Wow! Thanks so much to everyone who wrote me reviews/PMs with such encouragements, and more thanks for all the happy-birthdays, too! I was so startled (in a good way) by all the people who took time to write me; thank you for sharing your stories. And I'm also glad to meet so many more fellow Believers. For all the prayer requests you sent to me, I'll pray for each of them individually; I promise.
One reviewer mentioned Uther's slight/possible out-of-character behavior; I almost thought he was a little OOC myself, but then I thought about his temper, and how alcohol changes a person, and I decided it was possible that he would hit Arthur if the situation was right. Thanks for getting that without me having to explain! All of my readers are so smart.
This chapter is much shorter than the last one, but I hope you like it anyway!
Two.
The second time, Merlin was shaking. He was cold and wet and exhausted, but he was shaking not because of any of that. He trembled purely from lingering fear and adrenaline, and the echoes in his mind of what could have been.
When he caught his breath and the darkness receded to the edges of his vision, finally fading altogether, he realized that he was sitting on the shore of the lake. Unconsciously, his arms had locked around the freezing, soaked body lying halfway on top of him, unmoving as Merlin clung to the freezing chainmail weighing them both down.
Arthur's hair was dripping with the lake water; it ran down his armored shoulder and onto Merlin's chest, but the young warlock wasn't even thinking about getting them both dry yet. His heart was still pounding through his whole body, his head dizzy with the magic that had been present beneath those deadly waves, and all he could think was,
Another minute…one more minute and…
Arthur had almost died before. It was a nearly daily occurrence, in fact, but this was different somehow. This time, Merlin hadn't used his magic to knock a speeding arrow out of its path. He hadn't dropped a large tree branch on the head of an attacker. He hadn't used his magic at all. It had just been him, pushing his way desperately through the water to get to his drowning prince, not even thinking about how he had destroyed Sophia and her father, not caring about anything else in the world but reaching Arthur before it was too late. One more minute, and Arthur would have been dead, and Merlin would have been searching for a body instead of saving him.
Merlin clung tighter to his friend, reflexively. He lifted his eyes up to the grey-lit sky, and though he was soaked and the evening breeze was making him shiver with cold, he had never felt his place in the world more certainly than he did at that moment.
Without Merlin, Prince Arthur of Camelot—the Once and Future King—would have been lost forever, and no one would have even known where to look for him. It would have been a slow and pointless death. He would never be revered or even remembered.
That was never going to happen. Merlin vowed it as his fingers tightened against pinching chainmail. He was all right. They both were. Merlin could feel him breathing. They were fine.
He held Arthur as close to him as he could as the sun began to set, the darkness falling around them. He let his chin rest on Arthur's damp hair and allowed himself to be his guardian, and nothing more, just for a few minutes in the stillness of Avalon's lakeside.
Just in case you couldn't tell, this was set in the episode The Gates of Avalon (Season 1, Episode 7).
