Chapter 4: Teachers and Students
It was after midnight for the second night in a row, and his first-ever class as a teacher at nine o'clock the next morning, but Arthur found himself wakeful that night. Gwaine had messaged him, he found when he'd gotten back to the room. So, are you still alive?
Mostly joking. It was the mostly that started Arthur thinking, though. In his bed and alone in the room, the lamp left on for his roommate, who'd left the party early – but not to return to their room, evidently. Maybe he was with Freya; she'd left about the same time.
It wasn't the two of them, though, that occupied Arthur's thoughts. Nor yet any one of the others… but all of them as a group. Magic-users, every one. And yet, only Aglain was religious about it – and only Sigan historically offended by the rest of the world. The others were just… people. He'd seen very little magic performed, the whole evening, and in fact had sometimes forgotten to think about it, or hold himself in readiness for its casual performance.
Maybe they were self-conscious, as a group, about him. There had been definite curiosity – antagonism from Sigan and proselytizing from Aglain and flirting from Katrina – but he hadn't gotten the feeling that they were used to magicking everything, and held back for the sake of his sensibilities.
Just… people. Who had a different trait, a different skill, but…
From the other room, Arthur heard the subtle sound of the lock, the latch – and then the latch again, as the door closed.
He tensed, but only a little. Figuring Merlin would use his magical keyless entry again, he'd locked it – of course anyone else could probably do the unlocking spell easily, but it was probably the sort of magic considered forbidden. Or at least rude; he'd have to search the handbook for the section on magic-use one of these days.
It was Merlin, though. He didn't turn on a light, moving stealthily to the bathroom and back – and what thief or murderous intruder goes first to use the bathroom? – but he kicked one leg of his bed-frame, maybe having already discarded shoes, and let out a breathless expletive, for Arthur to make positive identification by his voice.
"Oh – sorry – you're asleep. Are you asleep? If you were and you're not anymore, sorry about that."
"Y'all right?" Arthur slurred sleepily. Leaving it to Merlin to interpret whether he meant, about the stubbed toe, or about his absence for several hours in the evening.
"Yeah. Sorry about bailing on you. I do a security check, morning and evening…"
Arthur rolled to a more comfortable position and grunted. "So late nights are going to be routine?"
"For a while?" Merlin was changing his clothes for nightwear, by the sound of it, but Arthur didn't find the idea as awkward, today. "Beginning of the school year is always rough for the kids – sometimes the teachers – which means it's busy for me."
Arthur made a sound of interested comprehension. "So… I guess I'll see you when I see you."
"Mm. But, Arthur…" Soft, unmistakable shuffle of the younger man settling himself into bed. "If you have questions, or problems, or… anything you want to talk about, I'm here and happy to talk."
Arthur snorted a sardonic commentary on his new roommate's inclination to chattiness.
"Or to listen," Merlin added, cheerfully defensive. "I'm never too busy for that, all right?"
Because he wanted Gaius' plan to work, and the first ordinary teacher at a school of magic to have a positive experience, of course. But the offer couldn't have been more sincere.
"Thanks, I appreciate that. Good night."
"G'night." Merlin sighed and the bed creaked as he flopped over.
Then all was still. And Arthur was asleep.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
His classroom was roughly the size of his new bedroom-living area. Student seat-and-desks in rows facing the chalkboard on the right, larger gunmetal teacher's desk in the far corner under the room's window. Predictable poster of Einstein with wild wispy hair and his tongue sticking out.
Wait a minute. Had Einstein been magic, way back when? Arthur shook the tangential thought out of his mind as irrelevant.
Thirty chairs. Though his largest class was only twenty-five, and half of which were there before he was. Over-achievers? or just curious as the other teachers had been, about someone ordinary?
He made his way without comment to the desk – hearing the whispers and giggles ripple across the body of gathered students. The window looked out on the shady courtyard behind the main administrative building – and across at the windows of the students' rooms of the dorm building. He left the blinds down, and tilted to prevent direct entry of the sun's rays.
Five minutes til the bell. He busied himself with checking the desk's drawers – the previous teacher seemed a bit OCD about supplies, but that was better than messy, or empty. There was a handwritten note in the pencil-tray, Solve each equation before assigning – don't ever keep problems with an answer of 69. Just, don't. Arthur kept his face straight, but gave a wry thanks for the unknown previous teacher.
