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Eugene had died.
Rapunzel could still picture it. How his face had grown pale, how his chest had stilled, and worst of all, how she couldn’t feel his heart beat no matter where she tried to find it.
Even now, after it was all over, she still woke in the middle of the night from nightmares where her tears didn’t heal him, where she knelt by his cooling body for hours -- or, and she didn’t know which were worse, where Mother had chained her back up, dragged her from the sacred place by Eugene’s side and away from all humanity.
She knew why he’d done it -- why he’d cut her hair, why he’d withheld her healing magic from himself. But she still couldn’t decide if she loved him or hated him for it. He’d been trying to protect her, but did he even consider how much suffering his death would have caused? Freedom wasn’t worth his life. She wished he could see how if he’d died, it would have all been for nothing.
As much as Rapunzel tried to get over it, tried to put it in the past, she knew deep down she would never, ever forget the panic and despair that had washed over her as she’d watched the ropes and ropes of golden hair turn brown -- her last hope of saving her new dream. Years later, she still felt a spark of alarm whenever she reached for her hair only to find empty space, like the sinking feeling one gets when they miss a step on the stairs, or look down at the peak of a high bridge. Her first and last line of defense, gone in the blink of an eye. And Eugene had nearly gone with it.
Rapunzel would love him to her dying breath, and she knew he would love her until his. She just hoped neither would come too soon.