Chrom paced the rug as if he was intent on wearing holes though it. Each time another strangled yelp came from the neighboring room, he jumped and looked up.

"...is it supposed to take this long?" he demanded as he circled back to stand in front of Haura again, "Don't they just...deliver the baby?"

Haura, who was doing a remarkable job sitting still and pretending to read her book, looked up with disinterest. "Chrom, I don't know. It's probably just like constipation; you can't just pop it out." she said and Chrom's groan shook his entire body.

"Haura-!"

"I thought it was funny," Haura muttered to herself. Before Chrom had a chance to get more worked up, she demanded, "Sit down and stop panicking. It's only been an hour. You've got the best midwives Ylisse can offer." She patted the seat next to her. Chrom declined her offer in order to pace another circle.

The sounds died down for a while and they both turned to the door. And then Sumia's cries began up again and Haura let out the breath she had been holding. Chrom's pacing doubled in ferocity and speed. Haura was thankful the Falchion was far, far away from him, lest he start breaking the castle walls down.

"Why does it sound like she's in so much pain? You're a woman, Haura. Surely you know a little more than me about this subject." Chrom began again and Haura wondered if all parents became increasingly batty as their child was about to be born.

"I have as much practical knowledge of childbirth as you, Chrom. I'm the amnesiac, remember? And does it look like I've had a kid?" Haura said, lowering the book to her lap, and then pondered, "Actually, I wonder…"

"Haura, don't even joke about that! I don't want to think about your possible child who might not even know you're alive and you who don't even know they exist." Chrom exclaimed with surprising emotion in his voice and Haura was taken aback.

"It was just a hypothetical. I'm sure I haven't had a kid. ...I mean, first, I should have birthing marks, if I did. And we've been through the theories. I could only have been an orphan with no spouse or siblings, else someone would have come forward by now." Haura said as she closed her book. No point in pretending to be nonchalant when she had only been reading the same sentence for the last several minutes. "Though you do realize you're just projecting your panic onto my harmless comment."

"Of course I know. Just like you're pretending to be calm in order to stop me from completely losing it. You should relax your grip- it can't be good for your shoulder." Chrom said, in a rare moment of lucidity during the entire crisis of his impending fatherhood.

Haura realized her right arm had been starting to ache due to the vicegrip she had on her book. She gave him a small smile and moved to place the book on the ground. Meanwhile, Chrom sunk into the chair beside her. With nothing else to distract her, she watched Chrom watch the door. He still gave a little start each time Sumia screamed anew.

"Hand." he demanded out of the blue.

"What?"

"Give me your hand. So I don't bang the door down."

"...you're going to squish my poor hand because you can't be by your wife's side for ten minutes." Haura said flatly.

"She's in pain and I'm not even allowed to be next to her."

"The things I do for you. I'm not even your family." Haura said. She exaggerated a sigh and gave him her right hand. The brand on the back of her hand disappeared underneath his rough fingers and broad palm. He recognized it was the side of her injury and, although his sweaty grip was tight, it was not painful. Haura's own palm turned damp and sticky and she wished she kept her gloves on. She could feel him shudder and reflexively tighten his grip with each new sound. And now she was aware of how her own fingers dug into his and how the thick silence only punctuated by Sumia's cries was making sweat coalesce on her brow.

She had joked about how his frenetic worrying made the time pass slowly, but now that he was mostly still, it had slowed to a crawl. Haura looked down at her legs and grimaced. A baby was rather big, wasn't it? She had seen Sumia's belly swell over these last few months to where she had to waddle up and down stairs. Maribelle had to brief her about the mechanics of the birth, after Haura embarrassed herself over the fact she remembered nothing about monthly bleeding or lovemaking or any of those other taboo topics. Still it was hard to believe something like a human child could fit. The more Haura thought about it, the more repulsed she grew and, looking deliberately to an empty corner of the waiting room, she crossed her legs.

Half-heartedly, she said, "Have you considered getting out of earshot entirely and finishing that memorandum that's been sitting on your desk for three days now?"

"I'm not going to leave her for paperwork." Chrom said with a furrowed brow. "You don't have to stay here, though-"

"It was a joke. A bad one. I'm not going to leave you here to break the door down."

"Your sense of humor in the last hour leaves something to be desired, don't you think?"

"...I think it's because your panic finally infected me." Haura admitted with a wry grin. "And who do you think I got this sense of humor from, huh? Not having any memory of your past makes it pretty hard to crack a joke. So, in some way, you're the one responsible for all these bad jokes, Dad." She squeezed his hand and he raised his eyebrows.

"Don't blame me. I certainly didn't pick you out from a field and raise you to behave this way." Chrom said in a stern voice.

They looked at each other for one solemn moment and then burst into laughter. Chrom let go of her hand to wipe away a tear that had formed in in the corner of his eye.

