"Do you think it's really her?" Gourry asked as he and Lina stood side by side as they stared at the North Temple.
"The people at the tavern said that the ghost of a woman now haunts the temple. They say that she never says anything, she just watches quietly from the shadows. She must not be too disruptive otherwise she would have been exorcised by now, but then, I mean…"
"It would be just like Millina to come back as a quiet ghost." Gourry said.
"I mean, I guess this ghost could have been there when Millina died and that she could be someone else entirely, but when I asked about local folklore when we first came here I didn't hear anything about a North Temple Ghost." Lina replied. "So it might be a long shot, but I'm not going to rest until I know for sure."
"I'm right here with you." Gourry said as he wrapped an arm around her.
Lina gave a small smile as she patted his hand and, thus fortified, they walked into the North Temple together, slipping in so quietly that no one noticed their entrance. Even though it had been a few years since they'd been there, Lina remembered how to get to the room that Millina had died in. Lina stood in front of the door for a moment and took a deep breath and then put her hand on the handle and opened it. They slipped in quietly and closed the door behind them. The room had not changed much. There was still just a bed and a window with a large tree outside of it.
Outside the sun was setting and day was turning to dusk. Lina and Gourry sat quietly together on the bed, lost in their memories, as they waited. Gradually the sky outside went dark, and moment after the light vanished Gourry asked, "Did it get colder?"
Lina felt her the hair on her arms stand up and an instinct told her to look to her right, and she jumped up out of the bed as she saw the vague outline of a woman sitting there. "Millina." She whispered.
Millina regarded her quietly and, as always, never betraying what she truly felt as Gourry got up to stand beside Lina. "C-can you talk?" Lina asked.
Millina nodded, "It's just not something I do often."
"Oh," Lina said as she looked at Gourry and then back at Millina as she felt herself at a rare loss for words.
But for once the quiet woman seemed to have something to say, "Did Luke lose control of him?"
"So you knew?" Lina asked.
Millina just stared at her. After a moment Lina shook her head in exasperation, "You never said anything."
"I felt it was my responsibility." Millina explained.
Lina sighed and shook her head. What was the use of getting mad at someone who was dead? "Luke joined with Shabranigdo, yes. And I had to destroy him."
"So I guess it was in vain." Millina said as she looked down.
"In vain?" Lina repeated. "How?"
"I'd hoped he'd have enough humanity that he wouldn't have lost control, that you wouldn't have had to fight him. But I guess it's enough that you were able to stop him."
"Millina," Gourry said quietly, "We stopped him only because he wanted us to stop him. He summoned us to do it, to kill him. Because you had told him that he mustn't hate anyone."
"He did?" Millina said as she looked up.
Lina nodded in agreement as she hung her head low. Millina's smile grew a bit as she said, "I guess I was right when I set out to do this then. I knew I wasn't strong enough to stop him if he ever merged with Shabranigdo, but I thought, perhaps, my actions combined with a lot of other people's actions would add up to protect the world. And they did."
The room seemed to grow warmer as a light emanated from Millina, and to Lina's surprise the guilt that she usually felt when she thought about Luke was not present as she watched the rare display of happiness that washed over Millina. The ghost sighed, "What I did mattered. So I think I can finally rest now. Only there's one thing."
"What is it?" Lina asked.
"There's a farm outside of Webron. A couple lives there, Cadence and Dougal. Could you let them know what happened to me?"
"Of course." Lina said. "Does Luke have any friends or family we should pay our respects to?"
"No." Millina stated, "He came from a bad place."
Lina nodded, though she thought it was sad that considering how many people there were in the world, she and Gourry were the only two who missed Luke. But at least they could give Millina's family some closure. "What was your surname?" Lina asked. "And Luke's."
Millina looked at her in surprise, "Greenvalley. Millina Greenvalley. As for Luke, I'm not sure if he was joking or not, but once said he would make me Mrs. Loverboy. I yelled at him rather than asked him if it was seriously his last name."
Lina chortled as Gourry broke into a grin as he shook his head, and Millina smiled slightly as her form started to vanish. "Thank you, for letting me know that my sacrifice was not in vain. And that while I could never love Luke, because there were people I did love and fight for, it saved the world."
AN: Back in the dark ages I worked at a grocery store when I was in college, and we had to thank the customers by their last name. One of the customers had the last name Loverboy and I always, always felt awkward with that one. So yes, that is a real surname. Anyway, there is no cannon basis for what Luke and Millina's surnames are, it was something that Lina felt guilt over not knowing when she was grieving so I'm just running with it.