Author's Note: For a Tumblr request for Frederick/Cherche. These two are cute in every pairing, whoo boy. This got way too long and rambly because I had too many ideas, and there's no unity at all, but let's go anyway. (Also, some scenes are shamelessly stolen from art of the requester, garbagebird.)
Mid-spar has never been the best place to suddenly realize a woman's beauty, but then, Frederick was never the most romantic.
Cherche doesn't fight so much as she dances, so light on her feet, axe gleaming. For all his power, he has a hard time overcoming her, and though she's been teaching him her family's secret art, he does not yet know all the tricks. Her light hair flutters with each lunge. Beads of sweat roll down her face. This close, he can smell it. It's pleasant, floral.
She does not have a pretty face. Cherche is very plain, for all her femininity, and she knows it. But just then there's something in her narrowed eyes, something in her flushed cheeks that Frederick finds absolutely beautiful.
He ends up gaining the upper hand, but she smiles at his victory.
"You're everything they say you are, Sir Frederick. It is an honour to fight in the same army as you."
"Just as it is an honour to have the friendship of such an incredible woman," he says, and he means every word.
xXx
Children have been popping up like mushrooms. It started with Lucina and now they're everywhere. Cherche does the calculations in her head.
No baby for Virion, yet. Nor for Frederick.
She sits by the fire with the latter. The army is relaxing in the last hour before bed, and she and Frederick often use that time to knit or embroider. Sometimes they talk, but more often they don't, and Cherche enjoys it.
"Do you think about children?" he asks. "When yours will come? Since Lucina, I cannot free the thought from my head."
"Oh, I think about it. But mine will not come." She keeps her neat stitches flowing, but Frederick's needles still in his lap. "I doubt I will ever have a child."
"You do not want one?"
"I wouldn't mind. But I'd prefer to be married if I'm to raise a child, and that will not happen."
"Is that so?"
"Well, look at me." She speaks without bitterness or self-pity, for this is something she has accepted long ago. She still has Rosanne, and Virion, and Minerva, and Frederick sitting very close at her side, and there is not much more she needs. Or at least, not much more she has the right to ask for. "I am long past my prime. I am your age, you know. Most men prefer someone younger and more vibrant."
"But some do not care in the slightest."
He's looking at her now. She keeps sewing.
"I am also not particularly fair."
"I disagree."
"I do not need my ego boosted, thank you."
"May I touch you?"
This time Cherche pauses. He's caught her off guard. She is comfortable with her quick wit, and whenever she makes a comment, Virion is just as quick to be just as false or sarcastic. She has never had something sharp responded to with such a complete inability to play along. Such unrefined bluntness. Such sincerity.
She nods and Frederick cups her face. His thumbs stroke over her cheeks, as if to dry them, but she isn't crying, so she doesn't understand the gesture. She's the one who kisses him. She expects it will be fierce like his fighting or at least firm like his personality, but instead he's very gentle. Until she bites his lip, at least.
"Don't toy with me," she says when they break apart, a little breathless, despite herself. "Or Minerva will have something to say about it. If this is a joke-"
"I, milady, do not joke."
Cherche does not give many honest smiles, but her next one is.
xXx
They stop knitting together in the evenings. Frederick suspects he knows the reason why. On the first cold month of the year, they exchange homemade scarves for no occasion at all.
He spent a lot of time making sure hers would match her eyes exactly. She had done the same for his.
They find themselves only wearing them together, like they're a matching set of something like salt and pepper shakers. The next month, they each have a pair of mittens as well.
xXx
Spring may come early, for once. The day is crisp and the sky is cloudless. It's a perfect day for a flight.
Cherche invites Frederick along. The look Minerva gives him is friendly and gentle. She opens her mouth wide, so wide she might swallow him whole, a wyvern gesture that means she is open to him. For some reason, Frederick stiffens.
"A knight should keep his mind and body firmly grounded," he recites from some old code. Cherche rolls her eyes.
"Oh, forgive me! I did not realize I was not a knight."
"It isn't that. I've just never done such a thing before."
"All the more reason to try."
"I've a few extra chores to get to, this morning."
"You're hurting Minerva's feelings."
Minervykins is still showing Frederick the inside of her mouth, all the neat rows of pointy teeth and ropes of drool. What a marvelous, healthy girl! Frederick watches her cautiously and then gives a shallow bow of apology.
