I'm so sorry for the delay, something came up last minute and I ended up spending most of the past two days away from computers. Anyway, I didn't have that much time this past couple of weeks and I hit a series of blocks writing this but, in the end, I'm satisfied and here we are. Enjoy, I hope!

EDIT: Fixed some typos

Needless to say, it was a very, very long story.

If there was one good thing about his current condition, it's the fact that he could barely move without crippling pain. If he could, he's not sure he could've stopped himself from leaping at someone's throat at least once. Everything about the situation was just so surreal, he almost doesn't want to believe it, but whenever he so much as tries to consider the possibility that they were only lying, both his self-proclaimed emotions and that Ban from the future, something about the look in his double's eyes just quells those thoughts before they could fester, as was the case for the relief in Ban's voice whenever he spoke. They were exactly who they claimed they were, regardless of how unbelievable it had seemed.

In Ban's case—it was given that he'd know it was really him. Never mind the new clothes or the magnitude of his presence, he'd recognize his best friend any time, anywhere, and because they were best friends, he was always willing to believe him.

As for his self-proclaimed emotions... there was just something about his eyes, something raw, somehow simultaneously unsettling and reassuring, that made him believe him. Somehow, he could just feel it in his bones, the honesty of him. He believed him. He doesn't understand why, but he does.

And because he does, he listens to their story.

It bears repeating that their story really was ungodly long.

The thing was... he thought he knew what he was getting into when he'd entered that festival, when he'd finally stood against Drole and Gloxinia, when he'd faced against the rest of the Commandments as they arrived on the scene. Dying at the hands of the Commandments—it would've been unfortunate and all, but it was a setback he'd always known could happen and, for better or worse, he knew he'd come back eventually. But this?

Ban coming to save him, that wasn't completely unexpected. He was his best friend, he knew he'd try to save him if he could, and damn the consequences if he couldn't. Even knowing that Ban didn't logically stand much of a chance against the bulk of the Commandments by himself, it was something he couldn't help but be touched by, even with his own emotions as diminished as they were, something he couldn't help but appreciate when all was said and done.

A Ban from the future coming to save him, with the help of Meliodas' own emotions in a physical form, entering through a gate opened from Purgatory to take him from almost literally under the Commandments' feet, however?

Putting it very, very mildly, that was less than expected.

The whole saga about Purgatory itself just felt unbelievable to him. He'd always known what his curse entailed, how his father intended to have him be that hollow shell once more but—somehow, he never really thought it was going to be so soon, that a scant month or so later, he'd have become that all over again. And to hear exactly how it had been done, and about the things he himself had done the moment he'd woken after he'd lost all of his emotions, it had all just been...

He'd like to say it was all unbelievable but he could see it all happening with frightening clarity.

("Would it even have stopped you? Knowing you'd lose all of them?" his emotions had asked rhetorically, to which he couldn't help but drop his gaze, unable to meet those hollow eyes. "... I understand why, of course I do," he had hastened to add. "But... you know... try not to, here."

"I'll... try not to," he had promised, but even then, he had known that everyone there knew exactly how much his word was worth. "I don't ever want to go back to being that.")

What he'd apparently done after losing his emotions hadn't been easy to accept either...

("Honestly! Five seconds without a heart and you go disband the Sins, claim the Commandments, and try to become the Demon King, you complete heartless dumbass.")

... though truth be told, he could definitely see the bastard he used to be doing something like that. He only hopes Elizabeth was still alright, back in that future—he knows he'd never hurt her now but back then... he really can't be sure. With her memories and powers fully awakened, she should at least be more than able to defend herself against anything he could throw at her... even if the fact that her remembering everything was what led to that mess in the first place.

Even the story leading up to it, from the time when his emotions had first been fully ejected up to just before Ban had finally set out for Purgatory, had twists that, despite it all, surprised even his counterpart... to both their grief. When he hears about Drole and Gloxinia, about how they'd stood up to protect his idiotic, unconscious self from Chandler, about how they wanted to atone for betraying him (when they didn't, unwittingly or not, he abandoned them and he deserved every hurt they doled out and more), about how they'd declared him and Elizabeth their best friends in the moment before they died, about how Elaine had heard, in their hearts, that they thought of them in the end and wished they'd both find happiness...

It hadn't been easy.

And it never got any easier to hear, that long damned story. When his emotions narrate of how he'd spent centuries and centuries in Purgatory, kept in captivity by his useless, awful Dad, only to eventually despair, degrade, and get tossed aside, though his double'd done what he could to make his voice sound matter-of-fact, there'd been this absolutely haunted look in his eyes that just made him feel cold inside. He'd never really thought of it in-depth, what it had to be like for his emotions each time he died, each time he'd tried to die, but seeing how he'd looked when he'd told of it, he could imagine it almost all too well...

