A/N: See? I said it wasn't the end! I have no intention of stopping with Merlin and Morgana and this universe anytime soon. I hope you enjoy this latest installment!
Five years later…
Morgana shuts the door behind her and sighs, tossing her bag onto the wrought iron bench in the entryway. She slips off her trench coat and shakes out her soaked hair. It had begun to pour on her walk from the tube to her building, and all she wants to do is get out of her clothes and into bed.
Aithusa bounds into the room, meowing, and Morgana kicks off her heels and stoops down to pick him up. "Hi, baby." She nuzzles the top of his wrinkly little head and steps into her tiny kitchen. She's still full from the sushi she'd had delivered to the office, but she lets Aithusa go and pours herself a glass of water.
Her flat is much smaller than the penthouse. It only has one bedroom and no views over the park, but it's home now, even if it rarely feels like it on all of the nights she spends alone. She rarely has anyone over who isn't Arthur or Gwen or Elaine, and she never lets anyone sleep over, save the one time Gwen had fought with Arthur and the other when Galahad had appeared at her door and slept on the sofa, heartbroken and afraid to go to Elaine.
She pads into her bedroom, swilling the water around in her glass, and picks up the box of sleeping pills beside her bed. Every muscle in her body aches and she contemplates taking one now and going to sleep without showering, but the grit and grime of the house she'd investigated with Galahad come back to her and she shudders.
Stripping, she makes her way into her en-suite and turns the shower dial to the hottest setting. The scalding hot water steams as it hits the tiles, and she steps into its jets, letting it pound into her sore muscles. She rings out the rest of the rainwater from her hair and lathers it with shampoo.
Her hair is as long as it's ever been, her safety blanket from the rest of the world. She'd chopped it all off after everything that happened, thinking it would be cathartic and allow her to face her new life with more strength, but all it had done had been to force her to look into the mirror and see someone she couldn't even begin to recognize.
She'd vowed then to let it grow back out and never cut it again, and she'd stuck to her word. She always sticks to her word, stubbornly, devotedly, and she feels the better for it. Even when it leaves a hollow pit inside of her chest that cannot be filled by any amount of work.
Aithusa's soft mews sound through the rush of water, and she thinks back to how lucky she is for having the cat with her. She'd forgotten him when she'd fled that terrible night. She'd been too distraught with what she had to do to remember to take him with her, but Gwen had tracked her down days later, cat and promises to stick by her in tow.
She turns the shower off and the shrill sound of her phone follows the muted, late night silence.
Pulling on her bathrobe, she screws her eyes shut and hopes it isn't her office. She loves Elaine and Galahad and she's even grown to truly love her work, but under no circumstance does she want to go back in instead of sleep on a Sunday night.
But of course, she has to.
Aithusa is sitting on the bed, hissing at the ringing phone when she steps into the room to answer the call. Elaine's office number flashes across the screen, and she sighs. "Morgana Pendragon."
"Hi, Morgana," Gwaine, Elaine's secretary says. "Elaine wants to speak to you."
"Can't you tell her I'll take care of whatever it is tomorrow?"
"That isn't the problem, Morgana. She wants to speak to you now."
"Then put her through."
"In person."
"You can't be serious."
"I'm sorry, Morgana."
Morgana looks at the sleeping pills and her fluffy, turned down duvet and sighs, mindlessly scratching Aithusa behind the ears. "Give me half an hour."
"This had better be good," Morgana says, walking into Elaine's office twenty-seven minutes later. She'd dressed in a hurry, tying her sopping wet hair into a tight bun at the top of her head and slipping into skinny black trousers and the emerald green slippers she can't bear to give up.
"Isn't it always, my dear?"
"Not when it's quickly approaching midnight and I'd rather be home, asleep."
"You know I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't important."
Morgana sighs, going to sit across from Elaine at her desk. "Whatever it is couldn't have waited until morning?"
"This time? No."
"What is it then?"
"I need you to make yourself scarce over the next week. I don't want to see you in the office, and you'll be working on your own for a bit."
"Have I done something wrong?"
Elaine's stern façade falls, and she smiles at her protégée. "Of course not. I just need Galahad's attentions elsewhere, and I need for you to concentrate on something new." She turns the screen of computer around to show to Morgana. "Dr. Nimueh, the theologist/archaeologist – I take it you've heard of her?"
