Each step forward seemed to both take simultaneously too long and too short to cover.

Arjun couldn't look away from those golden eyes, perhaps because he was afraid to see the expression on the rest of his face .

But eyes were said to be the windows to the soul and somehow, somehow Arjun couldn't see any hate, any rage, any bitterness in them.

And when he reached close enough that he couldn't avoid taking in the rest of his face.... his lips bore a smile. One that had never been directed towards him before. On those lips, it should have seemed so like his own, but it didn't, because Arjun didn't think that he was capable of looking so sad, so broken while smiling.

"Arjun." 

That voice had said his name several times before but the tone had always been full of rage or derision. Now, it sounded ... different.

Though he had asked to meet him, had wanted desperately to speak to him, now face to face with Angaraj Karna, Arjun found himself tongue tied. He had no idea what to say.

Karna did not seem to share the same difficulty however.

"I'm so sorry." He said. "I am so, terribly, utterly sorry. And I must say, thank you."

Arjun blinked dumbly.

Before he could say anything, Angaraj continued, "Will you take a walk with me?"

It was such an absurd thing to hear from him, that it jolted Arjun out of his stupor.

He only barely stopped himself from looking back, forcing himself to speak. 

"But-- but don't you want to spend some more time with your wife and son later? An hour and a half at least must be left until Sunrise." He croaked out.

"Try closer to two hours." Karna sighed. "But as much as my heart desires, if I try to speak to them again, the parting will be all the more painful. I would not want to leave and they would not want to let me. As much as I loathe to say it, it is for the best that I don't see them again before I leave. And besides, I can watch them whenever I want."

Arjun just nodded, throat constricted and followed the spirit.

It felt surreal once again, not just to take a walk with a dead man, but this particular dead man.

He cleared his throat.

"So, I suppose, the thank you is for giving you the chance to see Vrishaketu and Angarani Vrushali for the last time?"

"Yes. Of course. I can't believe you would choose me out of anyone else. But it's also for--"

"Oh you can't believe it, can you?" Arjun felt all the barriers in his throat suddenly break.

Rounding on him, he asked, "What did I ever do to you? Why have you always hated me so much?"

Karna pressed his eyes tightly shut for a moment before opening them again to meet his own.

"That is one of the several reasons I must apologise to you."

"That does not answer my question!" Arjun exclaimed. "Yes, its true that I never particularly liked you either, but I never went out of my way to be unkind to you! Not like Bhrata Bheem or even Nakul and Sahadev on the rare occasion. I never hated you or bore much animosity towards you even, until--until that that accursed Dyut Sabha--" He spat, "And even then I never hated you as much as Bhrata Yudhishtir did."

He took in a shuddering breath as the thing that had caused him so much hurt since he had found out the truth came tumbling out.

"And yet, you, you hated me so much, that even when you found out the truth, that you were my eldest brother, you promised to spare the lives of all the rest of my--our brothers, but not me. You decided that you would kill me or you would make me kill you."

Karna opened his mouth but Arjun cut him off.

"If you had told the truth, this war would have never happened, and we could have--"

"What about Draupadi?" Karna interrupted.

His blood started to boil.

"How dare you speak of her--"

"Exactly."

Arjun blinked at him, the sudden tone of finality in that word making him lose steam and bringing his rage back to a simmer.

Angaraj Karna looked at him very gently. Arjun both longed for more of it and hated it.

"You say that if I had let your mother tell you the truth, the war would not have happened. I have no way to confirm or deny that. But... would it really not have happened? Can you be sure of it? Would you have wanted to kill me knowing I was your brother? Could you have? Was it not easier for you this way?"

Arjun stared at him. 

"So many things culminated in this war. Circumstances that took place even before our births, like Devi Amba's desire for revenge on Pitamaha Bheeshma. Like Gandhar Raj Shakuni's rage. And yet, perhaps, we might have been able to prevent it from happening, if not for-- as you put it so aptly-- the accursed Dyut Sabha."

Staring a a distance, the man continued.

"You rightfully despise me for that. Yet you say the war would not have happened if I had told the truth. Your friend said that the only way to prevent war was for me to become the Emperor. Not speaking of any of the other ramifications of that, could you have lived happily knowing that the man responsible for offering the deepest insult to your wife now ruled over you? Would Draupadi have been content not being Empress? Of having to bow to me?"

Arjun hated that he agreed with what he said. He hated that there could have been no way to stop the war-- well of course had their mother been sensible and told them the truth decades ago, that would have been a different story.

As always, his thoughts must have shown clearly on his face.

