A/N: Happy New Year's! Just one more chapter to go! As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. It's great to hear what you think of the story.

Big thanks to MySoapBox for the beta. :)

Okay, so I got this back from my beta, cleaned up a section, and then posted it quickly before my family came over for New Year's. In my haste, I forgot to warn you that it completely throws the traditional legend out the window, lol. So consider yourself warned. :)


A woman stands by a lake.

It is autumn, and the sun is dipping close to the horizon, sending splashes of red and orange across the blue water. She is older, her dark hair streaked with gray at the temples, and there are lines around her eyes from what she has seen in her lifetime. There is a sadness inherent in her bearing that nothing can erase.

A wooden boat lies at her feet.

The boat is filled with dried grasses and flowers, on top of which lays a body – the arms crossed, the brow smooth, the unseeing eyes closed.

She kneels beside the boat, her face crumpling in sorrow, and runs a hand over his face, his skin cold and waxy beneath her touch. Her wavy hair falls against her pallid cheeks, and tendrils stick to the cascading tears.

If only he had known how much she loved him – loves him still. If only she had trusted him more.

A rustling sound catches her attention. She stands and turns to squint toward the trees. Her brow clears as a figure emerges into the clearing. His hair is still as fair as when he was born, but his eyes are empty, and his shoulders sag with a burden he's been carrying for decades now.

After tethering his horse to a tree, he holds up his hands, palms facing her. "I'm unarmed," he announces as he walks closer, "and alone."

Returning her melancholy gaze to the lake, she allows him to join her on the bank. He stands on the opposite side of the boat, his eyes trained on the calm water.

"It has been many years, Morgana," Arthur says, his voice but a whisper on the breeze. "Too many."

Heaving a sigh, he lowers himself to one knee. His brow creases with grief as he stretches out a hand to rest it on his friend's chest.

"Thank you," she murmurs, "for allowing me this."

Merlin had been the king's right-hand man until the end. No matter which side he had been on, he'd born himself like a hero, and he deserves a hero's burial, with the entirety of Camelot looking on. Camelot's people deserve to know what he's done for them. But Arthur – maybe out of his innate goodness, maybe out of a lingering fondness for his foster sister – has given her this, a private funeral where she can say goodbye in her own way. A public memorial held in the kingdom would have prevented that.

Arthur rises. He hooks a thumb into his belt and says, "After all he's done for me, it's the least I can do for him."

Morgana's lips twitch upwards into an imperceptible smile at the suggestion that he had wanted this, wanted to be with her at the very end. She swallows. "Did he know?" she asks softly. "That I loved him?"

"Of course he did," Arthur tells her, and the quickness of his reply surprises her. He turns to her. "I think, at first, he tried to convince himself that you didn't, to make it easier. But, deep down, yeah. He knew it."

She looks down at Merlin's face, so peaceful, so still. "This is all my fault," she breathes. She had lost faith in him, in them, and had allowed fate to dictate her life.

Setting his jaw, Arthur grasps her wrist. "You cannot blame yourself," he says emphatically.

Morgana finally looks him in the eye. "I can," she insists shakily, "because I didn't believe. I didn't believe in us, and I followed destiny blindly, and this is where it has led."

"No, Morgana," he shakes his head, "this is all . . . this is all just bigger than us, bigger than anything we can try to control. Even for Merlin." He pauses. "Even for you."

Morgana turns her head. Arthur had employed him as an advisor, but did he even have an inkling as to the depth of Merlin's power? Perhaps if they had truly tried, the combination of their power could have stopped time, allowed them a few more precious moments together.

He lets out a breath, lets out the tension in his shoulders as he turns back to the water and sweeps his gaze over the lake. "Why did you join forces with Mordred?"

The question catches her off-guard. It's over, has been from the moment Merlin was struck down, and she'd thought Arthur would have wanted to keep the past behind them.

But Arthur Pendragon has always surpassed her expectations in one way or another.

