The Place Where I Belong
by Tetra26 a.k.a Batty Gal
Summary: Wolfram reflects on his past and the choices he made. Wolfram x Alford. First person narrative in past and present tense.
I tried to warn him.
When I first met her, I felt an eerie chill, as if I'd come across her before. When Yuuri harped on about how beautiful and perfect she was, I objected and told him that something wasn't right.
He ignored me.
As I watched her move in on him, I reinforced my opinion, citing that he knew nothing of where she came from and how suspicious she seemed. I told him that he really needed to check up on her.
He scoffed at me.
When I caught him kissing her, I screamed at him about being too trusting and how he should open his eyes and see that she was up to something.
He ended our engagement.
When he was making wedding plans, I went behind his back and had Yozak check her out. When he came back with proof that she wasn't who she said she was, I confronted him with it – only for her to come up with some sad sob story as to why she couldn't tell him the truth. I accused her of still lying.
He punched me.
As I gave up and left Blood Pledge Castle, I received many farewells and sad goodbyes from my brothers, comrades, and many others as I rode off towards a new, uncertain future.
He didn't even bother to see me off.
Through all of that, I didn't cry once. Not even when he ended the engagement. I had already stopped believing that there was a chance of us getting married. Still, him not believing in me – and not even consider my words of warning – hurt.
For many moons, I wandered aimlessly with that hurt. Sometimes I drank it away, other times I beat the living daylights out of someone to make it go away – at least momentarily. My physical scars started to match my mental ones – and I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Who would have thought that the refined Wolfram von Bielefeld would become a drunken fire hazard who picked fights with bigger men, just to have something to do? I would have never thought I would become that way.
I never thought I would have let my feelings for someone make me become that way.
I probably would have wallowed in my misery even longer had I not picked a fight with the wrong hulk of a man and gotten my ass beat within an inch of my life. I probably would have died that night if Alford Markina, of all people, had not saved me.
He scolded me for being so reckless, and told me that I needed to stop doing those sort of things to myself.
I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to yell at him about how he didn't understand, that it was none of his business what I was doing, and that it was my life and I could live it – or ruin it – the way I saw fit.
In other words, I didn't want to listen to him the same was Yuuri didn't want to listen to me.
Instead, I nodded and said nothing. I simply accepted his help as he tended to my physical wounds.
What was supposed to be a few days of Alford looking after me turned into a few months of me tagging along with him, for some reason. It was never planned, or even talked out between us – he simply raised his eyebrow at me and asked me if I was coming along with him. I'm still not sure why I decided at that point to go with him.
We bickered about everything. From proper horse care to the best way to immobilize a man with a sword without killing him, our opinions clashed almost everywhere. He grumbled because I had an opinion on everything, and I grunted because when he had an opinion on something, my opinion was that his opinion was wrong.
Soon, I suspected he was conjuring up some of his crazy opinions just to get me riled up. I didn't confront him with my theory, however, I simply went along with it and argued with him over the most commonplace things.
It was during a rather heated argument as to whether Albatross eggs taste better fried or boiled (yuck!) that I realized that somewhere, along the way, Alford had tended to my mental scars as well.
For the first time, in a long time, I was actually having fun. I interrupted his passionate tirade against the obviously superior method of cooking Albatross eggs and told him so. He blushed and told me he was happy that I was.
I kept the opinion of him being cute when he blushed to myself.
We continued our journey towards, well, nothing really. We simply stayed with each other, argued with each other, and learned from each other. The difference, however, was the weird feeling I got sometimes when I caught him looking at me – or when I looked at him when he wasn't looking. It made me... uneasy.
It was a familiar feeling.
I decided to ignore it the best that I could, however. I wasn't ready for that, not with him. Not with anyone, really. Perhaps I would never be ready for it again.
During one of our pointless travels, news reached my ears that my fears about that woman Yuuri chose were spot on. Apparently she had betrayed the Maou, and she was the new minion of a surprise-I'm-not-defeated-yet Soushu. Hearing about her deceiving him and making it so that Soushu had taken over his body and was using him to destroy Shin Makoku made me angrier than I had been in ages.
I chose to go back and fight.
I chose to tell this to Alford just a few minutes before leaving.
I chose to ignore how my heart skipped when he looked into my eyes and said he'd go as well.
We didn't say much to each other on the way there. On sea, he didn't say anything to me – he simply rubbed my back when I fell ill. When we hit land, we talked, but the atmosphere between us was different. I believed it was due to knowing that we might not come out of it alive.
When we reached our destination, instead of being met with doom, we were instead faced with people celebrating victory over Soushu once again and already rebuilding. To think we had been so silent and stoic with each other, worrying about impeding death as we rushed into battle!
