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Chapter Text

1348

The Black Death had arrived in Carmarthen with the thriving river trade one year prior in the year of our Lord 1347. The plague spread through Wales and England like wildfire, destroying everything in its wake. Smaller villages surrounding Carmarthen, like Llanllwch had already been destroyed by it, their population decimated completely, leaving nothing but the shells of empty, burned-down houses. At one point, it had been easier to just burn the corpses in their own homes instead of collecting them and throwing them all on a pyre. 

These days, Merlin often found himself thinking about his former home. Ealdor was long gone, of course. There was nothing left of his village. It had fallen prey to the invading Norsemen a long time ago and those few villagers who could flee had escaped with the clothes on their backs. Some had even come here to Carmarthen when it was still called Camelot. 

Merlin pulled his scarf away from his mouth and nose as he left the house of old Nanny Todd. There was nothing he could do for the old lady anymore. She passed away peacefully about ten minutes ago. The last member of a family eradicated by the plague. He was surprised she had held on for as long as she did. He breathed in the fresh air deeply, glad to be out of the stuffy house, away from the sickly sweet smell of impending death. 

He watched as two men painted a white cross on a door a couple of feet away. A third man stood close by with a cart. There was already a pile on the back of it and it wasn’t even anywhere close to midday. The collectors had been at it for hours it seemed. The two men at the door walked over to him when they were done with their work. They exchanged a nod. One of them gave him a rather dirty look as he took in Merlin’s clothes. Their own clothes were rough and coarse, in dark, muddy colors. He, on the other hand, wore a beautiful, deep red pourpoint with golden threading. People like those three men looked at men like Merlin - men of science - with disdain. Alchemists, physicians. Uther’s witchhunt had never died down it seemed. 

The men walked past him into the house of old Nanny Todd. Merlin stepped away from the door. He still had much work to do. There were still people he might be able to save. Soon after they had entered the tiny house, the two men walked back out. Between them, they carried the body of Nanny Todd, wrapped tightly in her white bedsheets. He watched as they walked to the cart and threw her body on the pile they had already collected. Merlin felt his stomach turn. 

He knew that it was a necessary evil to treat their plague dead like trash and yet, he couldn't help but feel disgusted and sickened by the cruelty of men. It was as if they had forgotten that Nanny Todd had been a human being only minutes ago the moment she breathed her last. To those men, she was just another body. As he started walking away, he heard the cart move in the opposite direction. This was what was left of the lower town, the very edge of Carmarthen. Merlin, however, was walking up the hill. The poor were dying like flies, succumbing to the plague. 

There were fewer cases up the hill where the merchants and the more affluent people lived. Of course, he thought bitterly. There were fewer rats. His Lordship wouldn't listen to him, though. He went to him every day, telling him that they needed to get rid of the rats if they wanted to get rid of the plague but the man would rather lock himself up in his chambers and ignore everything that was happening in the town. 

The busy streets of Carmarthen were quieter these days. Yet, Merlin caught a glimpse of a group of little girls playing by the side of the street. He heard them sing some nursery rhyme as they were playing hopscotch and found himself smiling just a little. He stopped and watched them. Moments like this gave him hope that everything might turn out just fine yet. At the same time, however, he knew that at least one of those five girls would succumb to the plague soon and die under his helpless hands. Even with all his magic, he was powerless against it because the people called for him only when it was already too late.

One of the girls noticed him, her hair a halo of golden curls in the afternoon sun. She pointed and her friends stopped what they were doing. Some of them waved at him, one hid her face, her cheeks crimson red. He had helped deliver all of them. He knew all of their names. Daisy, Rose, and Lily were sisters, and Elizabeth and Charlotte were the daughters of the baker and the tailor respectively.

Quickly, the girls put their heads together, they whispered something, and then looked at him again. “When Merlin’s Oak comes tumbling down, down shall fall Carmarthen town,” They sang, and then, with a giggle as if it came out of one mouth, they took off running. 

Merlin rolled his eyes with a fond smile and continued his trek up the hill. 

He thought about all those times he had walked up this hill at Arthur’s side. He thought about the dangers they had fought in these streets together. If Arthur would be here, he would have already opened the citadel to those in need of help. He had done what he could to save as many lives as possible. And since His Lordship couldn't care less about the peasants, it was on Merlin to do what was in his power. 

Days like these made him yearn for Arthur’s return even more fiercely and desperately than on a normal day. His ache for the other man, for his king, for the man of his heart, his other half, his soulmate, was like a living breathing thing these days. Yet, he didn't allow himself to succumb to his grief and his yearning. He was what was left of Camelot now. He was the only person who could protect Arthur’s kingdom now. And when he would return to Merlin’s side, Arthur would be proud of him. 

Soon, he thought to himself. He could smell smoke in the distance and the unmistakable stench of burning human flesh and hair. Soon. Arthur would return any day now. He had to return soon. Albion’s need couldn't be greater than now.

※※※※※※※

1922

The days were growing longer again but the nights were still freezing cold. As he walked through the meadow, white frost lay over the ground, looking as if the locals had strewn sugar everywhere. The fields were still barren but it wouldn't be long now until the first green would sprout from the hard, dark soil.  The early morning came with tender rays of pale sunlight and fog.

It was his habit to leave his house in these early hours of the day, when the world was still silent and peaceful when there was nothing besides the songs of the early birds and the lingering fog like spiderwebs. He would walk around the meadows and fields, drawing his radius bigger and bigger throughout the week like a prowling tomcat until he would return to his house by the lake. It was a crooked little stone cottage. He had built it himself a long time ago from wood and then he had replaced the wood with stone. Now it was sinking slightly into the soft ground near the lakeside, the roof needed fixing after the last storm, and inside it smelled moist and was cold. In the evenings he would huddle in front of the fireplace with a blanket around his shoulders, his nose in one of his many, many books. Leon liked to joke that, if the walls would crumble around him, his mountains of books would be able to hold up his roof.

He felt a strange sense of peace during these hours of the day when the veil between the worlds seemed so thin and fragile that he would be able to rip it apart with a  mere touch of his fingertips. These were the hours when he would feel like the mists of Avalon still held the whispering voices of the Sidhe and the magic of the ancient ruins on the island on the lake. The Great War had left the country torn and the population hungry for amusement and facility. Merlin, however, had seen too many wars to crave any of that. He was jaded by the centuries of wars and bloodshed. Yet, he kept walking these lands, trod the old, well-known paths, and helped where he could. 

Today he would visit old Thomasina to help her with her arthritis and he would check on little Ryan and his broken leg. The poor lad fell off a ladder the other day as he helped his father repair the roof of their barn. No one in Carmarthen ever questioned why their injuries and ailments seemed to heal much quicker after they saw their doctor. There had been times when he had been forced into hiding to not end up on the pyre. Uther Pendragon had been far from the last tyrant he had witnessed.

He took a deep breath as he reached the edge of the lake and filled his lungs with the fresh air of his land. He could almost smell the rain that would later fall. Good, the farmers needed the rain. He should stock up on fever medication and salves and creams for the aching bones of the elders. He looked out on the lake that seemed to grow smaller and smaller by the year now. There was little left of it now and the meadow seemed to stretch like the dunes of an endless desert.

There was no sign of Excalibur, no sign of Arthur. There was nothing left of the old world it sometimes seemed. The magic, however, remained within him, and as long as he would walk this earth, he would carry it with him. He felt it in his bones and echoing from the very depths of the soil he walked on. It was a lonely existence, knowing that he was the only being of this kind left. No longer would he stumble upon unicorns in these woods or be attacked by serkets and griffins. No longer the people knew of the Darkling Woods or the Ridge of Ascetir. Ealdor was a distant memory, not important enough to be remarked upon in the history books, and not a single person living on the other side of these woods knew that they were walking the same land that King Arthur and his knights of the Roundtable once walked - although they never tired of making a joke about his name. King Arthur, the knights of the round table, Guinevere, Excalibur, the Cup of Life, and even Merlin himself were merely figments of legends and myths. It was better like this. Those on the quest for the Holy Grail wouldn't find anything here anyway. The grail, the cup of life, was safe with Leon in Cardiff, just like the horn of Cadbath, this cruel temptress. 

Sometimes when he stood here where once the shoreline of Lake Avalon spread, he thought that he could see a figure in the fog that hovered over the ground. A soft, cold breeze ruffled his hair. It was getting too long again. He needed to cut it - and a shave would be in order as well. Beards and unruly hair weren’t fashionable at the moment as Mrs. Gillcrest liked to remind him every now and then when he would come into her bakery. Apparently, hair that was combed neatly to one side and a clean-shaven face was fashionable right now. The beard made him look older, though, as did the glasses that reminded him so much of Gaius. 

Living his life not hidden away in a cave or traveling the world, living his life as a part of the community, without drawing attention could be complicated and demand one or the other trick to make himself look older - either by magic or through fashion. In a few years' time, he would need a spell to make himself older and even older after that and with it would come the achings and the pain, and then, sooner or later, he would say that he would be leaving Carmarthen, he would hide away from prying eyes, and he would return as a young man when the last of those who remembered him as a young man was dead.

He liked his work. He liked being the doctor. He had the privilege of seeing generations of people being born, growing up, and dying. He was there when they breathed their first and last breaths. He was there for the grief and the joy of life. It was bittersweet but the joys weighed heavier than the grief. They had to. If they wouldn't, he would lose himself to the darkness. He promised Arthur that he would never change, yet, he couldn't stop himself from getting affected by all the horrors he had witnessed. He couldn't stop himself from feeling jaded.

Staring out at what was left of Lake Avalon, the longing he felt for Arthur was almost unbearable. 

He turned around, away from the lake, and headed towards the forest, his leather bag tight in his grasp. It was only a small trek through the forest until he would reach the street that led into the heart of Carmarthen. He had an abundance of elderly patients and plenty of ailments and illnesses to go around. Sometimes it seemed too much for only one doctor but no one ever questioned how Doctor Emrys managed to take care of them all.

He walked through the woods. The same woods that had grown thinner and thinner through the years, the same woods he had walked with Arthur. Sometimes it felt like he could still hear the echo of their conversations and their shared laughter. The trees had long shed their leaves and now they reached with skeletal fingers towards the early morning sky. Soon they would be in full bloom again. Somewhere in the distance, an owl screeched from a branch and, a moment later, he could see it dive toward the ground to catch a mouse. Poor thing. A few moments later and it would have escaped with its life.

A brown rabbit jumped in front of him on the path and paused. It turned its head to look at Merlin out of its tiny black eyes as if it knew who he was, then it continued across the path and into the bushes and Merlin too continued down his path. Soon the forest opened up in front of him and he walked into the dusty street and towards the town. It wasn’t always beneficial to live outside of town by the lake but he valued the seclusion of his home, the quietude of the lakeside. It was a short trek from the lake to the town. The houses and buildings had come closer and closer to the lake over the centuries.

The town was still waking up but the smell of freshly baked bread already wafted through the early morning air and the first couple of people were leaving their houses for work. He reached his first patient of the day only minutes after he left the lakeside, an elderly woman with terrible gout. He knew that her days were numbered and so did she but none of them lost a word about it. From her, he went to old Mr. Taylor and checked on his broken back. The poor man had ruined his entire body working as a roofer. And like that, most of his day went. He walked through town, going from house to house, taking care of his patients, making small talk, accepting invitations for tea and scones because ‘You don't eat enough, Love!’ or ‘You need to take better care of yourself, Darling!’.

It was honest, good work. It was what Gaius used to do. It was why he came to Camelot in the first place. To be a physician, a healer, someone who helped people. And yet, his melancholy often got the better of him during his long days, doing emotionally taxing work, talking to the elders of Carmarthen, listening to their life stories, pretending like he hadn't heard them a million times over. And it was taxing, seeing generations of people go through life, a silent guardian, protecting what was left of his beloved Camelot even a thousand years after Arthur’s death. He did what he could to make Arthur proud even now, to protect Arthur’s kingdom and his people. 

It was midday when Lucy first came to him. She was fifteen, a shy girl, the daughter of a miner who lost his wife last winter to tuberculosis. They had lost so many during that winter despite his best efforts. He didn't like her father much. He was a brash, hot-headed man. Time and again he had seen bruises on Lucy’s face and time and again she brushed it off as fatherly strictness, blamed herself for it, and said she was often too rebellious.

Merlin knew that something was deeply wrong when Lucy came to him that day. He could see it in her eyes when she approached him, that guarded look she had, the way she refused to meet his eyes, the way she carried herself, her shoulders pulled up as if to protect her neck from a wolf, and how she crossed her arms over her stomach. She was pregnant. Fifteen years old and six months pregnant. 

“He said that he would marry me,” Lucy said under tears as they sat together in her bedroom. Her father was out for work and he could only assume that this was the only reason she found the courage to speak to him at all. “His name is Bill, he’s working on Mr. Pearson’s farm. But he needs to make more money first. He doesn't have parents and I don't have a dowry.”

It wasn't the first time he had heard this story in his life. He had heard it far too often over the centuries. Yet, every time it broke his heart as it was so rare that girls like Lucy got their happy endings. “Don't fret,” He said to her, and felt like the biggest fraud in history. “Everything will turn out just fine, Lucy. Don't be afraid.”

“But my father-”

“I will talk to your father,” He promised. “And we will find a way.” Even as he said these words he already knew that it wouldn't be so easy. He would find her father later that day, he told himself, when he would return home from work and explain the situation to him. And he would go and talk to Bill. Maybe he could hire the lad as his apprentice. Sometimes an extra pair of hands would be nice. Deep down he already knew how this story ended. He had seen it too often to be naive about it. 

That evening, he met Lucy’s father at the pub. Tom was already sipping his second beer. It wasn’t the most ideal situation but Merlin knew that he could handle it. He had to handle it. This was his duty, after all. This was his kingdom, his land. He was the only one left, the only one Arthur could count on to protect Camelot. And he would remain on this land until his last day. One day his bones would be a part of this land.

As expected, Tom didn't react well to the news and it was only thanks to the fact that they were not alone but surrounded by other townspeople, that Tom didn't lash out at him or started screaming. The moment the words had left his mouth, Merlin regretted telling the man. He should have instead helped Lucy to run away with Bill - somewhere far away from her father. “Perhaps it would be best if you would spend the night here in one of the free rooms,” Merlin said. “I’m sure Ginny has a room left.”

“What?” Tom hissed. “Do you think I could do something to my Lucy? Do you think I could hurt her?”

“That is not what I meant to say,” Merlin said calmly, lifting his hands placatingly. He had expected this kind of reaction from a man like Tom. In the end, he couldn't do anything. He had learned his lesson the hard way. Messing with fate was never wise. He had the power to stop whatever bad thing may happen and the wisdom to stop himself from doing so. Every time in the past when he had decided to intervene, it had only made everything worse. The only thing he could do was talk to Tom and try to make the man realize that his anger was unfounded. “I told Lucy that there is no reason to worry or to be afraid. We will handle this situation, Tom. Bill said he wants to marry her and, tomorrow, I will offer the boy a position as my apprentice. I could use some help anyway and I will pay him decently. You’ll see, Tom, in a year from now, we will sit here and laugh about this night.”

There was the tiniest of smiles on Tom’s face, a flicker of hope, perhaps. “My Lucy,” He said reverently. “She’s but a child.”

“I reckon you and your wife were barely older when you had her.” Tom barked a laugh and ordered another round. “All will be well.”

That night, Merlin woke to the sound of someone hammering against his door. He opened his eyes and stared at the dark ceiling above him. He wasn’t surprised to be woken up at this hour of the night. He had expected it. His heart was heavy. He should have known better. He had known better. He rolled out of bed without much haste. It was too late anyway. There was no reason for haste. Of course, Bill - poor Bill - couldn't grasp that. He was only sixteen, after all. 

As Merlin opened the door for him, dressed only in his hastily buttoned shirt, a pair of brown pants, and suspenders, Bill stood in front of the door with a pale face and tears on his cheeks. “You must come quick, Doctor!” He urged. “Lucy, Sir! It's Lucy!”

He grabbed his bag even though he knew that it was pointless and followed Bill into the night. They found Lucy in the barn behind her father’s house. The girl was lying on her side in the hay, unmoving, a pool of blood on the ground beneath her legs and hips. Merlin sat his back down as he crouched next to the young girl. Carefully, he turned her on her back. He avoided looking at her face. It was barely recognizable anyway. Her nose was pretty much gone, and her brow bone shattered over her right eye. He placed two fingers on her thin neck and found what he had expected. Nothing. The girl was dead and with her, her baby. 

That night the peaceful silence that usually hung over Carmarthen was torn to pieces by an angry mob. Merlin knew that it was his duty to put an end to it before it could even start, it was his duty to protect Tom from the fury of the townspeople. Instead, he stood by and watched people with lamps and torches march through the streets of Carmarthen towards the house of Thomas Walker, their shouts and chatter like war drums. He had seen it all before so many times that he lost count. The good people of Carmarthen had never reacted well to the slaying of innocent children. And a deed like this always turned into a wave of fury that swept through the land. It usually started with a whisper and turned into a storm. 

He couldn't help Tom now. The people of Carmarthen would give him what he deserved. Merlin, however, turned his back to the town and walked back home through the night. It was cold and the cold seeped through him and into his heart. He felt numb to the world and, at the same time, he felt a deep-seated desperation - a darkness within him that was all-consuming and inescapable. The last time he had felt such dread, was the day Arthur died. What was left of his heart, ached uncontrollably. 

He was tired of the horrors he saw each and every day, he was tired of seeing children like Lucy die, he was tired of witnessing death and disease and one pointless war following the other. What if Arthur would never return to him? The dragon had said that he would return when Albion’s need was greatest but what more would it take for Arthur to come back to him? What more had to happen to this land for him to return from the dead? What more could happen? What other horrors had humanity install?

As he reached what was left of the lake he felt a tear run down his face and a sob wrangled its way out of his throat. He sank into the grass, felt the cold seep into his trousers by his knees, and sobbed again. He couldn't go on like this any longer. How could anyone ever expect anyone to go on like this for such a long time? It was too much, his destiny too heavy for one person alone. He couldn't bear it any longer. Lucy’s face was at the forefront of his mind now, her shattered face, the blood and bone fragments. That poor girl. Slaughtered like an animal by her own father just because she was expecting a child. A father who drank away his life since his wife died and even before he hadn't been the most upstanding guy. How were people like Tom Walker alive while Arthur was gone? And how was he still here? What good was it to the world that Merlin was still walking around? He could do nothing of worth. He couldn't even protect a fifteen-year-old girl and her unborn child from her tyrannical, drunk father. 

“Merlin” A voice wafted through the air. He stiffened at the sound. Oh, he would know that voice anywhere. He would recognize it in a sea of thousands and thousands of voices.

“Arthur?” He asked quietly, his voice hoarse. He looked around but couldn't see anything. Then, in the fog, he thought he saw a figure in the lake. Before he knew it, he was back on his feet, running into the lake without a second thought. Water splashed everywhere, and his clothes were soaked with the icy waters of Lake Avalon, twiners grabbed for his legs and tried to bring him down but he resisted. Only when the waters reached his belly, he stopped. He was breathing hard, the air clouding in front of his face, his lungs were aching, his sides felt like he was being stabbed and he was freezing cold. “ARTHUR!”  There was no one around but him. No one was in the water but he. 

※※※※※※※

1970

The flames were licking at the sky as they raised high into the nightly air. His life's work was crumbling and burning right in front of his very eyes. It was not the first time and he suspected that it wouldn't be the last either. Thankfully, his most precious things he had given to Leon for safekeeping years ago. 

It was a miracle that he had woken up before the smoke could kill him. He hadn't seen the people who set fire to his house - it wasn’t necessary. He knew who they were. It was the same group of teenagers that would throw things at him in the streets of Carmarthen when he would walk past them. The same group of teenagers that would throw insults at him and taunt him and humiliate him. They didn't know any better, he often found himself excusing their behavior. They had no idea who they were messing with and that Merlin very well could transform every last one of them into frogs if he wanted to. Not that he would use his magic much these days. 

