A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! This just popped out in less that 15 minutes, so here it is. :) Enjoy!
Merlin tries not to think of her. In fact, sometimes, he tries to forget her, but then he realizes he'd rather remember how beautiful she was, even if it feels like a mace blow to the chest every time. (He'd know, he's had that before.) But still, Merlin tries not to let her into his thoughts. It gets easier, through the years.
He calls Arthur a prat, and ducks flying things, and makes jokes and laughs with the knights, and he thinks of her only once in a while. Arthur and Gwen bring his memories of her rushing back sometimes, but he swallows most of them down with a grin and ignores those that he can't.
But the knights remind Merlin of her, too. It happens when Gwaine comes stumbling half-drunk through the door and hauls him to the tavern, and actually cries, and Merlin learns that it is the anniversary of the death of the only woman Gwaine ever really loved. Merlin cries with him.
It happens when a pretty woman ties her token onto Leon's arm before a jousting tournament, and leans in to kiss him on the cheek, and Leon laughs, a look of pure happiness and love on his face. Merlin can see it in his eyes, and he smiles, but thinks the sight is one of the saddest he's seen.
It happens when Elyan, as the brother of the Queen, is forced to dance with a visiting noblewoman at a feast, and by the end of the night, Merlin has never seen him more content. The woman has a look in her eye that suggests the feeling is mutual, and Merlin gets another mace blow to the chest.
It happens when a young woman tries to yell at Percival for getting mud all over the floor of her house when the knights are trying to treat an injured Arthur, except the floor is made of hard-packed dirt. Everyone dissolves into helpless laughter, even Arthur chuckles around the arrow in his leg, and Merlin has to laugh with them.
The only one who knows about her is Lancelot. It's been a few years, but it is the first time it's quiet in Camelot on the anniversary of her death, and Merlin has way too much time to think. Arthur designates Lancelot to fetch Merlin, who didn't show up to training to be a target, Merlin can't hold it in any longer and spills everything, and neither knight nor servant reappear until the next day.
When Arthur asks Gaius where the bloody hell they are, the physician simply replies that they are in the tavern and not to disturb them for any matter today, please and thank you.
If Lancelot and Merlin both show up the next day smelling indeed, as though they have been in the tavern, and with red eyes, well, no one mentions it. If they had spent the entire time mourning loves lost, well, neither one mentions it again, but Lancelot knows why Merlin is so somber on that particular day every year. But Lancelot does not live to see the next day, and Merlin again has no one to talk to.
One day, Arthur introduces Merlin to Saint Valentine's Day. It was in three days, Arthur had explained. You were supposed to spend time with the one you loved, and bring them flowers, and chocolates, and such sweet tokens.
Merlin does not know that Arthur is explaining this concept to win a bet with the knights that Merlin does, indeed, have a "Valentine". Merlin does not know that in three days, Arthur will give him the last half of the day off, and that the knights and Arthur will all group together to follow Merlin.
Merlin will stop at the market and pick up some strawberries, of all things, and a bunch of flowers. He will set off through the woods, and the knights will follow. He will arrive by a small lake, and he will sit down, and he will wait. The sun will begin to go down, and the stalkers will be confused when there is still no one there and Merlin begins to talk.
"I saved you some strawberries," he will say. "I know they're your favorite. Arthur says it's Saint Valentine's Day, and I'm supposed to spend time with you, so here I am. I miss you. I miss you so much, and it hurts, you know. To see Arthur with Gwen, or any of the knights with those they love, because that was supposed to be you and me."
He'll lower his head and wipe something off his cheek, and the knights will feel irrepressibly guilty.
"Oh, I'm happy for them, I am." He will continue, staring into the lake, at the colors of the sunset. "I know you'd want me to be. Just…I can never get up the courage to tell them about you, and when I finally told Lancelot, he died. And I think out of all of them, Gwaine is the only one who would understand, even a little. He would understand what it's like, to have a what-if. You are my what-if."
Merlin will sigh. "What if Arthur had known? If he had known you were cursed, if he knew that you didn't want to be that way. I wonder, if he had known what you meant to me, if he still would have killed you. I like to think that he wouldn't have. That he didn't know. Arthur would never do that."
The sorrow in his voice will be devastating. Arthur will be flabbergasted and the knights will be shocked, and all of them will regret the whole idea.
"You'd be proud of both of us, you know. I think so. He's such a great king. I wish so much that you were here to see it. I've forgiven him for the hurt he caused you, and I know that you'd have done, too. I try not to think about you sometimes, when I see them and it hurts too much. But I'll never forget you. I promise."
Merlin will sigh once. The stalkers behind the trees will turn to leave, trying to sneak away.
"Anyhow, Freya, I saved you some strawberries."