"Say it." Morgana Pendragon looks across the rough wooden table into the shadowed face of Merlin, voice frightened and teary. Merlin looks back at her, bright blue eyes timid, uncertain. He wants to say it. He does. But something is keeping him back, some hesitation. She is, after all, still the King's Ward.
"Say it! Tell me so I can stop feeling like I'm imagining it. Please Merlin. I feel like there's a monster in my head and it's lying to me. I'm scared all the time that what I think and I feel aren't real. It's hard to tell what's a dream and what's not. Please. Just say it," Morgana begs.
Merlin reaches a hand across the table, trying to touch hers. She pulls away swiftly, eyes filling with tears. She's scared that it's not true after all - that everything she's thought, it's all a lie or a dream. Morgana has the disconcerting sense that she will wake up at any moment.
Merlin doesn't know what to do; if he tells her, what will happen? What if somebody finds out? But he doesn't think he can bear not to have her know this any longer. What he feels for her.
"I love you, Morgana," he says quietly.
She exhales hungrily, feeling a faint burble of joy swim its way up her throat. It's the only time she can seem to find any joy or any peace anymore, with him. And he says that he loves her, and she believes him.
Merlin jumps up from the table and moves in front of her, kneeling at her feet. This time, when he reaches for her hands, she doesn't resist.
"Hey," his voice is gentle, full of understanding. "This is real. You're awake."
She looks down at him, green eyes naked and vulnerable. She's offered him her soul in her upturned hands, and he's brave enough to take it. Stitch up the fissures with his sure magician's hands and glue all of the cracks back together. And he says she's awake, and she believes him.
He stands up, tall and dark. He looks heavy and tired. Before she knows what she's doing, Morgana is reaching out for him, his face, lowering it and placing her lips against his. Deepening the kiss with her tongue. She'll look after his soul for him. Sweep up the broken glass and see for him a happier future through wide open windows.
And she's awake. She's awake.
"You are not a monster," whispers Merlin hoarsely, before he lifts her up and carries her up the stairs into his bedroom.