He couldn't find it in himself to blame those children either. Most people these days avoided him. He was used to it. People regarded him with a hefty portion of distrust when he would encounter them in his old man disguise. He had grown tired of making himself young again a couple of decades ago. Sometimes it was exhausting to be young - even more exhausting than being old. Now all the people of Carmarthen saw in him was the strange old man living by the lake. They called him a drunk. Perhaps they were right. Most of his meals these days came in liquid form. He would drink and drink and drink until he would fall asleep only to wake up in his own sick and repeat it all over again. He couldn't even remember the last time he had worked as a physician or helped anyone. His hands would start shaking even thinking about holding a scalpel or touching a patient. Perhaps his days as a healer were well and truly over. And what difference would it make? He had never made a difference anyway. 

The truth was that everywhere he went darkness seemed to be following him. He was a harbinger of bad luck and disaster, nothing more. Even when he first came to Camelot, he had brought disaster with him. Perhaps none of the terrible things there would have happened if he would have never come here. In his quest to help others and make the world a better place, it seemed that he only ever made things worse. 

He was sitting in front of the burning house in the grass and watched the flames devour it all, saw the stones crumble and the roof collapse. He was filled with a sense of hopelessness that he couldn't put into words. In the grass by his side lay a bottle of whiskey. It wasn’t one of his. The people who set fire to his home had probably lost them. 

The sky above his cottage was orange. He grabbed the bottle, opened it, and took a long sip. The alcohol burned comfortably in the back of his throat and spread warmth in his guts. He transformed back into a young man with a flash of his eyes, without even uttering a spell. Long gone were the days when he needed a spell and a potion. Gaius would be impressed. He was in his pajamas but that too he mended with a flick of his wrist and a flash of his eyes. Deep down he didn't even know why he took the effort. In a few days, he would walk into Carmarthen and pretend to be his own great-grandson again. It seemed so pointless now.

He would get stuck in the same loop again, waiting for Arthur, pretending to be someone he wasn’t, seeing people struggle through life, and seeing innocent people get hurt and killed. There was only so much a single person could stomach, Merlin thought. At some point, it was too much - even for someone like him. Even the strongest shield would break eventually.

He took another long sip and got back to his feet. He staggered away from his house under a blood-red sky. The sun was just rising above the trees, a bleeding wound in the sky. He walked towards the lake as the house fell apart behind him with a deafening crash like thunder rolling across the heavens. Those teenagers were probably celebrating that they had taken such care of the local bum, the weird old man with his weird little stone cottage full of weird things. 

He stepped into the lake, ignoring the coldness of the water as he took another sip from his bottle. He had waited over a thousand years now and there was no sign of Arthur returning to him anytime soon. Kilgarrah had warned him that their shared destiny would die with him if he wouldn't kill Morgana as the Knights of Medhir had descended upon Camelot. He had been too weak, too soft. Arthur wouldn't return and it was his fault. Their golden age wouldn't come. And this, he thought bitterly, was his punishment, his eternal purgatory. He was condemned to wait here by the side of the lake. 

Arthur would never come back to him. He would never be his. And his grief would never be lifted. It was a curse upon his heart, this love he had always felt for Arthur, unable to act upon it, scared of the consequences, condemned to witness Arthur marry someone else, love someone else. Perhaps it was selfish to hope for Arthur’s return, thinking that, perhaps, when he would return to him, their story might find a different path yet, that Arthur would finally recognize how deeply rooted Merlin’s love for him truly was. Perhaps, this time, he would return his feelings. 

He walked deeper into the water, drinking another mouthful of whiskey, relishing in the burn of the alcohol. The water reached his hips now. The alcohol numbed him to the freezing cold of the water as his tears flowed freely and his lips and hands trembled like leaves in a storm. He took another swig. The bottle was almost empty now. The water came up to his chest. He would follow Arthur into the deep dark abyss of Lake Avalon like he should have done all those years ago. 

Desperately, he had clung to the belief that it was his duty to stand strong and tall between Camelot and all its foes, that he needed to be the silent guardian of this place, that he needed to protect the people of Camelot like Arthur would have done it. This duty was his life’s work. It was the reason why he got out of bed every morning, it was the reason he kept breathing. Now he saw how pointless it all was. One last swig of whiskey. The water reached up to his chin now. All he needed to do was sink. He took one last look at the pink sky above, closed his eyes, and sank.

The world below the surface of the lake was blissfully dark and quiet. The barest hint of sunlight breached the surface and painted a beautiful canopy of golden light on the water above him. He felt himself smile as he sank deeper, his body suddenly unbearably heavy and sleepy from the alcohol. He hadn't known such peace for a long time. Perhaps he had never known such peace before. He felt his eyes slip shut again.

“Merlin!”

He burst through the water’s surface, gasping for breath and filling his lungs until they burned. It felt like he was pushed back to the surface, pulled, perhaps, by invisible hands. As he came spluttering back to reality, he was, once more, alone.

-End of Chapter 1-

Chapter Text

2023

The caravan at the side of the former Lake Avalon was old and rusty, standing under a pale blue sky. There was not a single cloud in the sky as Merlin walked through the forest towards the street that was leading into the town. Long gone was the dusty country road that had been used only by horses and carriages. The future had arrived in Carmarthen with steel and concrete. Long gone were the days when a doctor would walk through town and see his patients on a daily basis. The world had become more impersonal, and colder. Even in a place like Carmarthen. 

The town had grown into a proper city now. They even had an Aldi.

He remembered the days when the university had been founded. He had been there when the first stone of the old Trinity College was laid in 1848. He would sometimes find himself walking around the campus or strolling around the ruins of what was left of the citadel. Most people these days didn't even know what those ruins were. To this day, Arthurian legend experts were searching high and low for Camelot, for Excalibur, for the cup, for Arthur himself. Yet, generations of people had walked the ruins of Camelot day by day without knowing it, walking the same streets as Arthur, without realizing it. Nothing was left of these glorious, golden days now. 

Nothing was left of Arthur.

Even Lake Avalon was gone. The lake had dried up over the centuries. Now there was nothing left. Clima activists blamed global warming. Maybe they were right. He reached the side of the street and the warm morning air brushed his naked arms. It promised to be a nice summer day. He walked to his letterbox by the side of the street, opened it, and took his mail out. A bus drove past him. Merlin turned around and walked back into the woods, the birdsong his only companion until he came across a jogger on her way through the forest. He greeted the young woman with a wave and she repaid him with a dirty look as she passed him. After living for so long, Merlin paid little mind to dirty looks or rude comments. 

Soon he reached the meadow where once the lake used to be. The mayor of Carmarthen wanted him to relocate. Every year he would get letters of the mayoral office pleading their case and with every year that passed, those letters would get snappier. His caravan was an eyesore to the mayor and the rest of Carmarthen (apparently). He wanted to build more soulless concrete tenement houses here. He wanted to cut down the trees and extend the country road leading into Carmarthen through these woods. Where Lake Avalon once was, he dreamed of building a new neighborhood - preferably for the more affluent citizens of Carmarthen. He wanted to build on the spot where Arthur lay. 

Luckily, Merlin had acquired the rights to this piece of land - the lake, the island in it, and this part of the woods sometime during the middle ages. He needed to protect this barren piece of land from the greed of politicians. Now, every time he would see the tower of the Sidhe kingdom in the distance, his heart would grow heavy. The world had forgotten about Arthur, about dragons and magic. Sometimes he wasn’t sure himself if any of it had ever been real in the first place. Sometimes, he found himself lying in bed, wondering if he was just mad, if his memories were just the delusions of a madman. 

Instead of going back inside, Merlin sat down in the grass in front of his caravan. A bumblebee lazily flew from flower to flower. Where Lake Avalon once lay with its deep, dark waters, was now a beautiful, lush, colorful meadow. Of course with some help from Merlin. Some of the flowers blooming here were not even native to Wales. He looked through his mail. Most of it was flyers and bills. One of the envelopes, however, caught his attention. Or, to be more precise, the sender's address did. 

Knightsbridge London.

He ripped the envelope open before he could even think about it. Greedy fingers pulled at the contents inside the envelope. He found a letter and a couple of printed photos. He decided to look at the letter first and wondered just why Leon hadn't simply picked up the phone and called. 

The letter was short - more a note than a proper letter. Nevertheless, he would recognize Leon’s elegant cursive everywhere.

My dearest friend,

look who I found.

Yours, Leon.

He would have a word or two with Leon about wasting paper like this. A post it would have sufficed. Or a text. Hell, even a card! And who printed out photos these days anyway? They both had perfectly sufficient phones! With a fond smile, he placed the “letter” down on the grass. Being a little old-fashioned came with being immortal, he guessed. Then he turned the photos around to have a look at them. Almost immediately he choked on his own spit and would have probably found a very embarrassing death if he would be a normal mortal being. On the photo, which seemed to have been taken from a few feet away - possibly on the other side of a busy street in London - he saw the unmistakable face of Morgana Pendragon, standing in front of an art gallery, talking to another woman, smiling, her long black hair cascading down her back. 

He sat there as if frozen solid for a few solid minutes, staring at the photo. Finally, he found the strength to look at the next photo. It showed Morgana again in front of the same art gallery, unlocking the door. The next photo was a selfie, which made Merlin wonder if Leon had downloaded it from her Facebook or Instagram or whatever the youth of today used. It showed Morgana arm in arm with that same other woman from the first photo. She looked happy and radiant, just like she did when they first met.

For a moment he felt catapulted back in time. He was a young man again, a teenager as it would be called today, barely eighteen years old, first entering a town like Camelot, and with no idea what would await him there. A fish out of water, so to speak. He was back in the courtyard of the citadel with Uther standing on the parapet above, sentencing a sorcerer to death. He was looking up, seeing Morgana look through the window of her room and even from the distance he could see the pain in her face as she witnessed the execution.

He had spent so many nights in his life agonizing over his decisions, wondering if he could have done anything to stop Morgana from turning to the dark side. He wondered what he could have done to help her. He wondered if Kilgharrah was right and if there had been no way to change Morgana’s destiny. 

In the end, he wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting in the grass, staring at the last photo before he grabbed Leon’s letter and the rest of his mail, climbed to his feet, and walked to his caravan. Quickly, he ripped the door open, climbed up the two steps, and rushed inside. His caravan, as always, was a right mess, with his clothes strewn all over the place and a couple of coffee mugs standing around, waiting to be washed. He ignored the mess as he dumped his mail on the table and walked over to his bed. He crouched down in front of it and pulled a duffel bag out from under it. He made quick work of packing his bag, stuffing clothes he found on the ground and Leon’s letter and the photos in it before he rushed out of the caravan again, grabbing his keys on the way out. 

His car was parked by the side of the street. He locked his caravan up and began the trek through the woods again until he reached the street. A truck came barreling past him into Carmarthen and his own car waited diligently a few paces away. His car had seen better days but he used it only rarely anyway. The green paint was flaking off here and there and the antenna had broken off years ago. The only reason why he still had a working radio was his magic. He unlocked the trunk, put his bag inside, closed it, and hurried around the driver’s side to get in. Over the course of one thousand and five hundred years, he had left Carmarthen only a handful of times and he had been to London only once - sometime during the 18 hundreds for the Great Exhibition. Come to think of it, he had been to London again in the 70s to see what all the fuss was about. That was when his car got towed last and he had to pay a hefty fee because of his invalid license plates.

Luckily for him, there was no need to read maps anymore. He could just use his phone for directions and so, he turned his car on and pulled into the street. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to an over four-hour drive east to London and still, he was certain that, the moment he would arrive in front of Leon’s door, the other man would already be waiting with dinner for him. 

The entire time during the drive, however, his thoughts were racing madly. The woman in the picture had been Morgana. Unmistakably so. Had she been reborn? Was it a coincidence? Had she just … come back to life? What about the others? Gwaine? Lancelot? Gwen? His heart ached thinking that all of their friends might return to life but not Arthur. Maybe it was only a coincidence. Maybe that woman only looked like Morgana. Over the centuries he had seen a few people who looked like people he knew before.

Yes, he thought grimly. It’s only a coincidence. That’s the only sensible explanation.  

※※※※※※※

He arrived in Knightsbridge in the late afternoon as the sun stood low over Kensington Gardens and parked his battered car on the side of the street right in front of Leon's London home, a proper eyesore between all the fancy, expensive Bentleys and BMWs.  He was sure that someone would call the police because of his car - again. And then Leon would need to come to his rescue - again. Before he climbed out of his car he focused his mind's eye on his license plates and quickly magicked them to be valid again. He could do without all the paperwork this time. His license plates hadn't been valid since the 80s. Come to think of it, he did the same thing to his ID and his driver's license. Just in case. Not that he had ever properly gotten his license either. He had taught himself to drive. Leon said that this explained his driving style which was, according to Leon, borderline unhinged at times.

After he had taken care of these things, Merlin finally got out of his car, opened the trunk, got his bag, locked his car, and walked over to the elegant Georgian building that Leon had acquired sometime during the reign of the mad king. Leon always chided him when he would call King George IV that because he said it would make people think he was talking about Game of Thrones. Leon wasn’t a big fan of Game of Thrones. The injustice and the ignominious behavior of the knights, kings, and most other men irked him.

The moment he set his foot on the first of the three steps that led to the front door, that same door was opened from the inside.

“It took you much longer than I would have thought,” Leon greeted with a warm smile. “I take it the traffic was terrible. Good to see that you are still driving that pile of rubbish, my friend.” Merlin chuckled and bridged the distance between them to hug Leon on top of the stairs. “You look terrible, my friend.”

“And you look like you just returned from teatime with the queen.”

“King.”

“What?”

“King,” Leon said. “King Charles. Elizabeth died, remember?”

“Oh, right.” 

Leon laughed and clapped his back. “Come in, I’ve been waiting for you. I take it you are hungry? I have your favorite sandwiches and tea.”

“Truly a man of culture,” Merlin huffed. “I shouldn't expect less from the first knight of Camelot.”

“We have to uphold a certain standard,” Leon joked as he guided him into his house. His butler took Merlin’s bag with a nod as a way of greeting as if Merlin was a frequent guest to this house and not some random stranger from Wales with the thickest accent that poor man had probably ever heard. Not to mention that Merlin’s rather casual clothing style didn't seem to fit in a house like this. Leon was dressed properly in a suit as was appropriate for a man of his status while Merlin was dressed in jeans and a shirt that had seen better days - and those better days had been in the 90s when he got them. 

“We do indeed,” Merlin replied with a chuckle and cast a pointed look at his own old, worn-down sneakers. Well, he had been born a peasant, after all. “The last vestige against the barbaric forces of modern civilization.”

A few moments later, they were sitting in Leon’s living room. They hadn't seen each other for a long time now but what was time for two immortal men? Decades went by in a blip. Years were gone in a blink of an eye. Generations passed during a single heartbeat. They had paused a conversation once for over fifty years and came back to it like it had been only five minutes.

“Those photos,” He said eventually. They both knew that this was the reason why Merlin came in the first place. After all, he only rarely left his watch at the lake. “It can't be Morgana. It has to be a coincidence.”

“I can't tell you if it's a coincidence,” Leon said. “I can only tell you what I know about that woman. Her name is Morgana LeFey, according to her Facebook and the business register. She owns an art gallery in Soho.”

“Have you tried talking to her?”

“I wanted to wait for you,” Leon said. “I knew you would show up when you would see the photos. What are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” Merlin replied. Up until this point he hadn't even fathomed the possibility that it might truly be her. So what should he do now? For the first time in ages, he wished for Kilgarrah’s cryptic advice. “If it's her … Really her, I mean, there’s a reason why she returned. And if she was reborn … perhaps she doesn’t even know who she was and what she did.” He leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “Well, I guess I will have to pay a visit to the gallery to find out more about her if nothing else.”

Leon nodded solemnly. The resulting silence weighed heavy on them both as they each hung after their own thoughts. After a while, Leon directed his attention at Merlin once again. “What do you think this might mean?” He asked. “If it's really her, I mean.”

“I’m not sure,” He said. The possibility that Morgana, of all people, might ever return to this world had never occurred to him. “If she was reborn, she might have been around throughout history without us even noticing it, although I think that's highly unlikely. Perhaps the others will return as well. Gwen, Lancelot, Gwaine, Percival, Elyan.”

“Arthur?”

“I don't know,” Merlin sighed. His feelings for Arthur had been an open secret between Leon and him for centuries now. If anyone could understand his grief it was Camelot’s first knight, after all. He had spent a lifetime pining for Guinevere after Arthur’s death, never leaving her side, always remaining loyal, yet never the man she wanted. Her heart had belonged to another - not a king, but a knight. She had died with Lancelot’s name on her lips, a promise to meet again in the world behind the veil. She had looked so small and frail on her deathbed, surrounded by Leon and Merlin, the only two people remaining from the glory days of Camelot. After her death and without an heir, everything had fallen apart with the Saxons already at their gates. “Maybe. Sometimes it's hard to believe that there can be any catastrophe strong enough still that might prompt Arthur to return at last. After everything that already happened, I mean, all the horrors we’ve seen.”

“Perhaps it's going to get worse,” Leon mused. “With everything that's going on now. I mean all the wars in this world, the catastrophes we are headed into.”

Merlin didn't want Arthur to return only to fight wars that weren't his own. He wanted Arthur to return to have a proper, full life, a happy life. He wanted to see him grow old and grow old with him. He didn't want him to wear a crown again and be the savior of this world, the harbinger of another golden age. He was selfish like this. He had gone through his life, through centuries being selfless, helping others, putting the greater good above his own desires - perhaps to make up for the mistakes he had made.

Mistakes he would never forgive himself for. He had lived with this guilt for a thousand years now, the grief never subsiding, instead only getting worse and worse. And yet he was cursed to keep living, never allowed rest and peace. He envied Leon. His friend knew true freedom - a freedom Merlin would never experience. He could go wherever he wanted while Merlin was bound to watch over what was left of Camelot. Already, only hours after he had left home, he felt its gravitational pull. His land was like a magnet and it kept pulling and tugging at him always. 

“You don't look good,” Leon said once more and placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “Have you not been eating?”

“Eating, sleeping…” Merlin breathed out a humorless chuckle. “It's not like it would matter, would it? I’m doomed to live forever.”

“My friend,” Leon said. “You need to find something that brings you joy, a purpose. When was the last time you worked as a physician?”

“When I still thought it would make a difference,” Merlin sighed. “During the second world war, I think.”

“And since then you have been floating through your existence,” Leon commented. “You sit in your caravan, waiting. Waiting for a day that might never come. Do you think Arthur would have wanted that? Arthur would have wanted you to do good with your power and with your life. He would have wanted you to be happy, to see the world. You were the most important person to him and if he could see what has become of you, it would break his heart.”

“I’m just tired,” He replied. He wanted to scream and yell but even that seemed too much of a waste. “And there is so little to enjoy now. Humanity reached its peak in the Renaissance, if you’d ask me. The art, the beauty, the architecture! Look around now! Concrete cubes reaching in the sky, people all dressed in the same god-awful uniforms of sweatpants and ill-fitted shirts, listening to songs that are carbon copies of other songs, repeating what others did before them. Creativity is dead. It left this earth when the late great Sir Terry died.”

“I’ve never known you to be such a pessimist,” Leon sighed. “Where is the bright-eyed, curious young man that came to Camelot?”

“Oh, he died a long time ago,” Merlin huffed. “He died with Arthur.”

That night he didn't sleep. He lay in one of Leon’s gorgeous guest rooms and stared at the coffered ceiling. In front of the large French windows hung deep red velvet curtains and the walls were decorated with beautiful Renaissance paintings that showed biblical scenes. It was both comforting and disturbing at the very same time. At three in the morning, he left his bed and walked towards the window closest to the bed. The neighborhood was fast asleep but he saw a cab drive past. Oh how much he wished he could be like Leon and just go see the wonders of the world. But even now he felt Camelot calling for him, pulling at him, whispering in his ear to come back.

Perhaps one day he would be able to leave and see the world. Perhaps he would do so with Arthur by his side. They would visit Rome and he would show Arthur the Vatican and the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the temple beneath San Clemente, the Spanish steps. And they would wander Paris together and Venice, Dublin and Glasgow, Barcelona and Lisbon. 