One minute til the bell. There was a backless stool and an overhead projector he could connect his laptop to, at the front of the room, but he lounged in the desk chair and studied his first class. And again, could gather no visual clues that they were any different from any other high school in the country. Still some whispers and giggles, a lot more sidelong glances his way, and an echo of old but familiar first-day-of-school anxiety brushed past his heart. Hope they think I'm cool? he mocked himself.
Then the bell rang, a prosaic sound in an unusual place. One last student scooted through the open door, flowing into the last seat in the nearest row, head down to avoid eye contact. Arthur made an executive decision not to count tardies til the second week of school.
For a moment there was instinctive and expectant quiet, and Arthur took advantage, pushing himself up from his chair, one of the sheets from his weekly file folder in hand.
"Morning," he said, moving unhurriedly to the front of the room. Board meetings were far harder, he reminded himself – fewer people, but hard and critical and possessed of a different sort of power, proven intelligence and not-so-secretly ambition. "I know you know this, but my name is Arthur Pendragon. Mr. Arthur will do. I'm meant to begin with role call, but first let me offer condolences."
He paused, and as expected, one of the students said, "For what?"
A girl in the front row. Her blouse the color of goldenrod, cut to bare her shoulders, a gold chain wound through long blonde curls to drop a tiny crystal on her forehead. She leaned forward over her desktop – in contrast to most who slouched back in typical teenage ennui – mouth dropped slightly open in breathless attention.
Hm.
"For the fact that you have Algebra Two, first thing in the morning," he told them.
The murmur of amusement relaxed them, and he took role without incident. No students missing, no administrative notes on the class. The blonde he noted as Sophia Tiermore.
"You all should have your textbooks," he said, resting on the stool and hooking one of his heels over a bottom rung. "Please open to–"
Gentle tug on cloth, soft whisper of sound, faint brush of cool air – and his fly was obviously down.
Hells, he might end up preferring the boardroom, he thought, dropping his gaze to the gap as the titters – mocking, embarrassed – hissed around the room. Can't play it casual, no-one-saw-that. Also, not an accident.
He eased up from the stool, reaching to zip his trousers – not deliberately or self-consciously – playing back the last few seconds of class-time in his head. Most of the students had looked away to dig in backpacks for the mentioned textbooks, but just before that – only one student had been looking away.
To hide that telltale gleam of gold in the eyes of the magic-user responsible.
Golden Sophia, in the front row. Unzipping his pants. Double hells.
"Thought there was a rule about that," he remarked mildly, relaxing back into position on the stool and resisting the urge to clutch his clothing more tightly in place. "No magic used on someone without their knowledge and permission."
"Wasn't used on you," someone mumbled suggestively from the middle of the crowd.
More grins and giggles. Sophia shifted her weight and smiled.
Arthur said, "Semantics. And, possibly, deserved." He paused to see that he had more of their attention than he might have, after a more volatile reaction. "I have to admit my own involvement in a de-pantsing incident, my sophomore year in high school."
"You lost yours, or you took someone else's?" a brown-haired boy challenged from the third row.
"Took someone else's. He wore glasses and never laughed and he was one of the least popular boys in our class." Arthur paused again, raising one eyebrow and the corner of his mouth. "He forgave me for that – and today, that boy is one of my best friends." Leon would forgive him this mention, too – contacts and soccer-muscles later, nearly unrecognizable from his early school photos. "Point being, a prank can reveal a person's character, for better or for worse. The one playing, and the one played upon."
Thoughtful murmur. Sophia was pink, and not meeting his eyes anymore.
"Tell you something else," Arthur offered. "I'm not a teacher."
Rustle of surprise. More students sitting forward over their desks, interested. Someone said, "You never taught school before?"
"Not ever," Arthur said. "I'm in the hotel business in DC, but Dr. Gaius talked me into taking the position this year so I could learn about and understand magic, and those who use it. And to allow you all the same chance in reverse. And someday other ordinary teachers and students might be welcomed to your classrooms."
Collective expression of, huh.
And because Arthur anticipated the question of, didn't you know magic-users before, or, what made you decide to come here, he redirected attention to the course-work.
"Open to page nine," he said. "The first problem – solving quadratic equations by completing the square. This should be review for you from Algebra One, for a few weeks… Double-u squared minus twenty-eight double-u is equal to negative thirty-nine."
A girl with short red hair in spikes said, with a trace of belligerence, "You haven't got the book."
"Don't need it," Arthur said. "This is my first time teaching, but math is an instinct."
