Notes: A MEMORY OF LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD. PLEASE STOP IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE SERIES.
That being said, this pairing's one-shot was requested by Skitch! My heart still breaks when I think of these two, particularly the scene in which Mat and Min do absolutely nothing to revive Siuan. I felt it was OOC for both of them to not even try.
Everything is canon up until the end of TOM (other than that silly little Moiraine marriage foretelling) and diverges throughout AMOL.
Twice
They sit in a loaded silence, one staring at the ceiling, one at the tiles. Moiraine's hands fold demurely in her lap while Siuan's pick at gauze and scabs and anything her fingernails can catch. It jarred her to wake to Moiraine beside her bed (statue still in her perpetual state of thoughtful misery) but neither one has spoken. There is too much to say.
The Dragon won, the New Age began, Gareth died, Thom was bonded, the world is changed.
From her reverie, Moiraine asks in a tiny voice, "Did you love him, Siuan?"
"Yes," comes the truncated reply.
She answers without hesitation from her propped up stack of pillows in the infirmary's sterile bed, skin ghostly pale except where her flesh is regrowing (shiny and pink like a Southern Hookmouth's scales). The burns stretch across her left side, painting a gruesome, continuous splotch on everything from stomach to chin. The Yellows could only do so much after the damane's initial attempt at piecing her body back together.
(It scorches Moiraine to the core- worse than tumbling to her death against Lanfear, worse than the flaying sensation of the Eelfinn draining her soul and power- that she will always be a consolation prize to the only person she's ever loved. Destined be the first conquest, placed on a shelf and quickly forgotten.)
"There was no more news from you. No ripples on the water," Suian spitefully adds. Her face is drawn in a scowl.
"They shamed me, they beat me, they Stilled me, they killed Alric, and I wept in that bloody cell because I'd not heard from you in months," she spat. "I fled the Tower like a runaway and fought every day just to stay alive, and thought for certain I'd be executed anyway. I thought you'd abandoned me, and- and he was there when I was so alone. After you died..."
She trails off, chest heaving. Moiraine hears the crackle of skin as her lungs expand.
Siuan looks impossibly young, not a minute older than the day they gained the Shawl, and her sea-deep eyes lock with Moiraine's icy ones. She thickly murmurs, "Yes, I loved Gareth. I loved him with all that was left of my heart."
Moiraine's stomach flips violently, a sharp and final motion, and she thinks, This must be how Warders feel when a blade slides through their insides. She doesn't move a muscle.
What does that mean, my Siuan? she wonders. Is there nothing left of you for me to love? When I heard you'd been executed I wrote my last letter to you, tied it to a stone, and sunk it in a river. I promised myself I'd die soon after to join you- to complete our mission. I attacked Lanfear knowing you'd be proud.
She says nothing for a long moment, frozen composure a comfortable mask.
"I wrote letters, Siuan. I wrote you every day."
"I heard nothing from you, Moiraine!" she snarls, black hair flying as she lunges forward, straining her body and bandages. The bed creaks beneath her shifting weight. She has never made Moiraine flinch before, cringing at her harshness. Siuan was always so gentle with her little Cairhienin girl.
(In her embarrassment and frustration, Moiraine bites back. No one riles her like Siuan, not even insufferable Lan or stubborn Nynaeve. She could face the temper of the mad, unpredictable Dragon Reborn with humility and calm, but she will put this fisherman's daughter in her place. How dare she behave so disrespectfully?)
"And what of you?" Moiraine's voice is cool and low. (The world will end in ice.) "You sent me away and then you died. You died twice, Siuan Sanche. Two times you left me alone."
Siuan turns her face away like a petulant child. She can't look at her accuser, but waves her statement aside with a casual hand. "The first time was untrue, and the second wasn't as bad as all that."
Moiraine grabs her wrist. She doesn't release it.
"Min says your heart stopped beating in that command post."
"I obviously wasn't-"
"She says that if she, Matrim Cauthon, and those damane hadn't been nearby, you would have never woken."