He looked out over the street and couldn't fathom the sheer number of people living on this street, let alone in this city. He tried to imagine their lives as they were sleeping under the same starry sky. Not that he could see many stars from here. The light pollution made it impossible. A dome of smog lay over London and that ever since the industrial revolution. It was a miracle he could see the moon. He missed his caravan in the middle of nowhere. He missed sleeping under a starry sky. If Arthur would return to him, they would take his caravan and see the world in it, sleeping under the stars and at the side of a beach. A bitter chuckle escaped him. Even if Arthur would ever return to him, he would never feel the same way as he did.

He turned away from the window with a sigh and walked back to his bed. On the nightstand lay the photos Leon had sent him. With a flick of his wrist, he conjured a witchlight to look at the photos. Morgana looked happy - carefree. What would happen if he would step into her life again? If she didn't know who she was, would his return to her life trigger her memories of her past life? Would he inevitably doom her to become this monstrous woman once more? 

He had carried this guilt for an eternity now. Of course, he knew that he hadn't had a choice when he had poisoned her but his betrayal of her had started earlier than that. It had started when he had learned about her magic and hadn't done anything to help her so that her only way of getting that help had been with Morgause. It should have been him. He should have taken her aside, spoken to her, confided in her. Perhaps then she would have never turned against Arthur. And he should have told Arthur about his magic sooner. So much could have been avoided if he had just been braver - less selfish. He had placed Arthur above everyone else, and the world had paid the price for it. He still placed Arthur above everyone else.

He would burn down kingdoms for Arthur. He would see the whole damn world burn if it meant Arthur would return to him. 

-End of Chapter 2-

Chapter Text

So many times he had found himself wondering if he was the real villain of the story of King Arthur and Camelot. There had been many dark and stormy nights when he had sat in his home, brooding over this question, mulling it over in his head again and again. Good intentions didn't make a person or their deeds good. Of course, Morgana was the one who had gone to war with Camelot, poisoned by hatred for Uther and Arthur, indoctrinated against them by her sister, her heart blackened. Yet, his good intentions had only brought suffering to Camelot. From the moment he first stepped through the gates of the city, he had brought suffering and darkness with him like a shadow. His path was lined with bodies, he was wading through blood. 

He had unleashed Kilgharrah and the dragon had killed many. He had poisoned Morgana at the dragon’s behest and it had turned her against Camelot once and for all. He had shown distrust and disdain for Mordred and the young boy had repaid him in turn with resentment and bitterness and helped Morgana in her fight against Arthur. If it wouldn't have been for his doing, Morgana would have never unleashed the Dorocha and Lancelot would have never died either. 

All his good intentions had only led to more suffering. He had cursed Arthur with his presence and ruined the golden future that should have been his. Because of his doing, Arthur had died before his time. It was a fitting punishment that he was now forced to live forever, waiting by Arthur’s graveside for his return. 

Perhaps he had always been the villain in this story, no matter how hard he had tried to be good and do good, to be a hero. 

Those thoughts haunted him even on this sunny day in London as he walked the streets of Soho. Leon wasn’t accompanying him on his quest. He had work to do, and appearances to uphold, even though Merlin still had no clue what exactly Leon was doing for a living. Besides, this was something Merlin wanted to do alone. Something he needed to do alone. A long time ago, Leon had been fond of the Lady Morgana and perhaps, if the dice had fallen a little differently, she would have become his wife. Thinking like this, pondering these things, agonizing over it, was a surefire way to insanity. He knew that. Perhaps better than anyone else. 

Morgana’s gallery was at the corner of the street right opposite one of the millions of Starbucks in this city. He had walked past her gallery three times now. This time, he took one last sip of his sugary coffee (the third he had gotten since leaving Leon’s home), and took a deep breath. He paused in front of the glass door and looked through the large window. He could see Morgana inside. She was standing with her back to the door but it was unmistakably her, dressed in jeans and a simple, dark shirt, her long hair tied into a ponytail. She was hanging a painting on the wall. No one else was inside the gallery but he could see boxes standing around. It looked like she only just got the space and was still arranging and furnishing it. From outside he couldn't see much of the paintings she had already set up on the walls. Those he saw looked fairly modern, perhaps with a touch of surrealism here and there. He wasn’t as much a man of the arts as Leon was, however. His only excursion into the fine arts had been during the Renaissance when he had tried his hand at sculpting a statue of  Arthur that he had then gifted to the Arthurian Legends Museum in Carmarthen.

He stood for what felt like an eternity outside of the gallery looking in. The sun was burning down on the exposed skin of his neck. He rubbed the spot absentmindedly. It was too hot in London in August to be wearing any kind of scarf or neckerchief - even for him. He remembered Arthur always staring at him with bug eyes whenever Merlin wouldn't be wearing his beloved neckerchiefs - almost as if he was surprised to see that Merlin, in fact, had a neck. He watched Morgana through the window for a few minutes, as she set up her paintings. Then she paused. Almost he thought that she had felt his looks on her but then she pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans, looked at the display, smiled, and started typing a message. Maybe he should just leave her alone. She seemed happy indeed and who was he to destroy that? What right did he have to destroy that happiness? It seemed cruel.

Then, however, Morgana put the phone away again, bent down, and picked up another painting that had been out of sight for him until then. He couldn't see details from afar but he saw, right away, that this painting had nothing to do with those she had hung up before. It was a portrait and the person on it he would have recognized everywhere. Golden hair like a halo around an angular-shaped face, a strong jawline, the distinctive Roman nose he came to admire oh so very long ago, a set of piercing blue eyes just above, and a set of full lips, brows drawn together inquisitively. 

"Arthur," He whispered breathlessly. Before he could think twice about it, he pushed the glass door open and stepped inside. A tiny bell above the door chimed gently upon his entrance, announcing his presence.

"Oh," Came Morgana’s voice before she turned. "I'm sorry we aren't open yet!" She turned around with a smile and, the moment their eyes met, her smile suddenly faltered. "It's you," She said after a beat of silence as if she recognized him.

"Morgana," He replied quietly and her face seemed to harden. He was unable to even put names to the emotions fluttering through his chest all at once. A thousand thoughts rushed through his mind. "It's really you."

He could see recognition on her face, clear as the day outside and there was no question left in his mind that this woman, reincarnated or reborn, was the same woman he had once slain with Excalibur. Her eyes were hard as she stared at him, her mouth a thin, firm line.

"You need to leave," She said. "Now."

His eyes fell upon the portrait of Arthur again. Now he could see far more details. He walked towards Morgana and noticed the way she tensed. He walked past her, however, until he was in front of the painting. He lifted his hand and fought the temptation of touching it. The portrait of Arthur looked so real as if he was standing right in front of Merlin now. The details were extraordinary. 

He felt tears prick at his eyes and the fingers that had hovered above the painting now touched his trembling lips. Once more he was reminded of why he had given the statue away. It was torture. 

"Merlin," She said. Now her voice sounded bitter and resentful. He turned towards her and found her expression deeply guarded and tense. "You need to leave."

"You have to help me," He blurted out before he knew what he was saying.

"What do you mean?"

"Arthur," He whispered. In his crazed mind, everything fell into place, everything seemed to make sense. "I waited for his return for over a thousand years now, wondering why he wouldn't return. Now I think I understand. It is you. I need your help."

"You have lost your mind," She said coldly. "Leave."

"It's the least you could do," Merlin hissed and stepped towards her. "After everything you've done, after the evils you committed.”

Morgana’s face was carved out of stone at his words. She was a figure made of marble. Only her eyes betrayed her. They were gleaming with fire and rage at his words as if she was still unwilling or unable to accept the truth of his words and her villainous acts.

“Here we are,” She said coldly. “One thousand years later and you still treat me like the villain.”

“You are the villain,” He hissed. “You have become the villain the moment you returned to Camelot and decided to do Morgause’s bidding against your own brother and father - since you decided to trust in your hatred.”

She raised her hand only to point sharply at the door. “Leave,” She said again. “Now. I will not listen to you anymore. I have paid the price for my deeds the moment you killed me and I will not listen to this again.”

He didn't know what he had expected when he entered her gallery. Forgiveness? An apology? He wanted to ask her what happened to her after her death, but his mind was once more laser focused only on one thing and that was Arthur’s return. Nothing else mattered. He shouldn't be surprised that she regarded him with such hostility. Deep down he wanted to throw her across the room. Instead, however, he slowly walked towards the door. There was nothing else he could do. He couldn't force her to help him and he wouldn't beg. Not her. He would never beg this woman for her help even if it meant waiting another thousand years, slowly going insane with the passage of time. 

As he stepped into the sunlight, the painting was still burned into his retina. For a second, he had almost forgotten how gorgeous his king was. He was thankful to Morgana for reminding him.

※※※※※※※

The horn of Catbath. His mind always came back to it. For centuries now, it always came back to the horn, again and again. He remembered pleading with Leon once that the knight should give it to him, that he wanted to see Arthur just one last time. Just once. As they sat together in Leon’s house in Knightsbridge that day for drinks after Merlin’s disastrous meeting with Morgana, his mind came back to it again. 

“The horn-”

“Is safe in my vault in Scotland,” Leon interrupted before he could end his sentence. The look the knight shot him told Merlin exactly what he was thinking and that Leon had already expected the question. Nevertheless, there was a small, soft smile playing on Leon’s face. “And that is where it will remain as well.”

“I was not going to ask you for it.” The lopsided grin he directed at Leon couldn't hide his disappointment, though. It was true, he hadn't meant to ask Leon for the horn but now that Leon was refusing to give it to him he realized that this was exactly what his heart desired. He wanted to speak to Arthur. Desperately. Leon raised one eyebrow at him. His old friend knew him too well. “It's true,” He said. “Since his death, not a single day went by where I wasn’t desperate to be able to talk to him again. I would do everything to have that chance. I would make a deal with the devil, sell my magic and my immortality, everything.”

“The horn wouldn't make it better,” Leon said. “It would only remind you of your pain even more. To hear his voice, to see him, yet not being able to touch him. And we both know that you would look back only just so that he can be in your life, even as an angry ghost. Because even having him as a ghost would be better than not having him at all. And Arthur would hate you for it.”

Knowing all of this didn't make it any better. He couldn't help his feelings, couldn't do anything about them. He was a prisoner to his heart in all aspects. “Which is why I wasn’t going to ask you for it,” Merlin elegantly deflected.

“I assume your talk with Morgana didn't go well then,” Leon commented with a dry snort.

“She was quite…” He trailed off, trying desperately to find the appropriate term to describe their short interaction. “Morgana.” He opted for in the end. 

“So, hostile, haughty, hungry for power?”

“Hostile,” Merlin agreed. “Definitely that.”

“Well, you did kill her.”

“I have to admit, though, that I might have been hostile as well.” He brushed a hand through his curls and leaned back in his seat. "I couldn't help myself. The moment I realized that she really was Morgana, I wanted nothing more than to wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze the life out of her."

"A long time ago I was surprised by your thirst for blood."

"I was surprised too," He said quietly. "I will never forget the first person I killed. I did it for Arthur, of course, and yet I felt a part of me - my innocence perhaps - shatter."

"Who was it?"

"That witch that tried to kill him during the 20th anniversary of Uther’s magic ban." He smiled wistfully at the memory. "I was barely eighteen years old and had left my village for the first time. I had just seen someone being executed for sorcery for the first time in my life. I was so young and naive then. No matter how much time passed, I will never forget that night. I acted on impulse, I did what I thought was right and I never had any reason to regret it. But I have mourned my innocence ever since - the death of the boy I was before I came to Camelot. "

"Every man is forced to mourn the boy he once was and the innocence lost to the cruelty of this world."

"Yet, when I first set foot into Camelot I never thought I would have to kill. I was meant to learn the art of healing, to become a healer. Not a killer."

"And like every man you did what you had to do. There is no point in agonizing over the past. Especially not when those days of innocence were so long ago."

"And our youth is truly far away, old man," Merlin mocked as they clinked their glasses together. "Morgana’s return, however, worries me greatly."

"Are you planning on meeting her again?"

"I will not beg for her help," He said sternly. "Arthur will return when Albion's need is greatest. I just have to wait and perhaps it's not long now until that day finally arrives. Surely, Morgana plans something."

“Or she opened an art gallery, got herself a nice girlfriend, and just tries to live a normal, happy life - like I do and like you should do but refuse to.”

“You can't blame me for being distrustful of this woman.”

“Remember the woman she used to be before her sister turned her against her own family. She was good and kind. She even went against Uther’s strict orders and went with you to Ealdor to help your village. She has the potential to be good. She always had the potential to be good.”

He knew that it was true. No person was born evil. He hadn't believed the dragon when he first warned him about Morgana either. She had been his friend once, had helped save his village, his mother. The bitterness inside of him, this cancer festering inside of him for centuries, however, warned him against trusting her anyway. How could Leon ever expect him to give her the benefit of the doubt? And even still, a tiny voice in the far back of his mind hoped that Morgana might have changed, that she could and would help him get Arthur back.

“Do you think,” He said slowly to change the topic. “That the others will return as well?” 

“If they do,” Leon said and, as always, he knew exactly the reason for Merlin’s question. “I hope that this time, Arthur will make a better choice and see what he has in you.”

“Gwen was a wonderful queen and wife. She loved him.” Even after all this time, it still came naturally to him to defend Gwen and the relationship she and Arthur shared. He had been adamant that it was destiny, that it had to be destiny that those two got together. Now, after over a thousand years, he was still certain that Gwen had been the right choice as Arthur’s queen. His queen. Not so much, perhaps, his lover. 

“In her own way,” Leon replied, a small sigh leaving his throat. “She was a great queen but we both know that she was never meant for Arthur - or he for her.” He wanted to protest but Leon held his hand up to silence him before he could come up with something. “The fact that you did everything in your power to bring them together, the fact that you were willing to give up your own happiness despite how you felt for Arthur, speaks to your honor, your good intentions, and your true devotion for him. I’m sure he will see it too when he returns.”

He could only hope that Leon would be proven right and yet he didn't dare hope. He would never dare to hope. He had long resigned himself to the knowledge that he and Arthur would never be anything more than friends and even that often seemed too much to ask. Yet, there had been a moment, too fleeting to grasp it as it happened, when he had Arthur in his arms as he breathed his last. He remembered it vividly even to this day. Arthur had gathered his strength to thank him and there had been something else, something mouthed, not said. He had seen the movement of his lips but even then he had not dared to hope. I love you, Arthur had mouthed, unable to find the strength to say it.

"I will return home tomorrow,” He announced, shaking himself free from those memories. They were like daggers to his heart. “I don't think that I will be able to convince Morgana to change her mind."

"And if she does change her mind?"

"Then I'm sure she will be able to find me. It's not like my whereabouts should surprise her."

Leon raised his glass in silent agreement. A part of him didn't want to part ways with his old friend. He had no one but Leon who understood him truly. Yet, he would leave with the knowledge that he would always have a friend in Camelot's first knight.

He went to sleep late that night and once more he kept tossing and turning in his bed. He left Leon in the early morning hours without much fuss as they were wont to do whenever they parted ways. They would meet again. This was a universal truth that had established itself over the course of a millennium.

As he drove west towards Wales, he thought about all the terrible wars he had witnessed in the past centuries. It had often seemed that the fall of Camelot had also been the end of chivalry and honor altogether. He had seen too many cruelties and experienced too many of them himself. As he stopped in front of a red light somewhere in the city, he looked around, watching the people who were running through the streets, going to work and school, carrying coffee-to-go cups with overpriced coffee around like some symbol of their status in life. 

His gaze, however, got stuck on a young woman walking across the intersection. Flowing black hair, and a nice, blue summer dress swaying softly with her every step. Morgana. He would have recognized her even in a crowd of thousands. She was waving at someone on the other side of the crossing and, as Merlin looked in the direction she was walking, he saw another woman. Bright red hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The woman from the photos Leon had sent him. As Morgana reached her, they greeted each other with a kiss and a hug.

The ugly beast of jealousy and bitterness raised its head inside of him and roared. Morgana looked happy. What right did she have to be happy after she had destroyed everything? After she was the reason Arthur died? After she took away Merlin’s happiness and condemned him to a life waiting for all eternity, bound to the very spot where his other half died? He wanted to scream at this unfairness. She got rewarded while he only got to suffer. Had he not tried to be a good person? Had he not tried to be kind? Had he not tried to help those in need? Had he not been a guardian angel, a protector for the people of Carmarthen for over a thousand years? Why was it that Morgana was granted happiness and love while he was being swallowed by darkness?

The car behind him honked and Merlin flinched at the sudden sound. The light had turned green without him even noticing. Green like the eyes of the beast inside of him. He lifted his hand in a silent apology, switched gears, and pressed gently on the gas. As he left the busy streets of London once and for all, his thoughts were still with Morgana, his mind still racing in anger. He clenched his steering wheel. 

Being good, his mother once said to him, meant doing good things without expecting a reward. Being good meant doing good things even when no one would know. Being good was selfless. It was doing the right thing because it was right, not because of a reward, fame, or recognition. 

※※※※※※※

There was a girl floating in the briny waters of the river. Her body had gotten stuck on a branch that the last storm had ripped from a tree. She was floating in the shallows between plants and wildflowers, her long auburn hair wafting around her pale face like a halo - like Ophelia. Merlin stared down at the girl as the paramedics began pulling her out. The lights of the ambulance and the police car ripped the early morning fog into pieces. It smelled like rain and a crow croaked in the distance like a harbinger of death. 

He had been on one of his long morning walks to get his head clear after yesterday’s return from London when he had found her and called the police. He knew the girl. “Her name was Jane Horrace,” He told the female cop as she stepped up to him to get his account. 

“You knew her?” Suspicion laced her voice. The first person at the scene of a crime was usually the prime suspect. He didn't look at her. Only when the paramedics finally got the poor girl in her long summer dress out of the water and onto a stretcher, he pulled his attention away from her. There was nothing the paramedics could do for her.

“Yes,” Merlin muttered quietly. “I was her doctor.”

“You seem quite young to be a physician, Sir.”

“I’m older than I look,” He replied but he couldn't muster his usual cheekiness at the response. It was true, he had been her doctor. He had delivered her even. He had taken care of her as a child. He thought about poor Lucy Walker. He often thought about Lucy Walker and how he should have protected her better from her father. Lucy and Jane looked like they could have been sisters. He brushed a hand through his hair and forced himself back into reality. “She was murdered, wasn’t she?”

“Sir, at this stage-”

“I’m a physician, Officer Talbot,” He replied a bit sharper than necessary. He knew Talbot. He knew them all but most of them had no clue who he was. Some of them only knew him to be the weird hermit who lived in the forest in a broken-down caravan. “I can tell when someone drowned and Lucy didn't drown.”

"Lucy?"

“Jane,” He corrected himself and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jane … Forgive me. I didn't sleep much lately. I just came home from London. I am a bit scattered.”

“She was stabbed,” Talbot said. Her voice was surprisingly gentle now. Apparently, he had just vanished from her list of suspects. 

“Then you have to focus on her boyfriend,” He whispered. “Jonathan Miller. He was very jealous. I know she got into arguments with him a lot. I know he mistreated her.”

"Jonathan Miller?” Talbot asked with raised brows. “The son of Police Chief Miller?”

Wonderful, Merlin thought. He forgot about that. He knew right then and there that there was no chance of justice for poor Jane Horrace. Talbot and her partner Livingston were good people but they were at the very end of the hierarchy. “Yes,” He said with defeat, lacing his voice. “Him.”

The look Talbot gave him spoke clearly of what he already knew. There was regret and defeat in her dark brown eyes that reminded him too much of Guinevere. Talbot placed a comforting hand on his upper arm and regarded him with a pinched smile. “Thank you, Sir, for your input.”

Merlin was the last person to remain at the river bank after the paramedics and the police had left. He sat in the tall grass and looked out on the water. Her killer had probably hoped Jane would be washed away into the sea. He felt numb and angry at the same time. It wasn’t the first time he bore witness to a crime like this. Lucy hadn't been the first either. There had been so many murders of innocent young girls and boys, women and men in the past that he had lost count. He had witnessed the horrors of wars firsthand, the Viking invasion, and countless wars where power-hungry men lusted for more and more power. He remembered the Viking invasion best, even to this day. He had still been young and naive then. His heart hadn't hardened yet. He remembered fighting them off as best as he could without giving himself away as a sorcerer. He remembered trying to protect the people of Camelot - those who remained after the fall. He remembered the destruction and devastation, the barbarity with which they fought. He remembered being surprised and beaten down, unable to fight them off. He remembered being thrust into a table and taken against his will for the first time. The Vikings hadn't discriminated between men and women for their carnal urges - and so many others hadn't either. 

