Work Text:
Link wakes up, eyes opening wide, and he feels like he’s choking. A stuttering gasp escapes him as he tries to breathe. His cool skin beads with sweat, his throat feels dry. His heart feels like it’s going to burst from his chest at any moment. He’s shaking slightly, but this isn’t new to him. He’s had more than enough practice calming himself from a panicked state so he immediately tries to ground himself, wherever he is.
But he doesn’t have to. Immediately following his gasps for air, something soft grazes against his temple and a voice so soft soothes him in his ear.
“You’re okay. I’m here. I’m here, Link. You’re okay.”
It’s then Link realizes he’s wrapped up in a warm embrace, and there’s no mistake as to whose gentle touch is grazing his skin.
He’s somewhat embarrassed that she has seen him like this a few times now; thrashing around from a nightmare and then waking up, unable to breathe. It also means that she heard him all the way downstairs on the main level of Impa’s house and found her way to his sleeping cot. He wishes she didn’t have to see it, but she knows what the nightmares are like.
As Link focuses on her touch and finds his breath again, he lifts himself up, scared to meet her eyes as an apology sits on his tongue. But a sniffle makes him snap his head up, and his heart drops into his stomach.
“Princess,” Link starts quietly, hand instinctively rising to wipe her wet cheeks. He’s careful not to speak too loud as they are staying the night in Impa’s house, and he doesn’t want to wake her and Paya. So he just gently wipes her cheeks and lets her tell him.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffles again. “You…you weren’t waking up.”
Link’s eyes adjust to the darkness more, and he can see her puffy, red-rimmed green eyes. She must have been crying for some time, and then he realizes what she said.
You weren’t waking up.
“You weren’t…you couldn’t hear me…and I just—” she sucks in a shaky breath and swallows, eyes darting anywhere but his face. He can see her reliving one of her worst memories. “—I couldn’t get you to come out of it and it…it was like—“
“Zelda,” Link breathes out and pulls her into him. She wraps her arms around him instantly and breaks into quiet sobs. He holds her head to his chest, heart breaking for them both. “I’m sorry. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s something Link hates thinking about. Only when the memory returned to him did he remember laying in Zelda’s arms, fading away and thinking only of her. His anger as he fought to the very end, thinking how could I do this to her? Her broken sobs as his body failed him, failed Hyrule, failed her. How she saved him and left to fight alone.
Link feels her fist his shirt in her hands. “I hate…living like this. It’s supposed to be over, right? It’s all over…and yet we still relive it every day.”
Link presses his cheek against the top of her head and holds her tighter as she cries.
“When will it end?” She whispers into his chest.
Link has asked himself that many times as Zelda relives the past one hundred years through her nightmares. Every time she cries in her sleep, he holds her until it passes and he prays to the gods for them to be free. They’ve both shed too many tears, and the past continues to haunt them.
Zelda sniffles again and lifts her head. Link keeps his arm loosely around her, and so desperately wishes he had the answer. But she knows, and he knows. It’s not that simple.
In the dark, Zelda meets Link’s eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s just not fair.”
“I’m not leaving you, Princess,” Link decides to say because he feels like she needs to know. “I won’t leave you. I’m staying here.”
Link looks down, trying to find the right words to say, trying to make up for a hundred years of pain for both of them.
“We’re together now,” is what he says, and he looks up to meet her eyes. “We can only do it together.”
Zelda’s eyes soften and fill with tears again. “Together."
She throws herself at him again, and he doesn’t hesitate to hold her as close as he can.
Nearby, Paya sits on the stairs with teary eyes and listens, heart breaking for her dear Link and dear Princess. And watching through a crack in the doorway is Impa, watching her two dear friends make it through the pain they didn’t ask for. She thinks about how hard they both fought to find their way to each other again, how many tears they’ve shed for each other in secret.
But Impa smiles. She watches them hold each other through it all, and she’s glad they are together now. For it was and is destined to be. Together.