Ban's part in the narrative after came as an honest relief, though he could tell that, despite how Ban himself kept underplaying his own struggles, those couldn't have been easy for him, either. For at least two hundred years, Ban had more-or-less aimlessly wandered the endless, paradoxical hellscape that was Purgatory, looking for his emotions all on his own—despite not even knowing what they were going to look like when he'd gotten there. Ban kept playing up the ridiculousness of his own lack of forethought for all it was worth but, when all was said and done, his emotions had an expression of such absolute relief and gratitude that even he, unable to feel anywhere near strongly as his emotions could, could understand how it had to have felt. He knew damn well he didn't deserve it, having a friend like Ban, but until the day he died for good, he was never going to stop trying to be.

He's told of how they realized that the normal door to Purgatory had to be somewhere under his father's control, their eventual encounter with Hawk's older brother, Wild, and their travels together as a group. The story's been so unbelievable, he's not even really all that surprised to find out that Hawk apparently has a brother who actually was a warrior strong enough to literally run circles around his emotions—even if, according to him, it was only because he was much weaker without his body. What does surprise him, however, was the fact that, apparently, his emotions, Ban, and Wild then fought Dad for more than sixty years straight.

Yes, Ban might be an immortal and but—how the hell did they survive fighting Dad for over sixty years?! How did his emotions make it?! His Dad's been trying to get rid of them for the past three thousand years! It was all just... unbelievable. And he's lived long enough that even this exact situation wasn't the most unbelievable thing he's ever witnessed.

They never once succeed despite all the years they spent fighting him, (finally, something that made sense) not even after they'd both figured out the core concept behind his magic power (inversion, he had to remember that) and after Ban had developed a technique that could exploit it (so that was how they'd fixed his hearts), their last bout ending with his father blasting them off into the far distance, separating them from Wild in the process. It was in the years they'd spent wandering in the aftermath of that last bout that they'd come across the Purgatory Witch, an apparently benevolent entity who'd agreed to open a door back to the mortal realm for them just because they'd asked, without asking for anything in return—

"Though her shit-aim made a real mess of things," Ban concludes. He was grinning, though, and he didn't seem to have any regrets. "But at least it meant we got to save you, Cap'n."

"That's true," his emotions agree. "At least you didn't have to die this time! Dying really sucks."

In response, all he could was slump back against his pillows and just try to absorb it all, failing miserably to the detriment of his pounding skull as he did. "Yeah," he says, at last, voice coming out weaker than he'd have preferred. His head was aching something awful. "Not my first time."

His emotions grin. "I know," he says. Then with a smile that was equal parts unashamedly, infuriatingly knowing and sympathetic with understanding: "I know it's a lot to take in. It's alright if you're overwhelmed."

"It is one hell of a story," he agrees. "Definitely... a lot."

Ban smirks. "Bit of an understatement, there, Cap'n," he drawls. When he turns to look at him, however, concern is clear in his eyes and he looks a bit more solemn. "How're you holdin' up?"

He wants to answer as he usually does but finds that he just... can't. Not right now. "As well as you'd expect," he rasps, and Ban laughs, though his emotions give a sympathetic wince. "I wanna drink," he can't help but mumble, and while he hates how weak he sounds, he doesn't have the energy to sound strong. "My head hurts."

"M'sorry, 'bout that, Cap'n," Ban says, and he seemed to mean it. It wasn't much but it helps, somehow. "Any other time, I would, but your guts are all still messed up. When you're better, alright?"

He closes his eyes and bobs a nod. It's all he can do and, for now, it's enough.

"I know it can't be easy," his emotions say, and it really, really wasn't. "Still, we're here, you're here, and you're in a much better place than I was, in my time. I know it's hard right now but, believe me, things can only get better for you."

It's through the pounding in his skull that he meets his gaze. "Aren't you optimistic?" he snarks, to which his emotions only smile. And holy damn, but the sight of himself doing that was a headache all on its own...

"I am all of your emotions," he points out, sounding far too cheerful for his tastes. "Good and bad. It makes sense that I can be."

"Right," he mutters. His head was still pounding and this really didn't help. "That... makes perfect sense, yeah..."

It didn't and he wants a fucking drink. It's been over an hour since he'd woken up and while Ban's Gift, as he'd called it, had helped soothe the aches in his body, it did nothing to help the ache in his head and it was an awful one. He wants to fall asleep. He wants to drink himself up to the eyes in Bernia ale. He almost wants things to just go back to normal. Instead, he's here, head aching too much to let him sleep, unable to drink more than water because of his still-healing guts, and with no one but a pair of time travelers for company, of whom one was his emotions incarnate. This was what has his life has become. Just... this.

"Ah, you're awake! It's good to see that you're recovering, Captain."

The unexpected feminine voice made him turn. It was Merlin, back in her normal, unpetrified body and dressed in a new outfit, striding triumphantly down the stairs with Aldan by her side, making him stare. Though he can see Ban and his emotions as they call out greetings, for a few moments, all he can hear is one word:

How.

How?!

"Oh, yeah," his emotions suddenly say. "I guess I forgot to mention it but I've also figured out how to remove Commandment curses! I learned it when I removed yours."

He stares. "... okay," is all he finds he can say in response to that. Because what else was he supposed to say to that? What? What?!