"Aren't I older than you?" Haura wheezed, "I thought that's what Miriel said after she stared at my teeth for an hour."

"They have been saying that I was a little young to have kids." Chrom managed between gasps before doubling over again.

The door banged open and the two jumped to their feet. "What's all this noise? Really, sir, this is a serious moment. You're going to be a father soon!" One of the midwives scolded.

"Hence why I was practicing-" To the midwife's horror, Chrom could not finish his sentence before dissolving into snickers and Haura only howled with more laughter.

Another one of the midwives rushed over and said, "It's but a case of the nerves and panic. They'll settle down soon." They gave Chrom and Haura rather disdainful looks before shutting the door and returning to their stations.

It took a couple more minutes but finally their mirth died down and they crawled back to their seats. "I hope...that Sumia didn't hear that…" Chrom said as he regained his breath.

Haura shook her head. "She'll understand. Doesn't she hate it when you stress yourself out?"

Chrom nodded. "Besides, if the midwives came out to scold us everything must be going swimmingly." he said with a sigh.

Haura leaned back in her chair and pulled her right arm across her body to stretch out the shoulder. "I can't believe you guys made a kid together. It's only been, what, a little over a year." Haura said fondly. "It took that much time for me to relearn how to swing a sword again. I feel I lost that challenge. Make a kid or learn how to swing the weight of a sword with your left hand, hmm..."

Chrom chuckled as he rested his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. "Well, I deserve none of the credit for my child. Sumia did all the hard work on that. I got the easy part."

"Gross! I might be your best friend, but even I don't want to hear about that. It was bad enough that one time I had to give you love advice in the dining hall, in front of Lissa and Frederick." Haura said with a tone of disgust.

"I wasn't even- Haura, you were the one who asked me what that euphemism meant!" Chrom said, shoving her left shoulder gently even as he turned pink. They remembered too clearly Chrom's frantic pantomime and Lissa's seemingly innocent questions. Frederick's dry comments had only made the whole situation worse and Haura had worn her hood for the rest of the day to hide her red face. "How on earth did you remember war strategy and not things like that?"

"I embarrassed myself a lot those first few months, didn't I?" Haura said with a laugh on her lips, "Trust me, I sometimes wish I could remember more normal things. It makes me wonder what my life had to be like, for the most natural thing to be a sword in my hand and a war plan always in mind."

Chrom's eyes filled with pity and Haura could tell he was about to say something terribly sweet and overdramatic. By Naga, he was about to become a father and his stupid big heart still had room to feel bad about something Haura had accepted a long time ago. She waved her hands in his face to preempt his words.

"Stop, stop, I have no regrets. I'm not here, sweating by your side, even after the war is over, just because I feel some sort of misguided debt to my savior. Whether you like it or not, your baby is going to have a hell of a lot of doting aunts and uncles in the Shepards. And they're gonna have the best parents in the world."

The edge in Chrom's eyes softened a little. "Thanks, Haura. I was actually-"

Sumia's screams suddenly cascaded all at once and Haura's attempts to distract herself and Chrom turned into dust in the wind. They could hear Lissa's chant of "push!" and Sumia's wails. Then,

"I swear, Chrom, if you don't get in here right now-" the rest of her terrifying shriek was lost to cries of pain.

Chrom stood up so quickly that he knocked the chair over and rushed through the door. The midwife who opened it dove out of his warpath. Haura stood up to quickly follow after him but one of the midwives blocked her at the door.

"Sorry, milady, but I was told by the High Priestess only those of the exalted line and servants of Naga-" she mumbled with her eyes cast towards the ground. She looked as if she expected Haura to yell at or curse her. Her reputation preceded her, especially with the clergy, it seemed. Haura looked over the midwife's shoulder to ask Chrom, but he had become completely absorbed by the flurry of birthing activity, holding Sumia's hand and eyes darting nervously to his wife's face. A good tactician knew when to pick her battles.

"Right, I have nothing to offer as a war tactician in the arts of childbirth anyhow." Haura said, adopting the air of disdain Maribelle had schooled into her. "If Chrom asks for me, I will be preparing for the emissaries at my house." Haura had more to say, blessings, warnings, words of camaraderie, but that could not be left to just anyone. With a small bow, the midwife closed the door in Haura's face.


Notes:

Storge is "natural affection, as to a parent or other family member" but also among close friends, colleagues, siblings etc.

It is "natural in that it is present without coercion; emotive because it is the result of fondness due to familiarity; and most widely diffused because it pays the least attention to those characteristics deemed "valuable" or worthy of love and, as a result, is able to transcend most discriminating factors." Rarely do people talk about storge, but it is the backbone of long lasting friendships and marriages.

Part of my series on the Greek four types of love (philia, storge, eros, and agape) to examine a tactician's ties with her army from all angles. Hope you enjoy!