Henry wasn’t sure if he was Henry anymore.

He felt like Henry some days. Well, what he remembered Henry feeling like.

He felt like Henry when he was working in the forge, sweating like a pig and beating the shit out of molten metal. He felt like Henry when Islwyn clapped him on the back and shoved a tankard of ale in his hand. He felt like Henry when a little girl, blonde and filthy, tugged on his cloak and asked for a copper.

He gave her a silver and fought the urge to puke.

It was easier when he didn’t feel like Henry. Worse, a thousand times worse, but still somehow easier. When that dark feeling started twisting inside him, snapping at his heels and clawing up his throat, it was so much easier to remember who he was. Where he was. When he was.

Dugal gave him orders and he carried them out. If he was feeling like Henry they made his stomach turn, but if he was feeling like Not-Henry he barely thought about it.

Seeing Clara nearly broke him. His baby sister, too tall, too old, too strong. He remembered her barely reaching his waist, all big grey eyes and shiny blonde hair he painstakingly braided each morning. But now when he saw her she reached his chin and carried a sword.

Without fail, whenever he saw her, the two beings inside him started tearing into each other. Henry begged and begged to hold her for just a second more. Not-Henry seethed at the indignant girl standing against Dugal. Henry was horrified, horrified his baby sister was grown and had blood on her hands and scars on her body. Not-Henry didn’t even notice.

Henry knew that even if he could decide which one was really him, or maybe even just which one he wanted to be, it wouldn’t really matter. He’d never get Clara back, his Clara back. Something had broken fifteen years earlier, when that blade had sunk into his throat and everything went black. Or maybe it had broken when Dugal had dragged him back, kicking and screaming and clawing from—from wherever he’d been.

He was pathetic. He hated every inch of himself, Henry and Not-Henry alike.