The morning before

"Come back to bed," came the sleepy murmur from behind her.

Siuan Sanche glanced over her shoulder and found that Gareth Bryne had woken up. He had kicked off his sheets in his sleep, but she had gently tucked them over him as she left the bed. Now he had pushed them down again, leaving his upper body… enticingly naked. His eyes were half-open, but he patted the mattress in front of him in invitation.

Siuan considered it. It was still very early. Very early. Time enough for –

Lovesick dimwit, she scolded herself, and firmly turned her back to her Warder. She looked out the window, smelled the air that came in through the crack she had opened.

"It's too early to save the world, woman," he told her. "You've barely slept."

She sniffed. "And who would be to blame for that, Gareth Bryne?"

"I don't remember you doing much to avoid me – actually, quite on the contrary…"

He sounded as pleased as he did amused, the bloody man! Siuan flushed scarlet, and was glad that her back was to him. Though he probably felt her heated cheeks through that bond. Fishguts, that bond. She'd had to bond the man, hadn't she?

That bond was the only reason Gareth bloody Bryne had ended up in her bed. As if she'd been some fool Green.

Well, maybe not the only reason, but at least a major contributing factor. How was she to keep a level head when he could set her heart racing by smiling at her? Each time he stopped to watch her work, to smile at her, all his love for her leaked through the bond, warm and sweet and enough to buckle her knees.

And by now, the bloody man likely knew it.

Burn her, how did the Greens put up with it?

She suspected that she knew. They gave in to it. No, she thought crossly at herself. Not now. Later, but not now.

"Can't you feel it?" Siuan muttered. "That… wrongness in the air. Like there's a horde of trollocs coming closer. Something's going to happen today. Something bad."

"I feel it. I've felt it since yesterday, woman, but I don't know what to do about it yet, so I don't worry. If there are trollocs, the Amyrlin will send for us."

"For you, you mean." It was so unfair. Not even the Amyrlin had the right to intervene between a sister and her Warder, but Egwene found Gareth too useful to remember that detail.

"For me," he agreed. "But you go where I go. Now. Stop fretting and come here."

Siuan shook her head. Him and his mornings. He always wanted her in the mornings, when he woke. She could feel it through the bond, and she'd already taken up the habit of obliging him. A pleasant way to start the day. But this morning… everything felt wrong. Something terrible was about to happen, or was already happening, but she couldn't place it. If there had been trollocs or Myrddraal approaching, she might have been able to offer a vague direction, but as it was… even the air felt foul when she drew it into her lungs. To touch the windowsill felt like touching something distorted. If she had put a direction to it, it would have been looming over her shoulder, fingers already curling closed about her neck. A Grey Man walking unknown right at her. A trolloc to eat her. A Myrddraal, come to sate its foul lusts. Or perhaps something even worse.

She shivered. Such fantasies she did not need. No use fearing the snap-tooth's bite before you even fall into the water.

If only she could be sure that these bloody snap-tooths would stay in the water.

"It's the Last Battle," she said. "It's close, Gareth. So very close."

"That's what we're feeling?"

She nodded even as the certainty settled on her. The Dark One was reaching into the world, all of the world, preparing to strike. She knew that… the Tower was as ready as it could be. She hoped the Dragon Reborn was ready. Blood and ashes, she hoped even the Seanchan were ready.

But how to be ready for this? The mere foreboding in the air made her feel like retching.

Suddenly she was hauled from her feet. Despite herself she gave a little shriek, which – of course – Gareth ignored. He'd dumped her over his shoulder, his arm firm about her legs.

She set her hands to his back and raised her head, trying for as dignified a pose and as cool a voice as possible; "Gareth Bryne, you will put me –"

He put her down. Well, he tossed her down. Onto the bed. And before she could blink, he had landed beside her, and pulled her in beneath him.

"I won't have you standing there digging yourself so deep in your worries that you can't climb back out," he said. His hands were already straightening her hair, lifting it carefully out of her face. "The Last Battle will come when it comes, no use fretting over it."

She tried to be cross with him. Treating her like that! She was his Aes Sedai. Tossing her onto the bed as if she'd been nothing more than –

Oh, but she did like to feel his weight over her. And she did like how he looked at her, somewhere between firm concern and love. She liked his bond in her head; to know that beneath his sometimes brusque manner, he would look at her almost reverently. He did love her. And he desired her.

It was very good to feel desired.

