Chapter 6

"How about the stink of your boots after taking a trip through Supplier Town in the east-west-western sub-sector?"

"Oh no, please, that's disgusting."

"Can't you smell that delightfully mouldering burn of scalded skin?"

"You're terrible, you know that, don't you? You know how bad I am with smells."

"Does that mean that I win?"

"Never."

Merlin shifted on the slightly spongy floor of his cell, fidgeting to press himself more closely against the wall. It was a struggle; his skin had gained a exaggerated sensitivity over the years that made even the slightest contact, the barest pressure, twinge painfully. More than that, his arms were bound to the sides of his body by the jumpsuit that wrapped him, his fingers trapped in tight mitten-like wraps and even his feet and toes socked in thick nylon that trapped them immobilised. It was hard enough to breathe at times, let alone shift an inch in any direction. And that on top of the painful lethargy that gripped the body and urged it into listless helplessness.

Merlin still tried anyway. He tried to edge just a little closer to that one, slightly thinner patch of wall of his padded cell, the one handbreadth sized space that was just weak enough that it allowed the voice of his fellow 'patient' to pass through. Her voice was still muffled, barely audible even when she said she was speaking loudly. Either her voice was so strained from lack of use or the walls really were as thick as the Doctors had suggested.

Both possibilities were equally probable. Merlin was himself surprised that he was able to communicate through the walls at all and wouldn't put it past them being almost entirely soundproof. But then, Freya had been a patient of the Pits for years, had said she'd barely spoken a word for most of them. That she could still speak at all was surprising.

Two years Merlin had been in the Facility of London. Two years he'd been effectively locked in a four by four meter cell of padded white walls and floors, the only break in the continuity of their smoothness an equally white handle-less floor-to-ceiling door. Those first weeks Merlin could recall cringing from the unbroken whiteness of the cell; he'd never seen anything so blindingly clean, nor truly anything white before but the shine of the Spotters at night.

He'd never been so clean himself, either. As though fearing that any grime might contaminate that perfect whiteness, when Merlin had first awoken it was to find himself scrubbed pinkly raw to a paleness he hadn't known his skin could become. That, coupled with the cocoon like white jumpsuit that bound him like a spider's prey… he had grown to hate the colour of white.

The only break in that whiteness was when the door opened. Most of the time, once a day Merlin hazarded a guess, it was for an orderly to enter with their usual blank-faced bodyguard and administer what Freya referred to as their 'sustenance'. Merlin had to agree with her sentiment; the fluid that was pumped through his nasogastric tube could hardly be termed food. Merlin couldn't even remember what it was like to chew a meal, to drink water rather than have it directly injected into his stomach. The orderly never said anything, and the bodyguard never stepped into the room, simply watching with keen eyes as though expecting Merlin to somehow leap to his feet and strike his feeder down.

Merlin wouldn't do that. Not because he didn't want to but because he couldn't. And it wasn't just the jumpsuit that prevented him from doing so. He didn't seem to have much energy for anything these days. No energy and… even the thought moving caused him to flinch, to wince in expectation of the pain that such motions would induce. Any sort of overt movement would send shoots of pain coursing through his muscles, would induce a spasm of trembles through his limbs that tripped over his nerve endings in jaw-clenching pains. Merlin knew he would whimper, would moan, would start to hyperventilate as the residual seizing from his last electrical treatment would course through his organs and tighten his chest. And even locked tight and straight in their mittens and socks, his fingers and toes would strain to curl as though the muscles shrunk and clasped into unbearably small fists.

That happened a lot.

Still, even with the potential for movement, even with what had at first been an utterly humiliating experience of tube feeding but had since faded into mere necessity, Merlin found himself almost eager for the appearance of the orderly and bodyguard. It was a welcome break in the stasis, in the unending whiteness of his surrounding that dimmed only with the utter blackness of night more completely dark than any Merlin had ever experienced before. So dark, it was, that for his first weeks he'd gone nearly without sleep for the sheer panic that such oppressive darkness had induced. He'd come to terms with that, too. Eventually.

But the orderlies brought a bare hint of colour to the room. It was nothing particularly noteworthy; the bodyguard's grey outfit held a faint touch of blue to its consistency, boots a slightly off-navy shade of black. And the orderlies sometimes had a dab of personalised colour to their outfitting, whether in the hint of a red handkerchief poking from a pocket, the golden glimmer of a necklace, the flash of a colourful sock from beneath a white trouser leg. Merlin drank each feature in as though it were life-giving sun.

The sights he cherished, but even more than that he blessed the smells that rushed forth with the entrance of his feeder. Always sensitive to smells, even after years Merlin hated what he had considered the 'Pit Smell'. It was vaguely familiar, a sharp, stinging scent that often wafted from the Supplier and Helper's shopfronts when they doused their front counters in scalding chemicals in an attempt to drown any potential growths of bacteria.

