Author's Note: I've never seen anything regarding how Gamlen might react to Hawke being left in the Fade, so I aimed with this one to correct that. Also, warnings for discussion of guilt complexes and vague references to suicidal ideation.
The last night before his nephew is to flee Kirkwall, he visits him. They play a few games of wallop together, talk about the old times; Gamlen begins to make an uncharacteristically careful inquiry into where Artur will be heading, but then thinks better of it and shuts up. Who knows what he may blab the next time he drinks?
He also almost makes a joke about Artur rising so high and then falling straight back to where he was at when he first arrived at Kirkwall eight years ago, but again, he reconsiders. Despite all his losses, his nephew has climbed his way all the way up to the throne of Kirkwall. But now he will lose even that because of the same templars he supported not quite nine months ago. It seems rather unfair to him. Can Artur not be allowed to keep just one thing?
Thinking about that reminds him of something else. "I just remembered," he says, and Artur looks up at him from his seat. "I believe it was eight years ago today that you first set foot in this house."
Artur furrows his brow, then his eyes go wide with sudden realisation. "It was, yes," he says. "Mother was so appalled at the state of this place. Carver and I were just happy to have a roof over our heads. And I had to apologise for dragging the dog in with me."
"There was barely enough room for four people, let alone your oversized hound," Gamlen says, but with a trace of nostalgic humour rather than defensiveness. Artur's chuckle indicates that he shares in the joke, even as he looks somewhat pained. The dog was in the old estate when it was levelled by the Chantry explosion; Gamlen understands that there were no survivors. More's the pity. He was never fond of the dog, but he knows the loss, yet another loss, must have cut his nephew deep.
"Well, we made the best of it, didn't we?" Artur says after a brief pause. "Eventually. There's a lot I would have changed—more than not, actually—but we did try."
"We did," Gamlen says. That year wasn't the most pleasant of his life, but the memories have become sweeter over time, the more so with Leandra being gone and him on his own most of the time. At least he has Charade's letters and Artur, but now Artur is leaving, too. "Will you be back whenever this is over?"
Artur shakes his head, not surprisingly. "It's not likely. Maybe to visit you and my friends, but… You know how I feel about Kirkwall. I need to get out before it erodes any more of my sanity."
That much is understandable. Gamlen is a Kirkwaller at heart, but he knows that Artur has always been a Fereldan, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, and he's equally aware of how much of a toll the city has taken on him, the sheer number of traumas it has brought him. If getting out and staying out is what's best for Artur, then, by all means, he'll encourage it.
"I understand," Gamlen says. "But—" And here he sighs. He's still not used to saying things like this. He braces himself. "But I hope you come back to visit, anyway. I've grown to like having you around—"
"Shock bloody horror," Artur interrupts with a laugh, and Gamlen smiles.
"—and I would miss you," he adds. "Now pretend I never said that."
Artur laughs again, still more loudly. "I promise on both counts, Uncle," he says, and Gamlen feels a rush of genuine relief, something which surprises him.
He opts not to dwell on it. "Good," he says. "Now, how about another game?"
The better part of three years pass. Kirkwall continues to rebuild. The fighting between the mages and the templars never ends. A hole opens in the sky, spewing demons and Maker only knows what out into a world on the verge of collapse. Gamlen keeps receiving letters from Charade and Artur, eventually learns that the latter has joined forces with the Inquisition, and wonders what will happen to him this time.
He gets his answer eventually. One morning early in Cloudreach, Gamlen enters the main room of his house to find that a letter has been pushed under the door, presumably during the night. He ignores it until after he's shaved, dressed, and breakfasted. As he approaches it, he expects to see Artur's handwriting, giving him an update on how things went down at Adamant Fortress; his last letter said that he would be headed there with the Inquisition to battle the corrupted Grey Wardens—of whom Carver is thankfully not one.
Instead of Artur's handwriting, however, Gamlen sees that of Varric Tethras.
That confuses him. He knows Varric's hand, naturally, but the dwarf hasn't had cause to write to him for months, at least. Why he'd be sending him a letter now is not beyond Gamlen, but it certainly does not bode well. He swallows and has the presence of mind to sit down before breaking the seal on the envelope. He tosses it aside, then flips the letter open.
