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Chapter Text

Ygraine remembers the day she was born.

No one believes her, of course. She’s five years old and adults never, ever take her seriously, and yes she lies sometimes, but she knows this.

“You can’t remember that, silly,” her mum tells her after she steadfastly proclaims it to her family over dinner. Her brothers roll their eyes; her father isn’t really paying any attention. “No one can remember the day they were born.”

“I can,” Ygraine insists stubbornly, sticking her lower lip out. “We were in a yellow room and you were screaming, Mummy. A lady with red hair helped you stop screaming and she held me until you did.”

“You weren’t born in a yellow room, you were born in a hospital,” her mum says gently. Aggy snorts under his breath and Ygraine glares at him. No one asked him, anyway. “And the doctor who delivered you was a man, not a lady with red hair. Where’d this come from, honey? Did you see it in a movie? Boys, you know what I’ve told you about letting your sister watch the telly with you.”

“We didn’t watch no movie with a baby!” Tristan says, a look of disgust crossing his face. “That’s gross!”

The conversation spins away as Tristan starts using curse words and their mum scolds him, but Ygraine’s mind hasn’t been changed.

She knows that she remembers.

When Ygraine is nine, she gets into a fight at school with one of the girls in her class. She shoved her into the mud and scraped her knee because she called Ygraine a bitch. Ygraine doesn’t know what a bitch is, but she knows it was mean.

“She shouldn’t have used that word,” her father tells her tightly when Ygraine defends herself. “But you do not resort to pushing and shoving.”

“Tristan and Aggy shove each other all the time,” Ygraine mutters angrily under her breath.

“That’s because they’re boys,” her father says, a little more gently. “It’s unladylike to fight like that. You need to apologize to that girl at school tomorrow. Is that clear?”

Ygraine remembers something as she nods sullenly at her father’s request.

She remembers Tristan and Aggy with wooden swords in a castle courtyard, screaming and chasing one another. She remembers running to catch up with them, begging them to join in, but they won’t let her, turning their nose up, saying girls can’t fight with swords.

They’re right, her father tells her when she complains to him later. Girls do not fight with swords. It’s unladylike.

Girls fight with words, her mother interrupts, bundling Ygraine into her arms. I can teach you that, darling.

Ygraine knows that this never happened; she has never lived in a castle. Only princesses live in castles. She lives in three-bedroom in Surrey. She has her own room, and that makes Tristan and Aggy call her a spoiled princess, but she isn’t, not really. Her daddy works at a bank and her mommy works at a school. They aren’t a king and a queen.

Yet Ygraine also knows that it was a memory; that the castle was real.

By the time is Ygraine is thirteen, she’s figured it out.

She asked her teachers and her friends about what it means when you remember something that hasn’t happened to you. Her friends didn’t have answers; her teachers asked if she needed to talk to the school counselor.

So she went to the library and paved through books about déjà vu and false memories until finally she found a book titled Other Lives.

It was a book about something called reincarnation; when a person’s soul was reborn again in another time.

The book said that everyone on earth was reincarnated, but Ygraine didn’t believe that. Everyone else didn’t remember things like she did.

But she knew that she had another life, before this. A life in a castle, with knights and dragons and princes and balls.

She remembers it more and more every day, ever since she came to the realization. They’d think she was crazy, but Ygraine knows she’s not.

She goes to see Tristan and Agravaine play football and remembers huge tourneys of knights jousting. She remembers when Tristan was sixteen and he won the tournament over all of the other knights and princes of the realm. He beamed with pride, and still chose to escort his little sister to the ball that evening.

When she goes to see her father in his office, bent over his papers, glasses on the edge of his nose, she remembers he was not a king but a duke. He ran a corner of the kingdom and reported it back to his king with crop reports. He did not have much time for fatherhood, so it was a good thing her mother had survived all three childbirths.

She even remembers some of her friends, and she wonders why they do not remember her. Maybe they do; maybe they look at her the way she looks at them, both too nervous to say anything.

She can see her best friend Vivienne in a royal blue dress, seventeen years old, laughing at something Ygraine said, head thrown back in amusement like it never is with her many suitors. She was always more popular with the knights than Ygraine had been. She will be so beautiful someday, Ygraine realizes, even though she has acne and braces like everyone else today.

She remembers Richard, too, but she remembers him by his last name – Gaius. Ygraine had never given him much thought before; he sat in the back of the classroom and answered all of the teachers’ questions, glasses perched on his nose like he was already thirty years old.

That was how Ygraine remembered him; a thirty-year old man, a doctor, treating her for her ailments. She remembers laughing with him late into the night, sharing a cup of tea.

She makes friends with him after that, and only calls him Gaius. He starts to like that nickname.

She thinks about telling the people she recognizes, to see if they can see this other world, too. But something always stops her; she feels too special like this, being the only one to know a grand secret.

Her childhood comes to her in bits and flashes, filling in the shady spots in her memory.

Part of her knows that she will not be a child forever.

Ygraine is eighteen years old, high school diploma tacked on her wall, sipping her tea as she thinks about where she will go to university in the fall, when a memory hits her like a bullet train.

Usually, they come in quietly, sneaking into the back of her mind like a bandit in the night. Not this memory, though – this one is sharp with defined edges and she nearly chokes on her tea in surprise.

She was a queen.

The thought thrums within her, and she feels something like excitement, but also something like dread.

Ygraine, her father comes into her room one night, a tender look in his eye that Ygraine is not familiar with. I have excellent news.

What is it? Ygraine asks, and somehow already knows the answer, even then.

My envoy has just returned from Camelot, her father says, a pleased sparkle in his eye. The young conqueror has agreed to take you as a bride.

Ygraine’s heart quickens its pace. Camelot…Camelot is so far from here…

You will be a wonderful queen, her father tells her firmly, the greatest compliment he will ever give her. You just have to have the courage to go to him. I know you will do our family proud.

Duty, Ygraine thinks in the present, her tongue like lead. That was the culmination of her first life; a duty to her father, to her husband, to her people.

There is joy there, but also sadness; Ygraine is glad that she is in this time now, where she can live for herself.

And yet she cannot help but wonder – this young conqueror. Who is he? Did Ygraine love him? She feels something akin to love in her chest, but she is only eighteen. She does not yet now what love means, let alone if she felt it once before, a thousand years ago.

She wonders if she’s met her husband yet; if he’s here. He must be.  

That’s why she has been reborn; why they all have been reborn. This king, and what he will do.

Does Ygraine’s duty still carry over to this life?

She shudders, and begins paging through leaflets on universities to take her mind off of these questions. She feels jealousy for the rest of the world in this moment; she’s always felt special, superior, because of her memories, but now she only feels dread.

She thinks that it cannot possibly get any worse until she falls asleep that night, and it is only in her dreams that the rest of her first life plays in front of her eyes.

The gods must have realized that she could not handle seeing this awake; that she would not be able to study it.

She remembers Camelot – great, glorious, beautiful Camelot – and her beautiful husband, who treated her with such tenderness and grace, she could not help but fall in love with him.

She remembers presiding over the royal household; the affection she shares with Gaius, her husband’s closest friend and advisor, the friendship she maintains with Vivienne and her husband, Gorlois, the witch Nimueh and the counsel she brings to Ygraine on magic that she in turn shares with her husband.

She remembers being happy.

She remembers that her body would not let her stay that way for long, refusing to produce a child. She remembers her husband’s rage, his anger, his desperation.

She remembers thinking to herself does he want a son or does he want an heir? Is there even a difference with him?

She remembers her husband’s betrayal, how her husband chose an heir over Ygraine without asking her, without giving a thought to her consent, her autonomy, her value as a human being and not an extension of himself.

She remembers Uther Pendragon knowingly trading her life for their child.

She remembers the world shrinking and darkening around her as she asked to hold her newborn son.

She calls him Arthur, and it is the last thing she ever says.

Ygraine is too heavy, too lethargic, too overwhelmed, to consider leaving her bed today.

She has vomited twice and her head threatens to burst with this new information.

It is not her husband, her king; he is not the reason she is here. He is not the reason that the past has returned to the present.

It is her son. It is Arthur.

He is the reason she is here, reborn, living and breathing once again, thousands of years after she should have perished giving him life.

She clutches her stomach somewhat protectively, as if someone has already forced him inside of her.

The love she felt for Arthur, even in those few seconds, was the most intense thing she had ever felt before, even in this muted, dreamlike state.

She learned the tales of King Arthur once, long ago, but she knows now how many of those ring false. Arthur was her son; her beautiful, precious son who never got to meet his mother. Pity and love thrum through Ygraine’s body, and she is sick again.

She cannot take it, all of this pain, all of this pressure. For if history is doomed to repeat itself, then surely she is meant to die again. She is meant to die so that Arthur can live and do wonderful things. Arthur is the Once and Future King – she remembers reading that book, years ago. He is coming back to save the world.

It is all too much.

For normal girls, there is university. There is a promising career. There is marriage and children that doesn’t end in fire and destruction.

Ygraine no longer has such comforts.

She does not believe that her life is more important than anyone’s, especially not Arthur’s. But doesn’t her life at least have equal worth? Shouldn’t she be permitted the chance to live? Could she choose another path, or would fate stop her?

Pity and sadness soon turns to rage, to anger. She should not have to destroy herself for the sake of the world. She should not have to take this fate without a fight. She does not owe the world anything, for it certainly never did any favors for her. It brought her back just to spit her back out again, so that her son could live, so that her husband could thrive.

Ygraine decides that she is not a toy to be played with by the universe.

Her former life, always a source of comfort and joy, is dead to her now.

She has clearly always been dead to it.

Ygraine has her own life to live now; this life and no one else’s. Not Uther’s. Not Arthur’s. Not her father’s or her brother’s or any other godforsaken man’s to control.

She is studying art in London. She wants to be a professor. She ignores the voice in her head that says she’ll never make it that far before she’s withered away to nothingness.

She spends time with her friends, but not those who she remembers from centuries ago. She makes new friends with people who only have this life to live, who laugh loud and long and never worry, not about things that matter, like the fate of the universe hanging in the balance of your death.

And yet, there are things Ygraine unwittingly learns despite her desire to let the past go, things she never discovered during her time alive.

Yet they come to her anyway, like thieves in the night, stealing away her resolve to put up a steel wall between herself and the queen.

She learns Vivienne had an affair with Uther that started while she was alive and continued onward, that a daughter was born of the union. Uther’s first betrayal; though it hurts to learn it, it is nothing compared to his worst.

Tristan was indignant over death, and blamed Uther – as he should have. What he shouldn’t have done was challenge him to a duel. What Uther shouldn’t have done was kill him in cold blood. Another betrayal.

The Purge also comes to her in a frenzied nightmare; Uther brazenly destroying all magic. Nimueh running, Gaius hiding, the world shattering and coming to an end. Uther does not remain the charming man she loved; instead, he is consumed only by hatred and malice and greed, never the father that her son deserved.

Perhaps Ygraine’s death was not his greatest betrayal; perhaps it was how he treated Arthur in her absence.

She has to shut that thought away, lest it consume her.

Chapter Text

“Alice!”

Ygraine stamps her foot impatient at the bottom of the staircase. She scowls, checking her watch for the fourth time that day. Her flatmate is flighty and chronically late; she already knows this, but today it grates on her nerves more than ever.

“We’re going to be late for my exhibition,” Ygraine checks her watch again. Thirty seconds have passed. She needs to be at the gallery in twenty minutes, and it’s a thirty minute Tube ride from the flat she and Alice share. She grits her teeth.

“Coming, coming,” Alice finally clambers down the rickety staircase, blonde hair askew, her ponytail doing very little to keep it neat. “Sorry, Grainy.”

Ygraine glares. Alice came up with that nickname for her the first day they met in their literature class in uni two years ago. Ygraine hates it and Alice knows, her smile teasing.

Ygraine relents with a smile, saying “Whatever. Let’s get going.”

The gallery they head to is not one of prestige; it’s only on the university campus for displaying student work. But they only display the best student work, hand-picked by the art department’s faculty, so Ygraine is proud to have a piece there regardless.

Ygraine thinks she should have invited someone else; Tristan, at least, would’ve liked to come, and he was close by. But Ygraine had been steadily putting distance between herself and her family and friends she saw centuries within, too frightened of diving too far deep, so far that there would be no way out.

Oh, well. It’s too late now, and Alice will be there as a friendly face.

By the time they arrive at the gallery, Ygraine is fifteen minutes late. She rushes apologies to her professor before heading over to where her piece is displayed to make sure that the lighting team followed her specifications.

Alice tilts her head when she sees the piece, her frown prominent. “Wow. That’s so realistic. Looks kind of familiar…but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. You steal it from a book?”

“No!” Ygraine glares, affronted, before turning to one of the boys adjusting the light fixtures. “It looks great, thanks so much for your help.”

