Don't Leave Me Yet
a/n: This is another one of those 'get in your head and won't leave me alone' fics, where I was sat thinking about this, about how Matthew wanted to take his beloved Leila to meet his parents, how he may have al of things already planned out but had just never said it. This just crept up on me whilst I was singing the song Need, by Hana Pestle, then refused to budge so I ended up writing it in a few hours of immense concentration.
It seems really plot-less in a way, but it fills in that time that Matthew goes off to before the battle before fighting with you. Spoilers if you haven't reached The Dread Isle.
When he saw her in the distance, his heart stopped. Out of fondness, out of love, out of thanks, that she was alive, that she had come to meet them. But mostly, that she was alive. A spy's life was always dangerous, but this job seemed to exceed everything they'd ever done. After a moment, he stepped forward with the Lord and his men, his heart starting again.
But then he got closer.
And his heart stopped again.
This time, it didn't resurface.
. . . .
Even as everyone else around him was frantic, searching for a pulse, even though it was plain as day what the gashes across her body and throat symbolised, what the dried, cracked blood was spelling out in a language they could all speak, Matthew didn't move. He simply stood, and watched. His mouth didn't quite quiver, but it would have. His knees didn't quite buckle, but they would have - a lot of things would have happened if he was not used to seeing people die all the time, if he was not used to missions ending in failure. Even though she had been the one for him, even though he had loved her so, he was in the company of other. He had to keep it together.
So he did the only thing he could do - clamp down hard on his lip and stare blankly at the floor, silent, as flurried feet hurried back and forth, someone sometimes cursing. Probably Hector, he thought absently.
It was only as the feet stopped, as the war-ridden eyes turned to him, that he felt a lingering gaze on him, with one ring leader, the one ring leader who had spent the past few years always knowing what they meant to one another. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Hector spoke up. "Matthew..."
"It's fine," he cut him off, his arms held tight around his torso, as if that was the only thing holding him together. His eyes flickered from the floor, skimming over Leila's lifeless form without stopping, and settled on Hector, firm, steady. Or he hoped they were. "I'm fine. She knew the risks. She knew."
He was repeating himself. A silly thing, as he never did that.
As he continued to look at Hector, the gathering party dispersed around them, seeming to become interested in a rock, a stray leaf, whether the ship was still tied at the dock, perhaps. Only Hector, Lyndis, and Eliwood remained, still looking at him. Eliwood was stunned; Lyndis was looking for any way to show sympathy, but had yet found none; and Hector was staring at him with watchful eyes.
They talked briefly, until he excused himself. She had to be buried. Even if it was in a godforsaken land such as this. There was no guarantee that he himself would get back from this venture, and there was no way to keep a body on a ship for weeks whilst they sailed back to Ositia. The Dread Isle would be Leila's resting place. And he had to do it now. Or else, they would move out, and who would do it then? Who would know her name to be able to bury her?
No one would.
He lifted her in his arms, the way he had so many times when she was alive. Only this time, she didn't react, didn't try to shove him off, and he wasn't laughing, enjoying her moment of embarrassment, and she didn't eventually succumb to it. Her head slacked against his chest, and he could only think how perfect it seemed there; or had.
Matthew walked, finding the strength to get to the nearest patch of woodland, the voices of his Lords chasing him as he went, which only made him go faster. His ward was breaking; he could feel all those numbed emotions seeping out, gradually. One would arise, sooner or later. And then there was only a little time before they would move on. He couldn't delay; he couldn't dawdle.
As he came to the line of trees, he walked on a little further, before he carefully placed Leila next to a fallen old oak. Her arms lay slumped against her; he straightened them, almost to kid himself she was simply sleeping, and would wake up any moment. That she would breathe again, the breathing that he hadn't done since he'd first seen her left out by the Fang in the wastelands.
Matthew didn't have a shovel, or anything to supplement it, but he didn't need one. His hands scrabbled at the dirt at his feet, his already dirt-ridden finger nails becoming so dark that he briefly wondered if they would ever be clean again. He continued to claw back his hands like an animal, scratch marks ingraining themselves into the dirt as he scraped deeper and deeper. Eventually, as they reminded him too much of the scares on Leila's body, he took off his cloak, and retrieved his daggers, carving away dirt as he went, specks of it flying from side to side as he continued to dig, making a small hole that gradually grew bigger and bigger, until it was enough to lay a person exactly Leila's size into it.
Once again he scooped her up to his arms, before gently laying her into the hurriedly dug grave. She lay still, lifeless, just had she had been in the clearing where they'd simply dumped her for them, for him, to find her.
That rippled something, something through his chest, as he spoke aloud, a solo, quiet voice in an ever quiet forest.
"I was going to marry her," he said softly.
They were going to be a real fiancée to the other. And he was going to marry her, in a wedding full of white and flowers and lilies, just as Leila had often talked about when he'd caught her talking to the other spies about a wedding she would love.
Only now it was her funeral. And he had nothing. Except one thing.
He placed a hand in his pocket, fumbling around a little, until he found what he was searching for. Even in the drab light, it shone between his fingers, as he held the small, undecorated object ring up, rays sprouting off it.
He'd already bought her a ring.