And now one more innocent soul had been taken, another beautiful, bright light snuffed out before its time by some power-hungry brute that could only take and take and take. And one more time there would be no justice for the victim and her family. Her mother and father would lay her to rest. Everyone would know who had done it. Her brother would get sick with feelings of hatred for the world, he would poison himself until he would either die or take revenge for his sister, ending his own life in the process and condemning himself to a life behind bars. Another family torn apart. Three more lights snuffed out. He had seen it time and time again. 

No one ever did anything. People like Jonathan Miller got away with their crimes as so many before him. He would have a great life. His father would make sure of it. A prosperous career - probably in the force as well or in local politics. He would be untouchable. He already was. 

And Morgana was out there, in London, living her best life, being happy, and in love. 

Jane had been a good person. She had been kind and charitable. He had often seen her in the local library when she had spent her free time after school reading to the children or he had seen her devote her time to help in the soup kitchen. She had been there, at the forefront of the war against injustice time and time again. She had been good. And now her body would be placed on a metal slab and her parents would have to grieve her and put her in the ground before she even turned twenty-one. 

And Morgana was out there, in London, living her best life, being happy, and in love.

Jonathan Miller was out there, living his best life, unconcerned with his crime, knowing he would get away with it.

How was that fair? That good people suffered and the monsters of this world not only got away with their crimes but were granted happiness? 

It was night when Jonathan Miller was staggering home from the pub. Closing time had been an hour ago but he was taking his time, walking along the river bank, swaying on his feet, unaware that he was being followed.  Merlin had watched him the entire day. He had watched him walking into the police station where he had been informed about his girlfriend’s murder. He had been there when he had left it, wiping away crocodile tears. He had been there when he had met up with his friends in the pub. He had listened to their conversation from a table nearby where he had nursed his own drink. He had heard him pin the blame on ‘one of those filthy fucking migrants that come to the UK to get pampered by the welfare system’. He had heard his friends agree. He had seen them harass Abaya from the local corner shop when they left the pub before Jonathan had split from his friends and started walking along the river bank, whistling a tune to himself. 

Jonathan stopped near the same spot his girlfriend had been found. He had bought a bottle of vodka from poor Abaya. No, not bought. He had stolen it from her shop, threatening her in the process. He was raising his bottle to the river and he heard his voice ring out as he said “To you, Jane. Fucking whore” and then took a long swig.

Merlin moved before he could think better of it. He raised his hand and pushed him off his feet with his magic. It would have been so easy to kill him with his magic, to snap his neck with a flick of his wrist. Instead, he lunged forward and threw himself at the young man on the ground. He turned him on his back with one swift move and started pounding on him with his fists, straddling him to make it impossible for him to get up, his magic pinning Jonathan’s wrists down so that he couldn't fight back. His eyes were blazing gold as his fist slammed into Jonathan’s face over and over again. He heard bones crack under the force, felt skin split. He could beat him to death with ease. He deserved nothing less. It would be so easy to kill him with his bare hands for what he did to Jane. 

Once more his fist connected with the man’s face. He felt his nose break and a satisfied spark shot through him at the sound. He jolted back in horror at the feeling and that was the moment Jonathan had waited for. He acted before Merlin could understand it. Jonathan’s fist connected with his jaw, throwing Merlin off of him. He landed in the grass hard, his head connecting painfully with one of the large stones hidden by the vegetation. He saw the foot coming towards him before everything turned black.

-End of Chapter 3-

Chapter Text

When he resurfaced, his head hurt like a bitch. He was sure that he had been run over by a truck and left on the side of the road. A groan left his throat.

“I’m not a healer,” A female voice said somewhere in the world outside of his throbbing skull. “But I did what I could with what I know.” He tried opening his eyes but he was blinded by some sort of light and squeezed them shut again. “I think you might have a concussion.”

He felt nauseous. Not because of his injuries, though. Suddenly, what he had done came rushing back to him. Jonathan Miller lying on the river bank. Him kneeling on top of him, straddling him, hitting him over and over with his fists. He would have killed him. He could have killed him. Not that it would have been the first time he would have killed. But it would have been the first time that he would have done it out of vengeance and sheer malice and not to protect someone else. He had killed countless people. In order to protect Arthur and Camelot, his friends, and later the people of Carmarthen. He had never killed out of revenge or out of anger.

Once more he tried to force his eyes open and fought against the pounding in his head as the light assaulted him again. This time, however, he was valiant as he blinked the pain away and the world around him thus slowly started to take shape again. 

The first thing he saw was his own messy kitchen and the tarpaulin on the ground. He tried to take stock of himself first before he tried to make sense of how he had gotten here or who was with him. His body was aching all over, almost as if he had been kicked in the stomach and chest repeatedly. His head felt like it was going to explode. He was lying on his right side in his bed - his nest, as Leon liked to call it, never above making any bird jokes. He had this caravan for a while now and it was slowly falling apart. Rust had settled almost in every little nook and crevice and the tarpaulin that he had used to clumsily fix the roof had fallen down to the ground a while ago. Rainwater had collected in a puddle. He could fix all this with a flick of his wrist but, these days, he felt too lazy even for something as mundane as that. His feet were cold. Someone must have taken off his shoes, perhaps even his socks. Come to think of it, he felt cold all over. As he glanced down he noticed that he was indeed naked, only covered by one of his moth-eaten, threadbare blankets. 

He thought that he should be alarmed by that but it was far from the first time that he would wake up naked with no recollection of what had happened to him and aching all over.

“Merlin?” The same female voice came again and reminded him of the presence of another person. He felt like he had the worst hangover in history. That wasn’t true, of course. The worst hangover in human history had happened when he had decided to drink himself stupid sometime in 1676 for no other reason than to see if he could die from it. He had woken up drifting naked in the river. Apparently, he had somehow managed to leave the pub and fallen into the river on his way home. How he lost his clothes still remained a mystery to this day. Maybe someone had tried to murder him but Merlin couldn't recall and he never learned what happened that night either.

Slowly, he lifted his head just enough to get a better look at his surroundings and he saw Morgana standing by the door of his caravan, like an image from an old dream (or rather a nightmare), leaning her hip against the edge of the kitchen cupboard right next to it. She looked completely out of place the way she stood there. For a moment he was sure that he was hallucinating. She was wearing a pair of plain jeans and a nice, flowy summer blouse, her hair tied back in a ponytail.

“Morgana?” He asked in a raspy voice. “What happened?”

“That's what I’d like to know,” She said. “I found you in the river, stuck on a branch. I thought you were dead, at first. Of course … that isn't possible. I brought you here.”

“How did you know where I lived?”

“It wasn’t hard to figure out,” She said. “Leon said that you never left the spot where Arthur died. So I came here first but you weren’t home. Then I decided to try again tomorrow and went into town to find a place to stay. That was when I found you.”

“Why did you help me?” He muttered as he slowly sat up. The blanket fell in his lap but he wasn't concerned about his modesty. He doubted that Morgana cared either. He groaned and brushed his fingers through his hair. He felt a slight bump on the back of his head and felt the blood that had clotted in his hair. 

She hesitated in her answer and instead let her eyes roam around his sorry excuse for a home with a nervous twitch to her mouth, her gaze flitting this way and that. He had never seen her like that. No, that was not quite true. He had seen her like that long before she had turned against Camelot. She looked like the young girl he once met again. The young girl that helped him to hide Mordred from Uther. The girl that had defended his village against the bandits.

“I’m not sure,” She confessed at last. He was about to say something as she opened her mouth again. “Arthur was like Apollo,” She said. “He was like the sun. You know what I mean. We were both in his shadow. And I hated him for his golden light. You, on the other hand, were the moon. And I hated you for your love for him. I hated you for diminishing your own light to further his glory. And I hated you more after I knew who you were. All this power, this unbridled, pure force of magic enslaved in servitude to an undeserving, golden king like my brother.”

“How are you alive?” He asked and leaned forward on his knees to bury his aching head in his hands. “I killed you with a blade forged in the breath of a dragon. Excalibur.”

“I remember,” She said with a humorless little huff. “I remember you plunging the sword in my side. I remember the cold embrace of death. And then … nothing but darkness. Until the darkness ended and I awoke in the light. It was a new day and the sun shone over the woods mere hours after I died. I don't know why or how it happened. It just did. One moment I was dead, the next my life began anew. The prophecy said that Emrys would be my downfall and you were. However, I fear that, as long as you are alive, I am not allowed to leave this mortal plane as well. At first, I wanted to find you and Arthur and finish what I started. I headed here, to Lake Avalon and then I saw you as you send Arthur out into the lake. I watched you sit in the grass and I realized that we had both been defeated. I don't know what it was about seeing you like this but I understood that there was no point in continuing this endless war with you now that my brother was gone. So, I left Camelot, I left Wales. I traveled far. As far away as I could. I crossed the ocean and stepped onto the continent and there I remained for a thousand years until I returned to England during the Great War.”

“And now you are back,” He said grimly. “And you are living a happy, normal life. In the end, you got everything you wanted while I suffered endless torments.”

“Oh, please,” She scoffed. “This doesn't suit you!”

“What?”

“This wallowing in self-pity!” She mocked and made a swooping motion toward the mess that was his home. “This! Look at this! The way you live! You could easily fix all this, build yourself a palace with the flick of your wrist and yet you live like a homeless bum! If you suffered endless torments then only because you decided to suffer them! You are a God amongst men, Merlin, and yet you decided over and over again to make yourself small, to play the role of a meager servant, of a physician. You suffered because you wanted to! Why? Because it made you feel like you were a good person or because you like playing the martyr?”

“I deserve nothing less,” He hissed and clenched his fists in his blanket.

“Oh, come on!” She huffed. “Spare me this nonsense!”

“Everything that happened in Camelot was my fault. I destroyed Arthur’s great destiny as I tried to protect him and pave his way! If it hadn't been for me intervening again and again, none of it would have happened. I suffered because I wanted it, yes, you are right. But I wanted it not out of selfish reasons or because I like playing the martyr. These past thousand years were my punishment. I stayed here because this is my destiny - to wait for Arthur’s return. And I made myself a servant, a physician because I made a promise to protect the people of Camelot, the people of Carmarthen. I did what I could.” 

Morgana opened her mouth, no doubt to let out another disparaging comment but he raised his hand to silence her and as he met her eyes, his gaze was golden and the cups in his sink rattled. 

“I am bound to this land, Morgana. And this is the difference between a villain and a good person. I didn't have the luxury of leaving this place for longer than a couple of days. I wasn’t allowed to travel the world, to fall in love, to open an art gallery, or enjoy the finest things in life. I was bound to this very piece of land where my heart was laid to rest. I took care of the people of this land. I treated the injured and the sick. I buried Percival, Guinevere, and Gaius. I delivered generations of families and saw them die. I saw the pyres of the witch trials, the horrors of the plague, the endless wars that tore our Camelot apart until nothing was left of it anymore.”

Her eyes were like burning embers as she looked at him with fury etched into the lines of her face. She almost looked like she had during those last days after Camlann when her hatred had devoured her until there was nothing left of the sweet girl she used to be. In a different life, over a thousand years ago, she would have lashed out now but this new Morgana turned around sharply, ripped the door of his caravan open, and escaped into the early morning.

Merlin groaned and slumped forward, his arms resting on his thighs, his head dropping heavily. Well, that certainly hadn't helped his cause. After a while he got to his feet, his blanket falling to the ground and leaving him nude. He ignored the blanket, stepped over it, and walked towards his bathroom - the only true luxury he allowed himself in this dreadful place. The plumbing was - thanks to his magic - brand new, the pipes never clogged and the waste vanished politely into thin air. He entered the room and got the first good glimpse of himself in the mirror opposite the door. He looked terrible. His body was a landscape of dark bruises and his face didn't look much better.

Well, apparently Jonathan Miller had given as good as he got. He healed himself with his magic without even thinking about it, then he slipped into the shower.

As he stood under the spray of water, he pondered the possible reasons why Morgana had come. He still had gotten no answer to that question. Perhaps now he would never get an answer. He closed his eyes and imagined standing in the rain. It would be easy for him to make it rain truly. He had learned his lesson not to mess with the weather, though. It usually drew suspicion and tended to lead to people pulling out pitchforks and torches even when the rain benefitted their crops.

After his shower, he threw on some of the clothes that he found lying on the ground and walked outside. The moment he stepped into the early morning fog he already had a cigarette between his lips and sat down in the grass heavily.

Last night he almost killed someone.

The thought had yet to sink in completely. He would have beaten Jonathan to death. He looked at his fist and remembered his skin breaking around his knuckles. Now there was no trace of it left as if it never happened. As if he had not almost beaten someone to death, spurred on by his rage. Arthur would have never acted in such a way. He had acted without honor. He had attacked a drunken man - a man who was much weaker than an all-powerful warlock like him. Then again, Jonathan Miller was a man without honor as well, a man who had killed his girlfriend and called her a whore to his friends after he’d done it. 

He had deserved it, hadn't he? Justice wouldn't come for him. Not with his father being the chief of police. And yet, Arthur would have found another way to deal with it. As he sat there, smoking his cigarette, he felt even more like he was slowly losing himself to the bitterness inside his heart. There seemed nothing left of the man he once was now. He had desperately clung to this man, this version of himself that Arthur had known, the version of himself that Arthur would be proud of. But now this man was slipping through his fingers like sand more and more with each passing day.

And why should he continue trying to be a good person when it was repaid with cruelty?

※※※※※※※

He stood on the river bank again, staring out onto the water. He had always been drawn to water, even in his youth. He felt at peace staring at the rushing floods and, in a much more painful way, it reminded him of those he had laid to rest in the lake. Three times he had sent a loved one out on a boat, committing them to the cold embrace of the waters of the lake. The first boat he had decorated with ferns and cried over the life he could have had with the only woman he had ever loved, grieving for a dream that he had known would never be real. The second boat he had decorated with wildflowers as he had sent the only friend who had truly known him away, losing him for a second time. The third boat had been filled with reeds and he had intertwined his king’s fingers gently to make it look like he was merely sleeping. Every one of them had taken a part of him with them into their grave and now, he feared, there was nothing left of him. Nothing at all.

The moon stood high in the sky already, full and milky white. He took another drag from his cigarette and blew the smoke through the side of his mouth. He had spent the whole day wandering around the town aimlessly. His feet hurt and he was tired but he couldn't fathom returning home, returning to Avalon, resuming his watch. 

The soft gust of summer air blew through the tall grass at the river bank. He brushed his fingers through it and allowed a sigh to slip out of his throat before he took another drag of his cigarette and released the smoke into the night.

Over the course of the centuries, he had always felt lonely but his loneliness had never been more prevalent as it was now. The world seemed a cold, desolate place. He knew that Leon was out there and that he would come if Merlin ever expressed his need for company but a part of him thought that it wouldn't make a difference. His loneliness went deeper than just a lack of company. It was a deep-seated ache, a living, breathing creature inside of him that couldn't be tamed. He thought that he had had it under control for a long time but now it slowly seemed to slip his grasp. It was bearing its teeth, growling at everything that moved. Soon it would break out of its shell and lash out and Merlin didn't even want to fathom what this might look like. 

He imagined that, when the day would come, his magic would explode out of him, destroying everything in its wake, a force of destruction and pain, like Arthur always feared magic would be. And Merlin would stand by, smiling at the destruction like Nero had sung as Rome burned. Then again, why wait? 

He took a sip of the bottle he had brought with him and got to his feet. Jonathan Miller was still out there, after all. Why not start with him? His feet carried him to the same pub Jonathan and his friends liked to frequent but this time he didn't step inside. It was almost closing hour. No, he waited outside. It was a warm summer night anyway.

He waited in the shadows as the first pub dwellers left the facility to stagger home. He wasn't disappointed as Jonathan Miller too left the pub. He looked awful and Merlin felt a vague sense of satisfaction at the sight of the injuries he had inflicted upon him. He followed Jonathan as he started walking down the street. This time he was not accompanied by his friends. The poor fool had no idea that he was following him through the night. Then, as Jonathan entered a darker alley, he extended his hand and pushed Jonathan forward with his magic. The man lost his footing and fell flat on his face. He had never used his magic like this - not against people who were not enemies. It felt good, this surge of power. It was sickening.

He watched how Jonathan lay there for a moment before he managed to pick himself back up again. Confused, the man climbed to his feet and turned to look who might have shoved him. His confusion only worsened as he noticed how far away Merlin stood. Then, however, his confusion morphed into shock as he recognized him.

Even in the dim light of one single lamp over the backdoor of a building, he could see him drain of all color. "You are dead!" He exclaimed and pointed a shaking finger at him. "How are you alive? You were dead!"

"I'm not," He said calmly, barely even registering Jonathan’s words. So Jonathan had killed him, huh? Only one more reason on the long list of reasons why Jonathan deserved to be punished by him. "But you will be!"

Whatever Jonathan wanted to say next, it got stuck in his throat as he was lifted in the air like a feather without Merlin even lifting a finger. There he hung, his arms stretched painfully to both sides, his legs apart like he wanted to do a split. A scream ripped from his throat as Merlin gently pulled.

"Merlin!"

Jonathan Miller fell to the ground and before he could even gather his wit he jumped to his feet and ran like a scared rabbit. Merlin growled, a deep, guttural sound in his throat as he glanced over his shoulder.

Morgana stood behind him at the other end of the alley. The street lamp behind her made her hair shine like silk cascading over her narrow shoulders. Her face seemed even paler and in her eyes he recognized a horror that he had never seen reflected in them before - not even in the moment he plunged his sword into her. Yet, she didn't seem surprised, as if she had known what would happen. As if she had seen the darkness take shape behind his eyes.

"How did you know where I am?"

He knew it already. He didn't need her response. "I had a vision," She said. "But I didn't think it would come true. I couldn't imagine it. I would have never thought you could possibly do something like this. And yet here you are, calling me a villain. The great good Emrys with a heart of gold! Hurting an innocent man!"

"He isn't innocent!" He spat and turned around completely. "He killed his girlfriend for no other reason than his bruised ego! She was kind and good! She didn't deserve it and yet, he will get away with it! Men like him always get away with their deeds but I am done sitting back and watching!"

"What? Have you become some angel of vengeance now?" She mocked. "Yes, I bet Arthur would be proud. Wasn't it you who reminded him over and over again that revenge could never be the solution? Do you want to punish every man on this planet who ever did something less than honorable? You live in the past, Merlin. You judge people by the same merits Arthur judged them by. You dream of chivalry and honor but that is not the world we live in now."

"You weren't this concerned before when you murdered numerous innocents, or when you tortured Gwen and so many others - when you waged war against your own brother."

"You were right," She said, taking him by surprise with her words and the pressed tone she used. "With what you said before. All this time I’ve become a villain. I was bitter and jealous and I projected my hatred for Uther onto my brother without ever giving him a chance to see me for who I was. I was so blinded by my hatred and my distrust in my own father that I never considered that Arthur could be any different. And then I learned the truth about you and my hatred reached new heights. I wanted you to suffer - more than Arthur. I didn't understand how you, the great, good Emrys, could betray his very own kind."

"I never betrayed anyone," He replied sharply. "I only ever did what was best for Camelot and for Arthur."

"And what did that bring you? The man your heart yearns for lies dead beneath the meadow that once was Lake Avalon and you live your life like a ghost somewhere between the land of the living and the dead."

Morgana’s words were aimed to hurt and they never failed to do so. She was precise in her attacks, her words like scalpels, hitting exactly the spots where it hurt the most, severing, cutting, stabbing. No armor and shield would protect him from them. He wanted to throw her back with his power, to maim and kill but that would only prove her point, he thought. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction. Not that it would do anything anyway. As much as he hated her for it, as much as he hated himself for it, he needed her help if he wanted to see Arthur again.

“You are right,” He confessed. “I live between the worlds, I am a ghost. I need your help.”

A long time ago she would have found glee in his words. She would have grinned and mocked him, she would have demanded him to beg, to get on his knees and beg her. Now, however, her eyes turned soft, and, to his biggest surprise, he saw her bottom lip trembling gently. “I want to help you,” She said. “I want to make it right.”