Ygraine turns back to consider her artwork. It wasn’t done with any particular style in mind, or even with any particular inspiration. She had been painting one afternoon, needing a piece to turn in for one of her classes, and somehow her nook of a forest had turned into a sprawling valley, fallen tree branches connecting mounds of dirt, weeds clambering up their sides.

On either side of the valley were two dilapidated wooden statues, taller than the trees left standing, moss and ivy covering them. They displayed two men, gnarled and rusting with time, completely indistinct from one another.

“Dead Kings,” Alice reads from the nameplate, “by Ygraine de Bois. Oh, it’s great, hon, I love it.”

“Thank you,” Ygraine says, a swell of pride in her chest. This is something she has accomplished, something for the record books. Maybe not saving the world, but a mark she has left upon it.

The compliments continue throughout the evening, generally in the vein of so realistic or so unnerving or so beautiful.

Ygraine soaks them up.

She stands at her piece throughout the evening, fielding questions on it, as the rest of her classmates are. Alice is around somewhere, probably at the free bar, chatting with the blokes who are working there. She’s always been the sociable type.

The evening is nearing to an end, the crowd thinning out to mainly students and professors, when a man stops in front of Ygraine’s exhibit and his jaw drops.

That’s a reaction she hasn’t gotten yet.

“This looks,” the man says, and Ygraine thinks he’s talking to her; there’s no one else in the immediate vicinity, “exactly like a place I used to…I mean, it’s down to the letter. The way the trees are shaped, the length of the valley…I can almost see the rocks falling…Where did you find this?”

Now Ygraine knows he’s talking to her, and she quickly answers, “I didn’t find it, sir. I painted it without a model. Not even a photograph. It’s not a real place, as far as I know.”

“Oh, it’s real,” the man breathes almost reverently, his eyes never leaving the painting. Ygraine feels pride at this, too, but also confusion; where on earth could he have seen a place like this before? “It’s the Valley of Fallen Kings.”

Ygraine tastes something funny and heavy in her mouth as she says, “The – the title of the piece is Dead Kings.”

The man turns to her slowly; though he looks no older than thirty, his eyes look like centuries.

Ygraine’s heart starts beating faster. Centuries. Could this be another…but no one else had ever remembered…

“Why did you call it that?” The man asks softly, hesitantly, as if searching for a specific answer.

Ygraine swallows. “Because my life will not be dictated by a king’s rule. Because kings are better left in the past. Where they belong.”

They stare at each other for a moment, at an impasse. Ygraine wonders if he knows what she does about the past. Could this be her husband? She doesn’t think so. He clearly wasn’t the witch Nimueh. But who else was there left to recognize? Ygraine remembered no one else.

“Your eyes,” the man breaks first, and Ygraine is surprised to see his voice is shaking. “I…I know who you are.”

“I don’t know you,” Ygraine finds herself whispering, taking a step backward. But her statement was also a question.

A faint smile appears on the man’s lips. “You’re…you’re Ygraine. Ygraine Pendragon.”

“Ygraine de Bois,” Ygraine corrects him forcefully, and she wants to walk away, anywhere but here, but her curiousity gets the better of her. She must know who this man is; the first to recognize in her what she sees in the rest of the world.

“Right, right,” the man corrects himself, and laughs quietly, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “You…do you remember? You sound like you remember.”

“I remember,” Ygraine says, taking a step toward the man. “And I don’t want to. I have my own life to live; here, now. My past…whatever is in my past, your past, it doesn’t matter to me. But…I just have to know. I’ve recognized so many people that have been reborn, but no one’s ever seen me back. Who are you?”

The man has a curious look on his face, one torn between sadness and joy, and Ygraine’s heart thumps loudly. “I…My name is Merlin.”

“Like…like the sorcerer,” Ygraine frowns. “I don’t remember you, but I’ve seen the Sword and the Stone. I thought you must be a myth.”

The man shakes his head. “God, I wish. No, I…I was born after you died. That’s why you wouldn’t know me.”

“Then how are you…?”

The man swallows, his Adam’s Apple bobbing nervously. “Because I’m not reborn. I’ve always been here. Living. Through the centuries. Waiting…waiting for your son.”

Ygraine’s heart speeds up incrementally, and without realizing it, she’s backed away defensively. “Then you’ll have a much longer wait ahead of you. I don’t have a son. And I never will.”

She turns on her heel, ignoring the questioning voice of the man behind her, but he doesn’t follow. Ygraine pulls on Alice’s arm at the bar, pulls her away from the attentions of the men and into the street outside of the gallery. She walks at top speed, dragging her friend with her.

“Grainy?” Alice asks five or six times before Ygraine finally looks at her. “What is it? What’s the matter? Why’d we leave before it was over?”

“I ran into someone I’d rather not see,” Ygraine said, a bitter taste on her tongue, and Alice leaves the subject alone.

But Ygraine thinks of it late into the night.

It’s been a week, and Ygraine still hasn’t seen Merlin.

Part of her is relieved; if he just disappeared, it would make this much easier. Ygraine doesn’t want to know anything about her son, anything about his life. Her death prevented her from knowing him, and therefore her guilt over denying him existence could be circumvented.

For all she knew, her son could be a cruel, heartless man, a man she knew that his father had become.

Of all the things Ygraine had learned about Camelot after her life had ended, the gods never let her learn of her son. And for that she was grateful. There was no need to torture herself with those feelings.

Still, she looked for Merlin’s face in the crowd no matter where she was; walking down the street, in her classes, at her job. She was always on the lookout; she was certain her resting heartrate was much higher since meeting him, her anxiety too great to handle.

She thinks about this on her way home from class one evening; it’s late, it’s Thursday, and she’s exhausted and just wants to sleep, but thoughts keep circulating her head. She sits on the Tube, desperately trying to pay attention to her book until the train reaches her stop.

Finally, it does. She heaves her book bag onto one shoulder, head aching, as she heads toward the staircase. Her train car had been empty, and she can only see three or four others in the entire station.

She walks quickly.

For some reason, dread eats her up as she begins to speed almost to a run –

And that is when the screeching starts.

Ygraine claps her hands over her ears, whirling around to see a man, covered in blood, fall to the platform’s floor.

Above him is a creature, grey and scaled, its eyes read and beady, wings spread angrily, talons digging into the man’s shoulder as he screams.

Ygraine desperately wants to keep running, but she is frozen in place, terror streaming through her, and a the part of her that doesn’t want to run wants to fight.

Before she can do either one, a voice shouts something in another language, and the creature slows, its eyes turning in space to land on a single man, standing in the center of the platform.

Ygraine’s tongue turns to lead when she sees that it’s Merlin – Merlin the sorcerer. Merlin who knew her son. His shouts are harsh and throaty, his eyes burning golden as he stares down the creature. They are face to face now. The bloodied man on the floor is gazing up at Merlin as if he was a god.

The creature screeches once more, and brandishes its wings as it retreats into the tunnel.

Without realizing what she’s doing, Ygraine walks forward. She keeps taking steps, one after the other; once again, her curiousity has won out.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Merlin is saying to the man on the ground when she reaches them. He no longer has any blood on him. There does not even appear to be a wound. “I can call an ambulance to make sure…”

“I’m fine,” the man says with an incredulous laugh. “Thanks to you, I’m fine.”

Merlin smiles crookedly down at him and Ygraine clears her throat. His smile melts into a shocked stare when he sees Ygraine.

“So you didn’t know I was here,” Ygraine says, her voice higher and shriller than she had ever heard it before. “I suppose that’s reassuring.”

Merlin stands, squeezing the man’s shoulder one last time before he does so. The man rises to his feet as well, thanking Merlin profusely another time before chancing a scared look at Ygraine and heading for the stairs, presumably to tell everyone he knows about what happened.

“What was that thing?” Ygraine asks when Merlin says nothing.

“A wyvern,” Merlin answers, biting his lip. “Distantly related to the dragon.”

“Dragons still exist?” Ygraine stares. She thought that the magic of the past had worn with age, but she supposed Merlin’s existence would be enough proof to discredit that theory.

Merlin’s gaze becomes shakier. “No. They don’t. But wyverns do. And they’re attracted to magic. That wyvern must have sensed some in the tunnel there. Probably someone on one of the trains.”

Ygraine swallows. “…Me?”

“Probably not,” Merlin says quietly. “Unless reincarnation is a type of magic. Perhaps all those who have been reincarnated over time have a hint of magic inside of them. I don’t know. I haven’t researched it enough.”

“But…there are people in the world who still have magic?” Ygraine asks. “People who weren’t born…?”

“Born a thousand years ago?” Merlin almost laughs. “Like me? Yeah, they’re still around. But much rarer; they’ve been dying off for years because…”

He trails off before saying more forcefully, “Because of some of the things your husband did. History has a habit of repeating itself.”

Ygraine clenches her jaw, blood pumping. “Then maybe you’ll understand why I don’t wish to see you again. I have no desire to have history repeat itself.”

There is a steely look in Merlin’s eye as if he is determined to convince her otherwise, but it relents with quiet exhaustion as he exhales.

“Neither do I,” he says with a bitter smile, and his resignation stops Ygraine from turning and running on her heel.

“You were…a sorcerer in the days after the Purge,” Ygraine starts uncomfortably, the vocabulary unfamiliar on her tongue. Merlin glances up at her, surprised; this was, after all, beyond her years. “How did you live in Camelot? How did you know my son?”

“I lived in Camelot because of your son,” Merlin met her gaze unflinchingly. “I was his servant. Destined to serve him for the rest of his life. Well…the rest of my life. Which has continued on for an unnecessarily long time.”

A servant, Ygraine thinks to herself. A servant might understand this; this burden, this duty of hers that she would rally against. Merlin might be as locked into fate’s hands as she was. He might be sympathetic.

And Ygraine wanted to know.

“I don’t want to know about my son,” Ygraine says tightly. “But…but I would like it if you would tell me about yourself. There are – so many things that I do not understand. About this new life. About my old life. Questions I have…will you answer them?”

Meriln’s eyes are heavy. “It will be hard to discuss without mentioning Arthur.”

Ygraine almost flinches at the name.

Merlin sighs, but there is an affectionate look on his face. “It’s a long story.”

“There’s a pub,” Ygraine gestures toward the stairs. “It won’t be busy.”

Merlin follows her.

“So you lived through it,” Ygraine turns the straw in her cocktail, just to have something to do with her hands. “You’re not like the rest of us. You’ve been around all this time.”

“Through all the eras,” Merlin says with a self-deprecating roll of his eye. He is drinking a stout; perhaps it’s something that existed back in Camelot’s time, something that reminds him of home. “I’m effectively immortal.”

“Why?”

Merlin bites his lip, eyes shifting as if he’s debating saying something. “Because on the eve of the Battle of Camlann, I walked into the Crystal Cave and knowingly chose it. My magic had been stolen from me, and regaining it required a price from me. And the price was this. A life of immortality, constantly in the service of magic and the human race.”

He stops short. “I chose it,” he says quietly, “because I thought it was the only way to save Arthur. I failed. But I realized that it all came together in the end, because though my immortality is a curse, it is also a gift. I get to wait for him. I get to see him again. I…”

Ygraine looks down guiltily and Merlin bites his lip, remembering Ygraine’s words on the subject of her son.

“But you were a servant,” Ygraine argues, a piece of this puzzle still missing. “Not a lord or a knight. And sorcery was illegal, so it wasn’t like you could be recognized for…I mean, were you ever recognized for…?”

Regretfully, Merlin shook his head. “No. I was only ever a servant.”

“Then you understand,” Ygraine says, desperately trying to connect the pieces, “this awful duty we have. You say you’re destined to serve him – and I’m destined to birth him. We don’t have any say in the matter. You have to live forever and I have to die. Isn’t there anything else but this awful duty?”

Merlin’s hands grow tighter around his drink. Ygraine thinks that if she even sips hers, she won’t be able to keep it down.

Merlin opens his mouth to speak. “How old are you?”

The question confuses her. Of all the things in the world to ask, why that?

“Twenty,” she answers, the relevance of it lost on her.

A small smile appears on Merlin’s face. A real one. “Arthur was twenty,” he says fondly, “when we first met. I had never hated anyone more in my life.”

Ygraine stares at him, fear and adrenaline in her veins; was it what she feared? Did Uther’s hatred and neglect and thirst for power become her son’s?

“I know I said I wouldn’t talk about him,” Merlin shakes his head. The fond look on his face doesn’t disappear. “But…he was so pompous. And arrogant and rude. Surrounded by sycophants – someone needed to take him down a peg. When…when someone told me the nature of my destiny, that my life and his were intertwined, I just laughed. I offered to help kill him myself rather than save him.”

Ygraine’s fingers are white, knuckles clenched; if this was true, why did Merlin’s voice seemed lost in a maze of wonder and affection?

“What I’m saying is,” Merlin says gently, as if he read her mind, “I know what you’re feeling. At least a little of it. When I was young, I never would have wanted this for myself. But Arthur changed everything for me.  A thousand years later, and knowing him is still my greatest honor.”

