Rex, a merlin fanfic

Title: Rex
Author: EachPeachPearPlum
Rating/warnings: T, largely for language. And, this being post s5, major character death, and all assorted emotions that go with it.
Disclaimer: Oh, how different things would have been if it were mine.
Notes: This is not what I normally write. The angst, yeah, but Arthur/Guinevere? Nope. Don't believe in it. So quite how this came into being, and how it came to be long enough to be a multichapter fic, I have no idea. It just is. So if you're here expecting one of my normal pairings, you're in the wrong place, and if you happen to find yourself looking at my profile for anything else A/G, you're not getting that either. But whatever. Hope you enjoy...

Rex - Chapter One

The sun rises. The sun sets.

Guinevere waits.

Arthur will be home soon.

His people need him. His kingdom needs him. His queen needs him.

His wife needs him.

Their child will need him.

Merlin will bring him back to them.

The sun rises. The sun sets.

Guinevere waits.

She isn't sleeping much, not when the windows to their chambers overlook the courtyard. Not when she can stand, the blankets from their bed draped around her shoulders, a hand resting on her abdomen, Arthur's name on her lips.

He will be home soon.

Merlin won't let him die.

The sun rises. The sun sets.

Guinevere waits.

That evening, the third night of her vigil, a horse rides into the courtyard.

Guinevere is already fastening a cloak over her nightgown when there is a knock on her door.

"My lady," Leon says as she yanks the door open, preparing to race her way to the steps into the courtyard, greet her husband with a smile and a kiss, feel him whirl her into his arms as he won't be able to for much longer, when her belly grows large with his child.

"My lady," Leon says, his face twisted, wrecked, and Guinevere feels her stomach lurch. "My queen, Guinevere, it's not..."

"I see," Gwen says, falling apart inside but she can't show him that. If this is not Arthur returning, then...there are no words. There will never be words. She must be stronger than this. "I see."

Get to the point, she wishes she could tell Percival, who looks so small despite his stature. Tell me what I need to know. Tell me about Arthur, tell me he yet lives. She cannot, however. She is queen. She must be stronger than this.

"Morgana caught us," Percival says, holding the rapt attention of the entire court, what feels like the entire city, gathered to hear news of the king so beloved to them. "Of course she did, the plan was madness. We stood no chance whatsoever. We were separated, she...she tortured Gwaine."

Percival swallows visibly, his face paling. "I broke my restraints when I heard-he screamed, and it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. I was there when he died. Morgana was already gone." Something sharp appears in his face, and Percival goes from dwarf to giant in less than seconds. "It wasn't Gwaine's fault. Morgana forced it from him. He didn't have a choice."

Percival shuts up, his jaw clenched, and for all Guinevere wishes to stand up and scream at him, slap him for wasting her time, demand the knowledge she wants, she cannot. Percival is telling his story, from beginning to end, and this clearly matters to him. "I know," she states, trying not to sound as angry as she wants to. "Sir Gwaine's loyalty is not in question, nor will it ever be." She knows she should say something more, praise Gwaine, show some grief for him, but she does not have the patience or the strength or the selflessness for it.

Percival nods, blinks too much and too quickly for it to be anything other than an attempt to hold back tears, then goes on. "I followed her, found her body. Someone ran her through."

"Morgana's dead?" Leon asks, stepping slightly forwards from his stance beside Guinevere's throne, and even now, after all these years that Morgana has been lost to them, there is still grief in his voice. It is little more than a whisper – the girl they loved is long gone and they know it – but present nonetheless. "Who?"

"I don't know," Percival answers. "I didn't stop to look for anyone. There were signs of a struggle, and Arthur only had Merlin with him."

He shouldn't have needed anyone else, Guinevere thinks, had Merlin been as good as his word, as good as Gaius promised he was. Arthur should have been fine with only Merlin.

Arthur should have been home.

"I continued to the lake," Percival continues, his eyes darting from Guinevere's to the floor. "I am sorry, my lady, I wish I brought you other news."

"Where is he?" Guinevere asks. Not 'what happened?' because Percival won't know anything more than the few pieces anyone without knowledge of Merlin's true self would have seen. Not 'does he live?' because she knows the answer, and hearing it aloud will break her spirit as well as her heart. She is not allowed to break, not here, where her kingdom can see her.

