Chapter Text
“How is your voice today, Robin?”
“Still a bit painful, but I will manage,” she admitted after she a sip of water. Chrom took the glass from her hand once she finished it, his warm hands ghosting over hers and sending shivers down her spine. On a whim, she grasped it with both hands and cradled it against her chest, the familiar feeling of his skin against her making her feel at ease. The world was blurry still, and her body barely felt her own to command most days. More often than not she awoke in a daze, around people who said things that didn’t make sense and dodged her requests for clarification time and again.
But this, his callused hand in hers, always by her side, this was her home in this madness. She gently rubbed circles into the back of his hand, noticing the lack of ring. When had he taken it off, and why? When she looked up to ask him, the tell-tale look of discomfort was written all over his face, to her great surprise. “What? Is this not okay? Are you hurt?”
Chrom pulled back his hand back a bit too eagerly, nervously pushing back a few strands of hair behind his ear. “You just, never touched me so much before. Not that I mind! But…,” he strayed, refusing to meet her eyes. “You’ve been different, ever since you woke up. It’s in the little things, and I know I shouldn’t be complaining since you’re awake and all, but I suppose I’m just afraid the coma changed you, and I won’t recognize my best friend anymore.”
“Best… friend?” Robin uttered incredulously.
Her face must have spoken her utter disbelief for her, because Chrom’s own nervous expression quickly morphed into a panicked one. “You… said you remembered me, I assumed that…,” Assumed what? Robin wanted to yell, but the pained tone of his voice made her keep her silence. “I am still your best friend, right?”
What. The. Hell?
She mustered all her patience, and trapped his gaze with her own. “Chrom… you’ve always been so much more than that to me. I’m merely surprised to hear you call me that of all things.” She said slowly, making sure every word got through to him. She wanted to hear him say it first, needed it like water and like air. How about Wife? Soulmate? Or one of those other terms of endearment he sometimes whispered when it was just the two of them? It didn’t matter which one, as long as it came from his lips.
But it never did, every silent tick of the clock adding to the desperate feeling slowly growing in her stomach. Dr. Libra forbid me from asking before you’re ready, but… what exactly do you remember?”
“Everything after you found me in the field four years ago, Chrom. The shepherds, the war with Plegia, Emmeryn, Lucina-” Every word was more desperate than the previous one, until she started coughing. Damn that Grima, even in death he managed to screw her over.
“Ho, ho, calm down.” Chrom rubbed circles on her back, a movement that felt painfully fake and wonderfully familiar at the same time. “Plegia? Like your last name? Isn’t that your mother’s old hometown? And who is Lucina, is she a friend of yours?”
Robin blinked in sheer disbelief. “You… don’t remember Lucina?” This had to be a cruel joke, for their daughter was his pride and joy. Why would he hurt her like this? “Our Lucy?” She whispered, tears prickling behind her eyes.
“Should I?” His face was an open book to her, always had been, and it was clear as day that there was no lie there.
“Where am I, Chrom?” Robin spit out, ripping the blanket off her. Every muscle screamed at her while she moved her legs over the edge of the bed, hands frantically looking for a tome or sword, her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Or rather, who are you, for you are not the man I followed to the end of the world. He would never…,” she trailed off, unable to speak through the pain. Damn these useless muscles!
The look-a-like at least shared his strength with her husband, and easily pushed her back into the bed. “Relax, Robin! The doctor told you you had to be careful, you’re still very fragile!” He yelled at her, his brow furrowed in worry just like her husband’s would be. Damn, what kind of dark magic was this? “And what do you mean ‘who are you’? You said you recognized me!”
“You may bear his resemblance, but my- he would never- I-” Robin grit out through the pain, and with her remaining strength she pushed his arms off her, and threw her weight forward, off the bed. She hit the floor with a painful thump, but the pain was nothing compared to the feeling of utter betrayal that threatened to rip her chest apart.
“Robin, stay with me!” Chrom gritted between his teeth, but Robin could barely register his voice as her vision slowly twisted and turned into nothingness. The last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was Chrom’s frantic cries for help. “Dammit! Mrs. Plegia! Please, something is wrong with Robin!”
-
When she awoke again, calming red and orange light cast long shadows into the bedroom, reflecting wonderfully on the older woman’s short white hair. In one of their rare private moments during the long campaign against Valm, Chrom had once taken a strand of her own hair, so very much like this woman’s, and admitted that it had been the first thing he’d fallen for. She’d blushed as bright as the sunset that day, giddy with love. Now, it only brought tears to her eyes.
