Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Title: Afterwards

Word Count: 2,285

Author: Sardonic Irony

Summary: Standing in the wake of a world ravaged by their war, Merlin and Morgana face each other one last time. Where do you go after you've destroyed a kingdom?

A/N: Another one-shot.

Do you remember standing on a broken field
White crippled wings beating the sky
The harbingers of war with their nature revealed
And our chances flowing by

'War' by 'Poets of the Fall'

Do you know how it feels to wake in the midst of destruction? To come to, in the midst of a bloody, wrecked, broken field and to know that it is your fault? Do you know what it is to survey a battlefield of dead and feel responsible? Can you comprehend what it is to possess incomprehensible, primordial power and to be so incandescent with rage, with pain, that it bleeds out and the world bleeds with it? No? Then don't judge me, mortal, because that is my life. In the future, you will have made me into an archetype for evil, but do I deserve that? I have made many mistakes, mistakes painted in blood and yes, I made all the wrong choices. Yet Merlin is as responsible as I. Once I stood on the precipice, staring into the abyss of darkness and when I offered my hand, grasping for something, anything, he pushed, and I fell. I fell so far and so hard. Blood drips in rivers and lakes from both our hands. We are errors, aberrations in the world and for our existence that same world has suffered, the ground has shaken and people have bled and died. Yet, do you know what the kicker is, what the knife of irony buried deep in my soul is? Do you, mortal? The irony is that I love him, and I hate him. Do you understand? Of course you don't, how can you? Because, to you, I'm just the tragic character that could have been saved, the witch who can't truly know what love means. But, suspend your disbelief for a mere moment, mortal, and answer this: can we ever forgive each other? What do you do once you've destroyed the world?

She awoke in blood. Blood, ash and pain.

This was them. All around her was the evidence of their existence. The blood, the gore, the sheer carnage was all them. It always seemed to come back to that. Everything, all of it was their fault. One action, one gesture, one word and all of this could have been averted. The burden was crushing her.

She rose shakily to her feet and staggered away, sidestepping a horribly mangled corpse. Quite why she give it such a wide birth she didn't know, her armour was covered in blood already. Not much of it was hers. She'd lost count about halfway through the battle, lost count of how many lives were being taken in order to usher in the new era, her era. That once wouldn't have mattered to her, the death all around her wouldn't have mattered but faced with that devastation, faced with the death it was too real, much too real and it was their fault, all their fault. Oh, and how she wished could change that, change everything.

She hurried past a group of knights whose bodies and armour were charred black, clear evidence of the flames she had used to break their shield wall. In the end it hasn't mattered, the lives lost didn't matter, there would be no new era, no new age, somehow the triumph she had sort, the sense of a home that was hers eluded her still. She could hardly take Camelot now, she'd be driven mad by the ghosts of today... if she wasn't already mad. She wasn't so sure she hadn't already ventured beyond that precipice. But if she had, then so had he, because this wasn't all her. If she looked she could see evidence of him as well, black clothed warriors still smouldering, warriors with necks broken from the hurricane force winds he launched at them, it was all around, her and him, just one more horrific natural disaster, forces that should have never been unleashed upon humanity.

She wondered what she would do now, wondered what she could possibly do now. She was lost in a world that had no true need or want for her, a world that held so little a place for her. She'd thought she knew how the world worked, thought she knew what she wanted. But, looking around she saw just how foolish she had been, how wrong.

So she would find him, find him and find her place. Because, that was how it always was, whenever she was lost, whenever she needed it, he was there. Looking back she supposed he was always there, her shadow, her mirror, always blocking her, always watching. She wondered why or exactly how she'd managed to keep a shred of affection for him through it all, despite the backstabbing, the fighting, but keep it she had. She'd kept a small piece of affection for the man she'd thought a mere servant. Against all the odds, there was still that heartache within her. She had hated him, loathed him even and yet there was always that affection... it made sense to her in some sort of twisted way and now, all she was left with was that. The affection, the love and the crushing guilt of what they had done.

So she wandered towards where she knew he'd be, trying to avoid looking too closely at the evidence, the evidence of their turmoil. Neither of them had had the courage or the conviction to do what their hearts wanted and so these people had died, in the most gruesome and needless of ways. She heard a caw, the first sound other than her footsteps she had heard in a while. A glance up informed her that more scavengers had arrived. A few buzzards drifting down from the sky to join the ravens and crows in their feast. Morgana moved on.

She was nearing the epicentre of the battle. She could feel the emotions welling up inside of her, breaking through her shield of numbness. She felt cold, so cold, desperate, more desperate than she had ever felt in her entire life and she couldn't control those emotions, couldn't wrestle them back behind her walls, she was standing over the edge of the precipice, plummeting into empty space with no one to catch her. Left without her hate, without her fury, she was left only with the pieces of a love that she was sure had died long ago. She furiously wiped at the tears streaking down her face, rubbing her face raw, removing the signs of weakness as they fell, dampening her cheek as they did.

They said that time heals all wounds. Well, she thought, she'd find they and inform them just how wrong they were. Time had healed her in a way, but the scars only hid the way she felt, and it was easy, oh so easy to rip them open again.

