Chapter Text
The footsteps were heavier now, the center of balance shifted, but still familiar enough that he didn’t bother turning around.
“Hungry?” he asked over his shoulder.
“When am I not?” Derry griped, a hint of a pout in her voice. “Ancestors, I thought the infamous Warden appetite was bad enough. But a pregnant Warden? I suspect I will eat us all out of house and home before this is over. Will you still love me when I’m as big as the Keep?” Alistair straightened from his slouch over the counter to lean his hip against the edge instead, watching as Derry stifled a yawn. Barefoot, red hair tousled around her face, she looked impossibly sweet and small, and when she stretched, the hem of her sleep shirt rose, exposing the deep curve of her stomach. “Why are you up?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Thought a snack might help, but…” He shrugged. It wouldn’t do to worry her; he worried plenty enough for the both of them after all. The problem is she reads you too bloody well, doesn’t she?
Derry gave a low hum. “Couldn’t sleep, hm?” She paused, eyes trailing over his face for a long moment before nodding toward the high counter. “Help me up, I’m so clumsy these days I’ll probably fall on my face if I try myself.” Alistair snorted, but braced his hands on her hips, lifting her to perch awkwardly on the counter top with legs splayed to accommodate the growing weight of her belly.
“Just one of those things,” he answered, giving her a pointed look before sliding his plate over toward her. “People prepare food on this counter, you know.”
She rolled her eyes and popped a slice of apple into her mouth. “I’m not giving birth on the sodding thing, I’m just sitting.” Derry cocked her head to the side and reached out, sliding fingertips across the back of his hand. “Is everything alright? You don’t look so good.”
“It’s nothing. A bad dream.”
“A bad dream, or a nightmare?” she asked, stressing the last word with careful, significant emphasis.
“Just a regular old dream, my love. I swear it.” He met her worried eyes, luminous in the faint light, and gave her a rueful smile. Derry hesitated, grabbed another apple slice, and glanced up at him through her lashes. Her face was rounder now, softer, but the steely determination underneath was still the same.
“Okay,” she finally said, slowly and thoughtfully. “A nightmare. Bad enough to chase you all the way to the kitchens.”
“I was coming back. You weren’t supposed to know I’d even been gone.” He'd been banking on it, in fact. It hadn’t been the first time he found himself wandering the kitchens in the last six months, merely the first he’d been caught at it. Much to Derry’s annoyance, she tired easily these days and tended to drop into sleep the second her head hit the pillow.
“Yes, well, your child has taken up permanent residency on my bladder.” She poked at her stomach and sighed, kicking out a leg to study her toes. “You realize I haven’t seen my feet, my actual feet, in nearly two months? Stone’s blood, I swear I had ankles once.”
“They’re still there, I promise you.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it, won’t I?” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a look. “So what was the nightmare about?” Alistair groaned inwardly. Derry may have been brought up amongst the stone walls and caverns of Orzammar nobility, but she had all the tenacity of a Ferelden-born fishwife when she was of a mind. He loved her, Maker knew he did, passionately and without end but she was like a mabari with a bone - only her dog knew when to give up.
“It was nothing. A silly dream,” he answered in a light voice that fooled nobody.
“A simple bad dream, you shake off and go back to sleep. We know what nightmares really are, Alistair. What is it?” He was silent, picking up another apple and carefully started peeling it, the skin curling onto the counter. “Alistair.”
“It’s stupid.”
“I doubt it.”
Oh hells, you’ve already lost this one, haven’t you? He put the apple and the knife down and rested his elbows against the cool stone, keeping his eyes on his hands. “I never had a family. Not really.”
“Ah,” Derry said softly, scooting closer to him. “One of those bad dreams.” She touched fingertips to the underside of his jaw and turned his face toward her.
“What do I really know about being a father, Derry?”
“About as much as I do about being a mother, I suppose: not a whole damn lot.” She smiled gently at him, moving her hand to smooth the furrow between his eyes.
“It’s stupid. It wasn’t even scary, not really,” he warned.
“Go on...”
“It was...an empty cradle. And just…” He shook his head. “Maker, it sounds even stupider when I say it out loud. It was just an empty cradle. An ordinary cradle with nothing in it. Nothing more threatening than that.”
“Nothing in it at all?”
“A blanket, I suppose, a pillow.” He ducked his head and picked up the knife once more, busying himself with slicing the apple into pieces, depositing them carefully on his abandoned plate. “It was just...empty. Cold. Like…” He let out a sharp breath. “Like something had been there, but wasn’t anymore. Unsettling, though I couldn’t begin to tell you why.”