Incredulous snickers. Arthur proved it by assigning each of the rest of the section's equations, randomly and by memory, and disbelief turned to grudging groans.
"Five minutes to reach your solutions," Arthur said, glancing at the clock on the back wall to see that half the period had already passed. Well, whaddya know. "Go."
The morning was grueling, and he could only hope it would get easier and less unpleasant with time and adjustment to routine. Two hours each of Algebra I and II, lunch period that he immediately decided, would be spent in his empty classroom or the teachers' lounge rather than the noisy, student-filled cafeteria. Afternoon was Government, and Calculus. And a free period.
Government was going to be difficult, he already knew after the first day; he thought he could reasonably expect daily debate, and wondered if Dr. Gaius had known that when he'd included it in Arthur's contract. He decided to start out with the second semester first – it is what it is, can't argue much with that – before getting into the history and development of the U.S. government. Then end with the final section, forming a theoretical working model – a hands-on exploratory of cause and effect.
"Hopefully we'll all learn something," he told the class in conclusion of his introduction, leaning to retrieve the folder he'd been given of overhead slides demonstrating the division of government branches and their functions.
"Hey, Merlin," several voices said.
Arthur straightened to see his roommate for the first time that day, leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed over a long-sleeve t-shirt in the school's forest green, the white oak-tree logo wrinkled and partially obscured. Black jeans buckled low over his hips, over black military boots. He grinned like a senior himself, but there was a shadow of weary strain around his eyes that Arthur recognized already.
"Hey," he responded, mostly to Arthur. "I'm interrupting?"
Yes obviously, but Arthur didn't mind. "I'm not worried about it. Something we can do for you?"
"Keep good order?" Merlin cocked an eyebrow at the class. "Don't make anything explode, or disappear…"
"I promise," Arthur drawled sarcastically, and the class responded with snickers. Which seemed to reassure Merlin on both counts, magical students and ordinary teacher dealing with a fairly controversial subject.
Merlin straightened, reaching to grip his right wrist with his left hand, the charm concealed by the cuff of his sleeve. "Gotta go," he said, cheerful but serious. "Behave, now."
And once again vanished in a puff of air, not bothering to turn and stride away.
"That happen often?" Arthur questioned indiscriminately. Shrugs, looks of boredom returning, shuffling of books and papers and writing utensils. It bothered Arthur a bit, and he added casually, "You all run him pretty ragged, huh?"
The senior students exchanged blank looks, like they hadn't really considered life from the perspective of their security officer before. The teen years were like that, Arthur remembered, very myopic emotionally.
Finally someone concluded with a shrug, "Merlin's cool."
That, Arthur had to agree with.
"Was he checking up on me, or you guys?" he joked, and the laughter was reassuringly inclusive.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
(ten years ago)
Morgause didn't notice the new boy right away. She rarely noticed the children that shuffled through her classroom, save for the handful with truly powerful potential.
The rest, all took too long to grow up and become useful. She couldn't wait that long. As the school's history instructor, she knew that Change itself already took too long, which was why she had her Plan. Why she taught in this poky school with its rigid ideals – the thought of that poky old headmaster keeping her from any classes with practical or even theoretical magic, ridiculous – why she kept her mouth shut and her smile pasted on. To catch those few with potential, and without the ordinary societal brakes of family, hopes, dreams. Ambition, though, was good.
Monday morning, and she was in a black mood, which probably distracted her from the invisible glow of the boy's magic. Another crop of freshmen students, and none worth a spark – which meant she'd have to wait another year and hope for next years' freshmen, and risk someone like Dr. Gaius noticing that she was gathering the young and impressionable in slightly larger numbers. If she didn't want her prize pupil – who was a senior this year - graduating and not being able to stay within her reach…
Monday morning, and the students both restless and slow from the weekend free of class – and probably only half had even completed the homework. Elbow on her desk and head on her fist, she ignored the rustle and grumble of the first class finding their seats a few minutes longer than she might have, otherwise.
It was a numbers game, though math wasn't her subject. How many of one to make how much of the other, balanced against the likelihood of someone discovering in time to thwart her…
"The assignment is written on the board," she finally snapped. "Read the chapter in your textbook and answer the questions at the end on a separate sheet of paper. In complete sentences. And have it ready to hand in by the end of the period."
More shuffling and grumbling and she hated it and them, and without looking up, she shuffled her own paperwork around to take at least a cursory glance. A slender file folder, daily communication with the administration – she hated it and Dr. Gaius – and there was something new at the front.
