Chapter Seven.

The beginning of August really should have been brighter. The sun should have been beating down on the grounds, dust particles circling in its beams, but it seemed the doctors only liked waking Merlin up on the gloomy days.

Six weeks, one day, Merlin repeated to himself in the mirror, ignoring the weight loss and the hair growth that occurred in the elapsed time.

No, two days, he thought, second-guessing himself, which made him feel nauseated. Was it one or two days? That mattered. Because if he couldn't keep track of time, how was he expected to account for anything else? Especially memories.

It was becoming increasingly more difficult to keep a grasp on them. He carried with him a perpetual pit in his stomach, feeling as though he was missing something at every point of the day. There were times when he couldn't recall a conversation he had, whether it was that morning with a doctor or months ago with Arthur. Sometimes, he completely forgot where he was or why he was there. He was forgetting himself, forgetting Arthur.

The sound of his voice. The way the light haloed his hair. The feel of his touch when he brushed his fingers to Merlin's skin.

If only he could find those things again, he was certain every other memory would fall into place.

In the meantime, the doctors had upped his medication and his time spent asleep. He would spend days unconscious, in a deep sleep, after which he'd forget all he'd dreamt; and his arms were bruised purple from the daily insulin injections. It seemed he was going to less therapy sessions, too, and he thought his electrotherapy treatments had decreased, though he couldn't be sure. His temples still burned with the aftermath, and he one day noticed small red circles on his skin had formed, in the same place the nodes were attached, with no memory of when that happened.

A little over a week ago, Percy had checked out of the ward. Merlin saw him go, looking strange to his eyes in street clothes and a rucksack.

"Good luck," Merlin had told him, going to shake his hand, and Percy took it with slight apprehension. "They don't give much help to veterans out in the world, I'm afraid."

"Yeah," Percy said, furrowing his brows and looking as though he had just remembered some far off memory. "Shame."

At once, Merlin realized Percy had no idea who he was; and Merlin wondered very much if Percy even knew who he was.

Gwaine had become more distant in the previous weeks, too. Like Merlin, he spent most of his time sleeping. When they did meet in the common area or cafeteria, Gwaine no longer cracked jokes or told Merlin of his new theories of the patients' vile mistreatment. He was slipping further away which each passing day, but Merlin tried his best to keep him in good spirits. To keep him defiant, for both their sakes.

However, for the moment, he was simply happy to stretch his legs, and they took him to the common room, where new faces looked around in worry and old faces where envious of their bright eyes.

Gwen was sitting at the table by the window again, looking much more lively than when Merlin had seen her last, but that wasn't hard to do by comparison. Eager for the company, he slid into the seat across from her, and she looked up at him instantly with a pleasant, if not a little tired, smile.

"Merlin," she said in her kind tone, placing her arms on her lap beneath the table and leaning in. "Long time no see."

"Sorry about that. I would have gotten here earlier but," he said lightly, "I overslept."

She chuckled warmly and shook her head at this, causing her curls to bounce. "Happens to the best of us."

Merlin's expression turned to concern as he said, "How are you doing, since . . .?"

"Oh? Oh, I'm fine," Gwen insisted, playing it off with a smile. "They keep me asleep most of the time so—god, it's like all the days blend together. And the medication they have me on is the same anti-depressant I've always taken, except a larger dose—which make me feel like a larger dose of crazy."

She was speaking lightheartedly, but Merlin heard the weight in her words.

"You're not crazy," he assured her.

"He says as we sit in what is, for all in tense and purposes, a mental institution," she countered.

"Right, fair enough," he conceded, pulling a face.

"I hate the treatment, though," Gwen said, looking somber now. "I mean, I'm not the only one, I know that. But I just—It messes with your head, doesn't it? And the pain . . ."

Lifting her arms to run her fingers through her hair, Merlin noticed gauze wrapped around her left arm. It had a blotch of bright red soaking the inner wrist.