"You think I don't wish the war hadn't happened? I wish it so desperately." Karna sighed deeply. "I wish that all my sons were still alive, that Vrishu wasn't alone, that no child had to die, that all of the Kurus had survived, that the massacre hadn't happened. But I felt like part of me knew even back then, that no matter what, I was going to to die in this war. Well," he chuckled "I suppose I also guessed that Duryodhan was going to die, but that wasn't happening until I did, because I was always going to protect him until the end. I only wish that our children and other innocents hadn't suffered because of us."

"You had known that you were going to die?!" Arjun exclaimed.

"Well, I could hardly kill you with Vasudev there to manipulate my mind, make me forget about my weapons, pressing your chariot into the ground to save you from my arrows and who knows how many other things." 

Surprisingly, there was no malice or bitterness in his voice as he said this.

But that was not the thing that concerned Arjun the most right then. He wasn't going to ask why then, had he still not joined them if he had known if was going to die fighting for the Kauravas. That would be an insult to him. He wasn't going to ask what Duryodhan had that they didn't. The answer had come to him in a flash: Time spent together.

But what broke him was:

"So, you suspected that you were going to die because Madhav would always protect me. And yet, and yet you said that you would fight me until either of our deaths!" He desperately fought against the tears starting to well up in his eyes. 

"Why do you hate me so much?! And no, I don't care care that you've apologised, I want to know why?! Did you want me to live with the guilt of it forever?!"

Angaraj Karna pursed his lips.

"I will admit that end could have gone better. At least, this way we both may always be held as equal warriors?" He attempted to jest before immediately wincing. Arjun stared at him in disbelief.

"Sorry. No, but truly the end could have gone better. If you hadn't had to kill me when I was burdened with my --rather unfair for the most part, I must say--curses and weaponless on the ground, then you wouldn't have had to carry the guilt--"

"You think that's the only reason I'm upset?!" Arjun burst out incredulously. "Not because I found out that you were my brother?!"

And suddenly those golden eyes softened even further.

"I know you feel guilty for killing a lot of people. They are far more deserving of it than I. Don't add me to that list." He said softly. "You were only doing your duty."

Arjun laughed hollowly. "That's what everyone else has been telling Vrishaketu, what Angarani has been telling herself."

"And they're right. If not anything else, I know my wife is always right."

"Why did you make me kill you?" Arjun choked out again. "Don't tell me not to be guilty. Tell me why."

"Well, I had sworn an oath to fight you to the death in this war, hadn't I? That was the whole point of me, the culmination of decades of hatred. I already knew that because of Vasudev, chances of me succeeding were pretty low.  And then I found out the truth. I would not leave Duryodhan. I would not break my vow to him to fight you to the death. And as much as it destroyed me to accept it, I knew I couldn't save him from your friend forever. And if I was to die, who else could kill me, but you?"

"How did it not pain you," Arjun shuddered, unable to imagine it, "the thought of having to fight your brothers?"

"Oh," For the first time throughout the encounter Angaraj Karna's laugh was bitter, "you have no idea how I felt."

He started pacing, his calm demeanour finally starting to diminish, "I just found out after six decades of my life that I had brothers. So much lost time, and in any other occasion I would have wanted to meet those brothers immediately, want them to be involved in whatever time remained in my life. Then I find out that I've known these brothers for over half my life and instead of it bringing me joy, it destroys me."

Karna's breath hitched.

"Those who were supposed to be my enemies turned out to be my little brothers. My sworn rival, the man around defeating whom I built such an enormous part of my life, that man was my little brother."

His eyes shot up of meet Arjun's, the intensity of them rooting him in place.

"You have no idea how angry I was. At myself, at the world, the universe, the Gods and above all at Rajmata Kunti. She knew. She had known from the very beginning and she didn't say a word. Once again, I had been rejected for years, for decades, without even knowing it."

His words had turned into a snarl by the end.

"And then I realised that if not for the war, then I still wouldn't have been told the truth."

Arjun wanted to deny that but he couldn't. Madhav had known all along but other than a dire situation like the War, he wouldn't have said it without their mother's permission. And their mother. She had never said a word before and she would have had no reason to say it if not to try to bring her eldest son to her other children's side. He thought of how he would have felt in Angaraj Karna's shoes, the pain he would have felt upon realising that--

"And I realised, that though she may have cared for me, Rajmata Kunti never cared enough to accept me if I wasn't of any use to her and the rest of her sons. She came to me after my Surya Puja so that I couldn't send her back empty handed and she chose that time on purpose. She came to me alone, so that unless I agreed, no one else could still find out. I would have forgiven her for abandoning me when she was but a child, but she never accepted me and never intended to, if not for these dire circumstances."

