The day had dawned clear and cold, and I moved downstairs to start breakfast and stir up the fire. The red headed paladin ghost stood in the kitchen, where Mathys would not see him when he stirred from his place under the stairs. "Lass." He muttered, softly, and I stared at him. Unlike the other one, who was regularly seen, he'd been much more careful about being seen. "Send the girl home today. Here is not where she wants to be. Things come to an end today, and it will be ugly."

It ended today? I contemplated the words; yes...there was a finality to this day which had been absent before. I had felt this before, and knew that the only answer to a day such as this was resignation. I started breakfast, aware he had vanished from behind me, and sent a reluctant Maylin down the road as soon as she was awake, fed and dressed. It was not easy, she wanted to stay, to go further on her lessons, but I remained resolute, and she finally went.

"Reason why you ran her off?" Adrian asked, and I shrugged. I had no answer; I was going on advice that had no real meat to it.

"She needs to be elsewhere today." I murmured, aware of how empty that sounded. Mathys studied me for a long moment, then Adrian, and nodded. "I am going to town myself." He said, standing and heading for the door. "You two be careful. Don't...do anything foolish." And he was gone, just like that.

"I don't understand." Adrian sighed, eating. "I really don't. Maybe the sheep will make some sense..." He shook his head, got into his heavy clothes, and I could see him go to the barn. I shrugged, picking the baby up and settling him to nurse.

When it came, late morning, it was instant. One moment it was gone, and the next, it was there. I was sitting, spinning, humming a song to myself, and wondering as I always did. Where had I heard this song to hum it? Who had taught it to me? Always before that gave me emptiness, but suddenly, I knew. My mother's maid had taught me this song, holding me in her lap as she taught me how to knit, laughing over a child's clumsy first attempts. My mother. Her name had been Moira. Lady Moira De Nemesio. She had died in her room the first night that the plague fell; I could remember it as if it were yesterday. But that was impossible. It had been more than my life's span since the first plague had risen; I had not been born then... But I remembered. I remembered fighting to save her. I remembered failing. I remembered fighting her in the hallway when she rose as undead, my mind full of panic for my babies in the room behind me. My babies... Anelas and Bayard. My sons of Lordaeron... My...my...name was Clarimonde. Lady Clarimonde De Nemesio. I lost my timing with the spinning, letting the rolag fall from my fingertips. I was Clarimonde, Consort General of the Lich King. Arthas, who had gone down to check the sheep and not returned yet. Arthas...Adrian...what? I could remember facing down the Gate, the charge, and then nothing. But this? What was this? I breathed. My heart beat. I had birthed again.

"Clair, lass."

"Uther." His had been the voice to steer me right, and keep me calm. "What is the meaning of this?" I could hear Raymond stir in his cradle, and I dreaded it. How could I lift him up? Hold him close? I was a monster, an abomination, and somehow I had forgotten that. As if that could be forgotten.

"Clair, lass. You had to forget to remember. Forget what you had become so that you could remember what you were. Please. You had to let go of what he had done to you to remember why we love you. You had to live again so that we could bring you back from where you had gone to."

Raymond snuffled, hiccupped, and I knew what was coming. He'd be bellowing soon enough, loud enough to rock the glass in the windows. "Clair. This is our gift to you. Mine. Baudoin's. Please think of that before you make any swift decisions..."

"Baudoin?" Of course he was a part of it, his very presence proved that, but it made little sense. "Has been standing by and watching while..."

Uther sighed, "Has been standing by and watching while his beloved lives again. Breathes again. Has another of the sons that kept her sane and going forward through the worst of times. Yes, that put you back with Arthas, but it is only right that one is the force that mends this. He caused it; he is one of the few that can atone for it. Baudoin blessed this, Clair. Whatever it took to break what Arthas has done to you, to open a path back, was acceptable to him."

The first goaty bleat erupted from the cradle, and I stared at it. "Your son, Clair. As much as Anelas, as much as Bayard. Do not hold it against him that we used the ties you had to his father to conceive him while we still had time. Your children have always buttressed your sanity, made you strong. You needed another to see you through this, and you have always wanted another..."

