This has been stuck in my head for a solid month. I couldn't write anything to continue this story. I'm still very much just posting this one as the chapters develop and I'm comfortable enough to share them. I hope you like this addition. I would love to hear your thoughts since there's opportunity to impact the storyline.

A small sidebar. The first half of this story was written in first person and present tense and the first part of this chapter picks up from there, but beyond this bit of dialog the story will be in third person and past tense. This first scene is a continuation of Chapter 1: And the Truth Shall Make You Mad.

Enjoy...

"Arthur, what are you doing?"

"I am watching him sleep."

"You cannot sleep."

"I did not say that."

"And you are not speaking to one of the men of your council."

My heavy sigh only proves to her that she is right. "I did not mean to wake you."

"I will forgive it, if you are honest about what keeps you up."

"Merlin came to me again." I turn to look at her. "I would like him to return to you. I know how you miss him. What sort of King am I if I cannot even control my sorcerer?"

"The kind that haunts his son and keeps his wife awake at night," she says resting her head against the side of the wall inside the doorway as she looks at me.

Her eyes were bright for the late evening and her sleeping gown is too thin to ignore what is beneath. I tuck a few strands of hair behind her ear and I hold her face. "You are in no condition to be up. Gaius said–"

"Do not begin to tell me what your physician and I know all too well."

"Then you should know that you are to be in bed, even if I wake you."

"I do not know why I have your children."

"I think we know very well the why and the how of it," I tell her, kissing as she giggles into my lips.

"You should go to him," she says.

"What?"

"Go to Merlin as he asks you."

I should have known he would use her to try and sway me. "When did you see him last?"

"It has been a while now, but he told me that the time would come where he might need me to convince you of something. What does he want Arthur?"

I cannot tell her this. She would hate us both. We already asked too much of her before. "He wishes that I ride to see him before the summer ends."

"Then I do not understand." She narrows her brow and wraps her fingers around my hand that refuses to let go of her. "Why would something so small be a bother to you?"

"It does not bother me. I told you. I know that you miss him. I only wish for him to come home."

"Do not fret about me. He will come home soon, I know it."

Merlin moved slowly through the campsite. Easy strides and in his long robe of a deep emerald color it was as if he was floating inches above the ground. Most of the men were asleep, but his appointment is with a sleepless knight – a visit with a restless king.

He opened the flap in the front of the unprotected tent. These lands had not seen war, no strife even in the time of the great Mercian and Saxon raid. The first one; there are more to come, he thought. Merlin conceded to himself that Arthur had no reason to fear it but this was carelessness on his part. He was still the king and his destiny proclaimed too much to be so loose with his life. There was candlelight in the center of the room only. He could see that his makeshift bed was empty. Now the warlock understood. The man's restlessness was worse than he expected.

"I should kill you simply for keeping me waiting." The feeble sword of his Lord and Master pressed into his spine.

"You could try," he replied. There was an effort to bring a lightness to his tone despite knowing that the man was in no mood for this even though they had not seen each other in more than two years.

"I have been camped here for three days Merlin, waiting for you to see fit to come to me. I have told you before not to forget your place."

"I am sorry Arthur, but your anger is not truly with me." The blade fell from his back and hit the floor in a weak thud. Merlin did not turn to see his face though he doubt that he could make out any of his features in the darken corner nor did he really need to.

"Did you know?"

"She told me the night before we left for war."

"How could all of you keep this from me?"

"It was not all of us. She wanted to tell you. I asked her not to. He asked her not to. Not telling you that the Queen and your best knight had met before was a necessity. No different than when you married the Duke and Morgana, against her wishes, to solidify an army that could match the combined threat of the Mercians and the Saxon hoard. I sided with you then, against both of my friends and I defended your decision most of all to your wife. If you knew this thing then, you would have lost a war for little more than unreturned affection – not even you could honestly deem holding a stranger's hand to comfort sea sickness and a few walks together, courting. It was nothing Arthur."

"Who are you to say that it was nothing? Or to conclude that I should not be able to deem it what I like?" Arthur stepped out of the shadow and pushed his way past the sorcerer. He stomped to the back of the structure where he sat in his chair.

"What does it matter now? All of us have lived a lifetime since those days. She is your wife and has been true to you always in spite of all the hurt you have caused her, both then and now."

The King shot him a weary glance. "Do you invade our private talks all the time or just whenever it suits you?"

Merlin sighed. It was a foolish question. One did not have to be a sorcerer of any caliber to know that when a man learns that his friend once loved his wife he would be angry and say spiteful things to both of them, who he believed had offended him. "It is your right as King to be angry with each of us, but it was your actions, after all, that drove her from your kingdom. They would have never met on that boat crossing the channel if you had not been so much like your father then; none of this would have happened. You know I speak the truth."

He watched as his King, who was always just a man when it came to her, pressed his fingers into his temples. "I am a fool Merlin."

The warlock whose hair was much longer since he was last in his king's company, grayer too, took the chair beside him and placed his staff on the table. None of his actions seemed to make a sound. "We have all been foolish Your Majesty. What happened between Lancelot and Guinevere is the least of it. She told you before that her heart belonged to you. Do not question it. Not after all that she has been through for our sakes."