Sterile, it was called. Sterile and chemical. And Merlin's white cell reeked of it. He longed for the brief intervals when the orderly opened the door and wafted in a breeze of slightly less pungent air. When he caught the scent of something other than chemicals and sterile cleanliness. Even the thick, sweaty smell of the heavy man-orderly that huffed through the door on the odd day was preferable to the sterile smell.

Yet even with that brief reprieve, Merlin could not long for the opening of his cell door. Never truly. Because just as likely as not it wasn't the 'sustenance' the orderly and his bodyguard that stepped from the yellow-white glow of the hallway. They came empty handed and dragged Merlin along with them for his terrifying trips from the hateful cell. Even the thought could elicit a cold sweat and violent trembles.

Pressing his forehead into the padded wall, Merlin swallowed in an attempt to rid his throat of its permanent dryness. "Alright, I've got one. Biannual vaccination."

"Which ones, shots or oral meds?" Freya's muffled voice replied.

"Take your pick."

"You can't have two. That's cheating."

"Alright then, pick your least favourite."

"That's cheating," Freya replied with a slightly strangled sound that Merlin took for a grunt of amusement. Not a laugh. Freya never laughed, just as Merlin never did. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd smiled. "But it's a tough call. I don't even know which one I hated more."

"I think the shots would have to be less unlikeable," Merlin pondered aloud.

"Really? You think so?"

"Definitely. Did you taste that medicine? It makes breakfast broth taste good."

"Yeah, but the vaccine actually hurt. I swear they chose the most sensitive area they could to jab you with. I think I'd rather a plague run through the slums than have to take that vaccination twice a year."

"It didn't hurt that much," Merlin muttered. Not compared to… some things.

"Yeah… I suppose you're right."

Immediately, Merlin wished he'd held his tongue, regardless of the truth of his words. Yes, the the vaccines might have looked like a pin-prick to the bullet wound of pain that was inflicted at the hands of the Pit's 'experimentations' but he didn't need to remind Freya of it. Just like him, she strove to avoid thinking too much about the hopelessness of their situation. An impossibility, really, considering where they were, where they would always remain, but try they would nonetheless. It was cruel of him to draw her attention to it once more.

Freya had been a broken woman when Merlin had first heard her. Not met, he always reflected, but heard, for they had never met face to face. Not in this life. He'd first been aware that he could hear through that one patch of wall when chance had led the Doctors to drop him alongside it after his treatment. He'd heard her screaming.

It had been at night, when that oppressive, pitch-blackness had shadowed even the impeccably white walls of his cell. The duel effects of silence and darkness had been somehow terrifying, and coupled with the aches that still sent spasms rippling through Merlin's body from his treatment even when immobilised, sleep was unattainable.

Freya's screams had almost been welcome in that silence. Or they would have been if not for the sheer terror and pain that interlaced them, the utter misery that gave way to guttural cries and finally savage growls. Strangely enough, the sounds of what was evidently a feral, angry beast in the cell alongside his hadn't scared Merlin. He had merely thanked the break from the unending silence.

That, and he knew the sound. He could remember it, could recall the source of such aggression like the distinctive timbre of his father's voice. It was a sound he could never forget. And when, hours later, the snaps and growls had faded to whimpers and finally into little sobs of pain, Merlin had managed to shuffle ever so slightly closer to that thinness of wall and speak through it.

"Freya?"

The sobs paused. In their place, heavy breaths that were more whines of agony than gasps sounded. Then, in a wavering voice nearly too quite to make out, she had replied. "Who… who is that? How… how can I hear you?"

Her voice had been strained, drawn thin by more than just the abuse of screams descended into growls. There was a gravely edge to them that bespoke misuse, as though she truly hadn't spoken a word in years.

With a wince, Merlin shifted himself slightly closer to the wall. It was still too dark to make out the whiteness that must have been only inches from his face but he found, with his attention diverted, that such darkness could be, if not forgotten, then at least momentarily overlooked. "I think the wall might just be a bit thinner here."

"The wall is… how? Why? Why would they…?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was just an accident?"

"I've never known them to make an accident before."

"Me neither."

They subsided into brief silence. Merlin held his breath, as much because it still pained him slightly to breathe, more so after speaking, as because he had to silence himself, straining his ears to hear. Finally Freya spoke once more. "How did you know my name? Do I know you?"

Merlin regretted the useless motion of shaking his head as it sent a shard of pain lancing from behind his ear to the base of his neck. He winced. "No, not… not know. Knew."

"Knew?"

"I wonder… if you'd remember me. My name is Merlin."

There was silence that met his words. Silence that could have been wary, or confused, or dubious. Most likely stunned from the tone of Freya's voice when she finally replied. "Mer…lin? It's… Merlin, it's really you?"

"You remember me?"

"O-of course! Of course I do." Freya's voice broke slightly as she spoke, warbling as her very vocal cords strained. "Of course I remember you. How could I forget?"

"It wouldn't be impossible," Merlin muttered, though he couldn't withhold the slowly spreading warmth that seeped through his chest. It felt… he felt almost good. For the first time in weeks.

