It was a dull evening in London when a dark-haired woman collapsed on her journey home on the Underground. There was nothing graceful about it, and no warning either. One minute she was standing in the crowded carriage, staring glassy-eyed into space, and the next she was crumpling into a heap on the floor. Or, at least, as close to the floor as she could get. There were too many people around for her not to land against someone else's body, her legs and arms awkward and heavy. Someone gave a shriek of surprise – someone grabbed hold of her, murmuring, "Miss, are you alright?"

She heard. She couldn't answer. It sounded like every noise was coming through water. There were images flickering before her eyes, tugging out memories with fingers like claws. Her limbs burned. And she remembered a Court from long ago; a man she had hated and loved and also – also a child. There had been a child. And he had become a man and she had suffered, oh, she had –

She screamed.

There were people milling about, struggling to help her, their voices echoing in her ears. But it was the power she felt: the power uncoiling in her chest, stretching like a creature that had been locked away, weakened but not crippled. She knew it. She knew herself.

She knew Fate.

"Emrys," she choked out, throat sore with fury and exhalation. "Pendragon."

It was back. The magic was back.

xxx

The night was a disaster from the start.

Tom hadn't wanted to go out, but Win had insisted. She'd even come over to his flat to help him pick out something to wear. Not, as Win put it, because Tom had terrible dress sense (Tom did have terrible dress sense, but that was beside the point), but because she knew that even if he did decide to go out he would chicken out at the last minute and watch EastEnders reruns instead. It was her duty as his friend, she claimed, to make sure he had some sort of social life.

"What if I don't want one?" he asked. Win was currently rifling through his wardrobe to find something acceptable for him to wear in normal human interaction. Occasionally she'd make small sounds of disgust and throw a piece of clothing towards what she had dubbed the 'bag and burn' heap. "What if I'd rather just stay at home and be a sad bastard?"

"We can't all have what we want," she said sternly, and flung a shirt at his head. "Try that one on. It'll match the colour of your eyes."

He didn't understand why his shirt had to match his eyes. Looking at Win's stern little face with that silver piercing glinting menacingly above her eyebrow, he decided it was probably in his best interests not to bother asking.

"Um, yeah," he said. "It looks perfect."

Tom didn't know much about fashion; he knew just enough to be aware of that fact. Win, on the other hand, was a connoisseur of it. She'd already dressed up for the evening and her dress was skimpy little number that somehow looked just right on her. It swirled enticingly around her knees whenever she walked; her earrings glinted in the light.

Tom could appreciate her beauty. But they'd been friends too long for appreciation to ever become anything more than that. Besides, he was hardly worthy of Win. He was a constant fuckup, bouncing from job to job. He'd never had a steady home life or a steady education – his only success had been getting his own place. And Win was, well… just Win. Strong and brave and always willing to boss him around if he needed it. She was his rock.

Over the next hour Win managed to find him a pair of trousers, a pair of socks and even shoes that she deemed suitable. When she'd finished with his outfit she made him look in the mirror and examine himself. His black hair was as messy as ever. His face, with its high cheekbones and heavy jaw, looked just the same as it always did. He wasn't sure what the hell was meant to be different about him, but since Win looked pleased with herself he said, "It looks great, Win. All of it."

"I know," she said, satisfied. Peering around his shoulder she gave her straight black hair a self-conscious pat. "I think we're ready to go."

When she dragged him out the door he couldn't help but think longingly of those reruns. But of course there was no refusing Win.

They went to her favourite bar first, a little place where the shots were cheap – a fact Win was more than happy to take advantage of. By the time they left she had a flushed glow to her dark skin, and Tom was beginning to find that the sky began to swirl whenever he tilted his head. There was another bigger bar after that, and then another. By the time they reached the nightclub Tom had lost count and he couldn't feel the ground beneath his feet anymore.

The music was loud. It grated against his ears. There were people everywhere, packed so close together that he could feel faceless shoulders and elbows and hips bumping into him from all sides. This was the reason he hadn't wanted to go out with Win. He couldn't stand to be in large crowds like this, surrounded but entirely ignored. It made something bitter rise in his throat and his heart.

Win was still next to him but her eyes were fixed on the dance floor. She loved dancing. He may have hated getting lost in the crowd, but Win adored it. She was at home there, among her people, belonging with them.

"M'going out," he slurred, touching his fingers to her bare arm. "Need some air."

"What?!" she yelled, turning towards him.

