Author's Note: I've been taught that every sentence should enhance either plot or character. We'll call this entire chapter "character." You can have plot next time.

5. Little Things

That night Cordelia surprised him. He had stayed up late folding laundry in their tent: Chrom's, Lissa's, Cordelia's, his, in four neat little piles. He thought he was alone until her hands landed on his shoulders and her thumbs started to press into his muscles.

"Just as I thought," she said. "You're so tense."

"We're a matching pair."

"They should call you Frederick the Thorough," she said, sounding amused. "While folding laundry, you even speak in laundry terms."

She kept rubbing his shoulders, and his eyes fluttered shut before he had the presence of mind to shrug away. "No. I have to finish, first."

"What you have to do is relax."

"Work before play."

"Makes Frederick a dull boy."

"I've always been dull," he said mildly as he rolled two socks together. "And the phrase is 'all work and no play.'"

"There's no reason why you can't combine the two," she offered, settling her hands on him again.

He liked compromises because everybody won, a little bit.

After she finished his shoulders she moved up to his neck, and down his back when she'd finished there. By that time everything was folded and he allowed his eyes to close again, although his mind was busy. What did she mean to say by massaging the knots out of him? What was the purpose?

"Did you want to make love tonight?" he guessed.

"Not especially." She sounded confused but her answer confused him more.

"Do you want a new pendant?"

"What?" Her hands stopped.

"Why are you rubbing my shoulders?" he asked.

"Because I want to?"

"For no reason?"

"Yes," she said. "You do it for me almost every night. Can't I do it for you once in a while?"

"But there's no motive?" he asked. "I'm not really one for subtlety; this is difficult for me."

"Frederick, I'm not being subtle. I told you that I don't expect you to read my mind, remember?"

"But how am I to know that I'm pleasing you? Doing everything you want me to do?" He started to get that nervous tightness in his chest that happened when he didn't check something enough times. She kissed the back of his neck and it eased a little.

"I said I'd be honest with you. And right now, I just honestly want you to relax a little."

"You've loosened all my muscles, there," he told her as her thumbs went back to his shoulders.

"I know," she said. "But it still feels good, doesn't it?"

He nodded and allowed himself a happy sigh. So she wanted to do something nice for him—and that was it? As always, she did an exceptional job of it. He was lucky she'd agreed to marry him. He was lucky she cared for him at all, even as a friend.

"I love you," he whispered.

She didn't respond, and he didn't expect her to. He just wanted her to know.

xxx

The next few weeks felt odd, to Frederick. The war only got more bitter and difficult, but his personal life was wonderful, full of small joys that he and Cordelia tried to give to each other—things like spontaneous shoulder rubs, since they both tended to tense to the point of headaches for no reason at all.

He knew they had different motivations, for this. He did them because he always had, because he loved her. And while she didn't quite want to in the same way he did, she did them simply to make him happy. This system—this selflessness—worked out very well for them both.

She started to call him "dear" because she could sense that he liked it. He stopped trying to do all her chores for her to show he trusted her to do them the right way. She began to moan his name at night, and while he knew it wasn't because of any skill on his part, he also knew she did it to reassure him, and it worked. To return the favour he started paying her one deliberate compliment each day about her chest. At first she blushed, and he felt forward, but she needed to understand that there was nothing for her to be ashamed of. It was weeks before he repeated a single comment, and by then her blushes had turned to smiles.

At night, though he longed to sleep with her in his arms, she was never one for cuddling and so he kept a space between them. That was why she surprised him again when she rolled over one night, resting her head on his chest and her arm around his waist.

"You love me," she said.

"I do."

"Do you know how I know?"

He had to think about that. What did he do that was grand or colossal enough to prove something so strong, so eternal?

"Is it because I say it every day?" he guessed. And he did: after they were in bed and before his prayers, every night without fail.

"No."

"Is it because I won't demand your love in return?"

"No."

This puzzled him, but he tried once more: "Is it because I would die for you?"

"No," she said. He knew she was smiling. "It's because of the little things."

He found that oddly sweet. His whole life had been filled with little things: cleared pebbles and matching socks and precise hues of blankets. Frederick the Wary was not a man of big pictures, but of tiny details, just in case those details proved to be important (one could never be too careful). To be told that this was how love showed itself was at once powerful and comforting.

But it also didn't make complete sense.

"You do the little things for me, too," he whispered to Cordelia.

She was silent for a long moment. And then: "I care for you, Frederick. More than I did weeks ago, and more than when we were married."

He stayed quiet, unsure of how to respond, and she told him,

"Sometimes I go for days without thinking of Chrom, now."

They both knew what she meant to say. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her hair, and she let him hold her all night long. Everything was wonderful, he thought. Would be wonderful.

But the next morning they met a girl with his hair and Cordelia's chin, and she was furious with her mother.

Author's Note: A wild Severa appeared. (Wow, halfway done. Thanks for reading along so far!) Feedback is always appreciated!