Her
A/N I have to be honest and admit that I have absolutely no idea what this is. It just walloped me around the head and I had to write it, so it comes before you as it is. All you need to know is that it fits in with the series, in those painful moments after Arthur banishes Guinevere in 4.09, Lancelot Du Lac. My apologies if it is rubbish. My muse just wouldn't let it go.
"I am sorry. I am truly sorry."
Arthur turns back just long enough to say the words, just long enough for one last look at her, before reaching for one of the heavy wooden doors and walking out of the presence chamber. When the door closes, separating him from her, the heavy thud sounds like a death knell and he leans against it for a moment, reminding himself that he still lives, even if it feels like he doesn't. Every inch of him wants to go back into that room, wants to take back what he's just said, wants to take her in his arms, wants to hold her against him as he's done so often and wants to kiss her tears away. He wants to tell her he understands, that perhaps she had fears about the wedding, about becoming his Queen, that even she didn't realise. He wants to tell her it's all right, he forgives her, but then the sight of her in the arms of a man who wasn't him, a man he trusted almost more than any other, runs through his mind again and for a moment he loses his strength. Unable to hold himself upright, he leans harder on the door in front of him, trying to breathe, trying to think, but doing so only draws his attention back to her. He hears her dimly through a tiny crack between the doors to the presence chamber, hears the way she sobs as if her world has come crashing around her. In this, if nothing else, he knows how she feels. His world ended when he saw her in Lancelot's arms.
Knowing he can't stay there all night, leaning against the doors of the room where she continues to weep, Arthur forces himself upright. Moving blocks the sound of her tears and he feels relieved for a moment, until he makes his feet back away from the doors. Then the separation from her strikes him anew, knocking the breath from his lungs. His hand reaches for the door handle entirely of its own will. It hovers over it, waiting for him to make a decision. Can he go back into that room and offer her his forgiveness? Can he still marry her tomorrow as they'd planned? It was all arranged, he told himself. He hadn't sent out word to cancel the wedding. All around the castle servants were still busy with the preparations for the ceremony and the feast that would follow, so it would take no effort at all to go ahead. All he would have to do is go back into the presence chamber, offer her his forgiveness, revoke her banishment and then he could marry her and spend the rest of his life with her. Except, in his heart, he knows he can't. He can't marry her now, not because he doesn't love her. Even now, he knows he will love her until his last breath. He knows he can't marry her, not because he's bothered about what people will think, that they will think he's weak for forgiving a woman who has betrayed him in the worst possible way. No, Arthur knows he can't marry her because she has shattered his trust. He had trusted her implicitly, sought her opinion, put his faith in her and she'd trampled all over it like it was nothing. As much as he knew he still loved her, would always love her, he could never trust her again. The thought finally lowers his hand to his side and he turns and walks away.
Arthur walks through the silent corridors of the castle. Though the torches illuminate his way in a golden glow, he feels the darkness as never before. It seems to hang over him, over every thought in his head, every feeling in his heart. He's cold, he realises, wondering for a moment if the castle feels even more draughty than usual, or if he has lost the ability to feel any sort of warmth because he has lost her. He pushes the thought away, knowing it is pointless. She will be gone in the morning. That's enough.
Arthur breathes a sigh of relief when his chambers loom ahead. It vanishes abruptly when Agravaine approaches. Arthur wonders for a moment if he imagines the smug smile on his uncle's lips, the way he looks pleased with himself.
"Ah, Arthur, what did you say to….?"
"Not now, Uncle," Arthur cuts him off before he can say her name, the name of the woman who, for now at least, he can not name, even in his own head. For now she is her because using her name is too painful. It is a regal name, a perfect name for the Queen she was going to be, a name that captured everything she was to him, everything she would always be, whether she was there or not. He watches Agravaine's smile vanish abruptly, almost like he'd imagined its presence. He dismisses the thought and carries on walking towards his chambers. He wants to be alone. He wants to breathe, he wants to think. He wants….He wants things he can no longer have.
Finally, Arthur reaches his chambers. The door is open. He knows even without thinking who he will find inside, so he stands for a moment just inside the door, watching Merlin lighting the candles and turning down the bed. The sight looks so normal, so routine, for a moment his mind wanders. He thinks about what Merlin would have been like if his marriage to her had gone ahead. Would Merlin have prepared the room for his wedding night? He imagines Merlin lighting the candles around the room, filling the space with the light under which he would take her into his arms for the first time as her husband. He imagined Merlin turning down the bed, the tips of his ears turning a deep pink as he made the preparations for his master to take her as his wife in a way that was just as irrevocable, perhaps even more so, as the vows they would have exchanged earlier in the day.
"Arthur." Merlin stands up properly from turning down the bed, noticing Arthur's presence for the first time. He meets Arthur's gaze awkwardly, like he doesn't know what to say or where to look, but Arthur is suddenly filled by the thought that Merlin knows exactly what he is thinking, what he feels. It is an irritation and a comfort at the same time, a feeling he can't explain, even to himself. He wonders if she would have understood.
"Leave me," he commands, every inch the King, his need to be alone rising again. "Please," he adds. He sees her in his mind as he says the word, the way her eyes would shine when she was proud of something he'd done. He forces the image away, hoping the word sounds less like a plea in Merlin's ears than it does in his. He knows it doesn't when he sees something like pity in his servant's eyes.
"If you need...anything," Arthur can see Merlin's hesitation. The kindness in his friend's tone almost breaks him.
"I'm fine," he lies, knowing Merlin will see right through him. He just needs to be alone.
With one last look at Arthur, Merlin is gone. He closes the door to Arthur's chambers softly, leaving him alone in the candlelight. His eye is drawn to the bed, pulled back, ready for him. Just as he'd done for days in anticipation of his marriage, he wonders what it would be like to take her to his bed. Would she be nervous? Would she be shy, or would her courage shine in her eyes as she came to him? He sees her in his mind, approaching him bravely, her head up, looking him in the eye. He almost feels it as she kisses him, her lips soft against his, her taste familiar. He watches her as she guides his hands to the ties on the silken robe she is wearing and feels it as her hands move to his shirt, pulling it from him so that her hands can roam over him in the way he'd wanted them to for longer than he would ever care to confess.
Arthur stands at the foot of the bed, watching in his mind's eye as he picks her up in his arms and carries her to the bed, delighting in the way she giggles and plants a kiss on the sensitive skin behind his ear, a weak spot she'd discovered long ago. A moment later she is on the bed and he is hovering over her, kissing, touching, acquainting himself with her beauty as she slowly reveals herself to him in the low light of the room. Soon he knows he can wait no longer and he enters her. He sees the momentary flicker of pain in her eyes, feels it as she grips his naked shoulders, her nails digging into his skin. He waits for her, gives her time to adjust to the sensation of his intrusion. Only when she relaxes her grip on his shoulders and her eyes tell him all is well does he begin to move within her. It takes no time at all for him to lose himself in the feeling of her. It is everything he thought it would be and more, so much more. He thinks she feels it too when she arches against him, her eyes wide open, as if she can see into his soul, and then she shatters in his arms, his name a cry on her lips that echoes around the chamber.
It is this sound that finally brings Arthur Pendragon to his knees, the images in his mind dying as the reality of what he has done slams into him. He has sent her away. He has banished her from the Kingdom, from his life, from his presence. Still, he knows, even now, banishing her from his heart will be a harder task and he asks himself how he will ever live without her.