"Dear Gamlen," it begins, as these things do, "I'm writing with bad news. I'm sorry you have to find out like this…"
And just like that, he knows. Somewhere, in the very core of his being, he knows what has happened. But still, he denies it, refuses to believe it. He keeps reading, notes the stilted tone that even in written form is only barely masking a deep well of anguish, the odd little turns of phrase that even a relative stranger like him can tell are completely uncharacteristic of Varric. The letter explains, in brief, what happened at Adamant, and Gamlen startles as the words 'fell physically into the Fade' pop out at him.
He actually stops reading and lowers the letter for five minutes just to make sense of that. He's not a philosophical man by any means, but even he can see what's wrong with that, the terrible implications that it might have should it become widely known. Eventually, Gamlen shakes his head in disbelief and continues reading, remembering that there's more and worse to come.
And it does. It's not something Gamlen ever would have dreamed of asking for, and it knocks the breath out of his chest even though he knows it's coming.
"Artur is dead," the letter says. "Inquisitor Trevelyan left him in the Fade to hold off the Nightmare so that she and Senior Warden Stroud could escape." It rambles on for a little longer, saying everything and nothing, then finishes, "I don't know what it's worth to you, but Artur died a hero. Maybe it'll bring you some comfort. I'm sorry."
The parchment falls from his hands, but Gamlen barely sees it go. His chest is heaving, his breaths quick and heavy. He looks at his empty hands, then down, not wholly comprehending for a moment. This can't be true. Artur can't be—
Then he does comprehend, and in a somewhat similar fashion to Leandra all those years ago when she learned that Carver might not be coming back to them after the Deep Roads expedition, Gamlen slips from his seat and onto his hands and knees. The fatal words seem to be printed in front of his eyes, branded into his brain, repeating themselves over and over again. His breathing is going from quick and heavy to ragged and shaking with alarming rapidity, and some small part of him tries to get it under control, but he can't manage it. His nephew is gone, just gone, and—
I—I can't believe he's gone, Gamlen thinks. Just like he said to Artur the night that Leandra died. Just like it. That was only seven years ago, eight in Harvestmere. Maker's breath, at least Leandra was getting on in years and got to live a full life, even if it ended horribly—Artur's only thirty-six! And what has his life been made up of but grief and loss and pain? He could have got better. Now—now they'll never know.
At the very least, he should have outlived his mother by more than seven years.
And he won't be coming back, either, he realises. There'll be no more letters, no chance of an occasional visit. No more wallop matches. Gamlen would have got him into gambling, but Artur would never gamble; he was too responsible and obsessed with his self-control for that, and so wallop it was, at least after Artur found Charade for him. He wasn't very good at it, at least compared to Gamlen, who always beat him easily, but he tried his best, and they had a good time, which was what counted. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to having those matches again. Now?
It's happening again, it occurs to him as he somehow manages to get to his feet. He's getting a hole torn in his chest all over again, and it's no less horrible than it was for his parents and Leandra and for when he realised that Mara was gone. He wants to scream, to cry; he still can't breathe properly; he wants someone to take that letter and his memory of it back, let him live in blissful delusion; he wants more letters and wallop matches; he wants—
Gamlen doubles up, almost collapses again, and lets out a strangled yell of the sort he hasn't emitted since Leandra died. He can feel wetness on his cheeks, and he can't even bring himself to be embarrassed. This isn't right; enough of his family is already dead, he's already long since lost the only niece he was ever going to have, and after everything that he had gone through, Artur deserved peace and a chance at something better, not to be callously abandoned in the Fade. And now he, Gamlen, has only Charade and Carver left and—Andraste's arse, Carver. What will he say when he knows—and what will he think of his fellow Wardens for indirectly getting his brother killed?
He realises then that he has to write to him. They're not on as good terms as he is—was—with Artur, but he's not so cold that he'll just leave his last living nephew, the only surviving member of his own family, to his grief. And he will grieve—events brought him and Artur together; Gamlen saw it happen. Brought them together as everything else collapsed around them—and now Artur is gone. He's gone. Gamlen wants to scream at the unfairness of it all, at how both of his nephews have suffered enough and how Carver now has to go it mostly alone. He's not a man for screaming, but just this time, this time…
He isn't sure of how he does it, but he manages to get to his desk, haul out a sheet of parchment, an inkwell, and his battered old quill, and dip the latter into the ink without his hand shaking too much. He writes the words 'Dear Carver', and his typical scrawl is already messier than usual, scarcely legible even to his own eyes. After that comes a blank in which Gamlen has utterly no idea what to say, and he sits there for several minutes just trying to think and get it out of him while the ink from the quill drips onto the parchment.
