I may not always know what's right, but I know I want you here tonight.

You could have saved him. Where were you?

Mallos couldn’t meet Tristan’s gaze. He dropped his eyes to the floor, silent. Where had he been? Following a lead on Tsi’s disappearance in some distant galaxy, that’s where. Not protecting his family. Too far away to help.

He should never have gone. He should never have gone. He’d created the telepathic link with Arthur so that his friend would always have a way of contacting him in an emergency, but when it finally came to it, he hadn’t been close enough to be of any use. If he hadn’t gone, he could have prevented all of it. If he hadn’t gone, Mordred probably wouldn’t even have dared to make a move.

He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, trying to knead away his first image of his son: white-faced and trembling with the keys. Mordred had been a child, then, but his acting had been almost perfect. Almost. Mallos had observed then how a supposedly terrified young person had perfectly pulled off complex magic – his first and only warning of what was to come. Was that why Mordred had avoided him all the years since? Because he’d known he’d made a mistake? Mallos should have thought twice about it. Should have chased it up, mentioned it to someone. If he had, maybe Arthur would still be alive.

If, if, if.

Tristan’s first sob brought another wince to the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back. Even after Lilith had died, Mallos had never seen his grandson cry before. He burned with wanting to end it, to make it all go away, to make Tristan smile again.

Apparently, his grandson was having a similar thought. Mallos glanced over at him with an unusually open, pained expression. After Aura died, he’d spent years trying to find a way to fix death – pouring through books, ancient scrolls, talking to shamans, chasing secrets across the universe. When that proved impossible, he’d settled for trying to find a way to just talk to her; a chance to hear her voice, to say sorry.; Nothing, no ghost-whisperers or séance candles, had worked. Even Morgana hadn’t been able to help. Mallos knew now, probably better than most people alive, of the finality of death. Aura may be the exception to the rule rather than the norm, since she’d found her own way back in her own way, but there was no reviving those who were already lost.

He had to push the memory of Elina, the red-headed Rhaegaran woman who had somehow cheated death, out of his head. Neither he nor Tristan could live their lives hoping that a glitch in the system might somehow, some day, restore Arthur to the Realm of the Living. False hope was sometimes worse than no hope at all.

“I can’t bring back the dead.” He said quietly, gently, wishing he could. He should say something else comforting, something helpful, but words were so hard. Why were words so hard? He was usually so good with them. “Tristan,” he bit his lower lip briefly, “your father loved you – still loves you, from wherever he is. And I do too. And you will always have that, always.”

Mallos
I've learned enough to know I'm never letting go