An addition to her roster. New boy. Damn, another one of –
Pause. That name, she knew that name, where did she know that name from… Oh. No, surely it couldn't be –
She lifted her head to scan the rows of slumping teenagers half-heartedly paging through textbooks or finding loose-leaf paper, digging in their backpacks for a stray pen… and almost missed him.
Slender and quiet, at the back of the room, turning from the shelf where the unused curriculum was kept, with an extra textbook in hand. That shaggy black hair, that self-contained confidence, that made other people and their opinions of him utterly irrelevant. Just as she remembered his father – a tall raw-boned senior when she'd been a self-conscious underclassman. Watching him slide awkwardly into his seat and begin to page through the book, she racked her memory for other references made to that name – the military, or a gang? Balinor Emrys had been killed, she heard – or was it that he'd killed someone else?
As if he sensed her gaze, the boy lifted his head and looked across the room, straight into her eyes. He didn't blush, didn't squirm or simper. Only, held the contact a moment for return evaluation, then dropped his attention completely – or so it seemed – back to the book.
Interesting. She wondered if he was very like his father – that glow of magic might be just exactly what she needed to set her Plan in motion. This year. She was suddenly so impatient she didn't know how she was going to get through the class period…
To kill time – and from keen and genuine curiosity – she studied the information she'd been given on him. School records from some town she'd never heard of in West Virginia – a fair long distance from Lone Oak. On scholarship, so he was poor – and poor often meant, motivated to achieve, by any means. And two weeks late for the start of school… Morgause wasn't sure what to make of that. In trouble in a previous school? He'd been enrolled in several since kindergarten – mediocre grades, though that might be a toll taken due to the hardships of a military lifestyle, too.
Ah, father deceased. So Balinor was dead. It might have been easier for Morgause to gain his confidence if it was the mother he'd lost, but she could handle becoming the boy's surrogate-male-parent, too.
That magic was, she decided, worth the risk of rushing his induction into her Plan.
At seven minutes to the bell, she looked at him again, watched him check the book and write an answer down, his lanky boy's body huddled over the half-desk connected to the chair by a long metal arm.
"Merlin Emrys," she said.
Everyone looked up, from her back to him. She flipped her hand in a gesture for him to approach. He glanced about his work – at the clock – and shoved everything but his wrinkled answer sheet into a stiff-new school-issue black backpack. Zipping it up clumsily as he came down the aisle toward her, he tripped twice to class-wide titters that he ignored quite successfully.
"Welcome to Lone Oak," Morgause said over her tented fingers, in a low voice that wouldn't carry past the front row. "Your first day, is it?"
"Yes, ma'am." He offered nothing beyond respectful confirmation, but watched her. It would have been almost uncanny, if he hadn't been so young – and young always meant, naïve.
"How are you finding us?" she said, striving to imitate her rather vague memories of her own start-of-school here, the mentors who'd tried to reach her. "Are you beginning to learn your way around? No problems with your class schedule?"
He shrugged. "Can't complain."
It wasn't yes. It wasn't no. It wasn't commitment and enthusiasm.
She added, "I imagine you must miss your family? Do you live far from here?"
He shifted his gaze to something on the wall behind her, probably one of those annoyingly encouraging posters of some animal or other, cute or majestic in their virtue-embodiment. "There's really not a whole lot to miss."
Again, a deflection. A non-answer that she found completely satisfactory. He wasn't a brown-noser, nor yet a delinquent, but he showed very little attachment to his family – homesickness in any form would have been impossible to hide. And a lack of awe for authority figures – though not of respectful expression – could work to her advantage.
"How does your magic like it here?" she asked slyly.
At that, an involuntary and genuine smile – quickly smothered. And oh-so-telling. He was attuned to his abilities, enough to know what she meant. Power and control – instinctive, since this was his first day here. But also, the habit of hiding – a habit that had the surprising side effect of making the hider want to reveal themselves to at least one person, so much more than someone who was naturally more open.
Morgause smiled. She was determined to be that one person – or at least to control, who that person was.
"I imagine you might find it difficult, catching up with your classes," Morgause said. The last minute was counting down to the timed bell signaling the end of the period. "Please let me know if you have any problems, or questions, anything at all. I'm happy to help, or offer advice – or even just sympathy."
The bell rang, obliterating his quiet and perfunctory, "Thank you."
