Author: Triane
Disclaimer: Not. Mine. Except Iona. Everything else belongs to someone else.
Summary: Dagonet and Iona butt heads, and Iona mends some fences while finding others in disrepair.
Three months later, on the day before the one that the knights had been looking forward to for fifteen years, Dagonet looked down at Arthur with steel in his blue eyes, while Iona looked up at her husband with fire in her brown ones. Arthur's voice was calm, but had a hint of exasperation that only his knights would have been able to pick up.
"Dagonet, I understand your concern, but everyone is going. We will be together the entire time, and there will be no surprises. Bishop Germanius must reach the fort safely, so Iona must come with us." Dagonet shook his head.
"Iona stays." His wife huffed her displeasure at him, blowing her raggedy bangs away from her eyes.
"Iona does not stay. Iona goes. Iona does her job, because Iona, husband, trusts in her brothers. Trusts in you." Dagonet pursed his lips at his wife, his voice a low rumble.
"Look where that got you last time." Iona rocked back on her heels as if she had been slapped, understanding instantly. Arthur silently slipped out the door to give them privacy, and when Iona spoke, her voice was barely audible.
"You think that it's your fault." Dagonet didn't reply, but his eyes flickered and Iona started gearing herself up for a confrontation that she should have seen coming and prevented long ago. Her hands fluttered uselessly for a moment, landing briefly on her hips before reaching for her husband, pulling him gently to a chair and pushing him into it. She looked down at him for a moment before sighing and climbing into his lap, cursing herself as every kind of selfish fool. At the back of her mind she noted how Dagonet held himself stiffly, but filed the information away for later. She rested her head on his shoulder, her voice low and neutral.
"If it had been you and Bors, and only you were able to speak the language, what would you have done?" No answer, but she hadn't really been expecting one.
"If it had been you and Bors, and only he was able to speak the language, what would you have done?" Silence.
"What if it were Tristan? Or Galahad? Or anyone other than me? What if Arthur had told you to leave him and go back for the others?" She waited for a moment, but answered her own questions when Dagonet remained tight-lipped.
"If it had been you, you would not blame anyone else for what happened. If it had been anyone else, you would have gone for help and would not be blaming yourself this much. It's because it's me that you're having a hard time, even though I am now perfectly healthy, and not one of the knights were even injured." Dagonet's jaw clenched, but Iona continued.
"There was no other option, Dagonet, and you know it. Arthur needed the information that I got from the camp, and the benefits of that far outweigh the consequences." Dagonet's low voice exploded from his chest.
"The consequences?" Iona found herself falling to the floor as Dagonet stood angrily, reaching with impartial hands almost as an after-thought to catch her and set her on her feet again. He began to pace angrily, his hands clenching into fists.
"I had to see my wife broken and violated inside a Saxon tent. The wife I promised to protect for the rest of my life only days before. The wife I left to go for help when I should have stayed and defended her no matter what. The wife who had to endure all manner of torture and filth at the hands of that Saxon scumwhile I ran around the countryside like some half-wit." He whirled around to stare at her, his eyes blazing.
"What kind of a husband does that make me?" It was Iona's turn to stand speechless as Dagonet resumed his pacing, cursing himself in Latin and Sarmatian.
"It's never going to happen again. If I can't protect you when we're out on patrol together, you're never going on patrol again. You'll stay here, you'll be the fort recorder, and you'll be safe. If I can't protect you like I should, then I'll make sure there's never another opportunity for you to be in danger." Iona's voice burst away from her before she could stop it.
"Bloody hell you will!" Dagonet stopped in his tracks, momentarily diverted from his tirade as he turned to look at his wife who was standing with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.
"I have stayed here, in this fort, for the last three months, stayed behind while you all went out on patrols. I have let you coddle me for the last three months, because I needed you to. But now - now things are different. Now I'm ready. Now I want my life back. Now I'm not content with just training with you in the practice yard. You are getting your freedom tomorrow, Dagonet! You think I can live like some pampered princess while my husband and brothers are out putting themselves in danger? You think I'll be able to stand the uncertainty of not knowing if you're coming back when I know I could influence the outcome of a fight if I were there? You think I'm the type of woman who'll wait patiently, watching for you, and quietly accept it if you don't return? Do you expect me to wait, tomorrow of all days, to see if you don't come back? Do you know me at all?" Dagonet folded his arms across his big chest, looking down at her from beneath a lowered brow. Iona stalked up to him and forced him to bend down to her level with a hand at the back of his neck.
"It was stupid, Dagonet. It was complete and utter idiocy, plain and simple. And more than anyone else, I know that. You had to see it, Dag, but I was livingit, and I am so very, very sorry for what I made you do. You think it's your fault that it happened, but it's no one's fault but my own. You think you're not worthy of trust, but the fact that you came and got me out proves that no one else is worthier." She softened, strong hands at his jaw line and foreheads pressed together.
"Don't lock me up here, Dagonet. Don't separate us out of fear for me. I need to be with you, need to fight beside you, to fight my way back into being normal. If I run away from our life, let you protect me by shutting me up, then we've let them win. And I couldn't handle that." Dagonet's eyes slid shut and his shoulders slumped, knowing she was right, and knowing he was all bluster and smoke anyways - they would be leaving the fort in a matter of days, and then where would that leave his grand plan for her to never be in danger? Iona ran her hands down his strong arms, rubbing circles into his shoulders and feathering her hands back up to his neck. Dagonet let his arms slip around his wife, holding her close for the first time in weeks. Iona's voice was soft.
"Besides...wouldn't you rather I was beside you in a fight? You take so much looking after." The big man snorted, a wry chuckle escaping from him. Iona smiled as well, then stood on her toes to kiss her husband. Dagonet stiffened slightly, but Iona was persistent and after a second he relaxed, pulling her closer, drinking in her kiss like he had just survived a century's drought. He had missed her, missed her touch, missed holding her close through the long, cold nights when he was afraid to touch her for fear of frightening her in turn. But now that she was in his arms, he was caught up in the familiar feeling of her lithe body pressed against him, of one hand tangled in her wild hair and the other splayed across her back, of her quick mouth pressed against his, of how she made him forget everything except her.
Iona, for her part, almost wept at the welcome feeling of Dagonet's mouth on hers, at how secure she felt inside the circle of his strong arms. She pressed more insistently against him, deepening the kiss, running her hands over him the way she knew he loved, loving the way their bodies fit together, and loving the feeling of him under her hands.
But just when she could feel how much she was affecting him, Dagonet abruptly pulled away, holding her gently at arms length until she was stable on her feet. Then he dropped his hands, and the loss of contact felt like an ice-bath to Iona's flushed skin. His voice was husky as he looked almost everywhere except at her.
"I'm going to go make sure Agravain and Ardin are ready for tomorrow." With that, he was gone - leaving a very dazed and confused wife in his wake.