To say that things are tense from that point on is quite the understatement. Everyone is shaken up afterwards, and once they have made it through the most important part, making sure that no one is too seriously injured, it is hard for anyone to be able to sleep. Ferdinand is not hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the hospital, but he is bruised where Solon grabbed him with such strength, and so rattled by all of this that it seems a miracle that he has not turned and run from them forever.

It is even more of a miracle that he insists on staying with them, for the rest of the weekend, so that they can all make sure that nobody else comes to retaliate. Exhaustion mingles with nerves, and they have to sleep in shifts, just to make sure that they feel secure throughout the weekend, not knowing if Solon was intended to be the first of many sent to search for Edelgard tonight, or if he came on his own, and it will be a while before they know for sure that he is missing.

It took some time for him to trace Kronya's disappearance to them, but that does not mean that that situation will repeat itself. Anything could happen and nothing is predictable, and now more than ever, Byleth wishes that the school year was over, so that Edelgard could get out of here, and so that they could stop sitting around, waiting for danger to come to them, and start searching for answers themselves.

Of course, the difficulty of the fight puts a bit of a damper on that spirit, making her wonder if it will ever be possible to overwhelm vampires as she is now, but she is determined not to give up. Her father was strong, even if she never knew it, and there are others out there like him, human like her but facing these creatures without hesitation. And she has Edelgard on her side, getting stronger every day; they have come too far now to give up, and even if the fight with Solon was difficult, they still won. There is still hope for them, and that is something they have to hold onto.

At the very least, as far as they know, Solon was the only one who knew Ferdinand's connection to them, and he should be safe even being left behind when they go. That is a topic that they still avoid, but Byleth thinks about it often, and is glad that they shouldn't have to worry about him. In fact, he will probably be safer with the three of them out of his life, another fact that is difficult to consider.

~X~

On Monday, they return to school and it is as if nothing happened. To everyone else, nothing has happened, and everyone talks about the prom- or the party that the underclassmen attended- and it seems impossible that that was just Saturday night. It seems like years have passed since they danced and Edelgard and Ferdinand were crowned on the court. It hardly seems like everything that happened all happened in the course of one night.

The situation is so tense that being at school for those next few weeks is very difficult. Often, Byleth finds her mind wandering to battle strategies, always worried about what may be waiting for them when they get home. School is not safe either, she has to remind herself, and if they are attacked here then it is all over for them. Keeping Edelgard's secret at school is still just as important as it ever was, and that would blow things entirely.

She is at least able to hide her distracted state from Caspar, who is officially dating Petra now, and rambles about that whenever he has the chance. She is genuinely happy for the two of them, happy that Caspar has that going for him and happier now than ever before that he is completely separate from the rest of her life. He has been a good friend to her since she started school, and he is her only real friend that isn't wrapped up in this mess. No matter what happens, Caspar should be safe, and she is happy, but at the same time, strangely sad.

She will be leaving all of this behind soon, not only because she is graduating, but because they will be leaving town. After moving so much without issue, she has never had to worry about what she is leaving behind. This is the first time that she has ever gotten attached enough to anything to be sad about leaving it. It is bittersweet, and she is at least glad that, by leaving, they put her new friend in considerably less danger.

It's for the best that Caspar doesn't know anything about what really goes on in her life, and for the best that she will never be able to see him again.

Still, he sometimes notices her distance, and tries to draw her into the conversation. When he gets too on about Petra, he grins at her and tries to get her to talk about Hubert, still convinced that there is something going on between the two of them, but never realizing exactly what it is that's going on. Embarrassingly enough, Hubert seems to always overhear, giving Byleth these looks when Caspar teases her, making it feel almost like the old days, when things were just a little bit simpler.

Finally, one day when Caspar tries to get her to admit that she and Hubert are a thing now, he actually comes over to join them, standing over Caspar and making the younger boy shrink down in his desk a bit, clearly intimidated.

"You know that's none of your business, Caspar," he says, the smile on his face far from friendly. Byleth has to resist laughing, a rarity lately. "Better not talk about people where they can hear you."

With that, he returns to his desk and Caspar takes a moment to relax before pouting and saying, "Well, if you do like him, I can't see why. He's so scary! Well, I guess he'd be less scary for his girlfriend, huh?"

And just like that, he's back on it, not learning a thing, and never changing. Byleth is definitely going to miss him when she graduates and disappears.

~X~

Ferdinand is able to put on a brave face for the campaign, never letting on that he is dealing with anything outside of school. Dimitri has finally taken an interest in student government for his final year, stepping up to be Ferdinand's new rival, but Ferdinand does not back down, fighting for the position he has been denied for years. He fights with the sort of fervor anyone would expect from him, with or without Edelgard to battle against.

Though he never admits it to anyone, Byleth suspects that this really is all just a front, that he is simply going through the motions. She suspects that he no longer cares about student government at all, and that it is hard for him to, when he has so much else on his mind. In a way, the face he puts on is the bravest of the bunch.