Pining for the Moon, a merlin fanfic

Title: Pining for the Moon
Author: EachPeachPearPlum
Rating: Mish, probably.
Warnings: Um. Angst. Seriously, that's pretty much all this is. Tiny bit of language, too, and I really don't want to say major character death but I think I kind of have to. Promise it ends more happily than it seems likely to, though...
Disclaimer: Characters are the Beeb's, title is REM's, plot is scattered and a little bit mental but probably all mine.
Dedication: For Daroh, who mentioned wanting "a Merthur one-shot of them Nightswimming", and got thirteen thousand words of angsting instead. It's not what you asked for, it's probably not what you wanted, and I'm not even convinced it's entirely in character. But hey, I'm sure you know me better than to expect anything else, my dear. Enjoy?

Pining for the Moon

Spring has been a long time coming this year, days of ice and cold and miserable darkness, finding excuses not to leave the better heated parts of the castle with Merlin and Morgana and Guinevere, searching everywhere for a bit of warmth and a moment away from the girls so that Arthur can hold Merlin and not feel Morgana judging him for it. The kitchens are warm but busy and the cook terrifies Merlin; almost no one goes in the library but it's icy cold in there and the dust makes Arthur sneeze; Merlin's room is tiny and his bed is uncomfortable and Gaius is always just outside; Arthur's room is the first place anyone would think to look for him, and it's not that they're a secret, that Morgana doesn't somehow know exactly where they are and exactly what they're doing at any moment, but it's nice to pretend, to be free of her pointed looks for just a few minutes.

Spring has been a long time coming, though, and Arthur is more than ready for it, ready to return to a world larger than that contained within Camelot's walls.

It's the first hunt of the year, Arthur's first time leading the first hunt of the year, because even though Uther is content to leave almost every other hunt to his son and his lords the first hunt is sacred, sacrosanct, a sign of the year to come and a subtle opportunity for Uther to point out just how unworthy of his place he thinks his son is. Camelot has cast away many superstitions since Arthur's birth, but this one remains. If the first hunt goes well, so will all subsequent hunts. If it goes poorly, they may as well give up now.

Arthur needs it to go well, which is why he's sitting astride his horse in the courtyard in the far too early light of dawn, pretending Merlin isn't shivering and grumbling under his breath on his mount behind him, a party of knights too respectful or too dull to say that they're thinking the exact same thing as Merlin. It's also why he's trying desperately to pretend Morgana isn't clinging to the reigns of his horse, begging him not to go under the guise of bidding him goodbye.

"Let go," he hisses, trying to decide if his father will notice if he kicks her gently in the ribs. "Let go, Morgana."

"I will," she answers, just as quietly, her furious eyes intent on his own. "Just as soon as you get down and agree to stay here."

Merlin moves forwards slightly, apparently aware that this is more than just a simple farewell, and Arthur glances at him, sees the frown on his face, almost as concerned as Morgana's own.

"I will not cancel this hunt," Arthur argues, because does she really not know what this means to him, to their people? Does Morgana not realise how important this is?

"Not cancel," she agrees, continuing too quickly for Arthur to breathe a sigh of relief. "Just postpone, for a week or so."

"No! We are not staying here just because you had some stupid nightmare, Morgana." It's a low blow, when Arthur knows how bad Morgana's dreams are sometimes, how much they terrify her, but honestly. It's a hunt; they've all been on thousands of them before. Nothing is going to happen.

"Please," she says. "Please, Arthur, listen to me."

Arthur shakes his reins, digs his heels into his horse's sides to set it walking, forcing Morgana to let go. He nods to his father and leads his men from the courtyard, ignoring how Merlin lingers behind, ignoring how Merlin leans down as he passes Morgana and says something to her, too quiet for Arthur to catch even if he'd wanted to.

This is madness, nothing more, Arthur tells himself, and this first hunt, his first hunt, will be just as successful as any his father has ever led.

First, there is the rage, like nothing Arthur has ever known. It's hot, hotter than anything, hotter than the kitchen ovens and the blacksmith's forge and dragon's breath. It fills him to the brim and carries on, washing over him in waves that scald, and, as Arthur looks around him at the carnage, the man at its centre, he has no idea how he is ever meant to let go of it.

"I can explain," Merlin says, his eyes still blazing as he kneels there, charred by the fires he lit, blood on his hands. So much blood. "Arthur, sire, please, I can explain."

First, there is the rage, and then there is a knife at Merlin's throat, the only weapon Arthur has left to hand, half-blunt, a tiny thing, used for cutting lengths of rope and whittling at sticks and butchering Merlin. His Merlin, who tilts his head back as he has so many times before, giving Arthur better access to the column of his neck; Arthur knows where to cut, knows where his pulse pounds under his skin because he can see jumping it there, under the bruise of possession Arthur left there last night. Mine, Merlin, he'd said, and, yours, Arthur, Merlin had answered.

His.

Why can't he do it?

"My life is yours, Arthur, to do with as you will," Merlin says, as if he's explaining why he's not fighting back, as if Arthur can ever again take anything he says at face value. "You know that."

His throat moves with every word he speaks, pressing against the knife that, blunt as it is, draws blood, stark red against Merlin's skin, a thin line against the blade that thickens, thickens until it starts to run down to his collar, more a trickle than a steady stream, but still. Still. Merlin's blood, spilled by his hand, and Merlin just kneeling there, trusting and unafraid and Merlin. Arthur has seen him wear this expression before, the one that says Arthur is his king and his heart, that he will do anything for him, anything at all, because he knows Arthur is worth all his sacrifices. Arthur has turned away from the expression before, because, somehow, the weight that lands on his shoulders at the thought of disappointing Merlin's expectations is so much heavier than that which accompanies his thoughts of disappointing Uther.

"I am yours, Arthur," Merlin says again. "Until I die, I am yours."

Arthur thought he knew him, him and everything there was to know about him.

Arthur was wrong.

He turns his back on the clearing where nothing will ever grow again, the land marked by blood and sorcery and death, the end of everything, and does not look back.

He follows a stream away from it, walking against the current, water soaking through his boots until his feet feel like ice, like his heart. He walks until he's stumbling, cold and dizzy and alone, the only survivor of a massacre that has destroyed life as he knows it. And when he can't walk any further, Arthur falls to his knees on the bank of the stream and retches until he shakes from the force of it, stomach emptier than it has ever been in his life.

"I'm dying, Merlin," he slurs, wiping a string of bile from his mouth on the back of his hand and, he will realise later, when they find him, streaking blood across his face in the process.

He falls asleep there on the wet, muddy ground, fingers still curled around the hilt of his knife, the blood tacky as it dries, sticking like glue. It is the only weapon he has left, all he has to protect him until he reaches the citadel, and it might be intended only for cutting lengths of rope and whittling sticks down to nothing but it can still kill a man.

Two days later, a patrol finds him. He hasn't eaten since the night he and Merlin were attacked – Yes, Father, he tells Uther when they return home, Of course I know how to hunt. It just didn't occur to me to try it – hasn't washed the blood from his skin and clothes or the mud from his hair, has only drunk anything because he's walking along a stream bed and the water is right there in front of him.

They don't recognise him when they find him, this band of his father's men, sent out to seek their prince, his manservant and a few loyal knights when they didn't return from a hunting trip gone horribly wrong. Leon slides from his horse first, a frown of Do I know you? on his face. "Arthur?" He asks. "Sire, what happened?"

"We were attacked," Arthur says, meeting Leon's eyes, the weight of concern in his face more than Arthur can bear. "I'm the only one left."

Together, his knights work to get Arthur on Leon's recently vacated horse, then try convincing him to release the knife in order to hold onto the reins.

"Arthur," Leon says, very softly. "Give me the knife, please. You'll fall off if you don't hold on."

