Hunith, Part Two: During

Balinor did not move. He did not say anything. What part of his brain still worked urged him to do one or the other, at least to be polite, but he found himself unable. "Heavens above, what are you doing in the rain!" Hunith had exclaimed, stepping aside from the doorway. "Come in before you freeze to death!"

Speech. Balinor remembered speech. He didn't do it often since he'd stopped talking to himself years ago, but he was sure he could still do it.

"Come... come in," he managed at last. There. That should do. Now the woman he loved —what was she doing here, how did she know where to find him, what—had an invitation into his home.

She didn't seem inclined to take it. She just stood there, in the rain, shivering, looking at him with wide, sad eyes. That wasn't right. Hunith wasn't supposed to be sad. He had only ever wanted her happiness, that was why he had left, and now she was sad—

"Balinor," she whispered, and suddenly she was in his arms, soaking wet and sobbing, but he didn't mind a bit.

They sat on opposite sides of the fire, Hunith draped in all the furs Balinor had. She wasn't shivering or crying anymore, which was good. She wasn't talking, either, which was less good. Balinor wished he knew how to put a smile back on her face, but he almost felt like he didn't have that right anymore. He knew it would hurt her when he left. He had thought it would make her life better in the end, but here she was, miserable, and it seemed he had won nothing with his actions.

Nothing except his own misery.

"Hungry?" he tried at one point, gesturing at his bow to indicate he could catch something for her. She shook her head. He sighed.

What a sight he must be to her. It was a miracle she had not run away when she saw the tangled mess of his hair. It had been well-kempt when they first met, though it had gone a little more wild during their time together. He was not the pretty almost-nobleman he had been all those years ago. She, on the other hand, was almost as beautiful as he remembered her. All that was missing was a smile and a light in her eyes.

It was clear she did not want to talk, but Balinor had never been a patient man, and his curiosity was getting the best of him. "Why did you come?" he asked, and berated himself for how demanding he sounded.

Hunith met his eyes for the first time since she had stopped crying, and he was startled by the pain in them. "I came," she said, her voice low and even, "because you're all I have left."

"I'm..." Balinor tried to understand what she could mean. She had never had much for family—Gaius was the closest thing she had—but Hunith had had many friends in Ealdor, he remembered. They surely could not all have died? "Did something happen to Gaius?"

"The Great Dragon happened to Gaius."

Balinor got to his feet. "That's not possible," he said harshly. "I locked Kilgharrah beneath the castle. There is no way he could have broken free."

"Someone released him," Hunith told him. "No one ever found out who. The dragon was freed, and it..." She stopped and looked away again, but not quick enough to hide the water in her eyes. Slowly Balinor sank back down, staring deep into the flickering flames between them. This couldn't be. The dragon could raze all the rest of Camelot to the ground if it liked and Balinor wouldn't blink an eye, but Gaius...

"Is it still out there?" Balinor demanded. "The dragon?"

Slowly, Hunith shook her head. "It is somewhere, but it is no longer attacking Camelot. Prince Arthur told me it flew away after—" She broke off.

"After...?"

Again, Hunith looked him in the eye. "After it killed my son."

Balinor felt as though he'd been punched.

"Our son." Hunith's voice cracked.

Balinor felt as though he'd been pushed off a cliff.

"Our... our son," he said, dazed. He had a son. Had had a son. He had left Hunith alone, she had had a baby boy without him ever knowing, and he grew up and had friends and interests and the dormant powers of a Dragonlord and now he was dead. It was sad. It was tragic. It... didn't feel like anything at all. It sounded like it belonged to someone else's life story, like he was supposed to feel sad but couldn't.

But it was making Hunith cry.

Balinor moved around the fire to put his arms around Hunith and draw her close. She buried her face in his shoulder and cried quietly, brokenly into it. It didn't last long; all too soon, she pulled away, eyes red and wet and sad, but no longer spilling over. "I know you'll never know him," she said. "But Merlin was the kindest, bravest, most loving boy I have ever met, and you would have been proud to call him your son."

"I'm sure I would have," Balinor said solemnly. "He was yours, after all."

Hunith stayed curled in on him all night, while he stroked her hair, staring at her frown lines and contemplating the life he could have had with this woman and their son, a possibility that was too late for any of them now.