SEMPER LIBER

Summary: A dying man's final request sends a young woman to a new life at Badon Hill. TristanOC.

Disclaimer & Author's Note: I like to think that Malory would have his legends of King Arthur belong to the ages, but I cannot lay claim to them nor to those responsible for the 2004 film by the same name. Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

A/N#2: All babies are born with blue eyes, so suspend your disbelief. Good morning, star shine.

Chapter 20: Miracle

The night was cold and clear. Stars hung high above the battlements, still and glittering like ice. The hour had turned the Roman flags black, their banners twisting violently in the rising wind. The tavern was warmly lit and full enough to compensate for the winter weather. Cider ale flowed, infusing the air with a hot, pungent scent.

Cariad was restless. She leaned heavily against the archway that separated the tavern from the street beyond. She curled her fingers into the folds of her wool cloak and turned her face into her hood. She let her head rest against the stone and closed her eyes, breathing in the crisp night air.

From across the tavern where he sat in the company of his fellow knights, Tristan watched her cheeks flush beneath the flickering light of the sconces. Eyes still sweetly closed, her lips twitched into a secret smile. He felt its whispered promise swell in his chest. It still overwhelmed him sometimes – as she would argue that it should – that he had come to love her so strongly.

Cariad's eyes opened then, and she met his affectionate scrutiny easily. She uncurled her fingers from her cloak and raised her hand in a small wave. She threw him a smile, almost shy, and disappeared into the shadows beyond the archway.

Tristan lingered long enough to enjoy his hot drink before he followed her. "Good night," he muttered to the other men. Galahad chuckled, a little drunkenly, but the sound of it did not reach Tristan's ears. He smirked, however, at his own private thoughts. Roaming solitude was the quiet haven of many females on the verge of giving birth.

Cariad traveled the cold, dark streets, comfortable with the scout's near silent presence following her like a shadow. She wandered, leading him for nearly a half hour before she paused and held out of her hand. Tristan took her it, his hot fingers burning against her palm. Cariad leaned against the wall of the armory, tilting her head up to the sky.

Slipping his arm around her shoulders, Tristan turned her body into his, pressing his cheek to hers in a rare show of unsolicited affection. He kissed the corner of her mouth, then pulled her close, holding her tightly against him. "I… love you," he whispered.

Cariad chuckled, a puff of air against his jaw. He felt her cold hands at the back of his neck and shivered, not unpleasantly. "I love you," she answered. She pulled away slightly, her dark eyes shining with anticipation. "I think I ought to lie down."

Tristan drew up a half-smile and kissed her forehead. He took her arm and walked them slowly back to their rooms, a place so near to home that he occasionally misspoke and called it as such.

While Cariad undressed, awkward and careful, Tristan knelt and built a fire. He turned to watch her as he stoked the flame. He could not help seeing her as he had so many times in those first few weeks he'd known her, a pale ghost dressed in quiet and white. Her shift fell to her calves, loose, draped over her like one of Arthur's Roman myths. She was beautiful and barely there and blessedly real. He did not realize he stared until she finished changing and mocked him with her eyes.

"The night is young," Cariad answered his unspoken question. "Enjoy our friends' company. I am not going anywhere."

Tristan rose and helped her into bed, more of a hindrance than a help to her fully pregnant body, but she welcomed his attentions. Cariad turned carefully onto her side, facing him. He drew the thick pile of wool blankets and quilts from the foot of the bed up to her shoulders, burying her under their weight. She smiled softly and stole his hand. "Go," she said, kissing his fingertips.

"Are you sure?" Tristan asked.

Cariad nodded with a tired hum. "Yes."

Tristan smoothed her dark hair back from her face, still flushed and shining, as if trying to determine the verity of her answer. "All right." It was a strange, silent agreement they made not to bid each other good night, and for all the uncertainty of the past fourteen months, there were not wrong about the time.

-

Vanora kissed Bors sweetly an hour later and left the men to their drink. She spared Tristan a glance as she passed. He had been quieter than usual since his return to the tavern, but even without his suspicious behavior, Vanora would have known. She had been watching her friend since the morning, cataloguing her restless, stumbling fingers and warmly diffused distraction.

Cariad was sitting on her knees on the cold stone floor when Vanora entered, staring up at the ceiling. She turned to greet her visitor with an uncomfortable grimace.

"Hello, my wonderful girl," Vanora whispered happily. She touched Cariad's shoulder. "Would you like to get back into bed?"

Cariad covered Vanora's hand with her own. "No," she groaned. "I think I would like to stay down here for a little while."

"All right, then." Vanora sat on the edge of the bed and busied her hands, braiding Cariad's hair back with nimble fingers. "Tell me."

Cariad clenched her teeth around a sudden, keening moan that came up from her gut. "I feel as though I have been kicked by a horse," she said through gritted teeth.

Vanora chuckled. "Good." She stood up. "I will go get the midwife. Are you quite sure you want to stay down there?" she asked, cocking her head at the younger woman.

Cariad looked up at her from the floor, eyes shining with pain. "Quite," she choked out. A tear slid down her flushed cheek.