The words hit Arthur's ears but don't make it all the way to his brain, getting lost in the middle, never to be found again; he knife stays where it is – Arthur isn't sure he'll ever be able to let go of it – and Leon sighs. He does so kindly, knowing what Merlin was to Arthur, even if he doesn't know what Merlin- but a sigh is still a sigh, exasperation that makes Arthur feel even more like a failure than he already does today.

"Okay," he says, then carefully slips Arthur's left foot from the stirrup, replacing it with his own and launching himself into the saddle behind Arthur. Leon takes the reins, and the party sets off, Leon steering their mount into the middle of the group. "I'm sorry about this, sire," he says. "But we need to get you home."

Leon helps him back down from the horse when they stop for the night, his expression of worry only increasing as the day has passed. He coaxes Arthur to drink a little from his wineskin while the others make camp, apparently thinking alcohol is exactly what Arthur needs (it isn't), then encourages him to sit by the fire and eat a little (he doesn't).

"What happened, Arthur?" he asks, his voice quiet but still drawing the attention of everyone around them.

Arthur stares at him, knowing precisely what the words mean but not what the answer is, what the answer Leon wants him to give is.

"What happened to your men, Arthur?" Leon tries, just as quiet, but the pressure of everyone listening, of everyone moving in to listen, is almost crushing. "What happened to Merlin?"

"We were attacked," Arthur says slowly. "A...a creature, I think, I don't know what. Merlin is." A traitor, he thinks, a filthy sorcerer, a murderer, betrayal and death and Arthur let him into his bed, let himself love him, and his stomach fights to empty itself again. "Merlin is gone," Arthur says. "My men are dead. I'm the only one left."

He doesn't say anything else until they get back to the citadel, and Leon doesn't ask him to. He does wash away the blood, though, and with each gentle, unwavering pass of the damp cloth in Leon's hand, Arthur can feel his strength, his determination not to return Arthur to his father looking like this.

The thing is, Leon can wash away the blood and make sure Arthur stays on his horse, can give him a clean shirt to change into and get him home safely. He can do all of this and more, does do all of this and more as they travel back slowly and carefully, and in the days after their return, but he can't truly mend anything.

The only way to mend it is to undo what has happened, and no one can do that.

At first, Uther is relieved to see him, everyone is. It doesn't last very long.

His first morning back, Arthur wakes to someone else in his room. It's harmless, innocuous, nothing he hasn't woken to a hundred times, not just Merlin but other servants before him, his curtains being opened, a tray of food being set out on the table, the fire being lit and a bowl of clean water poured for him to wash in. It's harmless, and Arthur loses it.

"Get out!" He shouts, torn between standing up to emphasise his yelling and cowering under his blanket so that this invader doesn't see him.

The invader, young and scared looking, hair not as dark as Merlin's and eyes a dull, dull brown, blinks. "Sire," he says, quiet with respect like Merlin almost never was, "I've been assigned as your new manservant."

"I don't care," Arthur tells him, so very sincere, so very not, because the reason he feels like he does now is that he did care, does care, far, far too much. "Now, get out!"

The boy scarpers, closing the door behind him, and Arthur fights the urge to throw something heavy after him. Instead, he just slumps back on his bed, pulling his blankets up over his head, and tries, so very, very hard, not to wish Merlin was in there with him.

"Sometimes," Arthur hears Gaius say through a screen of fog and ashes, wrapped in the theoretical comfort and safety of his bed, "When a person has witnessed something terrible, the shock of it...they retreat into their mind in order to deal with it."

"And can you fix him?" Uther asks again, cold, so cold, and when Morgana has been hurt Arthur has heard the panic in his voice, the desperation, but now that it is him there is only disappointment at Arthur's weakness. It would burn him, usually, fill him with an insane need to do so much better, but today, now, he's just too empty to care.

"I think, sire," Gaius answers, just as cold, but brittle, broken, ice on a puddle that has already been jumped upon, "That the best way to 'fix' Arthur would be for you to be grateful you still have a son, and exercise some patience whilst he heals."

Arthur doesn't need to see his father's face in order to picture it perfectly, the cool disdain on it for both Gaius and his weak, weak son, a man too pitiful to so much talk about what happened to him.

"Uther," Morgana says softly, before Uther can begin his rant, and Arthur hadn't even known she was there. "I think the steward was hoping to have a word with you. Perhaps I should sit with Arthur for the day, until he's feeling better."

His father sighs, but seems to accept that standing around yelling at Arthur and the people trying to care for him is probably not helpful. "Very well. I shall be back this evening to check on Arthur's progress."

Gaius continues to putter around with whatever it is he's doing, while Arthur feels his mattress shift as Morgana sits down. Her hand pulls back the edge of the covers Arthur is huddled under – not hiding, really, just resting – and searches out Arthur's own, fingers closing carefully around it.

"Arthur," she says softly, "I am very sorry for your loss. Yours, too, Gaius."

Arthur can't say anything, can't do anything other than cling desperately to her hand in his, feeling like dirt, like death, like he should be the one lying unburied in that clearing soaked in blood. She would not comfort him if she knew, this girl of rage and compassion and nightmares, who cries for those burnt at the stake and helped Merlin save a Druid boy's life, who fights Uther over his stance on magic and whose warning before this trip Arthur should have known better than to ignore. If she knew, Morgana would be fighting Gaius to be first in line to spit on him.

But she doesn't, and Arthur can't bear the look she'll wear if he tells her, just as he cannot bear to ask her what she saw, what was so terrible that she told them to stay that day, just as he cannot bear to ask what Merlin's last words to her were.

Uther tries, in as much as he's able to, but supportive is not in his nature, however familiar he may be with loss. His father died when he was barely more than a boy, his mother shortly after he took Camelot, his wife in the very act of giving life to their son, his closest friends not long after (although this loss was probably lessened by the fact that it gave him Morgana, who anyone can see the king loves like his own daughter); Uther is certainly no stranger to grief, but to grieve for a servant, and for knights who fell doing their duty to their king? That is so distinctly foreign to him that Arthur knows better than to expect sympathy from him.

He gives Arthur space, though, at least for a couple of days: no objections when Arthur is late to meals and meetings, no complaints when Arthur can't quite keep up with the conversations around him, no more attempts to foist perfectly competent but definitely unwanted replacement menservants on him.

If he knew the truth, he would see it as brutal efficiency rather than the closest thing to mercy Arthur could manage. If he knew the truth, his pride would more than equal Morgana's utter disdain.

And even though Arthur has spent almost his whole life trying to make his father proud of him, he can't make himself tell the truth.

"Merlin!" He shouts into the mists, so deep he can barely see the trees surrounding him. "Merlin, would you just fucking answer me, please!"

There is a flash of blue just ahead of him, and Arthur reaches out, sure that if he just stretches far enough he can catch him, grab on and not let go and everything will be as it used to be. They will go back to before, before Merlin saved his life with magic and Arthur was happy with him, happily ignorant of his betrayal, his treachery; whatever Merlin's plan was, whatever plan it is Arthur stopped him completing, he would face it, die horribly or live out the rest of his days as Merlin's puppet, his plaything. If only it got him Merlin back, Arthur would do anything.

The blue escapes, though, and Arthur is left alone amongst the trees, the mist steadily clearing to show the ground awash in red.

And Merlin is gone.

Waking up feels like just another page in his nightmares.

Uther's lack of support, of understanding, is easier, in some ways, than Morgana and Guinevere and Gaius, who understand far too much and nothing at all. The grief they get, the sense of having lost something desperately important...these they share with him, but the guilt is Arthur's alone. Guinevere can cry for her friend without feeling responsible, Morgana can mourn without the knowledge that it is her fault, Gaius can bury himself in his work so as not to confront the fact that the closest thing he has to family is gone. And Arthur...Arthur can only hate himself for grieving for a sorcerer, a lover.