And Arjun would always love his mother unconditionally, but it was impossible to defend her in front of the man, her child, that she had so grievously wronged. He had nothing to defend her with.

"I'm sorry." He whispered.

"Why are you apologising?" Karna scoffed. "You've done nothing wrong to me. I should be apologising to you again. For everything thing that happened in the Dyut Sabha. And for everything else. I would attempt to offer some kind of explanation but I don't want to seem like I'm excusing my unforgivable actions, because I'm not. I have regretted my words for a very long time. But that changes nothing."

"Somehow I had not expected it from you." Arjun said quietly. "You were known for being an honourable man despite being Duryodhan's best friend. We all fell so low that day. Perhaps I might have expected you to stay silent like Pitamaha or Guru Drona but not..... I had not expected that you would--" His throat clogged up as the rage started to bubble up again and he forcefully shoved it down. He could feel all that rage later, after this meeting. There was no time now. What was the point of saying it to a dead man's face? Especially one who would anticipate all that he might have to say anyway.

Angaraj Karna looked away.

"Well." He cleared his throat. "If even you expected better of me, even then before you knew anything....." He trailed off, unable to say anything else.

"You said I must have despised you after that." Arjun murmured. "I didn't, you know. Hated, perhaps. Despised, no."

"I didn't know there was a difference?"

"Well, I never thought you unworthy of respect for your skills. And as hard as you might find it to believe, I have never looked down on you."

"Well, maybe because you physically can't do that." Karna said before immediately hurrying on, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that, that was terrible."

Arjun gaped at him.

"Thank you." Karna said sincerely, apparently immediately moving past that point before Arjun could even fully process the fact that he had just tried to joke with him, again. And it was such a silly one too, something that seemed so unlike him. 

"No, no, no, no, did you just--" Despite himself, Arjun snorted. "Well, I can clearly see where Vrishaketu gets his retorts from." He chuckled softly.

And then Angaraj Karna smiled a proper smile at him and it was blinding, like the rays of the Sun.

"I truly do want to thank you Arjun. I can see that you have grown to love Vrishaketu and I am glad that he has you to look after him. And I could not be more grateful to you for saving Vrushali."

"How could I not save her?!" Arjun exclaimed. "It was my duty."

"Yes, you've always been very dutiful."

Suddenly Arjun remembered something. "Too dutiful sometimes." He said wryly. "According to Vrishaketu, that is the cause of a lot of my grief, and I really hate that I can't really disagree with him entirely."

Angaraj Karna pursed his lips in a clear attempt not to smile.

"Besides," Arjun added, more sincerely, "Angarani Vrushali is my friend. I promise I will always protect her."

Angaraj Karna looked at him in that strange sort of way again, the way he had looked when he had said his name the first time that night. Arjun still couldn't find a word for it.

"I have faith in you." Karna said.

And those weren't words Arjun had ever expected to hear from this man before him. His breath hitched as all kinds of emotions bubbled up in his chest.

The hurt, the rage, the pain, the guilt, the disbelief--it was all still there. But along with it--- there was longing. A deep, aching longing for what could have been, for the desire to get to truly know this man, to befriend him, to be-- to be loved by him. 

Somehow, despite everything, all their history, all the pain, Angaraj Karna had made him smile within some minutes of very heavy conversation. He wondered how they would have gotten along. Very well, something told him.

Angaraj Karna walked ahead and sat down below a large tree, the unearthly glow that had been emanating from him this whole time, lighting the ground around him. He patted the ground next to him.

"Will you come sit?" He asked.

Arjun nodded and plopped down beside him. He was still in partial disbelief that he was talking to a dead man.

"Your favourite colour has to be white, right?" The older man(spirit?) asked out of nowhere. "And your favourite bird has to be peacock. It just has to be. So what's your favourite animal?"

Startled by the non-sequiturs, Arjun asked, "What?!"

"We've still got more than an hour and half left before Sunrise. Let's talk about stupid things--if you want to." He added at the end.

"Or we could just sit here, in silence too. I just. Whatever time is left, I just wanted to-- to speak as if we were friends, as if-- But it's alright if you don't--"

"I do." Arjun said, immediately. He'd never seen Angaraj Karna hesitate ever before. But then again, he'd barely ever seen him outside of functions, gatherings or battles.

