He sees it happen in flashes.
Sylvain swings his axe wide and bats aside the Imperial officer who stood in his way. His wyvern roars in approval behind him and bites at a soldier who comes to close. Sylvain turns back to remount his wyvern and through the chaos of battle, he sees them: Dimitri and Ingrid, fighting back to back and hopelessly outnumbered.
A soldier cuts in front of him and Sylvain doesn't even think before he takes the man's head off. His blood is pounding in his ears as he watches from sixty feet away as Ingrid spins Lúin and jabs at one of her attackers. Faintly, he can hear Felix and the Professor yelling, trying to get to their outnumbered friends.
A Kingdom priest steps in front of him, casting a white magic spell on him to heal his wounds, but Sylvain pushes her aside and breaks for his friends. He's thirty feet away when it happens. Dimitri says something to Ingrid and she scowls. An enemy breaks the circle around the pair and lunges at the prince. Ingrid, stalwart and protective, bashes him back, but his sword glides past her defences.
A cavalry unit charges past Sylvain, heading goddess knows where and it takes all of his concentration to not get trampled temporarily. In a spark of cool-headedness that comes from somewhere Sylvain doesn't even recognize, he spins and basically throws himself onto his wyvern. His mount responds–thank the goddess–and he's whipping through the air towards his friends before he can think.
From the air, he sees them clearly. Dimitri is on his feet, wielding Areadbhar like the beast that Felix claims he is. Ingrid isn't standing. She's crumpled on the ground and seems to be barely holding onto Lúin. Sylvain descends toward them, ignoring the shouts of his battalion behind him. He hasn't even landed by the time he throws himself off his mount. The two-foot drop jars his knees, but he doesn't flinch. His vision has tunnelled to Ingrid, his dear friend who is no longer moving.
The professor has broken through to them and she and Dimitri are pushing back, going on the offensive now. The professor, to her credit, spares Ingrid a worried look, but Dimitri doesn't allow her that courtesy. Sylvain doesn't have time to be annoyed or angry about it as he kneels in the blood-soaked earth next to his friend.
"Ingrid," he urges, sliding a hand to the back of her neck and tipping her head towards him.
Her eyes flutter weakly and Sylvain makes a quick assessment. The sword wound in her chest is deep and still bleeding and he doesn't know the first thing about white magic, but he knows that her being here is incredibly dangerous.
"Dimitri?" Ingrid asks weakly. Her voice tremors when she speaks and her green eyes are filled with both worry and pain.
Sylvain risks a glance toward the prince, but he and the professor have turned their attention elsewhere. "With the professor," he says. Ingrid's features relax slightly and she closes her eyes. Panic rushes through Sylvain. "No, no, Ingrid, you need to stay awake!"
She doesn't reply to him and instinct has him sliding his other arm under her knees and hoisting her up into his arms. He doesn't have the free hand to grab Lúin, but the pressing concern of Ingrid's still bleeding wound distracts him of that. He manages to get them both onto his wyvern and, holding her tight to him, he takes off, flying to where he knows Mercedes and the other bishops have set up their base for healing.
He's so distracted by the fact that Ingrid's blood is now staining his armour that he nearly crashes into the medical tent. The priests his wyvern nearly plows through look furious at him, but their anger turns quickly to shock when they note that he's cradling Ingrid.
"Sylvain?" Mercedes's voice cuts through the static and clamours around him and his head whips towards it.
"Mercedes!" he calls.
She pushes towards him, her brows knit with worry and Sylvain slides carefully off of his wyvern, still cradling Ingrid in his arms. She's gone completely still and he's too terrifying to check if she's still breathing. His own blood is burning in his veins with fear.
"Mercedes, please help her," he begs once the healer makes it to his side. His voice comes out frailer and more concerned than he is expecting and he might normally be embarrassed by it, but he has no energy to dedicate to that feeling right now.
Mercedes gasps in shock and instantly casts a Restore spell. Sylvain watches Ingrid's face carefully and some of her unconscious tension fades and her chest rises more deeply with breaths. He exhales in relief and looks back at Mercedes to thank her, but the healer's expression is grim.