"I'm going out!" he repeated loudly, trying to be heard over the beat of the music; but he'd already lost his grip on Win in the crowd. The last glimpse he had of her was of her sinuous little body slipping further onto the dance floor, her arms upraised into the air… and then someone stepped in front of him and blocked his view.

Tom left. He stumbled out into the smoking area purely by chance – he'd actually been trying to find the loos. The smoking area was set outside of the building and surrounded by a thin wire mesh. A canopy covered half of it just in case there happened to be rain, but that night was clear and cloudless. There were a few people milling about, but it was empty enough to feel right.

Tom breathed a sigh of relief. He leaned back up against the fencing. The metal bit into his skin, but he didn't care. The shirt Win had chosen for him was thin enough to let the cold seep in and ease the heat he'd picked up in the nightclub. Tom closed his eyes and savoured the moment. Drunk. He was drunk. His head still felt light and disconnected. Even the bite of metal at his back was strangely pleasant.

"You don't look very well," a voice noted. It sounded amused.

Tom opened his eyes. A dark-haired man was standing next to him, holding a cigarette. At first Tom couldn't make out his face properly. He blinked a few times until it came into focus. There was something familiar about it, even if the dark hair and eyes seemed somehow jarring to Tom. They just. They just weren't right.

"Sorry. I'm pissed," he confided, and the stranger laughed.

"I can tell," said the stranger gravely, his mouth still curved into a grin. "You're practically falling over."

He had a nice voice, Tom noted. It was low and warm with an accent that dripped money. It wasn't a voice that a person could forget easily. Which was why Tom felt compelled to blurt out, "Have we met before? Feels like I know you."

The man laughed again. The sense of déjà vu grew even stronger. Tom knew that laugh. He'd heard it somewhere before; somewhere a long, long time ago. He just couldn't place it right now.

"That's the worst line I've ever heard," said the stranger, lifting the cigarette to his mouth – that familiar mouth. "But I think I'll forgive you."

Tom felt himself blushing. "I…' he stammered, "I didn't mean – "

But he stopped abruptly when he felt the man's hand brushing Tom's hair gently back from his face. The man's fingers lingered for a moment, tracing the contours of his cheekbone and his jaw.

"It's alright," said the man. "I didn't mind."

Thomas Craig, socially inept fuckup, was being hit on by a man.

And worse still, he didn't mind at all.

Things were a blur after that. The man talked – and Tom remembered that he said something back, something that made the man's smile deepen and his blue (no, brown) eyes narrow. And then there was kissing: the press of the man's mouth against his, confident and ruthless; the man's hand tangled in Tom's short hair as Tom leaned into him drunkenly; the coarse feeling of stubble against his skin as his whole body grew hot again but in a good way, a better way.

The man pulled back long enough to whisper, "Shall we get out of here?"

Tom nodded wordlessly.

There was a car. He noticed that: the slick feeling of leather underneath his hands, the lights flashing through the tinted windows. There was an apartment after that – the man's, he assumed. He marveled over how big the stranger's apartment seemed compared to his. But he didn't think about it for long. His head still felt delightfully empty, and those hands were tangled in his hair again, tilting his head back to give that familiar mouth better access to his neck. And God, when had he learnt to be so noisy? He could hear himself moaning in small incoherent bursts, his fingers digging hard into the stranger's taut shoulders – which only made the other man nip hard at his skin, inducing another burst of mingled pleasure and pain. Tom bit down on his tongue at the feel of it. There was a taste of metal in his mouth, and his pulse was roaring in his ears.

He had no plans to be passive in all of this. He didn't know where the hell his own boldness had come from, but the next thing he knew he was the one guiding them both towards the bed. Tom felt the backs of his knees meet the edge of the mattress and pulled the stranger forward. Their legs tangled together almost naturally as they fell. Tom felt the man's hardness against his thigh and shuddered. Strange, to be wanted. He could get drunk off that feeling all over again.

Neither of them had any finesse. Their need made them clumsy. Their hands tangled in each other's shirt, fisting cloth into knots, tugging until something tore or gave way revealing skin hot all over with need and alcohol. Trousers were kicked off with difficulty. The man's hands were all over him, rough palms and gentle fingers that seemed to know exactly what Tom needed. They ground their hips together for the first time and Tom felt that awful need knot tighter inside him. Oh God he needed, he needed…

"Let me," he whispered, his hand tracing nonsensical patterns as it moved down the man's body. His thumb pressed into the sweat-slick hollow of one hipbone; his fingers fanned out and the man shivered. "Let me," he repeated.

