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Mercedes had once said that Linhardt was the ‘best kind of dramatic’. She had meant it as a compliment if you could believe it - said it was a fond and familiar thing in the midst of all the battle and bloodshed around them.
Linhardt never thought of himself as such, but he supposed it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it was probably very likely given the way both she and Marianne stared at him when he pushed open the flap of their side room in the medical tent. He did walk rather slowly over to the table they were sitting at. And he did sigh quite loudly when he dropped a coin into the old glass jar between their teacups.
“Another one, then?” Mercedes said sweetly, as if she didn’t already know, as if she hadn’t predicted it all along.
“No one likes false modesty, Mercedes,” he replied, falling (a little dramatically) into the seat next to Marianne. “You’ve known this whole time, haven’t you?”
“Well you would have to be more specific, Linhardt.” She smiled behind her tea cup and Linhardt thought that Mercedes von Martritz was actually the most dramatic person he had ever met in his entire life.
“You are well aware that Felix Fraldarius was injured badly during the fight,” he reminded her. “And you are well aware that Manuela assigned me to his care.”
“I think Mercedes might have even suggested it,” Marianne added, the smallest hint of a smile poking at her cheeks.
“Of course she did.” Linhardt slumped forward, leaning his cheek on his hand. “You are also Annette’s best friend. So I’m sure you’ve had plenty of little talks oo -ing and ah -ing over crushes.”
“Annie told me nothing,” Mercedes said sagely. “I had my guess, of course, but I certainly wasn’t sure of anything.”
Linhardt gestured toward the former blue lion and looked helplessly to his right. “Can you believe her, Marianne?”
Marianne only giggled behind her hand, biting back her smile as she moved to pour him some tea of his own.
It had been months since the Kingdom and Alliance armies had reunited at the monastery in hopes of turning the tides of war, and Annette and Felix were now the seventh couple to have some sort of grand confession of their feelings at the bedside of an infirmary cot.
Theirs consisted of a fair amount of yelling - which wasn’t entirely uncommon but was certainly exasperating. He hadn’t followed any of it. Annette prattled on about how evil Felix was for jumping in front of her (which didn’t make sense considering the objective bravery of the man’s actions). Felix mentioned something about a song, and Annette whacked him in the arm before grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him into a rather passionate kiss.
Linhardt was just trying to clean the arrow wound. He stood there for a full two minutes before either of them remembered he was there. And when he cleared his throat to specifically remind them, the two jumped apart so abruptly you’d think he’d hit them with a bolt of Thuron.
It was romantic, he guessed. If you were into that sort of thing. The adrenaline spike of battle, the clouded, primal need to ‘protect the one you loved’. Their soldiers were coiled so tightly with the imminent threat of death and gore and general unpleasantness, that even the smallest flicker of affection was probably enough to coax those feelings from wherever they had hidden them away.
So sure, the idea was romantic, but once you’d seen one you’d seen them all.
And Linhardt had seen them all.
“I told you that you should have trusted Mercedes,” Marianne said now, placing the tea pot off to the side while Linhardt slumped further into his seat.
“I think she’s a cheat.” He gestured at her with a biscuit to try to prove that he meant it.
But Mercedes must have seen right through him, because she smiled when she said, “Disagreeing is part of the fun, don’t you think?”
Linhardt huffed as he looked at the shiny gold coil he had dropped into the jar in front of them. He did think that, in fact - the debate was the part he enjoyed the most. He just despised losing.
The bet itself started as a way to pass the time - a way for the three of them to think about something other than the carnage they were faced with on a daily basis. Mercedes had been the one to plant the seed, during the aftermath of Ailell.
The three of them had been inundated with patients, and were taking count of the number of beds they would need when Lorenz forcefully entered the tent and demanded to know where Leonie had been taken. When he found her sitting up against the pillows of her cot in a backroom, the three of them rushed over to take stock of the commotion. They arrived just in time to see what all of the yelling was about: Lorenz giving quite an impassioned speech to a very flustered and blushing Leonie that ended in a very public kiss that Linhardt literally needed to turn away from.
“It’s about time,” Mercedes had muttered, that infuriating smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth as she pushed them all back toward the main room.
Later that night, when Marianne asked what Mercedes had meant, she explained that the infirmary was the best place to see someone’s true feelings. She pointed out all of the times Lorenz had visited Leonie when she had gotten too close to the action. He would scold her, they would argue, and eventually one of them would storm out with red cheeks that couldn’t solely be blamed on their anger. It was only natural to think there was some sort of unspoken connection they would eventually act on.