Arthur can only hate himself for being the reason all of them are grieving.

So he doesn't get a new manservant, because the idea of trusting anyone with so much of himself is utterly repellent. He doesn't see Gaius unless an injury is verging on limb-losing, doesn't speak to Guinevere unless a situation absolutely requires it, doesn't...well, no, there's no real way he can avoid spending time with Morgana, but he can reject her attempts at comfort, and her recriminations when she thinks he's reacting incorrectly are all the punishment he is ever going to face.

After those first few days, his father's tolerance runs out and Arthur is reluctantly ready to return to life outside his room. He cannot stay in there any longer, being suffocated by Morgana's sympathy, entirely undeserved. He cannot deal with it, and in not dealing with it, Arthur becomes a lot like his father.

He extends training, with his father's approval; after the recent loss of life, Uther is all for intensifying the training of their knights, as well as trying to boost the numbers. They fight longer, harder, train in more forms of weaponry, run in full battle armour for as long as they can, and each time a mutiny seems close Arthur just pushes them harder, keeps them all going until they're too exhausted to think, let alone complain.

His own brain is harder to shut up that their mouths, though; Arthur runs until he vomits, fights until his arms ache too much to hold up a blade, drinks until he vomits again, and none of it gets rid of the dreams, the memories, the Merlin in his head who won't go away.

It isn't premeditated, the first time he sleeps with Merlin. He hasn't spent months lusting over his manservant, plotting ways to get him in his bed or on his knees or bent over some suitable surface, isn't pining away for lack of Merlin's attention, composing sappy poetry to him. It just happens, and if Arthur wasn't quite so impressed with the results he'd be inclined to call it an accident, a mistake.

They're in his room, firmly shut away from the rest of the world, bickering as always. Merlin, pausing in his rather shoddy attempt at maintaining Arthur's sword and armour to pour him another goblet of wine, makes some comment; Arthur can't even remember what it is two minutes later, but at the time it leaves him speechless, pretty much thoughtless. The only real response he can think of is catching Merlin's sleeve as he leans over the table to pinch a grape from Arthur's plate, pulling him down so that their faces are level, and sticking his tongue in his mouth. So that is what Arthur does.

To his great surprise, it turns out to be pretty much brilliant. And, as with most things involving Merlin, it escalates damn quickly, from harmless to inferno in no time at all; what starts out as a kiss to shut Merlin up, shock him into silence, turns quickly into Arthur wriggling his hands inside Merlin's laces, Merlin kissing back just as intensely, at least for a few minutes.

"What is this?" Merlin demands, a little too late, in Arthur's opinion, what with them being most of the way undressed and very close to being horizontal on Arthur's bed. It should be perfectly obvious, even to a moron like Merlin, exactly what this is – Arthur wouldn't have started anything if he didn't think it would be – but apparently not, because when Arthur tries to kiss the idiot again, Merlin steps back. "I mean it, Arthur. If this is just you scratching an itch and picking me 'cause you think I'm too scared of you to say no, you can take your half-polished sword and shove it up your perfect arse."

"Eloquent as ever, Merlin," Arthur laughs, somewhat more breathlessly than he'd like. Merlin looks just a tad put-out, though, and Arthur would quite like to finish what they've started, then possibly do it all over again, so he answers him entirely truthfully. "I have nothing but pity for any man fool enough to think he can scare you into anything," he says, waiting for Merlin's answering grin before lunging at him again.

Arthur cannot meet Morgana's eyes at dinner the following evening, just as much as he struggles to eat the food before him, or answer Uther's questions.

He's falling apart, it feels like, and each time Morgana looks at him with her eyes like ice, she sees right through the lie, through all of the lies. The lie that he's fine, that it wasn't his fault, that he doesn't wake up every morning reaching for a bowl of water, desperate to scrub Merlin's blood from his hands. The lie that Merlin's death was a tragic accident, unpreventable, that Arthur isn't right to hate himself every moment of every day. And, just as much as all the others, the lie that he keeps the truth from her to protect her, to protect them both, and not because he's scared of how she'll look at him, how she might give him reason to wonder if maybe her fate ought to be the same.

"What the hell is this?" Morgana says, voice far more sharp than usual, effectively cutting through Arthur's largely alcohol-induced passion.

"Little busy, 'Gana," Arthur answers, mostly slurred, and whilst he knew he was drunk, he didn't know he was that bad. It makes sense, because the line between wanting to do this and not is a fairly fine one, and it takes him a damn lot to tip over it, but he needs to forget. He needs to not dream tonight, and the only way he's found to make that happen is drink and the exhaustion found in a willing body, and the boy crushed between him and the wall of whatever the hell corridor they're in is definitely that. "Go away."

Just in case the message isn't quite clear, he kisses the boy again, as intense as he can manage given that they've got an audience and that apparently doesn't do it for his new friend, name unknown or unrecalled. Or perhaps it's just that it's Morgana watching them, and every man who's met her tends to be equal parts terrified and in love with her.

"Stop it, Arthur," she says, tugging at his shoulder. "This isn't you."

He does stop then, because Morgana is being a major mood-killer, and anyone who can do anything remotely fun with her glaring daggers at them is clearly a better man than him, or possibly just a whole lot less sane. Which, Arthur thinks, half-laughing at himself, is really saying something.

"This is exactly me," Arthur says, rounding on her with a sneer he would have been proud of two, three years ago. Before Merlin, he'd've been proud of a lot of what he's doing now, if he ever stopped to think of it. "When have I ever been anyone else, my lady?"

Morgana meets his eyes, fearless as ever, and he wishes that just once she'd back down, back off, let someone else be right even if it isn't him. After Merlin, self-loathing is about as pleasant as his life gets, and Morgana seems determined to ruin even that for him. "You're better than this, Arthur," she tells him.

No, Arthur thinks. He really isn't. He stopped being better that day in the clearing.

"Here," he slurs, tugging the key to his room from the ring at his belt and shoving at the guy he's with; not something he would have done before, when the keys in his possession were strictly his and Merlin's, but if he's trusted a sorcerer with his safety for so long, there's no reason not to do this. Hell, at this point, death would be kind of a relief. "Let me deal with her ladyship and I'll see you in a moment."

Whoever he is doesn't argue, just gets the heck out of there, leaving Arthur alone with Morgana's fury. "Deal with me?" she asks. "Deal with me! Let me tell you one thing, Arthur Pendragon, I have had enough of this. I know you're hurting, gods know we all know that, but this is not how you cope with it."

"This is exactly how I cope with it, Morgana. Stop judging me, already, just because I'm not reacting how you want me to."

"You're not reacting how Merlin would want you to, Arthur," she says, sounding almost kind even though her words are anything but. "He loved you, and he'd never want you to be like this."

"Right. You think he'd rather I spend my whole life alone, then?" Arthur asks, far too loud, far too close to her, but that's probably exactly what Merlin would want for him, almost certainly what Merlin thinks he deserves. He turns to walk away from her, go back to his drunken daze and the only kind of relief he can manage to find, but Morgana doesn't seem to like that.

Her hand wraps around his wrist, tight enough to leave bruises. "If I thought you were happy, I wouldn't stop you. But you're not."

He shoves her away, unable to look at her anymore, at the love she has for him, the gentle way she keeps reaching for him. He shoves her too hard, sees her hit the wall and slide to the floor, not broken but definitely hurt. "Go away, Morgana," he tells her. "Stop pushing your ideas of proper mourning on me. I don't need it, and I don't need you."

He's halfway to the next corner in the corridor, halfway away from her, when he hears her call after him. "I love you, Arthur," she says, "but you aren't half your father's son."

