The Grey Witch

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Yes my wonderful readers I left it on a cliffhanger. I'm so very sorry about that! But here it is. The end of the story. We still have another chapter next week, which will be the epilogue and the official end of the story and when I'll change the status. I'm really excited for this so I hope you guys enjoy how it ends. As always don't forget to leave a review and I'll see you guys next week for the last chapter!

Chapter 11 AKA The End

Hansel's P.O.V.

I woke up and I didn't feel as if I were in pain, which I should have. I felt renewed. But my body still managed to feel heavy like there was a new weight on it.

I turned my eyes from the ceiling that I woke up to, turning to the side. I was in the same room that Lorne originally housed me in and I once again, I found that I was alone. I did note, however, that the device I used to monitor my illness was just sitting on an elegantly carved side table.

Why the hell wasn't it on my wrist?

I propped myself up and really thought about what was happening, or what should have happened. The last I remembered I was getting impaled on a cruelly, crudely created sword, to keep Lorne from getting it in the chest. By all means, I should have been dead but I wasn't. I didn't even have a scar on my chest. In fact, all of my old scars were gone. Like literally. I think I had an idea as to how that had happened but I couldn't believe she'd do that. Waste it on me.

The door opened and there she was, my Lorne, looking all sorts of guilty. She was in another grey dress, with a black bodice with purple flowers sewn into the edges. She wasn't adorned like she had been when I first came to the island. I sort of wished she was because she deserved to be adorned.

As I got myself comfortable in the bed she's loaned me she pulled up one of the little golden chairs to sit beside me.

"How are you feeling?"

"Surprisingly good… but uh… heavy. I'm not sure… I should have died Lorne… you didn't… did you?"

A flash of worry marred her face briefly and my heart sunk. I knew what she was going to say before she even opened her mouth. "You were dying and it was my fault… I know you said that you didn't want immortality if it meant living alone but I… You I mean… you wouldn't have to be alone."

She was sitting there wringing her hands in her lap and staring at her fingers.

I picked up my watch, realizing that I was right, and that it wasn't just immortality that I had gained.

"What effects did it have?"

"Other than immortality, it cured you of your sweet sickness."

Yeah I had guessed that. "And apparently my scars."

"Yes, it healed all there was to heal, not just your injury."

Wow that was some powerful juice she had there.

"It will also, most likely, at some point soon, give you powers similar to ours."

"What?"

"Well… you're partly magic, like us, it will bring that out."

Great so this… this was going to turn me into a witch. A male witch? Was there a name for that? I must have been starting to panic because she immediately moved to quell my fears.

"I'm so very sorry Hansel. I would have asked you but you were unconscious and… as I said… you were…" "—Dying," I finished for her. "I… I suppose I have a few questions. Would you mind me asking them?"

"No. You can ask me what ever you'd like and I'll do my best to answer them."

"You have the same face as an evil witch and your magic, when you used it, it put cracks into your face…"

Lorne nodded. "We… we were all witches once. When you're evil… that's when you start to change, good witches don't. Which you know. Well, when you live as long as we do… there's no such thing as all good or all bad. The sum of all our experiences makes it kind of hard to stay all good and all bad. So we all have a porcelain face, and when our magic backed by evil thoughts cracks appear on the face."

So that meant that I would one day I would be putting cracks in my own porcelain face. That was terrifying but at least she was being honest. At least there was the ability to change that face because hers wasn't nearly as cracked.

"Good thoughts fix them, right?"

"It can undo it, yes, but it has to be a lot of good," she said. I nodded, I took that as good thing. I did so very much like that the second I was evil I wasn't stuck that way forever.

"And if I didn't want to be alone… does that mean that I'd be staying here?"

"Yes. My family is willing and excited to have someone new on the island. We get rather bored with one another, you see…"

"Would I… be staying with you?"

"I would be staying as well, yes…"

I didn't know if she had just purposely missed the purpose of my question. That I was asking her if I would be staying because I would be with her.

I'd have all eternity to do this but I didn't want to dance around this topic. Not forever and for always.

"Before the fight… I told you I wouldn't want to live eternally unless I was with the right person. And then… I do believe I did admit…"

She wouldn't look at me but she clearly understood what I was getting at. "I suppose I was worried that if I did this… gave you something you didn't want you might change your mind about that…"

"Except I didn't change my mind."

At that her eyes whipped up. Hope shining like a bright star in her eyes. "You didn't?"