He wanted it more than anything else.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

As the sky kept on lightening, they spoke of all kinds of ridiculous things. It almost seemed that they spoke as fast as possible, trying to fit within an hour and half as much as they could about themselves, learn as much as they could about the other.

If they had had more time, Arjun felt like they would have definitely spoken about their greatest common love: Archery. But they didn't. As it was, everything was more personal. 

Arjun learned about the curses inflicted on his--his brother and genuinely thought they were rather unfair and even though of course, lying to one's Gurudev was a sin, he could.... understand the reasoning behind it, he supposed.

He spoke about his time spent in heaven and the whole reason why he was cursed by Devi Urvasi. To his credit, Karna didn't even crack a smile. He was pretty offended on Arjun's behalf actually. He supposed that both his eldest brothers(plural--and that was so strange to think still) were similar in this way, because much to Arjun's exasperation, all the other three of his brothers had found it at least a little funny, even though they had quickly muffled their snorts and hidden their smiles in sympathy.

More stories were told, more anecdotes shared and then.... and then it was almost time for Madhav's miracle to end.

Arjun didn't want it to end.

He'd gotten the barest taste of it-- what the real Angaraj Karna was like, what Bhrata Karna might have been like and now he wanted more. But he couldn't have it. The fact that he even got this much? That was an actual impossibility turned real.

Karna sighed, looking at the orange rays starting to peek out from the horizon.

"It's time to leave now."

Arjun swallowed back foolish, unreasonable protests.

"I didn't bring anyone else with me." He said, instead. "I thought that you probably wouldn't have wanted to see any of us so--"

"It's alright." Karna said. "I have no desire to see Rajmata Kunti. And I am perfectly aware that only one other Pandava really, truly wanted to speak to me." He sighed again. "Frankly speaking, I have no idea what I might have said to him."

"You knew what you wanted to say to me?" Arjun asked, surprised.

"Well," Karna smiled sadly, "Swarga is not short on entertainment or pleasure, but you still get a lot of time to think. And yes, I've thought a lot about what I might have said to all of you but... obviously I thought about you the most. Then again, that was true in life as well, though of course, those were not the nice kind of thoughts."

Arjun couldn't help but chortle.  

"I know it's so redundant of me to say this, but oh gods, I wish I had truly known you while you were alive."

"As do I, my dear."

And suddenly Arjun realised the emotion behind the way that Karna had been looking at him. It was affection. Fondness. Something Arjun had never expected to be directed towards himself from that face, so he hadn't been able to figure out what it was until now.

Looking into his eyes, Karna placed his hands on his shoulders. 

Vrishaketu had always described his father as warm and Arjun would have thought so as well, being the Son of the Sun after all. Somehow, somehow Madhav's miracle had preserved that as well. Those hands were warm and comforting in the chill of the night instead of ice cold like that of the dead.

"Thank you for taking care of my son. I know you will never let him come to any harm."

"I promise." Arjun swore. If there was one thing he was determined to do, it was make sure that Vrishaketu lived the best life possible--as much as was possible under the circumstances. And it would be a long one too.

And then it burst out of him.

"I'm so, so sorry for--for killing your sons!" Arjun cried. "My nephews!"

The older man closed his eyes, letting go of his shoulders and swallowed hard.

"I accept your apology." He said, in a choked voice. "But then again, I was also involved in killing Abhimanyu and I killed Ghatotkatch. And I knew they were my nephews. But it was war. We both regret it immensely but...." He trailed off, his voice heavy with grief.

They had killed each other's children. They had killed each other's children! And them, the Pandavas had killed almost all of Karna's children, all of their nephews by their own hands. And Arjun the maximum of them. What kind of horrible destiny had been written for them? And why?!

Oh, Lord. Why, oh why, could they only have this--this, after one of them was dead? 

Why had fate, why had destiny conspired to pit them against each other? Arjun bemoaned.

"And yet, you trust me to look after Vrishaketu? And Angarani Vrushali?" He found himself asking.

"It's been quite some time since the war. Almost eight months. You've not given me any reason to think otherwise. And I don't believe you will give me any reason to regret my faith in you regarding them, in the future, will you?"

"No." Arjun swore. "Never."

And then again, Arjun saw another very unexpected emotion on his eldest brother's face. Just, the barest hint of shyness, there one second, gone the next. His eyes roved all over that face, trying to catalogue everything he could.

"Could I-- before I must leave, could I--" He almost stuttered, much to Arjun's shock, because if there was one thing Angaraj Karna had always been, it was an eloquent orator. But... he supposed, that was the warrior and King, not the friend and... brother.