"I'd never forget you," Freya replied. Her voice was barely more than a whisper through the wall. "I've… I've really missed you, Merlin."

Merlin hadn't been able to reply to that. He'd simply eased in something almost like satisfaction and without even pausing to reply had somehow fallen into sleep.

Since that first, brief exchange, Freya and Merlin had rekindled the friendship that had once lasted so briefly so many centuries ago. Merlin had never met Freya, not in any of his subsequent lives, but his memories of Albion, of Camelot and the people he'd met there, had always been strong. He remembered her, just as he remembered her cruel and untimely end.

That end was a subject they never spoke of. Just like they never spoke of the way that Freya transformed into a wild beast every night at midnight, or that she had lived with such a burden time and again, life after life.

There were many topics like that which remained undiscussed. Many that they did talk about, too; as with Mordred and Edwin, Merlin found in Freya someone he could reminisce about days gone by, better times and better lands. As always it was a tug of war between a discomfort with discussing the Past and a longing to relive it. He disregarded that discomfort for the soothing it paradoxically provided. Merlin would speak of Albion and Camelot, even with the rose-tinted glasses through which he viewed that past, and Freya would speak with similar wistfulness. Never anything particularly personal except for the odd and infrequent story of a time in long-lost childhood. Personal was one thing that they both agreed to steer clear from.

Even when it concerned the both of them. For one instance, Freya had brought up the consideration that had been nagging passively at the back of Merlin's mind for weeks. In the blackness of night, Freya's voice had seeped through the little patch of wall. "Merlin, when we were in Camelot… when you rescued me from… from the…"

"Yes?" Merlin supplied, removing the need to voice what was evidently an painful memory.

Freya sighed just loud enough to be heard. "Well, I was just wondering… I've always wondered, a little wistfully I suppose but… did you love me?"

Merlin was silent for a moment. He couldn't deny that such a consideration had indeed been pestering at him and urging him to voice his own thoughts on the matter. Only… he didn't really know where he stood. He knew where he had stood, what he had felt, but then… "I did. I think I did, Freya."

"Oh…" Freya gave another sigh, even quieter than before so that Merlin considered he may even have simply imagined it. "I think I did too." And that was the end of the conversation. A conversation that was left to the Past along with any feelings tied to it, and deliberately so as Freya thence proceeded to murmur with equal wistfulness of the boy who had once declared his love for her from the slums, had maintained that love even through the terror that had gripped him upon discovering the Bastet form she was inflicted with every midnight.

Merlin wasn't sure how he felt about such disregard. Upset? No, he wasn't truly upset. Nor even disappointed. He'd remembered, had his Past memories of Freya for years now and yet…

He knew that long ago he had indeed loved her. But even from what little he knew of her from their silent support of one another was simply… different to who she had been. It would be like loving a person without really knowing who they were. That was his conclusion, though perhaps it was more a culmination of contributing factors. That they hadn't met in even as advantageous a situation as they had long ago. That there were so many greater concerns to occupy that which could be consumed with the pursuit of love. And Merlin's conclusion on the matter was only aided by, or perhaps driven by, Freya's own stance; it might have happened, once. They might have been able to kindle something approaching what they had so briefly shared in a lifetime long ago. But no longer. Besides, even had they both been prepared to pursue such a relationship, they were hardly in the capacity to do so. Merlin felt stretched near to his limit simply existing.

Support. That was what they were to one another. A crutch, a buoy to keep one another's heads afloat in an otherwise drowning sea. For support each other they continued to do regardless of any relationship or lack thereof. Perhaps it was even better that they felt nothing outside that friendship, that mutual aid, for anything other just seemed so unattainable.

At first, Merlin had suspected it was more he that supported Freya than she him. The woman in the cell next to his was broken, had been through so much pain in every possible way that Merlin wouldn't have felt right to lean upon her, not when she was so bowed already. For though she conversed well enough sometimes, at others she appeared barely lucid. Sometimes she would simply moan or whimper, sob and wail in a discordance that set Merlin's teeth on edge. He'd tried to console her, but when she didn't listen, didn't even appear to hear him, and the weight of his own pains and helplessness settled more firmly upon him, he ceased his attempts. And though he swore he wouldn't abandon her to her grief, her pain and misery, that he would listen to every sound she made to simply be there for his only friend in that rigid white world, his resolution soon faded. And ridden with guilt, he'd had to draw himself away from that little patch of wall that echoed Freya's sorrow into his own cell one more occasions than he could count.

Such an inclination became a necessity over time. With each instance an orderly took Merlin from his cell, each time he was drawn in winces and whimpers of pain from the padded floor for 'treatment', it became less of Merlin supporting Freya and more of a desperate need to grasp onto something. Anything that would keep him sane. And he rapidly came to realise that Freya sought just as much from him.