“Are you feeling better now?” The woman who had claimed to be er mother before said with a small tremor in her voice but a kind look in her eyes. She knew that look, she’d used it many times herself, to mask all the worry she felt when Morgan’s head started hurting or Lucina overworked herself again. She’d seen in on the face of every mother, just never her mother.
Robin opened her mouth to answer, but a sudden jolt of pain shot through her head, originating from where she had hit the ground.
“I send Chrom away to get some groceries, he shouldn’t be gone for long.” Her supposed mother said in a conversational tone, and then, much softer: “Did he say something that upset you?”
It wasn’t so much a question as it was a gentle demand to tell her everything, and hopelessly alone and lost, Robin wanted to do just that. “He doesn’t remember her… our-” But the words never got past the bile in her throat. She felt like throwing up, small dots of wetness appearing on the blankets.
The woman didn’t comment on her tears, and Robin was grateful for her respectful silence. Instead, she rubbed comforting circles into Robin’s back until she composed herself again. Contrary to the last time she was awake, this silence was comforting. She could have stabbed her in the back at any moment, Robin realized all too well. She looked at the woman with new eyes, that of a fellow mother, and saw thinly concealed pain and worry, and felt even worse than she already did.
Perhaps this woman could turn out to be an ally in this strange world full of imposters, but she would have to play her cards right. With a voice befitting of an actress - or perhaps more aptly put, of a grandmaster - she took her mother’s hand in her own and apologized. “It must hurt you too, when I said I didn’t remember you. I apologize.”
The small crack in her supposed mother’s smile told Robin all she needed to know. “There is nothing to apologize for,” she dismissed quickly with a new light in her eyes. “But I have to know what upset you so much, dear.”
Robin swallowed deeply, repeating her resolve in her mind. “He…. he asked me what I remembered,” she admitted softly. “But none of our memories seem to match. Nor do I have any recollection of this place, or of the fashion you wear. It’s like I’m in a foreign world, waking up with a blank slate once more.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed in a way that she had only seen in her daughter’s face, or perhaps in the mirror. “That reckless, idiotic boy!” She cursed under her breath. “I had told him not to overburden you so quickly! When you were less lucid, Libra asked you some similar questions, and you reacted just as badly as you did today. Chrom knew better than to bring up the topic just like that.”
Well, that sounded familiar at least. “Diplomacy never was his strong suit.”
“Of all things to remember..,” her mother uttered bitterly under her breath.
“And what about what I’ve forgotten?” Robin pressed, keeping her face as sincere as she could. She needed information to form a strategy.
“Robin…” When she pressed again, her mother sighed deeply. “I don’t want to risk you falling back into a coma. Dr. Libra advised-”
“From what I gathered, my memories don’t match up with anything. You keep telling me I’ve been hit with this ‘car’ thing, and yet I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean by that,” Robin interrupted her, interlacing truth into her deception, manipulating a mother’s heart with ease. “I have a right to know what is wrong with me. I might be ill right now, but hardly a child you need to protect.”
The woman let out a shrill, humorless chuckle. “A mother never stops worrying, dear. You’ll learn that in due time.” Already have, Robin thought privately while she started explaining, reluctance palpable in her every word. “Sometimes, coma patients have vivid dreams, worlds of their own creation that locks them up in the safety of their minds until their body is ready. We weren’t sure, and it might just be a case of amnesia still, but-”
“Do you know the Halidom of Ylisse?” Robin interrupted, her heart beating fiercely in her chest.
Her mother’s confusion was sincere. “I’ve never heard of a halidom, is that some kind of kingdom?”
Robin ignored her question. “And Plegia, the desert kingdom? Please, I need to know.”
“Mind your breathing,” her mother cautioned instead of answering, and it was only then that Robin realized how heavy she was breathing. “Perhaps you’ve heard enough for today. You’re still recovering-”
The patronizing yet sincere way she petted her hair drove home a simple but earth shattering truth: Neither Chrom nor this woman had any recollection of the world she had given her life for. Nobody would ever dare to withhold information from Ylisse’s queen and tactician, not after everything she had pulled off. Robin’s plan to secure an ally fell into a thousand little pieces, and everything around her was suddenly twice as bright, blindingly so.