I wouldn't have laughed if it weren't for Alford. I fully blame him for snickering and setting me off. I grabbed his arm and held onto him as I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. I laughed at how we rushed back here, all ready to fight one of the oldest of evils in some idealized battle to the death, just to find out the battle had ended before we had even took off from where we were.
I ignored the way looking into his grinning face made me feel inside.
When he said he wanted to stay for awhile and help rebuild, I shrugged and went along with it. I mean, he was willing to follow me into battle, why not stay with him to help out with the aftermath of battle? I pushed aside my unease at being there, rolled up my sleeves, and started to do something useful for a change.
News travels fast, however, and we weren't there for long before someone came from Blood Pledge Castle to fetch me. I looked at him, and he seemed to know that I didn't want to go alone.
I ignored how my nervousness went away when he decided to go with me.
My return to the castle was met with smiles and hugs. After spending about five minutes with my face buried between my mother's breasts, people finally noticed that Alford and I were together, and not two people that happened to come at the same time. When asked about it, I said that we had been with each other for almost a year.
I pointedly ignored my mother's squeal as she took it entirely the wrong way – and I didn't even bother to correct her.
I tried to ignore that Alford didn't bother to correct her, either.
While my mother tightly held onto a scandalized-looking Alford while welcoming him to the family, I noticed a new presence in the small group of people that had surrounded us.
Yuuri.
I hadn't seen him since the day he hit me. He looked the same, only tired. I guessed that the battle, among other things, had taken a lot out of him. Still, I did my best not to show how tense I was, and instead politely greeted him.
He did the same.
For a long time after I had left, I kept hoping that he'd come and find me. That he'd apologize for not listening to me. That things would go back to the way they were before, or better than they were before – with Yuuri not ignoring how I felt. It wasn't until finally seeing him again that I realized that we could never go back – that things were forever changed between us.
I also realized that I was alright with things not going back to being that way.
I looked over to the reason why I was fine with it all, who looked like he was trying to flee from my brother's scrutinization of our "relationship" as well as my mother's futile attempt at making wedding plans. I laughed (and ignored the shocked looks that brought), and rescued him for once by grabbing his arm and pulling him gently away from my mother's embrace of busty, perfumed death.
It was the least I could do for all he had done for me.
When Gwendal asked if I was back to stay, I felt Alford's arm stiffen. I looked up at him, and saw the look of apprehension that crossed his face.
I wanted to ignore it – but I couldn't.
I don't know which of us was shocked the most when I said that I wouldn't be staying – that I would help out with rebuilding for awhile before leaving with Alford.
I didn't ignore the relief on his face – or the way he smiled at me.
I decided to stop ignoring him from then on, period.
Weeks later, after we left, he finally gathered the nerve to ask me why I chose to come with him as opposed to staying. I decided to tell him the truth; that I liked being with him. That I wanted to be with him.
When he blushed that time, I chose to finally tell him how cute he was.
Many years later, as I stand and look out the bedroom window of the house we built together, I'm once again grateful that I had the sense enough to make those choices back then.
I don't bother to move from where I'm standing when I hear him come up behind me.
"What are you doing?" I hear him ask softly as his arms wrap around me.
"Just thinking about the past," I say. I have no reason to not be truthful, as we've been together so long that he would figure me out anyway.
"What about it?" he asks.
"Well, just thinking about all the choices I've made, and how I'm satisfied with how things ended up being," I answer.
I hear him sigh, and I know what's coming next. I roll my eyes in anticipation.
"Are you really satisfied? I mean, you would have been one of the Ten Nobles. Or the Maou. Are you really happy with being stuck on a farm with me?"
He's unsure, even after all this time. I sigh, and turn to look at him. We've had this discussion several times during our marriage, and I give him the honest answer that I always use.
"Yes."
I lean in and kiss away his objection, which is always effective with him. I pull away from him, and push him back onto the bed.
"It's the middle of the day!" he protests.
"So? Since when has that stopped us?" I respond. I give him the most obnoxious leer that I can muster up, and he laughs as I dive onto him.
I honestly believe that any potential life I would have had other than this one wouldn't have been as awesome. Especially if it didn't involve the grinning, wonderful man underneath me. If I had the chance to go back in time and change my fate, I wouldn't do it. Not even for a small thing.
Everything is fine, as is.
Author's note: I fully intended this to be a drabble, but somehow it ended up 2,000+ words long. Lol.
This is the Wolfram x Alford edition of my personal "Wolfram Project", in which the goal is to pair Wolfram with everyone – romantic or not. This was also my first experiment with First Person... scary! I didn't do too much dialogue with this because I wanted it to be a reflection fic more than anything. Also, note the change from past tense to present in the last section.
Let me know how it turned out for you. Likes? Dislikes? Concrit always welcome.