Author's Note: Severa is surprisingly fun to write but man did she make this chapter difficult for me (there was so much that could've gone wrong, tonally). Unrelatedly, in battle Frederick really will refer to his wife as "my sweet" on the sparkly squares and it makes me a;skldjglaskgj because how cute is he.

6. Motherhood

"Chrom, Chrom, Chrom! Everything is Chrom, with you! If you loved him so much, you should've just married him!"

Cordelia could only stare as the girl took off, brown pigtails bobbing, bent on saving her companion and heedless of anything else.

"My sweet?" she heard Frederick ask. There was the hiss of sand as his horse stopped behind her pegasus. "Who was that? What did she have to say?"

She couldn't answer.

"Well?" he pressed. "Is she for or against us? Did you not fly ahead to determine the answer?"

She turned to him and opened her mouth, but it was still a moment before words appeared: "She's for us."

"Then why does she continue without us?" he asked as his eyes narrowed at her retreating form. "She does not appear to be an ally."

That may be my fault, she thought. Somehow.

"Frederick, we can figure it out later. Let's get back to Lord Chrom's side."

"But if she betrays our position—"

"We'll be there to protect him."

"Of course," he said, but paused as he took the reins. "What is the matter? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

"I think," she said, "it's the opposite."

xxx

After the battle, while Frederick met with Chrom and Robin to debrief, Cordelia sought the girl out, clutching at her sleeve before she could enter the bathing tent.

"Get off me!" the girl said as she jerked from her grip.

"Please," said Cordelia. "That ring you recovered. It's the same as mine, isn't it? So that means you really are…"

"Your daughter," said the girl, scowling at the ground. "I see you've finally noticed me. Now, are we done here? I hate being sweaty."

"But I have so many questions!" They spilled up into her throat: about the future, about their relationship, about Frederick. She wanted to embrace the young woman in front of her, so strong and so beautiful and so obviously hers, but her sharp, wary eyes made her hesitate, made her start slow. "What is your name?"

"Severa. Not that I'm surprised you don't remember."

Such a pretty name, and such hostility! She felt nervous as she wondered where it could be springing from, but attempted humour: "Well, how can I remember something I've never learned? Not yet, at least."

"Right, I forgot. You're perfect."

"Was I?" Cordelia asked. She hadn't put much thought into children yet, especially not with the war going on, but she'd always hoped for a daughter and always hoped she'd be a good parent. "What sort of mother was I?"

"Oh, you were wonderful," said Severa with another scowl. "Except for the part where you abandoned me."

"Abandoned you?" Cordelia was shocked. She could never imagine doing anything like that; surely it wasn't true. "How could I have—?"

"Cordelia!" Frederick's voice interrupted her and she turned to watch him stride to her side, protectively close, hands clasped behind his back as they always were when he was appraising a situation. "Forgive me for interrupting your conversation, but I must question this girl first. She could be a spy, or worse, an assassin."

"Oh, gods," said Severa as she rolled her eyes. "Look who it is."

"Frederick, that won't be necessary," Cordelia told him. Her heart was beating hard in her chest, as hard as her daughter had spat out Chrom's name. "Look at her ring."

The knight took Severa's hand and examined it, and while his eyes softened just slightly, his expression did not change as he released her. "She could be an imposter."

"Frederick, look at her!"

He did, despite Severa's glare and the tense silence. He looked for a long while before he took a deep, resolved breath.

"My girl," he said as he put a hand gingerly against her cheek. "You are so like your mother."

Cordelia expected her to wrench away, and she did—but first she studied him too, almost lovingly, for only half a second.

"I guess I did inherit your hair," said Severa gruffly. "I could never be sure; you were all grey for as long as I could remember."

"I told you so," Cordelia said to Frederick, which made him raise an eyebrow. A man who worried so much was bound to grey before his time, as she'd taken to reminding him.

"Like you care!" Severa snapped at her. "Gods, you're both as awkward now as you always were; I don't know what I expected. Dad left and then you did too, and not for Dad, no matter what you told me, since you said Chrom's name ten times a day. I'm not stupid! So let's make this clear: you abandoned me, I'm here for Lucina and nobody else, and I don't want to talk to you." She stormed off into the bathing tent.

Cordelia stared after her for a long while, and then she and Frederick stared at each other. There was a straining between them, a sharp need to speak, to say something, anything.

Neither did. They turned from each other and busied themselves with separate chores for the rest of the day.

xxx

That night, the space between them was wider than usual. Cordelia was curled into a tight ball and Frederick lay on his back, looking up at the canvas.

"I can't believe we left her," she whispered finally.

"I'm sure we had no choice," he said. "She comes from an apocalypse. If milord fought against it, I'm sure that I would be at his side, for your and Severa's sakes as well as his."

"I'm sure I would do the same."

"For different motives, it seems."

That shut her up. She squeezed her body into a tighter curl. The changes happened so slowly that she hadn't realized until recently that it was becoming easier and easier to be around Chrom without aching, easier and easier to dote on her husband. She thought she had been making progress.

Was she wrong, then? Would she slip back to the way things were before? Was she doomed to love her lord forever, hurting her husband and daughter the entire time?

The thought of them suffering because of her failures was too difficult to bear, worse than knowing she couldn't save Phila, worse than fleeing while her order of Pegasus Knights died for her. She began to weep—as silently as she could, until a sob she couldn't control escaped.

Frederick sat bolt-upright immediately. "I'm sorry. I was too harsh."

She shook her head and sobbed again. He must've thought his words brought on her tears, when truthfully he wasn't being harsh enough.

"I don't want to love him, Frederick. Is Severa telling the truth? I'm so frightened to know that even years and years from now, I still won't be free!"

He closed the space between them by pulling her to him, and she curled up once more against his side and cried into his shirt. For a long while he held her, saying nothing, but she had so much to say.

"This has always been something I can't control. It's scary and I hate it. I don't want to hurt you ever, let alone nonstop for the next twenty years, and I want to be a good mother. Is this all outside my control, too?"

"You are a different woman now than the woman who gave birth to Severa," he said. "Just by the fact that our children have come back to alter time, we have been altered as well."

"But what if this is something about me that doesn't change?"

"I expect you'll be a good mother no matter what. You're good at everything."

"That's nonsense! I left her! I left my only child alone!"

"Perhaps it wasn't a choice but a necessity," he said. "You won't know until you reach that part of your life and see your options for yourself. And if we can win this war, that moment may never come."

"Unless I didn't leave for the war, but for Chrom." She clutched at his shirt. "Perhaps in the future, I will go anyway."

"If that is what would make you happy," he said, very quietly, "then that is what you should do. All I ask is that you make sure I am still around for our child."

"I don't want to, Frederick. I don't want to!"

"Then why are you worrying?" He rested his cheek against her hair. "Why would you do something you don't want to do?"

"But the future—"

"Has changed," he finished. "And so have you."

She hoped he was right. That night she let him hold her again, and she tried to hold him too, desperate for him to know she wasn't a monster, even if it seemed she couldn't avoid becoming one.