She was in his arms. Freya. She was amazingly, completely, miraculously in his arms. Forgetting shock, forgetting logic, forgetting grief, time dropped away.

He tried to say her name but his heart would not let him.

Merlin didn't know where he was, nor did he care. He knew from the thunder in his heart that Freya was undeniably real, not a ghost, not a spirit or a memory. But Freya. Alive and wonderful and the smile in her eyes was bringing him back to himself. He kept trying to say her name but his voice wouldn't work. Her arms tightened around him and Merlin was overcome with a rush of feelings, beyond joy, beyond despair.

Merlin held her tighter and she giggled, and if there was any doubt in him that this was real and not some enchantment or hallucination, that sound drove that shadow away.

"I've never seen you speechless," said Freya, burying her head in his neck.

He gave a whoop of joy, embracing her and twirling her as his joy erupted in an explosion of magic, a golden rain that hung in the air like a falling drift of petals in some impossible spring. And then he wept, helplessly and without shame, because he was with Freya again.

Insane as this moment was, he could not doubt what he felt. Love consumed him into ash. It drove him into darkness and back into the light until his heart opened. Love cleaved him like Excalibur itself, it revived him as if the Cup of Life had been held to his lips. It healed the pain that had become so familiar, that only now, as he stepped from it's shadow, did he realize the extent of his wounding.

With his head reeling, Merlin kissed her over and over, until she laughed again, twisting at last, to look into his eyes. Her hands were gentle as she cradled his face, turning him mercilessly towards her shining gaze.

"Let me look at you, Merlin. It's been so long." He hardly knew what to think as she looked into his eyes, praying for a mercy he never hoped he would need.

"You've been so brave," she whispered at last. Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away, kissing him once more .

"How..."

"I didn't expect this. I sent a message to you, a strawberry. I finally learned to enchant it into a rose, and I never thought it would reach you. But here you are."

Merlin's heart blazed.

"She gave me a silver amulet, with a strawberry ..."

"I don't understand either, Merlin. Maybe we shouldn't ask. I don't really know what happened, but I never hoped..." Her eyes filled with tears. "It's only for a moment," said Freya softly. But the understanding in Merlin's eyes told her, that he had already guessed as much.

"None of that matters, Merlin. All we need is one moment."

Merlin laughed, though his heart was beginning to bleed.

"That's all we have."

"That's all we need. This moment, Merlin. Because no matter what happens from now on, this moment happened. And nothing can change that." Freya kissed him once more, sweetly, there was a reverence in her pause.

"All the times, Merlin. All the times we never had. The days and nights, all the smiles and the tears, every moment in your arms, the arguments and squabbles, the happy endless march of ordinary days..."

"The thousand nights when I could have reached out to touch you if I awoke., chimed Merlin, half-entranced, his blue eyes swimming

"The mountains and the lake..."

" Memories of the times we never had, of everything that might have been... an infinity of love, Merlin."

He looked down into her eyes, and in their depths was a shadow, a shadow as deep as the darkness that stalked his own destiny. And beyond that was the sheer wonder of this moment. Why had this miracle happened at all? From that first mad moment in the rain, why had it even happened at all? Unlikely as life, doomed and wonderful, they had found each other. The whole mad crazy chain shook him loose from every certainty.

For all the mystery, there was only one answer as he looked into the truthfulness of Freya's eyes, praying for just one moment more. One moment more. Love filled him, it filled him beyond the edges of his being, down to the very root of who he was, and who he might become. Alone. Together. Always.

"I love you," they said.