This is going to be a series of one shots, based off of songs that make me think of the most beautiful pairing, Mergana. Before reading, I'd recommend listening to the song first so you have context for the story, but it's up to you. This first one's based on Mariana's Trench "One Love".

Enjoy!

One Love

The castle feels empty tonight.

Hell, all of Camelot has been feeling empty since she disappeared.

Merlin pauses in the midst of his chores and gazes longingly out the window. For the past month, Arthur has been on many a mission commanded by Uther to find Morgana. All have proved to be fruitless. All because of him.

He has absolutely no idea where Morgana is, or what Morgause is doing to her now. The only thing that eases his conscience somewhat is that he had given the priestess the vial of poison, giving her the crucial knowledge required to save Morgana's life. Not that it's any excuse. If she ever comes home, she'll probably hate him.

And he can't blame her for that. He'd hate himself, too, for what he did to her. Actually, he truly does, every waking moment of every day. Possibly, what hurts the most is that he never told her how he felt. She'd never know of the feelings he had held towards her, his love that had quickly grown for her over the few short years they'd known each other.

When he met Freya, he'd thought that he had finally found someone he could be with. Someone like him who was not out of reach, unattainable to a person of his standing. He was ready to give up his life in Camelot to take her away from her captors and her prison. It had nearly crushed him when she died, killed unknowingly by his own best friend.

Though he still misses her dearly, it didn't take long for his heart to wander back to its original course of a certain green-eyed beauty. Too late, he's realized that all this time she has been his one love. Ever since he first laid eyes on her on the day of his arrival, ever since his respect for her grew tenfold with the incident with the druid boy, and the time when she, practically a princess, dropped everything to help him, a servant, save his humble village from bandits. All the unspoken words between them, everything he had tried to convey with meaningful glances, all undone by one act of carelessness.

His feet seem to have a mind of their own, as he snaps back to reality and realizes he is outside Morgana's chambers. Or what used to be her chambers. Having to think of her life here as something in the past tense breaks his heart.

The door is slightly ajar, and Merlin quietly slips inside. The scent of her perfume, though fading fast, still lingers on the sheets of her bed, the drapes covering her windows, the vanity where she would sit and comb her hair.

Gods, he misses her.

In his moment of nostalgia, he thinks he sees a glimmer of a figure sitting on her bed. His heart leaps and he turns to welcome her home and apologize for everything he's done, to confess his feelings and promise to never leave her on her own again.

But she disappears. It was just a cold trick of the light, a silhouette sent to torment him.

He sinks to his knees, a question playing over and over in his mind.

What if the one true love's the only one that you get?

"What's the matter?"

He hums quietly in response. "Nothing."

Merlin has the conflicting sense that everything is right, yet everything is wrong, and doesn't know why. The woman who he's loved for well over a thousand years is sitting upright in his bed, gazing at him in a bleary confusion as he stares hard out the window of his flat. What could possibly be wrong with that?

"Just come back to bed," she calls softly.

Something is strange about her voice, but Merlin shrugs it off, turning towards her with a gentle smile and returning to sit next to her on his bed. He takes her hands in his, and their gazes lock.

Her green eyes are sad, full of pity. He's taken aback, not understanding exactly why she's looking at him like this.

"Morgana?"

The pity changes to ice, the look she would shoot at him when he would interfere with her plans or have what she considered more knowledge of something than he should.

"You failed me, Merlin." Her voice is dripping with anger.

"I- I'm so sorry! Please, I didn't mean to-"

"But you did." She shrugs, and he can feel her slipping out of his grasp. He tightens his hold on her, but she is fading quickly.

"Morgana! Please, don't leave," he begs her, but those green eyes just hold steady on his face. Before he knows it, she's disappeared once more, leaving him alone and feeling broken.

Merlin awakes in a cold sweat, sitting bolt upright. For a moment he thinks he's going to be sick as he searches for her. The other side of the bed is cold, though.