So they talked. Of the Past and the past, of trivial subjects and word games. Merlin spoke of his father on occasion, of Balinor in various incarnations, as well as the places he'd lived after his life in Camelot. And Freya did the same; of how she'd once lived in a gypsy caravan and had always been one for dancing ever since, of the lifetime she spent entirely alone in a little cottage deep in a forest and how such isolation hadn't really been so bad. She even spoke of what memories she still held from her time in the Lake of Avalon, a time she wasn't sure the duration of any more than why it had ceased. She seemed… saddened by the fact.

Anything that would keep them both sane they spoke of. Sometimes they didn't talk at all; once, years ago, it had been for Freya's sake, by Freya's needs, that they hadn't spoken. She had times when she needed to remain silent as much as she had those that demanded speech. In those instances, Merlin could not get a word out of her and he rapidly ceased trying.

He only came to understand why she did it at all, however, after one particularly intensive treatment session. The muscle that had carried him from the treatment room, stomping along behind the leading orderly before slinging him into his cell once more, had not been gentle with his motions. Merlin couldn't help the long, drawn out cry that had spilled from his lips when he hit the padded floor that immediately felt as hard as concrete.

"Merlin?"

Freya's voice barely parted the fog of pain that clouded Merlin's mind. He hadn't even known he was close enough to the thin patch of wall to hear her. There was no way he could reply. He hadn't felt capable of anything but short, sharp pants that hurt almost enough that he considered ceasing to breathe entirely.

"Merlin? Are you – are you alright?"

It was an empty platitude. Was he alright? Of course he wasn't alright. Freya knew that, just as Merlin knew that she only asked because she honestly knew not what else to say. That she was only struggling to help him, to convey empathy for his plight.

Even knowing that he couldn't reply. Didn't even want to reply.

"Merlin?"

Freya tried only once more to gain his attention, to urge a response, before she dropped any efforts at all. And Merlin was left to his pain, to work through the aches that sent convulsions through his limbs and pulsing throbs through his skull. Yes, that was when he knew exactly why, at times, Freya remained silent.

Other times, however, like that night, their companionship was almost jovial. Or at least as jovial as they could manage. Merlin knew his own was at least partially forced, a response to the lack of 'treatments' for the past few days that would suggest nothing if not one of even greater intensity to come. He sought a distraction. And Freya, wordlessly acknowledging his need, supplied him with one, time and time again.

Thus their games.

"I've got another one," Merlin said, forcibly shunting aside the melancholic flavour of the descending mood. "You ever been down south side in drought season?"

"Yeah. Just the once, though. Mam always said to avoid it in the heat," Freya replied. Merlin could tell from her tone that she was struggling to turn the mood as much as he was.

"She wouldn't be wrong. Did you ever walk past that Supplier front at midday, the one who made the paints? She had that rusty old green sign out the front of her house."

"Um… Oh, yes! That was… that smelt so bad. And in the heat it was supposed to be abhorrent. Something on her fire was obviously protesting being burned. What kind of fuel was she even using in there?"

"Don't know. Dead bodies? The souls of the tortured? Baby kittens?"

"Where the hell would she get baby kittens?"

"True. Definitely dead bodies, then," Merlin acknowledged. "You ever get any of that paint on your hands?"

"No. No way. That's signing your death wish, that is. Why? Did you?"

Merlin shifted slightly, closing his eyes ruefully at the memory. "Just the once. Balinor sent me off one day when I was five to go and get lunch by myself. He was sick and…" He trailed off as the memory took him. It had been almost painfully hot that day, the drought season reportedly one of the worst to have hit for years. Some of the mud from the streets had even hardened to rock-like quality. Merlin could almost smell the tear-inducing smog that smoked from the paint-grinder's Supplier, could almost see the white glare of the overhead clouds that just barely managed to smother their captive sun. He could feel the acidic sting of paint that chewed at his fingers when he'd run headlong into the Supplier carrying a tray of lukewarm paints. He could almost hear her bellowing scolding –

"Merlin?"

"Hm? Sorry, I was just…" Sighing, Merlin blinked his eyes open. That happened sometimes, getting lost in memories. Reminiscing about the past, even a dissatisfying one, was better than contemplating the present.

"Drifting?" Freya offered softly. Or at least as softly as the barrier of the wall would allow her to speak.

"Yeah."

"That's okay. It happens." She paused a moment before continuing. "Do you think you could tell me about it? Could you tell me about south sector? Even if it's just the grot of the paint Suppliers, or the muck in the streets or all of the broken, crotchety old men and women that squat under their awnings. It's just been so long since I've been outside." She paused again. "Merlin?"

But Merlin was no longer listening to her. He realised she was still talking in a distracted part of his brain, but his attention was abruptly focused elsewhere. Focused, and gradually flooding with dread as he watched the immobile door of his cell yet heard the familiar and foreboding series of click and snicks that told of mechanical locks flipping open. Dread, because he knew it wasn't time for the sustenance. An instant later, with a hiss like a sigh, the door slid sideways into its seat inside the wall and revealed the orderly and her body guard standing beyond.

