."
"That's not what she's doing and you know it."
Ingrid put her head in her hands. Dorothea put a hand on her knee.
"I don't-" Ingrid said.
"I know. I know." Dorothea hesitated, then wrapped her arms around Ingrid's shoulders, pulling her in against her chest. "And I'm sorry."
"Me, too."
They sat in silence for so long Dorothea stopped counting the minutes, simply breathing in time to Ingrid’s heartbeat.
"Do you think-" Ingrid sighed. "Nothing. Never mind."
"What?"
Silence.
And then, "I think… I don't think we can do this anymore." Ingrid lifted her head.
"What?" Dorothea's voice was strained, even with the knowledge settling into her heart that Ingrid is right.
"If we end up on different sides of this, there's just no way…" Ingrid trailed off, voice tight.
The words fell between them. Dorothea closed her eyes. She didn't know why this was happening. She wanted to go back. She wanted to bury her head under her covers and scream until her voice was wrecked to shit.
Instead, she opened her eyes. "Yeah." She smiled mournfully. "I know."
When she kissed Ingrid for the last time, it was soft and bittersweet, the taste of coffee and sugar melting on her tongue like broken wishes and stolen futures.
Dorothea wonders if Ingrid's thinking about that day, too.
She can't tell what she's thinking just from a glance anymore.
In a second, she makes a decision.
"You should leave," she tells Ingrid. Ingrid looks as though she's about to protest, but she pushes forward. "You know Cornelia will fall. You know we're going to beat you. Get out of here before you get killed.”
"I can't."
"You can and you should." Dorothea closes her eyes, forces herself to soften. "Just. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for me. If we ever had something. Do it for me."
Ingrid hesitates, biting her lip and working her jaw. At last, she lowers her lance. "Fine. You owe me."
"Fine."
Before flying away, though, Ingrid dismounts. She takes a step towards Dorothea and falters. "I…" She swallows. "Just don't die out there."
Dorothea raises a hand, fancying for a moment that she’ll touch Ingrid's cheek, then lets it drop. "I won't."
And without another word, Ingrid mounts, taking high into the sky, spiraling away from the fight. Away from Dorothea. Away, away, away.
A month later, the war ends. Dorothea asks, but nobody knows where Ingrid ended up, or even if she's still alive.
Dorothea stays at the Monastery with Bernadetta. She holds her when she cries. She doesn't know what to say to make her stop.
Soon after, Bernadetta is summoned to Enbarr. Then, Dorothea is alone. She spends her days reading, writing letters to Petra and Bernadetta, wondering if she's been forgotten.
One day, a shock of blonde hair shows up at the Monastery gates. Dorothea doesn't believe the whispered rumors until she enters the marketplace herself.
And there's Ingrid, speaking with the blacksmith. She exchanges money with her, and when she turns, her eyes catch on Dorothea, who's once again staring, slack-jawed.
Ingrid steps closer. The flow of the shoppers continues around them, but all Dorothea can see is Ingrid green eyes, soft at the edges, premature wrinkles already forming at her brow between them.
"Dorothea," Ingrid says.
"What are you doing here?" Dorothea says, but to her it sounds far away, as though she's calling out from underwater.
"Can we talk?"
"How are- What are you doing here?" Dorothea asks again, when the tea table has been set up in her room. Ingrid is stuffing pastry after pastry into her mouth in a most familiar fashion.
"I wanted to see you," Ingrid says after she swallows, stirring a spoonful of sugar into her tea.
"You and I both know it's not that simple." Dorothea shakes her head, letting out a frustrated laugh. "I thought you were dead. I thought you had fled the continent. I thought I'd never see you again and I'd never know what happened to you. So I'll ask again. How are you here?"
Ingrid sets down her spoon. "I work for the Emperor now."
Dorothea starts to speak, but stops when Ingrid raises her hand.
