This is a short one shot. It is an imagined moment to explain how Wang So and Hae Soo may be able to stay together, and keep things historically accurate in the ending.

Disclaimer:

This is fiction upon the K-verse SHR.

I do not own SHR, which belongs to its owners, and gain nothing from this fan-fiction.

REDEMPTION

Lady Kang stared at the man who was her adopted son. Wang So, had been a pathetic child, and she had unfortunately not been in her best state of mind, to accept a wounded boy ripped from his home to substitute the son she had lost. While the rest of the family may have believed the loss was for any future Kang prospects to the throne, the miscarriage to her was much more that that; it was a deep maternal loss and mourning. The whole issue had been compounded by the fact that Queen Yoo had likely caused her miscarriage, via poisoning her tea, to ensure the powerful Kang clan would stay away from any throne wars in the future, leaving the Yoo Clan with more power to claim it. Even to this day, the thought of that woman (Queen Yoo) filled her heart with bitterness, though it was starting to fade as she grew to understand that living in past regret had only harmed her more. She had been gifted another son by Wang Geon (King Taejo) at the time, but had been unable to accept Queen Yoo's offspring as her own. Now with time, and distance, she understood her mistake. It had taken So's absence, in leaving her and the Sinju Kang household for the past few years, for her to come to grips with reality, and realize how much she missed the boy, despite how horrible her family had treated him.

However, fate and luck had given her somewhat of a second chance. Despite not deserving it, the Kangs had been able to mend their past with a prince, who may one day be king. She looked critically at the tall lean muscular man, who walked with the the grace of a stalking wolf. He was a man who would make any mother proud to call her own, and was by any Goreyo law, her only son and Kang heir. Carefully, she critically eyed the man he had become, and wondered how she had not let herself see his potential all those years before. Now he commanded attention, and had the dangerous aura of those men you knew would rule the world they lived in. Fate had been hiding him behind his scar, that no longer marred his face, which had the beauty of an avenging angel.

Lady Kang had never divulged the secret that Taejo and Choi Ji Mong had told her, when she had been given the boy to adopt; that he had the star birth of a king. But she had known this. It was the reason why she had turned a blind eye to General Park's training him in martial arts and the arts of war, while Choi Ji Mong and other scholars would visit to train him in matters of politics and state. Now, she could see fate's hand mould his pre-determined destiny before her very eyes. She had been quick to support him on the quest for the throne when he had returned to Sinju to ask for help. There was nothing else she could do to make up for all the years of mistreatment from her kin. While the Kangs had lost the ability to control the future king from kinship or closeness, they would not be seen by him as enemies to harm. The throne war had come down to a battle between the Yoo clan and Kang Clan in the end, despite all their attempts to prevent it, and Lady Kang felt a vicious satisfaction in knowing that it would be her son, who would be the King of Goreyo. He was a Yoo, no longer.

But the second chance Fate had given her (and the Kang Clan) was not that. Wang So would not have simply accepted them (the Kangs) beyond anything more than military allies for their support. No, Fate had conspired to give her the child she never had. She looked at the young slip of a girl who had wormed her way into her heart these past few months; when she had stayed in Sinju, under Kang protection, while Wang Soo built a resistance to take the throne. This child-woman had healed what none before her had. A true daughter had been fate-delivered , again by Choi Ji Mong, to her door. This girl with her glowing face and smile, who wore her heart on her sleeve had been able to heal her heart and mind, and help her (Lady Kang) to reconcile with her reality. Hae Soo's honest kindness, implicit trust, and ability to see and expect the best in others had softened her aged and broken heart. She was an older lady, with no child or heir to a powerful clan- and had with age lost the caring by others in her clan; as she no longer offered that future hope through her child. When Wang So had left and not returned from the palace, it was the first time she and the Kangs had realized that instead of distancing him, they should have embraced him. It had been in reality hard to do; with a boy so scarred, and from a womb of one she loathed, but he was not his birth mother. He had been a mere innocent child and a victim of wicked Queen Yoo himself. Hae Soo had helped her see this, and understand that his true birth mother treated him as if he had truely been born in the womb of a Kang. Understanding Wang So's treatment at the had of his own blood kith and kin, had given Lady Kang the ability to understand how much she had wronged him by thinking of him as a Yoo. Understanding this, had helped her overcome the years of torment that the miscarriage and the unjustness of it had created. Due to that one girl, she had come back to life to live. And in the process, fate had given her a girl so lovely and wonderful, that even a child of her own womb would likely not have been so kind to her. This time, Lady Kang knew she would not make the same mistake twice in her life-time. She had extended her protection to the girl, and the Kang name : She had adopted to her to the Kang clan. This would aid her daughter in the future.

Given the looks her son (So) was giving the girl, there would be a marriage soon. A marriage that she knew the Kangs would celebrate with great joy and show- after all, it would be between their own children, and a future king and his queen. Softly, a smile made its way to her face, as she watched them embrace. She could only hope that they would give her grandchildren soon, to make up for the child she never rocked or cuddled. Hae Soo had already accepted her as a mother, and she could see slowly the redemption and acceptance come to Wang So's eyes when he now saw her– and it was all because of that girl. Her Daughter, Hae Soo.