"I'm terrified of it—"

"What is that?" Merlin asked, and she looked confused for a moment before realizing his meaning.

"Oh, it's nothing," she said, trying to put her hands casually back on her lap, but he caught them before she had the chance. "No, Merlin, it's—"

The bandaged arm gave no visibility to the skin but, when he looked at her overturned wrist in his other hand, he saw white horizontal lines and healing scabs cluttering the delicate flesh.

"Gwen . . ." he breathed, not quite sure how to follow it up. His mind was completely blank, and she used his shock as an opportunity to pull her hands away and stuff them beneath the table.

"It's nothing," she said again, sounding angry.

"Nothing?" he repeated, and stammered a little bit. "Gwen—I . . . Why?"

When his senses finally returned to him, he met her gaze, which was slowly filling up.

"You know why, Merlin," she whispered.

He shook his head and let his mouth hang open, at a complete loss for coherent words or reasoning.

"It's the treatment," she clarified, spitting the word as though she were expelling a poison. "The electrotherapy or—or whatever they want to call it. They're toying with our minds; don't you see it? They're playing with our memories—making us forget. I was forgetting his smile, Merlin, and his eyes—his eyes! They're not trying to cure us at all! They're trying to strip us down and reprogram us!"

Her voice was growing louder and angrier with each word, and he knew she was right. He had been thinking it ever since the day he arrived, but when it was put into words—when it was said like that . . .

Well, they sounded almost as paranoid as Gwaine.

"And it makes me feel numb, Merlin," she continued, her voice shaking and frustrated tears dropping from her lashes. "Each time they bring me to the treatment rooms . . . I feel numb. And at least with this—," she held up her bandage in near pride, "I can feel something. I know it sounds crazy, but it helps me hold on—to remember Lance. It makes me remember who I was with him, and how happy he made me. The doctors may think it's better to forget, but I don't want to. It's something that happened to me in my life, and I'm okay with feeling pain every day, just to remember a moment. Do you understand?"

Her eyes searched his face pleadingly, and it took him a few seconds to realize he wasn't saying anything. But of course he understood—every single word. He just didn't know how to articulate it.

"I don't want to forget," she said again. She took in a heavy breath, and suddenly looked tired. "I'd rather die than forget."

The words spurred something inside of him, and he reached across the table and quickly took her hands in his. They seemed colder than before.

"You'll do neither," he told her. "I promise you, I will help you. We can help each other."

Swallowing her emotions, she looked down at their hands and told them, "That's very kind of you, Merlin, but you can't prevent the treatment."

"No, I can't," Merlin admitted, but there had to be something he could do. He'd managed to hold on to the majority of his wits for a month and half. With help, he knew he could survive through this—and so could she. Still thinking, he said, "But we can—We can help each other remember!"

Yes, that sounded right.

"We can tell each other about our lives before this place. You can tell me about Lance," he continued. "That way, if we feel ourselves slipping, we'll have each other to remind one another. We can hold each other's memories."

She looked at him like she wanted to believe this could be done.

"I—I'll tell you about Lance?" she clarified. "And you'll tell me about your love?"

At once, Merlin realized what he had done, but there was no going back now.

"Yes," he said surely. "It's worth a shot. So, go on—tell me something about Lance. Anything. How did you meet?"

She sat back against the chair and took a breath, collecting her thoughts. Apparently, she decided to trust Merlin, because she began, "On a train back from Edinburgh. I had been visiting my aunt in town; he'd just gotten back from a wilderness trip in the Scottish Highlands." She shook her head, closed her eyes, and laughed at some connected memory.

"He sat next to me on the train," she continued with a sniffle, but her eyes were now dry. "As it turned out, we were both in the middle of reading the same play—Romeo and Juliet. He was a little ahead of me, but we all know how that story goes, so we were chatting about it. Between you and me, I hate that play, and I told him so. But he defended it, said it was a classic story; and I told him that doesn't mean it isn't rubbish."