He choked as he saw it, a small, slight, sob escaping his perfect mask. Matthew wasn't one for crying. He never cried. Maybe others did, but Matthew didn't. There was never a time to cry; but perhaps he had just found it, in a way he never should. He felt a tear escape from under his eyelid, and roll down his cheeks - and that was when he stopped, biting his lip so hard he woundered why it didn't hurt.
How could they just take his dreams away from him?
"I was going to marry her!" he shouted, his voice breaking half way through into a sob, as he looked away from the bitter scene that was laid out in front of him, the scene he had never wanted to see, a scene they shouldn't have yet; maybe one day, but not for a long time.
He closed his eyes, the sunlight not even breaking through.
He'd had it all planned out.
When Leila's mission was over, and his mission too was over, he was going to take her to meet his parents. He'd told Leila that, but he'd never told her that he was going to take hold of her hand, and never let it go as they walked over hill and barrow, sneaking into a cart now and then - he'd never let her out of his sight, as they'd make their way back to the tiny town where his parents lived. Maybe she'd object at first, but they both knew in their flirtatious follies of cat and mouse, that there was nothing they wanted more, something they had been dancing their way towards for years, the moment where the curtain dropped, where the climax was reached. Where there were no more games, and just the love they'd always had for each other, still tied up within fancies, but with easier paths to navigate.
Because their game would end with them knowing they truly loved one another.
When they got to his parents house, Matthew was going to introduce Leila to them, tell them about the way her eyes sparkled in the purple rays of sunset and how her hair shone at sunrise. They were going to talk together, and he would still not let her go, even as they casually left the room for him to show her something irrelevant outside. They would appraise her; a perfect, wonderful girl, a girl that they never dreamed Matthew would call his own, a girl they'd love to have as a daughter-in-law. When they'd come back, they'd eat supper, Leila sitting between his parents, Matthew finally having to let her go, but his foot would nudge against hers under the table, all the while, still touching.
And as dinner was over, he'd wait until the table was cleared, until they reshuffled seats so they'd sit alongside one another, and then his parents would retire to the next room, the room where they sat in front of the fire. After a few moments, Leila would smile at him - knowing what would come next - and Matthew would help her to her feet (though that part was tentative - knowing Leila, she'd find Matthew with the jitters and she'd be the one dragging him up and towards the door). When he got there, he knew what he was going to say.
"Mom, dad," and then a pause, to give them time to look towards him. "I wish to marry Leila."
His mother would clap her hands; and his father would crack a smile. If they liked her, that is. Which he had no doubt they would. How could they not love such a wonderful, talented, intelligent woman who could keep their mischievous son in check?
And then he'd drop to his knees, and ask her the question; and she's say yes (though maybe she'd beat him to the punch line here as well). And then he'd give her a ring, a simple ring, but worth all the money in the world, filled with all those memories they'd had over the past years they spent together.
Following would be a talk with his father, and his mother would talk with Leila, where he'd hear the drifted conversation of white, flowers, and lilies...
And that reminded him it wasn't going to happen.
And a single tear fell from behind a closed eyelid, before it had time to be blinked away as the eye opened.
Don't leave me yet.
It couldn't be time to say goodbye. Even though Matthew knew... that it was.
The ring was still in his hand, resting against his own ring finger. He knelt down alongside her, subdued. "I don't blame you," he said, his voice soft, though it seemed raw, and far too quiet for his usual self. "You did what you had to do. Just as I had to do with Lord Hector, and fight all those days away from you. I could never blame you, Leila. Never," he paused, again looking at the ring in his palm. "I would say I want you to stay, and be here with me now... that I don't want you to leave me yet... but you'd probably scold for that, right?" he let out an emotionless laugh, weak, that almost died as soon as it was formed. "And say it wasn't like me. Even if it's true, that... that I never meant for us to turn out this way."
He moved a piece of hair covering her eyes out of habit; as he'd done when she was alive, an unspoken set of words that he was sorry that they'd played their games too long, that he'd slipped away on that final day when he'd told her they were going to see his parents. But there was something else, too. "... You know... I'm sorry..." he stuttered, containing another repressed sob, "... that... that I never... really told you."
He breathed in, as he said the most important three words that he had never told her enough.
"I love you," he said, taking her hand, and putting the ring into her palm, and closing her fingers around it. "I love you, Leila. And I will fight for you. I will end this war for you. Even if I fade into nothing afterwards... I will fight. And when it's over, I'll mourn for you. I'll mourn like I've never mourned anything else. When the battle's over... there will be time for me to mourn."
Even though it had taken him for as long as he could remember to bury the pit, it took him only seconds to cover it over, sprinkling dirt of the now radiant-less face, whispering 'thank you' as she finally disappeared.
It was only as he turned, to prepare himself to leave, that was when he saw it. A single flower growing in an otherwise void wilderness, a flower that was white, that was Leila's favourite.
A white lily. White, flowers, and lilies.
He gulped, letting out a slow, determined sigh. It was one last thing he could give her, the one last, perfect thing that would mark her presence that he and he alone knew what it meant.
Matthew still needed her. But he had to let her go, even if he wasn't sure if he was ready to say goodbye to her yet. So as he let the lily fall, he fell as well.
"Goodbye, Leila."
And he walked. Back to the people waiting for him; back to the next battle; back to fighting for the end of the war.
Back to keeping his promise to live for her.