He believed her words even though his instincts explicitly told him not to. His mind screamed at him to be distrustful and wary of her but his heart screamed for Arthur. As a young man he had thought that one day, this pain and yearning would start to dull, that it would be easier to handle. Instead with every day that had passed since Arthur’s death, it had only grown worse and worse. It was no longer just a part of him he could deal with - had to deal with every day of his life - it had become him. It had slowly taken over his entire body like a cancer and now it was controlling his every move and thought. He was helpless against its might. If he could, he would have laid down with Arthur. It only seemed right that he would follow him in his grave as he had followed him everywhere else and yet destiny or magic denied him even this small mercy.

“Can you?” He asked at last and was surprised at how raspy his own voice sounded. “Make it right? Because to this day, I didn't learn how to bring back the dead.”

“It's dark magic,” She said. “And it's not to be tempered with. You know the rules. A life for a life and you cannot choose whose life will be given. But, I imagine, for the life of someone like the great King Arthur someone equally great would have to go.”

He wasn't surprised. No, he knew the rules indeed. He had been stupid enough to play with them as a lad. And he had tried to think it through and always came to the same result. If magic would bring Arthur back, then he would be the one to take his place. It seemed like destiny didn't want them to exist together at the same time again. Their time was up. “No,” He said quietly. “I don't think it's that easy. Arthur has been gone for over a thousand years. There are no bones left of him. Nothing. He was swept away by the tides of time and now I cannot reach him anymore - and neither can you.”

“I never understood you, Merlin,” She said. “Your devotion to him. Still, to this day. Your life is devoted to him.”

No, he thought bitterly, you wouldn't understand it. “It wasn't my devotion just to him. It was to something bigger than him or myself, the golden future of Albion. That was what I was devoted to. He is the Once and Future King and he was meant to bring back magic and reunite the lands of Albion. But I failed to help him achieve that because my love for him was bigger than my devotion and I did things just in order to save the man I loved and not for the sake of some brighter future. When he died it was like I was losing parts of my own body. A pain like this you can never imagine. No one can.”

“What have you done since his death?”

“I tried to be a good man,” He sighed. It seemed ridiculous now that they stood in this dark alley right after Morgana had stopped him from ripping Jonathan Miller limb from limb. “I tried to be a man Arthur would be proud of.”

“And did you succeed?”

“No.”

Morgana let out a soft chuckle. “They said you were the greatest sorcerer to ever walk this earth,” She said. “And I believed that you were one of the smartest people I would ever know. It turns out you were blind though from the beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wasted a thousand years trying to live up to Arthur’s example, to become a man he would be proud of - who he would love. Isn’t that it? But he always did,” She said. “He was always proud of you, he always loved you. You were just blind to it. Everyone else could see it in his eyes, though.”

He would have never thought that one day Morgana Pendragon of all people would give him a pep talk like this. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. He was surprised by her words though. He wanted to think that she was telling the truth and that Arthur had loved him the same as he had loved Arthur but the thought was too strange to allow himself to indulge in. How could Arthur have ever really loved him if he hadn't really known who Merlin was?

“What do we do now?”

“Now,” Morgana said. “We will get you home and then I’ll figure out what we actually can do.”

-End of Chapter 4-

Chapter Text

“You know,” Morgana said as they walked side by side along the country road that led from Carmarthen into the world. Merlin had driven on this road often enough to know that the world was out there. He had been to London, after all, but sometimes it still seemed unimaginable. To think that he could just get into his car and start driving and never return. No, sadly, this wasn’t how it worked for him. He would never be able to just leave Carmarthen, leave Arthur. He had a duty. Always a duty.  “Something peculiar happens when you die.”

“And what is that?” He asked even though he had no interest in listening to Morgana’s tales. He didn't quite care what happened when someone died. Life was just over, right? They ceased to exist. Simple as that. They slipped past the veil and into the mists.

“You learn the truth - about everything.” If Morgana had heard the disinterest in his tone of voice, she ignored it. “You see your past - you see everything. You realize where you went wrong and witness your worst mistakes.”

“I don't need to die to know my worst mistakes,” He replied bitterly. He still felt sick. He almost killed a man. “I live with their consequences every damn day of my life."

"Leon was right," Morgana announced with a sigh. "You are really quite gloomy these days. If I wouldn't know it was you, I wouldn't recognize you. When I remember Camelot, the old days when we were all still together, I always think of how chipper you used to be. I often thought that that was what Arthur liked about you - apart from your blatant disregard for propriety and social hierarchies, of course."

"Gloomy, huh? You make me sound like a cheap Halloween decoration."

"You are living in a caravan that might fall apart every second in the middle of the woods, Merlin. For god's sake! I think gloomy is the right word to use. I’m sure you've become local folklore by now."

He didn't mean to smile but he couldn't help but see the humor in her words. "I met the Fisher King a long time ago,” He then said. These days, he often thought about the Fisher King. In his mind and heart, he always went back to that day. “I didn't understand him back then or his desire to die. Now, I do. Yes, I think you might be right. I might have become local folklore, the evil sorcerer parents warn their children about so that they don't stray too far and get eaten by me. I have become the Fisher King."

A chuckle escaped Morgana at his words. “I can almost see you scaring the local youth on Halloween.”

“I don't limit my services to one night a year,” Merlin replied dryly. In a way, it felt wrong to engage in this sort of banter with Morgana of all people. The same woman who had taken so much from him in the past. Maybe it wasn’t fair to think like this and still the bitterness was like a cancer deep within him. He knew that he could never go back to the boy he once was before Morgana turned against Camelot - or before he had been forced to poison her.

For a while, they walked in silence through the night. Avalon wasn't far now. He didn't know what her plan was and how she would go about helping him and bringing Arthur back and he wouldn't ask her either. It was dark magic, as she had warned him. And dark magic always came with a price. 

“I never wanted to hurt you, you know?” He said after a while. “Back in the day, back when I poisoned you. I never wanted to do that to you and I regretted it ever since.”

“It was the only way to stop the knights of Medhir and the sleeping curse,” Morgana said. “I understand that now. Back then I didn't. I believed every word Morgause said to me. I had no choice. When I woke up, after you poisoned me, I felt betrayed. I woke up inside the dark tower. I woke up to the screaming of the mandrake, to the ghosts of my past, present, and future. Morgause was the only friendly face I saw in those days … weeks … inside the tower. When I took Gwen to the tower so many years later, a part of me hoped to get my friend back as well - the only friend I truly ever had. But I knew that the way I went about it was cruel and wrong, that I couldn't hope to gain true friendship as I was poisoning her mind against her family and friends. I was the only friendly face she would see in those days. I should have known better but I was mad with the desire of hurting Arthur - of killing Arthur, of taking everything from him. I only wanted to see him suffer. My jealousy was eating away at my sanity.”

He knew what that felt like. He had never dared to admit it to himself back then but hadn't he known about Arthur’s fate, about their shared destiny, he might have just chosen Morgana’s side instead. His only dream had to bring magic back to the world, to make Arthur see that magic was not the problem. And then friendship came and with their friendship came love and with love came jealousy as he had been forced to watch Arthur and Gwen fall in love, court each other, and get married.

“It's not easy,” He said eventually. “Knowing that you are more powerful than everyone around you and still living in the shadows, pretending to be a fool. Towards the end, before Camlann, I felt myself grow bitter more and more with each day that went by. Everything I did seemed to backfire. I tried to protect Arthur and Camelot, I tried to be good and do good. Along the way, I lost people I loved. In the end, I was only living for this dream and for him.”

They left the woods and the moon shone brightly down at Avalon in the distance. Only part of the old tower was left, ruins children and teenagers liked to play in. His caravan waited by the side of the treeline as it always did, inconspicuous, rotten, old. It truly did look like it was ready to collapse soon. Maybe he should build another house. If Morgana would succeed, he needed a proper house. 

"Do you think you can do it?" He asked quietly. "Bringing him back?"

"It's worth a try," She said. "You said, he would return when Albion's need is greatest. You are all that is left of it. And I would say that, considering what I have seen you do to that man, your need couldn't be greater."

"You and Leon are still here as well."

"Leon and I are children of this new world. We have adapted to it. You, on the other hand, have not. You live like a ghost. What you did tonight … the look in your eyes … I have seen it before in my own reflection. If you would have killed this man, there would have been no turning back for you anymore. Once you cross that line, it can never be undone. You would have succumbed to darkness. Perhaps this is what the prophecy meant."

“Me turning to the dark side?”

“Arthur stopping you from ever falling prey to the darkness,” Morgana said. “He was like the sun and without the sun the moon cannot shine, there is nothing but darkness for you without him.”

"I'd never take you for a poet," he said. Her words rang true, though. There was nothing but darkness without Arthur. He felt pathetic for even thinking this way. He should be his own man even without his king and if their places were swapped, Arthur wouldn't struggle as much as he did. She smiled at him as they stopped a few paces from his caravan. 

"Where is he?" She asked and waved in an all-encompassing gesture at the wide plane of grass in front of them. 

"I don't know," he said. "I sent him out on a boat and let the waves take him. I watched the boat until the mists of Avalon swallowed him. Perhaps it reached the island after all."

"We have to search then," She said. 

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack."

"No." There was confidence dripping from her voice now. "You'll see, with my magic we will find him."

There was a voice deep inside of him that warned him to be more suspicious of Morgana and her talents but if that was what it took, he was willing to risk it. What did he have to lose anyway? Without saying anything he motioned towards the endless planes of meadow that were stretching out in front of them under the light of a full moon.

They walked in silence, aided by the witch lights he conjured. After a while, however, Morgana looked at him from the side.  “I never knew you were a sculptor,"

 "What do you mean?"

"Well, after I came back here I spent the day walking around Carmarthen. You know? To take in the sights. I couldn't help but notice the beautiful King Arthur statue in the museum. At first, I didn't think much of it. There are so many paintings that are supposed to depict my brother in this museum. Then, however, I noticed how much this sculpture truly looked like my brother. It was like I was staring him right in the face. Only someone who knew him - and knew him well - could have achieved that. And Leon doesn't strike me as a sculptor. You, however, have magical hands."

"I just wanted to create something that would last. During the Renaissance sculptures were all the rage and I wanted to … see his face one more time. And I wanted the world to know his face."

"You succeeded. It is beautiful. How often do you go there to see him?"

"Never."

"What?"

"That's why I gifted him to the museum. After it was finished I realized that it was too painful. It made it worse."

Morgana had the decency to fall silent again. After a while, she started muttering a spell under her breath and Merlin found himself slinking back as she walked on. A thousand thoughts echoed inside his head, a thousand more worries accompanying them diligently. What if Morgana would be successful but Arthur wouldn't be the same man? What if he would curse Merlin for bringing him back into this corrupted world? And for what reason? So that Merlin wouldn't feel as alone anymore? What if Arthur wouldn't be the man he once knew? What if Arthur would look at him and find that there was nothing left of the Merlin he once knew anymore?

He only listened with half an ear to Morgana as they walked across the meadow. A glowing light had manifested in her hand and he found his heart racing with anxiety. And what if all of that was only a trick of hers? A last act of revenge? What if she would bring Arthur back but poisoned his mind against him? Could it really be that Morgana had changed? For the better even?

Then again, hadn't he changed for the worst as well? Why shouldn't she have changed? She seemed genuine. 

He didn't know how long they were walking around the meadow until the sun started rising over the trees in the distance. “I can't feel anything,” Morgana said at last. She seemed exhausted. “I’m sorry, Merlin. I don't think that there is any chance to find him or … bring him back by magic.” 

His hopes had been low to begin with and yet he felt something inside of him shatter. He didn't even know what to say or think. Perhaps there was nothing for him to say. He felt numb. He felt as if his heart had finally stopped beating and with it all his emotions had finally been snuffed out for good. He was like the flame of a candle and Morgana had just extinguished his flame. If she was aware of what she had done to him with merely those few words, her face didn't betray her own emotion or thoughts. 

In the end, Merlin managed to produce a low sound somewhere in the back of his throat before he turned away from her and started walking back towards his home. 

“Merlin!” She called after him but he didn't stop. He didn't stop either as he reached his caravan and walked around it. He didn't stop as he walked into the thick vegetation of the woods. His feet carried him through the early morning fog and the fragile rays of sunlight. He didn't know where he was headed. He didn't even realize that he kept on walking. There was a noise inside his head, like waves rolling ashore. A constant hissing sound and before he knew it, he had lost himself in the deep, dark forest.

※※※※※※※

He had been wandering about for hours, never a clear goal in mind, never quite certain where he even was, in the first place. He hadn't dared to hope and still, he was devastated. If Morgana couldn't find Arthur out there no one could. Perhaps he wasn't even here anymore. Perhaps he had well and truly destroyed their destiny with his failure to save Arthur from Mordred's blade and Morgana's wrath. He longed for the horn of Catbath. He longed to hear Arthur’s voice again, to see his face.

It was that feeling that caused him to end up inside the Arthurian history museum. He had avoided the place like the plague for the longest time and still, he had been driven here. It was late. The museum would close soon and no one but him was around as he finally stopped in the heart of the Exhibition, a large, round room, and in its center waited the very statue he once made. It looked just like he remembered it. Of course, he had placed enchantments on it to protect it from any kind of decay or harm. This Arthur would never age, never fall apart, never vanish.

He brushed his fingers over the cold, hard marble of Arthur’s cheek and imagined the stone to be soft and warm and full of life. It wasn't the first time he did that and, just like before, he found himself feeling empty and betrayed by his own piece of art.

"It's beautiful," His fingers twitched back and yet he wasn’t surprised to be ambushed like this by Morgana. She had a tendency to ambush him lately. “It looks just like him.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I didn't,” She said. “I just thought you might come here after what happened today.”

As he looked at her, he saw empathy reflected back at him from her green eyes. A long time ago, when he had just entered Camelot for the very first time, he might have fallen in love with her instead of Arthur. Perhaps that would have been easier. Perhaps then he wouldn't have listened to the dragon or Gaius and told her about his magic. Perhaps then he would have been able to prevent her from turning to the dark side - or he might have just joined her. For a moment he was sure that she would reach out for him to place a comforting hand on his shoulder but something stopped her from doing it. 

“He is never coming back,” Merlin stated quietly and turned back to the statue, looking at Arthur’s cold, marble face and those dead, white eyes, made something inside of him shatter into a million tiny pieces. His sanity, perhaps. Or what was left of it anyway. He knew every line and crevice of this piece of stone by heart. He had worked an eternity to make it perfect. Saying these words aloud gave finality to them that he hadn't quite expected. He had always refrained from putting his fears into words like this, too afraid that in speaking them into the world, he would make them real and doom Arthur and himself for the rest of eternity. Now, however, it seemed that there was no point in pretending any longer.

“No,” She said quietly. Was that regret he heard in her voice? “But you can leave now, Merlin. You can go out there and see the world. Your wait is over. I’m sure Arthur would have wanted that. He would have never wanted you to waste your life sitting by that lake and waiting for him.”

Despite knowing that, he could still feel the pull of the lake, despite the fact that the waters of Lake Avalon had long dried up. Its gravitational pull would never let him leave. He couldn't fathom leaving. But how could he possibly clothe these feelings into words so that Morgana would be able to understand his heart? He agreed with her and Leon that Arthur would have wanted him to be happy and see the world. Of course, that was what Arthur would have wanted for him just like Merlin wanted nothing more but for Arthur to be alive and happy. The thought, however, of leaving Camelot, Avalon, without Arthur by his side, had never occurred to him. 

“I’m not sure I can,” He said quietly as he stared into Arthur’s stone face. He could almost imagine it moving, just the faintest hint of a quirking of his lips. He knew the spell, he thought. He knew how to breathe life into inanimate objects. And yet, even if he would embed this stone Arthur with life, it wouldn't be him. It would be a grotesque Golem-like creature without a proper will of his own, without Arthur's mind - without his heart. “ My grief lies all within / And these external manners of lament / Are merely shadows of the unseen grief / That swells with silence in the tortured soul. ”

“Shakespeare?”

“Richard II,” He muttered. “I’ve seen it a couple of times. Back in the day.”

“You never fail to surprise me, Merlin,” She said quietly but not without a teasing lilt to her voice. “I would have taken you more for a Romeo & Juliet type of guy.”

“When he shall die / Take him and cut him out in little stars / And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun,” He recited dutifully. “When I first heard those words, I knew what Juliet meant - but her words are words of fear of a possible future. Romeo has not yet died when she says these words. It's an all-consuming fear, the fear any lover knows when they are well and truly bound by love. I’ve known these feelings all those years ago as a young man, but my reality is different, for my love died and left me behind in the cold darkness without his light. Bereft of purpose. And there is nothing I can do about it. I envied Juliet when I first saw the play. I wished I could have followed her example. By God, I tried.”

“Have you ever … loved someone else?”

“No,” He said without thinking, without even looking at her. “Not after he left this world. I tried. But all I achieved was leaving behind broken hearts.”

“And before Arthur?”

He hesitated but the blushing young man he once was had died a long time ago. “I thought I loved someone,” He said quietly. “I did love her. I wanted to love her anyways. She was like me. An outcast, a monster. But she died.” A small chuckle escaped him. “Destiny got in the way, I suppose. I was willing to leave everything behind and run away with her. I was a lovestruck teenager. Like Romeo. Now I don't know anymore what I felt for her. There was love, certainly. Back then I was afraid of my feelings for Arthur. I didn't want to acknowledge them. Freyja was … she was beautiful and she understood me and loving her, despite her monstrous form, would have been so much easier.”

"Maybe there is another Freyja for you out there somewhere," She said. He knew how she meant it but it still irked him. It wasn't as easy after all, was it? He would forever measure everyone in his life against Arthur and why would he ever want to spend his days with someone who didn't compare? 

“Why are you here, Morgana?”

“Because I thought you might need a friend.”

The comment was so ridiculous that Merlin almost laughed. To hear Morgana Pendragon, of all people, offer her friendship in a time of need to him was beyond ridiculous. 

“I’m sure you will understand that you might not exactly be the right person for the job.” Since he didn't look at her, he couldn't tell if she was hurt by his words - not that he believed she would be hurt by that. They hadn't been friends for a long time, after all. The days when she had ridden with him to Ealdor to help his mother, were long gone.

“The devil you know,” She hummed in response. “Unless you’d rather be alone.”

“I’d rather be alone,” He whispered. “For a moment. Just for … tonight.”

“Merlin-”

“It's not like I could do anything stupid, could I?” He asked, his voice and tone sharper than he intended to. Morgana didn't reply anything. He could feel her hover behind him, so close that she would be able to touch him if she would extend her arm. Then, however, he heard her turn and leave, her footsteps echoing softly from the stone floor of the museum. He felt his loneliness like a dome of silence that was being placed over his head, drowning out all sound. Once more alone. He looked up at Arthur’s face again and almost laughed about himself. Oh, how pathetic he was - to stand here and stare at a face of stone because he couldn't deal with the fact that he would never see the real thing ever again. He had missed the point of no return entirely, it seemed. He had missed the moment when he could have still turned his life in another direction, away from Arthur and his watch at the lake. He could have left Camelot - Carmarthen - centuries ago and gone somewhere else and now it was too late. He might as well be a statue too. Oh, how tempting that thought was.

※※※※※※※

The night hung low above Carmarthen and Lake Avalon as Morgana walked through the vast meadows and the fog that ripped like spiderwebs. She held her Grimoire in one hand as she walked through darkness. She hadn't wanted to come back to this place but after seeing Merlin standing in this museum only horse before, staring at a statue of her dead brother with a face as if he’d rather turn into stone himself than live his life, she knew that she had to return to Avalon, and search for her brother’s remains once more. 

Her guilt and regrets were like a living creature beneath her skin - a second self that was questioning and sometimes judging her every move ever since the moment Merlin struck her down with Excalibur. 

She didn't know if there was any hope of achieving something after she already failed and yet she knew that she had to try. A full moon stood high in the sky right above the broken tower in the center of the lake. Her voice was nothing but a whisper, as fragile as the fog she walked through, as she continued to recite her spells, over and over again, a quiet singsong in the thick, inky darkness as it swallowed her like a giant beast.