The guy welcomes him to his room with open arms and, only moments later, an open mouth, kissing Arthur and moaning so eagerly anyone'd think he was being paid for it. He isn't, because Arthur might be little better than dirt but he's not sunk quite that low yet, but it's still disconcerting just how much he seems to want it, when Arthur really doesn't want it at all now.

Whoever he is's mouth slides across Arthur's jaw and to his throat, teeth nipping not quite hard enough to leave a mark, and Arthur is trying, he really is, but this just isn't working.

Morgana is taking from him everything that he hasn't already thrown away like it was nothing.

"This isn't working," Arthur says, pushing the boy from him. "You can go now."

The boy looks at him like he wants to argue but Arthur is who he is, will one day rule everyone in this godsforsaken city, and no one but Merlin has ever been brave enough to argue with that.

"He's not dead, Arthur," Morgana says, tearing into his rooms like a woman possessed, and he is long past wondering how she can get through locked doors like they're nothing. "Merlin is alive."

Arthur looks at her, wishing he could yell at her for waking him but he hasn't slept through the night since Merlin last lay beside him. Morgana doesn't look much better than he feels, hair tangled into a veritable bird's nest and her face paler than Arthur's very rumpled bedsheets (he hasn't yet got the knack of tucking the sheet under the mattress so that it stays there), but her eyes are sharp, alert, and more than a little bit manic.

"Don't do this, Morgana," Arthur says. "Just because you had some weird dream, it doesn't mean you're right."

"I am right, Arthur. I am."

"You're not!" Arthur shouts, standing up, half-dressed and as uncaring about that fact as Morgana seems to be. "I know he's dead. I saw it. I did it!"

Morgana looks at him as she sometimes looks at Gwen, as she sometimes looked at Merlin, like he's something precious, something that needs taking care of, and Arthur thinks that if he hadn't killed his mother, she might have looked at him like that too. Morgana takes his hand and leads him to sit back down again, perching on the side of his bed beside him. "Arthur," she says, soft as she has never been with him before. "What happened that day wasn't your fault. Your men chose to follow you, as did Merlin, but I promise you, he is not dead."

Arthur laughs a little, sounding fractured, insane, like his mind is. "No, 'Gana," he says, quietly enough that she has to lean in to hear him. "I did it."

She doesn't flinch from him as he reaches out to her, placing his index finger below her ear and drawing a line across his throat. "I killed Merlin," he tells her.

Then, Morgana flinches, drawing back and catching Arthur's hand in her own. "I don't understand."

"You called me my father's son," Arthur says. "If I was, Merlin would have burnt."

Morgana stares at him, horrified, and Arthur sees the realisation dawn on her face; death by pyre may be the official punishment in Camelot for numerous crimes, but in practice, it is only used for one. "Arthur," she says, but cannot seem to find the words for anything else, and the fear in her eyes is everything Arthur knew it would be, everything he hoped he was wrong about, everything that means there is no possible way she can forgive him. "Oh, Arthur."

She leaves without saying anything more.

She doesn't give up, though, and it's killing him. It's killing him more that he wishes she was right.

"Father?" Arthur asks, and the question has been brewing for a long time, longer than just this lost time, this time in which he is lost.

"Arthur?" Uther answers, almost startled; Arthur can't remember when he last asked a question at mealtimes, when he last had anything close to a conversation with his father, when anyone asked something as monumentally stupid as this of him.

"Why," he manages, then pauses for breath, looking across the table at Morgana but seeing another face beside hers, so similar that they could be siblings, similar in more than just looks. Her eyes are wintery, the green-blue of thick ice, while the imaginary ones alongside are a darker blue, richer, dusk or dawn, before the sun rises or just after it sets. Beautiful, both of them. Burning. "Why do you hate magic so much?"

Arthur is still meeting Morgana's eyes, can feel the fire in them, almost see it. He can see them gold, like Merlin's were, and even if they aren't at this moment, Arthur is done pretending. He is done. Merlin was never the only person in Camelot with magic, and...magic.

"Really, Arthur," Uther says, almost laughing, which isn't exactly the reaction Arthur was expecting. Morgana either, judging by the fact that she turns her eyes to Uther just before Arthur does. "I realise you're still a little upset by the loss of your men, but you know this. Magic is evil."

He says it like it's fact, obvious, and all his life Arthur has believed this. Has believed this fact, told to him by this man, his father, his king, the closest thing to a god Arthur is allowed to believe in, and if Uther says it, it's true. It's so true that Arthur has killed the man he loves because of it, barely thought twice before cutting Merlin's throat. It's always been true to him, so true he's broken his own heart, brought down so much grief on the people who matter to him.

But Merlin isn't evil. Merlin could have stopped him, could have stopped Arthur killing him. The destruction Arthur had seen in those chaotic moments before, all the fire and blood and death Merlin brought down upon the things that threatened Arthur, and Merlin chose to kneel at his feet instead, let Arthur kill him. He could have stopped him. He didn't.

Merlin is as far from evil as anyone can be. Merlin was as far from evil as anyone can be.

"But...what if someone wants to use it for good?" Arthur asks, braving on even as Morgana shakes her head at him. "What if-"

"No, Arthur," Uther says, chair scraping on the stone floor as he stands up. "Magic is evil. It corrupts. There are no exceptions."

Arthur is still watching his father, but from the corner of his eye he sees Morgana shake her head again, rubbing her wrists, and he loves his father, cold and distant though he is, but he has to be wrong. Morgana chained in a near-windowless cell for disagreeing with him, Arthur watching people burn to death since he was born, men and woman and children as young as he was, Merlin's blood pouring over his hands, gushing and gushing and not stopping until his eyes are blue again, blue and empty, and Uther is wrong.

Arthur just wishes it hadn't taken him murdering his lover for him to work that out.

"What if it doesn't? What if someone can use magic for years, use it for good, without it changing them?" Too many coincidences, too many mysterious rescues, bandits tripping and opponents dropping their swords, and Merlin was far too good at keeping it from him for it to be something new to him.

"No, Arthur," Uther repeats, louder, so much more force to it, enough force that Arthur wants to stop. He always has before, always found it easier to not think about it, to obey, to let his father's will overwrite his own. "Magic is evil. It stole your mother from us, it killed your men, and it has attacked our kingdom over and over. There are no buts and there are no what ifs. There is just this, and if I hear you question it again, there will be consequences."

Uther stalks from the room without anything more, his meal largely untouched, and Arthur can only gape at Morgana. "He's wrong, isn't he?" he asks quietly once the doors close behind Uther and they're alone.

"Merlin isn't evil," she says just as quietly. "If I know anything, it's that Merlin will never be evil." She stands up and rounds the table, eyes on Arthur the whole time, and even though it's breaking him that she's talking about Merlin in the present tense, in the future, like he has a whole life yet to live even when Arthur left him lying bloodless and unburied in that clearing, he isn't strong enough to move away from her when she hugs him.

Merlin wakes him, as he so often does, in that fidgety, half-accidental, 'I'm awake so you should be too' way that he has, and it takes Arthur a minute to work out why this is odd, a minute that obviously shows on his face.

"What's up?" Merlin asks, yawning and burrowing his icy feet between Arthur's shins, chilly fingers tracing absentminded patterns over Arthur's skin.

"I had a dream," Arthur says, wrapping Merlin's hands in his own and clinging with more desperation than he will ever admit to aloud. "Just a dream," he repeats, and the relief he feels sucks the air from his lungs. Arthur pulls Merlin into his arms, holding tight, again so desperate, so disgustingly needy.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Merlin asks him, quiet and careful, holding Arthur in return, just as fiercely, so it feels less like Arthur is the only one clinging to something, like maybe the tide is trying to sweep Merlin away too. "It helps, sometimes."