"My lady?"

"He is my husband and my king," Guinevere says, rising from her throne and clasping her hands behind her back so no one can see them shake. "You will tell me where he is, and why you have not-" she falters, hears Leon step towards her, the whisper of his cloak on the floor the only sound in the hall, but she cannot accept his comfort here, with an audience. She perseveres. She must. "Why you have not brought him to be laid to rest here."

Percival bows his head, then meets her eyes, dead on; there is moisture on his cheeks, and no sign of shame for his tears. "The lake, my lady. There was a boat. I was there in time to see Merlin push it out."

Gwen can picture it, can see her husband sail out on the water as her brother did only months ago. She can see Merlin struggling to lift him, or not struggling at all, can see him fold Arthur's hands across his chest, rest his sword between them. She can see Merlin sweep the hair from his face, hesitate over whether or not to press a kiss to his brow before deciding against it. She can hear his last farewell, see the tears spill openly down Merlin's face as he walks the boat out into the lake.

"It vanished into the mist," Percival finishes, as Guinevere pictures just that, all traces of Arthur disappearing from this world as Merlin looks on, as Merlin takes from Guinevere the last moments she could have had with the man she loves. And you let it happen, she thinks, knowing it to be cruel and wrong, but thinks it anyway. You let him take my love from me.

"I see," Guinevere repeats, caught again in the only words she can think. She has to shake it off, has to smile graciously but mournfully, Queen but not lover. "Thank you, Sir Percival. Indeed, these are not the tidings I sought to hear, but-" quickly, quickly, she needs a but, needs to find some way of displaying gratitude she cannot feel for the breaking of her heart "-I appreciate all you have gone through to bring me them." These are not the words she needs, don't convey her meaning in any real way, don't tell anyone anything beyond the fact that she is a servant turned queen, too young and stupid to lead them, elevated not by her strengths but by Arthur's love for her.

Arthur isn't here anymore.

"It is late," she says firmly, unshakingly. "You should rest, Sir Percival, and see Gaius for your injuries. The court will reconvene tomorrow."

She rises and begins walking towards the doors, her people scrambling to get out of her way. The guard on the right door meets her eyes as he opens it, grief and compassion twisting his face into a mask that must surely be painful. The guard on the left keeps his eyes on the floor, as they are, technically, supposed to do, but in light of this recent and oh so terrible news, it feels like a rejection of all Arthur has encouraged her to be.

The corridor outside is filled with more people, those who couldn't get themselves into the hall before the doors were shut, all of them looking at Guinevere for something she cannot provide. She has no reassurances, no promises, no anything. All she can do is hold it together as she passes them, as she walks alone through corridors that grow steadily more and more empty the further she gets from the throne room.

She makes it all the way to the room that she will have to learn to stop referring to as theirs, locks the door and drops her cloak to the floor, heedless for the first time since her reign began of the person who will have to pick up after her.

Guinevere doesn't go to the window, because there is nothing for her to wait and watch for any longer.

"You were supposed to bring him back," Guinevere says to the darkness, to the emptiness of her bedroom. "I believed you'd bring him back."

It is selfish, yes, selfish enough that she is almost glad Merlin did not return to Camelot to bring her this news himself. He should have done; it is only right that if he was to fail her, he should have had the decency to tell her so in person, and the only thing worse than Guinevere thinking these things of him would be for him to know she thinks them.

For now, with Merlin's name just another on the long list of people she loves who have left her (her mother, so long ago she can barely remember her; her father, killed by Uther's hatred; Morgana, twisted and broken by fear and magic and fear of magic; Lancelot, forever walking out of her life, dead twice and only herself to blame both times; Elyan, felled before her eyes and all she could do was scream her grief from inside the doll Morgana made of her; Arthur. Arthur, Arthur, Arthur), she is free to hate him, without any fear of hurting him. She can rage freely, curse Merlin's name in the darkness, blame him for the loss of the love of her life and her child's father and know that he will never learn of it. Merlin, the only person to love her husband as much as she does, as an equal, will never know how she hates him in her grief, never.