She knew that she had been at it for hours as the clock struck midnight. The wind carried the faint chime of the church bells through the night. Something shifted in the world around her. She could feel it. The air had become warmer, all of a sudden. She could almost feel the earth pulsating beneath her feet. Suddenly, she knew exactly where to turn. There was a pull, like two magnets finding each other. Deep down she knew that she was on the right track and she wondered just why she hadn't been able to find the spot last night with Merlin. But now her feet were carrying her quicker and her voice grew louder. 

There was a pulsating underneath the earth, a heart beating out of control, loud and panicked and confused. Lungs tried filling with air and failed, struggling. She kept chanting her spell, hoping and praying that she succeeded. Then, a hand thrust through the dirt and grass, pale and dirty.

※※※※※※※

When he stepped onto the train there was nothing he brought with him except the clothes on his back and the one thing of Arthur’s that he always carried with him for over a thousand years. The sigil of Arthur’s mother was heavy in the pocket of his jacket. A familiar weight that kept reminding him of his purpose. Now it was weighing him down and still, he couldn't let go of it. There was nothing else he needed to take. Nothing of value anyway. His caravan would fall apart and rust away - unless the mayor would finally snap and confiscate his land to build new houses on Lake Avalon.

He found a seat in an empty compartment and leaned into the soft cushions. The moon stood high above Carmarthen and, for just a second, he felt like something in the world had shifted. Perhaps it was the land realizing that Merlin was leaving once and for all. Maybe the world was breathing a sigh of relief.

As the train started moving he held his breath and swallowed his anxiety and the funny feeling in his stomach. He felt like he was betraying everything he held dear, like he was betraying Arthur, like he was finally severing a bond that had been there for over a thousand years. He closed his eyes, pressed his head into the cushion, and took a deep breath to slow his beating heart.

-End of Chapter 5-

Chapter Text

Confusion. That was the first thing - the first emotion - that he could clearly identify. The next feeling was pain. It pierced through him like a lance. White hot pain shot through his brain. He was stabbed. He had been stabbed. Mordred’s face appeared in front of his mind’s eye. His sister, staring down at him, her face a grotesque mask of cold hatred and murderous intent. Merlin. Sweet, kind Merlin. His eyes filled with unshed tears, a world of grief behind them. Merlin wasn’t supposed to ever look so grief-stricken. His heart ached for his only friend. There were so many things he wanted to tell him still, so many things left unsaid between them, so many emotions they never dared to address in the past. Now it was too late.

Something was pressing down on his chest as if he was buried beneath heavy rocks. His first instinct was to draw in breath but all it gave him was a mouth full of dirt. Panic settled into his heart as he realized that he had been buried indeed. Buried. Not burned. Not send out onto the lake. Buried.

No rational thought went through his mind as he started clawing at the dirt that covered him like a blanket. He struggled and scratched and clawed until, suddenly, his hand burst through the dirt and he felt the air against his fingers and his palm. Freedom was within reaching distance. His lungs were burning and cramping as they hungered for air. He knew he didn't have much time left now. He managed to get his other hand out as well and then he was fighting an uncoordinated battle against his grave, pulling and pushing until his head burst through the dirt like some perverse abomination of a rebirth. 

And then air. Fresh air. His lungs burned as he breathed in like a drowning man. They ached as he filled them to the brim with air. Above him, a myriad of stars twinkled back at him and a full moon shone brightly in the night sky. He didn't know how long he stayed like this and just breathed. Then, a face appeared above him, black hair framed a pale face. Merlin. 

Green eyes stared back at him.

“Brother,” Morgana whispered and Arthur acted before he could think about it. He pushed himself out of his grave and staggered away from his sister on unsteady legs and feet that didn't quite seem to listen to his command. He was a newborn fawn, a dead man returned from his grave.

“Merlin,” He said. His tongue felt heavy and sluggish in his mouth. He tasted dirt. Panic settled deep within his bones as he found himself staring at his sister with Merlin nowhere around. “MERLIN!” He yelled, looking around frantically. “What have you done to him? Where is he?”

“Arthur,” His sister began but he didn't listen to her. He whirled around and started running. Running without a goal, without a destination, without knowing where he was. He needed to get away from the witch and back to Camelot. He needed to find Merlin and rescue him from whatever prison he might be rotting in right now. He could hear Morgana’s voice distantly behind him but he kept on running anyway and soon the branches of trees were cutting his naked arms and his cheeks. He didn't even register that he wasn’t wearing any shoes - or anything except his breeches.

The last thing he remembered was Merlin holding him in his arms as he died but that couldn't have been the last thing that happened, could it? Something else had to have happened. Merlin had saved him, saved his life, and then what? They had been separated, he had been stripped of his weapons and his armor and buried alive. But why?

He burst through the tree line, a wide path was in front of him, black like tar in the night, winding through the trees like a snake. Then a loud, strange sound ripped his eardrums, and light brighter than the sun blinded him. He didn't even feel the impact as he was struck.

※※※※※※※

Merlin’s face hovered above him, tears in his eyes, running down his pale cheeks. He looked exhausted, panicked, hopeless, and so full of pain and grief. He could see his heart shatter into a million pieces right in front of him.

“Thank you,” He heard himself whisper when all he really wanted to say was ‘I love you’.

He jolted awake and half expected to find himself in his bed in Camelot. Instead, he was greeted by an unfamiliar white room. A hospital, his brain offered and he had no idea where that information even came from. He knew it was true, though. A strange-looking machine was beeping softly next to his bed and as he slowly started getting his bearings back he noticed the tubes and wires that connected his body with the machine. 

“How are you feeling?” A female voice coming from his left-hand side addressed him and made him turn his focus away from his surroundings and at the person next to his bed. Morgana. Was he locked in some sort of nightmare? She didn't look like he remembered her, though. She wore strange clothes like he hadn't seen before - yet, he knew what they were called: jeans, a T-shirt, sneakers. A far cry from the Morgana he saw last as Merlin ran her through with Excalibur. His head hurt. So many conflicting thoughts and emotions. He could name most of the things surrounding him and still, he was confused by them. Morgana’s eyes were soft, not full of hatred - just like she used to look at him when they were still friends when her murderous desire didn't outweigh their familial bond.

He wanted to say something but the words got stuck in his throat. Only now did he notice the dull pain in his head and … everywhere else.

"You were hit by a car," Morgana said. "A car is-"

"I know what a car is," he said even though he didn't know how he knew that. It didn't matter. He would figure everything out soon enough. "Where is Merlin?" He didn't know why but the moment he woke up in this grave he had expected Merlin to be there. Subconsciously he knew that a lot of time had passed since Camlann but his rational mind still refused to make sense of it. Morgana seemed just as surprised as he was.

"I don't know," she said finally. "I went looking for Merlin when I knew you were fine but I couldn't find him anywhere. It's like he vanished into thin air."

"What did you do to him?"

"Arthur, just- what do you remember?"

"Everything," he said. "Camlann, Mordred … you. I remember you dying, I remember Merlin dragging me around. I remember … dying. I remember things I shouldn't know. Like … cars. Where is Merlin? What happened? And how are you still here?"

"It's a long story," she said. "I'm sure Merlin will be here soon. The moment he realizes that you are back he will come barreling through that door. He waited so long, after all."

"How long is … long?"

"One thousand and five hundred years," she said.

One thousand and five hundred years. The number didn't make any sense to him no matter how often he turned it over in his mind. He had never been a man of words but now they failed him completely. He tried to imagine Merlin walking this earth for a millennium, waiting for the day he would return from the dead. The thought was too painful, yet he couldn't even quite grasp it. Merlin, all on his own. For some reason, he wasn't even surprised that Merlin, his Merlin, had lived such a long life. He had never quite been able to grasp just how powerful Merlin truly was and yet, as he died, he had felt it. And somehow he had understood, somehow he had learned everything. Everything Merlin had done for him, everything he sacrificed. He tried sitting up.

"I have to find him," He said but immediately seized his attempts as pain shot through him as if he was struck by lightning.

"Lay back. It's a miracle you were not injured worse. Your leg is broken and some of your ribs fractured. Rest. You just returned from the dead - don't return to the grave just yet. You have time, brother."

Strangely enough, in the presence of a seemingly immortal being, he didn't feel like that. Still, he leaned back against his cushions once more. He threw a tentative gaze at Morgana. It was strange seeing her here, seeing her … like this. Friendly, almost.

"Tell me what happened."

"It's a long story."

"I don't have anywhere else I need to be."

※※※※※※※

The afternoon sun brushed over his face like the caress of a lover. It was warm, no clouds in the sky, and the sun was already low. The sounds of the city were barely audible in the park of the hospital where his sister had brought him with the aid of a chair with wheels. He felt like his head was going to explode as he just sat there, surrounded by the beauty of the summer flowers and bushes, the sound of birdsong, and the muted conversations of other patients and their loved ones. Morgana was quiet. He still couldn't wrap his head around how odd she looked. Nothing betrayed her ruthless personality or her raw, unbridled power.

She had spent all day talking, explaining things to him. The thing that mattered most, however, wasn't a topic so easily discussed. Merlin still hadn't shown his face. He would have started to believe that Merlin was long dead if his heart wouldn't have told him differently.

"I called Leon earlier." A part of him wanted to ask how she did that but another part of his brain knew how. It felt like there were two minds inside his skull, fighting for dominance. He simultaneously felt like a fish out of water and like he had always been here - as if the knowledge and wisdom of centuries had been stored inside of him without him ever learning any of it. "Knowing him, he will be here by the morrow."

Leon. His first knight. To know that Leon was still here, roaming this world brought him great comfort. His joy of being able to see his old friend again soon was only dampened by Merlin's absence.

"You said that Merlin stayed in Camelot all these years."

"He did," she said with a soft sigh. "He describes it as his ‘watch’. He lives by the lake, or rather where the lake used to be, not far from the spot where you … well … returned."

"He never left Camelot?"

"Only to visit Leon a handful of times. For a couple hundred years he worked as a physician, healed the sick, aided the helpless but, according to Leon, he lived like a ghost for the past … well … almost one hundred years. He gave up, lost hope that you were ever going to return."

The Merlin he knew would have never given up any fight. He was much too stubborn for that. His Merlin had never given up and never shied away from any fight. He was sure that Merlin would soon be here. He would show up at the hospital all flustered and wide-eyed and Arthur would finally see him smile once more. He felt like he was the one who had waited for Merlin and not the other way around.

"When I found him here the other day … I barely recognized him. I mean, he looks the same but he is not the same Merlin you knew, Arthur. There is a darkness inside of him now that I haven't seen before in his eyes. The years of hopelessness changed him, corrupted him."

"Not him, no," He said resolutely. Nothing could ever corrupt Merlin. He was sure of it. Even if he was as downtrodden as Morgana suggested that he was, Arthur was sure that he would be himself again, as soon as Arthur and Merlin would finally reunite. “Merlin is the bravest and strongest man I’ve ever known.”

Morgana breathed out a soft chuckle. “The two of you,” She muttered, shaking her head. “I've never quite understood your relationship. But I do suspect you didn't either.”

“He was the first true friend I ever had,” Arthur said. “Simple as that. He didn't care about our differences in status. He treated me not like a prince but like a human being. Before Merlin came around, I never quite realized just how lonely I truly was all my life. To my father, I was just a commodity. I was the heir to his dynasty and his kingdom - not a human being, not a son. I do believe he loved me in his own way but there was always the matter of my mother’s death between us. For the longest time, I believed he blamed me for it until I learned the truth. I think, in a way, it was inevitable that Merlin and I would meet. I was born of magic and he was born with magic. We were destined to meet.”

“You love him,” Morgana said with a soft smile. “You can just say it, Arthur. There is nothing wrong with it. You will see that this world, this time is much more open and friendly than the world you knew. You don't need to hide who you are. You are free to love who you want to love.”

“Love,” He murmured, turning the word over in his mouth. The word seemed too small. He had thought that he loved Gwen. He thought Gwen loved him. In a way that was true and still, he knew that they had both lied to themselves. Above all, they had been friends. It had taken dying to understand that Gwen’s heart truly belonged to Lancelot, not him and that his own heart was Merlin’s, not Gwen’s. As he lay dying in Merlin’s arms that was exactly where he wanted to be. He hadn't wanted to be with Gwen then. He had wanted Merlin by his side - and only him. “Did you find love?”

“I did,” She huffed, her face as unreadable as the sphinx. “A few times. And I saw them die but I never regretted falling in love." The way she said it made Arthur think that she didn't want to elaborate. Not now, at least. Not yet. 

"I still don't understand what is happening to me. This world is foreign to me and still it isn't. My mind seems to know how the world around me works but to me, it's all strange and confusing."

"Perhaps it's a gift from the triple goddess," She murmured. "To give you the knowledge you need to find your way around in this new time."

“It feels strange,” He said. “Like someone is whispering in my ear at all times, narrating, explaining things to me. I feel like a fish out of water and, at the same time, like I’ve grown up in this modern world.”

“Well, I for one am glad that I don't have to explain the world to you,” Morgana snickered. “You will probably get used to it.”

“It makes my head hurt.”

“You were hit by a car, I think your concussion is what makes your head hurt.” She rose from the bench she was sitting on and grabbed the handles of his wheelchair. “Let's get you back to bed.”

The next morning came without even the slightest hint of Merlin anywhere. Instead of Merlin, Leon showed up, looking exactly like Arthur remembered him. Only his hair was a bit shorter and he was wearing a suit. He couldn't even begin to describe what he felt when he was reunited with his first knight again. It was beyond everything he had ever been able to imagine. Relief was too weak a word to describe his feelings or the way his heart swelled at the sight of his friend. They hadn't always been friends. Leon had been a knight like him before he was king and he had been loyal to Arthur but friends they had become only after Merlin had changed him for the better. 

Long gone were the days when he had to pretend to be someone else so that Leon would give it his all during a jousting match. For a while they just sat together, Arthur on his sickbed and Leon on the chair next to it, talking like nothing happened. He listened to Leon as he talked about his life during the past centuries. He listened with great interest to Leon's tales of adventure but they could only temporarily distract him from his thoughts about Merlin.

"Have you heard anything?" He asked after a while. "Of Merlin?"

"No," Leon said grimly. He did his best to hide his worry but Arthur could still read him. "Radio silence."

"What do you think this means?"

"With Merlin, it's hard to tell sometimes. He wasn’t home when I arrived this morning and went looking for him. Morgana told me that he didn't come so I went looking. If I didn't know any better, I would say he left."

A pit opened in his stomach. No. Merlin couldn't have just left. He wouldn't. 

"I'm sure he will be here soon," Leon said as if he read his mind. "Even if he did leave to get his head clear after the disappointment, he will return. He never left Carmarthen for more than three days. I mean it would be typical for Merlin to leave for a while just when you finally return."

"His timing was always horrible." He tried to joke but it was harder than he would have thought. "Where would he have gone?"

"Mostly when he left his home he came to me, to London. He never went anywhere else. If he had gone to London, he would have arrived before I even left or my butler would have called." It unnerved him beyond belief that not even Leon seemed to have an idea where to find Merlin. “I’m sure he will show up soon.”

Everyone kept saying that, Arthur thought, yet Merlin was still missing.

※※※※※※※

A few days later, when Arthur was released from the hospital, there was still no sign of Merlin anywhere. It was Leon who picked him up and drove him out to Avalon. He wanted to see where Merlin lived. Perhaps he would find a clue then, he thought, where he might have gone. 

As they arrived at Avalon, Arthur paused and took in the sight before him. Where the lake once glittered under the light of the sun was now a lush meadow speckled with beautiful wildflowers in all colors of the rainbow. He had a feeling that this was Merlin's doing. Somewhere in this meadow was his grave. Something else caught his attention then. A rusty old caravan standing near the tree line. It had once been painted blue but now the color was flaking off, looking like some giant animal had dug its claws in its flesh and ripped the skin off.

He was shocked to see Merlin’s dwelling, shocked to imagine him living here in the middle of nowhere, far away from all other humans, waiting for his return.

"He had a house once. He built it himself after your death. But it was burned down by a group of kids in the seventies. Afterward, he bought this caravan and parked it here. I kept telling him to build a new house but he refused."

"I'm not surprised," He snorted. "That's just like him." He walked over to the vehicle and with every step he took, he expected more and more to find Merlin behind that door. He could almost feel it, Merlin's presence. He quickened his step and reached the caravan. He didn't waste his time knocking as he just ripped the door open. He was almost afraid that he was ripping it out of its hinges. 

"Merlin!" He called, expecting to receive an answer but he was only met with silence. The caravan was a mess. A tarp lay on the ground and puddles had gathered on the plastic. He could just make out the leak in the roof above. Clutter had accumulated on every surface. Empty mugs, books, and newspapers. He couldn't help but smile as he took note of the piles of books everywhere. That was just like Merlin, his Merlin, his bookworm. The bed in the nook to his right was unmade and rumpled. He could just about imagine Merlin lying on his nest, surrounded by his books, the sunlight filtering in through the window just over his bed, his hair tousled.

There was no sign of him anywhere, though. It was like he had just left to go get groceries and would be back any minute. Leon didn't follow him inside and instead gave Arthur a moment to just take it all in and get a feeling of Merlin's world. He took a deep breath as if he could still smell him here.

He walked over to his bed and sat down on it. His heart ached for the man he once called his friend. Everything ached inside of him. He felt his throat constrict and swallowed a sob. Merlin seemed so near and yet worlds were between them. He wasn't here and Arthur had no idea how to find him.

He sat there and thought about the last time Merlin and he had slept under a canopy of stars. They had talked about the things they wanted. "I want peace for Camelot," Arthur remembered saying. "I want a whole week off to go visit my mother," Merlin replied with a laugh. He hadn't known then that it was the last time, otherwise, he would have told Merlin the truth and told him what he really wanted, that he wanted nothing but Merlin's heart. Instead, they had joked around and tried to act as if their future wasn’t grim.

A tear managed to slip out of his left eye but he wiped it away angrily. Now was not the time for tears. He would find Merlin. No, Merlin would walk into this caravan, see him, and he would start crying like a little girl.

※※※※※※※

Three more days had passed and now Arthur thought that he knew every nook and cranny of Carmarthen. Camelot had changed beyond recognition. Leon had shown him to the ruins that were left of their former home and they had spent hours walking around what was left of the citadel.

Now Arthur was alone. Leon and Morgana both had left for London but promised to return in a couple of days. In a way, Arthur was relieved. He needed time to himself, time to think and figure out where Merlin might be.  What if something happened to him? It would just be their luck. Arthur would return to this world and his beloved Merlin would be ripped from it.

That day, he found his way into the Arthurian Legends Museum, one of the oldest buildings in town. He hadn't particularly cared for the museum but with nothing else to do, he found his way into it either way. He walked through the halls, and chuckled at some of the artifacts, especially at those that had to do with Merlin. He found a section about Gwaine 'the green knight' that had him roll his eyes at the over-exaggerated nature of his stories. He read about Lancelot's tales and the romance between him and Guinevere and about his own heroic tales. He couldn't help but shake the feeling that Merlin had influenced them here and there.

As he reached the very heart of the expedition, however, he stopped dead in his tracks with a small gasp.

The room was dominated by a marble statue in the center.  It was like looking in a mirror. The statue was his spitting image but there was no plate attached to it that told the world who made it. Not that it would be necessary. Arthur could tell right away. This was Merlin’s work. He almost felt his magic in the stone as he gently touched it. He brushed the tips of his fingers over the line of the statue’s right cheekbone, feeling the details in the stone. Yes. Only Merlin would be able to create such a masterpiece. Only he would recall all those details of his face. He could almost see him, his brows furrowed as he worked in concentration, chipping away at the marble, sweat running down his temples, his linen shirt clinging to his skin, sunlight shining down on him on a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky as he worked outside on the stone. And of course, he wouldn't keep such a statue. It would have been too painful for him. If their roles were switched, it would have been too painful for him to stare at a statue of Merlin all day long and not be able to hear his voice, his laughter, or feel his skin under his fingertips.

“Oh, Merlin,” He whispered into the silence of the room. Suddenly the room felt like a tomb. “Where are you, Love?”