"Bring her here, Sylvain, this fight isn't over yet."
For a moment he's confused because the battle raging around them is clearly on its last legs and will be over soon, but then he realizes Mercedes is talking about an entirely different fight. Ingrid's life is still at risk and the realization of that causes ice to flood through his veins and adrenaline pumps through him so quickly his vision darkens before clearing.
Mercedes has him place her on a stretcher inside one of the medical tents and then she shoos him outside, needing space to, literally, work her magic to save their friend's life. Sylvain stands dumbly outside the tent, staring at the flaps uncertainly until he hears his name being shouted.
He turns back and sees Annette and Ashe running towards him. Their battalions are nowhere in sight and they both look incredibly worried.
"Sylvain! Is she okay?" Ashe asks. He's clutching his bow with both hands so tightly that his knuckles are bone white.
He shakes his head uncertainly. "She's with Mercedes. I don't," he trails off because fear catches the rest of the words in his throat.
Annette relaxes a little. "Well, Mercedes is our best, Sylvain. They'll save her, I know it!"
For once, the redhead's enthusiasm doesn't quite elicit a smile from Sylvain because he's still worried. Even now, standing outside the medical tent, the adrenaline pumping through his body starts to fade and a sudden dizziness hits him. He stumbles and Ashe and Annette both lunge forward to steady him.
"Sylvain, you're hurt too!" Ashe says worriedly.
Sylvain blinks and glances down. He had completely forgotten about the arrow he had taken that had originally grounded him, but sure enough, it's still half wedged in the gaps between his armour plates. The pain comes back to him and he is forced to put more of his weight on Ashe as he grits his teeth.
"Oh," he mutters dumbly.
"Marianne!" Annette yells, waving to catch the girl's attention from nearby. Marianne looks their way sharply, turning away from Ferdinand and Hilda who she had been speaking with.
The battle around them has died to almost nothing and the Kingdom-Church forces are settling down. Sylvain starts to pick out more of his allies emerging from the bloodied fields, but he doesn't see the professor or Felix or Dimitri yet. His attention is pulled back to his own space as Marianne hurries over to him to inspect the arrow wound. Hilda trails after her, watching the scene with mild interest.
"Oh no," Marianne murmurs. "I need to get this out of you."
"Do it," Sylvain grunts, gritting his teeth.
Marianne hesitates and Hilda scoffs and steps around her timid friend, reaching for the arrow shaft. "Don't scream," she says pleasantly and pulls the arrow out with a sharp tug.
Sylvain nearly buckles against Ashe and Annette as it comes free and instantly Marianne and Annette are scolding Hilda about removing arrows from wounds carefully because she could have just made it worse. Hilda holds the arrow out to Ashe, ignoring the lectures.
"Check this for poisons, would you?"
Ashe, with the arm that's not supporting Sylvain, takes the arrow and furrows his brow. "I'm not an expert with poison. I could ask my battalion I suppose, but that might take longer than we have."
"I can figure it out," Annette says quickly. She glances up at Sylvain and then back at the tent where Mercedes is tending to Ingrid. "I don't know if," she starts, but Hilda cuts her off.
"Excellent." She steps forward and shoos the former Blue Lions away. "I've got him," she says, regarding Sylvain.
"Are you sure?" Ashe asks.
Hilda rolls her eyes and bumps him away with her hip. Sylvain nearly buckles onto her and he bites into his lip hard enough to draw blood as the pain from his injuries catches up with him. Still, Hilda is much, much stronger than she appears so she takes his weight and hardly flinches.
"Come on pretty boy, let's get you cleaned up," Hilda says.
Marianne casts a quick Heal spell and Sylvain feels the white magic restore some of his drained energy. He gives her a weak smile and she glances between Hilda and Sylvain before turning back to the injured soldiers that seem to be pouring in now that the battle seems to be over. Sylvain doesn't want to leave Ingrid even though he knows that she's in good hands with Mercedes, but Hilda doesn't give him much a choice as she tugs him towards one of the healing tents towards the edge of where they are set up.