"I wanted another of Baudoin's." I growled, stalking to the cradle and staring into it. Raymond stared up at me, now quite awake, cheering when he saw my face. He had a tuft of brown hair, and a pair of eyes that hadn't been Arthas's in decades. "Baudoin deserved another." More than Arthas did. Arthas had never been a father to the one I had given him, content to deny Anelas. I felt...rage...rising. Rage, against the hapless man currently tending the sheep and swine outside. The mindless devotion I recalled seemed oddly lacking this morning.

"Not so hapless." Uther chuckled. "As you remember, he remembers. And yes, the Lich King is dead, and you are free to rage against the crimes he committed against you. It's only Arthas now, Lass. Left with memories he must face as you face them. I envy neither of you. I pray for both of you. My little girl. My boy. Back..."

I could see the barn door open, and Adrian stepped out into the yard. He stood there for a long moment, in the cold, before he began a slow progress to the house. I picked up Raymond and comforted him, thankful to have something, anything, to do. All I wanted to do was break down and cry. Scream. I sat before the fire and settled the baby, all the fortitude I was trying to cultivate shattered when I heard his grinding step behind me, and I burst into a torrent of tears.

"Clair. Uther." He stated, and it seemed odd to hear his voice again. It had been so damned long... "What the hell...?"

"You don't keep my daughter, Arthas. Not like that." Uther snapped, "She was a gift to keep you strong, not something for you to twist into a monster. I won't let it happen."

"Ah." Arthas sat beside me on the trestle, staring into the fire. "The dying wish of the great Lightbringer... combined with the dying wish of the great Ironfist, I can only assume?"

"Aye, lad. Then you open the door by going and dying in what could be almost considered selfless... no matter what your intentions were. And both of her deaths were just that, selfless. She loved you through it all, and was willing to die for you. Die for her babies. Die for Lordaeron, for Azeroth. That was enough to get it done."

"You could have just revived her. Why take the risk of bringing me along?"

I wish I could take this nearly as well as Arthas seemed to be, but I was devolving into the hiccupy, snotty stage of a good wail.

"Clair has never failed to be strong for her children. She needed another to be certain this worked. You were the one with the best chance to do that. Her heart was too tied to Baudoin to try to find a stranger she would become close enough to. And you had married her. She accepted that marriage. Who else, Arthas?"

"So. I was brought here to sire another." Arthas glanced at my face, then shook his head and went into the kitchen for a scrap of toweling which he offered to me. I took it, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose.

"This is as much another chance for you, lad, as it is for her. You were as much loved by me as she is. You can come back, if you wanted to. If you were willing to be only a man again. A husband. A father. A paladin."

He reached out his hands for Raymond, and I gave him over without thought, as I had done a thousand times since the baby's birth. He took him, resting his easily on his shoulder. "Clair." He breathed, leaning his head back and staring at the ceiling. "I believed my father when he told me I served Lordaeron, my people, best by denying Anelas. I felt that sacrificing my son, and you, was truly what was necessary. I let another man be...the man...I should have been then. I cannot begin to apologize enough for that mistake. I won't deny another one, if you'll let me. I've been happy here, with you. And him... This is right. Let Arthas die, Clair. Let Clair die, and rest in the peace I denied her. Let's raise sheep, and babies, and pay Stormwind taxes, Besseth."

I nodded, wiping my nose again. It sounded like a grand idea after all. Let the world do without us, they'd be better off that way. It was the best, the only way, to handle this. It was time to let myself die, if not for real, than real enough for most. "Certainly, Adrian." I agreed, aware that Uther nodded and that Baudoin watched from the shadows. I had his blessings. I had Uther's. And still, in spite of it all, in spite of the fact that I had lost the desperate devotion, I still wanted Arthas. I deserved him. Raymond deserved him. And the rest of the world deserved to live without our darkness hanging over them.

31,100 words. Started the first week of September, 2008. Unedited first draft.