Merlin listened attentively as the story picked up momentum, trying not to interrupt, not that it would have mattered. She seemed to be in her own world, and she probably wouldn't notice if he got up and walked away completely.

"We debated about it the entire way to London," she went on. "We were arguing and laughing so loudly that the conductor had to come over and tell us there'd been complaints from other passengers." She looked so happy as she said it that Merlin could help but smile wildly, picturing it all in his mind's eyes. "After we got into town, it was late, and he walked me home. I thought I'd never see him again but, two days later, I found a rose on my front stoop. There was a letter attached to it. 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,' and it asked me to join him for dinner that night."

"And you went?" Merlin asked, getting ahead of himself.

"Oh, lord, no!" she chuckled. "Every woman should learn the art of playing hard to get. It makes you men think about us more."

Merlin decided he'd keep that in mind.

"But Lance was persistent, like I hoped he'd be," said Gwen. "The next day, I found two roses on my stoop. By the following week, I had a whole dozen! And I just couldn't say no after that." She smiled inwardly again. "Ever since then, at the beginning of every week, he'd hand me a rose . . . I can still smell them when I close my eyes," so she did just that.

"That's good," Merlin told her cheerfully, giving her hand a squeeze. "It means you haven't forgotten."

"No, I suppose not," she agreed, looking grateful. After a moment, she straightened out again and cleared her throat. "Now it's your turn. You said you were in here because of someone. What's her name?"

Merlin bit at his lip in apprehension, staring down at the battered tabletop.

"Arthur," he blurted out, glancing back up to gauge her reaction. After all, not everyone was as flippant in his or her acceptance as Gwaine.

She looked as though something had dawned on her. "Oh," she said shortly. "I—That's why you're in here, isn't it?"

He nodded, thinking that she might recoil from him.

Instead, she cleared her throat again. It didn't change a thing.

"Okay, then," she said, making a point to meet his eyes, and he felt relieved. "Tell me about Arthur."


19th March, 1946

"Hand me the torque spanner, will you?"

Arthur had his palm held out expectantly, but he didn't duck his head out from beneath the bonnet. Merlin paced towards the toolbox on the ground next to the car's front wheel and shuffled the contents around until he found the correct tool. He still didn't know what half of them did, but he was getting better at identifying them.

"I don't understand why you just don't get the mechanic to do it," Merlin told Arthur, slapping the handle of the wrench in his hand, watching his fingers curl around it. "It's why your father hired him."

"No," Arthur corrected, his voice muffled against the metal. "Father hired him for that."

He stuck a hand out and pointed vaguely towards the brand new, black Jaguar Mark IV that Uther had recently purchased for himself.

"And that's only because my father doesn't know what an engine even looks like."

There was a grinding sound as Arthur worked the spanner, and Merlin peered in over his shoulder with a wrinkled nose.

"You're sure you know what you're doing?" he asked.

Arthur let out a heavy breath and looked up at Merlin.

"Merlin, please," he said. "I've done this hundreds of times."

"Fair enough," Merlin surrendered, walking away to give Arthur space to work.

Minutes later, Arthur straightened out and closed the bonnet. "Good as new," he said, tossing the oil stained rag over his shoulder and ripping off his work gloves. "Should run like a dream."

"Congratulations," Merlin told him, picking up Arthur's discarded white button-up and tossing it towards him. He caught it seamlessly and began shrugging into it, which was really a shame. The sleeveless undershirt had been much better for objectifying Arthur's biceps, but Merlin supposed all good things must come to an end.

"So, what do you say—test spin?" Arthur said, nodding his head sideways towards the Continental as he buttoned up his shirt.

Merlin shrugged. "Sounds fine."

Arthur turned towards the driver's side, but then he hesitated. After a beat, he turned back around to face Merlin and asked, "Do you know how to drive?"

The question caught Merlin off guard. "Do I—?"

"Do you know how to drive?" Arthur asked again, slower this time to allow the words space to process.