It wasn't real. He'd thought she might be here, but as it turns out it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Again.

His clock reads 5:30 am. Early, but knowing well that he isn't going to get back to sleep after that, he pads over to the sink and splashes water on his face. He gazes at his dripping visage in the mirror. It's paper white, as if he's just seen a ghost. Which, in all honesty, he pretty much has. Everything that resulted from her poisoning, especially the look on her face when he ran her through with Excalibur, still haunts him to this day.

His mind seems particularly determined to remind him of it.

Sighing, Merlin drags his fingers through his hair. It's been getting worse over the past few months. He keeps having these dreams, or thinking that he sees her somewhere as he's walking. He's pretty sure a young woman nearly called the cops on him two weeks ago, when he saw a flash of raven hair and green eyes that looked so much like hers, and he ran over to her calling her name. The poor woman had been terrified, thinking that some raving lunatic was after her. Of course, he apologized profusely. Once he got close, it was plain to see that this was most definitely not his Morgana, anyhow. She had given him a skeptical glance but had accepted it, mobile still in hand ready to ring for the police.

That one had definitely earned him a few stares as he stalked away, face burning.

Over the years, there have been times when he'd feel better every day, like the brokenness inside was finally leaving him. And every time he foolishly felt comfortable with the thought, something would happen once more, and he would be left, shattered.

And all this time, that question has been plaguing him.

What if the one true love's the only one that you get?

Maybe he should leave. He's found that being in one place for too long can make his visions of her worse.

He contemplates this bitterly over coffee, frowning at the easygoing passerby around him. Their lives are so simple, not having had to deal with betrayal and loneliness and a crushing guilt for over a millennia. Why couldn't he have been as lucky as his friends, who found solace eventually in death, instead of having to sit here waiting for the chance to make amends for the wrongs he had committed during another lifetime?

It hits him as he takes another sip of the steaming liquid that, in some perverse and twisted way, he actually pines for the visions of Morgana when they leave him be. It's the only time he gets to see her face, even though they leave him an emotional wreck.

Smirking at the fact that he's probably going mad, he casually makes the comparison that she is like some kind of phantom limb from his past life, his past love. She was lost and gone from him so fast, and yet he still falls for it every time he thinks he sees her. He needs to stop looking, listening, pining for her, but he knows he won't. It's something he'll have to live with.

Merlin continues to gaze around at the hustle and bustle in the little coffee shop when he almost chokes on his beverage. There she is, sitting in a plush chair, face partially hidden behind a newspaper. That maddening hope that it truly could be her flares up again, but this time he shoves it down relentlessly.

"No. It is NOT her. Get a grip, Merlin," he furiously thinks to himself. This encounter subconsciously helps him make the choice that he has to leave, make another fresh start for himself. He'll start looking for a new place tonight. For now, though, he has to go for a walk and clear his mind.

The niggling thought that it just might be her makes him feel magnetized to the woman, his heart trying to drag his feet towards her. But thankfully logic wins out, and after standing there stunned for several minutes (to the dismay of some of the other customers trying to maneuver around him), he forces himself out the door. Merlin crumples the paper cup with his hand in frustration, before throwing it angrily into a nearby waste bin.

What if the one true love's the only one that you get? Gods, he's going to be plagued by this for the rest of his life. He knows the answer - no one could ever take that place that she holds in his heart.

In his haste to get away, he doesn't see the young woman's green eyes flick up to him and twinkle with recognition.

Merlin can't sleep, no matter how hard he tries. Thoughts of Morgana and leaving and newspapers keep whirling through his mind. And that makes him grumpy. He may be immortal, but he still needs his sleep!

The knock that comes on the door to his flat is the last straw. It's two o'clock in the morning.

"Who the hell is at my door at this time of night?" he grumbles as he drags himself out of bed. Not that he was actually sleeping, but for arguments' sake he technically could have been.