During the two year peace, she had made it her life’s goal to find out everything she could about her own condition. To fall into a dreamlike state to cope with the physical damage while the body recovered… it was not uncommon. Suddenly, every miraculous maneuver she had pulled came into question, and a shadow of doubt was cast over her sanity.
Still, she had to ask. “And… Lucina? Morgan? Owain? Or even Inigo? Nah? Do any of these names mean anything to you?”
“I’m afraid not, dear,” Her mother admitted with visible reluctance. “I’m so sorry.”
Robin’s breath caught in her throat, painful and sharp. It was one thing to lose a loved one. It was another thing to find out that they had never existed at all.
Outside, a bird cried a lonesome song, and the day slowly came at an end. Her mother left the room, but Robin barely registered the fact. Instead, she stared into the distance, weighing every memory of the past few years with the simple facts in front of her. It was a painful, violent silence, that tore at everything she thought she knew until Libra returned at the break of dawn the next morning with a fresh tray of food and a worried smile.
“So… all my memories… are a dream?” She said before she could say anything else, every syllable a stab straight through the heart.
Libra sighed, set down the tray and sat down on the side of her bed, his long hair exactly as luscious as she remembered it to be. Could it really be just a dream? “It’s not uncommon among coma patients such as yourself, though it rarely happens that the details of the dream tend to stick more than reality,” he explained calmly. “It’s been four weeks since you woke up, and the scans keep coming back clean, so there is no physical reason for your amnesia.”
“Ha.” Robin laughed bitterly, almost deliriously. She’d heard that one before, time and again from every ruler in the realm.
“Well, it’s good to see you can remain positive.”
Robin shook her head at his misinterpretation. “It’s just…In my… dream, I was an amnesiac too.”
“Truly?” Libra said with a raised brow. “Well that might explain a thing or two. Your mind might be convinced you are an amnesiac, and therefor it blocks your memories.”
“My mind can do that?”
Libra sighed deeply. “The mind is truly Naga’s most complicated creation, and is as much our ally as it is our enemy. You’d be surprised what my other patients have forgotten just to protect themselves from the trauma they suffered. But in time, with proper therapy, your memories might return.”
“Might,” Robin repeated.
“Only time will tell. Until then, we can only pray,” Libra admitted. “Now, the mind is tricky, but our mortal flesh is quite a lot simpler. The coma weakened your muscles, but with diligent practise you should be able to walk again without problems. It will require effort…”
“I’m not afraid to put in some hard work,” Robin vowed. She had raised herself from nothing to a grandmaster of strategy before- or perhaps she hadn’t, if what Libra said was true. Still, the sooner she’d be able to get back on her feet, the faster she’d be able to get to the bottom of this, and find out what was real and not.
“Then I’ll book an appointment with a friend of mine who is a renowned physiotherapist, to get you started as soon as you can,” Libra said after checking some strange, beeping boxes Robin had little understanding of. “You’re going to be fine, Robin. You’ve got a remarkable spirit.”
He was her healer, so he would know. Then, Robin got a plan. “Libra, one more thing before you leave. Did I know you before I fell into a coma?” He had appeared in her dream, after all.
Libra nodded with a nostalgic smile. “I did my internship with your GP, so we talked a few times, yes. Though you kept calling me nurse.” Robin quickly apologized for that. “Did I play a large part in your dream?”
“You were a warmonk, gentle and kind,” Robin admitted, remembering he had come to them in the hour of their greatest need. “Fearsome to behold with your axe though. You dealt as many wounds as you healed, I’m certain.”
Libra looked taken aback. “Dear heavens above…,” he muttered under her breath, and without asking Robin was certain he was as religious in this life as he was in the one she remembered. “Well, I think I can honestly say that nobody ever envisioned me in such a….”
“Masculine way?” Robin guessed correctly. Libra nodded, waiting for her to elaborate. “You were mistaken for a woman a few times during your first months in the army. But after-” Robin cut herself off before she gave herself away. There was no wedding ring on Libra’s finger, just like her own was naked. It was one thing to reveal that he had appeared in her dream world - which still felt as real as the white-walled room around her. It was another to tell him she had envisioned an entire life for her, including stalkerish wife and a slightly psychotic daughter from a doomed future, so she kept her silence.