“But he was…pompous and arrogant and…” Ygraine trailed off, not being able to reconcile these ideas.

Merlin just laughed. “Yeah, he was. But underneath his arrogance were all of his insecurities, his self-doubts. He wasn’t like his father; he was fair and just and merciful. He…he liked to think himself as more like you. He cared so much – about everyone, all the time. And he had his duty, too, a duty to Camelot. And it was just as unforgiving as ours.”

 Merlin stops, hesitates, before he continues. “My duty to him is not servitude or obedience or any other fucking thing. My duty to him is a duty of care. I don’t wait for him because I’m destined to; I do it because I want to. Because I miss him. Because…”

There is a tear in Merlin’s eye, his voice sharp and harsh; Ygraine wonders if he has ever told anyone this before.

There is a tear in her own eye as she tells him her unspoken truth. “Please stop. Please stop telling me about him. I know he is my son, and I don’t regret that he is. But God, I just want to live my life. I won’t give up my life just for him, and I’m sorry if that makes my selfish, but I can’t. Not for a son I’ve never even gotten to meet.”

She is openly crying now, and Merlin’s hand is on top of hers in an instant, clutching tightly.

“He wouldn’t want you to,” Merlin says fiercely, unapologetically. “Arthur spent his whole life missing you. Wondering about you. Desperately wishing you were there. He would be furious with me if I told you any different – he would rather you live than he.”

“Will I die?” Ygraine looks up at him; he is the only person she has ever met who could answer her this. “If I have a baby, am I going to die?”

Merlin shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says honestly, his voice raw. “But I’ve been alive for a long time. And I’ve learned that history…history is doomed to repeat itself. And destiny always wins. I tried so hard to change Arthur’s fate, but even the most extraordinary magic cannot stop destiny.”

He trails off, a faraway look in his eye as if he is reliving it; Ygraine respects his honesty, his pragmatism, more than she would a comforting lie.

She realizes she believes what he tells her about her son; that he is honorable and just and that he loved her.

She would love him, too, she thinks, if she knew him.

But that is the conundrum; she will never know him.

Ygraine realizes Merlin’s hand is still on hers. She takes it in her other one. “I’m sorry I can’t give him to you.”

“I’m sorry I failed to protect him the first time around,” Merlin says, and Ygraine can see a flicker of bitterness inside of him again. It is not directed at her, but at himself. Ygraine wonders what kind of hell that must be, living forever in a bubble of past mistakes, never able to free himself.

“What have you done?” Ygraine asks him, needing the subject of her son to be gone, the not-quite-memories far too painful. “In your centuries since? You said…you said you were in the service of…”

“The service of magic,” Merlin’s face twists into something resembling a smile. “Like I said, I tried to change destiny. I chose Arthur over destiny. I tried to save him, knowing that the gods had decreed his death. His death happened before…before we did all we were meant to…”

There is a ghost in Merlin’s eye, and with a shudder, he continues, “but my immortality is penance for that.”

Ygraine stares at him; there is truth in his words, and affection and love behind them, and they are not for immortality or for dingy bars or even for magic.

She wonders if her son inspires this in everyone, or only people like Merlin.

She wonders if he would inspire it within her, if she gave him the chance.

“So what is the service of magic?” She says after she clears her throat. “There are still…still sorcerers then? That live among us?”

Merlin nods. “They’re rarer than ever, but they’re here. And I try to help them in any way I can.”

“How?” Ygraine persists. “If they’re so rare, how can you even find them, let alone protect them?”

Merlin shrugs modestly. “I set up a system that spreads by word of mouth. I bring people with magic together to help one another, and if there’s an emergency, they can call me to help. That’s why I was in the Tube station tonight – one of my contacts in London said there was a wyvern loose.”

“Was it a coincidence,” Ygraine asks hesitantly, “that I was there?”

A light smile appears on his face. “Nothing’s a coincidence. Not with this much at stake.”

“So it also wasn’t a coincidence,” she asks, remembering something odd, “that you were at my art show?”

Merlin’s eyes go soft around the edges. “I’ve been at the college for months now. Teaching some history classes. I came to the art show on a whim. I don’t think I’d ever seen you before that day. That doesn’t sound like a coincidence to me.”

Ygraine frowns hesitantly, and they are quiet for a moment. Ygraine knows more than she ever wanted to about her life, about her son’s life, and now she has to contend with the guilt it brings about.

Merlin looks like he knows something about guilt.

“I want to help,” Ygraine says before she can help herself. “I want to meet someone with magic and help them. I...I’ve spent my whole life with a world only I can see. I’d like to meet someone who can see beyond.”

Merlin doesn’t even blink. “Of – of course. But I thought you said you knew others? Others who had been reincarnated? Can’t they…?”

“No,” Ygraine feels her own bitterness come to a head in her chest. “No one else knows. I see them, I remember who they are, what they did, but they can’t see me back. I’ve always been invisible. Why…why am I the only one who remembers?”

Merlin shakes his head. “I might be the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth, but I don’t know the rules to this particular game. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for, so the universe has kept me in the dark. Maybe...maybe someone I know could help you, though. Someone else with magic.”

Ygraine swallows hard, her heart threatening to explode. This feels real. This feels more real than anything she’s ever felt before, anything she’s ever tried to feel before.

“Show me,” she says, and Merlin smiles.

They walk down London’s streets in the moonlight, and Ygraine can’t help but laugh a little. She’s never been so adventurous, so free.

Merlin looks at her oddly when she laughs; initially, she thinks it’s because he doesn’t understand why, but then she notices the sadness in his eyes, like he’s hearing a sound long forgotten.

“There are pathways,” Merlin explains as he heads down into a Tube stop. Ygraine stops short, remembering the wyvern, but he puts an arm around her to guide her down. “Ley lines that connect places to one another, places that have magical energy. They make it simple to travel between them.”

“And where are we traveling to?” Ygraine asks, shivering slightly when they reach the Tube station. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to see those grey metallic walls again without thinking of the creature that lived inside of them.

Merlin lets of her back to jump over one of the turnstiles. Ygraine gives him an astonished look, but he just smiles and shrugs, gesturing for her to do the same. “Come on! I have magic, it’s not like we’re going to be caught.”

Ygraine gives him a dirty look, but jumps all the same.

It makes Merlin laugh, but the sadness in his laugh matches the sadness in his smile, even in its incredulity and affection.

“You never answered my question,” Ygraine points out when Merlin jumps off of the platform and onto the train tracks. “Also, you can’t do that! A train might come!”

“A train won’t come,” Merlin says confidently, and offers a hand up to her.

She looks at it for a moment; she could leave right now. Run away and never look back.

But the thing is, if she’s so desperate to hold onto her life, than she has to do something with it. Her life can’t be one of boredom and mediocrity; it has to mean something to justify her choice to stop destiny in its tracks.

She takes his hand.

 “I don’t know where we’re traveling to yet,” Merlin says with lightness that his statement doesn’t justify as Ygraine stumbles down into the dark, nearly cavernous train stop. Merlin leads them into the gaping hole of darkness without breaking his stride. Ygraine can’t help but grab the back of his jacket; she is putting her entire trust in him not to lead her astray.

But she knows, somehow, that he can be trusted. He wouldn’t talk the way he does about her son, and about Ygraine’s decision to let him go, if he couldn’t be trusted to protect her.

“I haven’t heard from anyone who needs help in the last few days,” Merlin explains. “So I’ll let the ley lines guide us on where to go. They know better than I do who needs help and where.”

Ygraine can’t help but giggle. “So you’re a bit like Doctor Who, then.”

“Who’s that?” Merlin asks, blinking. “I thought I was like Batman. Someone flashes the Bat Signal and I come running.”

“Who’s Batman?” Ygraine asks teasingly, and suddenly it’s like they’re friends, just hanging out with no pressure, no expectations, no history weighing them down. It’s a disquieting feeling, one she immediately shuts away when she sees the place Merlin has lead them to.

She wonders how a place of such beauty exists here. Golden liquid flows freely from all directions, glimmering brightly as if the moon was shining overhead. The liquid converged at a single spot in the center of the darkened tracks, meeting in a swirling pool of gold and silver, beckoning them closer to touch.

It took Ygraine’s breath away.

Merlin held his hand out again, questioningly, waiting for her choice.

She realizes that however Merlin may feel about her son, he understands how much stock she puts in choice.

She takes his hand again, sealing this trust between them, and the world swirls around them. The golden liquid seems to rise up and permeate the tunnel with its shimmering glow, encasing them in light.

It suddenly disappears, shooting back into the ground, and she and Merlin are standing in a darkened alleyway, cobblestone, street lamps illuminating the world on either side of them, a light string of music playing in the distance.

“Where are we?” Ygraine gasps and lets go of his hand. She heads in the direction of the noise without waiting for an answer.

She stops short at the end of the alleyway; a beautiful canal, lit up with a string of yellow lights, is before her. A violin player stands on the street corner in a long skirt, thanking the various listeners in the crowd that has gathered around her. The street is cobblestone as well, with no cars, only foot traffic. It’s clearly the middle of the night here, too, but these people look as awake and alive forever.

Merlin appears at her elbow, and she sees that he is smiling. “Welcome to Venice.”

“I’ve never been to Italy before,” Ygraine whispers, excitement growing. “Look, it’s a gondola on the river!”

Merlin laughs as Ygraine heads down the street to stare at the canal, the water shimmering in the moonlight. She’s never left England before; her world seems to change in the simplicity of being somewhere new, somewhere she’s only seen pictures of.

“I spent a decade here once a couple hundred years ago,” Merlin says conversationally, as if it’s something everyone’s done. “It’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. And I say this as someone who’s seen a hell of a lot of places.”

“What’s the most beautiful?” Ygraine asks, and his sad smile seems to be the answer.

Still, it cannot deflate her; there is too much beauty and magic in the air around her. She can see why there are ley lines here; magic seems to be infused in the air.

“Where are we supposed to go?” Ygraine asks him; the idea of having a purpose here is somehow even more wonderful than being here itself. “Who here needs help?”

“Let’s walk and find out,” Merlin says with a shrug. Ygraine wonders how often he does this; appears in whatever place calls to him, and wanders about until he finds purpose there.

She thinks that at a thousand years old, he’s probably spent a long time wandering.

The thought unsettles her and she pushes it back, choosing instead to delight in the pathways, the darkened little shops; the laughter of the tourists ringing around her, the sounds of the river.

She and Merlin meander the twisting roads together, words unnecessary as they watch and listen, waiting for some kind of sign.

 Ygraine thinks Merlin will recognize it before she does, but it is her who hears the scream.

“Did you hear that?” She stops, grabbing Merlin’s arm. He glances at her, puzzled.

“No, what was it?”

“A girl,” Ygraine says, and she has already turned left into another alleyway, following the noise. “She screamed.”

Merlin catches up with her, and they both hear the next scream. It’s high-pitched and piercing, and Ygraine wonders why none of the tourists have heard it. She wonders if this is the kind of place where you must be listening to truly hear.

“This way,” Merlin says, taking a hold of her shoulder and spinning her to the right. They run together, searching for the source of the sound, knowing it is close but not seeing the girl. They turn around again and again, but the alleyways will not give her up.

“She’s below,” Merlin gasps in revelation when they round the next corner. “There are tunnels. There should be an entrance…”

Well, there shouldn’t be one, Ygraine learns a moment later, when Merlin simply grabs her hand and they descend through the dirt, zooming at top speed. Ygraine lands on the ground, coughing, and Merlin hurriedly helps her to her feet.

It’s when Ygraine rights herself that she realizes they’re not alone. Two men stare at them; they are identical. Bulky and dressed in black, shaved heads and wide lips, a knife held in each of their left hands.

A girl lies on the floor beneath them, up against a cavern wall. She must be no younger than Ygraine, though the whimpers she lets out are like those of a child. Her long, dark hair looks almost red, but it isn’t long before Ygraine realizes that it’s her blood.

She steps forward, revulsion and pity and a desire to care for this girl in her chest, but Merlin lightly steps in front of her, keeping distance between Ygraine and the two men that stand in the way of the tortured girl.

“Step away,” one of the men says in a monotone voice. Merlin glares at him sharply.

“I think it’s you who needs to do that,” Merlin says in a soft, measured voice. There is something about the way he forms his words, the way he stands, the casual confidence of it. He has done these things before. “Give me the girl and you can leave. That’s all I ask.”

“This is not a girl,” the other man says in the same voice. “This is a sacrifice. Her power is too mighty to live.”

“Who has dictated that?” Merlin asks them. “If she’s a sacrifice, someone must want her power for themselves. Someone who was willing to create the two of you to do it. You’re clearly not human.”

The two men – or not men, Ygraine supposes – look to one another before stepping toward Merlin, knives brandished.

Merlin whispers a single word, deep and guttural, and the men are slammed backward against the wall on either side. The noise they let out is visceral, and they seem to disintegrate into dust before her eyes.

