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The first thing Margaret is aware of is the ache.
It's hardly a new sensation for her, as unfortunate as it is to admit. Exhaustion tries to cling to her, holding her tight in its grip—a weariness driven deep into her very bones, limbs throbbing. For a moment, that is all she understands, caught up in it entirely.
Then, everything else hits.
She gasps.
Oh. Oh, oh, oh—
All of what she'd lost spills through her mind—she nearly starts crying again at the feeling of knowing. What she's spent so long longing for is hers once again! Memory, memory, memory—everything she lost whirls through her head. She jolts up, names and faces and places spinning through her mind. Starhold, the Lincoln of before, the streets of Paradise with all their wares—homes, her homes that she now remembers! They're no phantoms—they're real, every miniscule detail vivid and bright in her mind. She clings tight to those memories, refusing to let them escape. She keeps her mind spinning, like if she stops thinking for even a second, those memories vanish into nothing once more.
She won't let them go. She can't, not after so long.
"The Bonadventure," she gasps out, the words leaving her in a rush. "Cyrus, Mary Katharine!"
Her friends! Her friends she had forgotten—oh, where are they? Cyrus with his brilliant smile and Captain's airs, Mary with her wit and determination. When last she'd seen them, they had been planning, trying to—
"Margaret, I'm so sorry!"
All other thoughts fall away at that familiar cry.
Oh.
Margaret looks up.
There is a woman that Margaret knows before her, falling to her feet—oh, but doesn't knows seem like such an understatement of a word now that memory has been returned to her? Maybe there aren't words for it. Maybe even all Margaret's eloquence can't sum up what she is to her, after so long away.
There is a woman before her, kneeling down to where Margaret is collapsed with tears in her eyes, begging for forgiveness. Like there is anything Margaret would cast her away for, like there is anything that would make her give her up or turn away from her.
Because it's her. It’s Sia. It's always, always been her. And, oh, how so many more memories flow through Margaret's mind as she gazes at her again. They bloom within her, a garden of memory.
The roof, smiling at her with a spark in her stomach, a flutter—Call me Margaret. After the funeral, walking with her after the grief-struck speech—Thank you for being here, especially now. I appreciate it more than I can say. Training together—Oh, Sia, you've left your side open—don't give me a victory that easily! The garden, still feeling the thrill of a first kiss—Don't, Sia. I feel the same way. Standing underneath flowers of ipomea as she made a vow—You're my guiding light and my hero, Sia. Without you, I would be lost. I am yours, and you are mine. Writing that final letter, trying to stop tears streaming down her face as she made that final choice, leaving her words behind so that her love would understand—Someway, somehow—I will return to you. The balcony on Starhold, turning towards at her with a smile in her eyes before that battle—I will fight for the people I love. To us, belief is timeless.
Margaret can't tear her gaze away. How could she even think to try?
She's so…
Different.
With the knowledge she has now, she can truly see the weight Sia has been carrying. Her love's eyes are so much more wearied, those same tears streaming down her face, cutting through the grime taken on during the escape. Her grays are so much more than they were when Margaret left her, the slight streaks of her youth weaving their way ever-more through her firestone-red hair. Her once-pristine white dress is blackened and burned at its edges, flames leaving an unmistakable mark upon it. She looks exhausted and devastated as she clings to Margaret, a woman who has been pushed to her limits.
Beautiful.
She is still the woman Margaret made her vows to. She now truly understands the strange flutter in her chest she'd had first seeing her up on the Satellite—that is who she chose so long ago. Those wearied eyes are still that sea-shade of blue that first made Margaret want to tease her and lean in closer that very first day. She has the same smile, lopsided and a little imperfect, even if it is far from her face now: Margaret thinks of the memory of it from the training grounds. She still has as much dedication and drive, spending hours upon hours trying to help Margaret regain her memories. She spent so long trying to do so, Margaret now knows, willing to throw all of herself into the goals that she's set out. That side of her has remained consistent, since the very first moment they met—steadfast, a little overzealous. Her dear, beautiful…
"…Sia…" she breathes.
She wants to say it a thousand times more with that same knowledge. She wants to make it clear, even through the pain that still thrums through her.
Sia, Sia, Sia. Sia, her other half. Sia, her darling. Sia, the one who Margaret has found familiar, a sign of home even when she felt so lost, adrift up in space. If there is anyone Margaret would know blind, it is her—and truly, that has been proven over what has happened. From the Satellite, to the Ellen Austin, to out in Lincoln's fields, it feels so clear.
For, didn't she know her? Even when she didn't know the details? Even when the intricacies were lost to the shadows, she called Sia friend.
She knew.
…But Sia doesn't know that. She doesn’t know what Margaret has finally regained. Margaret realizes she needs to tell her. She has been silent too long. She won't allow her love to live in despair a moment longer.
She needs to tell her she's found her way home.
Margaret reaches out, and takes Sia's hands in her own. She squeezes them gently, trying to lend weight to it. To communicate what she now knows—what she knew, even without her memories. Her friend, her wife, in this world and the next.
Her words may be quiet, but they feel powerful all the same. Like they are as much of a force of nature as any great stellar event—the moon's light revealed at last, out of the crushing dark that surrounds it.
"I remember everything."
Sia's mouth falls open. Despite everything, despite how much desolation had been written upon every inch of her before now, hope sparks through her eyes—belief. That belief Margaret worked to earn, to make sure she lived up to—she has never not seen it in Sia's own gaze. There has always been comfort to that, and it is even greater now. That even in her weakest moments, Sia will stay by her side.
I promised I would return to you, Margaret says with her eyes in turn. I have.
She smiles at Sia, softly. It is one she now knows she has given to her too many times to count—from walking through the garden, during late nights reading before they turned in, before a sweet, teasing kiss, after Sia tried to get her to rest while she tried to keep the Blazing World together. She feels that same familiar thrill work its way through her—a brilliant feeling that she can't help but call akin to her Radiance first awakening.
I am here, she thinks. My love, I have found the ending we share.
It is just the two of them, then, for a moment that Margaret thinks could last forever. Staring at each other with all that has been regained, hope a brilliant ember. I know you, I know you again. There is no part of me that would turn away now. She tries to hold onto Sia as tightly as she did those memories mere moments ago.
But then…
Something in Margaret shakes.
Her vision blurs again, going fuzzy. With a jolt, Margaret realizes that exhaustion still has a hold on her. She has pushed herself to her limits defending the family she still has—she can't cling to consciousness forever. It is perhaps a miracle she has lasted so long. Her vision flickers at its edges, black and bitter, a void coming to claim her.
No…no…!
But it's futile.
She can't fight it off, starting to feel her grip around Sia's hand start to slip. She is tired. She would need hours upon hours to start to recover from the sheer effort of holding back that terrible ship, and everything in her screams to rest once more. It is not something she can hope to weather. Sia's eyes widen, realization shooting through her gaze as her hands tighten around Margaret's, trying to make up for Margaret's own faltering.
The last thing that Princess Margaret Aurion—Aurion, Aurion, no longer only Cavendish—sees before falling back into the shadows is her wife, holding her closely once more.