She can rage and hate him and curse him and it won't matter, won't matter if she mutters cruel truths or equally cruel lies, because Merlin has gone and left her as well.

"Bastard," she whispers, "you bastard, Merlin. I'll never forgive you for taking him like this. I'll never forgive you for leaving me."

Morning finds her sitting on Arthur's side of the bed, desperately holding one of Arthur's pillows to her chest. The tears have dried on her face, finally; each time she thought she was done crying, the thought of her son or daughter growing up without a father, as she and Arthur both grew up without a mother, sets her off all over again.

"I can't do this," she says to the knock on her door, too quietly for whoever it is to hear her. "I can't."

Nonetheless, she stands, washes the salt from her face, unlocks and opens the door the door to find Gaius, aged a decade in the space of a night, wearing a smile just as tremulous as her own.

"Gwen," he murmurs, then grimaces an apology. "My lady, rather. Sorry to wake you so early, but..." He falters, grimacing again, and Guinevere imagines them outside somewhere, the members of their – her – court, discussing whose turn it is to visit their widowed queen next, whose burden she is to bear today or tomorrow or next week or month. "There is business to be attended to, my lady. Envoys to send, missives to write, plans to...plans to make."

"Of course, Gaius," Guinevere answers; she is not the only to have lost something these last days, and if Gaius – for all intents and purposes Merlin's father, Arthur's uncle – can carry on, so will she. She puts a hand on Gaius' arm as she makes her way to her wardrobe to find a suitable dress for the day (mournful but not overly so, dignified but not distant, collected but not cold), offering what little comfort she can give. "I'm sorry."

"As am I, my lady," Gaius tells her, folding her into his arms like her father would have done in years long gone. "As am I."

The whispers start quickly, and they do not surprise her.

How would they, when she thinks the same thing?

"So young," a lord murmurs to his wife as she passes them in the hall on her way to a meeting of the small council (and it is so very small now, half its members in the ground or on a lake or smoke in the wind).

"It was one thing when the king was with us," a gossip mutters over her sewing, not realising Guinevere is within hearing range.

"Does anyone really think it proper for her to rule alone?" says one of the kitchen girls – Emma, a girl Gwen has known for years; they used to sweep floors together, for gods' sake, how can she think that? – says to a friend of hers.

"She used to be one of us," the friend answers. "Can she really be queen without our king?"

Two months pass, though, before the whispers become advice, before someone raises it deliberately, aloud and in her presence.

"My lady," Lord Robert (a small holding towards the south border of Camelot, a severe wife, three daughters and a son, less than fond of Arthur's reign but a greatly prized advisor under Uther's) announces, rising from his seat at Arthur's table. "I know you have tried to lead this kingdom to the best of your ability, my queen, but some facts cannot be denied."

This, too, is not a surprise. Certainly, Guinevere still carries her grief like a young girl with a gift from a lover – hidden from sight during the day, only taken out to be examined when she's locked in her chambers at night, when no one can learn of it and her hollow, sorrowful brokenness – but she is not blind to what is happening around her. It was only a matter of time, and yet she cannot believe the crassness of Lord Robert, who was nearly no one under Arthur's reign, to be the one to suggest it.

"Lord Robert?" she asks, in the hope that pretending not to understand will cause him to lose his courage.

She is not so fortunate.

"If I may speak frankly, my queen, a kingdom is hardly a kingdom without a king. No woman may reign alone."

"Indeed?" Guinevere asks, and whilst she may not manage a disapproving expression of the same strength as Gaius can, her tone is enough that Leon and Percival to her right (Arthur's seat on her left remains empty, as it will all the days of her life, if she has any say in the matter) slide their chairs back, ready to stand if the occasion requires it.

"It was a disgrace for a serving girl to be queen when you had Arthur to reign alongside you," Robert states bluntly. "Surely you do not think you can be allowed to hold this kingdom alone?"

Guinevere feels his words like a blow to the stomach, knocking the air from her lungs so thoroughly it takes her a moment to remember how to breathe. It is one thing to know a few people of her court wish her to remarry, and soon, never mind that the man she loves is barely gone from them in body and certainly hasn't left her heart, and quite another to hear it said to her face that she ought not be queen at all.