Without asking questions as to how or why, Ygraine runs to the girl on the floor, who is gasping in pain, tears streaming from her eyes as she reaches a pale hand out. Ygraine grasps it, and her fingers tighten impossibly around the girl’s.

“Are you alright?” Ygraine asks her, brushing her bloodied hair back from her face. There are cuts down the side of her neck that make Ygraine choke in pain and she has to look away.

The girl tries to answer, but cannot. Merlin skids to the ground on her other side, taking her face in one of his hands as he whispers something – an enchantment. The same thing he did for the man at the Tube station.

The wounds seem to clear up before their eyes; the girl’s eyes grow the widest as she realizes what has happened, the only blood remaining the dried blood in her hair.

“Thank you,” she whispers, deep and throaty, her English good but with an Italian lilt to it. “Oh, God, thank you.”

“Who were those people?” Ygraine asks, not knowing whether Merlin or the girl would answer her. She still has a death grip on the girl’s hand.

“Servants of Jove,” Merlin replies grimly before the girl can. “Italian god of the sky. He can get very angry when magic does not bend to his will, which is why he wanted to snuff yours out.”

The girl nods. “I know. He’s approached me before, tried to harness my power to his own, but he needs my permission. I guess he decided that if he couldn’t have my power, no one could.”

“There really are gods?” Ygraine looks up to Merlin. “Who walk among us?”

“No,” Merlin says right away, and then it is both the girl and Ygraine who look at him in surprise. “Only immortals who have forgotten their pasts, so they believe that they have existed since the beginning of time. It happens to most immortals eventually.”

“I need to go,” the girl says, trying to stand, but Ygraine holds her still. “Please, let me go. He’s going to try again. I need to get out of here.”

“We can help with that,” Ygraine says gently. “You – you can come back to London with us. Right?”

She looks at Merlin, who nods immediately.

“Jove has never left Italy,” Merlin explains to her. “It’s the source of his power. He won’t be able to hurt you there. Do you have family? Friends? Someone to come with you?”

The girl shakes her head. “I don’t have anyone. But…but my mother was from London. She's been dead for years, but…”

She trails off, and Ygraine takes that as permission to help her to her feet, throwing the girl’s arm around her shoulder to support her.

“You can stay with me,” Ygraine says, and is surprised to find she means it. “Me and my mate, Alice. I’ll take care of you until you can find a place of your own.”

“There are other magic users in London,” Merlin continues on, flashing Ygraine a look she cannot read. “You can practice and hone your gift with them.”

The girl laughs bitterly “A gift. This has never been anything but a curse.”

Merlin smiles sadly down at her before cupping his hands. When he reopens them, a tiny blue butterfly flies from his grip. Ygraine and the girl stare, fascinated, as the butterfly flies through the cavern, disappearing into thin air.

“You just haven’t seen it used the right way,” Merlin says. “If you can be around the right people, learn the ways to use it correctly, it can be a gift.”

The girl shakes her head incredulously. “I’ve never met another mortal with magic before.”

Ygraine looks hesitantly at Merlin, whose smile had turned grim. “Well. You’ll meet a lot when we get to London. What’s your name?”

“Nimueh,” the girl answers, and when Merlin and Ygraine make eye contact, there is fear in both of their eyes.

“Are you sure about this?” Merlin whispers when they return to London and take the Tube to Ygraine’s flat. Alice is fast asleep already, and Ygraine has deposited Nimueh in her bed with promises that she’ll be there to help her in the morning.

She and Merlin sit in the kitchen, both of them taking turns giving nervous glances to the hallway.

“She was my friend once,” Ygraine says determinedly, “before. And…and she didn’t mean to hurt me. She warned Uther about the dangers; he was the one who commanded her, as her king, to do his bidding.”

“I realize that’s when you knew her,” Merlin says after a moment, “but I knew her when she was trying to murder your son.”

There is a tightness in Ygraine’s chest that she cannot help.

“And…” Merlin says hesitantly, hands tightly gripping one another as if it is hard to say, “I killed her. The first time around, I killed her to save Arthur. If she remembers me…”

“She won’t,” Ygraine says, and even though she doesn’t know for sure, she is still confident. “No one but me has ever remembered anything.”

“She’s also the reason that you died,” Merlin says quietly, as if Ygraine didn’t remember. “She might have a role to play in Arthur’s birth this time around. I know – I know you don’t want him to be born. But involving her in your life might not lead to the result you want.”

Merlin’s voice is measured, but still shaking; he does want Arthur to be born, Ygraine knows, but he also does not want her to die.

“I can’t abandon her,” Ygraine says as if it settles the matter. “What happened before doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have anyone to take care of her, and she’s faced immeasurable pain. It doesn’t matter what she could do to me, to you, to anyone. She needs my help.”

Merlin doesn’t reply for a moment, but his gaze when he looks at her is impossibly soft. “You’re just like him, you know.”

“…I am?” Ygraine asks, knowing who he means, and the question is an invitation to keep talking.

“He would help anyone in need,” Merlin said quietly, turning a ring on his fingers over in his hands, “no matter what it cost him. He trusted everyone, even if they hurt him. His optimism was so strong. He pretended that he was some unbreakable figure, but he could be so soft and gentle with someone when they needed it. His eyes crinkled up like yours do when he laughed. Your smiles are the same. Your glares are the same. You…”

He trails off, and Ygraine feels pain, though she doesn’t know where it comes from.

“I’m going to take care of her,” Ygraine says quietly. “And I think you should, too. If for nothing else, then to make up for…”

“Yeah,” Merlin says softly. “To make up for. I didn’t want to kill her, Ygraine. I promise. But Arthur was dying…then my mother was…then Gaius was…and the world required a life. I was willing to give mine. If she would have just let me…”

Ygraine thinks Merlin might wish he was dead, but she wasn’t going to let him live in that fantasy. Instead, she says hesitantly, hopefully, “…Gaius? You knew Gaius?”

“Gaius was the first father I ever knew.” The look on Merlin’s face is nostalgic, basking in his loss. Ygraine cannot help but feel sympathy, cannot help but feel excitement for what she can tell him about Gaius, but she has more questions first.

“Did you know Vivienne? Agravaine?” She persists. “You can’t have known Tristan or my parents, but they’re the others I have recognized.”

“I knew Agravaine,” Merlin has a nervous look about him now. “I didn’t know Vivienne, but I knew her daughter, Morgana. But…are you saying…are you saying that you know Gaius? That Gaius is here? In this time?”

There is a distinctive air about him, one Ygraine hasn’t seen up to this point. It is one of hope.

An unwitting smile grows on Ygraine’s lips; she may not be able to give Merlin her son, but perhaps she can make up for it with his father.

“I know him,” Ygraine tells him excitedly, heart pounding in her chest. “He’s a family friend – we went to school together. He’s in medical school now, here in London.”

“Of course he is,” Merlin’s breath is shuddering, his eyes bright with tears. “I…I never thought. Never dared hope. I – can I see him? Can you bring me to him? I know it’s too much to ask, I’ve already burdened you with so much…”

It is odd to hear Merlin talk of burden, as if his own does not carry any weight, as if Ygraine’s is the only burden that matters. She used to think it was, but after today, she is less sure.

“Of course I can,” she says, and Merlin’s smile is so brilliant. She wonders what her son thought of Merlin; the way Merlin speaks of him, she thinks that her son must have cared a great deal for his servant, his secret sorcerer.

There is work to be done first, however. Ygraine wake Nimueh the next morning, and Nimueh smiles nervously at she and Alice over a cup of coffee, her Italian accent throwing Alice off. Ygraine explains to her later, quietly, that Nimueh is an abuse victim she found on the streets. It’s true enough.

Alice shakes her head pitying and says Ygraine has always been a sucker for broken birds.

But Merlin comes over to pick Nimueh up before Ygraine has to go to class – class, after the night she just had! – and takes her to meet a group of magic users in London.

When Nimueh returns, she tells Ygraine about Rowan and Perry and how much happier she is here; Ygraine can see why they had been friends so long ago. It’s clear in Nimueh’s laugh, her smile.

Gaius comes the next day; though Ygraine had cut off much of her contact with him, too afraid of the past, all of that seemed to have changed the night before. She still does not want to die, not for anyone’s sake, even the world’s; but her past, now that it can be articulated, spoken, shared, with Merlin, it is less frightening.

Gaius agrees to get coffee with her after his anatomy lab, and Ygraine meets Merlin to walk there. For the first time, she sees Merlin not as a powerful sorcerer, a threat from the past, a beacon for her son’s light to shine through, but as a nervous young man, nearly shaking in his skin.

“I don’t think he remembers,” Ygraine tells him as they walk down the sunlit street that bustles with activity, so different than their last encounter. “But I haven’t seen him recently, so I suppose anything could happen.”

“It’s okay,” Merlin grins, and there’s a bead of sweat on his forehead that he wipes away hastily. “I don’t care. Just seeing him again is enough for me. God, it’s been so long. No one else has ever been there for me the way Gaius was. No one else ever guided me like he did. I always knew how to use magic, but it was Gaius that taught me why I use magic. I wouldn’t be the person I am without him – I wouldn’t be half as kind. As fair. As caring. I could’ve been a real monster if not for him. I owe him so much…”

Merlin keeps talking, his voice growing more and more erratic and emotional; this is someone who means the world to Merlin, Ygraine realizes. She wonders what his reaction would be if she were leading to him to Arthur, the source of his care, his affection.

She cuts Merlin off with a grip on his arm. “It’s going to be alright,” she says in what she hopes is a soothing matter. “I think you’ve faced all kinds of horrors worse than this.”

Merlin smiles down at her, his eyes bright with emotion. “I’m good at horrors. I’m not very good at reunions. I’ve never had one before.”

Ygraine leads him into the shop by the elbow, offering what support she can.

Gaius sits at the window seat, horn-rimmed glasses pushed up on his face, a large medical text splayed on the table in front of him. Ygraine sees the Gaius that she remembers from centuries ago, but she knows Merlin looks at him and sees youth. His long, brown hair and wrinkleless features, the way his fingers drum on the table with rampant energy, the dexterity of his hands.

“Hey, Ygraine,” Gaius stands up in a fluid motion to reach over and give her a hug from across the table. Merlin stares at him in shock for only half a second before he schools his features into those of mild interest. “Who’s this?’

“This is my…friend,” Ygraine says, and is a little surprised to find she means the word, “Merlin.”

“Nice to meet you, mate,” Gaius reaches a hand out to shake. Merlin takes it and smiles; he is a better actor than Ygraine thought. Then again, he has to be, with the life he’s lead for so long. “You look familiar; have I met you somewhere before?”

“A long time ago, maybe,” Merlin says, smiling crookedly. “It’s either nice to meet you or nice to see you again either way.”

Gaius laughs before turning to Ygraine. “I was surprised to hear from you after so long. You’ve been out of touch for a while. Then again, so have I. School’s pretty draining right now.”

“Don’t I know it,” Ygraine laughs along with him, commiserating, though her art major is hardly comparable to medical school.

Merlin says, as they all take a seat, “I was in medical school…of a sort, so I understand.”

Gaius turns to him, delighted. “Really? Then you must know the hell I’m in right now.”

“I – I had a really good teacher,” Merlin says, and he manages to pass it off as casual, but Ygraine can see the brightness in his eyes. “The best. I mean, he was a total hard ass but sometimes that’s what you need, right?”

“Right,” Ygraine says, smiling softly as Gaius cocks his head, listening intently.

“So if you ever need anything…I’d love to pass along the knowledge,” Merlin continues. “There’s nothing like a good teacher.”

“Thanks,” Gaius grins over at him, and there is a bemused look to him as he asks, “We’ve had to have met somewhere before. You just look so familiar.”

Merlin blushes, looking down, and Ygraine can knows that he’s hiding tears.

After a lunch of Gaius bombarding Merlin with every medical question in the book, he has to hurry off to his next class, leaving Ygraine and Merlin alone at the table.

Merlin is quiet for a moment before hesitantly reaching toward Ygraine and pulling her into an awkward, but altogether pleasant hug.

“Thank you,” Merlin says into her shoulder. “That meant the world to me. I hope you know that.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Ygraine says, and she’s surprised to find that she is choked up as well.

Nimueh is fast becoming a good friend, and it would scare Ygraine if she wasn’t enjoying it so much.

“Do you have any Jacks?” Alice asks, giggling over the dinner table as she teaches Nimueh how to play Go Fish. Nimueh, who had been homeless most of her life, had never learned. Alice had taken quite quickly to her as well, going as far as to tell Ygraine that under no circumstances would Nimueh be moving out; they would take care of her.

“Go fish,” Nimueh says with a shy smile, shuffling her set of cards lightly. Ygraine knew that she wouldn’t have any, since there were three Jacks in her hand, and Alice regretfully handed hers over on the next turn.