"I must go back to her before the child comes. I should not have left her. I should not have said..." he couldn't bring himself to say. "She could worry and cause harm to her or the baby."

Arthur's head fell into one of his palms and his fingers grabbed hold of his hair as he stared at the flaps blowing open whenever the wind decided. Reading his eyes, – or his mind, Merlin could do both now if he wished – he saw that his friend wanted nothing more than to ride back to Camelot tonight.

"She will be fine. Both of you will see all of your sons."

"What do you want Merlin?" He asked still fixed in deliberation.

"I have told you what is needed, what must be done."

He closed his eyes slowly as if pushing away his previous thoughts to face this new worry. "I cannot kill a child."

"He will kill you."

They look at each other. "He is perhaps a year older than my own son. I look into that boy's eyes and I see Llacheu. I am no monster Merlin and I refuse to believe that you have become one."

Merlin shook his head. "Then we must make amends. I do not believe that she will agree, but we must try. It is the only other way."

"Enough riddles. From now on you will speak plain and you stories complete."

"The child is yours Arthur." The previous distress that anchored itself on the King's face was removed. Confusion, genuine perplexity took root. Only a whisper of time past between the two expressions but it was enough for the sorcerer to see the brief release of anxiety – another lesson he learned from his time in seclusion. Having been surrounded by the magic within the Crystal Cave for so long, one loses touch with the strength of its awesome effects in the outside world. His newest powers still surprised him.

"You are mad. How can the child be mine?"

"You did not do it of a conscious mind. She visited you in your dreams. It was where it started; from the dreams that I gave to both you and Guinevere to comfort you while we were away in battle."

"What are you talking about?"

"She learned from the witches. The dreams that I imparted onto you were her vessel. If you do not remember it, she must have come to you in the form of your wife or stolen the images from your memory; but it was she you laid with and you have conceived a child together. That boy, Modred; he is your son."

"That is not possible. You can do these things in one's dreams?"

"Arthur, calm yourself."

"You tell me all of this and ask me for serenity? Who is this woman sorcerer?"

"It is Morgana, Arthur."

He almost laughed. "You speak of madness. She is my sister."

"She was the King's ward. You are not blood."

"But never had we not acted like it," he countered.

"And these past two years, how often has your sister been to see you? Or responded to your letters pleading for forgiveness not for your sake but for Guinevere's? Has she responded to them? To any attempts on your part for the slightest of absolution?

Another whisper; he sees the sad truth in the query. "She would not harm us." He shook his head. "I accepted her anger for me and grieved that my decision broke the bond of friendship between her and Guinevere, but this is a kind of vengeance borne of an evil heart. I cannot believe that she was or could ever be like that."

"There is still time. She is not completely lost to us." He knows this is a lie to comfort his friend and perhaps himself too. Even with all his new talents, he could not bring himself to see what was inside Morgana's heart. She too had developed talents of her own, far greater than he ever could have expected. "You must go to her and bring her and the boy back to Camelot –"

"Bring them back?" He interrupted. "How can you ask me to do that? She is like a sister to more than just me. If Guinevere were to learn of the things you speak of," he shook his head again. "No, not this Merlin. Not this. I will not risk my family."

"You give your advisor no options."

"No, I demand better ones from him."

"There are few in this instance; for that I am sorry Sire." He knew what would come next from the King. Condemnation. That might be justified, but I was not as strong then. Accusation. Wild ones, he wondered, then sighed reminding himself that he had already decided it was best not to revisit that part of his history. For Merlin, now, surprises were only the things he chose not to see.

"You speak of sorrow and with formal addresses but where were you when she did this? When she came to my bed from my dream?" A moment passes as Arthur scanned his thoughts. In the dim light of the candles at the table he could see the pinch of an awful thought grab at the mind of the man and the anger that grew from it. "Have you ever done such a thing to Guinevere?"

"You are a fool King. You have witnessed my powers even while they were still nascent. Do you think that I could not cast a spell and charm your wife as well as you or enchant you so that you would forget you ever loved her?"

"My father was right about your kind. What is to stop any of you to enter the minds of men and ruin their hearts?"

"This is borne of evil Arthur. Magic can only do. It does not choose. My kind, as you call us, are left with that burden and not all of us are good or pure. Sorcerers fight just as knights do, for causes just and for wicked gains; it is no different because we do not carry swords or wear suits of armor."

At his worse he was not like Uther. Magic was something this King used whenever it pleased him or when needed. It is shock and fret that forces such words from him.

"I will not sleep tonight. I do not even desire it from fear of what might happen."

He pulled a small vile from underneath his cloak and placed it before the man. "It will help and you will sleep without worry should you take it, but I would understand if you do not trust me now. I have given you much to think of and little of it good."

He stood and took his staff.

"I will ride with you in the morning if that is your wish. Your son is coming Arthur."

A/N: I have no idea on when you might expect an update. I apologize but hopefully inspiration will compel me soon.