"Perhaps for girls, yes, Merlin," Arthur answers, but his words sound slurred, drunk and unfocused, the irritation and amusement and further irritation at being amused missing from them. "I dreamt you were a sorcerer," he says, so quietly that the only reason he knows Merlin hears it is the way he stiffens in his hold, arms turning rigid and breath freezing for all of a second, if not less. "I dreamt I killed you for it."

Merlin's grip loosens then, and Arthur has to give in to his struggles to free himself, when what Arthur has just told him is so awful. He wants not to, wants to keep Merlin close to him until all memory of his nightmare fades, until he hears nothing but the thunder of their hearts, but he cannot hold him forever, will not hold him against his will.

Merlin doesn't pull away entirely, though, stopping at arm's length and holding Arthur's gaze, intent and bright, the look on his face that of absolute trust, of a love too deep to measure, the same look he wore when Arthur slit his throat, watched him splutter and die at the hands of the man he offered the world to. "That," Merlin says, unaware of how much pain his mere expression is causing Arthur, "is ridiculous."

I know that, Arthur thinks. As if Merlin, his Merlin, could be a sorcerer. As if Merlin, his Merlin, could be so stupid as to come to Camelot whilst capable of wielding magic, however often Arthur chooses to call him an idiot.

But Merlin, his Merlin, gazes at him with eyes of gold, eyes of candlefire and trust, and laughs, so fucking beautiful. "As if you'd do that," he says. "Really, Arthur."

He wakes up feeling colder than he ever has in his life, even when he used to share a bed with Merlin and his frozen extremities, even when they went hunting and Merlin was so sure it wasn't going to rain that he refused to put up any sort of shelter and, as it happened, was very, very wrong.

He scrambles into his clothes and shoves his boots on, laces tucked inside rather than messing around trying to tie then. His cloak gets bundled into the leather bag Merlin used to pack hunting supplies in, the bag Arthur had deemed unworthy of a morning as important as that one, so very long ago, along with blankets and a few coins, then he sets off to Morgana's room, not bothering to lock his door behind him.

"Arthur?" Morgana asks, yanking the door open to his frantic knocking, still stuffing her arms into a dressing gown. "What's up?"

Arthur averts his eyes until she's suitably clothed, only then realising just how early it is, though he doesn't think it would have stopped him from waking her if he had known before. "You say he's not dead," he says, quieter than his knocking was, knowing she'll know who he means without him saying the name. "Can you take me to him?"

"Let me get dressed," she says. "Go to the kitchens and get us some food, Merlin'll be hungry when we find him. I'll see you in the courtyard, sort us two horses out."

They ride far the first day, far and fast, until their horses start to lag and Morgana refuses to go any further.

"It's been months, Arthur," she says kindly when he threatens to ride on and leave her, never mind that he's only half-sure he can find his way back to that clearing. "Merlin can wait a little longer for you, and we need to be able to bring him back again."

She slides from her horse at the first suitable place to make camp after that conversation, hobbling her horse and staring at Arthur until he does the same. "Make a fire," Arthur instructs, then walks around their camp in ever-increasing circles until he has enough meat for dinner. His father would kill him for leaving her there unprotected, more than he'd kill them both for what they're doing right now, trying to bring a sorcerer back to life and back to Camelot, but then Arthur pretty much pities anyone dumb enough to attack Morgana, even without the magic that he hasn't quite worked up the courage to talk to her about.

He returns to a camp almost as efficiently made as Merlin would have done, which is maybe a little better than Arthur could have done (turns out, a lot of the things Merlin used to do for him are harder than they look). The fire is roaring, a pan of water heating over it, and Morgana has managed to put together some sort of rudimentary shelter over the bedrolls she's laid out close to the fire.

"This do?" she asks, smiling her most superior smile, and Arthur needs Merlin back, he really does, but does she have to be so smug about the fact that he has to ask her for help.

Arthur grunts, drops onto the ground and sets to skinning his kills. Morgana, in an exceptional display of humanity, chooses to respect his wish for silence.

She sleeps that night, curled up between Arthur and the fire. He doesn't.

He's already packed up and ready to move on when she wakes, has their horses saddled and waiting for them.

"They'll be looking for us by now," he explains, her expression question enough that he doesn't wait for her to ask it. "Come on."

Morgana sighs in that exaggerated, long-suffering way she has, but gets up anyway, scarfing down the bread Arthur hands her as he rolls up their blankets and fastens them to the back of their saddles, ready to ride on.

"I really don't think so," Morgana says that night, after another far too long day of riding, when Arthur instructs her to get some rest. "You sleep now, I'll take the first watch."

Her tone brooks no argument, and just this once Arthur feels inclined to respect it. He can't sleep, of course, but there's nothing wrong with lying there with his eyes closed and pretending, if it's going to make her feel better.

"Are you sure?" he asks to the darkness, Merlin's image burnt into his eyelids, and they both know that it's not a question about who sleeps and who sits on watch. It's a little late to ask, when they've been gone for two days already, but he needs her to be right about this. He believes her, has battled everything in himself in order to believe her, and he needs it to be true. "Morgana, are you sure?"

"Arthur," she says, stroking a hand over his hair as he lies beside her. "Arthur, I wouldn't do this to you if I wasn't sure. By tomorrow, you'll have him back."

He looks up at her, sees the promise on her face, and puts his faith in her again. She's got him this far, has been about all that's kept him together in the months since he killed Merlin, and he knows, knows for definite, that Morgana isn't evil, just as Merlin isn't evil. He needs to believe in her, just once more. He can't.

"Sleep, Arthur," she says. "Dream sweet dreams, little brother."

To his surprise, he does.

The fear rises steadily in Arthur's gut as they ride on the third day, even with how certain Morgana seems to be. What if she's wrong, if Merlin's dead and they've ridden all this way so that Arthur can stare at the rotting corpse of his lover? Or if she's not wrong, if she's lying, faking a vision to get Arthur out here as revenge for what he's done to Merlin, her kinsman? Or if Merlin does live, but this is some elaborate plot between the two of them to punish him? Or if, or if, or if.

He'll take it, though, Arthur thinks. He'll take anything, whatever punishment Merlin and Morgana want to mete out, whatever hell they want to dump on him he can handle, torture and death and even Merlin's undying hatred, just as long as he's alive. He needs Merlin to be alive.

Arthur doesn't anticipate the clearing, even though he knows they have to be nearly there. One minute they're riding through trees as thick as anything, exactly the same as the rest of the forest, and then they're breaking through into sunlight, fierce and desperate, not at all like the dying rays it should be at this time in the evening. It's glaring like midday, burning like fire, and all Arthur can see is the black ichor that was all that was left of the creature when Merlin was done with it, that and the blood.

He's no stranger to blood, no stranger to bones and rotting flesh and the smell of death, but this is something new.

Distantly, Arthur hears Morgana slide from her horse and retch, hears the wet splatter of liquid on leaves, and then the coppery odour of blood is supplemented by the acidic stench of vomit. He should go to her, he knows, because Morgana is five times as tough as he is and the foulness of this place makes him want to throw up too, want to cling to her and never let go, for both of them. He doesn't, though, because there in the middle of the destruction and horror is Merlin, lying so peacefully that he could be asleep, if it weren't for the gaping slit where his throat used to be.

He did this. He did this.

Arthur half-dismounts and half-falls from his horse, racing towards the body, and he never looked properly before, just ran his knife across Merlin's neck and felt the blood run out, watched the light fade, gold to blue to deaddeaddead before getting the hell out of there.

Still dead.

Morgana is wrong.

He's looking now, can't do anything but look as he pulls Merlin's bod-Merlin into his arms, staring into his eyes, as open as Arthur left them, as empty, as dead.

Morgana is wrong.

There's nothing here for him, just blood, Merlin's blood, and Arthur presses his hands over Merlin's throat, finds himself crooning to him, begging him not to be dead but it's not going to change anything.