She was familiar, the orderly. Merlin had seen her before, though couldn't recall how long ago it had been since. The wide, white trousers and overlong coat with white sleeves was the same as every other orderly's, the matching white shoes with their rubber soles and synthetic fabric make as unremarkable as the blank, indiscernible expression on her thin face. But Merlin remembered the short auburn hair falling in loose curls to her shoulder, the ruddy colour almost captivating for its break from the whiteness of his cells, just as much as was the golden bracelet of intricate links wrapped around her left wrist.

She didn't say a word, the orderly. Instead, stepping into the room, she started towards Merlin in professional strides, bend over him and, without even looking him in the eye, dropped her fingers to his neck. Merlin fought not to tremble beneath the touch, the familiar motion that foreshadowed that which was painful in an entirely different way to the rest of the treatment. He couldn't fight her, though, not even if he'd felt the urge to any longer; not only was it useless but he barely had the energy to roll himself over in the instances when he'd been dropped into his cell in a discomforting position.

Merlin closed his eyes as the orderly's fingers tugged beneath the skin-tight collar of his jumpsuit and fastened onto the metal one beneath. A distinctive, barely audible snick, the almost unnoticeable jab of a needle from that collar prodding into the back of his neck, and the woman retracted her fingers and stood to standing.

She'd barely straightened when Merlin felt the effects of the drug seep rapidly through his system. And just like that, the world seemed to… muffle. Not the sounds that Merlin no longer listened to, not the glaring brightness of fluorescent lighting from overhead or the chemical sterility that assaulted his senses. No, it was that barely there, redundant yet still integral part of him that was his magic, the magic that struggled every moment to resurface from where it had been crushed into suppression. With the fast-acting drug, that tingle of life-giving power, the presence that, until Merlin had been taken to the Pits, he had not even noticed existed, was crushed and smothered once more.

And the world became darker. Bleaker. Sadder and less… purposeful. Merlin felt what little will had urged him to turn his gaze upon the orderly, towards the bodyguard that unfolded the metallic structure of the wheelchair that would seat him, fade. That was the purpose of the drug; to inhibit what little of his magic remained within him to ensure the 'safety' of those he may encounter when leaving the room. As if his magic was even bright enough to blink its eyes open.

With a disconsolate sigh, Merlin closed his own.

Freya didn't say anything as the orderly and bodyguard manhandled him into the chair the muscle dragged alongside them. She didn't speak a word as the pair of respectively white and blue clad intruders exchanged muted mutters. And it wasn't because she couldn't hear them, though the walls likely did make it impossible. It wasn't like there was anything a word of reassurance, of protest had she the foolishness to utter it, would make a difference. It's not like either of them had a choice in the matter.

Merlin kept his eyes closed for the entire trip from his cell. There wasn't anything noteworthy about the trips to his treatment room, nothing to comment on besides an exchange of four white walls and glaring overhead lights for white-walled corridors and slightly brighter overhead lights. The gentle jostle of the metallic wheelchair as it was trundled over smooth, cold floors swayed him slightly in his seat. The only noise besides the faint squeak of rubber wheels on polished floors was the gentle clicks of two pairs of shoes behind him.

Only when their forward motion slowed, some countless minutes later, did Merlin open his eyes. A grey door – grey, but still unremarkable compared to the whiteness of its surrounding walls – stood before him, closed and handle-less with only an infrared ID scanner pad barely larger than a hand to the right. The orderly stepped around him to press a finger to the pad and lean into it to speak. "Patient L7979M for you, Doctor."

Barely five seconds later and the door hissed its opening breath to present the wide, sparsely furnished room beyond. An operating theatre, Merlin had heard it called, though he knew not the validity of such a name; he'd never seen any such 'theatre' in the slums, nor in the Past. The room was at least ten times the size of his cell, of constant, reflective, marble-like floor and pale wall, immaculate metallic counters atop cupboards along every wall and shelves above stored with a variety of glass phials and tubes in racks and coils of cords interspersed by a multitude of electrical instruments of function Merlin knew only about half. And he knew that because – no. No, he didn't like to dwell on that.

In the centre of the room was the bed. More of a pallet, really. Long enough for a tall man to fit easily, if not comfortably, despite the thin attempt at padding over its unyielding hardness. Merlin was all too familiar with that bed, with those just like it, with the stretch of lighting radiating directly from the roof of seemingly no individual globes. He was also far too familiar with the Doctor that stood beside that bed, the hard lines of his synthetic jacket falling to his knees in a white so pristine it almost glowed. He knew that Doctor, knew the man's pointed features, his nose long and hooked and prominent enough to resemble a beak. Just as he was familiar with the other two Doctors that 'treated' him specifically.

The beak-nosed man – for Merlin had still never learned his name – turned towards the door as Merlin was wheeled inside. His fingers still tapped at the electronic pad that projected a Clip-like hologram before him despite his attention focused instead upon their entrance. Something not quite a smile touched the corners of his lips. "Ah. Yes, just on the bed, if you would," he directed the orderly and her bodyguard. As though the procedure of Merlin's visits was ever carried out any differently.