Laying his answer sheet on a corner of her desk, he shifted the strap of his bag on his shoulder, and turned to blend in with the stream of noisy students shoving through the bottleneck of the door. Morgause turned back to the few still scrambling to pack up, among the crookedly-abandoned student seats.
"Gilli."
The boy looked up, round foolish eyes in a round foolish face, nervous-excited at being singled out. As he always was. Predictable was easy to manipulate, in his case. He finished cramming his things into his own bag – nearly dropped it once, then tightened the drawstring and came to her desk.
He was a sophomore. A little older than the Emrys boy, but not suspiciously so. Also from a single-parent household, unintelligent and sneaky – which didn't endear him to his fellow classmates, but made him perfect for her purposes, though his magic was small and mean. It also made him a natural co-dependent sort of friend for the new boy.
"I want you to make friends with Merlin Emrys," she said to him. His face immediately scrunched in resistant unhappiness.
"Oh, but why?" he whined, probably disappointed that her request hadn't been more dangerous or glorious or difficult – that was what he wanted, what she'd hinted at, but never would actually trust him with. For one, because he'd always have to ask that question, rather than comprehending the motivation and purpose on his own.
"He has substantial magic," she told him, and watched envy flare in those close-set blue eyes. "I want him for our club, but I think he'd say no if he doesn't feel like he already has friends among our number. Get to know him, demonstrate that you care about him, and I'll let you know when the time is right to mention our club and invite him to come for a meeting."
Gilli huffed, then grouched, "Yes, Ms. Morgause."
He'd do it, too. He was too eager to please and too afraid of failure, not to succeed in this small thing.
Morgause rose to her feet behind the desk and stepped to the open door to watch down the hallway, lumpy tow-headed Gilli catching up with small slender Emrys. The black-haired head turned briefly to acknowledge the older boy's approach, but his stride through the eddying crowd didn't slow, and when he ducked out of sight down an adjacent hallway, his body language didn't invite the companionship of the bigger boy, who scrambled to follow anyway.
Hm. Perhaps they needed more than Gilli to entice Emrys' interest.
Morgause turned, searching across the sea of bobbing juvenile heads for one just as black as the new boy's, knowing from the connection she'd already forged that the one she sought was close.
The girl was tall for her age, as tall or taller than fully half the boys in her class, and twice as mature as any one of them. That made her critical and contemptuous of the opposite gender, and distanced her from a romantic attachment she might find more fulfilling than a place at the head of Morgause's ranks. Morgause, of course, always made her views on men perfectly clear to this young girl, which kept her in that defiant state of mind – particularly where father and brother were concerned. Father the sort of rich city bigwig Morgause was determined to make the first to go once her Plan was in full effect, and the brother more rival than ally, in the girl's eyes – older, and self-centeredly focused on his own life.
Seconds after Morgause turned, Morgana appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, haughtily tolerating the classmates of either gender that fluttered around her, drawn to her magic, strong but wild, to her wealth and confidence and beauty.
Immediately the girl's green eyes landed on Morgause, and lit with recognition of significance. Tossing some excuse to her followers, Morgana cut through the flow of human traffic carelessly and impatiently to reach Morgause's side.
"What is it?" she asked without preamble, propping notebook and textbook casually against her chest, emphasizing curves that promised more than she would ever deliver. Clever girl.
"I think I've found the last piece," Morgause declared, allowing a hint of excitement and impending triumph into the expression of her eyes and the tone of her voice. "A new boy, Merlin Emrys. Just what we need. But probably requiring a little – encouragement."
"How old?" Morgana said, considering.
"Freshman year. I've already set Gilli to befriending him." Morgana gave her an eye-rolling grimace – for the boy himself, not the decision. "I know. But Emrys might be more suspicious of any of the others."
Morgana's lips curved under make-up expertly and maturely applied. "Except for me."
The girl gave Morgause a catlike smile of self-assurance that she shared, before moving off down the hall, now emptying as students ducked into their next classrooms at the last minute before the tardy-bell.
Now victory was assured. Emrys would never see Morgana coming til it was too late. Only a matter of time, now.
Mentally Morgause called up her calendar, and set to figuring out how long it was til Samhain.
…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..
As the week progressed, Arthur learned names and began to glimpse personalities. Not just of individual students, but of his various few classes, as disparate entities.