The knocking comes again as he trudges to the door. Irritated by whoever's impatience, he flings the door open and all but growls, "You'd better have a damn good reason for coming to my flat at this time of night. Who the hell do you-" He abruptly stops speaking when he takes into account the familiar face standing in front of him.

Morgana crooks an eyebrow at him. "Hello, Merlin. Nice to see you, too."

His mouth is hanging open; in hindsight, that was probably rather rude. But she's been plaguing his mind for years, only to dissipate into thin air as a hallucination when he thinks she's finally there. So it's hard for him to come up with anything rational to say.

Except for, "You're not real." For his sanity's sake, he has to believe it.

He closes the door, locking it behind him. There is absolutely no way this is really Morgana. Diving back under his duvet, he grabs his pillow and pulls it over his head, hoping that the more layers he has on top of him the better he will be able to block out thoughts and visions of her.

Apparently, he does manage to fall asleep at some point, because the next time he opens his eyes his pillow is on the ground and the moon has shifted position. He rolls over to retrieve it and freezes as he notices a figure casually sitting on his dresser, gazing out of his window as the minutes tick by. Moonlight glints off of her long, dark waves, and green eyes sparkle as she watches over the quiet city life.

"You're awake," she says softly, not a question, without tearing her gaze away from the calm scene before her.

"You're a hallucination," he croaks. "Every time, you've been..."

Her lips curve up ever so slightly in a smirk. "Would a hallucination have helped herself to the wine in your kitchen?"

"What?"

Shrugging, she replies, "You were asleep for awhile, and pretty determined to ignore me. I let myself in and thought I may as well do something other than just sit here and listen to you snore."

"How did you-"

"How do you think?"

Finally, she meets his gaze. For the briefest moment her eyes glow gold and he hears the name "Emrys" whispered softly in his mind, a gentle breath of fresh air.

Merlin can hardly think straight, let alone speak. So he sits silently under her scrutiny until he can talk to her without his voice betraying him and cracking with the heavy weight of his emotions. "You're... You're real?"

She doesn't answer him with words, rather she swiftly closes the gap between them and gently presses her lips to his. It's a chaste kiss, but the feel of her skin against his is exhilarating, There's a spark there that none of his false 'Morgana's have possessed. Merlin groans and leans deeper into it, she entwines their fingers together and presses their hands up against his chest.

This feels right. This feels real.

She eventually pulls away. "Well?"

The stunned look on his face is answer enough, and as the realization hits him that this is truly her, she's finally back, he breaks down. She holds him tight as the years of loneliness and sorrow come crashing over him, stroking his hair like his mother used to when he was little. His arms are wrapped around her waist, holding on for dear life. Now that she's back he's never letting go. He let go too easily in the past, and he won't make those same mistakes again.

Later, when he's calm and they are lying peacefully side by side, he looks at her and asks her, why now?

"I've been thinking a lot. About us," she begins. "We've committed so many wrongs against each other in the past but... what if there's still a way of taking care of this? What if there's a way for us to finally heal?"

"I'd want nothing more."

"And I feel the same." She gives him an earnest look full of the feelings that they've never been able to express.

"I was thinking of moving away from here," he mumbles absentmindedly.

She captures his lips with hers once more, this time allowing the kiss to deepen to the point where it will soon escalate to something more before breaking it off. "Well, now you have a reason not to go."

Her eyes sparkle, and he grins like a fool in return. He would never have imagined that he'd wake up tonight and she'd be real... there's still hope for them. Leaning his forehead against hers, he whispers, "There's no stopping us yet."

When he awakes the next morning to the sight of her beside him, he gently squeezes her hand. She doesn't disappear, doesn't fade away as has happened in the past. She simply snuggles closer into his side, a contented smile of bliss on her face.

The one true love's the only one that you get.

And they couldn't be happier.

Funny story, I'd never really listened to this song before yesterday. But I heard it on the radio and the lyrics wouldn't stop eating away at my soul that this would be the perfect song to start off this series of songfics with. So here you have it :)