Finally, he ends up writing, 'I expect you've heard what happened,' which doesn't say anything, but it's a semi-decent way to start. It becomes somewhat easier from there. The words never flow out, but the block in his mind gets easier to overcome, and his hand gradually stops shaking. Like Varric before him, Gamlen rambles, and his turns of phrase aren't quite characteristic of him—awkward and reserved, rather than crude and blunt. He's not quite sure what point he wants to make, exactly, and ultimately, it comes out of him entirely without him thinking about it: an offer for Carver to visit him in Kirkwall whenever he can, so that they can talk.
After it's on the page, Gamlen stares at it. The words sink in a second later, and they jar him out of the fog in his head. For a long moment, he considers just striking them out and writing something else, and he lifts his quill to do just that, but then he thinks it over. Didn't he realise before that Carver would have to go it mostly alone from now? Does he want to make it even worse and ensure that he has to go it entirely alone? No, quite frankly, he doesn't. Of course, Carver might not accept the offer, but he'll be damned if he doesn't try.
That's what Artur would have wanted, anyway, he recalls. Artur always worked so hard to keep the family together and stay on good terms with anyone no matter how much both he and Carver spurned his efforts. It naturally follows that now, after he's gone, Artur would want Gamlen to try to connect with Carver over this. And as much as part of Gamlen wants to shout at his nephew's ghost, wherever it is, for leaving them all behind, he can't just ignore that. If this had happened eight years ago, he could have, but damn it all, his idiot nephew somehow managed to do what no one else could and changed him.
A small victory. One they won't remember when they write the histories. Artur was the Champion and Viscount of Kirkwall, but they won't say that he loathed the city he had to protect and rule and wanted only to go home to Ferelden. He had a family, but they won't tell everything he did for them, how much he loved them even when they didn't necessarily deserve it, and that included Gamlen himself. They'll remember the legend, but not the man—and Artur never wanted to be a legend.
It's a bitter thought, perhaps one of the bitterest of all. Once again, Gamlen can't help but contemplate the unfairness of his nephew's life. He got so much, but it was almost never what he wanted. He deserved so much more.
His hand is trembling again, though not so violently as before. Shaking his head, ignoring the stinging in his eyes and the almost painful clench of his jaw, Gamlen returns his attention to the letter. He finishes it in short order and lays aside the quill, abruptly feeling as if he's just undergone some great feat of physical endurance. He's so tired, so sick of it all. Mother and Father, Mara, Leandra, and now this? How much more can happen? Will he outlive Carver and Charade, too?
Why did you believe so strongly in the Maker, Artur, he wonders. He took everything from you and gave you the magic that you always regarded as a curse, and He's taken nearly everything from me, too. You would say that He gave me Charade, but that was you, not Him. What did He ever do for either of us?
But it's pointless wondering. If Artur's faith gave him comfort, then Gamlen certainly has no right to judge.
Finally, Gamlen remembers that he has to send the letter. With a sigh, he forces himself up from the chair and goes to get an envelope and seal. Upon returning, he folds the letter, forces it inside the envelope, seals it, and writes Carver's name on the front with rote, unthinking precision. The fog is back in his head, pressing down on him and making him feel even more exhausted than he already is. When he's done, he takes it and heads out into the city for the task of finding a courier brave and patient enough to head after a Grey Warden.
As one might expect, that's no small thing, and it takes him hours—he's honestly surprised that it didn't take more. After it's done and the letter is safely away (or as safely as it can be), he finds himself not far from the docks. Looking in one direction, he can just make out the statue that they built of Artur with his foot on the Arishok's head, commemorating their famous duel and Artur's defeat of the Qunari invasion. He knows that it wasn't so glorious as people make it out to be; Artur spent most of the fight running around, desperately trying not to get impaled, and actually was once or twice. He spent several weeks out of commission as a result. But if people want to believe it was glorious, who is he to stop them?
It's not the truth, Gamlen thinks as he begins to walk down towards the docks and the statue. It's part of the legend. They'll remember the legend, but not the man behind it. He will be forgotten.
When he reaches the statue, he looks up it and begins to wonder what will happen when word reaches the seneschal that the Viscount is dead. He supposes that Cavin will continue as provisional Viscount until a new one can be elected, and since the new Knight-Commander isn't about to seize power for himself, they won't have to worry about the templars interfering, but all the same, it won't be easy. What a terrible blow to people's morale this will be, especially when they're still rebuilding—and that's just for starters. Any number of things could happen because of this. Unpleasant things, all of them.