Merlin gives him a small, sympathetic smile. "I was the one to break the curse on myself, however," she points out, to which his emotions grin, cheeky. "Though your emotions did provide the hint I needed in order to do so." She walks over to his side, arms crossed, continuing to look at his emotions from the corner of her eye. "As it turns out, all I needed to do was... remember where I came from."

What did that even mea—?!

Oh.

"I know," she says, and the look she shot his now very smug-looking counterpart was irritated and almost petulantly thankful in a way he hasn't seen since the days when Elizabeth had been a goddess. For his part, he couldn't believe he'd forgotten, too. "Regardless, how much have you learned so far, Captain?"

"A lot," he mutters, to which both Ban and his emotions exchange vaguely amused, sympathetic looks. "We've been at this since I woke up."

"I gathered," she says wryly. "In any case, I was curious. How did Zaratras come back from the dead?"

He blinks.

"... Zaratras came back from the dead?" he asks weakly. "Really?!"

"We haven't reached that part yet," his emotions confirm, and he really cannot help but stare.

How many parts were there?! They'd done nothing but talk for hours now!

Ban only looked amused. "It's a long story," he repeats. When all this was over, he thinks deliriously, determinedly, to himself, he was going to ban that phrase from the Sins' vocabulary. Call it the eighth law of the Seven Deadly Sins. "Really, Cap'n, we're gonna be here for a while," he says, this time looking at him directly. "Lots of stuff happened in our time."

"Indeed," Merlin sighs. "I'd imagine it would take years for us to understand everything you've been through," she says, one note of her voice sympathetic but the rest just curious. "So we may as well get started."

He slumps back further against his pillows and thinks that, yes, dying would have been easier than this. "Right," he mumbles tiredly. "Let's get this over with."

As the story-telling continued, his emotions and Ban narrating a tale that only seemed to get more outlandishly unbelievable by the second, Merlin surreptitiously passes him some headache medicine, and it's right then and there that he decides that Merlin was a saint.

Hours after Merlin's message, long after almost everyone else had tucked in to catch whatever rest they could, Elizabeth was roaming around the archives of Castle Liones alone, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped, not just from the weight of the tomes piled in her arms but from sheer, absolute exhaustion.

In an effort to help Diane regain what memories she could, she, Gowther, and King had banded together to help retell of their adventures, both those from the battles of ten years ago and those Elizabeth had personally seen. Her father had allowed them full access to all the records of their adventures and Diane seemed to remember more easily with each passing hour but...

There was just so much to go over...

Even with Gowther's Playback and Broadcast easing the process, they had years and years worth of memories to go over, names, and places, and adventures all worth remembering that Diane just, for the life of her, could not.

And it really, really didn't help that Gowther had willfully chosen to erase all traces of King from her memories. Everyone else, both from the Sins and the Holy Knights in general, she felt a sort of... familiarity. Here and there, she could even remember things, just bits and pieces from memories both big and small, some from great, epic battles and others just moments from their everyday lives. The longer Diane spent with her, with the other Sins present, even with the other Holy Knights, the more she remembered about them... all except for King. With him, all she could remember was...

Nothing. Just... nothing.

She knew he was a friend and she felt that he was something special but, aside from those vague feelings she didn't fully understand, she couldn't remember anything about him at all. No matter he did, no matter what she did, she just could not remember anything about him.

And, according to Gowther, he didn't know a way to reverse it...

Elizabeth couldn't imagine what it had to be like for King, having the person he loved not remember him, so close yet so far... she just had to help. And she was happy to! This was Diane, she was her friend, her best friend, even. It was just that, now, she was—

Right now, she was working this wing of the archives on her own and it was... a lot to go through, to say the least. Elizabeth didn't begrudge Diane her sleep, of course, she perfectly understood why she'd be tired after everything. Losing her memories, returning to her homeland on foot (!), fighting in the festival—of course she understood! So when Diane, who'd barely been able to keep her eyes open, finally decided to accept her own offer to share her room for the night, how in the world could she begrudge her? She just couldn't, not at all!

And how could she begrudge King? He was the last to go up to bed—he had to be carried, he was so tired, how in the world could she begrudge him his sleep? As for Gowther, Gowther was still working! He was scanning through the archives in the other wing of the castle, working to atone for his "misbehavior", as he called it. Certainly, he'd made a terrible mistake but he was working to fix it harder than anyone! She didn't begrudge anyone, anyone at all! It was just that she was—

Just...

—exhausted.

She had yet to sleep, not even a wink. Not since she'd pledged to help her in recovering her memories, not since before they were transported to the castle—not since before they'd entered the festival grounds, even, and she was so, so tired. After everything that had happened, everyone was tired, of course, and she was certainly not going to complain but she truly, truly did want to sleep. And she could, of course, there was plenty of room in her bedroom, even with a (Gilfrost-shrunken) Diane for company and she was sure no one would complain if she took a break but—

But...

She didn't want to.

Every time she tried, she would see it again.