The freshmen in Algebra 1 were collectively more distant. Not disruptive, as he understood the younger magic-users could be, intentionally or not, but then math wasn't a disruptive subject. Usually. He didn't figure he'd pass the whole year without some kind of unexpected outburst.
The juniors in Algebra 2 were better, the first-hour group being the best of all his classes, and he shamelessly attributed that to his motivational speech on integration, on Monday. The seniors were the calmest, but also inclined to be more pointed in remarks having to do with magic vs. ordinary. And of course for the Government class – which had some of the same seniors as Calculus – pointed remarks and questions and outright criticism were kind of a requisite.
It was an emotionally trying class for Arthur, and there were moments he despaired of finishing the semester, much less the year. Perhaps he could turn the class back over to Gaius… perhaps if they all failed the first test. It was also, therefore, a busy and exhausting week. Having to adjust procedure and expectation, having to learn how to teach, instead of simply demonstrating how various algebraic equations were to be solved. He responded to Leon's message, How's it going? with the bare reassurance, It's going.
And he didn't see much of Merlin, who seemed to be even busier than he was – and more exhausted.
He caught only the barest glimpses of the realities of his roommate's life, from a couple of administrative notes – students excused from class on account of accidents that Arthur assumed were related to the use of magic they were beginners at, and being trained in, and the unprecedented proximity to others in the same unsteady boat.
Monday and Tuesday nights Arthur had watched Merlin eat dinner as he moved through the cafeteria line, leaving the room without bothering to sit down; he hadn't returned to their room either night until after Arthur had fallen asleep. Wednesday afternoon he'd walked in to find Merlin sprawled and snoring on the short-couch, alarmingly white except for purple circles around his eyes, as if he hadn't even been able to take the extra dozen steps to the other room – then Thursday morning the ketchup-and-mustard plaid bed was still made because he hadn't slept in it.
Thursday night Merlin had erupted from his bed at 3:28 – heart pounding, Arthur squinted at the digital clock on the windowsill – with a startlingly foul curse and a blast of that spicy-scented air Arthur was growing accustomed to.
Friday morning, the main room had smelled suspiciously of smoke; Merlin's clothes had been in a charred pile on the floor outside the bathroom door. The shower had been running already when Arthur got up, and though he waited patiently and considerately, it had been still running when he gave up and walked out the door to breakfast and his first class.
He wondered if Saturday would be any different, or Sunday. But to show that there were no hard feelings for Merlin hogging the shower that morning, Arthur left Merlin a note – a full sheet of notebook paper crooked across the colored files cluttering his desk, that he should be sure to notice.
Hey. I'm planning a short road trip to visit my sister tomorrow. I thought I'd offer you the option of riding along?
Leon and Percival both had written him messages conveying their willingness to accompany him, and he'd declined. Not truly sure why he was asking Merlin, now, except… maybe it would help him understand his sister – sister with magic – a little better with someone who was also like her in this way, standing beside him.
He hesitated over his note, thinking of adding, Get out of this nuthouse for awhile… and decided it was a little too soon for a joke like that. He also, deliberately did not remind his roommate exactly where he was going to visit his sister. Maybe a bit of a test – see if Merlin remembered the important things Arthur had told him.
In the morning, Merlin was absent like Arthur suspected he'd be – but his response was on Arthur's desk. Along with a single long-stemmed white rose that he could not have had time to procure naturally.
Hey. I'm sorry to miss the chance, but I can't leave the school right now. My alarm-charms aren't long-distance. But you can put this by her stone on behalf of all magic-users. I bet she was great. I'm sure she'd be proud of you.
Arthur took the note and the rose and drove a little over twenty miles southwest on James Madison highway. Like Leon had said – like the photo from the investigator showed – the cemetery was small and secluded, the grave itself shady and quiet. Arthur caught the sob in his throat and swallowed it with difficulty, clearing it and brushing tears away before they could fall.
Morgana Dubois.
Arthur visually traced the letters of her name, as if trying to find a mistake, releasing the last hope that one had been made. But no, there were the two immutable dates defining her life; he tried to exhale his anger away so it wouldn't spoil his grief.
"Dad buried you under Mom's name," he said aloud.
The first time he'd spoken to his sister in ten years, almost exactly. In another five weeks, he'd come back here for the anniversary remembrance.
"Were you angry about that? Did you feel like he was trying to hide you, or forget about you, that he was ashamed of you?" Another possibility occurred to him. "Or did you appreciate the chance to start a new life? To be another person, with another name – to be separate from him?"