But Gamlen can't quite bring himself to care, not at the moment. He just stares up at the statue and wonders, remembers. He hopes it was quick, painless—or relatively painless. He wonders what will happen to his body if it's stuck in the Fade. Will it fall out of a rift? Will a demon take possession of it and turn him into an arcane—
Maker, no. That thought is too horrifying for him to contemplate, though it is a genuine possibility, and Gamlen does his best to force it out of his head. It doesn't quite work, but he tries. Perhaps later he will send a warning to the Inquisition, but for the moment…
Gamlen falls back into his thoughts, bows his head and brings his hands up to his forehead almost as if he's in prayer, and moves very little for a long time afterwards. He can sense people staring at him as they pass him by, but he barely notices and doesn't much care. His bitter thoughts and memories of a man who was so much more than what he and this city deserved keep Gamlen well occupied.
By the time he finally comes out of his ruminations, it's evening, and the sky is steadily darkening. It's still relatively warm, but a shiver runs up his spine nevertheless. He sighs, drops his hands, looks up at the statue with a blank expression on his face, and then turns away. As his gaze shifts towards Lowtown, he contemplates heading to the Hanged Man so that he can drink all his misery away again, but then he remembers—Artur never drank, just as he never gambled. Nor did he indulge himself with prostitutes and casual sex, or even swear much, except when he was truly upset. Gamlen isn't usually one for such things as this, but it would not be—appropriate—to remember him in this way.
Which is somewhat unfortunate, as he could desperately do with a stiff drink or five, but—all right. He will not drink for Artur. It all takes him a great effort of the will, but he manages to take a step forward and start heading up back towards Lowtown, and then, when he gets there, to turn his feet in the direction of his house and not the Hanged Man. Inside his house, he shuts the door behind him, leans heavily against it, and sees Varric's letter still on the floor. He doesn't bother to pick it up.
Wearily, he manages to push off from the door and stumble back into his bedroom. He collapses onto the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his head in his hands once again. It's an all-too-familiar pose to him, and he wishes it weren't. He's been here too many times before, and knowing his luck, sooner or later, he'll be here again. Once again, Gamlen feels like falling to cursing the Maker, but—Artur would never have cursed the Maker, would he? His faith never so much as trembled despite all the terrible things that happened to him. Gamlen doesn't quite understand how, but it is what it is.
A better way to remember him, then: prayer. It's not what he believes in, so maybe that makes it a hollow gesture, but Gamlen does want to remember him. Sighing, he lifts his head and rests it on his fingers, and he focuses his gaze on some point off in the distance. It's been years since he prayed or even read any part of the Chant of Light, but he remembers a few verses. Probably thanks to Artur's efforts, now that he thinks of it.
"My Maker, know my heart," he says quietly. He contemplates changing the pronoun, for this is not for him, it's for Artur, but he knows that his nephew would have objected to that, and the Maker can see all, anyway, and will understand what Gamlen means. "Take me from a life of sorrow. Lift me from a world of pain. Judge me worthy of Your endless pride. My Creator, judge me whole: find me well within Your grace. Touch me with fire that I be cleansed. Tell me I have sung to your approval. O Maker, hear my cry: seat me by Your side in death. Make me one within Your glory. And let the world once more see Your favour. For You are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only Yours to give."
A few of Artur's favourite verses of the entire Chant, from one of his favourite Canticles. Many a night did Gamlen hear him murmuring them to himself in the room that he shared with Carver—likely why he remembers them now. Given how miserable the man's life was, he considers them apt, and for all his lack of faith, he hopes the Maker hears and takes it all into account.
Let him have this. He's suffered enough under Your auspices. O Maker, hear my cry: seat him by Your side in death. Make him one within your glory…
He doesn't get a response to his letter, but a few weeks after he sends it, Carver shows up at his door. The man looks exhausted and fragile even beneath his Warden armour, and there's a hollow, deadened look in his eyes that sends a chill down Gamlen's spine. He invites him inside and tells him to make himself comfortable.
They're silent for a while, neither of them not knowing what to say or where to start, but the quiet is only slightly awkward. Gamlen watches him, doesn't ask if he wants a drink, and Carver doesn't ask for one. Presumably, the same thought about drinking being an inappropriate way to grieve his brother has crossed his mind, too.
Finally, Carver breaks the silence. "We did this," he says. His voice is toneless, but he looks down at the griffon on his breastplate with evident disgust. "Our fault. We killed him. And we helped break the world we're meant to protect."