Whenever she so much as closed her eyes, she could see it, clear as day, that awful, awful sight, hear his screams as if they were right in her ears. Every time she had a moment to herself, she'd see it, hear it, all of her worst nightmares come to life. Back then, it had been like watching her heart getting torn to pieces before her eyes.

He was safe, now, of course, Merlin was with him now, and so was that other Ban and that... other him. And she knew it was him. Gilfrost might've scoffed but it was true. Up until Merlin had vouched for their identities, she hadn't had any proof and she knew it didn't make sense but she just— she just knew, the truth of his identity was something she recognized down to her very bones. Just like it had been him there, lying beaten and broken and—

He was safe, now, at the Boar Hat, with Merlin watching over him and that other Ban and other him protecting him. Somehow, miraculously, he'd been saved. He was safe now. She knew that. Logically, she knew that. Yet every time she closed her eyes, she could still see it, clear as day, the sight of him as he'd nearly been—

... It didn't bear thinking about. Right now, she had a job to do, and she was happy to do it. She didn't mind if she was tired, sore, and exhausted, not if it was for Diane, her own best friend. Anyway, it wasn't like there wasn't a benefit to her: the longer she stayed awake, the less she had to see it again and it wasn't like there was any use in dwelling on it, not when, right now, she knew he was safe... even if she still couldn't help but fret...

"Elizabeth?! What are you still doing in here!? You're supposed to be in bed!"

She very nearly drops the books, squeaking as she does. Hawk was staring at her from the open doorway with wide, worried eyes.

"I was just trying to—w-what are you doing here, Hawk? Shouldn't you be asleep, too...?"

"I was!" he huffs. "I just woke up 'cause I needed to use the toilet, that's all!"

"And I'm awake here because I helped him find it," another voice interjects. Slader had just walked into view from right behind Hawk, eyes peering at her through his helmet with a mix of concern and... confusion. "Princess Elizabeth... what are you wearing?"

She accidentally drops the books with a squeak, blushing, hands going up to fiddle nervously at her hair in a move that was almost automatic. "I..." she falters. As the clothes Zaneli had so thoughtfully given to her had been torn in the fight with the Marakians, she'd changed into clothes she'd had made after the chaos with the fight against the possessed Hendrickson, an outfit that echoed her old Boar Hat waitress' uniform in terms of design. "I designed these myself, actually," she says, tugging at the hem of her new dark-colored top. It was oddly embarrassing, actually admitting it... "Th-they're easier to move in!" she adds, nervous though it was true. If her clothes were more... daring than her father might've strictly liked, it was only because it was necessary, so she wouldn't be a burden. And, anyway... she actually rather liked wearing clothes like these. "Really..."

"Looks like something that perv would like," Hawk says skeptically before squealing and clamping his hooves over his mouth. "N-not that there's anything wrong with that!" he hastens to add, seeing her droop. Somehow, even that passing mention had reminded her of how he'd looked when he'd been— "You look great!"

"That type of clothes does suit you, Princess," Slader compliments. Without even having to say a word, he'd bent to pick up all of the books she'd dropped. On his broad shoulders, those heavy tomes looked tiny. "I'm just wondering why you're dressed to go out and not for bed." The last two words, he says with an emphasis that makes her look down. "It's the middle of the night, Princess. You should be asleep."

"There's still so much to do, though!" she bursts out, hands clenching into fists. "How could I sleep, there's still so much to do! Diane, she's—"

"Diane's asleep!" This time, Hawk's the one to cut in, looking at her incredulously. "Elizabeth—don't tell me you've been staying up for that?!"

"Sh-she's my best friend! I owe her this much..." her voice trails off as she tries to steel herself. "I can't just sit back and do nothing, I..." she falters. "I don't want to do nothing."

Though his eyes were obscured by his great helmet, Elizabeth could sense pity in Slader's gaze. "Princess, it's the middle of the night. You haven't slept in days," he gently points out. "Diane would be upset to see you working yourself to exhaustion like this. You've done more than enough, today."

"That's right," Hawk pipes up. "Really, Elizabeth, you look dead on your feet!"

She flinches and looks down. "I... I am tired," she has to admit. She could hardly say otherwise, not when it was written so clear over her face. "I just don't think I should—"

"Is this because of Meliodas?"

She freezes, words dying in her throat. "I..."

"H-hey, wait a minu—way to read the situation!" the last line, Hawk directed at Slader, who only looked evenly, if apologetically, back at her.

"We can't skate around the issue forever," he points out, looking almost disapprovingly at the pig before returning his gaze to her, looking sympathetic. "Princess, I know it must've been upsetting for you, seeing all of that. And no one can blame you," he adds. "But we know he's safe now; Big Sister's watching over him herself. He would only be upset, seeing you like this."

She swallows thickly. "I just..."

"He's right, Elizabeth!" Hawk chimes in. "He's already recovering, Merlin said it herself! He's safe now and, anyway, she's there to watch over him. Her, those other two, and even my Mama! There's no need for you to wear yourself out worrying over him, not when we know he's going to be fine."