She opens the flap and leads Sylvain in. There are three monks inside the tent who look up, startled, as they walk in. "Can I get the room?"
There are no arguments from the others as they dart past and out into the post-battle chaos. Since Marianne healed him, most of his pain has faded, leaving only a dull ache, but Hilda had still been able to strong-arm him away from Mercedes's tent. She stops supporting them once they're inside the tent and crosses it to where there's a bucket of water and a rag.
"Sit," she says firmly.
Sylvain raises an eyebrow. "I'm fine, now. Can't I go wait for news on Ingrid?"
Hilda shakes her head. "Definitely not. You hovering out there will only make more people like Marianne and Mercedes nervous and for the sake of the people who are badly hurt, we can't afford to have them distracted."
"I wouldn't hover," Sylvain says even though he knows he had every intention of doing exactly that.
Hilda rolls her eyes. "Look, you're covered in blood and you've still got cuts on your face bleeding. If you let me clean them up, I'll let you go back to bothering people."
Sylvain frowns but relents, sitting down in the chair that Hilda gestures to. She perches herself on the arm of the chair, draping her legs across his lap as she lifts the damp rag to his face. She starts wiping at his hairline and he hisses when it stings. She rolls her eyes and continues. She stays half in his lap for a few minutes as she cleans up his face and neck before she swings out and moves behind him.
She has him shift in the chair so that his head is leaning back over the bucket she places behind him. Hilda pours water in small handfuls through his hair, washing the blood out of it. Her nails scrape against his scalp pleasantly and Sylvain shoots straight back into a memory of the time that the two of them did a little more than flirt in the library one day.
"Why are you helping me?" he asks quietly when the sloshing sound of water slows as she works the last of the blood out of his hair.
"You needed to be distracted," she admits carefully. "Worrying about people just riles us up more. Besides, I owe you, don't I?"
Sylvain pauses, thinking on what the Goneril noble could possibly owe him. He blinks as he recalls something. "The books? Hilda, that was over five years ago. How is that?" he trails off when she laughs.
"I pay back my debts, silly," she replies shortly.
Her nails scrape against his scalp one last time before she steps back to dispose of the bloodied rag and pink water as well as to wash her own hands. Sylvain leans forward and looks over his shoulder to watch her.
"Why are you helping us, then?" he presses. "You hate fighting. You hate war. You could have gone home after Derdriu."
Hilda doesn't answer his question. "That's enough storytime. You no longer look like you cut down an entire battalion on your way to the medical tent." She skims him with her eyes again. "Although, with how worried you were over your sweet Ingrid, I'm not entirely convinced you didn't."
Sylvain presses his lips together. Hilda is digging at a nerve to dodge a question and he knows it. She sighs when he doesn't react.
"I'm going to go check on Marianne," Hilda says and then she brushes past him.
Sylvain watches her go for a minute before he leaves the tent himself. He pushes aside the flaps and immediately sees Byleth, Dimitri, and Felix conversing nearby. Upon seeing Dimitri, he sees Ingrid on the ground bleeding out and Dimitri and Byleth cutting through soldiers nearby. Ingrid, loyal and protective, who had taken the attack for Dimitri and Dimitri who hadn't spared her a glance after she had fallen.
Rage bubbles up in Sylvain so suddenly that it catches him off guard. He's walking towards them before he can stop himself. He's not usually this hotheaded but the memory of Dimitri not stopping to even check on his childhood friend after she had been struck down sits so wrong in his stomach it hurts.
"Sylvain!" Byleth exclaims when she sees him. "Are you alright? How's Ingrid?"
Areadbhar is across Dimitri's back but he's holding Lúin as he looks concernedly at Sylvain. "You got her here alright?"
Dimitri is holding her lance. He can't restrain his anger this time as he draws back and punches Dimitri square in the jaw. Byleth and Felix recoil and Dimitri keeps his head turned away, shock painting across his face. Sylvain's chest heaves with a deep breath as he realizes what he just did. He spins on his heel and immediately walks away.