She slowly, methodically, pins Siuan's hand to the white sheets at her side, safely away from the burns on her hip. The motion screams "stop picking, stop waving, stop moving" and the other woman's forearm tenses in her grip, unused to being physically restrained by anyone, much less her demure fellow Blue.
The bandages need changing, Moiraine notices, and she decides she will fix all of this if it ends in tears and screaming. She will mend this wound like it should have been mended in Chachin, when she lost her love the first time and kept her mouth shut in fear. When her virgin heart learned the gnawing sting of regret.
(Lan never asked her why she wept at night. He could feel the empty place in her soul where Siuan should be.)
"Min says she pounded on your chest for minutes before the Healing worked, and Matrim said he would execute every damane in Seanchan if that girl gave up on you when her sul'dam said to stop weaving. She felt your pulse and pronounced you dead. Only Matrim's luck and Min's persistence saved you."
Moiraine's voice rises in a half-controlled frenzy; she takes the former Amyrlin's head between her hands (like Healing, like kissing) and whimpers, "We were almost finished- finished with the work to which we've devoted our entire lives, Siuan- and you died after everything we've survived. How could I live knowing that I didn't protect you? How could I forgive myself for that sin a second time?"
The Tairen looks away, face puffy from days of mourning her late husband, blinking back new tears that form unbidden in her eyes. (She can't hold Moiraine's gaze. She never could. Anyone but Moiraine.) Her dainty lips tremble as she presses her cheek into the open palm, trying to turn away, trying to hide her face. She is so ashamed at what transpired between them.
"It doesn't matter now," Moiraine whispers. "I hope he was the prince you always dreamed of marrying, my heart."
Her lips press to the pale forehead chastely, sweetly. She knows she will have to walk away (like countless other times the Wheel mocked her love, refusing to weave her closer to the person she most needed) because this silence is breaking her more than Tarmon Gai'dan ever could.
"He reminded me of you," Siuan chokes. The tears fall. No more holding back; she can't lose her again. "So calm and collected and driven. He was a substitute and I loved him for it, for filling the hole you left." She gasps, "I didn't want a bloody prince, Moiraine. I wanted you."
(Hands slip to neck. Eyes widen. A sharp inhale shatters the trance.)
"We were so impossibly stupid to separate the way we did. We should have taken the gamble and worked as a pair- found al'Thor together- been physically together-"
"Stop."
Siuan sniffles, eyebrows knitting together in hurt. The dark circles beneath her eyes deepen when she frowns, but she's still gorgeous like a Sailor's Warning sunrise: fiery and unforgiving and endless.
"Say that you wanted me," Moiraine murmurs. "Say you still do."
Her fingers rest on the base of Siuan's neck, nails weaving between strands of soft, straight hair. They would sit like this as Accepted whenever the Tairen grew frustrated with the circuitous politics of the Tower. She'd rant to Moiraine that the Aes Sedai would be better off with a blunt, straightforward leader to guide the shifty-eyed secret-keepers in the Hall, and the shorter girl would shush and pet her until her rage melted away like snow in the sun. (Fate laughs at them.) When she'd first slept wrapped in Siuan's arms until the morning bell sounded, Moiraine woke thinking she would follow her precious puzzlemaster to the ends of the earth.
(The widow heaves a quivering sigh, opening a half-healed scab on her ribs. Her eyes leak like her wound, and she wonders how she will ever recover from the losses she's suffered. Her death sent Gareth bellowing to his end in a furious mob of Trollocs. She didn't feel his loss- the bond severed when her heart stopped- and his soul departed alone like poor Alric's. She abandoned them, and is cursed to live an eternity with her survivor's guilt.
Siuan has a knack for killing those who love her most. For what? A cause? It hardly seems an equivalent exchange in retrospect.)
"I have wanted you to be mine since I first saw you in the Tower, and will want you until the Wheel stops turning." Siuan closes her eyes and breathes, "But I can't, Moiraine. I will cause you more pain, and I cannot brave that storm."
