#WELLP I'M FULL OF FEELS AND DIDN'T GET ANY WORK DONE TODAY

[blackjackkent]

Heyyy, have you ever written your Hec and Karlach with the "blows up at the pier" ending? I am just not sure where to look for it lol but I always love imagining the "alt routes" but I understand if others are too sad to dip toes in

Oh man, anon coming in with the Big Feels out of nowhere. :D I love it. As per usual this got way longer than intended and very out of hand. XD

I have not written that before and it is indeed VERY sad to think about. But I am up for giving it a try! [rolls up sleeves, braces self]

(If you're interested, I also answered a similar version of this question a while back regarding Hector's life in a worldstate where Karlach got mind-flayered, which was ALSO sad. 😭 )

So anyway. Scenario, then: the brain fight didn't go super smoothly and Wyll is unconscious, so Hector is left with no other voice to save Karlach from her self-sacrifice.

-----

No one moves. The pier is suddenly deathly silent as the roaring of Karlach's engine falls to stillness. Hector sways unsteadily on his feet, clinging to the afterimages of the flame still burned into his eyes.

Don't breathe. Don't think. When you think, it will become real...

But there is no stopping it. Thinking is what he does best, after all. She taught him to live, for a while, to see the glory and goodness of the wide world outside the monastery, the bright intensity of its colors.

But she is gone, and he can see the grayscale already fading in again at the corners of his vision.

"No..." he whispers. His voice sounds choked in his throat. "No." Somehow he always believed, deep down, that something would come to save her, that they would find some way to make everything all right. "NO!" He falls to his knees, burying his fingers in the ashes; his palms blister in the lingering heat.

"NO. NO. NO, NO, NO, NO, NO NO NO NONONONONONO!"

He's screaming, he realizes distantly. Sobbing too. Everything has snapped; every ounce of the control that he wears like armor has vanished. He feels detached from his body, unreal, numb with grief. The tears pour down his face, blinding him.

It isn't fair. After everything they have been through, everything Karlach suffered, it isn't fair that this is how she ended, without even a body to bury in the city she loved. It isn't fair that he will never hold her again, never feel her arms around him, never protect her and be protected by her, never see the world at her side, never... never... never...

The world is so cold without her warmth.

"Gods, please... please come back to me!" he howls into the uncaring ocean view. "I can't... I can't..."

The first paroxysm of anguish starts to fade. He collapses forward on his elbows and knees, his face pressed into his fists, and sobs.

In the monastery, they taught him there was no pain that discipline and prayer could not soothe. They were wrong. He knows now just how wrong they were.

"The Moonmaiden sees me… no grief nor pain nor fury shall wrest me from her path…" He whispers the mantra brokenly, instinctively, desperate for the comfort it has brought him in other moments. But there is no comfort to be found even in Selune's light, not for this.

He is alone.

But no... not completely alone. A hand touches his shoulder softly; a form crouches gently at his side. Shadowheart. He can see the sympathy in her eyes, the compassion and shared pain.

"Come here," she says softly, and opens her arms to him, as he did to her after the House of Grief. And as she did then, he falls sideways into her embrace, presses his face into her shoulder and cries bitterly. Her armor feels cold after the furnace heat of Karlach's destruction, but the hug is tight and fierce and she rocks gently side to side, holding him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers.

His voice is hoarse, almost inaudible. "It hurts..."

"I know... I know..." She looks up. The others are watching at a distance - those who remain, anyway. Astarion is gone into the shadows, Lae'zel to the Astral. Gale is crouched by Wyll's unconscious body, but his eyes are fixed on the back of Hector's head, unblinking. Minsc, his face drawn tight with regret, is standing a little closer, Boo balanced on one fist.

And Jaheira closes with them, moving to sit on Hector's other side. The druid rests a hand on Hector's back just above where Shadowheart's arms hold him. "Silvanus guide the light to the source," she murmurs. "Take her to what she justly deserves. By nature's will, what was given is returned. What was turmoil is now peace..."

Hector draws a long, slow, shuddering breath.

"May the Moonmaiden's light follow her into the dark," Shadowheart says softly. Her voice is still a little unsteady on the Selunite prayer, but she knows Hector needs to hear it. "The silver light always at her back..."