He hears Felix yell after him, but the rage is buzzing in his ears and he just needs to get away from him. Sylvain is not Felix. He's not the hotheaded one in their friendship, but he had just been so blinded by anger that he had acted without thinking. In all his friendship with the prince, Sylvain has been annoyed with him plenty, but he can never recall a time where he was this genuinely furious.
In fact, the only time he has ever truly been this mad was when he found out that Miklan had stolen the Lance of Ruin and was wreaking absolute havoc with it.
Sylvain dodges through soldiers setting up tents and barracks after the battle as he pushes for the edge of camp where he knows there's a training tent set up. It's usually only ever used by Caspar or Felix or Byleth, but he really needs to blow off some steam and taking out his anger and nerves on a training dummy seems as good of an outlet as any. He stalks into the tent still seething and the two soldiers present exchange glances before immediately peeling out of his way, leaving him alone.
Sylvain flips a training lance into his hand and immediately starts beating at the dummy in the centre of the room. He gets through the whole hour-long training routine Byleth has taught him and most of the axe one he knows as well before someone finally finds him.
He's expecting Felix. Felix knows him best and he knows what being angry at Dimitri is like, especially since Dimitri came back to himself after Gronder. Sylvain has found Felix in here many, many nights in the past, so all things considered, it should be Felix who finds him.
His second choice would have been the professor since she could have just followed him immediately after he left. But, he knows Byleth and he knows what's brewing between her and Dimitri will have caused her to stay and check on him. Sylvain is strong, but Dimitri's stronger so he's not too worried that he seriously hurt the prince, but he certainly hadn't pulled the punch.
He's not expecting Hilda who he had just parted with an hour and a half ago to be standing at the entrance to the tent, her hand on her hip and an eyebrow quirked. Sylvain lets out a deep sigh at the sight of her and spins his axe in his hand before turning back to his admittedly cut-up, mostly-destroyed training dummy.
"You caused quite a stir back there by punching the Crown Prince of Faerghus in the face without an explanation," she calls out to him.
Sylvain pauses and turns to face her, letting the axe drop to his side. "What do you want, Hilda? Didn't we just have this conversation?"
She laughs and cocks her head at him. "Sylvain, I thought we had agreed not to be fake with each other. That was our agreement back in school, wasn't it?"
He narrows his eyes. "How'd you find me?" he asks instead. "It's been long enough that someone should have found me. Why was it you?"
Hilda smirks at him. "I know why you punched Dimitri. It took me a little bit of piecing together to get the whole story, plus I had to convince Felix to tell me where you would have gone, but I've got it now."
Sylvain crosses his arms. "I don't know why I hit him, so you couldn't possibly know."
"It's because you're in love with Ingrid," Hilda answers simply.
Sylvain's jaw drops and he's certain he must look like a slapped fish. Ingrid is one of his best and closest friends. She is just Ingrid, the one who would make a better knight than Felix and Dimitri and Sylvain combined and the only one of the three of them who always kept a level and a clear head, even if she was a bit naggy.
He's not in love with her. He just thinks that she's really beautiful whether or not she's playing with whatever makeup that Annette gave her. She's passionate and talented and funny and clever and important to him. If his heart skipped more than a few beats while he was worried about her, that's a normal, friend-induced feeling.
Hilda laughs at him. "You didn't even know, did you?" She steps further into the tent and takes a seat on one of the benches by the training ring. She leans back on her hands and studies him. "It's all over your face when you look at her. It's why you abandoned your formation to fly in and save her today and it's why you got so mad at Dimitri because she went down protecting him." Hilda twirls a lock of her bubblegum pink hair. "She's going to be fine, by the way. Mercedes announced that while everyone was scurrying about looking for you."
"Why did Felix tell you where I'd be? Why didn't he just come himself?"