Being in control was a heady experience. He moved on instinct, following the pattern his hands had made down the stranger's body with his tongue. He curved one hand tight around the man's cock, fisting it slowly – and when the man finally moaned, a harsh sound that seemed to wrench its way from his throat, Tom thought he'd come right then and there just at the look on the man's face.

Let me, he thought again, but didn't say it. He pressed his mouth to the stranger's cock and felt the shudder run through him like electricity through a live wire. His tongue laved broad, clumsy strokes up and down the man's hardness. His dizzy senses tasted salt and skin; felt smooth sheets and warm, muscled limbs. The man was murmuring something he couldn't make out, pleading, hissing.

The man drew him back with a sudden, insistent tug at his shoulders and slammed their mouths – and their hips – together. He could taste tobacco on the man's tongue. His body ached all over with the need for completion. Both their bodies did. His hands clutched at soft dark hair that still didn't look right but it was okay because it felt right, this felt like something he'd been waiting for forever, for his whole life.

They came together. Their hips arched; they muffled their groans against each other's mouths. Tom felt their breath mingle; felt every inch of his body burn with pleasure. There was a pain of whiteness behind the suddenly closed lids of his eyes that rose like a tide and then ebbed, little by little. His head was still swimming but his skin felt alive, humming with energy.

The man's fingers were gently tracing his spine. His brown eyes were heavy-lidded.

"Feels nice," the man murmured, even though they both knew they probably weren't going to feel nice for much longer. Their sweat was already cooling, the pleasure-rush fading out. But Tom nodded, because it was, it had been. In a pitiful way, this was the best night of his life.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah."

xxx

He must have fallen asleep, because the next time Tom opened his eyes there was a weak spill of light coming in through the window and he was suffering from the beginnings of a headache. He didn't know how long he'd slept for. He would have checked his watch but he'd dropped it somewhere earlier and didn't know how to go about searching for it now. The room was absolutely huge, with large windows and tasteful black and white photographs on the opposite wall. Remembering where he was – and just how he'd ended up there – Tom turned to look at the man beside him, heart in his throat.

The man was also awake and sitting up with his head clutched in his hands. He gave Tom a single glance – long enough for Tom to make out his bloodshot eyes and the bags beneath them – before looking away again. Tom realised that the stranger must have been drunk too; more drunk than Tom had been able to realise at the time. They'd both been off their heads and now they were lying in bed together. And they'd fucked.

And, well. Shit.

"You're awake," the man noted.

"I…"

"I shouldn't have done that," the stranger said flatly, interrupting him. He wasn't looking at Tom anymore. "I'm going to sleep the worst of this off and then I'm going to forget this ever happened. I suggest you do the same." A pause. "At wherever you live," the man added.

It was dismissal. Tom knew one of those when he heard one.

If he'd been a bloke with a bit of spine he may have said something to that. But right at that moment his head hurt, he was sore all over, his throat felt very dry and he'd never done anything like this before in his life and he didn't know what the fuck to do about it. Any of it. So he simply nodded, swallowing hard and said, "Right. Okay." Pause. "I'll be off then."

The man didn't even bother to respond.

It took an embarrassingly long time for Tom to pick his clothes off the floor and pull them on. Even then there were problems. His shirt was ripped and missing a few buttons, and he seriously couldn't find his watch anywhere. Deciding he could live without it he shuffled towards the hall, only looking back at the man once. He still had his head in his hands. He wasn't looking up.

Tom left through the front door. Took the lift down and stepped out onto the street. It was only then that he allowed the reality of the situation to kick in. He had no idea where he was, very little money on him, and he'd just had drunken sex with a man whose name he still didn't know. A man he didn't know anything about at all.

A real disaster, this was.

He decided to just walk. Maybe even try and find a bus stop or a train station so he could figure out his way home. There had to be one around here someplace. He cringed inwardly at the thought of what people would think of his appearance. His clothes were a mess and he could feel a myriad of aches and bruises flare up whenever he moved. When he traced his lips lightly with his tongue he felt out a cut deep enough to make him wince.

He wondered what the hell was going to tell Win about all this. He'd left her last night without any warning at all, and she was most likely worried sick by now. Could he really say, 'Sorry I abandoned you in a club, I was shagging some guy I didn't even know?' That would be so embarrassing.

She'd probably like that excuse, actually.

