IMM 4

Merlin was wandering in an abyss of pain, the external world was hidden to him, his eyes refusing to open. As awareness starting to dribble into his mind Merlin tried to ignore it – he didn't want to be back in that terrible white room with that terrible man. He shifted slightly as he tried to grab back onto the darkness he has been hiding in before and then let out a gasp of pain as his arms remembered they were holding his whole weight – his wrists still manacled above him. Suddenly there was silence – was there sound before? Merlin had time to wonder. And a voice filtered through to his consciousness – Dr Fara. After being left with the doctor for hours Merlin could easily recognise the voice, and every part of him tensed at the sound of it. Blearily Merlin tried to open his eyes; he was granted with limited vision, tears and blood obscuring his view. However it did not take long for him to identify that Dr Fara was indeed in the room with him, but so was another man, that Dr Fara was talking too. He heard the name 'Emrys' mentioned, and suddenly aware that they were discussing him Merlin struggled to grasp at his senses determined to hear what was being said.

'…Suffering from prolonged psychosis, delusional beliefs to an abnormally high level – symptoms lack a simple neurotransmitter-based explanation. In fact delusions have a more complex genesis involving synaptic plasticity forming parallel process in the….'

Merlin's eyes drifted shut again, he didn't understand a lot of what was being said, and every part of him screamed to return to unconsciousness. It was becoming harder and harder to focus on the world around him. Wincing as he shifted once again, Merlin made another attempt to listen to the conversation.

'…In a day or two we should start monitoring his entorhinal cortex – by then….'

Merlin forced his eyes open again. Days? He wasn't going to stay here for days. He couldn't – he wouldn't. He would escape! Except the constant ache of pain reminded him of the unlikely probability of this happening. His magic didn't work here, he could barely move – he didn't even have the strength to listen to his captor speaking!

'… Complete loss of contact with reality actually, just as expected. Soon any memories of Camelot and Arthur should be completely repressed. Well, they should be if we begin to administer a round of NMDA receptor antagonists – I reckon we start with ketamine. Then we should move on to…'

Merlin's last thought as he once again drifted into unconsciousness was of Arthur. These people were the delusional ones if they thought he was ever going to forget Arthur. And soon, he comforted himself, Arthur would save him. He always did.

Arthur stood in the corridor where he had found Merlin this morning. Gods, he thought to himself, only this morning! He had woken up like every other day, with a lazy incompetent servant who was one again late, and now that same servant was lying in a bed in Gaius's chambers. Forcing himself to the task at hand, away from any thoughts about what could happen to his servant, Arthur started to inspect the area around him. He felt a bit silly, now he was the one standing about in a corridor; but it hadn't taken long to discover that this was the only place Merlin had actually been this morning. If anything had happened, it had been here – it had to be. Sighing in frustration Arthur turned to the only door in the corridor – where did it lead? On closer inspection the door was ajar a little; someone had been there this morning. Opening it, Arthur discovered it was a linen closet. Well that was a waste of time! Arthur was getting more and more worked up – nothing he was doing was helping Merlin! He had found nothing. He was useless and his friend was going to...

NO! Arthur slammed the door to the cupboard shut in anger. It banged loudly, causing Gwen to jump as she rounded the corner.

'Arthur! I was just coming to find you. Merlin he's...well he isn't...I mean...Gaius doesn't know...' Gwen stopped suddenly, fixing Arthur with a frown. 'Why were you in the cupboard? That's where the servants go for fresh sheets. Do you need sheets? Although Merlin should have done them yesterday, no one does the sheets this day of the week...'

'what?' Arthur had been staring at the cupboard in frustration, but at Gwen's last sentence his head whipped round, his eyes glaring into hers, desperate. ' So no one was in here today?'

Gwen looked at Arthur like he was crazy. 'Arthur I don't think...look, I need to talk to you about Merlin...' she started, but Arthur interrupted her suddenly.

'We are talking about Merlin!' he yelled throwing his hands up in frustration. It was starting to fit together in his head. 'Someone was waiting for him in here. They did something to him.' Ignoring the worried and slightly incredulous frown on Gwen's face, Arthur once more wrenched the door of the cupboard open. Bending down, he inspected the floor with his eyes – he had no idea what he was looking for, but there had to be something – anything! Suddenly something caught his eye, half hidden amongst the fresh laundry. Arthur grabbed it and then stood back abruptly, inspecting it. It was shaped like a coin, but thicker and not made of any metal Arthur could name. It was blank on one side, but when Arthur flipped it over there was a word inscribed on it,

'Magic', Arthur whispered, mostly to himself. Beside him Gwen gasped. The sound of her beside him snapped Arthur back to reality suddenly. He glanced at Gwen for a second, then turned, hurrying in the direction of Gaius. 'I have to get this to Gaius!'.

He had found something. And Gaius would know what this was, and they would cure Merlin and he would kill whoever had done this. For the first time that day Arthur felt hope. Merlin was going to be fine.