Moiraine leans forward, brushing her forehead and nose against Siuan's. Her pink lips hover just out of reach as she says, "I am in pain every second you are away, and the greatest hurt I've ever endured was leaving your side. I need you to stay with me."
She tilts her head slowly until their lips touch (just as warm and wet as their nights in the Tower). Siuan holds the back of her head as if she never intends to release her, and Moiraine can taste the salty flavor of dried tears on her tongue. A hand glides across Moiraine's silk skirt, thumb grazing her hipbone possessively.
The Cairheinin gently pulls back, brushing aside the wayward bangs that fall across her blushing face. "We should move slowly. You're recovering more than just physically, and," she breathlessly adds, "we have so much to discuss."
Rubbing her bloodshot eyes, Siuan pouts, "Fish guts, Moiraine. That kiss didn't exactly scream 'I want to have a meaningful conversation with you.'"
Moiraine smiles and leans forward to press a decidedly innocent kiss to the taller woman's lips. "There will be more. Many more. But we both need time." After a long pause, she takes both of Siuan's hands between her own and murmurs sadly, "Don't send me away again. Don't leave me."
(She is quiet for so long that Moiraine is afraid she's asked too much. Perhaps her greatest fear is true: she has always loved Siuan more than Siuan loved her in return.)
"What if I hurt you again?" Siuan asks in response, drowning under the weight of her emotions. She loathes weakness, but loathes other people seeing her weakness even more, especially the person she most wants to protect.
Embracing the Source, Moiraine weaves a thread of Air to the pile of rolled bandages across the room. It floats lazily to her hand, unraveling midair. She opens Siuan's white robe without preamble and unties her stained wrappings. Siuan hisses in pain, back arching as she grimaces, but Moiraine continues undeterred. For a moment Siuan thinks she might faint under her nurse's blase ministrations.
"There," Moiraine ties a crisp knot. "Now we've both hurt each other, and I'll not hear another word about it, Siuan. Accept that our lives have not been simple. Accept that we've both made mistakes. Most of all, accept that I want to be with you and only you. Now scoot over."
(Though her mother would swoon and her father shrivel if they heard their well-bred, well-raised, well-educated daughter profess her love so forwardly, Moiraine knows that reserved, roundabout Cairhienin courting games would prove completely ineffective on Siuan. For all her cleverness, the former Amyrlin needs to be knocked senseless to understand what is right in front of her- what has always been right in front of her- and she lays astounded in the tiny bed until Moiraine squeezes in on her uninjured side.)
This time it is Siuan who initiates the kiss, fingertips resting comfortably on Moiraine's cheek. It hurts to stretch her arm even slightly, but she cannot refuse the overwhelming desire to touch the porcelain skin. She will learn to handle the hurts and the fears, the loneliness and the longing, now that Moiraine is here. She kisses her deeply, thankful in spite of everything.
"How did I ever manage without you?" she asks with a rueful grin.
Moiraine stares at her, dumbfounded. "Siuan, you didn't manage at all. You quite literally died."
"Yes, well. I was never very good at following directions."
Moiraine giggles despite herself, resting her head on Siuan's shoulder as she presses her body to the warmth at her side. Nothing has changed. (The scent of the aloe salve blends with underlying notes of sandalwood and jasmine, a combination she'd often dreamed about, but never believed she'd smell firsthand again. It is her favorite scent, and the most soothing one she knows.) She arranges herself delicately to avoid Siuan's burns.
"No, you weren't," Moiraine smiles. "We'll have to work on that."
They sit in a comfortable silence, staring at each other's faces like there is nothing else in the world to see. Moiraine's hand rests peacefully on Siuan's strong shoulder, rising and falling as she breathes, thumb rubbing tender circles on her skin. Siuan traces swirling patterns on Moiraine's waist (as petite and ravishing as ever) and relishes the quiet they share. They have said all there is to say.