"I just... I felt so useless back there," she whispers, and both Hawk and Slader exchange glances. Her voice had sounded small, even to her own ears. "I... I want to see him for myself. I don't want—until I can see him for myself, I don't think I can sleep. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is..."

Here she stops. Draws in a deep, shuddering breath.

"I thought I was going to lose him," she says quietly. "I need to see him again."

Slader reaches out and softly places a hand on her shoulder. "And you will," he says gently. "In a few hours time. They're all already heading our way, Big Sister said so herself. Now, come on," Slader tells her, taking off his mask. His expression was gentle, and his eyes were kind. "I'm sure he wouldn't want you losing sleep over him, dear. You've already stayed up almost all night. A girl really must get her beauty sleep."

"It's okay if you're worried," Hawk adds, trotting over to her side. "I'm... I'm worried, too," he admits. "But you shouldn't do this to yourself, Elizabeth, it won't do anyone any good! We know he's going to be okay so just go to bed, already! I'll stay with you if you want."

After a long, long moment, her shoulders slump and she lets out a long-held breath. "A-alright," she says, at last, sounding resigned. "I... suppose I will. I still don't think I can sleep but maybe I could just... lie down, for a while."

"That's the spirit," Slader encourages. "Come on, dear. Let me take you to your room."

"It's going to be alright, Elizabeth," Hawk tells her. She wishes she could feel as confident as he sounded. "Everything's going to be fine."

It was an hour after the entire (enormous) story had been told and Meliodas was once again alone in his room, lying awake in the silence. Merlin, Ban, and his emotions had left to ostensibly let him rest but given everything he'd just learned, how could he?

A future where he died and came back. A future where Liones hung on the edge of a precipice. A future where Elizabeth had remembered because of Zeldris. A future where he'd lost himself. Depending on whether or not they counted the years spent wandering Purgatory, the stories they'd told spanned either months or a millennium, and, either way, it was all too much information to have been given in the span of just a couple of hours.

"I know it is," an unexpected voice pipes up. When he looks up, it's to see his emotions entering the room, his counterpart looking both amused and sympathetic as he went to sit on the foot of his bed. "And I'm sorry. But if we want to make your future a better one than ours, you really are going to need all the information you can get."

He grunts a greeting. "... Still a real headache, though," he grumbles, though only halfheartedly. He did understand, of course, but it didn't make it any easier. "What're you doing here?" he asks. "Weren't you and Ban planning a reunion party or something?

"They kicked me out," he answers cheerfully. "Ban doesn't want me contaminating his cooking," he says, with a fond roll of his eyes. "Merlin's staying with him to make sure he cooks something you can eat. Gift aside, your gut's still in pretty bad shape. And, no, sorry," he adds preemptively. "No ale."

It wasn't unexpected but it's still disappointing. "Well, that stinks," he grumbles, to which his emotions give a sympathetic little smile. "What do you want, then? Don't tell me you haven't finished telling us everything..."

At first, he only grins and for the first time, he knows exactly what Merlin meant when she'd once drunkenly told him that he had a punchable smile. "Well, yeah, I haven't," he admits. "But you already know everything you need to know," he adds before he could attempt to strangle him one-handed. "So it's not that."

"What is it, then?" he asks, eyeing him warily.

He seems to have to steel himself before speaking. "You need to tell them," he states. "The Sins. I think... you—we need to tell them. The curse, Elizabeth, who we are—everything."

He blinks. "I... what?"

"It was something I realized, while we were traveling in Purgatory," the words come out in a rush, one after the other, and his emotions, his double in form, holds himself like he was trying to keep his own guts in. "I—I told you, if we want to make your future a better one, you're going to need all the information you can get—and the same goes for the Sins. They need—they deserve to know."

He looks down. "I... I know that they need to know about you," he admits, because he really cannot say otherwise, not when their future depended on it, the future of Britannia itself. "But... everything else... why?"

His emotions look at him as if he'd said something stupid. "... They deserve to know because they're our friends and we trust them, heart and soul," he says as if it were as obvious as simple addition. "We can't tell Elizabeth about the curse or anything because it's dangerous for her to know, but the rest of the Sins? Tell them. They can all be trusted. And, besides..." He lets out a long breath as he looked down at his own hands. "It's unfair to them," he says quietly. "Not knowing why we're fighting, why the war began, what we want in the end... it's unfair for us to ask for so much from them without... without at least letting them know that much. They're all trustworthy. We both know that."

"... you sure are trusting," he says, after a long moment, staring openly at his counterpart. What else he could say, he didn't really know.

"Well, I am your heart," he says. Though his tone was amiable, there was something like gentle rebuke in his eyes. "I've known I could trust them with everything for a long time now. You used to, too," he adds, almost offhandedly. "You need to remember that. We don't just trust them with our lives, we trust them with Elizabeth's, all of them. You know they're all more than worthy of knowing. You just need to trust that they won't leave once they find out."