"Arthur," Morgana says softly, her voice making its way through Arthur's grief, as sudden and as fresh as if it had just happened. "Arthur, it's okay." She stumbles to the ground beside them, spitting in a deeply inelegant manner, then wiping her mouth and putting her other hand on his shoulder. "I promised you."

"Well, you're wrong!" Arthur yells, staring over Merlin's body to meet her eyes and he's crying, shouting his grief to the heavens, cursing all that is good and holy for letting him do this. "Look!" he says, lifting his hand from Merlin's neck to show her the blood on it, dripping thick and red and hot. "Look, Morgana. Look at him."

"No, Arthur," she says, still soft, still just as convinced. "You look." Her hand closes over his, unmindful of the blood, the stain of it on Arthur's hands as it's on his soul, then takes it away again, holding it in front of his face.

"I know what I've done," Arthur says and oh, does he know. "I killed the person I love most in the world, Morgana, and I know that you want revenge for that. I know what you are, and I hate me just as much as you must, I do, but please." He has no right to beg, he knows that as much as he knows that he deserves this, whatever she's going to do, but he's begging anyway. "Please, Morgana, make it fast."

She laughs, but it's not cold, not cruel and nightmarish, the way it is when he's imagined her as an evil sorceress rather than a girl who may as well be his sister, magic or not. "No, Arthur, look. It's still wet."

Arthur looks again, willing her words to make sense, willing this not to be his own personal hell, Merlin's blood dripping from his hands.

Dripping.

Still wet.

"It's been months," he says shakily. "It's...Morgana?"

"I promised you, Arthur. He's not dead."

That's all very well, Arthur thinks, if all very well means absolutely fucking brilliant, but there's still the fact that Merlin isn't breathing, is just lying strewn in his arms with a gaping hole in his neck. "So what do I do now?" he asks, because she got them this far, she's the one who dreams the future. She has to be the one with the answers.

"I've never claimed to be a genius," Morgana says, although Arthur is almost certain this is a lie, "but what does the prince usually do to wake up his true love?"

Arthur cradles Merlin in his arms, one hand supporting his head like he's seen women do with babies too young to hold their own heads up, and oh, this is ridiculous. There is a bloody, gaping wound in Merlin's neck, a wound he put there, and, fresh blood or not, this is wrong. He has no right to kiss Merlin, even when a kiss is supposedly what it'll take to bring him back, but he's going to. And maybe there's someone better than him for this, for Merlin, someone who would have seen his secret as heroism rather than betrayal, who could have found out and not murdered him for it, but they're not here. Arthur is, and he's too selfish not to try.

He presses his mouth to Merlin's and just holds it there, hoping and praying and begging the world and the gods to just, please, bring him back. Arthur needs Merlin too much for them not to, needs him more than plants need the sun in the sky and men need water to live, needs him more than the breath he's pushing into his mouth, the breath he can feel leaving through the hole in Merlin's throat, bubbling through the blood that sits there, unflowing, and please. Please.

"Please," Morgana murmurs, echoing his thoughts, and Arthur has always figured he'd marry her one day, that it's what his father would want and damn the fact that the only time Arthur has ever felt anything like that for her has been idle curiosity, do you think her beautiful, but her heart...Morgana can be vicious, sometimes cruel, but her heart is bigger than anything, and Arthur would be honoured to rule alongside her, would happily search the world for someone who means as much to her as Merlin does to him, so that she can be as happy as he will be if this works.

Merlin's mouth tastes of metal and rust, blood and death, and Arthur can't actually believe this is going to do any good, however hard he wishes. His love isn't trusting or pure, he's the one who did this, for gods' sake, the one who murdered his lover in cold blood, without a second thought for what sort of man Merlin was. Merlin was good, made no secret of the fact he thought the world of Arthur, knelt there and let him hold a knife to his throat. Arthur isn't good enough to wake Merlin up.

"I'm sorry," he says softly, mouth a hairsbreadth from Merlin's. "I'm sorry, Merlin, you have no idea how sorry."

He holds the body to him; even if it is beyond hope, he's not ready to let go. He can pretend, as long as he clings to Merlin with his eyes closed, tears washing over his face and onto Merlin's. He can pretend Morgana is right, that Merlin is going to come back, that the breath on his face isn't just his own reflected back at him, that the hand squeezing his arm isn't Morgana's.

"Arthur," Morgana breathes, and if he scrunches his eyes up tighter and lets go of his doubts, he can imagine it's not her. Imagine it's Merlin, hoarse with disuse, raspy as his Arthur-inflicted neck wound knits itself back together. "Arthur," the voice that can't possibly be Merlin's sobs, "Arthur, you can let go now."

He can't, though, because if he lets go he gives up, gives in and lets Merlin be dead, and that's been pretty much killing him all this time. Morgana forced this hope on him, made him believe there was a chance, and to lose that now will destroy him. He rests his head on Merlin's chest, sobs so hard they both shake with it, clings and clings until he can't breathe anymore.

"You should probably listen to him, Arthur," Morgana says, pulling at Arthur's arm. "Let him go."

"I can't," Arthur says, or those are the words he means, even if what leaves his mouth sounds nothing like that. "I can't, 'Gana."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to," Morgana says, but if Arthur let himself believe it was Merlin last time, this time it's even easier. The hoarseness is less, the rasping almost gone, and Morgana usually sounds so feminine but right now she might as well be who she wants to hear. "Seriously, prat, I need to breathe."

Arthur opens his eyes, and Merlin's smile is all he can see.

"I think it was the regret more than the kiss," Merlin tells him when Arthur finally manages to let go of him most of the way, when Morgana has finished rhapsodising about how unbearable Arthur has been without him. He flexes his fingers within Arthur's grasp, not trying to pull away, seemingly aware of how close Arthur wants, needs, to keep him, aware that Merlin's hand in Arthur's own is the closest thing to distance between them Arthur can conceive of, but perhaps he is clinging just a little too tight. "I mean, yeah, it was pretty damn obvious you regretted it, but until then you never said you were sorry."

"I am," Arthur says. "Merlin, you have no idea. I can't-is this real, Merlin? Are you staying?"

"Unless you plan on slitting my throat again, yeah." Merlin says; Morgana laughs at him, even as Arthur winces. "I wouldn't, though, if I were you. I'm not sure they'll give you another chance."

Arthur is still trying to find the words to deny this, to make Merlin believe that he'll never, ever hurt him like that again, will never allow anyone to die in Camelot for nothing more than having magic, when Morgana speaks. "Who's they?" she asks softly. "I saw this, you being alive, but not how. First dream, vision, whatever I've ever been happy to have."

"Foretelling, I think," Merlin says, touching the fingers of his free hand to Morgana's temple, the expression on his face pure wonder. "I should have told you before, Morgana. I'm sorry."

Morgana dismisses this so easily that it might as well be nothing to her, even though Arthur has seen her terror after a dream, seen how desperate she's been for someone to believe her about them. "Are you not answering the question because you don't know or because you don't want to?"

"I can't," Merlin answers. "I made a deal, had to promise not to tell anyone about The Beyond so that they'd send me back. If I break it...well, it was pretty clear we wouldn't like the consequences."

"Don't tell us, then," Arthur protests, more quickly than he'd usually be willing to admit to, but not today. Today his concern can show, his desperate need to keep Merlin beside him, always; he's been without him too long, and there's no way in hell Arthur's going to let him go now, let him do anything that might mean losing him again. "Don't tell us anything."

Merlin smiles at him, the same smile as ever, kind with a hint of really, Arthur, how stupid do you think I am? to it. "I'd like to live a good long while before I go back there, if it's all the same to you," he says lightly, but the grip he has on Arthur's hand intensifies to the point where any other day Arthur'd be pulling free. "Now, did you think to set up camp before you came here, or am I going to have to do it?"