"The Wardens did that, yes," Gamlen says bluntly. "You didn't. You didn't even know what was going on."
"No, but…" Carver shrugs. "We still did it. Our responsibility. All of us."
Maker preserve him. "Don't tell me you're going to start blaming yourself for all of this," Gamlen says with a groan. "As I recall, he indulged in that habit far more often than was healthy."
"Yes, and it destroyed him," Carver admits. He keeps speaking, and his voice rapidly grows more and more vehement. "Just about. The next time I see Varric, I am going to ask him what the hell he was thinking, dragging Artur into all of that when he knew fine well that he would blame himself for Corypheus being released and everything that followed. He knew the guilt would tear him to pieces, and what did he do? He yanked him into it anyway! And now Artur's gone!" The fury there is palpable, only barely masks the anguish that Carver must be feeling, and Maker knows that Gamlen can sympathise. Even so, he's not sure that Varric is the one at fault here.
"Blame the Inquisitor, not Varric," he says. "I was told it was her decision to leave him in the Fade."
Carver makes an attempt at a scowl, but it comes out as more of a grimace, a deliberate effort at keeping himself together. "I'm not so sure that's true," he says, and Gamlen's eyebrow shoots up. "I wonder if Artur didn't volunteer like the bloody martyr he is! Was. Volunteer to be left behind to Maker only knows what in a misguided attempt to atone for both a crime that he can hardly be judged to have committed and those committed by the Wardens! Dammit!"
"I know," Gamlen says wearily. "I know. He deserved much better than that."
Carver gets up from his seat and begins to pace, face twisting as he struggles to keep in control of himself. "He always did. But what did he get? Everything fell apart despite his best efforts, and now he's rotting somewhere in the Fade—if he even can rot in that… place. Or, Maker forbid, some demon's taken him and made an arcane horror out of him. After all his terror of being possessed…"
Gamlen shudders. "The thing he wanted least. Meaning, of course, by the way that everything else turned out…" Carver lets out a stream of curses and epithets, and Gamlen feels another shiver course down his spine as he considers the image of Artur as an arcane horror, body decaying, eyes filled with hate and no sign of recognition for those he once loved; a monstrosity to be put down. The thing he feared becoming the most, alongside an abomination.
Maker have mercy, he thinks. At least preserve him from that, if You have any regard for Your children.
Carver sits back down. The rage has drained out of his face. His lower lip seems to be trembling. "But still, we did this," he repeats. "And how many thousands have died because of it? Not just Artur, not just the Divine… but so many thousands…"
"Didn't you just say that that attitude destroyed Artur?" Gamlen reminds him, rather more gently than is his wont. Carver freezes. "Far be it from me to argue about whether the Wardens are at fault or not. But would he really want you blaming yourself like this? Or would he prefer that you spare yourself the guilt that you said ruined him?"
His nephew opens his mouth to protest then shuts it again, realising Gamlen's point. His face crumples, and he looks down, presumably to hide the wetness in his eyes that Gamlen caught for just a moment. With a quiet sigh, he leans across to put his hand on Carver's knee. An inadequate gesture, maybe somewhat childish, but it's all he can think of, and Carver doesn't complain.
"If that's what he would think," Carver eventually says, his voice that much softer and weaker and more obviously strained than before, "then maybe he should have thought that we all would have wanted the same for him. Didn't he know what this would do? Didn't he care?"
Gamlen shakes his head. "I'm sure he cared," he says, though he's aware that the words are somewhat hollow. "But again, you said the guilt destroyed him. If he was in that state—he probably wasn't thinking very clearly. Maybe he did know, and he regretted it, but he thought that doing penance was… more important."
"More important than coming back to us?" Carver says miserably. The fact that there isn't even a trace of anger or resentment in his voice now is, to Gamlen, a sign of just how hard he's taking his brother's death. "More important than returning to Fenris, his—his partner? How many of his vows and promises did he break when he left Fenris to go to the Inquisition and persuaded him not to come along? And if he never intended to return, then he must have lied to him too. All sins in the Maker's eyes."
Now that, Gamlen hadn't considered. This just gets worse and worse. "Have you seen Fenris at all since you got the news?"
Carver shakes his head. "No. I don't even know where he is. That scares me. They only got a few short years together. Two as lovers, two as partners. And now it's all over, and Fenris wasn't even allowed the chance to save Artur because Artur took that chance from him. And it's over because of the Inquisitor."