He freezes. "How did you—"

"I'm you," he interrupts, with a lopsided little half-smile. "And... no matter what lies you tell," he says, making Meliodas look up at him, his double, who now looked pensively back at him, a half-smile playing at the corners of his lips. "You can't lie to your heart." He then makes a sweeping gesture down at himself, the physical manifestation of his soul, what let him feel emotions. "You do the math."

He slumps back against the pillows. "... yeah, I guess I can't," he has to concede, voice quiet. "It's just..." his voice trails off and, for a moment, it is only quiet.

"... there's not much of me left, is there?"

He doesn't need to answer. They both already knew.

"You need to remember, Meliodas," his emotions instruct him, walking over to thump him on the back. "The Sins aren't just our allies, they're our friends. We trust them. Think about it," Here, he bends to look him in the eye, green meeting green. "Ban jumped into Purgatory to save me, even without knowing how to get back out—hell, without even knowing what I'd look like." Now, there was a warmth to his expression, gratitude bright in the green of his eyes. His expression was more than just fond, it was openly affectionate. He couldn't remember the last time he'd looked like that. Perhaps three thousand years ago, before Drole and Gloxinia had lost everything and fallen, when he and Elizabeth still flew together across the same skies. Perhaps back then. He can't remember, now. "And you just know the Ban here would do the same thing. "

"... it's because he's an idiot," he has to say. A flicker of warmth is burning in his own chest, faint but comforting all the same, and he can't imagine ever willfully ejecting something so precious. "Isn't he?"

"He's the biggest idiot there is," his emotions agree. There's a smile on his face and it is warm and wide and Meliodas can't remember the last time he's seen his face look like that. "It's why we're friends. It's why we trust him. Him, and all the rest of the Sins."

He's still not sure. All things considered, he—he doesn't want to tell them but... "We trust them," he repeats, and he knows its true, down to his bones.

His heart smiles. "We do. Then, for the first time, he looks hesitant. "Look... there's something else I learned when I got here. It's... hard to explain but... I'd like to show you, if I can. Do you trust me?"

He looks at him for a long, long moment before letting out a chuckle. "You have to ask?"

His counterpart grins. "You, of all people, have to know the answer," he says, almost teasingly. He places his hand right in the center of his chest, over the one heart that had not been damaged by Estarossa, and lets out a breath. "This is going to feel weird, alright?" he warns, to which he nods. "Now... Empathize!"

Light momentarily floods his vision as his emotions flicker like heat haze in the moonlight streaming from the window, like flames wavering in a breeze

And it was—

Like something had filled his chest, something both warm, familiar, and, somehow, unfathomably alien. It was something he'd long forgotten, somehow both like standing in a warm breeze and getting burned alive from the inside. Something that shook him down to the core, something that made him feel...

Feel—!

Something that made him feel.

Confusion, alarm, shock—

It wasn't like he'd ever stopped feeling such but it had been absolute centuries since he could feel them so strongly...!

And... wonder. Wonder that he could feel it all. Wonder at how... different it all was. It was all just so... intense.

"This is..." he manages to choke out. He didn't know why, but he wanted to both laugh and cry at the same time and he didn't understand it at all, but he both loved and hated it, having his emotions back, feeling absolutely everything so strongly he could scarcely breathe. "This is... unbelievable."

"This is normal," his counterpart counters, grinning. His face was pale and he was clutching at his own ribs with his free hand. When he looks at him, feeling concerned, confused, and surprised at the intensity of how it all felt, and his counterpart grunts: "Dying really sucks but being alive isn't easy either, is it?"

He can't help it. He laughs, loud, hard, and true, and it makes his ribs hurt and fills his chest and it's more wonderful than anything, anything in the world. "It sucks," he wheezes. "It really, really sucks—pfft!" Then he laughs and laughs, and he can't and doesn't want to stop. It's not even that funny but he just loves how it feels to laugh like this and he just loves feeling

His emotions let him laugh until he runs out of breath and when he does, there are tears in his eyes and an ache in his chest, and he hasn't felt this amazing in years. "It's been a long time for you, hasn't it?"

"Forever," he answers, smiling at the feeling of it all, and there's an amount of wonder in the words. It wasn't that he hadn't known, he'd been told of the nature of his deaths and revivals time and time again, but... he'd forgotten how much he used to be able to feel. He'd forgotten how it felt. "I almost can't believe it..."

"I know," he says quietly, and, for a moment, his smile looks sad, but before he can comment, his eyes are bright once more. "So," he says, almost conversationally. "We trust the Sins."

And now that he can, he can feel the truth of the words down to his bones, warmth, contentment, and faith thrumming through his being at even just the memory of them, his companions, his allies, his friends.

He smiles and it feels good. "How much are we going to tell them?"

His emotions—his heart looks at him and smirks.

"Everything."

In the Holy Knight barracks, King lay awake on his hammock. He could not sleep and, all things considered, he's not sure how anyone, save only Elaine, was able to.

After all, his sister had come back from the dead but was now only barely alive, he'd gotten to see just how badly the Commandments outclassed them, Diane was starting to remember but couldn't remember him, and the Captain...

He frowns.

The Captain...

He lets out another long sigh.