Arthur stands, or tries to, but finds himself bent almost in half, his arm stretching out to Merlin's, not ready to let go just yet. "I'll do it," he says, hauling Merlin to his feet. "Just not here."

Merlin glances around them, and whilst the blood where Merlin lay vanished when he came back – not vanished-vanished, it just wasn't there when Arthur finally managed to peel his eyes from Merlin's – the clearing still isn't all that pleasant. He'll come back in the morning, Arthur vows to himself, and dig graves for his men, singlehandedly if he must; they deserve better than an eternity lying in the remains of the thing that butchered them. If he could bring them back as well, Arthur would, but their deaths were not literally at his hands however much he feels like it, and magic can only do so much.

"Come on, boys," Morgana says, standing and dusting the dirt from her trousers, pristine again within seconds. "I'll sort out our camp, you two get cleaned up."

"How did you know how to get here?" Arthur asks, standing beside the lake Merlin has led him to, Morgana left just the other side of a line of trees by the shore.

Merlin looks at him, a little surprised, pausing midway through wriggling out of his shirt. "Do you really want to know?" he asks, apparently unaware of how Arthur can't take his eyes off his stomach, all the bare skin on display; he really didn't think this through first, not at all, and just because Merlin seems glad to be alive again, doesn't seem to loathe Arthur like he ought to, it doesn't mean he's going to want to be all they were before.

"Yes," Arthur says, because it doesn't matter if Merlin wants him, them, or not. He wants as much as Merlin is able to give him, as much as Merlin wants to give him, and he wants to know all the things he never wanted to know before. "If you'll tell me, please."

Merlin's curiosity becomes a smile, the trust he offers so easily, even now. "Ask anything, Arthur. I'll answer if I can. This..." he motions towards the lake with one hand, then resumes undressing, and even with his torso painted rust-red with blood spilled by Arthur's hand, Arthur just wants to touch. "I can sense it. There's so much life in the forest, and then the lake...there's just as much, fish and frogs and things, but they feel different."

Arthur nods, digesting this, pretending it makes sense. Even if it doesn't, this is something he needs to know. It's Merlin, Merlin is magic, and Arthur needs to know what that means.

"Come on," Merlin says, kicking off his boots and moving to the laces of his trousers. "I've been dead for months, and I feel gross. Plus, you know, blood, and it's not like you look any better."

Merlin is waist deep in the water before Arthur manages to take his eyes off him, has started swimming before Arthur is out of his own clothes and splashing in after him. "Damn, Merlin, can't you do something about the temperature?"

"Fish wouldn't like it much," Merlin calls back, either unaware of the fact that Arthur has asked him to use magic or just choosing to ignore it. "It's night, you prat, what do you expect the water to be? Seriously, though, it's not so bad when you get out here."

"Idiot," Arthur shouts, wading out further anyway, then swimming, until he's bobbing in the water beside Merlin, unsure what he's supposed to do now. And, yeah, they're both naked.

He really didn't think this through properly.

Arthur does the only thing he can right now; he reaches out, places a hand on both of Merlin's shoulders, and pushes him under the surface.

"That," Merlin says, spluttering, when they've finished shoving each other underwater, "was completely unnecessary."

Actually, Arthur thinks, it really wasn't, not when the alternative was Arthur doing something Merlin probably didn't want him to. "Sorry," he says anyway, seeing Merlin blink in surprise, and then repeats it without the lightness he'd forced into his voice. "Sorry."

"I understand, Arthur," Merlin says softly, taking Arthur's hand, and all Arthur can do is stare at their linked fingers in wonder.

"Can you explain it to me, then?" Arthur shoots back, holding on tightly again. "Why did you just kneel there? Why aren't you angry?"

Merlin stares at him like he's the idiot here, like Arthur should know the answers, like there's no reason at all for Merlin to loathe him. "I wanted to show you I was harmless," he says. "I'd never hurt you, Arthur, no more than the way I'd betrayed you already. Never, I promise, and that was the only way I could think of to prove it to you." He laughs, just a little, and it's like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, when all Arthur deserves is to be rained upon for all of eternity. "To be fair, I never actually thought you'd do it, but I know why you did."

Arthur can only gape at him, confused and awed and a little envious because he will never, ever be the sort of person Merlin is, will never, ever be worthy of him. And that, he thinks, is why he can only swim away, back to shore, and drag his bloody, grubby trousers back over his clean, damp skin.

Morgana has a fire going by the time he gets back to her, Merlin long having given up calling his name and instead choosing to follow him, at a distance.

"Pleasant swim?" Morgana asks, wearing the smirk Arthur remembers from when she'd catch them sneaking off for a few minutes alone together in the castle.

"Not in the slightest," Arthur answers, digging in his pack to find a clean shirt and pulling it over his head. The trousers can stay, he figures, when the colour is such that the dirt doesn't show too much, but he needs to have a shirt on before Merlin gets back.

"Arthur," Morgana says, utterly serious. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he says, jamming a spike through one of the rabbits he shot as they made their way towards the place Merlin thought they should camp. It's a little too aggressive a gesture for Morgana to buy it, of course, but since Merlin chooses that moment to crash his way through the trees she seems to decide to let it slide.

"Hey," he says quietly, stopping just inside the clearing. "I thought I'd put some protection up, so that no one has to keep watch. Would you like to help, my lady?"

Morgana looks at him like all her birthdays have come at once.

By the time his pseudo-sister and no-longer-lover are done pacing around the clearing they're in, Arthur has finished roasting the rabbit and scrambled together what can probably count as a meal, even if it isn't much for three.

The discussion as they eat runs mostly to magic, Morgana asking question after question and Merlin struggling to answer then. Arthur pretends not to listen, even as Morgana finds out everything he's wanted to know since the fury that led him to slit Merlin's throat drained from his limbs.

He can't make himself contribute anything at all.

By the time they get back to the city, Arthur still hasn't spoken to Merlin. He's watched him a lot, certainly, every second of every day when whatever he's doing means his attention isn't required elsewhere, but actually talking to him...Arthur doesn't know what to say that isn't horribly inappropriate; Merlin might be too forgiving to want him dead, but Arthur cannot ask him for them to be what they were before.

A patrol has clearly sighted them as they approach the castle walls, because Uther is standing on the steps when the three of them get there, such fury on his face. Arthur's feet are the first to hit the floor, Merlin's a close second as he swings down from the back of Morgana's mount, then offers her a hand down, but Arthur's attention is pulled from them, from the shock and delight on Gaius and Gwen's faces, when Uther's hand clamps around his upper arm.

"Where the hell have you been?" Uther demands, voice a low, furious hiss as he drags Arthur into the castle; Arthur has never known him so utterly unconcerned by appearances, so unbothered by the need to present a strong, united front. It's not the first time Arthur has left without telling anyone where he's going, not the first time he's been gone for days and not cared about how worried his father might be, but Uther's fury can be explained with only one word: Morgana. All the times Arthur has run without permission, he's never taken her with him.

Uther releases him as soon as they're inside, pushes him back against the wall, hard, the look on his face bordering on the madness he has when it comes to magic, and suddenly it makes sense, is clear to Arthur in a way it never has been before.

"She's my sister, isn't she?" he asks, using his father's frozen, horrified silence to push past him, make his way to the room he's fairly sure he'll be confined to for quite a long time. He doesn't need to stick around long enough to hear Uther admit it, or try and deny it.

He has a sister, and no idea at all how he's supposed to tell her that.

For the first time in months, Arthur wakes to someone else in his room, wakes to his breakfast laid out on the table and clothes set out ready for him to wear. In the haze between sleep and waking, he reaches out, hand searching for the warmth Merlin's body has left between his sheets, trying to guess how long it's been since he got up.