"M'lady."
Minerva roars to show that his sentiment is accepted. Frederick twitches. Cherche narrows her eyes.
"You're frightened."
"What? Preposterous!"
"You won't fly on Minerva because you're scared of her. Why, I never thought I'd see the day Lieutenant Frederick himself, sworn right hand of the Ylissean Exalt, would turn tail and-"
Frederick marches over and throws himself into the saddle with surprising grace for a man who has never mounted a wyvern. Cherche keeps her eyebrow arched. He offers her a hand up.
"The morning shall not last forever, my sweet!"
"Men," she mutters, but she takes his hand, and the view when they finally ascend is splendid.
xXx
That night, Fredrick shows her the reason for his reluctance, still unwilling to be taken as a coward. While Cherche continues her needlepoint by the lamp in his tent, he unbuttons his shirt and lets it fall from his shoulders, bunching around his elbows. His back is heavily scarred, much splotchier and more jagged than the marks on the rest of him, which were cleanly made by sharpened weapons.
"A wolf attacked me as a boy," he said. "I suppose I looked like easy prey, small and alone as I was. I survived, but I still have no fondness for large creatures with large teeth."
He expects a gasp, a recoil, maybe her fingers and lips pityingly tracing the mess as someone did once long ago. None of it comes.
"I understand," says Cherche. He turns around to face her and finds she's unlacing her own shirt, pulling it down over her shoulder too. Her fair skin is also scarred quite oddly.
"Minerva," she explains. "She was just a little girl. She's never hurt me since. After you fly the first time, actually, it all gets a lot easier."
"I believe you," says Frederick. He covers her shoulder again and re-laces the front of her shirt with a neat little bow. She buttons his for him while he works.
xXx
They start to build more routines. They take tea together each morning. They spar. They give Minerva her bath. Frederick is meticulous with it and both Cherche and Minerva appreciate it.
She comes to expect other things. Frederick is good at neck rubs and will go to it if she tilts her head a certain way. Frederick gets anxious when there are things left undone, and can not relax or re-prioritize or even kiss until he's finished his imaginary list.
Also, Frederick hates Virion. A lot.
The feeling is mutual, Cherche knows, from every time Virion brings Frederick up: "Have you tired of Chrom's dog, yet? What, sweet Cherche, have you lost your grim shadow? Are you aware that he's threatened my skin?"
"I think he will be more than content with mine." She can't help herself, and even Virion smiles. She lets him kiss her hand.
"You do seem happy, my dear, though I can't imagine how."
Frederick is less accepting. Such are their natures: one firm but ultimately yielding, reasonable, fluid; the other resolute and skeptical and completely unbreakable.
"Lissa!" he seethes as he paces in her tent that night. "Of all the nerve! I've watched that cad try his hand at Sully and Sumia and Miriel and I stayed silent because they could handle themselves, but Lissa's but a girl!"
"He calls everyone 'love,' you know," Cherche informs him. She is folding their laundry as he walks and walks and walks. "Irritating as that can be, I don't think he meant anything by it."
"A man like him does not deserve a vassal as loyal as you."
"I'm not his vassal any longer. Just his friend."
"Do not temper your words for me." Frederick stops abruptly. Tension is so heavy in his shoulders that Cherche also stops folding. "You were much more than his friend, once."
"Must you do this?"
"Why? What did you see in him?"
"Jealousy does not become you."
She has shut him down. He sighs, walks to her, sits on the cot beside her. It creaks. Too much muscle, she thinks with amusement. What a silly thought to have.
"I apologize," he says softly. "It is not my right to know."
"No, it's not. But I can assure you it was long ago."
He leans over to pluck something from the laundry pile, to help her with folding. She kisses his cheek as he does.
"Besides," she says. "Couldn't you understand some of my motives better than anyone? After all..." He catches where she wants to go and his eyes widen, but Cherche is without mercy: "You've slept with your master too, haven't you?"
He doesn't say anything. He probably can't, with how fast he just blushed. His brain surely hurts too much to make words. Cherche prides herself on her ladylike poise and restraint, but she can't help herself this time, and cackles.
"I knew it!"
"Cherche," he says pleadingly.
"Oh, you can't 'Cherche' me. All that jealousy and you're the one who's had Chrom? I dare say I should be the jealous one."