Hilda shakes her head. "Come on, Sylvain, would you really want to talk feelings with Felix? He's got the empathetic abilities of a wooden crate. Besides, you and I at least have something in common: we're both fighting this war for other people."
Sylvain feels insulted. "I'm fighting this war for my country, Hilda. What Edelgard's doing is wrong. I'm in this battle to fight back against that."
She levels an even look at him. "You're in it for your friends. For the Blue Lions, for the professor, and especially for Dimitri, Felix, and Ingrid."
Sylvain catches that she notably leaves out why this is paralleled for her. "Who are you fighting for?"
Hilda's smirk fades to a small smile. "Marianne," she says easily. "And Claude, wherever his stupid ass ran off to."
"Marianne?" Sylvain questions.
The healer had switched to their class back at the Officer's Academy along with Lysithea and Linhardt. The rest of the Black Eagles, minus Hubert, had deserted to join the Church forces once Byleth had reappeared. None of the other Golden Deer had switched sides as they chose to remain with their home forces. After Derdriu, when Claude surrendered, Hilda had requested to join the march the rest of the way to Enbarr.
Sylvain had known that Hilda and Marianne were friends, but he hadn't known exactly how deep the friendship had run if it meant that Hilda was willing to step back into a war for the other woman.
Hilda shrugs. "I care about her."
Sylvain's arms drop to his sides as he realizes exactly what Hilda means. "Oh," he mutters dumbly.
She rolls her eyes. "Marianne is important to me. Claude was a dear friend, but Marianne is important to me. I wanted to see this through so that I could keep her alive. She's been struggling since the Great Bridge of Myrddin."
"Lorenz," Sylvain fills in.
Hilda's lips flatten into a line. "There was a time where I think if the professor had gotten through to Lorenz, he and Marianne would have been something. She's still grieving him and so am I. I figured we could support each other through that."
Sylvain inhales deeply and shuts his eyes. "Why did you tell me that?"
"You asked," Hilda answers. "Plus, you and I promised to be real with each other, right?"
He chuckles lowly and pulls both of his hands up and runs them through his hair. His side aches where the arrow wound was still healing and his muscles groan in protest from the back-to-back battling and then training. "I guess we did."
"Then why did you punch Dimitri, Sylvain?"
He sighs and walks over. She slides to her left and he sits on the bench next to her. "I was mad at him. I was mad that Ingrid took the blow for him and he just left her there and didn't cast a second look at her after she fell."
Hilda nods slowly. "Alright, well, I'm not going to stick myself in places where I wasn't actually, but maybe you should mention that to Dimitri. He's a good guy, Sylvain."
Sylvain drops his head into his hands and tugs at his hair again. "I know," he mutters. "I'm not mad anymore, I just want to see her."
Hilda pats his back awkwardly. "Well, you definitely need to go wash and talk to Dimitri and stop the camp from spiralling further before you do that. But then, you should go talk to Ingrid. I think in doing so you'll finally be able to stop lying to yourself."
Sylvain lifts his head warily and looks at her. She's smirking again. "It's obvious you're in love with her. I'd pester you more, but I'm not the one you need to be having this conversation with."
She stands, without further conversation, and heads for the entrance to the training tent. Sylvain watches her for a moment, but before she exits, he calls after her.
"I won't tell anyone about Marianne."
Hilda looks back at him, a much more genuine smile curving up her lips. "Thanks, Sylvain."
Then she's gone and Sylvain is left, aching and in pain, in a training tent by himself. He takes a bracing breath and stands, following where Hilda left. He heads to the designated wash-up tents first and cleans himself up, setting aside his combat armour and donning his Gautier colours. He drops his stuff off at his tent and makes his way to the central command tent.
He hears both the professor and Dimitri's voices from inside the tent and he takes a moment outside to gather his confidence. He pushes aside the tent flaps and steps in, catching the prince and professor in a slightly awkward moment.
Byleth is sitting in a chair, studying one of the battle maps they have for the routes to Enbarr. Dimitri stands directly behind her with one hand on the back of her chair and the other placed against her upper arm. They both start when they see him standing in the tent entrance.
