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Today is Gaius's birthday.
He’s convinced that you’ve forgotten. You heard him complaining about it to Stahl earlier. You felt kind of bad when you saw how genuinely upset he looked, no matter how carefree he was trying to appear. But you got over that pretty quickly.
In truth, you’ve been planning this for months. You’ve secretly visited the market in every town you’ve traveled through, collecting samples of local candy – large samples. It’s been hard to hide from him, but you’ve managed to sneak it in with the army’s gold. Occasionally he remarks on how much gold you’ve gathered, blissfully unaware that a quarter of the sacks contain sweets.
But today’s the day, and you’re forcing yourself to play off the pretense for another few hours. You know it’s cruel, but you need to make sure he’s as miserable as possible before you spring the surprise on him. Besides, almost everyone else in the camp knows about it, save for the ones who can’t keep their mouths shut.
Basically, everyone except Lissa.
They’ve all promised to be as nice to him as possible and to keep him busy so that he can’t come and find you. It needs to be abundantly clear to him that you’ve forgotten and probably won’t see him all day. You showed him as much this morning when he woke up and grinned at you, only to find you halfway out the tent with only a hurried, “good morning, love” over your shoulder before you left. His look of dismay would have been heartbreaking if you hadn’t known better. Even then, it still tugged on your heartstrings a little bit.
He’s in the kitchen now with Sumia and some of the others as they show him the beautiful cake they’ve made him. You tried to help with that, of course, but they shooed you gently out on the grounds that “Robin, we love you, but you’re a disaster.”
You suppose that was fair enough, given that the tents still reeked of smoke from your few attempts at cooking, but it still stung. Still, you suppose there is a reason why Gaius does most (all) of the cooking for the two of you.
No matter. He would enjoy the cake, and you would be very obviously absent. You can’t help but wonder what they’re talking about in there, so against your better judgement, you creep over to the dining hall and listen in.
“...is Robin?” You hear the end of Olivia’s question just as you press your ear against the side of the tent.
“Oh, I don’t know,” is Gaius’ reply, and you’d almost believe his casual tone if you didn’t know him so well. “She’s probably busy somewhere. That’s my girl, after all… Always out doing good.” His tone is bitterness edged with pride and you want to scream.
“It’s a shame she isn’t here,” says Sumia innocently, and you swear you can hear him stiffen.
“Yeah,” he says. “I guess she forgot.”
You want to burst in there right this instant and declare the truth, but that would ruin everything, so you resist the urge and creep back to your tent. The plan is working fine and you have a lot of candy to scatter.
A few hours later, you’re sitting in the corner with a lamp and a book, and he trudges through the doorflap, clearly exhausted.
You don’t look up. “Oh, hey, baby. Did you have a nice birthday?” You wait for a minute, but there’s only silence. Worried, you glance at him. “Babe?”
He’s gawking around him in disbelief. There is candy everywhere. You hide a smile.
Finally, he finds his tongue. “You remembered?” he utters disbelievingly.
“Of course I did.” You stand up and pick your way through the piles of confection to give him a peck on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Gaius.”
He hugs you. “You’re a terrible person, Bubbles,” he mutters, but the full effect of it is ruined by the fact that you can hear a smile in his voice.
“Hey, this is expensive candy. Appreciate me.”
“Oh, I do.” He kisses you. “I’m gonna get you back on your birthday.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He pauses. “When’s that, again?”
You shove him, but he lands in a pile of lollipops and doesn’t seem to mind.