He swallows, sits up slightly, not pulling away from either woman's touch. They are grounding him, drawing him back to himself, and his heart rate begins to calm, the sobs slowing to unsteady, hiccuping breaths. "Perhaps," he whispers hoarsely, "perhaps had I served Shar, it would be easier... I would be prepared for such loss..."

He can feel Shadowheart give a single, sharp shake of the head.

"Do not think it," Jaheira says, her voice low. "You would be empty. It is no better. The grief carries all the meaning of what was; it is the love with nowhere left to go. In time it will be bearable, cub."

He does not want it to be bearable. He wants it gone. He wants her back. He wants the hole in his heart filled back in.

"My Lady..." he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut. "See her soul as it travels outward. Take it where mine would go, I beg you."

Karlach once said that she liked the thought of her soul spreading out through the world, becoming part of it. He liked the thought too, for she was always full of life and loved the world so deeply, with such fierce devotion...

But he knows the truth, as it was taught to him. She will go to the Fugue Plane to be judged. And if no god fights for her soul, she will exist in limbo forever, trapped in another unending wasteland.

"Take her to you, My Lady... please. In my place, if you must, but do not leave her forgotten..."

----

Some months later, he and Jaheira travel at Withers' behest to a gathering outside the city.

It has been a good half-year, all things considered. The city is starting to rebuild, to regain some semblance of its former life. Hector has been hard at work among the Harpers, lending his strong back to building projects and his counsel to those in need of it.

He's filled out with new muscle and a sense of pride in the Gate. Jaheira has noted it more than once - with surprise, given that he once lived in such isolation from the city's life. But they both know, truly, where that pride stems from. Karlach could not live to see her city flourish again - so Hector must see it for her.

In his pocket always he carries the three copper coins Jaheira delivered to him a few days after the brain fell. Sometimes he listens to the message recorded on them. More often, he simply places a hand against them when the loneliness threatens to overwhelm him, feeling the soft warm buzz of the enchantment on them and imagining he can almost feel Karlach's touch.

Withers finds him wandering away from the party, late in the evening, and addresses him without preamble, grave as ever.

"Thou feelst it still," the skeleton says, with something oddly like kindness. "She is not here. She who means the most. Hast thy thoughts been with brave Karlach often?"

Yes. Of course they have. He doesn't speak of it much to Jaheira and the others, and he has tried to move on - and some days he can almost manage it. But her loss always sits in the back of his mind, inescapable. Every moment of victory bears its quiet reminder that she is not here to share it with him. Every failure brings the ache for her comfort and her warmth.

"I loved her so much," he says quietly. "It isn't fair."

"No," Withers says placidly. "It is not."

He feels a sudden tightness in the back of his throat. He has not spoken of her aloud for so many weeks, but Withers of all people coming to him with kindness brings the feelings rushing back, stinging into his eyes. "I don't know how I can go on without her," he mutters.

Withers's dessicated lips curl in a slight smile. "She battled in Avernus, fueled on naught but hope," he says. "And that hope came to become truth. In but a dozen tendays, an entire life was lived. More than mortal years-- mortal centuries were hers." He gives a slow nod in acknowledgment of Hector's grief. "Thou might endure a great eon of mourning. But thou must hope, as once she did. Her life... her happiness... was you."

Great, now he really is going to cry. That strain in his throat is rapidly forming into a lump that makes it difficult to speak. "And she was mine..." he whispers.

"Thy life was hers for a while," Withers says gently. "It is now thine again. Live it well." He reaches out a hand and rests it on Hector's shoulder. It is light and skeletal and bears no warmth, but it goes with the intensity Withers suddenly has in his expression.

"In the Fugue Plane," he says, "her soul burns so bright, it pains the gods to look upon. Recall that in time, all changeth and all is rejoined. Thou shalt be with her again."

Hector feels something tight come loose in his chest, and he nods unsteadily. These are not empty words; this is Jergal speaking, not Withers. This is, perhaps, the only voice available to him that could tell him truly what he needs to know - that Karlach is not lost to him, nor beaten into dim submission by the wasteland of the Fugue.

She is still bright. And she is waiting for him. And one day, when he has brought her city back to life, he will go to find her.