Byleth stands up immediately. "Sylvain! Where have you been? Felix said he had it handled, but he ate with Annette and Ashe and no one had seen you."
He gives the professor a tense smile. "May I have a word with His Highness alone please?" he requests evenly.
Byleth's lips purse and she looks back at Dimitri. Sylvain looks at the prince too and sees no malice or anger in his face. Dimitri looks calm as he waves aside Byleth's cautious look. "It'll be fine, Professor. The worst he could do is punch me again, but he's not here to do that. We can finish this tomorrow."
Byleth nods and heads for the rear entrance of the tent. She gives Sylvain a tentative last look before she slips out into the camp, leaving Sylvain alone with the man he had punched just over two hours ago. Dimitri slips into Byleth's vacated chair and motions for Sylvain to sit next to him.
Sylvain sits and stares blankly at the map for a moment. "I'm usually good with words and smoothing things over," he admits.
Dimitri laughs. "I understand, Sylvain. You don't need to apologize to me. Emotions were running high. We were all worried about her."
He turns to look Dimitri in the face. "Were you worried? When she went down you didn't give her a second look," he explains.
Dimitri looks startled for a moment. "Of course I was afraid," he says. "I am not a healer, and," he pauses, looking at his hands. "I was afraid that I might make something worse if I stopped to help her."
Sylvain recalls one late-night conversation after the battle at Gronder Field where Dimitri had confessed that his Crest gave him strength he didn't know what to do with. It certainly accounted for the broken needles and weapons and spoons all through their childhood and Sylvain hadn't even considered Dimitri was afraid of harming people too.
"I didn't know," he admits for Dimitri's sake.
The prince nods. "I preferred it that way. When she fell I just thought that if I could get rid of the immediate threat, it would be okay. I saw you coming and since you're flying, I thought you had a better chance of getting her out of there."
Sylvain rubs his temples. "I overreacted," he confesses. "I was afraid that we were going to lose her and I couldn't lose her, Dimitri."
The edge of Dimitri's lips twist upward. "I know the feeling."
Byleth falling. Sylvain remembers how devastatingly broken Dimitri had been after the Battle for Garreg Mach at the start of the war. He had seen her fall and hadn't been able to do anything about it.
"For the record, I am sorry I punched you," Sylvain adds.
Dimitri shrugs. "I honestly think it's good to have some sense knocked into you every now and then, though I would appreciate next time if you did it verbally."
Sylvain chuckles. He is about to apologize again, for doubting that he cared about Ingrid, but Dimitri's gaze is focused on the tent entrance behind him. The prince's shocked expression is what makes him hold his tongue and he turns around to see what caught Dimitri so off guard.
Ingrid is standing just inside the tent. Her short blonde hair is hanging loose around her face and she's wearing riding leggings and a cream shirt that is a few sizes too big on her slender frame. She's supporting herself with a single wooden crutch and is eyeing her two friends with a curious green-eyed gaze.
"Ingrid!" Dimitri exclaims, rising so suddenly he bangs his knees on the underside of the table so hard he nearly sits back down. "What are you doing out of the infirmary?"
She walks towards them slowly, supporting herself only partly on the wooden crutch. "Mercedes cleared me to leave. I'm not supposed to do any fighting or strenuous activity, but the wound has closed and there's no risk of infection anymore."
Sylvain finally recovers from his surprise and he scans Ingrid over again. She notices, of course, and levels him with a heavy look.
"Marianne told me you were shot," she says bluntly.
"What?" Dimitri demands. "When were you shot?"
Sylvain straightens in his seat to hide the slouch he had been sitting with to alleviate the pain in his midsection. "Before," he answers Dimitri evasively. "And Marianne healed me so I'm all good," he adds for Ingrid's benefits.
Her lips purse and she looks between the two men again. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No," Sylvain replies quickly before Dimitri's not-so-silver tongue can reveal all of his blunders. "Your well-being takes priority over any trivial conversation we were having."