Leon stands beside her, as does Percival, hands to their swords, and yes, she is hurt, yes, Guinevere would love to allow them to run him through or drag him off to the dungeon or demand that he show her the respect she is due, if not as their queen then as their late king's wife, but she cannot. She refuses to be the sort of monarch that cannot allow people to disagree with her, or one who will have others fight for her dignity when she can more than do so herself; Guinevere waves Arthur's knights – her knights, now – back into their seats and stands herself, dropping her hand from her stomach now that she no longer has the table to hide her resting it there.

"My husband gave his life for this kingdom, Lord Robert," Guinevere states, as firmly as she possibly can. "Do you think my devotion to the land he has built any less, that I would not give my last breath for the realm, or for any of its people?"

"No, my queen," Robert answers, although Guinevere knows her tone and their audience leave him little choice; it is one thing to suggest she remarries, quite another to accuse Arthur's chosen queen of a lack of caring for her people. "Of course, if your devotion to the kingdom is beyond question, surely it is not so much to ask that you choose a strong man to reign alongside you?"

And oh, that is clever, Guinevere realises, and she has allowed herself to walk straight into it, too. The suggestion that she seek a new king so shortly after the loss of her husband is crass and cruel and easily dismissed; the idea that a refusal to do so is a sign of less than true devotion to her land and her duty is dangerous, one that must be crushed at all costs.

"The matter is closed," Guinevere says. "I serve my kingdom above all else, and it is my choice how I do so. Now, unless anyone has anything more pertinent to discuss, this meeting is adjourned."

The matter is closed, she had said, and so it is, at least where overt discussion is concerned. The whispers, however, continue.

They continue, and Guinevere is not the only one they're getting to.

She lingers after a meeting one day, sitting at the table to leaf half-heartedly through papers; there was something mentioned that she wants to check, but conversation flew too fast at the time and now that she has the chance to do so, Guinevere is quite incapable of remembering what it was. Everyone else has departed already, though, and the excuse of checking her facts is as good as any to earn her a few moments of peace and privacy.

She needs it, more than she ever could have anticipated in the days before her life became this horrible, husbandless thing.

Just for a minute, Gwen allows herself to rest, folding her arms on the table, Arthur's table, and laying her head atop them.

Just for a minute.

"My lady?" asks the hand shaking Guinevere's shoulder gently, low and soft and in a voice that sounds a great deal like Sir Leon. It isn't, though, because Gwen always locks her door before going to bed, and she certainly wouldn't have done so had he been in the room. "Guinevere, my queen, you cannot sleep here."

It is her room, Guinevere thinks, and in the privacy of her own room she can do anything. In the privacy of her own room she can fall apart, and she can certainly sleep when she's as tired as this. She has to, however hard she finds it, because it's not only her own body she has to care for now.

Except her room usually isn't quite so draughty, and Guinevere doesn't usually sleep sitting up, either.

"Sir Leon?" she asks, sitting up and feeling her spine hate her. "I...thank you for waking me."

"My lady," he repeats, pulling out his seat beside hers and beginning to collect the papers left strewn in front of Guinevere. "My lady, you...if I may help you in any way, you must tell me so."

"Must I?" Guinevere murmurs, forcing a smile onto her face. Her tone sounds too much like that Arthur used to use with Merlin, though, brimming with feigned disapproval and good humour and...fuck. "Fuck," she mutters, the first tears beginning to cloud her vision, as unladylike and unqueenly as she possibly can be, and even in front of Leon whose loyalty to the kingdom and the crown has not once been under question it cannot be born. Her weakness must always be her own. "I'm sorry, Leon."

"No, my lady," he answers, pushing the papers aside and resting a hand gently, respectfully, on her arm. And then, "Gwen," he says, the first time since her wedding that Leon has called her that. "Guinevere," he says, sliding from his chair to kneel beside her and wrap his arms around her. "It's only me, Gwen. You can cry in front of me."

It is, she thinks vaguely, the first time someone has held her properly since the last time she fell asleep in Arthur's arms, in the tent before the battle they won in technicality but lost in all the ways that matter to her.

Everyone who would have held her in her grief is the cause of it.