Morgana nods. "She shows up on BBC programmes from time to time."
"Exactly. Well she's claiming to have uncovered something major about the Druids, but she won't say what. She's preparing for a major announcement."
"Okay…"
"I know this is asking a lot of you, but I need you to go down to the university and look into it."
Morgana narrows her eyes, not liking where the conversation is going. "Which university?"
Elaine keeps her gaze coolly fixed on her. "Monmouth."
"Oh, no. No, no, no."
"Morgana."
"I can't go down there."
Elaine sighs, leaning back in her chair. "I'm ordering you to."
"I'm done with the university. I haven't been there since I finished my master's, and I don't see what this has to do with us. How is an academic announcement going to negatively impact our society?"
"You'd be surprised."
"Why can't you put Galahad on this?"
Elaine laughs. "I know my own son. I don't think he'd seamlessly fit into the university environment. Besides, I have him on another mission."
"And there's no one else?"
"Morgana, I really think this would be good for you."
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"You're thriving, but you haven't been truly happy in all the time I've known you. It's been years now, and I think you need something more in your life. Going back into the university environment for a few days might do you good."
"So I can revisit the past?"
"So you can revisit the world you loved. Journalism isn't your passion, and though I know you enjoy taking down corrupt old men as much as I do, I think you need something a little more fulfilling than your investigations."
Morgana challengingly raises an eyebrow. "It's important work."
"Believe me, I know, but does it make you happy, Morgana? You wanted to take down Uther, but Morgause bullied you into doing more, and then you stayed even after she broke her word to you and I fired her."
"So I have done something wrong?"
Elaine rolls her eyes and looks at the ceiling. "Morgana. Truly, you're like a daughter to me. I'm saying this because I care, and I don't want you to spend the rest of your life simply surviving the day to day. I want to see you be happy. You're amazing at what you do, and it would be foolish of me to push you in another direction. As your boss, I don't want to lose you. Ever. But that doesn't mean that there isn't room in your life for something more."
"So you think I should go back to school?"
"I've seen you when you get onto your topics. You light up like you do with nothing else. I think you should take advantage of this case and spend a few days in your old world. Maybe talk to your old supervisor."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you don't. But as your boss, I'm still ordering you to go down there tomorrow morning."
Morgana glares at her mentor but then acquiesces, "Fine. I'll go, but I'm not making any promises."
Elaine smiles and reaches across her desk to pat Morgana on the hand. "That's all I ask."
Morgana's pulse races as she makes her way onto the Monmouth campus the next morning. She hasn't walked through the university gates or made her way into any of the buildings in almost five years, and the once familiar pathways send memories hurtling towards her from every direction.
The bricks beneath her feet remind her of early mornings walking to class, thrilled to be able to concentrate on a topic she loves. The fallen leaves bring back her first meetings with her supervisor and their long discussions about her thesis. The bright, turning trees contrast with the barren, late winter nights in the library followed by early mornings at the coffee shop.
Everything comes rushing back to her in bittersweet bursts, and she wishes just for a moment that she could go back in time and relive those months in an endless loop.
The past five years of her life have had their moments, but she knows Elaine is right. For all of her accomplishments, she isn't happy, hasn't truly been since that night years ago. She's rebuilt her life and found a purpose. She has friends and colleagues that fill her time, and she's rebuilt her relationship with Arthur thanks to Gwen's persistent help, and she has a loving, albeit still strained, family in them and their tiny, little daughter. But she isn't happy.
She barely remembers what it feels like to have joy running through her veins, to light up and truly feel like she's living the life she wants to live. She feels invincible but numb, successful but lonely, and she knows she'd give those things up in a heartbeat just to be able to feel again.
A student crashes into her and calls back an apology before rushing off, pulling her away from her thoughts. Morgana rights herself and checking the time, decides to stop by her old department and see if Caelia is in her office.
She's halfway there when she changes her mind, turns left, and randomly climbs a flight of stairs. It isn't until she's wandered down the corridor that she realizes that her spontaneous change of plans has landed her in the history department, and it isn't until a familiar voice floats out the open door of a classroom and through every nerve in her body that she realizes that Merlin is still there.