The suspicion lingers on Ingrid's expression, but thankfully Dimitri doesn't take issue with Sylvain's white lie and fills in the gap.
"Ingrid, thank you for taking that blow for me today. I do dearly wish you hadn't been hurt, but I am grateful nonetheless."
Ingrid dips her head and shoulders into what is probably supposed to be a bow, but it comes across as stiff and uncomfortable due to her crutch and her injury. Dimitri gives a light chuckle, but he glances back at the rear entrance of the tent and Sylvain recognizes the longing in his expression.
"Go find the professor, Dimitri, we won't be offended," Sylvain assures.
Dimitri's cheeks flush a bit, but he doesn't argue as he makes a lame excuse to Ingrid before giving her a brief hug. Ingrid and Sylvain watch as Dimitri leaves the tent through the rear entrance, leaving them alone.
"Find Byleth?" Ingrid questions him once Dimitri is out of earshot.
"We were talking and we ended up on the subject of that battle and I think it brought up some part of him that is afraid she never came back. I get it."
And he does get it. Because even seeing Ingrid standing mostly healed in front of him is not enough to soothe the remaining nerves he had felt in seeing her hurt in the first place. It doesn't chase away the lingering panic he had felt cradling her in his arms while she had bled out. Because he cares about her. A lot.
And maybe Hilda is more correct than he wants her to be.
"You get it?" Ingrid presses.
Of course he couldn't have expected her to let a comment like that slip. She was too sharp and now he had backed himself into a corner he had no idea how to maneuver out of. His first instinct is to wink and flirt, but the compliment that rises in his throat is bitter tasting and wrong so he pushes it down.
"You scared me today," he admits instead. "I don't like seeing you on the ground and I especially don't like seeing you literally on the ground and bleeding."
Ingrid shifts and presses her lips together. "It was a lucky shot that took me down in the first place. The rest of it was me doing my duty to protect Dimitri."
Sylvain stands up and walks so he stands directly in front of her. She's much smaller now than she used to be, but that's probably because he and the others have grown, while she has not. Even Felix, who was always the smallest, is taller than her now.
"You promised you'd stay close to me," he says lowly, his voice coming out much softer in their close proximity.
Ingrid's cheeks turn the tiniest bit pink. "And I believe you said you'd stop being so reckless in battle."
As if guided by fate, her hand comes up to press at his ribs where the arrow had struck and he sucks in a breath sharply at the spark of pain. Sylvain gently pulls her hand back, but doesn't let go of it so he's just holding it as it dangles between them. Ingrid glances at it and then up at his face, but she doesn't pull away.
"You're being weirdly sincere about this whole thing," she notes.
Sylvain forces a laugh. "I can make it not," he offers.
She frowns. "Don't ruin it."
There's a moment where neither of them says anything and the silence grates at Sylvain. He remembers his fear and Hilda's advice and the easy way that Dimitri and Byleth are around each other. He takes a deep breath and meets Ingrid's steady gaze directly.
"Have you heard from your father lately?" he asks.
Ingrid drops his hand and steps around him, limping with her crutch to sit at the table. There's a brief flicker of something that looks almost like disappointment across her face, but she hides it quickly.
"A week ago," she admits. "Now that the Alliance has dissolved and Fhirdiad has been retaken, he wants me to come home. He wants to bottle me up in Galatea like he did for the beginning of the war so that he can just sell me off to the highest bidder."
Sylvain winces at the malice in her tone at the mention of marriage. "And you've told him otherwise?"
"I'm staying until we see this through," she says firmly. She angles her body so that she's facing him even though she's sitting.
Sylvain takes the seat next to her and pulls it close enough that the arms of the chairs are nearly touching. "And after?"
"After, I don't know," she confesses. "I still want to be a knight, but I love my people and I want to do right by them. Maybe I'll have to take the whole situation differently when there's not a war to fight." She gives him a weak smile. "I suppose your father will want you to get married too, won't he?"
Sylvain's mind catches on her emphasis on the war. "What if you didn't have to? What if you could just sort everything out right now so you didn't have to deal with it later?"