“Oh.” She pulled the knife from his hands and set it aside before grabbing his arm and tugging him in front of her, reaching up to cup his face in her hands. The pad of her calloused thumb swept along the sharp line of his cheekbone soothingly. “I don’t know, that sounds pretty scary to me.”
Alistair made a face, curling his hands around hers. “You have more than enough to deal with already without me dumping my ridiculous nightmares on you as well.” She leaned forward and brushed her lips whisper-light over his.
"What's stupid is you trying to hide all this from me. Which is laughable at best because you have the absolutely worst poker face in the history of Thedas."
"Hey!"
"It's terrible, and you know it."
"The way you and Zevran cheat, it wouldn't even matter if I could keep a straight face." Alistair brushed his nose against hers. "I'm not hiding anything, Derry. I'm just..."
"Trying to protect me. I appreciate it, I honestly do, but being pregnant hasn't made me any less me, Alistair. I might be cranky and clumsy and slow and absolutely enormous--"
"You're beautiful!" he protested.
"But," she continued pointedly, "I'm not quite as fragile as spun glass yet. I'm scared too. You don't have to keep that from me, it's easier knowing you are as well. You- ouch." Derry winced.
"What's wrong?" She waved off his panicked tone and rubbed lightly over the swell under her nightshirt.
"Ugh. This kid doesn't have the proper respect for my organs that I would like." She gave him a weak smile, wincing again when the baby kicked. "Looks like the whole family is awake now." His face lit up, something of a relief from the morose expression he'd had since she found him here.
"Where?" She pressed his hand over the worst of the movement and leaned back on her hands. He gave a little huff of laughter, palm rubbing soothingly over her belly. "Already giving your mother grief? Go back to sleep, little one." Derry lifted her brows at him.
"Back to sleep for all of us. Effective immediately. Get me off this thing, my back is killing me." He helped her down, steadying her when she swayed on her feet and hiding a grin as she mumbled a curse under her breath.
***
Once safely tucked back under the covers of their bed and Derry arranged as comfortably as possible, Alistair stroked gentle fingers along the small of her back as she settled her cheek against his shoulder.
"We haven't exactly talked names yet, you know." Alistair had been hesitant to bring it up. In the beginning no one had been sure if Derry would even get to this point - it seemed too much like tempting fate to plan too far in advance. For a pair of Tainted wardens, picking out a name had been simply too optimistic. But six months gone, it was undeniable; almost miraculous. Something small and bright and wonderful. Now, their child (their child, blessed Andraste how strange and terrifying and magnificent was that?) needed a name.
"I..." Derry's voice trailed off for a moment. "I suppose we haven't. Did-Did you have anything in mind?"
"Well. I mean, there's always the obvious I guess, for a boy," he said skeptically.
"What, you mean Endrin or Maric?" She gave a bark of laughter and he could feel her shake her head. "I think we've both had enough of royalty to last several lifetimes."
"I suppose living up to a name isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This little one’s mother is already the Hero of Ferelden, who needs kings?" He shifted his hand, sliding a little farther up her spine. "But what else then? Did you not imagine what your future children would be called when you were a wee little dwarfling?" he teased, squirming when her elbow caught him in the ribs.
"I did not imagine children at all." She glanced up from where her head lay against his shoulder, mouth drawing up in a crooked, sardonic little smile. "I was always meant for the darkspawn. I think my ability to slice through hurlock was of more value than my maternal instinct.”
“Small thinking, that. The recruits have never been more terrified of another person than they are of you right now.”
“Ah yes, what are a horde of darkspawn to a pregnant woman’s mood swings.” Derry snorted. “I think they’re more scared that I’ll either burst into tears or go into labor in front of their eyes.”
“Keeps them on their toes, dear.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and let his eyes slip closed.
"I do like Emery, for a girl."
He opened his eyes again. “Hn." Alistair tested out the name, the syllables rolling off his tongue. "Emery. Emmy."
She was quiet for a long moment. "Would you be very disappointed if it were a girl?" Derry finally asked, voice carefully neutral.
"Disappointed? Why would I be disappointed?"
"It just seems as though it's every man's desire to have a son. A legacy."
"Derry, my father's legacy was getting some servant girl pregnant and then getting himself killed. Not exactly the example I care to follow. I will be as happy with a girl as I would with a boy, I promise you." He splayed his hand across her stomach. "Beside, I quite like the idea of being surrounded by beautiful Aeducan women for the rest of my days." Derry hooked a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a lingering kiss.
"You are already a better father than you realize," she whispered against his mouth.