So she tried to be cross with him, but failed miserably. When he kissed her she felt the last of her attempted-crossness wink out like a snuffed candle. She snaked her arms about his neck and let him, and all that was him, replace the foulness which had so troubled her.

"Much better," chuckled the insufferable man.

At which Siuan's indignation sparked and made a conscious effort to reassemble her wits. Lovesick fool. Witless like a white-fin trout set on breeding. Breeding?! Perhaps not a word she should be putting back in her head right then.

She set her hands to his chest and shoved.

Surprised, he pulled away from her, up at arm's length.

"We really need to work on your attitude, Gareth Bryne," Siuan managed. "When I say –"

"Hush," he interrupted, and shook his head. What stopped her talking was how he touched her lips with a forefinger. Then he let that hand trail lightly over her jaw, down her body; between her breasts, down her side to scoop up one of her legs. "What if you're right, then?"

She frowned. He bent back to kiss her raised thigh, then crooked that leg about himself. Her hands were still to his chest, but no longer pushing.

"What if Tarmon Gaidon is coming?"

"We should prepare –"

"All is as ready as it will be. The Amyrlin will summon us if she needs us. Until then –"

"Until then –" she began, in another attempt to be firm with him.

"Until then," he growled, his eyes fierce as they met hers, and she silenced. "Until then," he repeated in a softer voice, "I don't bloody care about Tarmon Gaidon."

His eyes, his voice, his body so close to hers, and that bloody bond burning like a beacon in her head… Siuan didn't know if she was glowing or melting. It was most unfair, that he could affect her that way.

"Call me a lovesick ninny and chuck me to the fishes," she whispered.

"Not at all," Gareth grinned at her. Likely he knew through the bond how both her body and mind seemed to freeze up and grow all fuzzy at moments like these. "I just don't want you worrying over what you can't change, my dearest. Besides, you were getting cold standing there at the window."

He was right. Egwene would send for them when they were needed, and Tarmon Gaidon would come when it came, and Siuan could do little to stop it.

Until then, there was Gareth, whom she loved, and whose utter lack of proper respect for her somehow only made her feel his returned love for her more keenly.

Who knew if they would survive the Last Battle? What if this was their last morning together… He was her Warder, and he would not outlive her long, they both knew that. But what if tomorrow, her only company in this or some other bed would be her own tears..?

There was, Siuan decided, nowhere else in the world she would rather have been at that moment, and nothing she wanted as much as her Warder. As for the bond, it was a wondrous thing, alive in her head, and the emotions that reflected through it were making her giddy again.

"No one's chucking you anywhere, Siuan," Gareth said, or murmured, between landing gentle kisses on her face, over her neck and shoulders and breasts. "Not until I'm done with you. The fishes will have to wait for their turn."

She giggled and tapped his nose to catch his attention. "Might it be a long wait?"

"What? Mm, yes. Most definitely. In fact, if any fishes show up knocking on the –"

There was a loud rap on the door, and then a soldier's voice calling; "My Lord Bryne! Summons from the Amyrlin Seat."

Gareth grew very still. Then his face contorted, and he reached over Siuan's head to where he had stashed his sword, far in beneath the pillows.

"Don't stab the messenger," Siuan reminded him lowly, halting his hand by a light touch on his wrist.

Gareth sighed. He raised his voice for a moment; "Tell the Mother I'll be with her shortly."

He was so morose, as he made to climb up and leave her. On an impulse, Siuan locked her arms and legs about him to pull him back down, and kissed him.

"The Amyrlin," she said breathlessly when she pulled back, "has no authority over another sister's Warder, unless that sister permits it. You, Gareth Gaidin, aren't going anywhere until I say so. And if the Amyrlin doesn't like it, she can bloody well come down here and slap a penance on my head. Is that clear?"

For a moment Gareth hesitated. But then his response confirmed beyond any doubt that that was very clear.

Author's Note;

As I said, a bit of useless smut and fluff with Gareth and Siuan.

What I don't like about it is the ending. Somehow it doesn't finish the scene like I wanted it to. And it's a repetition with the poor-two-of-them-being-interrupted from "Broken Armour". But somehow, in my mind, Gareth and Siuan always have too many strings attached in other directions to be left alone together for long... I see them suffering under this for years until they finally retire, together.

And eventually Siuan has to deal with the reality of her Power-lengthened life and that Gareth, who is older than she to begin with (isn't he?), will die before her, even if he gets to live long enough to die naturally. Hm. I feel another story coming on...