AN: Not very happy with this but I felt sad for Gwen.
Warnings: SPOILERS for the final
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin, things would be different if I did.
They are both dead now, Morgana and Arthur. Her best friend and her husband, the two people she loved most in this world. If you're going to be perfectly honest she lost Morgana years ago, but it's still different now, real.
She never really thought her beyond all redemption, how could she, Morgana was… Morgana, and she would always love her, she hated what she had become, but there is still love there, somewhere and because of that love there is now grief. Unbearable grief, for both the Pendragons. Arthur, wonderful, beautiful, confident, just and brave Arthur, she wonders how she could ever live up to that, and yet she knows she can, she just doesn't know how she can do it without him.
She's alone, they are all there for her, the knights, Merlin, Gaius, and yet she's alone, because the burden of the crown is hers to bear and sometimes she thinks it's going to suffocate her, because she needs them, she needs her best friend, her sister, her… and she needs him, her king, her love. She needs her little brother too.
They are all dead she realizes, she is doomed to lose the people she loves, her father, Lancelot, they are gone too, maybe that's why Gawain is dead, because she smiled at his jokes and talked to him about other stuff than work now and then, maybe she should fear for Merlin's life too, maybe for Leon's. Maybe this is her curse, to never have family, to be alone. She thinks she could bear if she could have just one of them back, but she has to bear it anyway, and so she does.
It takes time before she lets people close to her again, it begins with Merlin, after all he has trusted her with his biggest secret and so she shares her grief with him, they talk about Arthur, and she thinks that just maybe he understands her grief for Morgana as well, she cries on his shoulder about Elyan. He holds her and assures her she isn't cursed, and if she is, so is he, they can be cursed together. Together. She continues to run the kingdom together with him, together with all of them and eventually it feels like she isn't alone anymore, it feels like maybe she still has people there to help her, like maybe she can do this, maybe it's not a burden too heavy to bear, because others are helping her with it.