After Libra left, she was left alone with the chaos in her mind. With pain in her heart, she remembered her own daughter, who had come to the past and had stopped at nothing in order to change fate, but only when needed, lest she accidentally prevented the birth of one of her friends. Robin figured that asking whether or not he and Tharja had any plans for marriage, let alone children, could probably be considered messing with the future.
Was this the future, or perhaps more aptly put, a future? Or was this yet another realm altogether, parallel to the one she had lived and loved in previously?
Or perhaps was it all just a figment of an overactive imagination fighting for her dear life. How many times during the past four years spent at Chrom’s side had she asked herself if she hadn’t been dreaming all along? What were the odds that on the edge of despair, the prince of Ylisse and arguably the world’s only chance at sealing away the demon lurking within her blood, would find the vessel of said dragon in the middle of a field? And all the times they had escaped impossible situations with manoeuvres that she pulled out of thin air? It had been strategy, but not one without risks. And yet, aside from Emmeryn, no shepherd had died on her watch. How many wars were fought without any casualties? Not to mention the fact that she had two children who had travelled back in time, mere years younger than their parents.
Robin cradled her head in her hands. It pounded without ending now, thoughts driving her crazy every time she was left to her own devices. With every passing moment she started to put more stock in Libra’s amnesiac theory, for even with her arguably bright mind, she doubted she’d be able to keep this up much longer.
“Are you okay love?” Her mother asked for what seemed the thousand’s time already. “You look troubled.”
“I’m fine, mother.” Robin put as much emphasis on the last word as she could, willing her mind to accept this reality, hoping for a spark of recollection. But nothing happened. “Just tired.”
“Do you want me to call Chrom and ask him to come over? He’s been asking non-stop to see you, and you always look more alive when he’s at your side.”
For a second, Robin considered taking her up on her offer. Her husband - it was hard to think of anything else, despite the fact that it might have been all a dream - brought back a lot of memories, but not all of them were bad. Still, she wasn’t ready to face him yet, so she shook her head and made up some excuse she was certain her mother saw right through.
A quiet look passed between them, and her mother nodded. “Okay then. I’ll let him know you need some rest.”
-
“Chrom called again, asking to see you,” her mother reminded her for not the first time today.
Robin pretended not to hear her, and instead focused all her energy on balancing on the balls of her feet. It hurt, pain surging through her legs like a thousand needles, but it was definitely preferable to talking to him.
But her mother was relentless. “He’s getting a bit desperate, love. It’s been over a week, and you’re already starting to stand up on your own again. It’s not fair to keep him worrying.”
Her legs started trembling, and Robin allowed herself to take a quick break, falling back into her chair. She tiredly rubbed her sore legs, exhausted from more than just the exercise and perpetual lack of sleep. “I need time to sort out what is real and what isn’t. He was a too prominent part of my dream world, and I’m afraid seeing him will start.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, but her mother didn’t look convinced either. Robin estimated that it was a matter of time before she would let Chrom in herself, forcing the situation. It’s what she herself would have done after all.
However, she also knew her mother’s weakness, so she allowed a fragile, hopeful smile to spread her lips apart and pleaded. “Besides, I want to remember you. Don’t you want that too?”
Her mother sighed deeply, and Robin knew her plan had worked before she said it. “Alright then, I’ll tell him to wait a little longer.”
-
It took another full week of intensive therapy before she was able to walk to the window and back, with the help of crutches and her ever-watchful mother hovering behind her at any moment.
It was lonely without familiar faces, but it helped to get used to the little quiet room she had begun to call her own. Being able to look outside the window helped to ground this new reality into her bones, especially after seeing those strange machines called cars race by at breakneck speeds. Her mother patiently explained every seemingly mundane little thing to her, as detailed as she wanted it. It was far more complicated than her mind could have ever come up with, and with every passing day her memories felt more and more like a cheap fever dream.
But above all, she enjoyed spending time with her mother. Motherhood had come to her quickly, on top of all her duties to the Halidom and the army. Many times during the long, exhausting nights spent rocking a crying Lucy to sleep, she had longed for a mother of her own to show her the ropes. Now, that dream had come true.
“You keep fidgeting with that finger,” said woman remarked suddenly, pulling her out of her musings.
It was true; despite the knowledge that there had never been a ring around her finger, she still kept missing it like a phantom limb. Robin quickly hid her hand under the cover, getting red in the face despite it all. “Ah, sorry.” Just a dream, she chanted over and over. Just a dream.
Her mother looked at a loss of words for a bit, before she suddenly got up and nearly tripped of excitement while running out of the room, yelling: “Wait a second, dear!”