Maybe this headstone, Morgana Dubois, did reflect the truth of the person she had come to be. He still had trouble picturing her with golden irises, though. It made him wonder about Merlin Emrys keeping his father's name.
"I wish you'd told me about the magic," he said. "I wish I'd known."
But that, too, must have been equally her choice; she'd never hesitated to disobey Uther before, when she disagreed with his directives. Arthur studied the stone a moment, trying to glean more from the last memories, their last correspondence, last phone call. It was the Pendragon way to hide true emotion, though he'd never been as good at it as either his father or sister. Uther was ice, and Morgana was fire – the absence of emotion and the explosion of all emotion at once, and the truth behind both, hidden from him.
And now they were both gone.
"Why did you do it?" he asked aloud. "I still don't get that. I mean, I've seen a bit of the pressure a magic-user goes through, discovering it and trying to learn to control it, but… senior year, Morgana." He'd have expected her to have a detailed twenty-year plan for her life after graduation, if not longer, by then.
He began to pace in an unfocused manner, three steps along the foot of her plot, and three back.
"This summer… I tried to find where you'd mentioned any particular friends, or even a teacher you were close to. I figured if I could find them, talk to them, I could try to understand where you were at, mentally and emotionally. But you really told me nothing, Morgana. Funny reading what I told you about Leon, and Gwaine and Percival, way back then. And embarrassing, reading about the different girls."
Some names he couldn't even put a face to. But Uther had instilled enough paranoia in Arthur, even then, that he had no regrets, sexually speaking, getting too close to something that wasn't real or lasting.
"I did get a chance to talk to Alice," he added. "Alice Manning, your school nurse? She's great – did you like her when you were there? She's smart. I didn't tell her who I was… I suppose I will sometime, but I don't want to make things awkward, and I don't think she knows me well enough to tell me things if she feels like it's betraying you…" Then again, if his sister had been close to Alice, there was no way the compassionate older woman would have let Morgana's life end the way it did. "She's the one who found you, did you know that?"
Had Morgana considered what-would-happen-next, after she was… gone? Had she cared, what it would do to whoever found her? – to their father? – to him?
"I asked her about the students' prescribed medication. Kept under about five kinds of lock and key, that's meant to keep anyone else from getting in. I asked if anyone else could, like Gaius or Merlin or… anyone. She gave me this look… and didn't really answer." Arthur snorted. "Probably she expects I'll be trying to break into the medicine cabinet, now…
"I did manage to ask about the sorts of meds the kids might be on. You know, because that might be something I'd need to know, as their teacher." He paused, imagining her smirk to hear that. "Yes, I'm a teacher. And no, I haven't quit after the first week. Or lost any students. Anyway, it's… regrettable, the sorts of things doctors – even those more familiar with magical children – prescribe."
Antidepressants. Antipsychotics. Ritalin. He was glad that Alice used her own judgment in distribution. Stuff like those sleeping pills, though.
"But of course she wouldn't gossip about previous students. Brags a bit on the successes – anonymously – but only hints at admission to the… others. I don't imagine yours is the sole tragedy, Morgana…"
Arthur sighed again, and hunkered down on his heels, reaching to lay the white rose on the grave.
"I'm starting to be friends with a magic-user at the school. Head of security now, but went through the grades a bit after your time. I think you'd like him…" He reconsidered Merlin's irreverence, and Morgana's drama-queen persona. "That or you'd have absolutely hated him. He sent this for you, though, one magic-user to another."
It was very quiet. Countryside quiet – leaves rustling and birds. He imagined how it would be different with Merlin beside him; imagined that the younger man would feel an immediate connection to Morgana and perhaps he would feel self-conscious about speaking these things aloud, even if Merlin moved out of range of hearing. Maybe next time Merlin could come…
"I miss you," Arthur said. "Hope you're with Dad, though – and Mom, too…" The thought struck him, that Uther might have anticipated seeing his daughter as well as his wife, after his own death – and that Ygraine might have received Morgana immediately – and it comforted him. "I suppose when I feel like you'd be proud of me, I might be able to… really say goodbye."
He shuffled around til he was leaning against the side of the narrow slab of engraved granite, and simply sat and watched the scenery around him, near and far. It helped a bit to pretend that he was leaning on her shoulder, and she on his, just out of each other's peripheral vision. But the silence meant she was content and at peace, watching the world with nothing to complain about.
But it was only pretence. And he still had no real answers or understanding.