Gamlen grimaces as he considers what may eventually transpire if Fenris goes to Skyhold. "Maker have mercy on the Inquisitor, then," he says. "Or not." Carver snorts. "Anyone else you're worried about?"
"There's Sebastian," Carver says. "I never liked him much myself, but the poor bastard—his whole family was murdered, then his brothers and sisters in faith died when Anders blew up the Chantry, and now he's lost his best friend. After I'm done here, I'll pay him a visit."
"You can sympathise with him?"
Carver looks away, the deadened and hollowed-out expression returning to his eyes. "Yes," he says. "Losing everything, having it all slip out of your fingers… yes, I can sympathise. Maker knows I never thought it would come to this. I mean, it's only been fifteen years since Father, and now look. All of them… I just… I can't…"
His nephew doesn't ask, but Gamlen decides to pre-empt the question, anyway. "I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask about this," he admits. "I'm not exactly someone to aspire to. At least you have the Wardens."
"Who killed him. And thousands of others. All because of fear," Carver says. His tone is bitter, but his voice chokes on the last word, and Gamlen can tell that he's close to losing it. "I won't give up on the Wardens if that's what you're wondering. But I don't think I can forgive this, either. I certainly can't forgive the Inquisitor. I—" A sob cuts him off, and Gamlen's mouth twists as he watches his nephew start falling to pieces. He bows his head into his chest, shaking it vigorously, and his hands clench on his knees as his shoulders hunch.
"Why him?" Carver asks. "Why Artur? Much as I respect Stroud, why did the Inquisitor think he was worth more than Artur? Why?"
Gamlen considers for only a moment, then shakes his head again. "Artur's gone. Will knowing why ease the pain?"
Carver's chest is heaving slightly, but the man still does his best to not audibly cry. Gamlen thinks it might be better if he just lets it out now rather than bottling it up. "I… no, it won't. It'll always seem senseless, won't it?"
Oh, Maker, he's had this conversation before, down to the exact words. It was no less horrible the first time than it is now, even though the roles have been reversed. "Always," he says. "I would know." He heaves another deep sigh. "I'm sure Varric said this in your letter to you, as well, but Artur did die a hero. I don't know, maybe that—"
"I don't want a hero, I want my brother!" Carver snaps, his voice a mixture of vehemence and overwhelming grief, and the former fades almost immediately as he turns his gaze to a spot far in the distance and then buries his face in his hands. Gamlen, for all he knows that he shouldn't, can only think of how much things between the pair of them had changed for Carver not to care so much about Artur being a hero, instead only wanting him back. "Artur never even wanted to be a hero, anyway," his nephew mutters, and this time sounds like he's actually in tears instead of just on the verge of them. "He wanted to be normal. Like me. And this is what he got."
"I remember," Gamlen says cautiously, "when you came back from the Mountains years ago. I overheard you two talking. You said you didn't think your father or Bethany got what they wanted out of this life." Carver nods, though it's a bit hard to tell. "You also said you thought it would be all right. In hindsight…?"
"In hindsight, I was an idiot, of course," Carver says. "It was never all right, and it'll never be all right. I understand that now. And Artur never got what he wanted out of this life, either." He drops his hands, looks up again, and his cheeks are streaked with tear tracks.
Gamlen turns his gaze to the door. "And you? What about you?"
Carver is silent for a long while. His face contorts with pain, more tears run down his cheeks, and his mouth twists as he struggles to keep his sobs inside him. Gamlen can see his fingers clench and unclench on his knees. He would try to comfort him, but he doesn't know what gesture he could offer that isn't painfully inadequate and too little, too late. Finally, Carver speaks again.
"Yes. I got what I wanted. But I lost everything else along the way."
"Bloody story of my life, I'll tell you that," Gamlen says tiredly, and Carver nods. "Was it worth it?"
Carver shrugs. "Fuck if I know."
And that, Gamlen is well aware, is all that he'll ever be able to say. It's doubtful that he could ever tell if it was worth it or not. "Here's to the dead, then," he says, miming raising a glass. "And the miserable ones!"
His nephew echoes the action while fresh tears keep running down his face. "Aye, here's to them! Toast them all!" he says, with affected grandeur. "And here's to my brother, both at once! May he be happier dead than he ever was alive."
"Amen to that," Gamlen says. He can say nothing else.
Author's Note: Now imagine if both Carver and Bethany were dead and Gamlen was never reunited with Charade...