She crosses her arms and sighs. "He was family. Or at least the closest thing I could find to it after I let Merlin go."

Mirroring her posture, Arthur frowns. "And when you joined him in attacking Camelot, did you not remember how you and I used to be family?" Before he lets her answer, though, he says, "Morgana, there is no reason we can't be family again."

"So, when everyone dear to us is gone, we cling to what we knew long ago?" she asks, a mirthless smile playing over her ruby lips.

"Something like that," Arthur muses. "But really, I miss you, Morgana. Is that so hard to believe?"

"Even after I've threatened your kingdom, after I've wrongly held you accountable for my mistakes?"

"Yes, even after all that." He glances at her curiously. "Haven't you missed me at all?"

"After you tried to kill me so many times? After the man I love chose your 'two sides of a coin' destiny over a life with me?" she scoffs. Unexpectedly, Arthur smiles, and she softly confesses, "Yes. I missed you."

"I knew it," Arthur says, his grin widening. He faces her and says, "Come back with me, Morgana. Come to live with me at the castle. We can start again."

Morgana purses her lips in contemplation. "No." He opens his mouth to argue but before he can get a word in, she continues, "Not at the castle. I'll come back to Camelot, but I won't live in the castle."

Arthur considers for a moment before nodding and saying, "Okay. I'll set you up somewhere in town."

"On the outskirts."

"On the outskirts, then," he agrees, scrutinizing her knowingly. "That didn't take nearly as much convincing as I thought it would."

She laughs, the first real laugh that's crossed her lips in years. "Had you prepared a speech for me?"

"Well," he shrugs, "I did have a lot of time to think on the ride over." He takes a breath. "But really, I've known you since I was nine, and that was a little too easy, Morgana."

Frowning, she digs the toe of her boot into the grass. "It just . . . doesn't seem to mean anything now that he's gone."

"No, it doesn't," Arthur says with a shake of his head. He sighs. "The sun's almost down."

Morgana nods, nods again when he offers to push the boat off. He gives her a moment to lean down, brush a kiss over Merlin's cold forehead, and murmur a regretful goodbye. Her foster brother stays in a low squat to heave the boat away and watch it drift out into the middle of the lake, and she rests a hand on his shoulder. When the boat floats out far enough, Arthur takes a deep breath and rises, surreptitiously swiping away a tear.

"He was a good friend," he says softly, a grimace on his face.

"A great man," Morgana breathes.

Arthur picks up the bow and arrow out of the grass and offers it to her. "You should do the honors."

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, she takes it. When she threads the arrow, he looks around and then gives her a confused look.

"How are you going to light it?" he asks.

Ignoring him, she concentrates and watches the arrow tip burst into flames. The flickering light illuminates her face in the growing twilight.

"Of course," Arthur says, a small smile on his lips. "How silly of me."

Listening to her pulse race, she breathes deeply, aims, and releases the arrow between heartbeats. It flies straight and true, finding its mark and setting the entire boat ablaze. She lowers the bow, keeps her gaze trained on the conflagration in the center of the lake.

"Goodbye, Merlin," she whispers, the words floating out across the water.

The word gives a stunning finality to it all. She'd never said goodbye when he'd left her decades earlier. She hadn't the courage. But now she must truly face life without him – a life without her light, her warmth.

She lets out a long, shaky breath and looks over at Arthur, the heartache plainly written on his face. Sensing her gaze, he steps closer to her and slides an arm around her shoulders.

"We will get through this, Morgana," he assures her quietly, "like we have gotten through everything."

Returning the embrace, she rests her head against his shoulder. "But I will never forget him."

"Nor I."

In the time she has left on this earth, she will endeavor to muddle through, but his memory will forever stay with her. He is in the wind that teases across her cheeks, in the rays of the sun, fanning out vibrantly across the water. He is in the very air she breathes.

And she carries him in her heart – now, forever, until the end of time.