"I—Not really," Merlin admitted. He'd never been behind the wheel himself. All he knew about driving was what he observed while watching Arthur.

Arthur shrugged softly at this and produced his keys from his trouser pockets. "Would you like to learn?" he offered, jingling the keys between his fingers.

Merlin looked from him to the keys incredulously for a long time before realizing Arthur was probably only having a laugh. There was no chance he'd ever let anyone else touch his car.

"Yeah, right," Merlin snorted, kicking the toolbox closed. "Very funny."

"Well, if you don't want to," Arthur snipped, sounding offended, and Merlin wondered if he really was joking.

"You're actually serious?" Merlin checked, and Arthur's eyes widened innocently as he nodded.

"Take it or leave it."

Merlin ran his tongue across his bottom lip in consideration.

"Fine," he decided, pacing up towards Arthur and relieving him of the car keys. Their fingers brushed as he did so, and Merlin ignored the shiver that ran down his spine to cross to the driver's side as Arthur made his way to the passenger seat. "Sorry in advance if I crash her."

Arthur let out a snort of laughter. "If you crash her, you won't need to be sorry," he said, fitting in to the passenger seat. He looked odd there, or maybe Merlin just wasn't used this perspective. "Because you'll be dead."

"Yeah, good luck finding anyone else who will put up with you," Merlin said as he closed the door. He leaned in towards Arthur with a cheeky smile. "And who will kiss you goodnight every evening."

Arthur rolled his eyes and pushed Merlin's face away with his open palm.

Merlin was aware of Arthur's eyes on him as he sat straight and looked in front of him at all the buttons and controls, preparing himself. He wanted to know where everything was, just in case he needed it, but he realized he had no idea what half the controls did.

"Foot on the clutch, and put the key in the ignition," Arthur told him.

"I know what to do!" Merlin defended. He put the gearshift into neutral and he held the key in the ignition until he heard the engine kick on. It was only the first step, but he couldn't help but to feel proud of himself.

"Right, okay," he murmured, a little frazzled, as he curled the fingers of one hand around the thin leather steering wheel while the other gripped the gearshift. "First gear?"

Arthur nodded. "Then release the clutch and accelerate—slowly!"

Merlin did as he was told, and he felt his heart leap into his throat with a mixture of fear and excitement as the car started rolling forwards. He winced slightly and let out a nervous sound as he tapped his toe on the accelerator, and the car sped up slightly.

"Good, very good," Arthur told him, watching Merlin's process and glancing out the windscreen every now and again. Merlin kept his eyes fixed ahead, completely forgetting about the rearview and side mirrors and windows, so he didn't see the gardener attempting to cross the drive.

"Don't run over this chap," Arthur said casually, but it caused a panic to surge through Merlin. He slammed on the break, causing the car to screech and jolt forward.

"Merlin!"

"Sorry!" Merlin shouted back, clutching the wheel with white knuckles. He looked up at the gardener, who was waving a thank you and jogging across the drive in front of them, and mouthed another apology at him. Arthur held up his palm in greeting back at the man, wearing a tight smile.

"Don't do that!" he then demanded.

"Well, don't surprise me like that!"

"I didn't want you to kill that poor man," Arthur explained quickly.

"I was barely going five miles-per-hour, Arthur! I wouldn't have even knocked him off his feet!"

Arthur put up his palms and said, "Fine. It's done. Stop looking so pale, Merlin. If you get sick in this car, you're a dead man."

"Got it," Merlin said, counting off the threats on his fingers against the steering wheel. "No crashing, no vomiting."

Arthur then gestured for Merlin to get going again, and Merlin became a lot more conscious of using his mirrors from that point on.

Eventually, Arthur told him to speed up so that they might get out of the driveway sometime before they were old men, and Merlin made it through the main gate of the estate with relative ease.

Once they had gotten onto the main road, Arthur instructed Merlin on how to shift into a higher gear, and which gears to use while going up- and downhill. Just as Merlin was getting comfortable with it all, he saw another car advancing up behind them in the rearview.