He didn't know how long he stayed inside the museum, in this very chamber. At some point, he had taken a seat on the bench opposite his statue and he couldn't bite back the tears any longer that threatened to spill for what felt like days now. Anger held his heart in a tight vice. He thought about all the mistakes he made in the past, and thought of the way he treated Merlin at times. He thought of his last couple of days, of the trust he put into Mordred and how the boy betrayed him in the end. He wanted to throw things. He wanted to destroy things.

-End of Chapter 6-

Chapter Text

He couldn't sleep. Two weeks. Two weeks and not a sign of Merlin anywhere. His wounds were healing well - with Morgana’s assistance, even though she kept mentioning that healing magic was not her forte - and two weeks later he was walking just fine on his crutches through Carmarthen. Morgana had wanted him to take residence in the Excalibur hotel right in the heart of the old town but Arthur, in a fit of longing, had insisted on using Merlin’s caravan. Just in case. Maybe Merlin would show up in the middle of the night. It was a silly thought but he couldn't help it. 

Merlin’s bed was soft, his many pillows fluffy and huge and the covers smelled like him. Even after all this time, Merlin still smelled the same. Herbs, cornflowers, and earth and something altogether Merlin that he couldn't name yet. Perhaps it was his magic. He had never known magic to smell of anything but Merlin wasn’t your run-of-the-mill sorcerer either. He had realized too late how special Merlin truly was. A God amongst men and yet he had chosen to serve Arthur of all people. He had chosen to be Arthur’s friend, despite his father’s tyrannical rule and his cruel laws, despite the injustices Merlin himself had faced and been subjected to time and time again.

And now Merlin was gone and he couldn't find him. 

He sat up in Merlin’s bed, swung his legs over the edge, and stood carefully. His leg felt worlds better already. He left the caravan in his boxer shorts, holding onto the walls for support and putting his weight on his good leg. The night was warm and not a single cloud obscured his view of the stars above. A crescent moon hung over the island in the middle of the former lake like a children’s mobile over a crib. A part of him wondered if Merlin was there, in the remains of the tower. No. Morgana had gone there and checked. At least she told him that. He didn't have a reason to distrust her these days. She seemed redeemed - even though he would have never thought that possible. She wasn’t quite the Morgana from his youth but she wasn’t the Morgana that had raised an army against her own brother either.

It wasn’t just Merlin’s absence that stole his sleep, though. Whenever he did fall asleep, he dreamed of all his mistakes, of the horrors of the past, of Camlann - of Merlin, of all the times he had almost lost him and the horrors Merlin had to have endured in Camelot as he had seen sorcerers getting executed and living under Uther’s tyranny. And then under Arthur’s tyranny. He had never understood how much Merlin had suffered in Camelot and he would never understand why Merlin had stayed with him regardless. Destiny be damned. 

He sat down in the grass and looked up to the stars. A part of him perhaps hoped to find a sign of Merlin up there in the myriad of twinkling lights. Some hint of where he might have vanished to. He had wasted so much time living in denial about his feelings for Merlin. He had wasted so much time trying to be happy with Gwen despite knowing that her heart belonged to someone else. She had tried to love him as he had tried to love her. He remembered her teasing him about it once. She never quite dared to outright address the situation, not seriously. Those conversations had always remained teasing remarks and jokes for neither of them had dared to venture into this land of truth as it might have just burst their bubble of denial they had been so comfortable in. Yet, she once told him that it had taken him weeks to notice that something was wrong with her after the dark tower and yet it had only taken him mere days to notice that something was wrong with Merlin simply because he hadn’t smiled in a couple of days. He had brushed her off with a joke of his own that he couldn't even remember now.

As he sat there, staring into the starry sky above he wondered what Merlin might have seen in these stars. 

He had never wanted anything but to see Merlin laugh and smile, to know that he was safe and happy. Perhaps that was the reason why he had noticed it whenever Merlin had lost his smile for any prolonged time in the past.

Was he smiling now? Now that he was far away from this place and Arthur’s shadow? Was he happy now wherever he was? Did Arthur have any right to try and find him now that he had freed himself? Perhaps he had tried to escape not his watch but Arthur himself. What if he knew that Arthur was back from the dead and had chosen this exact moment to leave because he had not wanted to see him again. Why else would he leave the very day Arthur returned to him?

He had told Merlin that he never wanted him to change and wasn't it just like Merlin to vanish in a situation like this? His Merlin…

He got back up.

Nobody just vanished into thin air, not even his Merlin. There had to be something. A hint. Anything. He had left his car behind so he could have only taken the train if he wanted to travel to London or elsewhere.

He still felt like a fish out of water. He was a man who had been ripped out of his own time and thrust into a world he didn't quite understand. He didn't belong in this world and his world no longer existed. And yet he had been blessed with a knowledge he didn't ought to possess. It was a gift, he presumed. From whom he did not know. And since he was in possession of that gift, he knew how to find the clues he needed.

He knew that it was late but he thought that his sister owed him one or two favors.

※※※※※※※

Morgana had not been happy to be woken up in the middle of the night but she had not been above breaking into the security office of the train station in the middle of the night. Despite knowing what cameras and computers were, Arthur had no clue how to actually use any of those devices. His sister, however, navigated this modern world with ease and a friendliness he wasn’t used to from her. Apparently, she truly wanted to make amends.

It was three AM and the security office had been deserted for a while but Morgana had warned him that this would soon change again. “This might take a while,” Morgana said as she sat in front of the computer and started going through the footage of the night of Arthur’s return to the world of the living. 

“Can’t you use magic?”

“Oh you’ve come a long way truly,” She snickered. “I can try but since I don’t know when and if he might have been here to take a train, it would be quicker to just review the footage instead of experimenting with spells.”

“Do you think he might not have taken a train?”

“I don't know,” Morgana said. “These days I don't know what he would do. There was a time, a long, long time ago, when I thought that I knew Merlin, that I knew how he would act and what he would do but then he poisoned me to stop the Knights of Medhir and much later even I found out who he truly was. These days Merlin is a stranger to me. When I found him here in Carmarthen, he was about to kill someone with his magic - and not in self-defense either. No. He stalked the man like he was prey and he went after him with the intention of murder. No matter what happened between us in the past, I never knew Merlin to be a cold-blooded killer and certainly he wouldn't have used his magic in such a brutal way against someone defenseless, someone without magic. But, well, since he left his car, there are not many other ways he could have left but via train.”

“And if he has not left at all?”

“Carmarthen is not such a big place that he could be hiding in some cave or something.”

“And what if he did something to himself?”

“He is immortal,” Morgana commented. “There wouldn't really be any sense in even trying.”

Arthur, however, thought that he remembered something like it. Of course, it was impossible. Yet, he had the distinct feeling that he remembered Merlin in the cold waters of Lake Avalon, long after Arthur’s death. It was probably just a strange dream he had or a memory of a different event during his lifetime. He decided not to address this any further as Morgana wouldn't be able to answer any questions anyway. Instead, he looked over her shoulder and watched the footage as she sped it up slightly when she reached midnight of the night he returned. For a while nothing at all happened. They saw people dancing across the screen but no sign of Merlin. He was about to give up the closer and closer it got to morning but then there he was. Even sped up Arthur would recognize him anywhere - even on the grainy security footage. 

“There!” He gasped and Morgana immediately stopped the tape. Arthur felt his heart soar and break all at once as he saw Merlin. He still looked like he remembered him only that his hair was longer and he was sporting what looked to be a bit of a beard. He couldn't help the wet-sounding laugh that escaped him as he took in his appearance. Good to see that Merlin still dressed like a mess. He noticed the glance Morgana sent his way but he decidedly ignored her.

“It's almost midnight,” She said, pointing at the timer in the corner. “That's moments before you returned.” She started the video again and they watched as Merlin walked to the ticket booth, bought a ticket, and headed towards the platforms. Morgana switched cameras, fast-forwarded to the right time and together they followed Merlin onto the platform and watched how he got into the waiting train.

“Midnight,” She then said as the train started moving. “There is only one train that leaves Carmarthen at Midnight.”

“How do you know?”

“I checked,” Morgana huffed. “A few days ago actually. I checked what trains left the night of your return but since I didn't know when he left, it was rather pointless.”

“So? Where is he headed?”

“Scotland.”

※※※※※※※

Scotland was not much to go by. Scotland was a big country, after all, and all they had was the train number and the fact that Merlin had been headed in that direction but they didn't even know if he truly went to Scotland. He could have stepped off the train anywhere on the way up north. And even if he had gone to Scotland - he could be anywhere in the world now. Their chances of finding Merlin with only this information were devastatingly slim. Yet, it was the only hint they had.

Twelve hours later, Morgana and Arthur were in London, sitting in Leon’s parlor and having tea with their old friend. As everything lately it felt strange being here in this parlor with Leon, being in London even. He had never ventured this far and everything inside of him craved exploring.

"Scotland seems to be our best guess,'' Morgana said. “We don't have much else to go on. Perhaps we should just go to Edinburgh and do the same as we did in Carmarthen. We look at the security footage of that day. If he went there, he would be on those cameras and if he took another train we will know.”

“And what if he never went there?” Arthur sighed.

“Then … Well, then we really don't have any way of finding him. He could be anywhere.”

It looked grim but then Leon came forward, his eyes suddenly growing big. “Wait a minute!” He said. “He told me once in 1547 that he wanted to see the Highlands one day.”

“And you only remember this now?” Arthur replied perhaps a bit sharper than he ought to do. Leon didn't seem to mind, though.

“When you live for as long as I have, you start forgetting one or two conversations you had with your only immortal friend,” Leon defended himself with s lopsided smile. “I don't even know if he truly ventured there. I think Morgana is right. We should head to Edinburgh and see from there. If he went to the highlands, he would have taken another train from Edinburgh.”

“What would he even want there?” Morgana scoffed. “If I would have been stuck in Carmarthen all my endless life I would have … I don't know, went to Bali and got a tan. Or Paris. Literally anywhere but the Highlands.”

“He said that there is still magic there.”

“Did he mean Hogwarts?” Morgana laughed. “Well, then we should pack our bags boys. We will leave in an hour.”

A part of him wanted to argue that he wanted to go alone but he knew that he wouldn't get very far. He had no money and no idea where to go and what to do, not to mention that he would need Morgana’s talents if he wanted to have a look at the security footage in Edinburgh. He stared idly out of the window as their train wound itself through the countryside and tried to take in all the wonders he was seeing for the very first time. He could still not wrap his mind around the miracle that was his rebirth after such a long time or the fact that he had been blessed with the necessary knowledge to navigate this new world and its strange technology without looking like an absolute nutcase. Maybe at some distant point in the future, he would finally be able to understand it all but now was not the time.

Fat, heavy drops of rain started hitting the window he was leaning his head against as they traveled further North. His gut told him that they were heading in the right direction. It was almost like he was being pulled towards Merlin, his other half. He wondered what it would be like to see him again after such a long time. 

As if she could read his mind, Morgana looked up from the book she was reading to regard him with a worried glance. “Merlin won’t be the same as you remember him, you know?”

“Well … I would expect him to have changed a bit in over a thousand years.”

“No … It's… I mean, sure he changed a bit but … I just want you to understand that it won't be like it was back in Camelot and I don't know if even Merlin ever realized that it will never be like in Camelot again. Too much happened and he has seen and experienced too much. Your death changed something. Changed him.”

“I understand.”

“No,” She said again. “I really don't think that you do. You can't. You have not met him. This new Merlin.”

He felt an irrational sense of jealousy at those words. Morgana should be the last person who had the guts to tell him anything about Merlin - his Merlin. And yet he had to agree that Morgana knew what she was talking about in terms of Merlin, as hard as it was to accept that. 

They arrived in Edinburgh when night fell and Morgana’s words still hadn't left him. Together they checked into the nearest hotel, grabbed some food at a restaurant, and exchanged stories - or rather, Arthur listened to their stories. It felt strange being the one to just listen to their stories without having anything to contribute. He remembered sitting around a campfire in the woods, the starry sky above him, listening and exchanging stories with his knights, feeling a sort of companionship - friendship - that he had never felt in his younger years. 

All this had been possible because of Merlin, he knew. Merlin, who waltzed into his life with total disregard for who Arthur was and called him an ass right to his face. Merlin, who brought laughter into his life. Merlin, who stubbornly stuck to his side even when he fired him or behaved like, well, an ass. A royal one. It was Merlin who introduced Lancelot to him and because of Lancelot’s friendship with Merlin, the man came back around when Arthur needed him the most, bringing Percival with him as well. It was Merlin who befriended Gwaine and called for Gwaine’s aid as Arthur was on his quest to the perilous lands. Merlin, who got Gwaine to help Arthur again and again. Without Merlin, the seats at the round table would have remained largely empty. Worse. Their seats might have been taken by knights who didn't deserve a place at Arthur’s side.

“Did I ever tell you the story of how Merlin and I first met?” Arthur asked eventually. 

“I think I remember that day,” Morgana said. “It was when that witch nearly killed you.”

“No, it was actually a couple of days earlier.” He couldn't help but grin as he remembered that day. “I was … doing target practice with a servant. I was behaving like an absolute ass.” He laughed and Morgana rolled her eyes. There was a certain fondness in her eyes, though. “In other words, Merlin walked in on me bullying a servant and he confronted me. He didn't even know who I was but he didn't care anyway. He only did what he thought was right in stopping me from tormenting that poor guy. I thought he was the biggest idiot in history. To talk to a prince like this. I think my father would have executed him right away if he had known how Merlin behaved towards me. But I … Well … I was kind of impressed by his guts. He confronted me not once but twice, just after first setting foot into Camelot. Even after he learned that I was the prince, he still didn't back down. I had never met someone like him before. Up until that point in time, all the people I thought were my peers, my friends, were nothing but cronies, yes-men. They were close to me not because they liked me but because they wanted to get ahead. Merlin, on the other hand, didn't like me at all and he made that quite clear from the start.”

“He was never shy with his opinion about you,” Morgana cackled. “I remember when he was taken into your service. It was exactly what you needed to pull you down on the ground again. Back then you were insufferable! You were so full of yourself! Icarus flying too close to the sun!”

“I agree,” Arthur huffed. It was the truth after all. He had been so full of himself, that even Leon had not dared to fight him fairly in a tournament because he didn't want to bruise his prince’s ego. “I would have died to that witch or Valiant if he hadn't waltzed into Camelot.”

※※※※※※※

Later that same night, they snuck into the security office of the train station where Merlin would have arrived, if he had traveled to Edinburgh. Morgana took care of everything as the security guards conveniently fell asleep the moment they walked into the room. Soon they had located the right tape and fast-forward to the time Merlin should have arrived at the station and, after waiting and staring at the monitor, switching through the cameras, finally, they found him. Merlin walked through the train station like nothing bothered him at all. 

“He’s taking another train,” Mprgana then informed them as they watched Mrlin walk towards another platform. “I think you were right, Leon. He is heading up further North towards the highlands.”

“The highlands are big, though. How do we find him?”

“The train he takes goes to Inverness. I think that's our next best reference point.”

Inverness it was then. It seemed like they were looking for a needle in a haystack and still Arthur couldn't give up on hope. He would find Merlin. 

-End of Chapter 7-

Chapter Text

Before him lay the vast open plains of the highlands under a stormy sky. Dark clouds hung heavy and filled with rain in the sky, so low that Arthur thought he would be able to touch them. The grass was high, moving like waves in the wind. The air was crisp and the sun was still rising on the horizon. They had spent days trying to figure out where Merlin might have gone. At first, their travels had brought them to Inverness but after checking the security footage there once again with the help of Morgana’s magic, they had quickly realized that Merlin had already left Inverness after a couple of days. It seemed that they were always one step behind the man. Merlin evaded them like a ghost, like trying to catch the wind with his bare hands.

In the end, their hints had brought them to Glencoe and, right when Arthur had first seen the place, he had known that they were on the right path. His instincts were guiding him, something inside of him calling out for his other half and feeling it in the distance. It was like seeing a glimmer of gold on the horizon. Merlin's magic calling for him.

He had left Leon and Morgana behind at the hotel after he had heard of the hermit living in the hills. They had tried to argue with him but Arthur had not listened to them. He had bought suitable shoes in the hotel shop, a jacket against the rough winds, and started his journey into the hills. It was the first time that he was well and truly alone since all of this had started. He rested his weight on a stick. His leg might have healed but he still didn't trust putting his entire weight on it. He wondered in what state of mind Merlin truly was after he only had Leon and Morgana’s description.

He could see the house in the distance and felt how his heart started racing at the sight. A crooked chimney reached into the gray sky but there was no smoke coming out of it. Well, it was summer, after all. He wondered if Merlin was home if it even was his home.

Arthur took a deep breath and started walking again. There were sheep dotting the hills like little white clouds. He remembered the picnic he once had with Gwen, when he had mused about leaving Camelot, running away to buy himself a farm and land - and how he would obviously take Merlin with him. He wondered if Merlin had made this dream of his a reality now. Instead of running away to see the world, he had bought himself a herd of sheep to live in the highlands - even more secluded than he had been in Carmarthen. He couldn't help but laugh to himself. That was just like him.

He would have liked it better if he would find him in Paris or Rome or literally anywhere but in the Scottish highlands surrounded by sheep. 

The closer he came to the house, the clearer the feeling in his gut became - this pull. As if an invisible string was pulling him towards Merlin. He could see a figure sitting in the tall grass surrounding the house. 

The clouds grew even darker. The storm would soon hit and then he would be stuck out here. As only a couple of meters separated him from the figure in the grass he stopped dead in his tracks. He would recognize that messy head everywhere. His heart stuttered at the sight and leaped out of his chest. When he had imagined finding Merlin, he had not imagined it to feel this intense. His hands were sweaty, his heart racing.

"Merlin!" He yelled before he could think twice about it. The figure seemed to jump out of their skin, their head shooting up before the rest of their body followed.

He was too far away to see his face but that wasn't necessary as Merlin suddenly turned and ran.

"Merlin!" He yelled again and started running after the man. He saw how Merlin stumbled over something on the ground and slammed face-first into the dirt. 

He couldn't help the laugh that tore from his throat as he quickened his pace to reach his friend before he could start running again. “As clumsy as I remember, I see!” Arthur grinned as he reached him. Just as he was only a few steps away, Merlin turned around to get back up. There was a scratch on his chin from his fall, blood trailing gently down his throat. Stubble was lining his jaw and his hair was a wild mess. “Though it's not Camelot, it's quite nice here,” Arthur said. “I'm not quite sure I like the stubble though. Will you say something?”

Merlin stared at him with huge eyes.

“Merlin?” He reached out to the other man to grab him but before he could touch him, Merlin’s hand shot forward and Arthur was catapulted backwards. He landed hard on his back a couple of yards away from where Merlin had fallen and when he sat up he only saw the door of Merlin‘s house slam shut. 

Completely dumbfounded, Arthur sat on his ass in the tall grass. He could only stare in confusion at the small stone house in the distance as if the building held all the answers he was looking for. Merlin had never attacked him with his magic or any other way.

Perhaps it was way worse than Morgana and Leon had claimed. It seemed almost as if he was completely out of his mind. He had never seen him this scared before, not even after he had confessed to his magic. His pupils had been blown wide, tainting his blue eyes black for an instant. He had reacted like a cornered animal, lashing out to protect himself.

Arthur got back to his feet in spite of his now aching back. He was hit by a sudden wave of spontaneous nausea. His head ached but he soldiered on regardless. After searching everywhere for Merlin, he would not back down now that he had found him. Soon he reached the tiny stone cottage and hammered with his fist against the old wood of the door. He could feel the coarse roughness and splinters beneath his knuckles. Wind and rain had worn the cottage down over the decades it already stood here at this spot. 

“Merlin!” He called through the door. “Merlin open the door!”

Above him, thunder growled threateningly. He had been warned by the hotel staff that he did not want to be out there during a storm. He looked over his shoulder. The sheep seemed completely unbothered. “Merlin, you big girl, let me in already!”

But the door remained shut. The first drop of rain fell on his shoulder. He should really get going. “I’m not leaving!” Arthur threatened. “And if I get pneumonia and die again it's your fault!”

He was met with silence from within the cottage. If he hadn't seen Merlin run inside, he wouldn't even know if he was in there. He slammed his hand against the wood one last time before he turned and looked around. The wind was picking up already and more rain started to fall. The drops were like icy fingers on his skin.  Soon it was pouring from the sky, drenching him.