Ingrid looks a bit surprised, but she taps her chin thoughtfully. "I don't see how that could happen," she muses, but then she falls silent. Sylvain watches her gaze turn from neutral to almost suspicious. "Unless this is your way of asking me to marry you?"
"No!" Sylvain says quickly but then winces. "Yes?" That doesn't feel right either. "I don't know," he admits instead. "I guess I'm trying to ask if you would consider me at all. In any strange, world-ending situation. If, and this is entirely your choice, you would want to marry me."
Ingrid's green eyes are wide as she takes in his bumbling question. "Sylvain, what do you mean?" she presses. There's an underlying nervousness to her tone that almost makes him back out, but he's too far into it now and damn, he really doesn't want to prove Hilda right, but if this is going where he thinks it is going, he doesn't really have a choice.
"You need to get married to someone wealthy and I want to marry someone I won't hate for the rest of my life," he offers.
The energy that had been building in Ingrid deflates and she drops her eyes to the map on the table in front of them. "Oh," she murmurs.
Sylvain grimaces. "That came out wrong." He reaches for one of her hands and she lets him take it between both of his. He draws her eyes back up and musters every bit of courage he has in him. "I didn't want to say anything because I couldn't ensure that I would survive this and I won't let you go through that alone." Her gaze is sad at the allusion to Glenn. "Ingrid," he presses on, "I want to ask you to marry me and I want you to say yes if it's what you want to do, not because you think you should or because you're trying to spare my feelings."
She gives him a very small smile as she twists her chair so their knees are pressed together and they are face to face. "Your feelings?" she teases lightly.
Sylvain smiles. "You hadn't noticed? My blundering about the fact that you're beautiful and talented and amazing and driven and how comfortable I feel with you hadn't tipped you off?"
She bites her lip to suppress a smile. "I was just hoping at that point it wasn't all a line," she admits and that one stings, but he definitely deserves it.
"I wanted to let all of this sit until the end of the war when there was no more danger, but after today, I couldn't. I was so scared of losing you today. I was so alarmed I scared Mercedes half to death by bringing you to her and I scared Ashe and Annette by ignoring my own injuries to look after you and I startled Felix, the professor, and Dimitri by punching Dimitri." Ingrid looks affronted at the mention of him punching Dimitri, but he continues on. "I couldn't lose you. And I couldn't do it without telling you everything."
He brings a hand up to cup the side of her face. His calloused hands feel rough against the smooth skin of her cheek, but in the flickering lamplight of the tent, he feels like he's holding the whole world in his hand.
"I love you," he says quietly to her. "I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that."
Instead of replying to him, Ingrid leans forward and knocks their knees together. She leans across the divide between them and kisses him softly. Her lips are chapped and the touch is light, but it feels like Ingrid and for Sylvain that is enough to lighten his heart of more than a few burdens.
She leans away quickly, her cheeks flushed pink. She stands up and shifts her crutch under her arm. "You'll have to try that proposal again after the war with my father's permission and your mother's ring."
Sylvain's lips quirk into a smile. Of course, she remembers the time where she visited Gautier lands and his mother had tried so hard to get Ingrid to take her ring and to become betrothed to Sylvain, nevermind the fact that she was already betrothed to Glenn at the time.
He watches her hobble towards the entrance of the tent, but she pauses right at the door. She looks back at him and there's a fondness in her green eyes that is both familiar and alien to him.
"For the record, I love you too, Sylvain," she says and then she disappears out of the tent, leaving him alone with tingling lips and a pair of very important letters to write.
Author's Note: This fic was born around the idea of Sylvain getting mad at Dimitri because Ingrid got hurt and punching him. Hilda wrote herself in because I love her and she and Sylvain have excellent supports. Another daily reminder that I miss the Blue Lion Route basically. We Stand part 4 is coming, I just have to finish moving first.
Love you guys. I hope everyone's staying safe and practicing responsible social distancing in these trying times. That shit's important.