Of all the fanfics I've been wanting to write relating to the finale, this is probably the happiest of the lot. Mostly when I come up with fic ideas now, they all involve a whole lot of angst and depressingness and hopelessness... I wrote this one in the hopes of making me and, maybe, you feel at least a little better.

The lyrics at the beginning and end come from the song "For Good" from the musical Wicked. This song is on my new "List of Songs I Cannot Listen to Or I Will Cry about Merlin." And yet it's stuck in my head really bad...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you, I have been changed for good

The battle of a lifetime had been fought and lost by all. No winner could be declared when the leaders of both armies lay slain in the dirt, reduced to nothing more than a motionless pile of skin and bones and blood with the swipe of a sword. How pointless, for a lifetime of hopes and dreams to lead to a meaningless end on a battlefield.

The dead were the lucky ones. It was the survivors, the ones who had to pick themselves up and carry on, who were left to contemplate the unfairness of it all.

"I was too late," Merlin said, a hoarse crack to his voice. Leon was relieved to hear him speak at all; he'd done nothing but sit and stare despondently at the king's body since the moment he had stumbled into the fray of battle to find that the enemy had already succeeded.

Leon jerked his head once. "We all were. You are not to blame."

Merlin took a deep, shuddering breath. "I knew, Leon. For so long, I've known..."

There was a time when Leon would have attributed this strange statement to the many idiosyncracies that comprised Merlin, but since seeing the flash of Merlin's eyes, the snap of Mordred's neck, the desperate screaming in another language as Merlin held his hand over Arthur's chest, Leon knew that Merlin was telling the truth. Somehow he had known what would happen today.

"Did you try to stop it?" he asked, knowing the answer.

Merlin huffed a short, humorless laugh. "I tried... everything to stop it."

"Then you still are not to blame," Leon said quietly.

Merlin closed his eyes, which did nothing to stop the free-flowing of tears. They were silent, resigned, no accompanying sobs. When had they started? He couldn't remember. He was sure he hadn't been crying this whole time; screaming, yes, more or less shouting at the gods, demanding they heal Arthur, and if they wouldn't do that, then to take Merlin in his place. It was useless. Merlin's magic may have returned, but it did nothing to undo the damage Mordred had caused.

"How far we've come," he said, voice heavy with irony. "Ten years ago I was promised that the future would be better. Albion was supposed to be united by now. Magic was supposed to be free by now. It's my destiny, you know." He laughed again, that same, dead laugh. "I told him he'd got the wrong person. Apparently I was right. Everything I've done, everything I've given up, everything I gave my life over to do... I did it for nothing."

Leon's heart ached for the man in front of him. Merlin wasn't supposed to talk like this. Merlin was supposed to be a grinning, cheeky servant who simultaneously annoyed his master and made Arthur smile begrudgingly. Where had this hollow, world-weary sorcerer come from? Come to think of it, maybe Merlin had been more of the latter for some time now.

Leon's eyes travelled to the other man whose fate put a twist in Leon's gut. Arthur. Leon remembered the spoiled, arrogant prince who rarely showed his inner humanity. Sometimes Morgana could beat it out of him, but mostly Arthur used to treat everyone as though they were beneath him.

Somehow these two opposite men, the peasant sorcerer and the magic-hating prince, had come together and changed each other forever.

"I don't think it was for nothing, Merlin," Leon said, thinking of all he'd witnessed in the past decade - from hunts spoiled by the relentless bickering of prince and servant, to the brazen refusal of a certain king to accept that his friend was dead, to the sound of laughter around a campfire out in the wild where no one had to pretend that the barriers of class still applied. "If you could go back ten years and take it all back... would you?"

Merlin thought back to that day, standing in the dragon cave, incredulous that this giant beast honestly thought Arthur Pendragon was going to be a great king, and that Merlin was going to do anything to help him get there. Fat chance that was, considering the very same Arthur Pendragon had recently thrown him in jail, thrown him in the stocks, and then topped it all off by trying to put a hole through Merlin's head.

The only thing that had kept him rooted where he was back then was the promise that someday, he would live in a united Albion, free to practice magic in the open in a land where everyone was accepted.

Well, that hadn't happened, that much was obvious. If he could go back, what was there to stop him from laughing in the dragon's face and turning round to go home?

Except... Camelot had become his home. He couldn't imagine having gone back to Ealdor to raise pigs and harvest crops. He loved his mother and his village dearly, but it wasn't who he was.

If he'd left Camelot that day, Arthur would have died at the feast where Mary Collins sang. Uther would have been left heirless; Morgana might have been named his successor. Gwen would have remained a servant, probably. There were endless possibilities, some good, some bad. Maybe, by some miracle, something else would have saved Arthur that night, and every night on until he was king.

But Merlin wouldn't have been there. He wouldn't have stood behind Arthur to fill his glass during feasts, chattering away every time he did so because he knew Arthur secretly (or, in some cases, not so secretly) got bored with them. He wouldn't have learned what it was like to go up against insurmountable odds and win.

Arthur might never have fallen for Gwen, and he wouldn't have opened up to Merlin about his feelings for her. Merlin would've never lost Freya, but he wouldn't have met her, either.

He wouldn't have befriended the rambunctious knights of Camelot, or the gossiping servants in the kitchens. He never would have seen King Uther's face as he realized he had married a troll. He wouldn't have been with Gaius when his old flame returned to Camelot.

No Arthur smearing gaia berries on his face. No riding off on their own to face the unknown with nothing but Arthur's sword, Merlin's secret magic, and a whole lot of banter to keep their minds off things. No heart-to-hearts when one of them was down. No silent understanding that they had each other's backs. No almost-hugs, rat stew, sneaking around after dark, playful swats, dragon-fighting, food-stealing, poison-drinking.

Nothing of the closest friendship Merlin had ever had.

The tears weren't so silent anymore. "No," Merlin choked out, vision blurring as he looked at the face of the man who'd come to be his best friend after they'd gotten over their bad start. He looked so much older than the young prince he'd met ten years ago, but he knew that underneath all the pain Arthur had endured, all the betrayal he'd gone through time and time again, his heart was still the size of Albion, and that... that was something. That might just have been worth it. "I wouldn't change a moment of it."

Perhaps it had been for a little more than nothing.

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better...