We stayed a full week in Dalaran. I didn't want to, because we couldn't stay away from Undercity any longer, but the healers insisted that I stay in the clinic to make sure that all the poison was leeched out of my system.

I was surprised when Sylvanas stayed with me. She'd sent most of the corps back to Tirisfal Glades, but had elected to stay in Dalaran to discuss a few things regarding the Scourge and what had happened in Scholomance.

"Did he give a reason for why he did this?" asked Vereesa. She hadn't spoken to Sylvanas yet, and was sitting in a chair by my bed. Galadin was on her lap, while Giramar was curled up at my side, sucking his thumb and looking up at Sylvanas with wide blue eyes.

"He served Arthas," I said. "I have no idea how that happened, though."

"So, Arthas sent him after the boys? Why? What did we do?"

"We fight the Scourge," said Sylvanas. "And have been since day one. Faith was nearly killed a couple of weeks ago by a worgen who worked for him. I wrote to Rhonin about this."

Vereesa nodded, "Yes, he told me. So the attack on you, Faith, was, what a move against my sister? And this?"

"If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was also a move against Sylvanas. We've killed thousands of members of the Scourge, and he doesn't like it."

"He remembers Faith from the invasion." Sylvanas' eyes were fixed on a druid depicted on the wall, "He got me, but he wanted her as well. I'm pretty sure that Zendarin would have brought her to Arthas after having his way with her."

None of us said anything else. I didn't like to think of what would have happened had Sylvanas not distracted him enough for me to kill him.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Vereesa stood up, "I should go. The boys are being released today, and Rhonin and I need to get their room ready. We're moving to Dalaran for good."

"Seems safer in the long run," I told her. I looked between her and Sylvanas, "Are you two going to talk to each other?"

"About what?" asked Sylvanas blankly.

"About the fact that you died and Vereesa survived and about the fact that you're her sister." I turned my gaze to Vereesa, "Your children would have died had Sylvanas not been there."

"It was your idea to go look, wasn't it?"

"I certainly wouldn't have made it had Sylvanas not come back for me." I told Vereesa. "You two have got to talk to each other. I mean it. You can't just sit there and pretend that you don't exist." I struggled to get out of bed, and felt Giramar grab a hold of my hand to come with me. A second later, Galadin had gotten off Vereesa's lap and had taken my other hand. Together, we slowly made our way outside the clinic to sit on a bench outside.

"Is everything okay?"

I looked up and saw Rhonin, who was looking down at us with fondness in his eyes. The boys said his name and held up their arms for him, so he picked them both up and sat down next to me with them on his lap.

"Hi, Rhonin. Yeah, everything's fine. I'm just giving Sylvanas and Vereesa some time to talk to each other."

"Ah, good luck with that. Vereesa hasn't said a word about her since we had the memorial service three years ago."

"You had a memorial service?" I asked. The thought made me feel strange.

"We had one for the whole family, both hers and mine. She and I are the only survivors of our respective families, same as you are, so," he shrugged. "It was hard at first, but then we discovered she was pregnant, and realized that life went on."

"I guess that some people move on faster than others," I said.

"You were so close to her when she was alive. We expected you two to be married, but we knew it wouldn't happen, because no matter how much your families indulged you, they wouldn't have allowed you to be together like that."

I knew that. Sylvanas' mother had talked to me about this once, telling me that because her daughter was the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, she was expected to marry someone worthy. Not that I hadn't been worthy, but I'd just been a girl, nothing more.

Rhonin looked past me, "Would you have married her? If she'd asked you?"

I reached behind me and touched something cold, Sylvanas' leg, which was clad in black leather.

"Yes, I think I would have married her, had she had the courage to ask me."

"And what was stopping you from asking me?" I turned my head to look up at her.

"I don't know anymore."

That was convenient.

"And now you'd –."

"I'm dead. Would you really want Faith to be married to a dead person?"

"From the way the two of you are behaving, I don't think that you being dead has much bearing on the situation."

"Oh, but it does. Faith should be with the living, not with the dead. I'd tell her to stay in Dalaran," she held up a hand to stop me from protesting, "but she's adamant about staying with me."

"I made a promise," I said stubbornly.

"You promised me you would keep living."

"I am living. I also promised to myself that I would never leave your side, and that's what I intend to do."

"I died, Faith. That releases you from your promise."

"You're here. You're dead, but you're still living. If you were still with the Scourge, it would be different, but you're not." I got to my feet, "Maybe I should let you go. But I can't. Why can't you accept it?"

"Faith –."

"Oh, stop it. Just go back to Undercity, Sylvanas. I'm not forcing you to stay with me."

Unsteadily, I went back into the clinic and got into bed, shivering. Closing my eyes, I tried to shut out the world, but my thoughts were too active. I felt Sylvanas come over, but she didn't say anything, just standing there for a while before going away again.

"It's hard, isn't it?" asked a tiny voice a few minutes afterwards.

I opened my eyes a fraction. The little gnome healer was there with me, wiping my cheeks with a clean white handkerchief. I hadn't realized that I'd started to cry.

"I know what it's like to lose the person you love," she said. "I didn't lose him to the Scourge, the way you lost your love, but he did die, and it took me a very long time to get over him. I think it would have been worse had I had a daily reminder of him, like you do with her."

"How do you suggest I change that?"

"You can't change the way you feel about her. She might be undead now, but you still love her. This means you can't let go the same way other people can."

"So there's nothing I can do."

"The pain will fade eventually. And maybe the two of you can get some closure if someone can kill the Lich King."

"Drop me in Icecrown and I'll take care of him right now," I said to her.

She smiled, "You wouldn't make it five minutes in there, Faith, none of us would at this point." She took my temperature and gave me a pat on the cheek, "We're releasing you tomorrow."

"You are?"