"Come on, prat!" Merlin chirps, and Arthur's brain starts working properly. About five months, he thinks, maybe closer to six, since Merlin last got out of his bed. "Daylight's a-wasting."

"It hardly matters, Merlin," Arthur tells him, scrubbing the sleep from his eyes and rolling out of bed. "I highly doubt my father's going to let me out of this room without an armed guard."

"They're waiting for you outside," Merlin answers, the grin on his face raw, forced, difficult, and Arthur doesn't have any choice. He loves Merlin, is pretty sure everyone and his dog knows that, but he can't keep him here if he doesn't want to be.

"You don't have to stay, Merlin," he says, knowing it sounds abrupt and awful, but it needs to be said. He needs to set Merlin free. "I don't expect you to serve me any longer."

Merlin stares at him, that grin still there but looking even more unnatural now. "I see," he says slowly, nodding once, dropping the shirt he's just about to offer to Arthur back on the chair he picked it up from. "Well," he continues after a moment, fake lightness practically dripping from his tone, "You know where I am if you need me."

I'll always need you, Arthur thinks, but how can he say it? If Merlin doesn't want to be around him, Arthur can't make him, can't stop him from leaving him, and it ought to be enough that he's alive. And the more time Merlin has free of Arthur's presence, the more time he has with Morgana, someone like him, someone who reacts to the truth of his magic with wonder rather than murder. He didn't think Merlin would actually go, though, expected something full of devotion, adoration, you are my king and I love you with all I have in me.

Then again, Merlin's already fulfilled the promise that he'll serve him until the day he dies.

"Goodbye, Merlin," he says quietly, just a moment too late, the door already closed behind him.

"Do you know what Merlin said to me the day you went on that awful hunting trip?" Morgana shouts, storming into his room not half an hour later, and if Arthur thought she looked insane the day she first told him Merlin was still alive, it's hardly worth considering compared to today. Today, Morgana is nothing but fury, and if her overly dramatic entrance hadn't left the door wide open Arthur would be fearing for his life. "He promised me he'd bring you back. I believe you, my lady, he said. I'll die before I let anything happen to him, he said. Arthur will be fine, he said."

"I take it you have a point here," Arthur says. This is not what he wants to deal with today, not when Merlin has left him, taken him up on his offered freedom and proven that even if he's not still dead, Arthur has ruined the most real love he's ever known.

Morgana slams the door shut and advances on him, looking about ready to knife him; Arthur isn't proud of retreating, but he'd challenge any sane man not to do the same when she looks like that.

"You fired Merlin!"

"I didn't," he answers, back quite literally to the wall. "Merlin quit. I told him he didn't have to keep serving me, and he chose not to."

Morgana's index finger jabs into his chest, nail almost sharp enough to draw blood. "Right," she says, so incredibly hostile. "He's sitting in my room feeling sorry for himself because he chose to stop working for you. He thinks you hate him, because of his magic." She lowers her voice for that last word, though Arthur isn't stupid enough to think that means she's any less mad.

"Merlin knows better than that," Arthur says, knocking her hand away and pushing her back far enough that he can make his around her. "After all I went through to get him back, he knows why, and he knows that I quite obviously don't hate you." You're my sister, he thinks, but one argument at once, and Morgana knows that anyway, knows she is his sister by choice even if she doesn't know it's also by blood.

Morgana slumps oh so elegantly into a chair, flashing far too much leg. "Merlin knows that you held a knife to his throat when he kept the promise he made me. Merlin knows that you haven't spoken to him since he told you that he doesn't hate you for your stupidity. Merlin knows that you won't touch him. Merlin knows that you can't even meet his eyes anymore. After all the effort I went to to help you get him back, I'm not just going to let you throw him away like this."

"I'm not throwing him away, 'Gana," Arthur says, feeling just a little bit like crying as he sits next to her, but he's done with that. He's doing the right thing, and he's not going to give Morgana the satisfaction of seeing how much it's hurting him. "I'm letting him go."

"Idiot," she breathes, reaching for his hand, then reaching further when Arthur pulls back. "Arthur, you are such an idiot."

"I didn't just try to kill him," Arthur tells her; there's no point in contesting her calling him an idiot, not when it's so blatantly true. "I killed him, and I left him there, and I can't ever undo that. How can I ask anything from him after that?"

"Come on," she says, standing up and refusing to let go of his hand until he does the same. "You're going to go to my room, tell Merlin exactly what you just told me, and the two of you are going to live happily ever after and stop bothering me and Gwen with your ridiculous melodramas."

The force behind her eyes as she glares at him is enough to quell any thought Arthur has of objecting.

Before he has time to really work out what is going on, he's in Morgana's room, Morgana and Gwen somewhere on the other side of the locked door (Morgana's doing, without a doubt), trying to keep Arthur's guards occupied in order to give him and Merlin the chance to talk.

If only Arthur knew what to say.

"I can open the door if you want," Merlin offers, just as the silence is getting truly unbearable. "Just turn around and pretend...I don't know, pretend I'm really good at picking locks, and then we can be out of here."

It'd be so easy just to agree, let Merlin open the door and let them both go, because how can Morgana possibly be right? Merlin might be forgiving, might be able to witness Arthur and his father execute sorcerers and still be willing to save Arthur's life, but he can't be that good. There's no way Merlin can be so forgiving as to still love Arthur after what he's done, no way, and Arthur can't delude himself into believing it.

"Is that what you want?" he asks, because deluding himself takes no effort at all, not now that Morgana has put the question in his mind. He has to ask.

"You know that doesn't matter, Arthur," Merlin says. "You wanted me gone, so I left."

"I told you you didn't have to stay," Arthur says, sitting down on Morgana's bed. "You chose to go."

"I thought you wanted me to."

Arthur stares up at him, lost and confused and so very desperate, wanting so much to reach out and drag him down with him. He's already destroyed this, them, Merlin, once, and if Morgana is right then Merlin is willing to let him do it all over again. "I didn't," he says, then stops, stalls, and forces himself to go on. He needs Merlin to make a choice, and he needs Merlin to know everything first. "I didn't want you to feel obligated to carry on working for me."

Merlin sits as well, at a distance, such a distance, and Arthur still feels so lost, for words and thoughts and actions. "But you don't mind if I want to?" he asks, a sting to his tone, a bitter aftertaste in Arthur's mouth, a judgement he knows he more than deserves, even if it's not for the crime Merlin thinks him guilty of. "Even if it means you'll have to see magic every single day when I'm around you."

"I want you to stay," Arthur says, truth so strong it physically hurts to say it, just as much as it hurts to keep it in. "I want to see you every day, I want to wake up with you every morning, and I want to know everything there is to know about you, every secret you've ever had, magic included."

"Arthur..." Merlin says, soft again, soft in voice and eyes and the way he reaches out, shuffles closer, stopping when Arthur shakes his head.

"I'm not done, Merlin," he says. "I want you to stay, I want you, but only if it's what you want, what you choose."

Merlin looks at him, that same look he had as he knelt in the clearing, that same look that has tortured Arthur's dreams for days, weeks, months, waking and sleeping, every single moment. That same look Merlin has always offered him, whenever he's found Arthur worthy, wonderful, even when Arthur hasn't felt it.

"Prat," Merlin says, just as that look has always said: you are a prat, Arthur, and an idiot, but I love you anyway. "I chose to come back from the dead for you. You really think I'm going to choose now to start saying no?"

Arthur doesn't know what to say, again, but when Merlin is rising to his knees next to him and moving closer again, as impossibly, imperfectly perfect as he's ever been, the very definition of Arthur's better half, maybe staying quiet is okay. Maybe this, them, Merlin's mouth to his, Merlin's air in his lungs, is all that needs to be said.