Alice, ever clumsy, knocks her glass of wine over with her elbow when she tries to slide the Jacks in Ygraine’s direction. Ygraine winces as it fell –

And then it didn’t fall.

It is suspended in midair, the red liquid halfway from the cup and yet solid in the air, not moving in either direction.

Ygraine turns slowly to Nimueh with wide eyes. Nimueh breathes in deeply, and then the glass slowly travels back to the table, the liquid falling back in; it was like it had never happened in the first place.

They both nervously turn to Alice, whose eyes are as wide as saucers. Finally, after maybe thirty seconds, she said “You can do that, too?”

To Ygraine’s shock, Alice stared at the glass with complete intensity, and it snapped in half, wine spilling everywhere.

The three of them looked down at the broken pieces for a moment before Alice begins to giggle, and Nimueh follows her lead. Soon the three of them are in hysterics, though none of them quite know why.

“I thought I was some kind of freak!” Alice finally gasps out. “I’ve never known anyone who could do that before!”

“I’ve always been able to do it,” Nimueh says with a delighted laugh. “That’s – that’s part of why I’m here. Merlin is introducing me to some of the other sorcerers in the city…”

“Merlin?” Alice turns to Ygraine. “Your friend with the dark hair? He’s a – a sorcerer, too? I just thought he had a weird name! Is he, like, the Merlin?”

Ygraine’s heart thumps faster, not wanting Nimueh to recognize Merlin in her memories as she says “Oh, no, he’s just Merlin. That’s how he got his name – his magic.”

“Wow,” Alice says, incredulous. “Can you – can you introduce me to these...others, Nim? I just. I’m just so excited to meet someone like me.”

As Nimueh assures Alice that of course she can meet the other sorcerers, Ygraine is struck with a memory; Alice in Camelot. Alice in the physician’s chambers with Gaius. Alice enchanting a window to shine with colors. Alice sitting in Ygraine’s chambers, wine in hand, laughing.

Ygraine is shocked; she hadn’t recognized Alice until now. She believed her friendship with Alice to be breaking away from the memories of the past, embracing this life.

Merlin was right; perhaps destiny did come for you, no matter what.

She excuses herself from the table, phone in hand to call Merlin and tell him of this new development, the inescapable reaches of the past; she is certain he won’t be surprised.

“Alice?” Merlin’s voice crackles on the other line. He had been in Los Angeles for the past five days, a distress call from a fellow sorcerer leading him there. “I met her once. She was Gaius’s….girlfriend, I guess?”

“I guess I should introduce them,” Ygraine says bemusedly. “Set up a blind date or something.”

“Speaking of Gaius,” Merlin says, and Ygraine knows that he and Gaius have met again since their initial meeting in the shop to talk about medicine and alternative practices. That’s why Gaius has gone, at least; she knows Merlin just wants to see him. “I found someone for you to talk to. About – about what could happen. If you…have children.”

He is purposefully ambiguous; Ygraine swallows hard. “What about it? I’m not – I’m still not going to have any. I won’t risk it.”

“I know, I know,” Merlin says quickly, defensively. “But he’s an immortal gifted with the prophecy, so he may be able to tell you what the dangers are, how you can avoid them, if…if Arthur can be born any other way.”

Ygraine is silent for a moment. It is not that she does not want her son to be born; for the world’s sake, for Merlin’s sake, she thinks it would be better if he were. She will not sacrifice herself for him, but if she was told she could have a baby without risk…

Ygraine wants to be a mother. She had stifled the urge for quite a while now, but if she was an ordinary girl living an ordinary life, she would want to have children someday, to raise, care, and nurture them. If she could have her baby and know she would live through it…

It would change everything.

“Okay,” Ygraine says hesitantly, hands shaking just slightly. “I’ll meet with this – this immortal.”

Merlin is quiet, too, before he says “I care for Arthur more than anything in the world. But I’m not doing this for his sake, I need you to know that. I’m doing it for yours. Because….because you’re my friend and I care about you, Ygraine. Not just as Arthur’s mother. Not just as someone he would want me to protect. But just as you. As yourself. Okay?”

Ygraine feels tears pinprick at her eyes as she says “Okay.”

They follow the ley lines again, and this time, they appear in a desert, the air hot and dry, winds howling around them, sand whipping up into Ygraine’s face.

She coughs, choking on it, before Merlin raises a hand and the winds quiet down to nothing.

“You really are the most powerful sorcerer in the world, aren’t you?” Ygraine asks as Merlin sets a trail east. At least she thinks it’s east – it’s the morning, and they’re heading toward the sun.

Merlin shrugs modestly. “Yeah. I am.”

“Were you…before you were immortal?” Ygraine isn’t sure where this line of questioning is leading quite yet, but she knows she’s heading in the direction of her husband.

Merlin bites his lip before nodding.

“What did you think of my husband, then?” Ygraine asks softly. “Is…is he a good man?”

“He may have been,” Merlin says after a moment, “when you knew him. But losing you absolutely destroyed him. He persecuted my kind. Made us afraid. Made us fewer. And…and he did not treat Arthur how a father should treat his son.”

There is bitterness in his tone, and it is the answer that Ygraine was not hoping for, but the one she was searching for.

“He blamed him,” Ygraine comes to the conclusion with a pattering in her heart, “for my death. He blamed Nimueh. He blamed Arthur. He blamed magic. But he never blamed himself.”

Merlin nods, and Ygraine cannot help but say “I think there has to be a balance. When something like that happens. Uther should have taken the blame for what happened, but…but I think you should probably lighten up when it comes to blaming yourself. For…for Arthur.”

The name tastes odd on Ygraine’s lips, but she thinks Merlin needs to hear it. Merlin has said he cares for her, but she hasn’t yet made it clear that she cares for him. She hopes this gets her point across.

She wonders when Merlin last heard someone say his name.

He doesn’t turn toward her. Instead, he says, voice strangled, “Anyway, welcome to Turkey. Formerly known as Mesopotamia.”

“So that’s where this…immortal is from,” Ygraine decides she may as well let the subject go. Merlin seems to be locked in this prison, both of the world’s making and his own. He probably won’t let go of a thousand years of self-hatred just because she tells him he should. “How old is he? Or she?”

“He,” Merlin answers, “is much older than I am. I’m actually relatively young by immortal standards.”

“What you said before…about immortals who have been alive so long they think they’re gods?” Ygraine reminds him. “Is that what he is?”

“No, he remembers where he came from,” Merlin says. “Believing in your godliness isn’t directly parallel to age. Many immortals who are younger than I am believe they are gods. It’s just a matter of how tightly someone holds onto where they come from. If they can still remember their mother’s smile. Or the place they were born. What their husband or wife looked like. If they let go of where they came from, they lose their humanity. Gil and I still remember.”

Ygraine knows she’s meant to latch onto the name Gil, but instead she thinks of her son. If Merlin’s humanity hinges on his remembrance, his duty of care, for Arthur Pendragon.

She decides against mentioning it, and instead thinks about her history classes. “Gil – Gil in Mesopotamia. Is that…Gilgamesh?”

Merlin nods, a light smile appearing on his face for the first time. “That would be him.”

“And he lives in a desert?” Ygraine frowns, and Merlin shakes his head with a tetchy sigh.

“Gil likes to remain mysterious,” Merlin rolls his eyes. “Usually, immortals who have not yet become gods retain their humanity by living among mortals, bonding with them, caring about them. Gil is the only immortal I know who keeps himself entirely isolated in his fucking cave. God, I need to bring him out sometime. We went clubbing together ten years ago and he said I had to leave him alone for at least another fifty.”

“So he doesn’t know we’re coming?” Ygraine asks nervously, thinking of the power Merlin holds, the servants of Jove. If Gilgamesh holds that much power within him, and he’s taken off guard by someone he doesn’t want to see, it could get messy.

“I sent him an annoying wake-up call,” Merlin says confidently, and it is then that Ygraine notices that the sand has blown off one of the great dunes to reveal a door, solid and wooden, a rusting handle on one side, entirely out of place in this world of brown.

“There it is,” Merlin says confidently, taking Ygraine by the hand and pulling her closer. “Alright, Gil doesn’t like new people, but don’t let it offend you. He doesn’t like anyone, really.”

Merlin uses his other hand to rap on the door as he yells “Oi! Old man! Get the hell up!”

He turns to Ygraine with a youthful smile that’s full of joy, and Ygraine cannot help but grin along with him.

The door creaks open; Ygraine’s palms grow sweaty, her expectations of what will happen next nonexistent.

The door opens to reveal a man in perhaps his late fifties, salt-and-pepper hair and beard to match, his large, lumberjack-like body dressed in a tan robe, his face round and pleasant-looking.

Well, it was pleasant-looking until he scowled at Merlin, who was beaming back, his smile the definition of shit-eating.

“Gil!” Merlin said pleasantly. “Long time no club.”

“You disgust me,” Gilgamesh says, no particular inflection in his voice, and he turns around to walk backward through the door and into the sand tune.

“Typical greeting,” Merlin whispers to Ygraine before gesturing toward the still open door.

She walks in hesitantly; the room looks more like a cabin than anything. There’s a wood-burning stove in the corner, a bearskin rug on the floor inside of the door. A living area with plush cushions around the fire adorns one side of the room, while the other appears to be a small kitchen.

“Nice,” Merlin commented. “I like the Yukon vibe. It’s much homelier than your Buddhist temple.”

Gilgamesh, who has thrown himself onto one of the chairs facing them, scowl still prominent, raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, I’m glad I have your approval.”

“Pretty important thing,” Merlin grins at him, and Gilgamesh’s glare melts into a grin as he jumps up to give Merlin a bear-hug.

“And who’s this lovely lady?” Gilgamesh asks with a flourishing bow when he finally lets go of Merlin, who is grumbling as he massages his shoulder.

“Ygraine,” she introduces herself hesitantly. “Ygraine de Bois.”

One of Gilgamesh’s eyebrows quirks up. “My, my. So you’re the bearer of the Once and Future King.”

“I think mother is a better word to use than bearer,” Merlin began, but Ygraine cut him off.

“That is who I am fated to be,” she says, voice steely, “but it is not who I choose to be. I will not sacrifice myself for my son to be born.”

Gilgamesh’s eyes travel toward Merlin. “Need me to talk some sense into her?”

“No,” Merlin says immediately, sharply. “I need you to tell her whether or not it’s certain that she will die if she has a baby.”

“Prophecy isn’t always precise like that,” Gilgamesh looks back at Ygraine, and though his tone has not been the most respectful, there is sympathy in his eyes.

She juts her chin out. “Any information you could give me would be helpful.”

“Guess we’re the same now, huh, Merlin?” Gilgamesh says with a shake of his head in Merlin’s direction. “No one’s coming back for you.”

Guilt wells up in Ygraine’s chest as Merlin looks at the ground. “That’s not true. Gaius is back already. Ygraine knows Morgana’s mother. I might have Gwen, Gwaine, Lancelot, Leon and the rest…Maybe we’ll all be enough to protect Albion. Without Arthur.”

“That wasn’t what I meant and you know it,” Gilgamesh says, and for the first time, there is sadness in his eyes as he claps his friend on the back. “Oh, well. You’ll live. You always do.”

Gilgamesh laughs as if he’s told the cleverest joke in the world. Merlin shoves at him, but his face is set in a twisted grimace.

“What do you mean,” Ygraine asks, not wanting to anger anyone, “that you’re the same now?”

Gilgamesh looks into the distance, a small smile on his face. “Enkidu. Losing the man I loved is what caused me to search for a cure for death. And it’s because of that cure that I will never see him again. Merlin’s immortality was a path for him to reunite with the man he loves. But if Arthur’s not coming…well then, the two of us have become the same.”

Ygraine looks to Merlin; to see his face, his reaction, if he would confirm or deny the allegation of the man he loves.

Merlin looks at the floor. “Tell Ygraine,” he says quietly, “what will happen to her if she has a baby.”

Gilgamesh seems to drop the subject, and when he looks in Ygraine’s eyes, she can see the multitudes in them, the same as Merlin. They are crinkled around the edges, green and a little cloudy, and he speaks very gently when he says “Put your hand in mine.”

Ygraine puts her trust in Merlin as she takes Gilgamesh’s hand.

“Close your eyes,” Gilgamesh says, and when Ygraine does, he presses a finger to her forehead.

The next thing she knows, she is laying backwards on a cushion, eyes bleary and limbs heavy. When she finally blinks herself awake, she sees Merlin sitting at the foot of the couch, waiting.

“Are you alright?” Merlin asks when he sees she’s awake, awkwardly patting one of her legs when she nods.

“The future is a clouded place,” Gilgamesh’s deep rumble comes from somewhere behind her. She turns to see him adding wood to his stove. She wonders where he got wood in the middle of the desert before she remembers who he is. “Nothing is certain yet.”