"Let me explain." Ingrid sighs and sits back in her seat. "After His Majesty and Archbishop Rhea- After the war ended, I went back home and found nothing waiting for me. My father was gone. My brothers and sister were gone." She pinches the bridge of her nose. "Everyone was gone.
"I found out my siblings were alive in House Rowe's territory. I still don't know about my father. I'd been thinking a lot about what you told me, back when we met on the battlefield. You were- I was wrong. The world was fucked up. Crests have never brought me joy in life, after all. I went to Enbarr. I pleaded my case to Emperor Edelgard. And... I guess I'm a knight now."
A beat.
"Why didn't she tell me?" Dorothea says, half to herself.
"I kind of asked her not to?" Ingrid says, and there's that sheepish smile that makes her look so young. "I, um. I wanted to come down here. And tell you. And see you."
"Oh."
"And I'm sorry for implying you don't stand for anything last time we spoke."
Dorothea doesn't know how to respond.
They sit in silence, the quiet only unbroken by Ingrid's sipping of her tea.
"Congratulations on becoming a knight," Dorothea blurts out when the silence is just on the edge of becoming too much to bear. "I know that's what you've always wanted-"
"You're what I've always wanted."
The room is quickly growing much too small and stuffy for the feelings blooming in Dorothea’s chest. "I…"
"No, sorry. Sorry. I'm-" Ingrid waves her hands erratically, then smooths back her hair, pushing her chair back. "I shouldn't have done this. You don't have to say anything. Sorry. I'll go."
Dorothea's hand shoots forward, gripping Ingrid's wrist before she can stand. "Wait."
Ingrid stops. Swallows. Looks at her.
"I thought you were dead," Dorothea says, grip tightening as she pulls on Ingrid's hand. Ingrid comes willingly, circling the table and kneeling in front of Dorothea, arms resting on her knees. "I thought you were dead." Dorothea brings her hands up to cup Ingrid's face, a tear sliding down her cheek.
"I'm here," Ingrid says, nodding. Dorothea's thumb comes up to brush against her cheekbone. "I'm here and I'm alive."
Dorothea leans forward, pressing a kiss to Ingrid's forehead and gathering her in an embrace. It should be awkward, with Dorothea sitting and Ingrid kneeling before her, but all Dorothea can focus on is the warmth of Ingrid surrounding her, soft hair against Dorothea's hands as she presses them on top of Ingrid's head like a benediction.
"I missed you," Ingrid breathes. "I feel like I've been missing you since that first day when we were dumb kids and I proposed to you. I've been missing you every minute and every day and even when there was a war between us I couldn't stop thinking of you."
"I hated the war but I could never hate you," Dorothea says.
Ingrid's grip tightens on her thighs. "Come back to Enbarr with me? Manuela says she's starting up Mittelfrank again. I miss hearing you sing. Everybody wonders where and how you've been."
Dorothea pauses, letting her eyes slide shut as she tries to steady her breath. She doesn't have a life here at the Monastery. She doesn't want to be a professor. She doesn't want to fight. She doesn't want it. "Okay," she says. "Okay."
"Can I kiss you?"
"Please." Dorothea cups Ingrid's face again, pulling her up to eye level. "Please."
Their kiss is sweet with tea and salty with tears, and it's too easy for Dorothea to slide her tongue against Ingrid's and pull her onto her lap.
When they part, it's breathlessly. Dorothea wraps Ingrid in an embrace, Ingrid's head on her shoulder, and closes her eyes to the reassuring feeling of Ingrid breathing against her chest.
Dorothea strokes Ingrid's hair, pressing little kisses to her temple as Ingrid clutches her like they're adrift at sea. There will be things to talk about, yes, but later. For now, Dorothea wants nothing more than to feel Ingrid's warmth.
It's been a long road. A years-long road, full of heartache and beauty and a false relationship and real love, but with Ingrid curled around her, finally here, finally safe, with no war on the horizon and Ingrid's dreams realized and Dorothea's within reach, all Dorothea can think about is how she never wants to let her go.