"Yes. Are you going to go back to Undercity?"

I shrugged, "Everyone seems to think that I shouldn't. Sylvanas doesn't want me to stay with her, and Rhonin and Vereesa think I'm crazy to want to be with her too."

"This is your life, not theirs. Well, I suppose that Sylvanas would be affected by your decision, so you need to consider her thoughts and feelings about it."

"She keeps saying that she's got no feelings except for anger."

"Oh, I don't think she's angry. Not with you. I'm small, so I can usually be somewhere without people seeing me, and when she was here just now, and you were pretending not to know she was there, she looked sad."

Sad? My heart tightened. "I made her sad?"

"Now, don't you start crying, and don't try running after her."

"But I –."

"Look at it from her point of view for a minute. You lost everything except your life. And she lost everything except for the one she loved. She doesn't feel the same about you now than she did when she was alive, but she has lingering feelings for you."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw the way she was holding you when she brought you in. She didn't want to let you go. Part of her still loves you, but she may not be able to show it to you the way she did before."

I tried thinking about how that would be like for me. To remember everything I had felt for Sylvanas, only to die and not feel anything anymore except for a lingering memory. I couldn't.

"She tells you that you need to move on, but I won't tell you to do that. I will, however, tell you to cut her some slack. I think that she's trying as hard as she can with you. I heard that she'd come back from the Scourge hating anything and everything that was alive, so the way she's been behaving with you is very much out of her character."

"You're saying that Sylvanas should hate me?"

"You left her here with her sister, and they didn't say a word to each other. They just waited a while, then went to join you outside. I understand that the two of you were very close, but if she can't even talk to her own sister, how do you think it feels for her to be around you?"

"You think she's in pain when I'm with her?" The thought of that was agonizing. I could already feel myself wanting to sob.

"She's probably in the same kind of pain you are. And I'll say this for Sylvanas: she's a big girl. She can take care of herself, without you by her side."

I'd already figured that she didn't need me to be with her. But I wanted to ask her for myself. I threw off my covers and started to get out of bed.

"Ah, you don't need to get up, Faith. Sylvanas will come back to see you in a bit."

"Sooner than you think." Sylvanas' voice was as icy as a tomb. She didn't look happy.

"How long have you been standing there?" I wondered.

"Long enough. I'm going back to Undercity in a few minutes."

Slowly, I nodded. Was she leaving me? "Can I come home tomorrow?"

"If that's what you want to do."

"What about what you want?" I asked her. "Do you want me to come home?"

"If that's what you want to do," she repeated. She turned to go, "See you tomorrow."

"Sylvanas?"

She paused.

"Did you find out how the Kirin Tor got to Scholomance so quickly?"

"Felicity teleported to Dalaran and got them. We should have done it ourselves, but you were a little too impulsive in your movements. Which, by the way, we need to work on. I don't ever want you to charge into that kind of situation again without thinking of the consequences first, do you understand me?"

I nodded again. "How many people did we lose?"

"Twelve. It could have been worse. And it was partly my fault – I relied on you too much. It won't happen again." She held up a hand, "Don't, Faith. You're untrained for the kind of mission we went on, and we'll remedy to that if you decide you want to come back."

She left and I slumped back onto my pillow, still not knowing what it was that she wanted besides the obvious, to be alive again. But I couldn't give that to her.

"I'm so confused," I said to nobody in particular, closing my eyes.

When I opened them again, everything was quiet and night had fallen. I wasn't alone in my bed. Curled up at the small of my back was one of Vereesa's sons, his brother having decided to tuck himself under my chin. I looked at the clock on the wall, surprised to see that it was nearly morning.

I would be going back home today then. I didn't know how I felt about that. Happy but scared. Nervous. A little worried.

Vereesa and Rhonin came to say goodbye to me as I was getting ready to take a portal back to Undercity.

"Thank you, Faith, for everything," said Vereesa as she hugged me. "Thank you for saving our sons."

"I didn't do it alone," I said.

"I know. But thank you anyway."

Rhonin kissed my cheek and hugged me, "If you ever need anything, you can come to us anytime, all right? Dalaran is open to you."

The twins came to hug me as well, wrapping their arms around my legs. When I knelt, they both gave me simultaneous kisses on both cheeks. I smiled. "You two are little treasures," I said to them.

"You should come for a visit. Their birthday's next month, if you can make it."

I nodded, "I'll try." I waved goodbye and stepped through the portal, landing in Undercity's Royal Quarter, right in the corner of the throne room. Sylvanas was waiting for me. Several Forsaken were there talking to her, and they bowed to me when they saw me.

"Welcome back, Lady Everstone," said Rotvine, clapping me gently on the shoulder, "How are you feeling?"

"Better, thank you. How's everything here?"

"Oh, fine. Her Majesty's just had a meeting about the situation in Quel'Thalas."

"What situation?"

Sylvanas turned to me, "The Scourge is far too active there for anybody's liking. I was thinking of going to Orgrimmar and talking to Thrall about letting the Sin'dorei join the Horde."

"You think that he'll agree to that?" I asked.

"We'll have to see. If he doesn't, it'll be much harder for us to help them, but I think he will, as it's in his best interest to have more members of the Horde in the Eastern Kingdoms."

"When will you be going?"

"Soon. I'll leave you here to train the new recruits in the corps."

"All right."

She glanced at me, "You can go. Report back for court at dusk."

Feeling like I deserved to be dismissed that way, I just nodded and went to my chambers, which hadn't changed at all. It was a relief. I'd been sure that Sylvanas would have done something to force me to go back to Dalaran.

What would it be like to have the Blood Elves in the Horde? Would that mean that I would have to go back to Quel'Thalas? I wasn't sure that I'd be ready to do something like that. But I was already preparing myself for such an eventuality.