“Surely you can at least tell me something,” Ygraine insists, a chasm of hopelessness opening up inside of her. If she is honest with herself, her hope was that Gilgamesh would tell her that all would be fine, that Arthur could be born without her having to pay the ultimate price.

Gilgamesh is quiet, the fire sparking beneath him, until he says “There will be prices to pay, just as their always is. A life for a life – it’s still the law of the land. But it will not be exactly the same as before. Motives will be less malicious. Intentions will be purer. But magic still calls for a life.”

Ygraine’s heart sinks, but Gilgamesh turns to her with slightly parted lips, eyes laying on her gently as he says “You will make many sacrifices. Some of which are inevitable. But I cannot tell you if one of those sacrifices will be your life.”

This, at least, is something, Ygraine thinks as she sinks back into the cushion. It is not an ultimatum; it is not a death sentence.

There is still some degree, no matter how small, of hope.

Ygraine had been so focused on the sacrifices that Gilgamesh had spoken of that she had no time to consider the inevitability.

It sneaks up on her quietly. After Merlin had brought her back to London from Gilgamesh, he had been quiet and subdued, and had spent a good deal of time in other places, other countries, probably trying to take his mind off of what Gilgamesh had said.

Either that or he was looking for more answers. Ygraine is never quite sure what he’s doing; he is a puzzle she can’t quite fathom out.

He comes back every once in a while over the next few months, to check on her, take her out to dinner, bring her along on a little adventure. She’s gone to Russia to help break up an anti-magic cult, and then to Transylvania to stop a preying vampire. These magical respites are wonderful glimpses into the greater world, the world of magic; the world Ygraine thinks is so much brighter and more beautiful than her own.

Still, she has a commitment to her life, and she is sticking to it. She keeps at her classes; she has more paintings that hang in galleries. She helps Nimueh adjust to her life here in London, hangs out with her and Alice on the weekends, letting them perform little magic shows for her.

Her life is a balance between the ordinary and extraordinary, and she wishes it would stay like this for longer.

But the inevitably finds her when she is working a shift at the front desk of the student art gallery, accepting donations and handing out maps, answering any questions that the guests might have about the displays.

She has on her wide-rimmed reading glasses, and her hair is in a messy bun because she didn’t shower that morning. She is hardly expecting anyone to take notice of her as more than an employee.

But one of the men who wandered into the gallery earlier that day stops at her desk just before closing. She remembered him from earlier; he was good-looking in a wholesome sort of way, blond-haired and blue-eyed, a narrow face with high cheekbones.

“Hello there,” he says in an easy, carefree sort of voice, a crooked smile on his face. “I must say, I’ve spent the past hour strolling through all of these masterpieces, but there is none so pretty as you.”

Ygraine wishes she hadn’t blushed at such a clear line, but she can feel her cheeks heat up and has to bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

“I’m sorry,” the man laughs, bright and bold, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to talk to you all throughout the museum, and I couldn’t get that line out of my head. It was horrendous, I know, but I couldn’t think of anything better.”

“But there are so many art-related puns,” Ygraine argues, a playful smile on her face. “You’re a work of art. Were you a model for that piece? Were on a nude model for that piece? That last one’s a little to sleazy to work on anyone who isn’t equally sleazy, though, just a tip.”

“I think of myself as classy,” the man gasps, faux-offended. “And by giving me a tip, you’re implying that I’m going to try this again. I’m clearly not – you’re the only art gallery desk girl for me.”

Again, Ygraine wishes she wasn’t blushing. “Well, unfortunately for you, you are not the only man who has ever hit on me at work. Though you are the only one today, so I suppose that makes you special.”

The man grins at her. “So if I asked you for your phone number, I’d know that you weren’t bombarded with them today and would be able to respond accordingly if you replied to me or not.”

“Well, it’s only polite to reply to someone,” Ygraine says, twirling a pen between her fingers. This feels right, good, more so than any other man she’s ever tried to date. Most of her dates end in boredom and a lack of communication afterwards, but she and this man seem to have hit a sweet spot in their flirtatious manner.

The man’s smile grows even wider as he reaches across the desk to take one of the museum’s cards and scribbles something down.

He hands it back to her, raising his eyebrow. “Well, I hope you’re the polite sort.”

He winks before he leaves the museum door, whistling a tune under his breath. She sees him, outside the glass doors, chance a look back at her. She rewards him with a wave, and she is delighted to find that he can blush as well.

He was quite the charmer, Ygraine thinks as she takes the card. Perhaps she will go out with him, just to see what happens. Though he can’t possibly bring her as much excitement as the rest of her life does, Nimueh and Alice and their fun, Merlin’s little adventures, the sense of impending doom about her future –

Ygraine looks at the phone number, and nearly drops the card.

Right above the number is scribbled the name Uther.

Ygraine frets for three days over whether or not to call. Alice thinks she’s stressed about a test, but Nimueh can tell it’s about a man; she gives her a knowing look over tea that next morning when Ygraine is so on edge she drops her cup.

She specifically does not tell Merlin, even when he stops by the next day to pick up Nimueh and asks if she’d like to go to Portugal that weekend.

She tells him she’ll have to think about it and spends all day on the head of a pin waiting to fall.

Ygraine attempts to reason with herself, with both sides of her brain. One side argues that if this man had been someone else, Ygraine would have called him back in a heartbeat. He was charming and likable and clearly did not remember his past life, what he had done. She has pleasant memories of him before his betrayal; she remembers loving him very deeply. She remembers loving him even as she lay dying. Though she did not forgive him, she loved him.

On the other hand, Uther had become a terrible man. Both Merlin and her memories could confirm that. And being with him would just bring her a step closer to the precipice, to the deed she tells herself again and again that she will not do.

But then again, she’s already brought herself closer. And it isn’t just fate, happenstance, the universe, pushing her into her destiny.

The world had presented her with Merlin. She had chosen to learn about her son from him. She had chosen to become his friend.

The world had presented her with Nimueh. She had chosen to befriend her and take her in, keep her safe from harm, even if it ended up harming her.

Yet neither of them would be the one to create her son with her in the most intimate of acts.

But if Gilgamesh is right, and she will sacrifice herself regardless, she would like to fall in love before she goes.

Her Uther is not a terrible man, she knows; Merlin’s Uther is. Nimueh’s Uther is. Tristan and Agravaine’s Uther is. Maybe even her son’s Uther is.

Ygraine knows she has already chosen danger, risk, the chance at living her life before it is gone.

She calls him.

“This is Ygraine,” she says when he picks up. “The, erm, girl from the art gallery.”

His voice crackles through the line, delighted. “I was beginning to think you’d never call. I’m Uther, if you couldn’t read my atrocious handwriting.”

“I figured it out,” Ygraine says, trying to make her voice sound light and airy. “Anyway, I’m the polite sort. I had to call back, even if it was just to let you down.”

“Are you going to let me down?”

Ygraine hesitates. “Well, we could try going out as friends first and see if it leads somewhere. Is that too much of a letdown?”

“Not at all,” Uther says pleasantly. “How about Saturday?”

Ygraine says yes. She knows the label friends will not last long, but it gives her an out.

If she recognizes the man who betrayed her, the man responsible for her death, her son’s neglect, the persecution of innocents, she will have an easier escape route.

If she doesn’t recognize him….

Well.

“I can’t go to Portugal this weekend,” Ygraine corners Merlin the next time he comes by the flat to talk some sense into Alice about the dangers of love spells. Alice had wanted to cast one on a boy in her physics class, and apparently Merlin had some pretty nasty stories about how they could go wrong.

“No problem,” Merlin smiles easily at her before he notices that her lower lip is shaking. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“I have a date,” Ygraine says, trying and failing to smile. “With…with Uther.”

Color seems to drain from Merlin’s face as he sinks onto Ygraine’s couch. “You’ve – you’ve seen him? Met him? Does he remember…”

Ygraine shakes her head. “If he remembered, I wouldn’t want to see him. That would mean that he’s partly that person. That he understands the person who betrayed me. I…How did you feel about him? When you knew him? Was he ever…good?”

“Arthur loved him,” Merlin answers, his voice strangled, a million miles away. “And I think sometimes, Uther knew he wasn’t being a good father and tried to fix it. He usually couldn’t. I…I hated him, Ygraine. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Your Uther isn’t the same as the one I knew, though. The Uther of this world is not the Uther of a millennium ago. I can’t tell you what he’s like now. But…why are you going out with him at all? Why risk it?”

Merlin gazes at her imploringly, begging for an answer; she can see him wondering if she is giving him some kind of false hope.

“Because it’s a risk,” Ygraine shrugs, laughing though nothing is funny. “Because I’ve already let you into my life. And Nimueh. And Alice, and Gaius, and all the rest. I can’t avoid this. Maybe I can avoid death, but I can’t avoid this.”

They are silent for a moment, neither one of them quite sure what this means quite yet but knowing that it is far beyond who either of them are or what they can do about it.

“Tell me about him,” Ygraine says softly after a moment. “Arthur. Tell me a story about him.”

Merlin gazes at her, blue eyes wide and shocked, before beginning.

“There was a dragon loose in Camelot,” he says as if in a trance. “It was my fault…well, that’s beside the point. We rode out to find the last of the Dragonlords, hoping he could help us.”

“…Balinor,” Ygraine says, the name foreign on her tongue, and yet she knows that it is true.

“My father,” Merlin’s words shake. “I never knew. Gaius only told me as Arthur and I rode out. I…I was quiet. Subdued. Arthur kept trying to engage me, pushing and shoving at me, making fun of me. He was upset that I wasn’t making fun of him right back.”

Ygraine laughs to herself.

“My…my father died,” Merlin says and Ygraine can feel the twist in his heart as if it were her own. “The day after I met him, on our way back to Camelot. Of course I was distraught, but Arthur didn’t know. Couldn’t know. He just thought I was crying over a stranger.”

Merlin looks at the ground, eyes glassy and almost haunted. “When we returned to Camelot, saying that we failed…Arthur expected defeat. What he didn’t expect was for all of his men to rally behind him, ready to face impossible odds, all because he would be their leader. And they had faith in him.”

Ygraine’s heart thumps faster as Merlin continues, “but that’s not the part I remember most. In his chambers, I told him I would be coming to. And he…he told me no man is worth your tears. I cried over a stranger; surely I would cry when I saw him die that day. And I would’ve. If he died. But I still got him for another eight years.”

There are tears in Merlin’s eyes now, though none of them fall. Ygraine cannot help but reach across the chasm between them to grip his hand tightly in her own, the tears in her eyes threatening to cascade just the same.

“Was Gilgamesh right?” Ygraine asks a moment later. “Did you love him? Like…like that?”

Merlin won’t look at her, though his smile is bittersweet. “We were never together. He was married. I had a destiny to tend to. We might have been, though, if things had been different. Of course I loved him. Love him. He’s all that matters to me – all these years I’ve spent wandering, trying to find meaning somewhere else. But the truth I can’t face is that I’m lost without him.”

Ygraine moves to speak, but Merlin cuts her off, eyes snapping up to hers, a sudden fierceness in them. He grips her hand more tightly.

“But I know Arthur better than I know myself,” he says with a shuddering voice. “And I promise you – if it was a choice between his life and yours, he would choose yours every time.”

“But…but what he’s meant to do…what he means to you…what he could mean to the world…” Ygraine trails off hesitantly, her faith wavering, but Merlin’s reply is almost angry now.

“Fuck the world,” he whispers, fire in his words. “Fuck fate, fuck destiny, fuck everything. It’s what I tried to do. I tried to thwart it, stop it, shatter it, but I couldn’t. And now look at me. If you have the opportunity, take it. Prove to the universe that it has never contended with the likes of you. Do it for the rest of us who never had the strength for it.”

Ygraine wonders why Merlin thinks that he is not strong enough to withstand destiny’s hold; she certainly doesn’t feel stronger than he is. Yet he seems to believe his words. Merlin always believes his words.

“This weekend,” she tells him, a hand on his knee, “I’m going on a date with Uther Pendragon. I will not be getting pregnant. I will not be having a baby. I will not be dying. I will not be choosing any of these things. But if death is inevitable, I want to live my life without regrets. I want to know the man I loved once. Just like I wanted to know Nimueh, even though she too is responsible for my death. Just like I wanted to know you, even though you could tell me more than I ever wanted to know about my son. Just like…just like I wish I knew him. Arthur. God, I wish I could know Arthur.”

She is crying now, and Merlin holds her tightly until she is through.

Dating Uther is an odd experience.

Going out as friends, as predicted, did not last very long at all, and it was hardly any time at all before Uther picks her up at her flat every weekend, Nimueh and Alice tease her about her handsome boyfriend, and they kiss on street corners to say goodbye.

She learns that in this life, he is a boy who had to grow up too quickly, provide for himself when both of his parents died when he was a teenager. He came from the poor side of town, had struggled through the cheapest college he could find, racking up an impressive number of debts, but he spent all of his time making connections, the right connections, to land a starter position at a rising tech company when he graduated.