She carefully made her way through the bodies, avoiding as much as possible the blood and carnage, sometimes she caught glimpses of upturned, blood-smeared faces, a man of about thirty a spear through his helm, a greying veteran his neck hanging at the most awkward of angles, a youth of about 16, a blade skewering him to the ground, all people that had died for them, because of them.

It wasn't long after that that she heard the sobbing, the wretched sounds of a broken man, a man that could only be him. She stepped around a horse caught with a spear in its flank, forth coating its mouth. It wasn't just men who had paid for their mistakes.

She found him there, on his knees, covered in blood, mud and gore just like her. It was fitting, really, this blood was on their hands psychically and spiritually. They had caused this, the blood ran in rivers from them.

She couldn't see his face. He had his hands planted on a warrior's chest, a warrior whose breastplate was rent, a warrior who had a sword impaled in his side, Mordred's sword. Arthur. Her brother, her one time friend, her one time trusted ally, her King. He was laying on his side, his face obscured partly by a helm but it was undeniably Arthur. He was dead. Because of them.

Suddenly the sobbing man rose in a flash; rage, sorrow and devastation pouring off of him. Merlin was terrifying like this.

"Is this what you wanted?"

His voice quavered and yet it was still powerful, still conveyed all his rage. His blue orbs mere chips of ice, voids empty of the spark of life she had so loved about them. But his words generated the anger, the familiar anger when he blamed her for everything, because in the end it wasn't her fault, together they'd caused it, together they'd built each other up and together they'd torn each other down. Together always. He hadn't trusted her, she'd been blind, together they were foolish and that folly had caused these deaths. For all their power they had not been able to see where they were headed, so focused were they in their single-minded devotion to their own goals. This was what came when one thought of themselves as angels on earth, devoted to a higher cause.

"What I wanted? No, Merlin, this is what we have caused."

She gestured around her, taking in the bloodshed, the pain, the death.

"This is our fault, ours and ours alone. We caused this. Without us this would never have happened, never have come to pass and for all our power you and I... well, we were fools Merlin, fools."

She was shaking, shaking with emotion: fear, rage, sadness.

He spun away from her and she could feel his aura diminishing, his rage being replaced by a sadness as great or greater than hers. She had caused this directly, with her words, with her hate, but she knew for Merlin, it was what he hadn't said that caused him pain, it was all the lies, all the pretences that had helped bring this to pass. All the moments when he could have told her, could have and then didn't, all the lives lost because of his and her choices, their devotion to their paths, her to power and acceptance, he to his destiny, their paths had led to ruin.

He turned back to face her and now there was just sadness and a colossal edifice of guilt in his eyes.

"You're right. I'm sorry I was-"

She interrupted him

"I know."

He cracked a smile, a sad smile that allowed her to remember all the times when they had come so close to averting this, so close...

He sighed, glancing back down at Arthur's body.

"What do we do now Morgana? Where do we go?"

"I don't know, I really don't... all I know is that I am done. Done with fighting, with war... with it all."

"Yes... it seems that when we affect the world too much... well it doesn't turn out well does it?"

A wry smile cut across her face, it was not making the devastation less horrific the deaths less tragic, but if they didn't laugh she was sure she would dissolve into an abyss from which she would never rise and Merlin would join her.

"No, clearly not."

He sighed.

"So... I think I'll go back to Ealdor, live out of the way for a bit, then... well who knows?"

Morgana paused. So he was going to disappear, to vanish from sight and she was going to be alone, alone for eternity, both of them alone. Alone with her guilt. That idea was too much for her. She knew the guilt would eat her live, pick her bones clean and leave her an empty shell.

Clearly missing her turmoil, Merlin turned to pick up Arthur's body. He was going to give him the funeral Arthur deserved... then he was going to disappear and she would never see him again...

"Take me with you."

He turned to her, and there was such rage and pain in his eyes that she thought for a minute that he would refuse her. And yet, he must have seen something in her own eyes that gave him pause. He hesitated.

"I will return Arthur to Gwen. And then... well, I'll meet you in Ealdor. I think it is time we moved out of sight in this world. I think you were right Morgana, we caused this, together and I think that we both have to learn from this." He gestured around him. "And what it means. I think we have to understand that politics and ruling are something that should forever be out of our grasp. But more than that, I think we have to understand that we aren't good, we certainly aren't heroes. I think, in the end we have to acknowledge that we are human. And all that goes with that title. I can't say I forgive you Morgana, because I am as stained as you are. Worse, I blame myself for what happened to you, and so perhaps my soul is even darker than your own. Yet, for what it's worth… I understand you."

And then the corner of his mouth turned up, just a little, and despite the pain, the self-loathing and the anger contained in the smile, there was also hope for a new life, understanding and a hint that one day, one day, it would be alright. And so, even as they gathered their power, vanishing from the scene of carnage, he briefly to Camelot and she to await him in Ealdor, she knew it would be alright, if not now, then one day. Because, in the end, forgiveness is always possible when you have an eternity together.