"Oh, god, I'll be going too slow for them," Merlin said, but Arthur wouldn't let him panic.

"Don't worry," he said soothingly. "If he dares blow his hooter, I'll get out of the car and knock him silly."

"Charming," Merlin muttered sarcastically, even though the notion of Arthur defending his honor made his heart flutter. "My knight in shining armor."

Meanwhile, Arthur was cranking down his window. He reached out his arm and motioned for the car to go around them, and Merlin tensed a little when it zoomed passed.

Merlin paid close attention whenever Arthur gave him directions, whether it concerned the actual act of driving or what direction to go in, and listened as Arthur explained all the controls on the dashboard and why the different gears were necessary. He kept Merlin away from the main town, saying he would need more practice before he was able to handle traffic and pedestrians, and kept them to the backcountry roads.

Every now and again, when he dared, Merlin would take his eyes off the road to glance quickly at Arthur, who seemed content and happy. Merlin wondered what he was thinking about when he smiled like that.

With every passing crossroad, Merlin felt more and more comfortable behind the wheel. He was getting his feel for driving, and he was rather starting to enjoy it. It helped his attitude, of course, whenever Arthur praised him—sometimes for doing nothing special at all. If he didn't know better, he'd say Arthur just liked complimenting him. Even the times Arthur had to correct him on something, he did it patiently, which was a rare virtue for him.

Before Merlin knew it, the sun was starting to sink behind the hills, and Arthur made him pull off to the side of the road.

"So?" Arthur wondered once the car was put into park. "What do you make of it?"

"It was—" Merlin began, not really knowing how to describe his exhilaration. "It was great! Really great!"

He grinned from ear to ear, and it must have been infectious, because Arthur couldn't bite back his smile.

"Well, you didn't do awfully for a first attempt," he said, trying to regain his usual composure. "We're still alive, so I guess that's something."

"Oh, you're just afraid I'll catch up to your skill soon," Merlin teased; and, he didn't know if it was the pink and orange sunset or his pride in himself, but he his expression softened with gratitude.

"Thank you for this," he said, and Arthur must have heard the sincerity in his tone, because he simply nodded as his eyes searched Merlin's face.

"I'm glad you had fun," he reposed after a moment, and he leaned into the driver's side and pressed a welcomed kiss to Merlin's lips. He lingered close after the kiss had broken for a long time before Merlin ruined the moment.

"Oh, now I get it," he said, powering through Arthur's curious look. "You try to butter me up by teaching me how to drive your car, just to get me alone somewhere far away so I'll swoon."

Arthur chortled as he sat back. "It worked, didn't it?" he asked, playing along.

"Yes. I have no defenses against your evil plan," Merlin mocked, quite literally throwing his upper half into Arthur's lap. "Look—I'm swooning and everything," he said, looking up at Arthur and settling in.

"Like you aren't doing the same with all those late night cooking tutorials," Arthur said, running his fingers through Merlin's hair. "I'm on to you, too, Emrys."

Merlin gave a loud, dramatic gasp. "I have no idea what you're talking about!" he said, feigning offense. "I was just being a nice—no ulterior motive. I'm completely innocent."

"I'm sure," Arthur told him, though he didn't sound convinced.

"Prat."

Arthur leaned down and Merlin tilted his head up for another series of kisses, into which Merlin massaged his fingers onto the nape of Arthur's neck to gently hold him in place. He was contented to stay there for as long as time would allow.

Unfortunately, it didn't allow for much, because Arthur was reluctantly sitting up and casting a glance at the weakening sun.

"We'd better get back before anyone realizes we're gone," he said. "Besides, it's much different driving at night than in the day. We'll want to beat the sun. Think you can go more than forty this time?"

Merlin sat back up and repositioned himself at the wheel.

"Yes, sir," he said lightly, putting the car back into gear.