Morgana's not there when Gwen gets home.

Gwen wasn't sure why he was still surprised.

Morgana was never there, not when she needed to be. Not when her presence would be appreciated, not when Gwen wanted her there, not even when she didn't want to be anywhere around her girlfriend. Whenever and wherever Gwen looked for Morgana, she was nowhere to be found.

"Where were you last night?"

"Out with some friends. It's no big deal, Gwennie. Just a party."

"Did you get high?"

"….Of course not. You know I'm over that."

"Morgana –"

"I promised I wouldn't, Gwen, and I didn't, okay? No need to breathe down my neck about it."

Morgana had gotten high. Leon had told her, because he was worried and knew Gwen would be, too. Gwen knew that Morgana had a problem; she was well-aware of her girlfriend's dangerous addiction, she just thought that Morgana would be above lying to her about her extracurricular activities.

It got harder and harder every day.

"I could deal with this if you would just stop lying to me about it! What were you thinking?"

"I…Gwen, you know that I don't mean to hurt you."

"I wish I could believe that, but you're making it difficult for me to believe anything you say right now."

"How – I love you, Gwennie."

"Then why do you keep breaking my heart without even the slightest bit of remorse?"

Morgana hid her pills in the medicine cabinet. Gwen had found them there once, in the corner behind their make-up products, cleverly concealed in a long-empty container of foundation. She nearly broke down in tears that day, and her friend Arthur found her on the bathroom floor, head in her hands and trying to claw at some invisible entity.

Whether Gwen had been clawing at the drugs, addiction, or Morgana herself, she didn't know. She just knew she wanted everything to stop.

"Leave," Arthur told her once he had gotten her out of the bathroom and onto the couch, wrapping her up in a soft woolen blanket that Morgana had given her for Christmas last year. "You don't owe her anything, Guinevere."

"I still love her," Gwen looked up into his steady blue eyes. Her world was truly in disarray, though; Arthur's logic made sense to some part of her. "She's a good person, and she has the potential to get better. If only…If only I could help her…"

"And risk yourself?" Arthur asked before shaking his head. "You come first. Take care of yourself before anyone else. You don't deserve this."

Gwen, who was never ever rude to anyone, always the perfect lady, snapped at him. "What about Merlin? He was a druggie once."

"Yeah, and I told him to get his act cleaned up before I ever dated him," Arthur gazed at her, unfettered, a spark of something defiant in his eyes. "Give that ultimatum to Morgana – trust me, if she cares enough, it will work."

"Maybe for you," Gwen said bitterly. "But Morgana won't give in so easily."

"Stop it, Gwen – Just stop it! I can't do this right now. This is supposed to be a celebration, and you're making it into an intervention."

"That's because it is! Morgana, you don't know how hard this is for me. You're always taking pills, breaking your word – And the worst part is, even though it's been over two years, I still find it in me to be surprised. You've done nothing but break me, and yet I keep expecting you to turn around and change, just like that. But you won't."

"No, I won't. I won't change! I'd do a lot of things for you, Guinevere – I really would. But you can't ask me to stop this."

"…I'm not asking."

That was meant to be their ultimatum, but Morgana had coaxed Gwen out of it with sweet promises and candy-coated lips that hid hints of smoke and alcohol and other substances Gwen didn't ask the names of.

She knew that this was wrong, that she should say something more, do something more –

But she didn't, because she wanted to stay. She didn't want to leave the tiny flat where Morgana made pancakes for Sunday breakfast, where it always smelled like hairspray and take-away containers, where the two of them curled up on the lumpy grey couch and watched horrible soap operas and threw popcorn at the screen and then into each other's mouths.

She didn't want to leave. She just wanted Morgana to stop.

She wished fervently that all of this would just go away, that Morgana would be the person she was without the pills, the person she could be if she'd stop going to parties and getting hammered, if she'd stop her compulsive lies, if she'd listen to Gwen, Arthur, Merlin, Leon, Lancelot, Gwaine, Elena – all of her friends who cared for her so deeply and didn't want to see her throwing herself out in such a practiced and repetitive manner.

But she didn't.

She never did.

And then, she took it just a step too far.

"You – you did what?"

"Gwennie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but I wasn't…I wasn't thinking straight, I was…"

"High. You were high. You were high and you slept with a teenage kid.

"Mordred's legal –"

"Like that excuses it at all! You cheated on me, Morgana. It doesn't matter how many drugs you were on, you were cheating on me. What the hell? How could you – this is – I never –"

"I'm sorry, Gwen, you have to believe me, I never meant for this to happen. I love you. I'd spend forever with you."

"It's not enough this time. I – I'm done."

Gwen stormed out of the flat without looking back. Morning found her collapsed on Leon's couch, curled up and eyes red as she stared dully out of them.

Leon held her as she sobbed into him. "I thought – I really thought she could change, that I could change her. But I couldn't. Oh, God, I couldn't."

"It's okay," Leon whispered into her hair, cradling her like a small child. "People like Morgana…sometimes there's just nothing we can say or do. They'll keep doing things they know will hurt us, because they just can't stop. It's not your fault, Gwen. Never your fault."

Gwen wished she could believe him.