Marianne caught the second couple a few weeks later. After a relatively routine skirmish with some bandits, Cyril had carried Lysithea in while ignoring the girl’s pleas to be put down. They were already arguing when they entered the medic tent, pulling all of the attention away from the one or two soldiers nursing real wounds in their beds. Despite Cyril’s usual placid nature, the boy had adamantly refused when Marianne suggested he wait outside. (It had been a very simple twisted ankle, nothing life-threatening).
Marianne made herself scarce after that, but Linhardt and Mercedes weren’t above peeking in to see how their argument had ended. Judging by their feverish looks and the soft way Cyril was running his thumb along Lysithea’s knuckles, the point of that argument had long since been lost to them.
With two couples already pairing off under the watchful eye of the medic tent, Mercedes suggested it would be a fun little game to see how many couples they could guess before the confessions. Linhardt, ever in need of distraction, joined in. And so it began: they debated their options and made their bets and waited for the rest to take its course.
“So,” Mercedes said after Linhardt took his first sip of tea. “How many is that now? Six?”
“Seven if you count when you accidentally walked in on Seteth and Manuela furiously making out in her office,” Linhardt reminded her.
Mercedes pursed her lips, chewing on the inside of her cheek as her gaze flitted around the room. “Seven,” she muttered, tapping her finger absently against the rim of her cup. “Seven…I’m only counting six. Who am I forgetting?”
Marianne cleared her throat, moving to stand and reaching for the empty tray of biscuits. She never could keep still, her anxious energy turning to organizing or cleaning (as best she could) while Linhardt and Mercedes preferred their fidgeting in idle conversation.
“Leonie and Lorenz,” Linhardt began, listing each couple on his fingers. “Cyril and Lysithea. Ashe and Petra after all that trouble on the Great Bridge of Myrddin.”
“Yuri and Bernadetta,” Marianne supplied from the other side of the room.
It had been a surprise to the entire army when Yuri disobeyed the Professor at Gronder in order to rescue Bernadetta from the flaming central hill; even more surprising that he didn’t make himself scarce after the battle had ended. Yuri was, on a good day, hard to pin down. It wasn’t uncommon to go weeks without seeing him, only to have him show up like a vision on the battlefield.
So when he sat vigil at Benadetta’s bedside, offering to pick up her care when Mercedes nearly fell asleep on the clock, Linhardt convinced the other two to cast their votes. He added them to his list, careful to hide his smugness when Mercedes and Marianne rolled their eyes and told him he was crazy. And when Bernadetta finally awoke, and Yuri muttered something about not being able to lose her again, Linhardt took a lot of satisfaction in watching the girls pay up.
“Right,” Mercedes agreed. “Oh I keep forgetting about those two. Lin, I still can’t believe you called that.”
“You didn’t see his face when he saw Bernadetta for the first time,” he offered. He lowered his pitch to try to match Yuri’s soft, sultry tone. “‘What the hell is Bernadetta von Varley doing at Garreg Mach?’ He pushed me up against the wall, actually. You would have thought I threatened to kill his mother.”
“Oh there is history there and I am desperate to know it.” Mercedes threw her hands into her lap, looking out over toward the door until she shook the thought from her head. She snapped her fingers, a thought striking her. “Ingrid and Sylvain!” she said cheerfully. “That’s who I was forgetting.”
“And how could you?” Linhardt wondered. “With all his PDA you’d think Ingrid proposed to him that night.”
“You give Sylvain Gautier an inch and he will take a mile,” Mercedes teased. “And you don’t have to look so dour about this one, Lin. Annette and Felix will be quite happy together. Isn’t that enough?”
“I know, I know.” Linhardt rested his chin against the rough pine of the tea table, and looked forlornly at the jar between them. “I just hate losing.”
Fort Merceus was a disaster. Linhardt had a pit in his stomach from the moment they crested the hill and saw the parapets off in the distance. All of his childhood memories - of being dragged along to government meetings by his father, of playing with Caspar in the streets of the fortress city - clung to him like a plague.
Caspar had been worse. He had been much worse.
The entire march to the fort was filled with Caspar’s voice, his old friend talking about everything and anything to distract him from what was at the end of their journey. Linhardt didn’t exactly know what Count Bergliez thought of his son’s desertion, but he knew enough about the count to know it couldn’t have been anything pleasant. He shuddered to think what would happen should they meet on the battlefield.
Linhardt tried to stay as close as he could to the fighting - until the stench of blood got stuck in his nose and he heaved up his breakfast into a nearby alleyway. He hung back with the usuals: Marianne, who, along with himself, had been posted to head up their battlefield medicine, Annette, who was in charge of their second wave of warlocks, and Bernadetta, who was alive and kicking and happy to lead the archers toward the back of the army.
Caspar, however, was an all-or-nothing type of man. He charged headfirst into battle, risking life and limb, getting lost in the heat of the fight. It was something that annoyed him in their childhood. Something he appreciated in their older years. Something he completely abhorred now.