Guinevere sobs into his chest, noisy, awful, public sobs, sobs that wrack her whole being, have her shaking apart and clinging with a desperation that seems insurmountable, unconquerable. Leon displays the same discomfort with this level of emotion as all the men in Gwen's life do, used to do; one of his hands flutters awkwardly before resting lightly on her back, the other smoothing over her hair in what is probably supposed to be a comforting way.

It isn't.

Guinevere never wants to let go.

She is still crying when Leon begins to draw back, albeit silently, which, she supposes, is probably an improvement. It isn't much of one, certainly, but it is at least possible for her to make her way through the castle with her tears largely unnoticed, as long as she remains quiet.

"My lady," Leon says firmly, resting one hand on her shoulder and takes her hands in the other, still kneeling before her on the floor. "My lady, I am going to suggest something...something a little difficult. It would, perhaps, be easier if you could agree to wait until I'm finished before saying anything, please?"

As unexpected and unusual as this request is, Guinevere agrees; given that she's just spent an inordinately long time snotting all over him, she doesn't particularly think she has any choice in the matter. "Please, Leon," she says softly. "You are as much a friend to me as you were to Arthur. Whatever you wish to suggest, I will listen."

He almost smiles at her, even as he seems to magically produce a handkerchief from nowhere, dabbing gently at the tears on her face. "My lady," he begins, as he mops, "I believe that we should marry."

"You what?!" Guinevere asks, completely disregarding – not forgetting, because she remembers every second since Arthur died with a clarity that is unrelenting and entirely unforgiving – her decision to listen without interruption.

"Guinevere, please," Leon says, and if she wasn't the queen Gwen would think his tone exasperated. "I'm not saying this to...to get my leg over, if you'll forgive my being so crass, my lady," his nose wrinkles, like he can't believe what he's just said, and the whole situation is so absurd that Guinevere finds herself fighting back laughter. "I don't mean to suggest that...that we live as husband and wife, my lady, not at all, but...oh, do stop laughing, Gwen, I'm quite serious."

"I'm sorry, Leon," Guinevere manages, then splutters horribly. "I really am, Leon, but...married? You're my friend, certainly, but...really?"

Leon nods, solemnly. "That is precisely why, Guinevere. The likes of Lord Robert"– the sneer as he speaks the name is both audible and gratifying, in amongst Guinevere's grief and slightly hysterical humour –"may have fallen silent for now, but he will not remain so, nor will he be the only one to speak up. I thought...I know you grieve for Arthur still, as do I, but I thought...if you must remarry, better it be someone who truly cares for you and would allow you to continue your reign as you see fit. If there is someone else you would prefer, that is all very well, but I would rather you found a man of your own choosing than become the ladder someone else uses to reach the throne."

Guinevere is so very touched by his kindness, by his love for her and for Arthur; the tears start again without her permission, welling up silently and softly, lacking the violence of her earlier sorrow. "Oh, Leon," she murmurs, leaning forwards to rest her head against his shoulder. "Leon. Thank you, but I can't."

"My lady?"

Guinevere sits back again, closing her hand around Leon's, still resting on her own in her lap. "Leon, you know how happy Arthur and I were together," she says as gently as she can; whatever his reasons for this proposal were, being turned down cannot be flattering, and if there's one person left alive Guinevere never wishes to hurt, it's Leon. "Of all of us, you still have the chance to know love like that. I won't let you waste yourself on me."

His eyes burn into hers, his mouth opens to say something, probably to provide some sort of objection to her words, but she speaks the truth; Leon deserves better than a loveless marriage offered for no reason beyond sparing Guinevere more pain, whether or not he accepts that fact. "Besides," she adds, settling her hand low on her stomach, on the curve that will very soon be noticeable, that Leon will never not notice from this day on, and if he treated her like glass before now it'll be nothing to how he'll treat her soon. But she'll have to tell everyone soon, and this is a reason Leon will both understand and accept. "I'd like our child to grow up knowing how much I love his or her father, and how much Camelot loved its king. A new husband would only confuse the matter."

"I see, my lady," Leon says, standing up and lifting Guinevere's hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles in what can only be a gesture of fealty. "You have my support, Guinevere, always. And my offer stands. You need only say, if you wish to accept it."