"Fuck," he groaned as he dragged his fingers through his soaked hair. "Honestly, Merlin … only you would run away and hide after so long a time of you waiting for me." 

He had walked all but three steps from the door as it suddenly swung open. Arthur whirled around. Merlin's eyes were huge and wild as they met Arthur’s gaze.

"Are you real?" Merlin's voice was deep and raspy - deeper than he remembered it to be.

Instead of saying anything, Arthur rushed forward. Merlin was about to take a step back but Arthur quickly grabbed Merlin by the collar of his knitted sweater. He pulled him closer and pressed his lips against Merlin’s lips without wasting another second to think or another decade to secretly pine for this man. Merlin’s lips were surprisingly soft against Arthur’s own lips. His eyes were still comically wide and before the moment could truly sink in, Arthur pulled back again.

"Do you know when I knew that I loved you?" Arthur asked before Merlin could do or say anything. This was not necessarily the way he had planned on doing any of this. Preferably, he would have elaborately courted Merlin first. A few picnics, here and there, a couple of nice candlelight dinners, perhaps. But now that he finally had the chance to talk to his ever-elusive manservant, he wouldn't waste it. After over a thousand years in his grave, Arthur felt as if he had not a second to waste. "I don't mean the moment I fell in love with you. I mean the moment I realized that I have always been in love with you?"

Merlin, unable to form a coherent thought, blinked at him like a goldfish.

"It was when we were on our way to Lake Avalon and when you defended me from the Saxons that we encountered on our way, the moment you turned to look over your shoulder and said ‘It's just another part of my charme’. This was the exact moment I finally understood that my heart has always been yours. There I was, on that horse, dying, and all I thought about was not Gwen or even Camelot. It was you. Your smile. And I thought to myself ‘This is the last time I will ever see that smile’. And I was terrified knowing that I would leave you behind.”

Merlin produced a strange, croaky sound in the back of his throat.

"And now I find you, after searching far and wide for your stupid face and can barely recognize you."

Beneath all the confusion there was a flicker of hurt in Merlin’s blue eyes. Finally, Arthur let go of his collar only to cup his face with both his hands. He couldn't fathom letting go of Merlin now in any way - too afraid that he would turn into smoke or run like a rabbit again. "But you are just as beautiful as I remember."

"Are you real?" Merlin asked again, his voice barely above a whisper and almost impossible to hear over the roaring storm.

"You waited too long," Arthur replied softly. "And the moment I come back you vanish into the Scottish highlands of all places. Of course, I'm real, Dollophead.”

Merlin let out a wet-sounding laugh and dove forward on his own to capture his lips. He could taste his salty tears as their lips melted together. He pushed his fingers into Merlin's ebony curls, felt the softness beneath his skin, the stubble poking his chin, as they deepened the kiss, Arthur’s tongue easily slipped past the barrier of Merlin’s full lips and met its counterpart. He felt like he was hit by lightning. Electricity shot through his veins. When they parted this time, they were both out of breath and the rain was beating down on him relentlessly. Merlin’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes full of wonder. In an ideal world, this kiss would have solved everything. Back in the day, it might would have solved everything. A part of him half expected for the world around them to shift, that they would be back in Camelot under a sunny sky, that all of this had merely been some cruel curse that could only be ended by true love’s kiss. But the Scottish highlands around them remained steadfast and the sheep calmly ate their grass. This kiss and the look in Merlin's eyes, however, held the seed of hope.

“I don't understand,” Merlin whispered. “Morgana said-”

“Maybe you'll let me in first and then we'll talk.”

Merlin seemed to wake from a trance. He all but jumped into action. A moment later a flash of gold in Merlin’s eyes and Arthur’s clothes were dry even before he had stepped into the cottage. “Well, that's neat,” He joked as the door fell shut behind him. “That would have come in handy back in Camelot.”

“Oh, it did,” Merlin replied. He sounded wrecked - as if he had screamed and screamed for hours. “Every time you made me watch your stupid training in the rain. I couldn't use it as much, of course. I always had to fear that someone would catch me and that Uther would burn me.”

“It's good to hear that you, at least occasionally, used your pea brain,” Arthur commented dryly. It was strange to hear Merlin’s voice again, to talk to him like this. “I must admit that I had my doubts - especially since my return and when I saw the absolutely abysmal state of your dwellings. Even for you, this caravan was a bit … much.”

“I always meant to repair the roof.”

“It would have taken a flick of your wrist! I always knew you were lazy!”

“Not nearly as lazy as you,” Merlin said. Arthur could hear that he was desperately trying for humor and yet couldn't quite succeed after all. There was a deeper reason than just laziness for Merlin’s inability to fix the roof of his caravan or clean his dwellings. Even he could tell. Merlin, despite all those comments or jokes, had always been anything but lazy.

Their reunion was awkward and even a bit stilted but that had to have been expected, he supposed, after so long a time separated, after so long a time between then and now. Morgana was right, Merlin wasn't the same man he knew. But Arthur also knew that, deep down he was still in there. All he had to do was dig him back out. He just wondered if it would be so easy.

※※※※※※※

When night fell, Arthur found himself in front of the fireplace with Merlin. His friend’s eyes were directed at the fire with that far-away look that Arthur had, in the past, chalked up to Merlin zoning out when he was bored but now came to realize meant that he was deeply lost in his own head. For hours, he had listened to Merlin’s tale. He had listened to Merlin describing the fall of Camelot, the Viking invasion, and the wars that tore this country apart. At times, it had almost been unbearable and the worst, perhaps, was that he could tell that Merlin was holding back information, that he was not telling him everything that was on his mind. 

The thought concerned him greatly. Merlin keeping secrets from him had never boded well. 

Outside the cottage, the thunderstorm was still raging violently. "Your sheep," Arthur said after a while to break the silence. "Aren't you worried about them?"

"No," Merlin drawled. "I put protection charms on them after Nelly got lost the other day."

"Nelly?"

"She is one of the old girls, particularly stubborn. Reminds me a lot of Gaius, actually."

He chuckled at the mental image. "Won't they be scared out there though?"

"Only a spoiled prince could ask such a question," Merlin replied with a lopsided grin. "I can hardly call them into the cottage, can I? Morgana and Leon … won't they be worried if you don't return?"

"Oh well," Arthur shrugged his shoulders. "It won't do any harm if they worry a little. Especially Morgana. And Leon … well … I need to have a few stern words with him anyway."

"About?"

"You," he said. "I told him, before Camlann, that, if anything happened to me, I would trust him completely to take care of Gwen and you. He was meant to keep an eye on you."

"I didn't quite allow it," Merlin said. "When you died, a part of me died as well and life seemed to have lost all meaning. Poor Leon, he did what he could."

"He didn't do enough then. He was Camelot’s first knight after all."

Merlin’s hand twitched as if he meant to reach out to him but, at the last second, he stopped himself. Arthur, however, had no inhibition. He reached over to Merlin and grabbed his hand. "You were my whole world," he said. "I was just too much of a coward to do anything about it."

"What am I going to do now?"

"What do you mean?"

"I waited one thousand and five hundred years for your return. This was my entire purpose and now … I don't know what to do. I've lost myself along the way, nearly killed a man out of pure malice with my magic. I have lost my purpose and there is no destiny for me to uphold anymore."

"You don't need destiny or a purpose, Merlin. Your wait is over. You can rest now … live your life like you should have done all this time."

"It can't be so simple, it never is."

"Your paranoia is unmatched."

"My paranoia is what saved your royal backside," Merlin replied. "Well … until it didn't…"

"You know that it wasn't your fault, yes? My death."

"Oh, but it was. If I had been honest, if I had told you everything, if I had warned you about Mordred or told you about Morgana sooner, if I hadn't listened to Kilgharrah and helped Morgana instead of abandoning her when she needed a friend who understood her, maybe Camlann would have never even happened."

"But you couldn't have known any of that back in the beginning. You only ever did what you thought was right."

"And because my devotion towards you was bordering on irrationality."

“Bordering?” Arthur teased.

“I still don't understand how you came back, though,” Merlin then said. 

“Are you complaining?”

Merlin looked as if he had struck him. He regretted his choice of comment immediately but Merlin, brave Merlin, soldiered on, schooling his features into a less vulnerable expression as he shook his head.

“Of course not,” He said. “I just don't … understand. Morgana and I walked that place together and she tried her best. Jesus, no matter how much I want to curse her and pretend like she didn't, I know that she tried. When she couldn't find you, when she couldn't bring you back, my heart broke all over again. The prophecy said that you would return when Albion’s need is greatest and I waited for you ever since that dreadful day. I watched the world burn and suffer through countless wars and plagues. I lost hope a long time ago. With every war that came, I thought: this is it. Mankind has found yet another new way to commit horrible atrocities. Certainly, you will return. Yet, you never did. Not when thousands suffered in the trenches, mustard gas burning their lungs. Not when millions of people were slaughtered in the concentration camps or when atom bombs fell on Japan. I kept wondering to myself just what needed to happen for you to come back. And I started dreading that day because I didn't want to imagine what kind of utter horror had to take place for that day to finally come. And now you are here.”

“I don't pretend to have the answers to your questions,” Arthur said. “But the prophecy talked about Albion’s need - not the world’s. You are Albion, Merlin. You are all that is left of the old world. Perhaps it was your choice to give up and leave Avalon once and for all that did the trick, I don't know the answer either. I’m just happy that I am finally back at your side.”

A sob left Merlin's throat and a second later, tears were streaming down his face. He crumbled in on himself as if he was falling apart right in front of him. Before he could waste a thought about it, Arthur bridged the distance between them and pulled Merlin against his body until his face pressed into Arthur’s stomach. He had never been good at dealing with tears, especially not when they came from a man. Somehow male tears were different from female tears. No. That wasn't the problem now was it? It was his father who, from his earliest childhood onwards, had drilled it into him that boys didn't cry - shouldn't cry. He didn't flinch away from Merlin's tears, though. All he wanted was to comfort him.

He didn't know how long they remained like this, Merlin pressed against him, his arms wrapped around Arthur's waist, sobbing into his sweatshirt as thunder clapped in the distance and lightning turned night into day. He cried as if he wanted to shed the tears of over a thousand years. At some point, Merlin's tears dried up and Arthur could feel his exhaustion as if it was his own.

"You need sleep," Arthur said.

"No." Merlin was nothing if not stubborn.

"Merlin…"

"I'm scared that you will be gone again when I wake up."

"I won't,'' Arthur promised. "I'll stay right by your side."

"How can I be sure?" He asked.

"Because I will hold you in my arms all night - as I should have all those years ago."

"I'm not the man you once knew."

"That's alright. Neither am I."

-End of Chapter 8-

Chapter Text

He woke up engulfed in warmth to the gentle pitter-patter of rain falling on the windowsill outside, tapping against the glass of the window. At first, he wasn't quite sure where he was or why he felt so comfortably warm and protected. Then he noticed a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist. His cheek rested against a firm, toned chest. He had had this dream before. Countless times. It was torture. This time the dream felt even more real than it ever had before. The smell, his skin pressing into the soft folds of a shirt, the arm around him tightening ever so slightly, the rising and sinking of the ribcage, the gentle rain outside.

He caught himself thinking that it might not even be a dream, that it might be real after all. He hated himself for this thought. Time and time again he fell for his own mind playing such tricks on him. He refused to open his eyes, refused to allow reality to seep back in and destroy this dream.

He wanted to remain here forever. He wanted to stay in this wonderful bubble, this dream, for all eternity. Perhaps this finally was death. Perhaps now finally he had found peace at last.

"I can hear you thinking," the sound of Arthur's deep voice sounded in the room, raspy from sleep. He could feel the vibrations of his vocal cords against his cheek. "Stop it."

He opened his eyes and the bubble didn't burst, didn't shatter into a million tiny shards like a broken mirror. "Is this real?" He whispered.

"Yes," Arthur hummed, his voice low. "I'm real and so are you."

He didn't dare to look up. He was still afraid that the bubble would burst if he did. Of course, the Arthur from his dreams or this hallucination would proclaim to be real. It was all just a big game, wasn’t it? "I want a ceiling made of stars," Merlin said slowly. He tried to imagine being back in the Darkling Woods, lying on the cold, hard ground, leaning against a tree, occupying his mind with this little game Arthur and he used to play when they were alone out there. Alone, because Arthur needed time away from the splendor of Camelot, away from the people who relied on him, away from his father, from Gwen, from his knights.

"I want … a sword made out of pure gold," Arthur replied with a low chuckle. He could feel it vibrate beneath his head.

"I want a floating bed."

"I want a house on a mountain."

"I want a villa in Greece."

"I want a castle in Italy."

"I want to go somewhere warm and sunny."

"I want to go with you somewhere warm and sunny."

Finally, he looked at Arthur and saw him looking back at him. A smile played on Arthur’s face. It was like a dream - truly. The voice in the back of his mind remained strong, warning him not to give into this fantasy of having Arthur right here with him, of lying in Arthur’s strong, welcoming arms. Then again, what was the worst that could happen? He had lost his mind a long, long time ago. He would become the weird, crazy hermit that lived in the Highlands surrounded by sheep and the ghost of his king, of the man he so desperately loved. Nothing changed. Only the scenery was different.

"So," Arthur said eventually. "What do you think? Are you about ready to ditch your sheep and ride off into the sunset with me?"

It couldn't be so easy. And it wasn't. Even though Arthur was back, that did not change who Merlin was now - what he had turned into. He thought about Jonathan, the young man he would have killed with his magic had Morgana not intervened. He would have committed a murder, a cold-blooded, cruel murder to avenge the death of that poor woman. The Merlin Arthur had known a long time ago, wouldn't have done such a thing. That Merlin had only killed to defend himself or protect Arthur. He was a completely different man now and regardless of what Arthur said, he didn't quite know if Arthur could even comprehend what he was getting himself into.

"Where do you reckon we go?" He still asked quietly against all better judgment.

"France?" Arthur asked. "That's where my mother is from, after all."

"Do you really think that you could leave your kingdom? Albion?"

"You are Albion," Arthur said resolutely and his eyes shone with a love that Merlin only knew from his wildest dreams. He clung to this fantasy with all his might. "You are my kingdom. My sun and my stars."

"Now I am sure that you are under the influence of something."

"Love?" Arthur suggested coyly and even had the gall to wiggle his brows. It still felt all so strange now. There were two voices battling inside his head. One voice was unwilling to believe any of this, that Arthur was back and that they were here, together like he always hoped one day they would while the other voice wanted to embrace this new reality, this fantasy, this delusion, and just be happy even if it was all a dream. 

"I don't know if you understand what you are getting yourself into. I am … well and truly broken."

"Nothing could ever break you." There was steel in Arthur’s eyes now. The same kind that Merlin knew from Arthur’s days as king, a conviction that left no room for any kind of argument. This was the Arthur, the king, who led his troops into battle, always the first to charge. This was the Arthur, the king, who never left anyone behind, who was steadfast, honest, and true. "You are the strongest, bravest man I’ve ever known, you just lost your way - that is all. You lost touch with who you are. And I, for once, am glad that you did because otherwise, I would still be dead in my grave."

"If you put it like that…"

"So?” Arthur asked, changing his tone, aiming for something more jovial. “France?"

※※※※※※※

Arthur was running late again. He knew that he shouldn't worry, that there really was no reason to worry. Arthur was fine. He just went to the shops to get some groceries that Merlin forgot earlier. He glanced at the clock over the kitchen door. Morgana and Leon would be here in an hour. Rain was tapping against the windows of their cottage and wind sang outside in the trees. It was already dark. What was taking him so long? What if something did happen after all? His heart started racing. What if Arthur had an accident? What if his car lay in a ditch somewhere? Arthur had insisted on learning how to drive. Merlin had been against it, of course. So many people die in car crashes every year.

He started pacing the length of the kitchen, nibbling at his thumbnail. Lately, he couldn't stand being separated from Arthur. He knew that it was ridiculous and that, sooner or later, Arthur would realize that Merlin would never get better. He would snap - rightfully so - and leave.

It was October and months had passed since Arthur’s return but ever since they returned from their travels abroad to Carmarthen, Merlin would get antsy and nervous when he didn't know that Arthur was safe. For some reason, it had been easier while they were traveling. 

You are being ridiculous, he chided himself. Arthur will be here any minute now.

He wondered if Arthur already regretted being with Merlin. He knew that he wasn't right in the head, after all. They both knew it. Yet, Arthur was too much of a gentleman to say anything. Sometimes, though, he would get this look in his eyes. Merlin was afraid to put a name to it. Pity, perhaps? Resignation? Disgust? Arthur was a man bound by honor, a man who stood by his word - always - and now he was bound to Merlin and had to suffer through his manic episodes.

He deserved better. Perhaps he should free him from his vows. For that, Arthur needed to come home first, though. Home, to their nice stone cottage in Carmarthen. Where was he?

He could feel himself spiraling.

“Fuck this!” He exclaimed, grabbed his jacket that was thrown over the back of a chair, and headed towards the door - just as he heard the jingle of keys and froze in his movement. A moment later, the door opened and Arthur came in as if nothing was amiss, rain dripping from his jacket and a plastic bag in his left hand.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called and Merlin wanted to scratch his eyes out. From one moment to the next, his fear turned into vicious fury. “It's raining cats and dogs outside! Hopefully, it will clear up in time for Halloween, or otherwise those poor kids-”

“Where have you been?” He cried out and hated himself for his reaction. The smile on Arthur’s face started to falter. “I was worried sick!”

“I’m sorry,” He said placatingly. That only fueled Merlin’s anger. He was not a child or a hysterical wife. He did not want to be placated. “The store was packed. People buying Halloween candy. You should have seen it! There was nothing left on the shelves! But” - He rummaged through his shopping bag until he produced chocolate. “I managed to grab your favorite! I fought a mighty battle but I was victorious!”

He knew what Arthur was trying to do and he did not care for it right now. He was angry and not in the mood to be calmed like a child or a wild, fire-spitting dragon. As if he could see it on Merlin’s face, Arthur furrowed his brows. “Love,” He said, his voice dropping lower as he did. “What's wrong?”

“You were supposed to be back half an hour ago! Morgana and Leon will be here any minute! And I thought-” He stopped himself and instead clenched his jaw so hard it made his teeth hurt.

“What?” Arthur asked, a hint of irritation now present in his tone. A panicked voice in the back of his mind told him to shut up and that he was ruining everything. “What did you think?”

“That something happened to you!” He dropped his shoulders and felt himself deflate. “Every time I don't know where you are, every time you are running late, I start panicking. I’m afraid something will happen to you when I’m not sure where you are. It's driving me insane! I always expect the worst! Something is wrong with me!”

“Merlin-”

“No, you don't get it!” He choked. “You died in my arms and that moment never left me! I was supposed to protect you! To save you! I failed so what hinders fate from taking you from me again?”

“Merlin!” His tone was commanding now and the bag was forgotten as he dropped it and the chocolate to grab Merlin’s shoulders instead. “Do you really think I wouldn't know how you feel?” He wanted to say something but Arthur didn't give him the chance. “In my dreams - even now - I keep seeing the moment you were struck in the chest by that mace, the second we were separated through that rockfall, the night you drank poison for me, almost losing you to the Dorocha! Every time you are not near me, I wonder if you’d gotten yourself in trouble again and I did so all those years ago. My worry for you has been a constant companion ever since you drank from that poisoned chalice. I turn mad with worry for you. I love you, Merlin, more than anything in his world. I would burn cities to the ground for you! You are not crazy. You went through a hell that I don't want to imagine. If our places had been swapped, I would have turned mad the moment you died.”

He didn't know what to say to this. It felt like Arthur had pulled the rug out from under him with this confession. Suddenly, he felt beyond stupid for his rant and his worries. He had always known that Arthur worried about him, even back in Camelot - at least in some capacity - but he had never quite realized the extent of it.

“We are a proper pair of weirdos, aren’t we?” Arthur then asked with a sheepish smile on his face. All Merlin could do, though, was to surge forward, grab hold of his collar, and smother everything one of them could possibly want to say in a kiss. Even when the doorbell rang, they didn't part.

-End of Chapter 9-