Vanora leaned down and kissed the tear away. "I will not be gone long. I promise."

-

Tristan was angry about being kept out of his own bedroom, and embarrassed by the hidden hovering of Gawain and Galahad in the alley beyond the door. The miserly midwife had been more than insistent about her views on modesty, and the near public chastisement irked him more powerfully than anything else. He did not like to be told what to do, and did not like being forced to sit still while Cariad screamed in the other room.

His willpower failed the moment she began to cry for her life. Tristan would have thrown the midwife against the wall if he had thought it might help, but he settled for darting around her offended reaction to take Cariad's hand before she could repeat her cry.

"You are not going to die, my wonderful girl," Vanora was saying, her cool hand pressed comfortingly against Cariad's brow.

Cariad sobbed with the fear of it, tortured by the blinding flashes of pain she imagined her mother had felt moments before her death. "I do not want to die," she cried desperately. She barely felt Tristan's hand slide into hers, but she gripped it fiercely all the same. "I do not want to die."

"You will not," Tristan promised quietly, allowing Vanora to push him towards the head of the bed, where he would be out of the way.

"Silly girl," the midwife growled. Tristan shot her a scathing look, but the older woman neither saw nor felt it. She had delivered more than a hundred babies in her long life, and there was nothing that could break her concentration or distract her from the task at hand. "If you are going to be here, you might as well keep her quiet," she barked, turning away to reach for a dry cloth.

Tristan glowered at her until Vanora poked him sharply in the shoulder. He knelt, shifting his weight slightly until he could see the terror in Cariad's eyes. He laid his free hand flat along her collar bone, his thumb resting against the hollow of her throat. Her skin was hot and damp with sweat. "Cariad, Cariad," he soothed, trying to get her to look at him.

She met him with an expression of fierce determination. "I do not want to die."

"You will not," he repeated.

Cariad slammed her eyes closed then, and her whole body seemed to convulse. She turned her head, pressing their clasped hands to her forehead with a grimace of pain. "It hurts."

Before Tristan could respond, the midwife spoke up. "This is the last one I am doing," she announced, as if the last one were not fully in progress. She handed Vanora the clean linen and crossed her arms. "You know what to do."

Vanora's eyes widened momentarily. She scowled at the midwife, then looked up at Cariad. "You are almost done," she assured the younger woman.

One last hot surge of pain was followed by a sharp stinging sensation, and then blissful numbness. With a cry of relief and exhaustion, Cariad rolled her head away from Tristan and stared blurrily at the dark stone wall. Her breath seemed to echo all around her, and her head felt light. She closed her eyes. Her body pulsed, warm and sleepy, and she fell into welcome unconsciousness.

Tristan shook Cariad's shoulder, forgetting his company in his fear. "Cariad. Cariad." He looked quickly to the midwife, then to Vanora. "She's feinted."

"Oh, she's fine," the midwife said, bustling about in search of a clean blanket.

Vanora looked at Tristan, sympathetic but undeniably excited. "Her body will do the rest."

Tristan barely thought about the baby, about the point and product of all this pain and labor. Instead, he watched Cariad as she disappeared into slumber and the hard, weary lines of pain on her face softened into sweet relief. He closed his eyes, listening to her breathe as he had become accustomed to doing so many nights before, and opened them only when his daughter first cried out her presence into the world.

-

Cariad woke in the refreshing embrace of a clean shift and sheets, and in the company of a strange little person she had never seen before and would have known anywhere. She lay on her side, her back to the room, and laid her hand tentatively on the baby's swaddled belly. "Hello."

Tristan rose from the chair where had kept watch most of the night. He settled himself on the side of the bed where he could see both of them, still struggling with the emotion that had kept him alert all those hours – wonder. He did not consider himself a sentimental man. It was strange to smile so broadly, and a little embarrassing, but he could not help it.

"Well," Cariad said, her wit a little less sharp beneath the veil of her exhaustion, "have I done what you asked?"

Tristan leaned back against the wall and answered with a tilt of his head. "It is a girl."

Cariad's grin came but with a laugh that could have been a sob. Her eyes teared. "Hello, baby girl."

Tristan watched, fascinated, as the little person opened its eyes sleepily, its tiny mouth pursed in a sloppy bow and then yawning open, pink and perfect. "It needs a name," he said finally.

"It?" Cariad touched the tip of her index finger to the baby's nose with a small smile. "She needs a name." She thought for a moment, considering the newborn's dark hair and eyes, so familiar and real as to be a little bit startling. Existence itself could be sweet. She sighed softly, content.

"Call her after your mother," Tristan suggested after a few minutes.

Cariad frowned a little but could not take her eyes off her daughter. "Would that be wise?"

Tristan leaned down to press a kiss to Cariad's forehead. "No harm can be done now," he whispered, a promise. "Forgive yourself."

Cariad did not try to blink back her tears. "Very well." She traced the now dozing infant's chubby cheek down to the edge of the swaddling blanket, curling her finger beneath her daughter's chin. "Hail, little Lowri."

Gently, Tristan lifted Cariad's hand and raised it to his mouth in a gesture of love and thanks. "Very well, indeed."