Now, five years later, his debts had been paid, more money had been poured into his accounts, and he is on his way to starting his own tech company.

The way he talks about his past is with embarrassment and disdain, and the future with might hope.

Still, every time Uther uses the phrase create an empire, Ygraine remembers who he used to be.

But there is appeal in a man who has built himself up from nothing, who takes pride in the smallest of accomplishments, who loves to talk about the good he’s going to do, the jobs he’s going to create, the people he’s going to help, the positions he’ll give to people just like him, struggling to get a leg up.

Ygraine can see how this may turn to wealth and greed someday; but it is not this way yet.

He is not Arthur’s father or Camelot’s king; He is Ygraine’s Uther, and he’s witty and charming and caring, and she cares about him right back.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Uther says over dinner one night, at an expensive restaurant Ygraine could never afford on her own. She sets down her wine glass with a smile.

“Yeah?” She asks. She always feels a bit unpolished compared to him, but he makes up for. Just because she is an art student and he a business mogul, he does not talk down to her or make her feel inadequate in comparison. He loves hearing her talk about her pieces, her classes; he says he has much more fun talking about the things Ygraine loves than another spreadsheet.

Uther looks down slightly, a smile on his face, before he says “I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

Ygraine blushes; Uther can always make her blush. “Oh – I – thank you. I think you’re pretty swell, too.”

Uther laughs again, and reaches over the table to take one of her hands. “What I’m trying to say is, I’ve never met a woman who’s as interesting as you. As much fun. You don’t just keep up with me, you’re lengths ahead of me all the time. No one else has as many opinions as you do, or sticks to their guns as much. You’re impossibly stubborn. And smart. And…I guess what I mean is that I love you.”

Ygraine freezes, a smile still on her face.

She grips Uther’s hand a little tighter, and hopes his ego will not get in the way when she says “I really care about you. And I think I could see myself falling in love with you. I’m not quite there yet, but…I’m glad you told me. And I hope I can tell you the same thing someday.”

She means it; a year ago, she would have been shocked to see herself here, but she really means it.

Uther is not the king yet; his ego is not some unknown monster. He leans across the table to kiss her.

He asks her to come home with him that night; Ygraine swallows her own pride and says yes.

Ygraine is in a hurry, leaving for Uther’s flat.

“Nimueh!” She shouts up the stairs.  The kitchen is a mess, and Ygraine cannot find her coffee mug. Alice and Nimueh have been experimenting with potions lately, ever since Merlin gave them a list of safe experimental potions that will not cause anyone’s head to fall off and ever since then, she cannot find anything in the kitchen resembling food or drink.

“Yes?” Nimueh’s face appears at the top of the stairs, sheepish. Ygraine glares. “I’m sorry, we’re going to clean it up, I promise.”

“I just want my coffee mug,” Ygraine whines, and Nimueh’s face scrunches up.

“Second cabinet on the right,” Nimueh says, before her face disappears from view again.

Ygraine sighs when she finds her cup; it’s there, but there’s some goo in the bottom of it. She squints at it; she can’t tell if it’s potion or chocolate, the colors remarkably similar.

She scrubs it out as best she can, fills it with coffee, and goes to meet her boyfriend.

It’s two weeks later, throwing up in the sink, that she calls Merlin.

“Come over,” she tells him, and gives little other information. This is not news for a phone call; it might not even be news yet.

She walks to Tesco’s and buys herself a pregnancy test.

An hour later, she presents it to Merlin with a shaky smile. It has two lines.

“What –?” Merlin gazes at her, eyes wide.

Ygraine shrugs. She was panicking before Merlin arrived, but seeing him makes things feel so much clearer. “I guess I’m pregnant.”

Merlin stares for a moment, and Ygraine can almost see the war in his thoughts. “I – I don’t understand. Do you want me to take you to get an abortion?”

“No,” Ygraine asks, and the genuine way in which he asks, as if he would really do it, as if it wouldn’t cause him irreparable pain to do so. “I – I chose this. I mean, I didn’t know it would happen so soon. But I’ve been sleeping with him for months now. I knew it was bound to happen someday.”

“You chose it,” Merlin studies her face. “Why? I thought you –”

“I can’t deny it any longer,” Ygraine says, a lump in her throat. “This was inevitable. From the moment I met you, it was inevitable.”

“I don’t regret it,” she adds hastily when Merlin’s eyes widen. “I don’t regret you, or Nimueh or Uther, any of it. Before, when I thought I was choosing to live my life instead of giving it up for someone else…I’ve realized that’s what life is. It’s nothing without the people who make it worth giving it up for. I chose to live, but I wasn’t really living. I was going through the motions of a life. Embracing the past is what made me feel most alive. I don’t regret it.”

Merlin smiles shakily at her. “Have you been practicing that little speech?”

“For the past hour.” Ygraine’s smile matches his. “I still – I hope I will not have to die. It happened naturally this time, no magic, so maybe…”

 A strange look appears on Merlin’s face. “Is Nimueh here?”

“Yes,” Ygraine begins, and Merlin immediately calls her name, his voice odd and strangled.

Nimueh darts down the hallway, her long hair whipping behind her. “Oh, hey, Merlin. What’s up?”

“I gave you the recipe for a luck potion,” Merlin began, and suddenly, Nimueh flashes back to the residue in the bottom of your cup. “In my notes, I had written that you can specialize the potion to create different kinds of luck. One of the examples I gave was lucky with fertility. Did you and Alice…experiment?”

Nimueh’s cheerful look evaporates as she stares at Ygraine, whose hand moves subconsciously to her stomach. “Are…are you…?”

Ygraine nods and Nimueh’s face breaks. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry, I never meant any – any harm, I didn’t know you’d drink it, I’m so –”

Ygraine laughs. She laughs until she can’t laugh anymore. “Nim, it’s fine. Don’t worry. It was always meant to happen like this. You didn’t mean to. That’s what’s important.”

She turns to Merlin with a slight smile and says “It’s just like Gil said. No malicious intentions.”

Merlin studies her face carefully; as if afraid he will set her off, before he begins laughing too, so hard that he begins to cry.

 “Are you sure you’re okay?” Nimueh interrupts to reach for Ygraine’s hand. “Uther’s going to be good about this, isn’t he?”

Ygraine smiles. “I don’t know. I suppose we’ll find out.”

She turns to Merlin. “Before I tell Uther…I would like to go somewhere. Somewhere incredible.”

Merlin’s laughter stops, and the look on his face says that he knows what Ygraine is talking about. “I can take you there.”

They hike through the woods in worn boots and heavy jackets; the wind whistles in the trees around them, the beginnings of autumn in the air.

“That’s the valley where I put the sword in the stone,” Merlin stares at a grove of trees for a moment, his expression soft. “God, the look on his face when he saw he could pull it out…”

“How do you still remember?” Ygraine asks. “All of those little details.”

Merlin shakes his head, his eyes downcast. “How could I forget them?”

They continue on their trail until Merlin points into a spacious valley, the ruins of a building distinct in the distance.

“That’s where the castle stood,” Merlin says. “I can still see the turrets. It was the most beautiful place in the world.”

Ygraine stares at the spot where she died lifetimes ago, and is surprised to find herself smiling.

“It’s a promising sign, isn’t it?” Ygraine asks. “I mean, magic was still involved, but…does a life for a life really apply?”

Merlin shrugs. “I hope not. But the past has a way of creeping up on you.”

“I’m going to tell Uther when we get back,” Ygraine says, still staring at the place where the castle once stood. If she squints, she can see a set of doors, beckoning her, welcoming her, when she first arrived at the castle to meet her new husband all that time ago.

“He’ll be happy,” Merlin says softly. “He wants a son. That doesn’t always mean he’ll treat him well, but he is wanted. Especially now. When he still has you.”

“But I don’t want him to have him,” Ygraine finds herself saying, a lump in her throat, voice heavy with emotion. “If I die, promise me you won’t let Uther raise him. I love Uther, but…I won’t have the past repeat itself like that. It will be horrible for him, losing his son as well as losing me, but I have to think of Arthur first.”

Hesitantly, Merlin nods. “I’ll find a place for him.”

“Two mothers,” Ygraine thinks of suddenly. “I want him to have two mothers. To make up for the two lives when I couldn’t be there.”

“Two mothers,” Merlin agrees.

“Tell me more about Arthur,” Ygraine whispers, almost silent.

So Merlin does, and they stare at Camelot for the rest of the evening.

“I have something to tell you,” Ygraine says to Uther two days later, having dinner in his flat. He’s cooked for her, spaghetti and meatballs, and it is surprisingly good. She may throw it up later, but she is enjoying herself for now.

“What is it?” Uther says with a grin, taking a swig of his wine. Ygraine declined any when she came in, and was a little surprised when Uther hadn’t picked up on the subtle hint.

“I…” She stares at his face for a moment. He’s so beautiful like this, laughing and carefree, and she wants him to stay that way. “I’m pregnant.”

The smile doesn’t leave Uther’s face. Instead, it melts into one of quiet awe. “You’re – what?”

“Pregnant,” Ygraine smiles weakly, and it is then when Uther launches himself across the table to hug her to his chest.

“It is mine, isn’t it?” He laughs nervously as he pulls away, eyes bright with emotion.

“Of course,” Ygraine says, rising to her feet as well. “I – I’m not getting an abortion or, or putting the baby up for adoption –”

“Of course you won’t,” Uther says as if it were obvious. “It’s – it’s our baby, Ygraine. We’re going to raise it together. We have to raise it together.”

He pulls Ygraine close again, and she is glad, for he cannot see the tears that spring to her eyes. She wishes that there could be a world in which they could raise their baby together; she thinks that she could make Uther a good father, not just mimicry of one.

When he steps away, there is a serious look in his eye, the likes of which Ygraine has never seen from him before.

She understands when he drops to one knee and reaches for her hand.

“I obviously don’t have a ring,” he says, his voice shaking, “but I would’ve done this someday eventually anyway. Ygraine, you are the most incredible woman I have ever known, and you will be a fantastic mother to our child. Will you please do me the honor of being my wife?”

Tears spring to Ygraine’s eyes, emotions tumultuous in her heart as she slowly shakes her head.

“No,” she says, and his face begins to break before she expands on her point, “no, because I love you. No, because you didn’t betray me. My husband betrays me, it’s what he does. But you didn’t. Oh, God, I’m so grateful that you didn’t.”

She knows the words make no sense to him, but he seems to understand when she kneels as well to hug him, pull him into her and say “This child is going to be more amazing than either of us could ever imagine.”

Ygraine is hopeful for the first trimester; though her child is technically made from magic, there seems to be a distinct difference between a fertility potion and a knowing bargain of the mother’s life. The fact that she was not betrayed in this lifetime gives her the strength to believe in a happier future.

She has moved in with Uther now; he has been attentive and caring and utterly wonderful, and it breaks her heart knowing what she might do to him, but knowing she must do it all the same. She still goes to her classes; she wants a degree before all this is through, and Uther even goes as far as to help with her homework.

She paints pictures of Camelot each and every day, but she never shows him any; she does not want to ruin their happiness with his memories.

“His name is Arthur,” Ygraine told Uther even before the first trimester is through. “Promise me, his name is Arthur.”

“We don’t even know if it’s a boy yet,” Uther kisses the top of her head. Ygraine raises an eyebrow at him.

“His name is Arthur,” Ygraine repeats, and Uther agrees with a laugh.

Nimueh and Alice are nothing but helpful, both of them feeling a little guilty over their role in what happened. Ygraine knows their guilt will continue to haunt them if the pregnancy unfolds the way she expects, and she hopes that they will not blame themselves.

“Gaius wants to come over for the baby shower,” Alice chats happily when she is at their flat one day. “He’s so excited for you, you know. He knows Uther from back in school and thinks you’re perfect together.”

Ygraine can’t help but smile; the world is coming together, just like it always was supposed to. “Of course he can come. If you see Merlin, tell him to come, too.”

Merlin has been in and out, abroad less often, but Ygraine can see the odd mix of sadness and hope in his eyes whenever he is there. He is mourning her already, another loved one lost in a long line of mortals, but he is going to see Arthur again.

Ygraine knows Merlin, above all the others, will be fine if she goes. He will have Arthur.

Ygraine is hoping that the baby shower will be a happy occasion, even with the potential threats looming over her head.

However, her appointment with her doctor a week before her baby shower disintegrates whatever false hope she had left.

“Blood clots and hypertension,” Ygraine whispers to Uther over dinner that night. “I – it’s not life-threatening yet, for the baby or me, but it could be, if the delivery…”

She trails off, lump in her throat, and Uther holds her tightly that night.

She doesn’t tell anyone at the baby shower, but it still tears at her heart to see all of her friends and family talking and laughing, the things she will not be a part of in another five months, the misery she will cause. The blankets she will never wrap her baby in, the books she will never read him, the toys she will never play with him.