Manhandled once more, Merlin was shifted onto the hard bed. He fought back a wince at the contact of fingers to skin; it would always hurt, any kind of touch. His nerves were simply shorted, too sensitive to even the gentlest of prods.

Not that that was the worst of it. And as his head rocked slightly on the headrest of the bed, Merlin fought back a rising nausea that welled within him at the prospect of what was to come. The upwelling of memories, the phantom feelings of aching, throbbing pain, the sharp stabs and constant shudders of electricity that neither sobs nor wails could alleviate, assaulted him. Merlin had to clench his jaw, had to bite back the trembles that already coursed through him at the precognitive thought. Not magical, no; he simply knew what was to come. Because it was always the same, to some degree, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to stop that which loomed ever closer.

He had tried, once. More than once. For weeks, even, Merlin had fought against the 'treatment' that was conducted upon him. As the thick, tight bracelets that read his vitals were clasped around his wrists and ankles he'd kicked and fought. When he'd been strapped onto a pallet for a pair of cannula's to be poked into each elbow, his blood drawn to a frightening measure, he'd cursed and spat, vowed destruction upon those blank-faced orderlies that had held him down. When more than a dozen hands had pinned him immobile, tilting his head back to feed the nasogastric tube through his nostril, he'd nearly managed to roll free of their restraints and had writhed like a beached fish even when his efforts consistently proved fruitless.

Even when his head had been shaved to bare scalp for the pads of electrodes to be gelled to his skin, to be linked up for an electroencephalogram that had deteriorated into active stimulation of brainwaves that had left his muscles and limbs twitching like a prodded rabbit in the jaws of a fox, he'd fought.

That fight had died. It wasn't abrupt but a slow, tumbling roll down a shallow hill, a gradual decline from steadfast objection to passive resistance to neutrality and finally resignation. Merlin hated it. He hated that he knew he'd given up fighting, that even had he the energy to object, had his limbs not been as weak and disoriented as a newborn babes, he wouldn't have fought back. What was the point? It wasn't like there was any escape anyway.

Merlin remembered when he'd thought the Pits were simply an execution ground. A site that convicted criminals and sorcerers alike were dragged into kicking and screaming their protest only to have those protests cut short with a slash of finality.

They weren't. That wasn't what the Pits were. The conviction wasn't short, not as merciless as a swift death. What awaited was far worse.

'Electrocution therapy' was what the Doctor had termed it. What he'd termed one of the treatments, at least. Not the beak-nosed doctor but a tall man as bald as Merlin now was himself. He hadn't explained further, and Merlin doubted he even addressed him as he hooked him up to cables and cords, slid needles into muscles so thin that Merlin couldn't even feel them. He'd watched as a series of metal clasps had been clipped onto those needles, plugs fastened to the electrodes of his scalp, and then he couldn't remember anything else. He never could. The searing, whole-body pain, the volts that shocked every nerve ending and coursed beneath his skin like a rippling flame, forbade any kind of thought other than "stop, stop, STOP, make it STOP".

That 'therapy' was the primary treatment, but there were others. In his early days at the Pits, when his limbs had still been strong enough to hold his body upright for more than a minute or two, Merlin had been put through physical trials. Running in a room that never seemed to end and driven by heated floors that scorched his bare soles should he slow. Keeping himself aloft in a crate of water for hours on end and only pulled loose when his trembles became so profound that the water had thrashed about him in rapids. Dodging unseen projectiles in a dark room that slapped him like an open palm with each strike.

Provoking his magic was what they were doing, Merlin had deduced. Trying to get a rise from the beast they had tethered so tightly. So Merlin had done his utmost to ensure that that 'beast' remained silent. And slowly, those trials had limited until they finally ceased. Abruptly at the end; Merlin could remember the last time he'd been urged into standing to run. He remembered the tugging of hands that had pulled him to his feet and then… nothing else.

Merlin suspected that his physical inadequacy after that point was what was largely responsible for the end of those trials.

Not that his treatments stopped. Far from it. Electrocution therapy was merely one aspect. Merlin was fed through passive machines that seemed to do nothing but read his physical state as often as he was exposed to the painful sensory stimulators, the blinding light and the deafening booms, the sharp smells and heated burns. He had become all too familiar with the jostling of the cannula's in his arms as chemicals were injected intravenously, could almost identify some of the drugs that were forcibly seeped through his system, that caused him to see colours, to twitch uncontrollably, to be struck with headaches so fierce and unending that he still felt the effects a day after their active assault had ceased.

It was all one and the same by now. Merlin feared his 'treatments' with the reflexive fear of his subconsciousness, but consciously he felt… nothing. Resigned perhaps, briefly terrified but… no, there was simply nothing. After a bare moment, nothing. It was almost worse that Merlin didn't even know what the Doctors sought; why didn't they simply kill him? Let him die? What were they searching for, why did they subject him and Freya and all the other sorcerers for all he knew to the bodily pains that wrought havoc on the wreak of his body?