"Do not make this worse!"
She tries to catch his tie and tug it loose, and he springs away, fighting off a charmingly embarrassed smile. It turns into them scooting around the tent, her trying to nab him, him trying to stay out of reach, both of them trying to do it with dignity:
"Frederick, you have to tell me what it was like!"
"I have to tell you no such thing!"
"How does he prefer it?"
"Cherche!"
"Does he say 'gods!' during, or is that just for the everyday?"
"Cherche!"
xXx
They have considered themselves a team for a long time, but it is still pleasant when the rest of the army begins to. Frederick hardly hears his name alone anymore. Everything is "Frederick and Cherche."
His personal favourite is the always-enthusiastic "Frederick and Cherche are on mess duty!"
He's always liked to cook. Cooking with Cherche is even better. She knows her way around a kitchen as well as he does, both of them in their aprons, timing and tasting everything. As she walks by, smelling of cinnamon, he suddenly wants to catch her and—well, he's not sure what else. He wants nothing. He just wants to hold her and make everything else in the world stop forever.
"Frederick? You've fogged up. What are you thinking?"
I wish I could marry you, he thinks. I wish I were good enough. I'm going to ask but I have no chance, do I, Cherche.
"Are the potatoes done?" he asks instead, and she glides off to check.
xXx
He proposes. She accepts. Minerva also accepts.
They've domesticated each other long ago, she realizes as she prepares to move into his tent. There isn't much to move. They do laundry together, sit and do their hobbies together, and often fall asleep together. If the latter happens, it means they brush their teeth together and undress together, and in the morning they wake together and comb their hair together and re-dress together. It's sometimes an odd thing, being so close and so exposed, and all while he looks and never touches. But Frederick won't touch until he has her say-so, and Cherche is tired of giving her say-so. She does not mind waiting. In fact, she thinks, it is a nice change of pace. It won't be long until their wedding.
It's less like bringing her belongings over, and more like bringing the half of her belongings he doesn't already have, as well as half of his belongings.
It's odd, she thinks as she reaches his tent and finds him out in the field beyond their encampment, bringing Minerva the scraps from lunch. She's been proposed to before. On more than one occasion.
If marriage means true love, eternal commitment, and honesty, how was he the only one willing to accept her as she truly was, even after he proposed?
xXx
Their wedding is not what either of them were told to expect, for two people of their standing. They come from good houses, landed and respectable. There should be presents and flowers and tablecloths and a white dress. Instead they're married quietly on the road in the middle of a war campaign.
Frederick can't stand it, but Cherche says she likes it better without the pomp and circumstance, so he relaxes. At least until Virion comes to congratulate them. He kisses Cherche full on the cheek, which Frederick allows because they all understand it's the last he'll get.
"A spot of advice, my good sir," Virion says when Cherche is out of earshot, busy accepting another friend's congratulations. "From one man to another. Any future argument can be defrayed with a little biting."
"How dare-!"
Virion is gone before Frederick can wallop him. He's on his way to try when Cherche grabs his arm.
"If either of you ruins my wedding day," she sings, "I'll behead you both and marry Minerva!"
He settles. He also receives a report shortly after that Virion has apologized: not to him, but personally to Cherche, whose old preferences were not his to disclose.
"He likes to fluster you," Cherche says. "I think he's making sure that you can keep up with me. Oddly enough, it's his sign of approval."
Frederick doesn't give a damn about Lord Virion's approval. But he does appreciate the (eventual) thoughtfulness shown to his wife.
Wife, he thinks again with a smile, and twines their fingers together.
xXx
Cherche knows she is hardly romantic, but most evenings she finds herself making exceptions.
The thought of children returns. This time it lingers. It is so easy to imagine Frederick as a father. Swaddling an infant, knitting it blankets, mending torn knees of pants, making lunches, scolding, hugging. And she is not frightened of being a mother. Look how Minerva turned out!
She is hardly surprised when they meet the grim boy with dark, swept-back hair and a very familiar wyvern.
It takes him a long, long time to call them Mother and Father. But the time and the effort is worth it. He is a dear, sensitive and shy but with her unflinching honesty and Frederick's resilience. He has many stories of his childhood with them, elaborately-cooked meals and handmade clothes and an inability to calm down until all the chores were done. Lots of smiles and light teasing. Lots of visits to the palace to dine with Chrom and his wife, and lots of fond letters from Virion and his.