Merlin seems to know, though; he is clearly uncomfortable there. He keeps jumping whenever Agravaine tries to speak to him. But his main focus is on Ygraine, his eyes sharp and assessing, knowing that the situation as worsened.

He hands her a tiny stuffed dragon wordlessly, a slight smile on his face, and she knows that whatever happens, her son is in good hands. Merlin will never let anything bad happen to him.

She is eight months in, and the doctor is very worried.

Uther is tearing his hair out, his paranoia eating up at him. He wants Ygraine on bed rest; he doesn’t want Ygraine to go to class.

But Ygraine has exactly one month left alive, and she is not going to waste it. She paints every day. She takes walks in the city, and sometimes she can persuade Uther to come with her. If she can’t, she goes with Alice or Nimueh.

She has tea with Gaius so that he can tell her all about his impending graduation from school, how excited he is for his residency, how much good he wants to do in the world.

She has lunch with Tristan and Agravaine and wants to soak up as much of their lives as she can; she spent too long avoiding them when she should have appreciated her time with them for what it was.

She spends time with her mum and dad; she doesn’t want to hurt them by taking her baby away either, but she is steely in her resolve.

Arthur comes first, above all of them.

She tells him that she loves him every day, and she hopes that he will carry that knowledge with him.

She is two weeks out from her due date when she asks Merlin to meet her for lunch.

“Did you find a family for him?” Ygraine asks over the table, hands on her swollen stomach, too sick with worry to eat.

Merlin nods at her, his own face laced with worry, as he passes over a file.

“Helen Jones and Amy Carpenter,” he says, the sadness in his voice all too evident. “They live a few hours north of here. A small town. They’re looking to adopt a baby but are being turned away by a lot of the typical adoption agencies. I’ll be sure Arthur gets to them.”

“They look nice,” Ygraine tries to smile, fingers tracing over their pictures. One of them is tall and blonde, just like she is, the other small and dark-haired. She hopes they will be good to Arthur.

“A doctor and a schoolteacher,” Merlin says as if reading her mind. “They know how to take care of a child.”

Ygraine wants to say something else about them, about how she would be better, but knowing that all of her words would be in vain. Instead, she reaches into her purse and says “Here. I have something for him.”

She hands Merlin a stack of envelopes, folded and addressed merely to Arthur.

“There’s about thirty,” Ygraine shudders out a laugh. “I just have so many things I want to tell him, want him to know…how much I wish I could stay and be his mum.”

Merlin takes them gingerly, reverently, and says “I’ll give them to him. When – when he remembers.”

“It’ll be different this time,” Ygraine says, both to Merlin and herself. “He’ll have a loving family. He won’t be burdened with a kingdom, at least not right away. I hope he knows how much I wanted to stay.”

“He will,” Merlin reassures her with a squeeze of her hand, and she can’t help but squeeze back.

“Yes,” she says. “He will. Because you’ll tell him about me.”

Merlin’s smile is a promise.

Ygraine goes into labor a week early.

She isn’t ready to say goodbye yet.

Only Alice is in the hospital with her as she screams; Nimueh is on her way. Uther hasn’t picked up his phone yet, though Alice keeps calling.

Merlin is on standby, waiting to hear that the worst has come, so that he can take the baby and go north, to Helen and Amy, before Uther can claim Arthur as his own.

Alice holds her hand as the doctors rush around her.

“Dilated four inches,” one of the nurses tells her, squeezing her other hand. “You’re doing great, honey. I’m sure your husband will be here soon.”

Ygraine can’t do anything but cry; cry and try harder to push, push, push. None of this will be worth anything unless Arthur is born. She won’t have sacrificed herself for nothing.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Alice’s grip is so tight on her hand, but she can hardly feel it. Her blue eyes meet Alice’s grey ones, and she tries to communicate that what’s going to happen next isn’t her fault, that there was no avoiding it, that the world didn’t give them a say in their destinies.

She couldn’t say any of that out loud, however; the pain was too great.

She could feel herself slipping, the longer the labor went on. The world seemed to be in flashes around her; darkness then bits of light, darkness then bits of light.

The darkness seemed to be winning it; Ygraine could no longer feel Alice’s had on hers.

Ygraine still had so much to say, so much to do; but she could put her trust and faith in Arthur. Arthur would carry on her legacy. Arthur would make sure she was remembered, not just as the woman who gave birth to a legend, but as a woman who chose to pave out a destiny for herself.

She trusted Merlin to tell Arthur her story.

She was ready to go.

“Here, here,” a voice appeared at her ear. “You’re done. You’re all done, honey.”

The light is back, and Ygraine’s heart thumps faster as the world comes into focus. The unspeakable pain is gone now; instead, she is in a hospital room with Alice on one side and a doctor on the other.

A doctor who is holding a crying infant, slick with placenta, face scrunched up in misery.

“It was rough going for a while,” the doctor says as Alice sobs with joy from her other side. “But we got him eventually. Have you thought of a name yet?”

“Arthur,” Ygraine says drowsily, reaching up her hands, wondering if this is a favor the universe is paying her, a chance to see her baby boy before she’s gone, or if this is real, if she gets to keep this world.

She takes Arthur in her hands, cradling him to her chest. His crying seems to melt away when he catches sight of her, his tiny little face cocked in curiosity as he regards his mother for the first time

It’s not the last time – is it?

Ygraine stares from her baby to Alice to the doctor in shock. “You – you mean everything’s okay?”

“Yes,” the doctor says, patting her shoulder.  “You and Arthur were champs, and you’re both going to be just fine. You’ll be in the hospital a little longer, so we can keep an eye on you, but it won’t be long before you’re ready to head home.”

Alice says something, but Ygraine doesn’t hear her, too busy marveling at Arthur’s tiny fingers, the way he giggles when she plays with them, the fact that she didn’t die, that she is here, that she gets to stay.

She gets to stay with Arthur.

She remembers Gilgamesh’s words. That though sacrifices will be made, her life might not be one of them.

She doesn’t know yet that on his way to the hospital, Uther sped too fast on the roads and hit an oncoming semi. That he died on impact. That she will spend her first days as a mother planning her son’s father’s funeral.

She doesn’t know yet that in the early days of their relationship, there was another woman. A woman Ygraine knew from secondary school, one by the name of Vivienne, who Uther impregnated without knowing it. She doesn’t know that a girl was born eleven months before Arthur, a half-sister.

She doesn’t know what the world has in store for her son – for the Once and Future King.

But she doesn’t need to know that yet.

When Merlin bursts into the room an hour later, his face is one of complete shock, eyes wide; for the first time in his long life, Ygraine thinks, the universe has surprised him.

Destiny has been kind.

“You can have him someday,” Ygraine tells him, tears in her eyes. “I know he’ll be yours someday. But for now, he’s mine.”

Chapter Text

Arthur doesn’t cry when the casket is lowered into the ground.

He had spent enough time crying in the intervening days, when his mum was fading away bit by bit, her voice growing weaker and her eyes closing just a little bit further every day.

But at the funeral, Arthur doesn’t cry.

There are plenty of mourners there, ones Arthur recognizes and ones he does not. People who worked with his mum at the gallery, her friends from university. Alice and Gaius have already come over to hug Arthur and tell him that his mum loved him so much, that she was so proud of him, that he was all that mattered to him in the world.

Arthur already knows that, however, and the words feel a little empty, even though they are well-intentioned.

His Uncle Agravaine hugged him, too, and his grandma. They’re the only family he has left now; his father died the day he was born, and had no other family that he left behind, at least none that Arthur knew of.

Everything felt foggy today; the world was grey and dark, rain in the sky, just like it should be now that Ygraine de Bois was gone.

Arthur wasn’t a child anymore; he was twenty years old, on his way to a degree, and could take care of himself.

He could. He didn’t want to.

Yet the funeral that he had spent all of his time dreading, ever since his mum’s diagnosis six months ago, did not feel as painful as it should have.

I got an extra twenty years, his mother told him from her hospital bed the night before she left. It’s more than I ever thought I’d get. I got a whole twenty years before I had to leave you. I’m so lucky, Arthur.

Arthur hadn’t understood what she meant then.

He also hadn’t understood it when she said You’ve got so much more to do, honey. You don’t know how important you are yet. The world needs you.

Then she said He’ll take care of you. Just like he always has, just like he always will. You’ll never be alone, Arthur.

He hadn’t understood any of it until his mum let out one last shuddering breath, and closed her eyes for the final time, her hand going slack in his own.

It was then that he remembered.

He remembered everything.

He knows his mum must have remembered her life, and that now that she is gone, he gets to remember his.

His first reaction was anger – he did not want to trade his mother for a remembering a lifetime of burden, responsibility, and knowing that if he was born again, he must return to it. He understood how his mother must have felt when she remembered her death; a desire to live an ordinary life, unburdened by the yoke of destiny.

And yet, in some ways he was grateful. His mum was right – she got twenty years with him when she shouldn’t have. He didn’t have his father this time around, and his memories of him made him grateful that he had his mum this time.

He loved his father, those pieces of forgotten memories in Camelot. Yet his years in this life, with his mum, were irreplaceable.

In his past life, he would have died for those years.

And perhaps he did.

It doesn’t seem fair, this new appreciation he has for his mother now that she’s gone. And yet he could only have the appreciation once his memories returned. His memories that were also hers, restored to him by her passing.

Now Arthur stands over her casket, and wipes away his first tear of the day.

He’s surveyed the funeral for faces he might recognize; faces that wouldn’t recognize him, not yet. Gaius, he obviously has memories of, but he has known Gaius since childhood, both in this life and the previous. Agravaine, though the remembrance of his betrayal stings too much for Arthur to get close.

Morgana must have been born before Uther died, but Arthur does not know her. He wants to search for her, tell her that she is his sister, and get to be a brother, a real one, the one he never got to be before. A Morgana with no memories means a Morgana who does not hate him.

He does not see Guinevere or his knights, but he doesn’t expect to; he has not met them yet. He knows in his heart that they have to be here, in the world, and that he will search for them with all his might.

There is one face, though, that he looks and looks and looks for, a face that he longs to see more than anything.

He’ll take care of you, his mum had told him before she left. Even though Arthur shouldn’t have, couldn’t have known who he was, he hoped beyond hope.

He stood over the casket, waiting.

It must have been magic that led him to stay longer than all the others, knowing that someone was coming.

And someone did.

Just behind his right shoulder, a man appeared;  one that was all too familiar.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” a voice that Arthur would know anywhere, in any life, says quietly. “She was a wonderful person.”

“Did you know her?”

“Once,” the man says. “She loved you more than anything, you know.

“I know,” Arthur hides a sad smile. “But it’s alright. You’re here now.”

He turns to Merlin, who is clearly surprised, his eyebrows shooting up into his hair. He looks the same as he did on the day Arthur left him, sad eyes and a hand that was clearly itching to reach out.

“Hi, Merlin,” Arthur laughs as Merlin gapes at him, mouth falling open.

“You remember,” Merlin says, words more reverent than Arthur could ever remember them being.

“I couldn’t forget you for long,” Arthur shakes his head, his own fingers itching, desiring contact, not yet knowing if it was okay to touch. “I think my mother’s ability to remember passed on to me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Merlin’s hand does reach out now, to Arthur’s shoulder; this place is safe. This place is ordinary. Arthur desperately hopes that they will not stay safe and ordinary, this time around. “I – she called me, when she was dying, to say goodbye. I came as soon as I could.”

“You mean you really knew her?” Arthur asks, breathless.

Merlin bites his lip, a tear in his eye. “I knew her before you were born. I was there when you were born. I’ve been here. Waiting. All this time.”

Arthur’s heart thumps, and any boundaries they have left appear to disintegrate before their eyes. “It’s why you look the same,” Arthur whispers as he buries his head in Merlin’s neck.

Merlin’s head is on his shoulder, hands on his back, and Arthur can tell Merlin is crying now. “I missed you so much,” Merlin shudders. “All my life. Every moment of every century, I missed you.”

“I just remembered you two days ago, but I know that I missed you, too,” Arthur laughs a little. “My life always felt a little empty.”

Merlin pulls away, eyes shining, and his hands are in Arthur’s now, holding tightly. “I’ve been searching. I think I found everyone – everyone who came back. They don’t remember. But I know you can still inspire them to follow you into whatever destiny has in store.”

“Destiny,” Arthur laughs a little desperately. “It always hangs over us. But it gave my mum and me twenty years together. Maybe it’s grown kinder.”

“I hope so,” Merlin says, and Arthur sees the misery in the corners of his face, the centuries threatening to take over.

“I know so,” Arthur says, and before he can help himself, breaks the chasm between them to kiss Merlin, hopelessly and desperately, because they’ve never managed to get it done before.

Merlin kisses back, and it’s sloppy and messy and wet with tears, but it’s there and it’s real.

“We’re going to make destiny work for us,” Arthur says determinedly.

He cannot help but be proud when Merlin says “You’re just like Ygraine.”