As always, the Captain was a story all by himself.

"... That's a sorry look on your face."

Only then does he realize that Ban was staring at him from his own bed across his, though Elaine remained asleep in his arms.

(Being perfectly honest, he hadn't exactly approved of Elaine staying in the same bed as Ban. However, Ban had very pointedly told him where he could stuff his approval and Elaine, pale, weak, and trembling, had wholeheartedly concurred.)

"Go back to sleep, Ban," he says tiredly. "It's none of your business."

"You sure 'bout that?" he asks skeptically, and he looks away. "If it's about you getting all suspicious about the Cap'n," he continues. "The Master's already filled me in." He very casually disentangles himself from Elaine, taking care to make sure she was positioned comfortably against the pillows before leaning forward, elbows on his knees, chin on his hands, and eyes fixed on King's face. "What's all that about?"

Something about the hypocrisy of it all was just galling.

Didn't he do the exact same thing?!

"Well, what do you expect?" he bursts out, exasperated. "We already knew he was part of the Demon Clan—and at first, I tried not to care about that! I thought of him—I trusted him as our Captain way before we ever found out what he was and I didn't want to let the fact that he might be—that he is a demon get in the way of that! But then, it turns out he personally knows about the Ten Commandments," he continues. "He knew who was possessing Hendrickson, he knew the abilities of the Commandments enough to know who he didn't want to know about us—he knows so much that he's not telling us and it's getting us nowhere! Why shouldn't I be suspicious about him?! About what he's really trying to do?!"

"... D'you really think that the Cap'n and the Commandments want anything to do with each other?" Ban asks, eyes dark. "After seeing how they tried to butcher him?!"

King looks down. "No," he has to admit. Because if there could've been any greater proof that Meliodas—the Captain, King mentally corrected—was no ally of the Commandments, it would've literally been his own corpse. And as suspicious as he was of his fellow Sin these days... he didn't want that. He was never going to want that. "I know he's not with them but..." His fists tighten. "Given everything else, I can't just—"

"Can't just what?" he cuts in, to which King can only exhale, hands clenching into fists as he tried to get his breathing back under control. "... What started all of this, anyway?" he has to ask. "Last I saw, you guys were on good terms."

"... Hendrickson," he grits out. "He's back, if you didn't notice."

"'Course, I did," he says. Then he blinks. "... Oh, I see. The Cap'n wanted you to play nice with him, is that it?"

Ban...

... really was annoying.

"Because of him," he grits out. "I had to kill my best friend with my own hands. Three times. I don't care if he was possessed. I don't want anything to do with him."

"... that's fair," Ban allows. "And you're pissed at the Cap'n 'cause he asked you to play nice with him."

"It's not just that, I—!" he has to physically stop himself from flying off the handle, physically holding himself together. Ban always had been amazing at getting under his skin. "He knows a lot that he's not telling us," he says, at last. "And if we knew half the things he knew, we'd have a better chance against the Ten Commandments. But we don't. Because he's never told us anything about his past or—"

"Law number three of the Seven Deadly Sins' seven laws," Ban interrupts, sounding almost bored, eyes sliding shut as he leaned back against his pillow once more. "No questions about the other Sins' sins."

He gapes at him. "And you'll just accept that?!" he bursts out.

"Everyone's got secrets to keep," he drawls. "We all have stuff we don't wanna talk about. Unless you're trying to tell me..." his left eye opened a crack, locking onto his face intensely enough that King immediately felt uncomfortable. "... that you're not hiding anything. Are you?"

When King doesn't say a word, he continues: "All I know is, the Commandments hate the Captain as a traitor to the Demon Clan. I heard it from them with my own ears. Hell, we saw them try to slaughter him. Shouldn't that be enough?"

King looks down. "I... it's not that simple," he says. "It's not that I don't want to trust him. I know he's not on their side but..." He remembers their conversation from what felt like forever ago. "... Why should we trust him if he doesn't trust us at all?! 'Even if I did, I don't think you'd believe me. Honestly.'," he briefly imitates the tone he remembers, the infuriating non-answers, feeling that frustration he'd thought quashed rising once more. "Give me a chance to judge for myself, I want to trust you! I just..." His shoulders drop as he lets out a long sigh. "I just wish he trusted us more."

Ban looks at him for a long moment before leaning back against the headboard with his own long sigh. "... I getcha there," he grumbles. Still, he doesn't seem at all begrudging. "I won't tell you how to feel but I do think you should—"

The walls of the castle shook.

Without a second glance, they spring to action, Ban with Elaine in his arms, rushing to the window as a shadow covered the moon.

The Boar Hat had finally arrived.

All of the Sins present there—King, Ban, Escanor, Gowther, and Diane—rush out at the Boar Hat's arrival, their Holy Knight travelling companions, along with Arthur and a reluctant, suspicious Gilfrost, following closely behind, Hawk squealing "wait for me!" as he brought up the rear. From inside the castle, Matrona, shrunken down as Diane had been, watched the proceedings next to the knight, Silver, and the bard, Solatido, those three having been the only ones of the relatively-unaffiliated festival-goers to have gone to see the commotion. Holy Knights and castle guards all shouted and pointed at the great pig's descent but, somehow—

"Sir Meliodas!"