"Thank you," Guinevere says softly as he leaves the room. "Thank you, Leon."

She tells Gaius that evening.

His lined face creases into a smile, the first Guinevere has seen from him since (because that is what everything is to her, to them all, before and since, the two utterly delineated, separated irrevocably with no hope of ever being whole again). He sweeps her into a hug, stronger than seems possible from one so old, and holds her, pressing a kiss to her hair.

"That's wonderful, Gwen," he says, letting her go and peering at her from arms length, still beaming. "How are you feeling?" He asks, then continues before she has time to answer. "Are you sleeping well? Eating? Have you told-"

He stops short, his smile drooping; Guinevere doesn't need to ask to know that whoever he's asking about, they aren't here anymore.

"Leon knows," she says, chin up, trying not to break again, when she has already broken enough today. "I will announce it by the end of the week. I wanted...I wanted to wait, to be certain."

"Of course, Gwen," he murmurs, and Guinevere knows that he understands; the child that she carries is not only the single remaining piece of Arthur on this earth, but is also the only chance she will have to be a mother. Her husband is gone, and there will never be another (there could have been, once, but he left her, twice in life and twice more in death, years ago, before her marriage, and his leaving made clear how right her choice was). Arthur is it for her, now, and this child will be her only one.

She bids Gaius goodnight before leaving his rooms, catching as she turns a glimpse of his expression; there is hope there, hope the likes of which she has not experienced since he promised her Merlin could save Arthur.

It is only when she wakes in the middle of the night, lonely and cold, reaching with one hand for the curve of her stomach, the other for the husband Morgana stole from her, that she realises what Gaius' hope is for.

He thinks her child will bring Merlin home, that he will be here to protect her babe as he failed to protect his or her father.

Guinevere fights to crush the mirroring hope that wells within her. It is just a pipe dream, and she has lived too much to put her faith in it.

Besides, Merlin isn't welcome here anymore.

She dresses in what was once her favourite gown the following morning, the purple one she wore when Leon proclaimed Arthur dead and her the queen, forever ruined for her by that moment. She hasn't worn it since, and today will be the last time she has to, one of the last times she'll fit into it.

She breaks her fast alone, as she always does now, then sends one of the guards outside her door to tell as many people as possible that she is calling for an assembly of the court for this afternoon.

It is time.

Her announcement has only one real result; within the next two months (she is most of the way there, now, only two more to go), Guinevere becomes desperate to get away from the constant scrutiny she is under.

Between Leon and Percival, Guinevere finds that the only minutes she gets to herself are when she is asleep, and those are precious few.

The baby has started kicking, poking, punching at her insides. He – or she; Guinevere doesn't care which, even if she feels in her heart that it's a boy, wishes with all she has that her child will be as close to the spitting image of Arthur as is possible – is a fighter already, tough and strong. It is a good thing, for all the discomfort it causes her; her baby is moving almost constantly, restless and healthy and very definitely alive.

That knowledge is comforting, though. That knowledge is the kind of not alone she is happy with.

When, by Guinevere and Gaius' best guess, she has only a couple of weeks to go, the suggestion that she find a nursemaid for her baby is first put to her.

They have to send for the kingdom's best locksmith a day later; there are only two keys to her room in existence, and since Merlin has the other, no one is getting into her room unless she wants them to.

When the locksmith fails, they get Percival with an axe.

She no longer has a lock she can place between the world and herself. She has nothing to keep her child from the world.

For the first time, the look of concern that Leon sends her way has something wary to it.

Childbirth is, Guinevere learns very quickly, the most unutterable torment imaginable. The agony of it is worse, far worse, than that Morgana's mandrake roots caused to her mind, than the fragment of sword that travelled to Arthur's heart so slowly, than the sickening, soul destroying loss she felt at knowing he would never, ever come back to her.

And yet, and yet, when Gaius pronounces the babe hale and healthy and places her in Guinevere's arms, a pair of blue eyes so familiar and so beautifully, perfectly new look up at her, and Guinevere finds the knowledge that a tiny part of Arthur remains within the world to be worth the most inconceivable pain.

Not, of course, that she is ever going to go through it again.

Only for Arthur.