It seemed so pointless. And in many ways, that only made it worse. Merlin was under no allusions – he knew the only reason he was still alive was because the Doctors kept him that way.

The beak-nosed Doctor, his voice thin and reedy, was talking in a murmur to the orderly by the door. Merlin might have been able to make out their words if he'd strained his ears, but he didn't. Didn't bother. Instead, he simply fastened his gaze upon a familiar point across the room. A smudge of greyness, barely larger than a fingerprint. It was the only smudge on white walls that he'd seen in the entire Facility.

The hissing breath of the door signalled the departure of the orderly, though Merlin knew the bodyguard remained behind. The Doctor's clicking footsteps followed, approaching with slow, measured steps as though distracted or in contemplation. Merlin didn't glance towards him when he drew into sight, but could make out the pose of his concentration as he bowed his head over the holographic pad before him in his periphery.

"…try a… maybe take two…" he murmured to himself, tapping away in silent jabs of his finger. Merlin ignored him. Until he caught the words, "Oculo-IncitaI". Then his jaw tightened to withhold the onrushing flood of bile into his mouth.

There was nothing he could do when the Doctor stalked across the room and hefted a spherical contraption from a shelf in the right hand corner. He couldn't move even had he wanted to, even if the drug that was suppressing his magic didn't similarly instil lethargy even more profound than usual into his very bones. Merlin could only stare directly ahead, resolutely ignoring both the return of the Doctor with his contraption and the rising dread that seeped as he strained to drink in every last detail in his field of vision. It would be the last Merlin would see for days, he knew, and not only because he would be blinded by the pain but because blindness was a product of this particular treatment, if only temporarily. A week of temporary was far too long.

Sometimes knowing what was to come was worse than remaining in wary ignorance.

Minutes later, however, when darkness flooded his vision, Merlin didn't remember any of that. He didn't recall his need to catch every last flicker of light before that light was taken from him, because his attention was very resolutely turned elsewhere. Towards his temples that seared with pain, towards the burning tips of the spherical headpiece that dug into his scalp, towards the mind-numbing throbs that jolted through his mind.

His lack of vision seemed inconsequential when compared to that.

Merlin was hardly aware of the trip back to his cell. He knew that it wasn't in a wheelchair this time but on a gurney that jostled just as much as its two-wheeled counterpart.

He did feel the moment he was tossed back into his cell, however. A rationale part of his mind knew that he was never 'tossed' as such, that the muscle of the orderly-bodyguard duet eased him to the floor with, if not gentle, than certainly not careless motions.

The sound of the door closing hissed unduly loud in Merlin sightless state. He barely considered it, so inward focused was he to the thrumming echoes of pain that continued to quiver through his head.

Tears had never been something that Merlin was prone to in response to physical pain. He'd cried when he'd woken that morning he found his father dead, had shed tears for Kip when he'd finally made it back to his house after watching his friend fall prey to the Hunters. But pain? No, there was little tears could do to counteract physical distress. Tears were to leech out the deep, black grief that pooled within his chest, easing the pressure just slightly.

When Merlin blinked his swollen eyes painfully, however, it was to feel the warm trickle of those sorrowful tears slide down his cheeks. Not because he was hurting physically, for such hurts were a constant to his world. It was his loss of vision that truly ached, even if he was only temporarily blinded. There was something so… so impossible and unmatchable to such a loss. It was almost as profound as his loss of magic.

So deeply embedded was Merlin in that loss, in holding himself rigid to avoid triggering his aching muscles into protest, that it took hours for him to register that he was beside the thinnest point on his wall. That the sounds of guttural snarls and gnashing teeth that grew and died in volume in spasms from the cell beside his died. And that the whimpers that replaced them were almost desperate in the chant that was barely intelligible through the blubbers.

"…can't… it won't… hurt, it hurts – I… why can't I just… stop, make it… stop…"

In bursts of words barely louder than a whisper, Merlin heard Freya cry her own pain and misery. It pierced him even through the fog of his own hurts, through the grief of his loss of vision and the regrowing, manifesting knowledge of his own helplessness. There was something about hearing another's pain, about witnessing the heartbreak of a friend, that somehow managed to afford one strength.

Twisting his head slowly, but still too fast to avoid the shooting pain that momentarily cramped his neck, Merlin pressed himself against the padded wall he found himself against. When he tried to speak it took three tries to manage more than a croak. "Freya? Freya, can you hear me?"

The pants and sniffles, the stutters, continued for a moment longer before they died. A full minute passed before she replied. "Merlin, you're… you're back."

"Yeah…"

"It… it was a l-long one."

"It was." Merlin's voice wavered, warbling like a crying bird.

Freya was silent for a moment, the only sound a near silent gasp that hitched her breath. "Are you… are you alright?" Merlin didn't even get a chance to reply before she continued in a rush. "No. No, of course you're not alright. I'm sorry, I –"

"It's fine," Merlin cut her off. A lie, they both knew, but it hardly mattered. "I'm fine, Freya. Are you…?"

"I…" Freya's voice caught once more. "I'm…"

"What can I do?"