Because apparently, that spark never dwindled. Even as he pushed through their defenses. Even as he disarmed the ballistas that would have, in another life, been under his command. Even as he came face to face with his father - Caspar was not the type to waver.
Linhardt had seen the whole thing. Back in the treeline, he watched as Leopold von Bergliez locked himself into battle with his own son. He watched as the count disarmed him, and as Hilda miraculously put herself between the two. He was told, later, that the professor had been the one to take down the count, while Hilda dragged Caspar away, broken and bruised and clinging to life.
But Linhardt couldn’t stop. Because stopping meant hearing and seeing and feeling, and the longer he sat in those moments of chaos the more frozen he would become. The more he’d spiral. The less likely he would be able to pull himself out of the abyss again. All he could do was turn away, cast a Physic on his fleeting form, and pray to a Goddess he didn’t quite believe in that she’d keep his friend safe.
Caspar would be fine.
Linahrdt reminded himself of this when the battle was long over - when the count had been slain and the remnant of their army sat back at camp. Things were eerily quiet around the medic tent. The moans and cries of the recently wounded were gone, giving way to the buzzing of cicadas and the hushed whispers of overworked healers. He was exhausted - hours spent in battle, then hours spent cleaning up after it. He stared at the cot in the corner of the room and wondered why he couldn’t sleep now when his body so desperately needed it.
Marianne finished drying her hands on the towel by the basin when Mercedes walked in. She had washed her hands at least five times in as many minutes. Linhardt was counting because it took his mind off everything else - off Caspar, and Hilda, and the way he kept tapping his foot obnoxiously when his mind began to wander.
He stood on instinct, barely feeling the brush of Marianne’s hand as it reached for his.
Mercedes looked at him kindly. “Caspar will be just fine,” she said quickly, waiting for the wave of relief to wash over him before he continued. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but the injuries are healed. He just needs a good night’s sleep and he’ll be up and pestering you again in no time.” He wondered how she could manage to look so calm and serene when her hair was flying in all directions and the bags under her eyes were so dark.
“I will visit when he wakes,” Linhardt said vaguely. Never had the idea of being bothered by Caspar sounded so sweet.
“I’m sure he would appreciate that.”
“Is Hilda resting?”
“She is.”
Marianne might have missed the teasing lilt in Mercedes’ tone, but Linhardt certainly didn’t. Now that his mind was free of the hum of anxiety, he could just barely pick it up, his interest piqued. Marianne nodded, turning back toward her chores when Linhardt reached out toward her elbow to stop her. She glanced up at him, then followed his gaze back to where Mercedes was smiling mischievously at the door.
“Mercedes,” Linhardt said slowly. “What do you know?”
Hilda and Caspar had been one of the few couples that none of them had bet against - the one they had been most excited about. Mercedes, because she was the most perceptive of the three, and Marianne and Linhardt because of their ability to read their closest friends. Caspar had never been subtle. Neither had Hilda, if Marianne were to be believed. But both of them had been oblivious enough not to realize the other's intentions.
“I know nothing.” Mercedes shrugged away his curiosity and breezed to the basin in the corner of the room. “I just happened to check up on him one last time to see that Hilda had taken my advice. And she had, in a sense, I just didn’t realize she’d find Caspar’s cot so comfortable.”
Marianne gasped beside him. It certainly wasn’t the most outrageous thing they’d seen in the medical tent (the description of Setheth and Manuela still made his stomach turn) but it certainly wasn’t the tamest: Sylvain had pulled at Ingrid’s waist in a little too aggressively, and Annette had all but crawled up onto Felix’s lap, but sharing a bed was certainly a new development.
“The cot’s a little small for two people, but I couldn’t very well wake them when they so desperately need their sleep.”
“Sure, you couldn’t.” Linhardt was glad to have something to roll his eyes at again. And Mercedes' quiet, calculated sarcasm certainly was worthy of it.
“Now,” she added, ushering the two toward the door. “Manuela and Flayn have everything sorted here. It is time for us to get some sleep as well.”
“Maybe Linhardt’s right,” Marianne said as they walked out into the fresh air.
“That Mercedes is a cheat?”
“Not at all, just…you do seem to have a habit of finding people in the most precarious positions.”
It was the closest Marianne had gotten to teasing someone in the entire time Linhardt had known her, and Linhardt couldn’t think of anything more delightful. Judging by the melodic laugh Mercedes graced them with as they trudged back toward camp, she couldn’t help but agree.
The army camped outside of Merceus for three more days. With the majority of their wounded healed, the professor decided that one more night in the fields would be enough to keep them comfortable. Linhardt, Marianne and Mercedes took turns minding the patients; looking after the stragglers and, more importantly, the prince.
