Disclaimer: Don't own. :(
A/N: So...second Morwaine fic, yay! This one's a bit happier, if you can call it that. Sort of modern reincarnation thing at the end - not usually what I do, but I like how it came out, so read, review, and get raspberry-chocolate cookies!
Routine
The door to the tavern creaked open. It was raining outside, the clear water splashing into the gutters, sheets of it. He heard the sound of the rain get louder, looked up from his mead – and saw her.
She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
Cloaked in green cloth he would never be able to afford, skin like porcelain, proud chin, pale lips, sea-green eyes searching the room.
Of course he walked over, offered to buy her a drink (he had no money), congratulated her on the heads turning towards her, speculated as to why a lady like herself was in a tavern and assured her she was the only one for him. He didn't know it was true yet, and it was a matter of routine.
And of course she scoffed, shrugged, glared and assured him she only wanted to be left alone.
He didn't leave.
"Ah, have you come to drown your sorrows then?" He was leaning over where she sat, resigned to her death-by-frustration fate. "I'm perfectly willing to help you with that."
"Go. Away."
"Where are you from, anyway? No one looks like that around here. We're humble types."
"I'm sure."
"Well, they are. That's why they're all glaring at me, you see?" He shook his head. "Worried I'll offend the lady of whatever pathetic land they live off of…what a life."
"It might do you some good," she muttered through tight lips.
"That's coming from you." The bitterness in his voice wasn't quite feigned. "You haven't lived it yet."
She was silent.
"I am the Lady Morgana," she said. Those words were many things. Acknowledgement, arrogance, self-doubt, power.
"Well, I'm Gwaine. And I don't have a title, but if you can think of one for me I'd be glad to accept it."
He ducked.
Gwaine looked at Arthur, then at the stands, then back again. He took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. He lifted the visor and met Arthur's eyes, grimacing.
He didn't look angry, or disappointed. He just laughed. "I should have known."
He lifted off the helmet. He looked up at Uther, daring him to do something about it.
Then he stopped.
Lady Morgana. Sitting next to Uther, clapping – and then grabbing the king's sleeve, yanking him back. She looked furious.
Arthur moved to stand in front of him, and he saw them: the guards, surrounding him, leaving no escape. He reached for his sword. This is what Gwaine hates most, being helpless.
He'd known fear. He'd learned not to show it. To turn terror into glares; panic, wry smiles.
And there was nothing on her face. He strained against the manacles, made to attack Uther. She was cold, expressionless. Anger blazed from her eyes when she turned towards Uther, but when she looked at him there was nothing.
It was because she'd known fear, too.
She came to see him, once, before his banishment.
"Why?"
The question stood in the middle of the room, no warning, no explanation. He glanced around. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but Prince Goldilocks's a pretty good man. As for Merlin, he's the only friend I've got."
"That's not what I meant."
"Huh?"
"You knew you had no chance. Why did you talk to me in the tavern?"
He shrugged before giving his trademark answer, proof of the wandering, take-what-you-can-get life he led. "My chances were slim to none and I guess I like those odds."
"Emphasis on none," the Lady muttered, the corner of her elegant mouth curving up in a half-smile.
She betrayed Arthur.
She took over Camelot.
He became a knight.
Gwaine kept repeating it in his head.
It was strange how what was bothering him was not what she'd done. She was cold, hard. She hated Uther. It made sense, in a way.
No.
There was the tiniest bit of regret hanging in the back of his mind, the regret that he would probably never see her again, that he'd cast his lot with Arthur, his friend – the right decision – and not her.
Morgana.
He heard the others call her Morgana.
Everything about her was a secret he would never know.
He woke up from another nightmare. At this rate, he wasn't going to ever get any sleep.
Another one about Morgana. Morgana and the Southrons.
When he'd seen her again, she was different. She was no longer the statue of ice sitting to the side of Uther, she was a dark, free power leaning on a throne, with eyes that had a way of lingering even after she'd turned away.
And no matter how many excuses he made for her, the damage couldn't be excused.
The door of the cavern creaked open. The sun was going down outside, and it set her features in shadow: a shadow to match the darkness of her thoughts. Morgana rested a hand on Arthur's bloody chest to steady him, looked up from under her cloak – and saw him.
No matter how many times it happened, it still surprised her – that quickening of her heartbeat when he was watching.
"Gwaine."
The power in her voice, at least, hadn't changed.
"He's dying."
Her brother. Her golden brother, and only after Mordred wounded him she saw the good in his heart.
And he came. He'd always come for his king. He'd called him a good man. She wondered what that made him.
"Is there nothing we can do?" he said. It sounded like something Leon would say, and she found herself oddly amused, then struck by the weariness in his voice. This was not Gwaine the drunkard, this was Gwaine who'd just lost Merlin, Percival – maybe even Leon. Morgana's quick smile died on her face.
She smirked. "Get in the boat."
The blue mists of the Isle of the Blessed were rising around them, warriors still clambering onto the muddy shores.
"The lake?" he asked, frowning.
"It's not what's in the lake, but under it," Morgana muttered. She looked at Gwaine. "Yes. The lake.
"It was a…project. Morgause told me about it. To see if they could create a place. Another world. Where people with magic could survive during the Purge. It was never finished – Uther destroyed the Isle by then." Her mouth twisted wryly. "I was working on it, enchanting it."
"I thought you wanted to rule Camelot?"
"I wanted to rule the world." Morgana paused, then shrugged, bitter, laughing. "Any world…oh, it doesn't matter." It didn't…but with Arthur dying in front of her, it did, it did. She spoke quickly. "I expanded it, spelled it for about a year. I thought it was ready, but I was wrong...the portal didn't set."
She watched Gwaine's confusion and relented. "The portal is at the bottom of the Lake of Avalon."
"It…didn't set?"
"It was too dangerous for me to go through." She stared at him with those intense eyes and said the next words very slowly. "I might never come back."
His own eyes moved to one side then the other. "Does this mean he won't come back?"
"He'll be alive," Morgana said roughly. She didn't owe them sympathy, and still could hardly believe that she was acting against the pain in her chest – the pain that she'd lived off of for as long as she could remember.
Gwaine took a deep breath.
"I'm going with him."
"I won't be coming with you."
She watched the knights, carrying Arthur's limp body, wade out into the water in the light of dawn.
He turned. His eyes were...shimmering. She saw him, as if in slow motion, smile the crooked, carefree grin she'd seen in the tavern. Saw him slowly turn away, looking back once as if to see if she were watching him.
She was.
Morgana smiled, slowly: a corner smile that was too wry to be a smirk.
He's drowning his sorrows over his latest breakup (apparently Elena had realized he was cheating on her with Dana, took her long enough), or at least drowning what common sense he has left when the door opens. The next song starts up, he tosses his hair and raises his eyebrows at the barmaid, looks up from his beer – and sees her.
And all he can think is "Oh my God."
Standing there, dressed in dark leather clothes and green eyeliner, pushing whoever she came with away, glaring around the bar like she's too good to belong there.
Which she is.
So of course he walks over, says he'll buy her a drink (he's flat broke), informs her that everyone in the room's staring, makes idle innuendos as to why she's there and tells her, hand on his heart, that she's the only one for him.
He doesn't know it's true yet, after all. It's a matter of routine.