It couldn't be that late – or that early – yet. The light was so weak that the street lamps were still glowing. The air was very cold. Tom shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, taking in his surroundings. Whoever the stranger had been, he certainly lived in one of the nicer parts of London. The pavements were clean and neatly kept, the apartments large, spaced wide with greenery for decoration. Tom couldn't help but compare it to his own area, where the apartments were crammed so close together that there was barely breathing space.

Lucky stranger.

There was a gust of icy wind. Tom swore under his breath. His hair whipped into his eyes. As he lifted a hand to push it out of his face he felt – something – take hold of his palm. Fingers, so cold they felt frozen, moved lower to curve around his wrist. He lifted his gaze and came face to face with a woman. She was wearing a jacket and her brown hair was pinned neatly up at the back of her head. Her eyes on him were taking in his appearance carefully, and her expression was serene.

He gave a small start. He hadn't seen anyone approach.

"God, sorry," he said with a sheepish grin. "You startled me. I didn't mean to jump like that."

"It's quite alright," she said politely. "We all make mistakes."

Then she slammed him to the floor.

There was a dull crack as his head hit tarmac – he saw stars explode in front of his eyes. The woman had her hand securely fastened around his neck and her skin was so cold it burned. As if the cold was coming straight out of her and into him. He tried to struggle, his body fighting to writhe out of her grip. But she clenched her hand tighter, so tight that his vision began to blacken and his chest became an agony of needing to breathe, to breathe to breathe. Maybe it was the asphyxiation that made everything change – it had to have been – but he could swear that her skin had grown as pale as snow, and that her hand around his neck had small claws of ice.

"Mortal," hissed the woman-creature, its cold lips fluttering against his jaw. "My mistress wishes to know where the Pendragon is. Will you tell me now, before I have to hurt you?" She punctuated her point with another tight squeeze of her white hand around his neck.

"I – " Gasping. Choking. "Don't – know – "

He 'd meant to say 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about', but the creature apparently didn't understand strangulation-speech. She tightened her grip and leaned in, the whites of her eyes flaring blue.

"We know he is back. We know. My mistress feels the magic. My mistress made me. I should not be able to exist, boy," she whispered, her breath skittering over his skin like frostbite. "But here I am. Tell me where he is, sorcerer. Tell me where he is!"

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe and there was a layer of ice forming over his neck and his chest. He couldn't breathe and this woman or creature or whatever she was wanted to kill him. Was going to kill him. There was no one else around to save him, and he was a dead man.

Now was just about the right time for his whole life to flash before his eyes. He realised with a vague pang that it hadn't been much of a life. He thought of his parents – the father he'd hardly known, the mother who couldn't get rid of him fast enough – and how little he really felt about them even now. He thought of Win, the best friend he'd ever had. He thought of all the dreams he'd never had and the things he'd never done.

Everything was going dark.

In the sweet silence of his mind a memory began to bloom. It was so clear that he found himself amazed at the fact that he'd ever forgotten it. In his memory the sun was shining and he was walking alongside a fair-haired man dressed in very old-fashioned clothing. It was a hot day. Tom was carrying some kind of pack and he was whistling. He was stronger in the memory. The weight didn't bother him at all. But more than that he was stupidly, ridiculously happy. Tom couldn't imagine being that content. He felt a wide grin split his face as the man next to him gave him a long, narrow-eyed look of displeasure. Then the fair-haired man gave an exaggerated sigh and rolled his eyes, drawling, "Sometimes I just don't know what's wrong with you, Merlin."

"Sometimes I don't know what's wrong with me either, sire." Tom replied. But he wasn't Tom. He was –

Merlin.

For the first time in Tom's life something clicked into place inside his head, like the last missing piece of a puzzle, the key to a lock. His soul threw open its doors in an outpouring of sensation and colour and memory, reminding him of things he should never have forgotten, things that had always been in the most secret part of him, hidden away like treasures. He sucked in raw, cold breath despite the restriction of the creature's hand. He breathed and struggled through the weight of the thoughts rushing into his head. His hands shuddered at his sides. And he knew himself. He knew himself.

"No," he rasped. Through a layer of ice, his eyes flared gold.

The woman flew through the air, flung with invisible force. Her head hit the ground with an audible splintering of bone but there was no blood – just a pool of what looked like crumbled ice spilling across the floor. Her face was a mask of surprise. She wasn't moving anymore.

"Fuck," said Merlin. And then because he realised that 'fuck' was a word Merlin, citizen of Camelot, would not have known, he said it again: "FUCK."