"No."

She was staring at me now like she wasn't sure if she could believe me. I swung my legs over the side of the bed so our knees were touching and I was directly in front of her. I took her hands in mine and then stared at her so she could see the sincerity in the words I was going to pour out to her.

"Before Immortality even became an option, Lorne, I have cared for you. Loved you. I didn't show it the right way. I didn't want to admit that I could love someone like you, but I didn't know who you were, not really. Now that I know, it doesn't change how I feel. So if living for all eternity is my future now, then I want to live eternally with you. If you'll have me of course."

It was the bravest I had ever been with any woman. Usually I didn't know how to go about this. This time, however, it was easy. Easy because I knew what I wanted, knew what was important here and it was her, and us and our future.

"I did so wish that you would want to stay… for me, I mean," she said softly. "I… I have long since loved you too I just thought I might have been too monstrous for you…"

I framed her face with my hands and kissed her, pulling her to my lap so I could kiss her deeply. She came willingly, wrapping those arms around my neck.

When we tumbled back down to the bed I wasn't think about what I was going to tell my sister. All I cared about was the feel of the woman I loved beneath me, the way my heart lurched up in my chest at every kiss and touch, and how blindingly happy I suddenly was.

Gretel's P.O.V.

I saw my brother only briefly when he finally awoke. He was with Lorne, of course, being taken down to address the other gods. We were getting ready to leave and he knew that. When I asked him if he was coming he said that he should be, but he had a guilty look about him when he gave me that answer.

They had walked me through what side effects my brother might experience other than immortality. And if they were rights and powers were going to grow, then they'd tell him to stay there on that island so they could help him through it. If that were the case they extended an invitation for Ben and I to stay but I didn't want to stay on this island with them. I wanted to go back to hunting witches. Especially since we had left poor Edward alone in the forests on the edge of that little sea-side town for way too long.

We told him we'd meet him by that ash wood boat that Lorne had magicked up for us and he had nodded.

My brother shows up when we're just about ready to go. Any later and we might have pushed off without him, though not really. We would have waited. I would have marched right back up to that castle and demanded him if I had to.

I sort of knew before he showed up that he wasn't going to be coming with us, but he showed up holding Lorne's hand and dressed like one of the gods and I knew right away that I was right. He was going to be staying here with them.

He let go of Lorne to come to my side. He was in all black, plush velvet tunic, and a pair of black tan pants. There was gold encrusted on his details. Buttons of gold, etched into the cuffs of his boots and the collar of his plush velvet tunic. There was a circlet of Rowan branches in his hair, looking ever so much a match to Lorne and all her black, grey and purple and her crown of lavender. He was even walking like her. Slowly and with purpose, and dainty like.

"You're staying."

It wasn't a question. I knew it in my bones. My brother wasn't coming with us.

"No. I… I am apparently going to sprout powers and they want to help me through it and uh…"

"You love her," I finished for him and he smiled and nodded to me. "You tell her that?"

"He did," she said coming to join us. "I know you two need to say farewell, I just wanted to thank you, both of you," she added reaching out for Ben who took her hand right away. "Thank you for coming back to help my family and I. And… and don't tell people this, but there is a bit of elixir left, I've saved it special, for you two. For when you decide you want a spot of immortality too."

I can't help but smile at her. The whole saving my brother when he rightfully should have died really had brought us together. All my doubts and dislikes had been knocked right out of me the second she put that elixir into my brother. I didn't even have to ask her. She had her family pick that one ripe apple, had them help her turn it into the elixir and then she was giving it to my brother.

I would have thought he drank it all but she had even saved some for me, which I couldn't believe.

I thanked her, let her hug both me and Ben good-bye and then it was just me and my brother. We had never been separated before, and I was a little nervous.

"You'll be alright? Right?"

I smiled at my brother's worry. "Of course I will be."

"And I'll be here. Any time you need me. The boat will always be able to find you, so long as you're by the ocean. It will always bring you back here."

I nodded to him and then pulled him in for long embrace.

"Be safe," he whispered to me.

"Be happy," I whispered back before finally letting him go to join Ben up on the boat.

As the ash wood boat pulled away from the shore, Ben and I stood, his arms wrapped around me from behind, as a welcomed comfort. Together we watched my brother and his witch until them and their whole island disappeared in the grey mist. Knowing even as they disappeared, I'd always be able to find my way back to them.