Cherche loves watching Gerome with Minerva, best; watching their trust and understanding deepen each day. But Frederick loves the sparring.
They're watching him now, just outside the ring. His opponent is Severa, quick and wily and a poor match to his strength-heavy style, but he seems to have the upper hand regardless. A particularly expert twist of his axe has her disarmed.
"That's my son," Frederick says proudly. Cherche can't resist:
"But how, exactly, do you know he's your son?"
"The hair alone does not make it much of a stretch."
"You are not the only man in the world with brown hair."
With perfect and unwitting timing, Stahl hopped into the far end of the ring to begin a spar with Vaike. Frederick only arched an eyebrow as he glanced down at her.
"He has my skill with an axe."
"My skill with an axe, you mean."
"Man," Vaike said, right before he and Stahl squared off. Frederick and Cherche were watching Gerome, standing side by side, chatting calmly with big pleasant smiles on their faces. Why did they always have to go and be the perfect couple? How come he and his wife couldn't manage that all the time? "You think they ever fight?"
"Probably not," Stahl admitted, while across the ring, far out of earshot, it continued:
"No, my good lady, it's definitely mine."
"I'm afraid it's mine, sir."
"Mine."
"Mine!"
xXx
Frederick worries about her back.
"It's always unprotected," he insists during a lull in the next battle. Granted, from her position on Minerva, her back is hardly vulnerable, but war is not a good time to take chances. "Please allow me to take you to get fitted for something."
He touches her back for emphasis. The skin is hot under his fingers.
"But then you can't do that," she sighs.
"I'd rather know you're safe."
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
Straight-faced, she reaches over and pinches his rear. "Shouldn't you be covered, here?"
He blames his blush on the heat of the day.
xXx
In sickness and in health, they'd promised. Cherche has to admit that the sickness bit is a little funny.
It was a difficult decision, to not return to Rosanne after the war to help rebuild, but Virion assures her he can do it himself, and she has found someone new to pledge her life to.
Gerome needs to exist, and she's trying for him. She's trying very hard.
But she can't for the week, while Frederick is abed. They had been settled in his fief for two years before he caught this cold, the first malady she's ever seen him catch. It's a tiny thing, really. Sniffles and aches, a dry cough. Cherche would be up and working under such conditions, but Frederick seems utterly unable to even fix his own breakfast. He moans every time she touches his face, worried that he might have a fever with such carrying on, but his brow is always cool. He's just a baby.
"What would you do without me?" she sighs. For all her complaints, she finds herself returning often to re-tuck his blankets or bring him more tea.
"I would die, my love," he says without a trace of sarcasm, and it's so pathetic that she rolls her eyes.
"Melodramatic."
"We should have my will arranged, just in case."
"Frederick."
"And as I could not bear to leave you without a child, we shall need to adopt immediately."
"Frederick."
xXx
Old age is good to them. They have grandchildren. Minerva, who will live a long time, is still extremely healthy. She loves the grandchildren perhaps best of all of them, and they, her. They often play in the yard, her gliding low over the grass and them chasing the gentle sweeps of her tail.
She and Frederick just sit and watch.
He went grey a long, long time ago. It took her a little longer. She didn't bother dyeing it out of her hair, since she'd been an old maid since her days in the war, for all intents and purposes.
They're growing weaker now. It's odd to see. If Frederick fights his young, strapping second-in-command, he'll be unhorsed (and so of course he doesn't fight, to save his pride). Chrom and Lucina still need him for a great deal, especially advice regarding foreign affairs, so he does not feel useless. Cherche no longer takes Minerva very high—not because she is the slightest bit uncomfortable, but after a very stern warning from Gerome about a nasty fall in his timeline. She stays low, safe, and migraine-free.
She enjoys looking back on all the little things. She enjoys looking back on a Cherche who wanted so much out of life, who would wander into Wyvern Valley alone, who would ride off on a baby wyvern, who would give in to a charming man's advances simply because he was charming, who threw herself into a war she despised because she thought she could save Rosanne, save everything. That was what she'd wanted. And in a way, it was what she got. But what had made her happiest were rows of knitted knots, folded socks, chaste touches, normal morning routines.
"This life has been everything you said it would be, Sir Frederick," she says, and like he used to, he replies,
"It has been an honour."