The hardest part, Gwen thought, was that she had no tomb to visit.
Merlin had sent her husband straight to Avalon, he'd said, and they had no body to bury. No grave to lay flowers on. No marker to touch softly. Nothing solid, nothing that she could touch or feel. Merlin said it was for the best, that things felt incomplete because they were, and Arthur would come back someday.
But as she stood on the edge of the lake Merlin had brought her to, all Gwen knew was that she felt alone, and nothing would ever heal her wounds.
The hardest part, Merlin thought, was all the unsaid words.
He hadn't had time to say everything he'd wanted to. Even though something told him that all the important things had been said (I use it for you. Thank you.) he hadn't been able to share his view on all the moments that had made up the last decade of their lives. He hadn't been able to explain and answer questions and ask his own.
As he stood on the edge of the lake, his throat burned with all the words he hadn't said, and his eyes stung from the despair of not knowing how long he couldn't talk to his King.
(his friend)
The hardest part, Percival thought, was how lonely everyone was.
They all still had each other, but no one was the same.
Gwaine and Arthur were gone.
The friendly banter they indulged in was not the same. Without Gwaine around to flirt or insult his king, or Arthur poking fun at Merlin, things seemed so…dead. Of the original Round Table, only Percival and Leon remained. You'd think they would band together more than ever, but…
Everyone was still lost in their own world.
They needed their King to pull them together, pull them from the moment he had left…
But he couldn't.
He wasn't here.
The hardest part, Leon thought, was the loss of everyone's smiles.
He had earned a reputation for being a knight among knights, and such men did not put much stock in such things as smiles and laughter.
But he was also a friend of the queen, and he had been a friend of the king.
He knew, from that experience, that the greatest measure of a kingdom's strength was how content its rulers were. Even when Morgana had tried to take the throne, Merlin had encouraged their king and he had been strong and even smiled, and Leon had known nothing could stop them from reclaiming the kingdom.
Now nothing was trying to take it, but Camelot was drowning in nothing, in the gasping chasm of its King's absence.
Nothing sucked the joy and the smiles out of everyone, and Leon wasn't sure the kingdom could keep going.
The hardest part, Gaius thought, was the change in Merlin.
He understood it, as well as he could, but the fact that he could never possibly understand all of it—what could compare to losing the other side of yourself?— this fact made him ache for his nephew. The physician in him wanted to make everything all better, but the physician in him also knew that he couldn't.
He had to trust Merlin, as he always had, and wait for the day when Arthur would return.
But trusting Merlin had started taking a darker, more lonely turn since… since Mordred, since his young nephew decided he had grown up now. Merlin had changed, and there was nothing Gaius could do about it.
The hardest part, Arthur thought, was waiting.
It always had been.
He had been impatient, he had been a man of action—
And he still was.
Living in Avalon, seeing everything from a perspective he had never imagined…
He wanted to talk to his friends. He wanted to hug his wife. He wanted to train with his knights. He wanted to be there, instead of here.
And he couldn't. He had to wait, they said. He had to watch, and do nothing, while his kingdom, his people, and his friends slowly died.
(Even Merlin, Merlin was slowly dying but not really and never. Arthur hated himself for it, but he was thankful that someone else was waiting with him.)
A/N: sorry if it's too dark but... well. we weren't left with much, were we? I am so going to rewrite all the seasons one day. Anyway, what did you think?