That screamed name remained audible over all the ruckus.

Wild-haired, wide-eyed, and still dressed in the clothes she'd slept in, Elizabeth'd come barreling out from her room at the sound of the commotion, heart pounding in her chest. Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps something more, but she'd known it was him the moment she'd woken up, and despite her exhaustion after the long hours, she felt more alive than she'd had since the nightmare of yesterday had begun.

"Princess!"

"Elizabeth!"

"Lady Elizabeth?!"

Before King could think to lower Chastiefol's pillow form to give her a lift, before Diane could go down to carry her up, before the astonished eyes of everyone present, after a running start, she outright leapt out of the open window for the rope ladder hanging by the Boar Hat's side, managing to grab the rungs with something close to desperation, before scaling her way up into the Boar Hat with all the speed of a woman possessed, all in the miniskirt and heels of her new Boar Hat waitress' uniform. She's the first to reach the top, before the flying King, before the fastest Sin, Ban, and she doesn't stop until she's at the door, her hands scraped raw, her breathing heavy, and her thoughts centered on nothing but the warm, familiar presence she could feel inside, one she recognized from her very soul.

"Sir Meliodas," she gasps. "He's here. He's alive, I can feel it, he's—"

"He's here. He's safe," Ban finishes for her, having been the second to reach the top, coming to a stop right behind her. There, the princess finally smiles, wiping away relieved tears before they could fall from her eyes. His expression echoed what she felt, a relief so profound, it made her want to both laugh and cry with the joy of it, and it was wonderful. "Everything's going to be alright."

She almost fumbles at the door but doesn't. The door swings open just as the rest of the Sins and their companions reach her side, Gilthunder and Howzer automatically moving protectively before her in a guard position, though the manic look on Gilthunder's face told her he was almost as desperate to see him as she was.

Now.

No one knew what to expect, of course. They knew there were two Meliodas(es), somehow, as well as a second Ban, all under Merlin's care but none of them really knew what to expect. Hostility seemed unlikely but—suspicions, maybe demands? Those would've been somewhat expected, at least.

Whatever the case, they definitely didn't expect to find the two Meliodas sitting around a table, chatting over tea, soup, and biscuits.

"About time you guys got here!" the one on the left exclaims, looking almost annoyed. "We've been waiting for ages!"

The other one's mouth was still full of biscuit, his mouth smeared with icing, but he nods in affirmation.

A veritable feast had been laid out on the dining tables of the tavern. Roasted birds, stews, bread, frosted biscuits, and, of course, ale were laid out in a spread that far outstripped even the kingdom's celebration feast. At the kitchen was the other Ban, a familiar apron thrown over his unfamiliar getup, cooking implements held readied as he deftly handled what looked like an army's worth of biscuits onto plates enough for all of them.

"Just in time, too," he drawls. "Food was starting to get cold."

"Wha—?" King sputters. "What the—how did you—who the heck are you?!"

The outburst startles one of the Meliodas enough that he actually choked on his biscuit. Meliodas immediately rushed with tea to help. Meliodas helped Meliodas. That actually happened.

"Oi," the Ban at the kitchen calls out, waving a batter-covered spoon warningly in their direction. "I don't care who you are. You're not allowed to hurt my best friend's feelings!"

Meliodas—the one dressed in a Boar Hat bar-staff's uniform—waved his right arm. His sleeve flopped about, obviously empty from the elbow down. "I'm his best friend," he says, gesturing at himself. Both of him.

"And I'm his feelings!" the other Meliodas, the one who'd choked, declares, pointing both thumbs at himself. Both of him. "... it's complicated."

It's in that moment, when almost everyone was struck dumb, either from joy or disbelief or sheer confusion over the entire situation, that Merlin, a perfectly cured and not at all petrified Merlin, finally chose to make her appearance, floating down from upstairs with Aldan by her side, her trademark smile on her face as she perfectly summarized the thought processes of every single one of the newcomers in one sentence.

"That seems like an understatement."

Again, if asked, those three will say they didn't rehearse that exchange before they'd finally arrived. Again, they're liars. Merlin found their practicing to be silly but harmless fun.

As a fun fact, what Meliodas believes is the most unbelievable thing in the world, even more than weird time travel shenanigans, is the fact that Elizabeth ever fell in love with him.

Next chapter, every non-Commandment will be in the same room, in a chapter I'm 95% decided is going to be titled "The Reunion". One way or another, they gon' spill the beans. And don't worry, I promise it won't just be endless the future recaps/the past reacts. I already have some ideas (though I suppose I'm open to more suggestions). Will there be explosions?! Will the "Re-" arc end soon?! Find out... in two weeks-ish! Assuming nothing goes awry, I should finish by April 7. (If I'm late by more than a week without a word, assume I'm dead and get a necromancer)

Just remember, feedback keeps me going and I hope you have a nice day.