"Do? What is there to do?"

It was a rhetorical question, Merlin knew. And yet in spite of that, he felt the desire, the need, to do something. He didn't even know what it was that was going to croak through his dried lips until the words spilled forth. "Do you remember Beltane, Freya? All the way back in the Past, when the festival lasted all day and night. Did you ever dance around a May Pole, or tie ribbons in your hair, or sing the ditties that your Mammy taught you since you were a little girl?"

"I… I remember," Freya muttered. Though her voice was hushed and flat, there was just a hint of wistfulness in it. A familiar wistfulness, the one that always touched her tone when they shared memories of better times. "We lit the fires at sundown on May Day and they burned all through the night."

Merlin closed his eyes – a useless motion but enacted anyway – and let himself drift through his memories. It hurt almost as much as it soothed. "The smoke was thick but it was a good smell. It never left more than a pile of ash behind it. It always smelt even better when it rained, with the mix of wet and dry and the smell of clean water."

"You would remember the smells," Freya said with a huff of not-quite laughter. But Merlin didn't even hear her. He was lost to those memories.

He recalled Beltane, the orange fires that cast a glow upon the night sky that was entirely different to the light pollution that hung over London. A sky that was a blanket of navy black, speckled with pinpricks of stars more plentiful than any of the sparse smattering he'd ever seen in his current life, more than in any of his lives in the past centuries. He remembered Ealdor, his mother's bright, fond smile and the smell of her cooking of an afternoon. He remembered his friend Will and the hours they'd played while shirking the duties their parents had assigned them.

He let himself Drift. Drift as he tried to avoid doing, for the taste of such beautiful, fond memories was bittersweet when compared to those of his current life. The visions of the Past seemed all the more vivid for being unable to see. He saw the walls of Camelot, impossibly tall but protective rather than looming and ominous. The buzz of chatter in the marketplace that carried a decidedly brighter tone than any sound he'd heard in his the slums of London. Merlin remembered with fondness the little nook of a room in the loft of Gaius' rooms that was barely larger than his cell but was so much more welcoming that it was almost jarring in contrast.

The warmth of tears swum once more into his closed eyes but didn't ease the ache in his chest as he recalled his mentor. As the image of Gwen's chiding yet smiling face swum into the forefront of his mind, the sound of their mixed laughter as they shared a brief word in passing in the hallway.

He remembered the Knights and their ready acceptance of his presence in their midst, the almost brotherly affection they afforded him and he returned in kind. He knew realistically that he was blotting the down points, the dark days and those of trial from his mind, but the bright scenes, those flooded with joy, were so much more prevalent than those Merlin had ever felt in this twenty three years of life that he had lived that he couldn't help himself. He recalled the deep, gravelly tones of Kilgarrah as he spoke in twisted riddles and even those had a rosy tinge to them, an affection for times long lost and wonders more powerful than any he'd encountered since.

Most prominently, however, and brightest of all, he remembered Arthur. His prince that he knew, even without having experienced it directly, was to be his king. Arthur, who he had once been so critical of, who he had rolled his eyes for and grumbled at his every order, yet who had grown on him like a persistent wart. A burden at times, yet he had slowly become his friend.

Or more than a friend, Merlin considered. He'd never really thought of himself as anything but servant and friend to his prince, but… but there had never been anyone quite like Arthur. Not in his life in Albion and not in any of them since. It was different to that of a friend, of a brother, or even, should he consider it, of a lover. There was something that had bound the two of them, that had forged a bond between them that could never be replicated. He missed the easy banter he had never truly spoken with his current words, he missed their camaraderie as the raced from quest to desperate quest. He even, he considered ruefully, missed the long-suffering orders Arthur had given him, the chiding that had held as much sincerity as it did exasperated fondness more often than not. The moments that Arthur had shared a smile with him – a genuine smile – was incomparable to anything.

When Merlin cried, it was not so much for his loss of vision. It was for the loss of Balinor and Kip, for Freya who suffered alongside him, for the absence of his beloved mentor in Gaius, his friends in Gwen and Gwaine and Lancelot and the Knights. And pervading and encompassing it all, like the presiding king Merlin knew he had become, was Arthur. Merlin cried as much for Arthur as for the rest of them.

Somewhere in Merlin's battered mind he registered that his tears became sobs. Sobs that shook his body in painful tremors only slightly yet strongly enough for him to wish they would cease. He couldn't stop them, though. Just as he could do nothing to stop the audible sobs that seeped through the wall from Freya's cell alongside his.

Tears didn't truly help, Merlin knew that. They couldn't heal anything. They couldn't prevent the future tortures that would return with certainty and they certainly couldn't bring back those who had long since passed. But for a moment, just a moment, Merlin let himself believe that it would. And if nothing else, the black pit in his chest did seem dampened.

Just slightly.

A/N: I just wanted to say a really big thank you to mersan123 for you reviews. They're really lovely and very encouraging, and it's so gratifying to hear that you're enjoying the story. So thank you!