When she returned, it was with a small, dusty box in her hand. From it, she retrieved an old, dark golden ring with a six purple gemstones inlaid in it. She handed it over with little ceremony. “There you go. Your fingers are more slender than mine are right now, but I haven’t worn it in years so it might just fit you.”
Wordlessly, Robin slipped it on. It was indeed a perfect fit, the cold metal quickly heating against her skin, six little eyes staring back at her.
“You were married in your dream world, weren’t you?” Her mother explained when Robin wordlessly continued to stare at the jewel around her finger. “I remember when your father and I just got divorced, and I stopped wearing his ring. It felt awkward, like I was missing a part of my skin. I kept checking my finger every time I wasn’t thinking it, just like you were doing just now.”
Her father… Validar? Robin shuddered at the thought, and shelved that question into the back of her mind for another time. For now, she would take comfort where she could get it.
“I was indeed,” she answered belatedly. “It was a very happy marriage.” To the man of my dreams, literally.
“Well, I hope you’re happier with it than I was. As a matter of fact, it’s yours now. I should have given it to you a long time ago anyway.”
“It does ease my mind a bit, but it’s still a lot to put my head around.” This ring was obviously of superior craftsmanship, but it was nothing compared to the simple engraved golden band Chrom had gifted her on the eve of their wedding.
Just a dream, she forcibly repeated to herself once more. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t woken up at all,” Robin admitted darkly.
Her mother sighed deeply, and Robin immediately regretted her words. “I’m so glad you’re back, baby. Words cannot describe how much I’ve missed you. Please, don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry,” Robin apologized. “Not just for that, but also for not remembering you. I… can imagine it’s painful when a child doesn’t remember all the love you’ve invested in them, all the memories spend together.”
“You already apologized for that, and you didn’t have to in the first place. You’re hardly at fault for that car crash, love.”
Robin bit her lip. She had apologized before, yes, but it had been for her own gain. This time, with her husband’s pained expression every time Morgan failed to remember him in mind, it was sincere.
“It’s painful, I’ll admit that,” her mother continued when it became clear that Robin wasn’t going to say anything. “But memories are just that: a fleeting figment of our past. What matters is that you are here with me now, and that we can make new memories.”
There was a spark in her dark brown eyes while she spoke, making Robin smile. “You remind me of someone from my dream.”
“Oh, really?” Her mother chimed hopefully, not unlike her son.
Thinking of Morgan hurt. Speaking of him was nigh impossible to bear, but she’d done the impossible before. “H-he was an amnesiac too, but it never kept him down for long. He remained optimistic throughout everything we faced, and he smiled just like you did,” Robin said slowly, remembering how the wind would sweep through his thick blue hair, nothing like her own. “H-his name was Morgan,” she admitted finally with tears threatening to fall.
She didn’t need to say how much she loved him, for no words could ever describe a mother’s love. Robin hoped that her own mother understood that, at least.
“Ah, well that explains a few things,” her mother said. “You muttered his name before during your less lucid moments, but I first thought you were calling for me. You see, my name is Morgana, though I was always ‘mother’ to you of course.”
“Morgana,” Robin tasted the name on her tongue. She had heard people say it a few times before, but it felt different coming from her own lips.
Even within the realms of her memories, it made sense. Morgan had been her son, her pride and joy, but she hadn’t given birth to him and probably never would now. That privilege belonged to herself from Lucina’s world, who had been in full possession of her memories, or at least so Robin had always assumed. Morgan wasn’t exactly a common Ylissean name, and Robin had wondered before why her future self had chosen it. In honor of a mother long lost, apparently.
But if all of that had been a dream, she should have known that. Her subconscious could have fooled her, or fed her little parts of her memories until they were twisted into a child of her own. Robin immediately shook her head, dismissing the thoughts for now. The very notion that her children were nothing but a spark of in the mind of a very creative coma patient was more than she could take right now.
“Was he your husband?” Her mother asked out of the blue.
Robin nearly choked on air. “No!” She spat out, the mere notion sending shivers down her spine.
“You looked so longingly when you spoke his name, so I thought perhaps…” Then, a large, knowing smile suddenly appeared on her face. “Then, it is Chrom, right?”
Before Robin could affirm or heatedly deny her claim, a third and oh-so-very familiar voice chimed out from the door opening. “What am I?”