Dimitri had taken an ax to the leg near the turning point of the battle. Ever the valiant leader, he brushed it off as a scratch until Dedue had forcibly dragged him into the tent and demanded he rest. He had lost so much blood that he passed out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, and he had been in and out ever since.
Linhardt reached up to light the lantern in their side room of the medical tent and frowned at the boxes they had yet to pack up. The girls had been fluttering in and out all afternoon, stripping beds and bringing in the clean laundry while Linhardt focused on the suitcases full of vials and tinctures. They left the essentials on the off chance they’d need to stay another day, though they’d been doing this long enough to know the prince would demand they not wait on his behalf anyway.
Marianne picked up the jar on the table, the soft clink of metal against glass dragging Linhardt’s attention from the elixirs he was organizing. She studied the coins, and mouthed to herself as she counted.
“Are there any couples left?” Marianne asked when she caught him staring. She smoothed out the table cloth, wiped away some crumbs from their earlier tea, and set it back in the center.
“One or two, I think,” Linhardt agreed.
Mercedes breezed into the room with a smile and an armful of clean sheets. “Ferdinand and Dorothea were the last two, I believe.”
“Ah.” Linhardt nodded sagely. “And if that’s the case, I’m afraid we might be here until long after the war has ended.”
Marianne wrinkled her nose. “Sorry,” she said when Mercedes giggled. “I still just don’t see it.”
Someone cleared their throat from the other end of the room. At the entrance, the large and looming figure of Dedue stood at attention, his hands fidgeting against the sword at his hip.
“Oh, Dedue.” Mercedes turned toward the door, and Marianne gathered the sheet they had been folding from her hands. “Is everything alright?”
Dedue nodded. “Yes, thank you. I was just keeping an eye on His Highness.”
“Ah, of course. Ever they loyal vassal, Dedue.”
Linhardt had seen Felix make similar comments (though never so kindly), but he’d never seen Dedue smile at them. In fact, he’d never seen Dedue smile at all. But as he studied the man from his place across the room, he could have sworn there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Manuela said you sat up with him last night when I had to assist the professor,” Dedue went on.
“I did,” Mercedes agreed. “He’s doing well. There will be a little discomfort when he wakes, I’m sure, but he’ll make a full recovery. Just as long as he rests. Be sure to pester him about it as much as possible in the next few weeks, will you?”
Dedue did smile at that, and Linhardt felt Marianne pull up beside him and eye the two cautiously as she handed him another box of vulnerary.
“I will do my best,” he promised. “Until then, I wanted to thank you. You are always so attentive to your patients, especially His Highness. I was…hoping I could offer my gratitude by assisting in packing.”
The smile she offered was so radiant that Linhardt could almost forget Mercedes von Martritz was the most dramatic woman in the world. “Oh, you don’t have to thank me for that, Dedue. I’m happy to help. Besides, surely you’d rather wait for Dimitri to wake up.”
“His Highness is awake.” Dedue nodded, his hands finding the hilt of his sword again. “And…well, I believe he and Claude might want some privacy.”
Mercedes just blinked at him. The pause dragged out a moment too long before she regained her senses. “I’m…I’m sorry?”
That tiny smile flickered at the corners of Dedue’s mouth. “Quite unexpected, I know. Though, now that it’s out in the open, I suppose it isn’t so surprising.”
Mercedes dropped the sheet she had been folding on the table, and offered a small hum of agreement. Her lips pursed when she reached up to tap absently against her cheek the way she always did when she was thinking.
Linhardt leaned down toward Marianne. “What happens if none of us guessed it?”
“We all pay, I suppose?”
Dedue did not seem to notice their whispers at the corner of the room, nor did he notice when Mercedes glanced over at her fellow healers with a quizzical look
“Anyway, if you don’t need my assistance,” he went on. “Well, I seem to have an evening off. Maybe - if you’re not too busy - you could join me after dinner? I’m…I’m told there is a lovely view of the nearby fields. And the flowers are in full bloom at this time of year.”
Marianne’s hand came to Linhardt’s arm, her fingers pinching his sleeve.
“As long as it’s not a very difficult walk,” Mercedes joked.
“It’s not.”
“Alright, then. It’s a date.”
Dedue seemed to perk up at the word, his cheeks reddening when he offered a low bow before taking his leave.
When Mercedes turned around she stopped short at the two hovering behind her. She cocked her head to the side, studying them wearily until Linhardt shifted. He pulled his hand from his pocket, revealing a shiny gold coin between his finger tips, and reached past Marianne to drop it in the jar on the table.
Mercedes' laugh was melodic and knowing as always, but the pink of her cheeks was unmistakable when she waved them away.
“Oh hush, you two.”