"I know nothing can really be resolved like this, talking for a couple of hours after one one of us is dead but..." Heaving a deep sigh, he continued, "Would you let me.... hold you... hold you close for once?"

He sounded like he was immediately prepared for rejection and wouldn't meet Arjun's eyes.

Arjun heaved forward and wrapped his arms around him and found himself enveloped in those warm arms as well.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for everything." Bhrata Karna whispered into his neck. 

Arjun allowed his head to rest against his collar bone.

"I'm sorry for all the injustices that happened to you as well."

Bhrata Karna huffed a laugh. "That wasn't exactly your fault."

"I wish I had argued against all the elders that day in the Rangabhoomi to get you the chance to fight." He mumbled.

"And I wish I had loved you in life." The older man responded sadly. "But wishing isn't going to get us anything, is it now?"

"If we see each other again," Arjun spoke, "I hope we can properly get to know each other. All six of us. And be brothers for eternity."

"There's no question of 'if'. I will be seeing you again. All of you, in heaven."

Arjun snorted, feeling suddenly childish.

"What?"

"It's just, I feel like, you became so used to threatening me, that even you trying to be nice and reassuring is almost coming off as a death threat."

"What! No, I-- I didn't mean--" Karna began pulling back but Arjun tightened his hold, laughing now.

"Relax, I was just joking."

Karna froze for a moment before chuckling as well.

"You're a little menace." He muttered, running a hand through Arjun's curls.

"Not as much as you." He retorted.

"No, I'm the big menace."

Arjun snickered, burying in head against Karna's-- Bhrata Karna's neck.

"I suppose, I should say then that I will see you eventually, after many long years, hopefully many decades?"

"Well, now that kind of sounds sad." He mumbled.

"That's why I was trying to avoid stating the obvious in that way, but you just had to be a menace, so..." Arjun felt his brother shrug.

Once the ridiculousness wore off, Arjun felt tears start to prickle behind his eyelids once more.

"This just becomes one of the hundreds of things I must be thankful to Madhav for." He choked out.

"Well," Bhrata Karna said, "this time, it is something for which I must be very grateful to him too."

Arjun's tightened his hold over his brother as much as he could. In that moment, nothing else mattered. Nothing that had happened previously, nothing except them.

And then, then Sun properly rose over the horizon. 

After that it was like trying to hold onto Sun light.

Since that was impossible, he pulled pack to see Karna's face one last time and... the smile on his face was truly one of the most radiant smiles he had ever seen.

In that moment he truly looked like Suryaputra, the closest thing to the Sun the rest of them could see without being blinded.

HOOO BOY THIS CHAPTER! LONGEST CHAP I'VE EVER WRITTE FOR A MAHABHARAT FIC, FINALLY CROSSED MORE THAN 4000 WORDS. But then again, given the content, I'm not at all surprised.

THIS, THIS was the chapter that made me start writing this fic. When I started writing this fic, I always knew that this chapter, this was going to be here. Even when I have floundered, not knowing what will come next in the story, this chapter, this was always meant to be here. After this chapter, we now completely enter the final stage of this story. (This fic is defo gonna end within 50 chaps, maybe less)

To everyone who has been here since the beginning and to everyone who joined at any point later, whatever I've written so far and whatever I write after this chap in the story, I hope that this chapter will make you feel like it was worth it.

I hope I've been able to properly convey the difference in tone in the two parts of the fic without it being weird. First part is obv supposed to be them talking abt the important stuff, which obv can't be skipped. And I hoped the end wasn't too goofy lol.

Arjun has never been properly angry or upset before in this fic. Ofc this is cuz he's dealing with Vrishaketu and he's a kid so Arjun's gotta be the strong one and well. No one else exactly was directly responsible for any of the stuff that happened to them, did it? So I hope I've been able to properly show him actually being upset at the beginning if this chap.

And like I said, I hope the ending didn't become too goofy. I just felt like. These two literally don't have for than a couple of hours. They probably wouldn't waste it arguing and thinking about all the bad stuff. If one of you is dead and about to disappear within minutes, you probably wouldn't care that much, right?

What I do know was that the end was cheesy as heck lol.

One thing I do fear, that I hope hasn't happened, is certain lines or points becoming redundant. if you find that somewhere, please let me know!

Well, if you like the chap, please feel free to vote and comment!

Unfortunately, the next chap is not coming till February(End of January, if we're very lucky but the chances are kinda minimal. Cuz first I got exams and I then I gotta update my other fic ASoP first lol.)