He rolled onto his side on the cold tarmac, clutching his aching chest. Slivers of ice flaked off his face as he grimaced. His head was a blinding ball of pain, thick with memories. He hardly knew himself anymore. A second ago he'd been nothing but Tom. And now…

Now he knew he was a man who, by all logic, should be dead. A warlock from another age.

Scrambling dazedly to his feet and looking down at the slow melting ice-corpse across from him, Merlin couldn't even bring himself to swear once more. The world was spinning, his stomach lurching with nausea. He clenched his eyes shut and breathed in deep through his nose. A part of him that was still home-loving, socially awkward Tom wanted him to run straight home and hide for the next decade, if possible. But his memories were awakened now, cemented back into place inside his mind, and the bigger part of him that was Merlin didn't want to do that yet.

He had a job to finish first.

Moving to kneel by the body, touching the tips of his fingers to the cracked face. He stared down at it fixedly, feeling the magic rise up in him.

"Amyltan," he intoned.

He wasn't sure… well. It was the first time in this lifetime that he'd used his magic purposefully, with the correct words and intent. But his fears were entirely unfounded. The spell worked immediately. Before his eyes the body melted away into a pool of dark water, steam rising in the cold air. Merlin drew back his hand with a shudder and stood up. He felt very dizzy. The street looked like just a normal street now. No one had been around to see what had happened – at least, Merlin hadn't seen anyone.

He was exhausted. It was too much of an effort to be strong anymore. He began to walk onward, the ground soft and unreal beneath his feet.

Home. He needed to get home.

xxx

It was well into the morning when Merlin arrived at the flat. There were still clothes scattered all over the floor of the bedroom. He ignored them and collapsed onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Unblinking.

This wasn't his flat. It was Thomas Craig's flat. When he'd been standing over the body of that creature – whatever it had been – he'd felt as if he were torn between being Tom and being Merlin. Now Tom's memories were hazy. He had to struggle to catch hold of them properly. They were like a story he'd heard somewhere and never quite forgotten. Although the details were correct, the real experience of each moment, filled with emotion and sensation, was gone. Leeched away.

But knew he was still himself. Merlin.

Merlin sat up. The rumpled sheets made his memories flash back to his – no, Tom's - ill-advised one-night stand, and felt a wave of nausea come over him. He tamped it down.

Well, at least his hangover had survived. That was something.

That act of anonymous sex, all drunken desperation and blind, loving hands had been something he never would have considered, before, in Camelot. But Tom had been so hungry for affection, for any kind of love he could get. Merlin had never doubted that he was loved. His mother had loved him, and Gaius had loved him, and there had always been people who were there for him: Gwen with her smiles, and Arthur with his imperiousness and half-grins. And Tom… Tom had had none of that. Tom hadn't know that he was special.

Merlin didn't know how long he sat there staring down at his hands, wondering. There were so many things he didn't know, like how he'd come to live in this day and age, and how he'd reborn, and most importantly of all, what the hell had happened to everyone he'd once known and loved. He tried to imagine a world without Gwen or Gaius or – Arthur. Then he realised that he didn't have to imagine. It looked like he was living in one.

When the phone began to ring he answered it with relief. Anything was better than thinking.

"H-hello?"

"TOM!" came the shriek down the phone. Merlin winced and held the receiver at arms length. "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I'VE BEEN WORRIED SICK – "

"WIN," he shouted in return. When the line went silent he took a deep breath and placed the receiver back against his ear. Win. Tom's friend. Win. "I'm really sorry," he said earnestly, because he was really sorry, and damn ashamed too. What had he been thinking? "I – I just got back." A pause. "It won't happen again," he blurted out, and wondered which bit he'd meant: the sex, the fight with the ice-woman, or simply being Tom?

He didn't know. Not really.

There was silence for a moment. Then Win sighed, her breath a brush of static across the line. "You silly boy," she said, not without affection. "Come and meet me for coffee, okay? The usual place. You can tell me what happened and then I can tell you off properly."

"I – "

But Win had put the phone down. Fair enough. It wasn't as if Tom had ever known how to refuse her. Merlin wasn't going to start now.

He thought about getting up. He thought about having a shower and sorting out his clothes, and doing all the sort of things Tom would once have done. He thought, and for a long time he just stared at the opposite wall and the pile of clothes on the floor, and tried once again in vain to make sense of what the hell had just happened to his life. Of what he'd lost.

Gwen. Morgana. Gaius. Arthur. Camelot.

"Where are you all?" he asked the air (head pounding, eyes aching; so near tears). "Where are you?"

There was, of course, no answer.