Disclaimer: I own nothing; for fun, not profit; etc.

Spoilers/Setting: Set in the gap between Series Two and Three; spoilers for Series Three.

Notes: Fully inspired by that scene in the Tudors finale nearly three months ago with Katherine, Henry, and Mary. And yes, we're going to ignore a few tiny religious anachronisms.

Uther had sometimes seen and heard of men losing their minds over the deaths of their children; and remembering this, he sometimes wondered if he were going slightly mad.

How many times had he already imagined, in morbid detail, the dead weight of Morgana's body dragging down his arms as he carried her through the city? Sometimes her breath was there, sometimes it was not; sometimes her skin was cold to his touch, and sometimes it stretched waxy and tight over her bones; but he could never imagine her heartbeat against his chest when he held her close, and that had more than once had kept him awake at night, still sensing the spread of her hair and the weight of her head on his shoulders like dying phantoms. He had already carried one of his children back to Camelot like to die; and though he had no desire to do so ever again, knowing her fate would be better than being forever suspended in this limbo of dread.

He kept a string of her jewelry with him always and fingered it throughout the day like rosary beads. Though he could not bear to look on them, he knew by touch they were worn and polished by his fingerprints. Time lost meaning these nights, and all Uther knew was that it was dark enough to render him nearly senseless; and with the weight of the stones warm in his hands, he felt it in his soul.

"My friend," spoke a voice from the end of his chambers.

It had been years since he had been addressed thus, and more still since in that particular voice. Uther did not turn, but merely sighed, and questioned, "And what new magic is this now, or what of my mind?"

"That, I am afraid I cannot answer you," was the reply, closer now.

"Why are you here?" he finally asked, broken, turning in defeat.

Gorlois stood ten feet away, so like the last time Uther had laid eyes on him, covered in the grime and gore of battle. He smelled of rotting flesh and decaying blood; and Uther acknowledged that it had been some time since he'd last been in battle.

"To see my daughter," Gorlois said, a quiet and familiar rumbling in the back of his throat.

Uther had never forgotten the reverence with which his friend had spoken of his daughter, his only child and the most beloved thing of his world; and when Uther had taken Morgana away from her lonely castle in Cornwall, ten years old and holding her slight frame so carefully and regally still against the bite of the wind, he'd promised himself that if he respected anything in his life, it would be that love.

Arthur had been eight years old at that time.

"She is not here," Uther replied, after a moment. He fumbled with unspoken words in his mind for a moment, and finding none, turned away in something like shame. "She is not here," he repeated, more softly. "Whether you are shade or memory or magic, I cannot give you what you seek."

"Give me some assurance, then," Gorlois said, tilting his head. "How fares she?"

"Shade to torment me or memory who preys on what little knowledge I have?" Uther questioned again quietly. "You know as much or more than I, in either case."

"And before," Gorlois pressed; "how fared she?"

"Be assured, from the day I took her into my care, she has known the life of a princess, and assumed the station of the highest lady in all Albion."

"And yet, you have not always been kind to her."

Uther turned around again in rage, this time, and there, hiding just behind Gorlois, was Morgana. She was older and tamed, tall and regal and crowned with silver against her dark hair, and dressed as the queen she'd never become, her hands dripping with blood, and her eyes fixed on the empty middle distance. Uther had always thought of Morgana in terms of fire and ice, an embodiment of two extremes, and an impossible combination. Her image now paralysed him, and he could barely speak when he asked Gorlois once again,

"Why have you come?"

"For my daughter," was his reply; and oh, how many things that could mean, and Morgana stood there, shade more than memory, fear more than hope, tale more than reality.

"How many times did you look on her and see me?" Gorlois questioned. "And how many times did you wish her voice from her because of it?"

"I cannot…" Uther began only, because he truly couldn't.

"For shame, my old friend. Look at what you have wrought upon her. Her hands are bloodied for you, her wrists bruised by you, her mind burned by you, and still you would silence her."

"She lacks temperament and decorum," Uther retorted, "and she is my responsibility."

"She is my daughter!" Gorlois said, eyes flashing only once.

"As she is mine!" Uther finally shouted, voice breaking. "As she is mine. Why does she not speak?" he asked, stumbling toward her desperately. "Speak, Morgana."

He reached for her, and she crumpled against his chest into rotten skin and protruding bones, hair brittle in her open and sightless eyes; and he closed his eyes and sobbed against it.

"My lord?" questioned a voice from across the room. "Are you unwell?"

Uther opened his eyes and found himself alone on the stone floor, aching and so very cold. His arms were empty, and he could sense no form or spirit behind him. He chuckled, hysteria tingeing the laughter that bubbled up caustically through his throat, and he replied,

"Ah, such a question."

For when his eyelids dropped shut again, heavy against fatigue and grief and hopelessness, blue eyes were there to follow his every move; and sometimes they laughed at him, sometimes they laughed with him, sometimes they rebuked him, sometimes they begged him, but most often they hated him; and this was what was difficult to escape.

"Shall I fetch the physician?" his manservant inquired further.

"It would be a waste of time to attempt to treat something for which there is no remedy," Uther replied, thinking of Morgana's dreams and nightmares and the terror that lurked behind her eyes in the early morning aftermath, and sleeping draughts that never took effect; and he thought,

Was it very like this?

There was no answer.