Last Chapter. And yes, once again, I haven't sorted anything out with Uther – he's a difficult one, because I don't think he'd ever accept the thought of Arthur/Merlin, so I tend to leave it open. Ignorance is bliss, and all that. It makes sense to me. But I know that some people might get frustrated. After finishing 'The Repeat', I'm aware that the ending wasn't particularly good, and I fear I've made the same mistakes again. I'm just not good at rounding things off. What will probably happen though is I'll end up taking down quite a few of these chapters, re-writing them, and then adding a better ending.
I guess that one of the reasons I'm uploading this without being completely happy with it is because I'm scared that I'm losing that burning desire to write that I get with most new stories. If I lose it, I won't ever go back to finish this. So, I thought I owed my wonderful reviewers more than an unfinished story. Even if the ending I've come up with is lacking in so many areas. I just hope you forgive me. Oh, and Gwen doesn't die... as easy as it would make things. Sure, the ending isn't the best, but that doesn't mean to say I've taken the easy route and made everything perfect. I'm not one for 'perfect'. I'd feel I was taking away the message I've spent chapters trying to convey, and I'm not willing to do that. Despite how soppy and 'romantic' the message is. It is a message nonetheless, and the story wouldn't be the story without it.
Chapter Nine - Finding Sanctuary
"I understand I have your servant to thank for your return,"
Arthur tried to force the ecstatic smile from his lips, but it was too persistent - and, by any account, he needed to smile. He needed to laugh and, possibly, explode with joy. His ears detected the faint shuffle of Merlin's feet over the stone-slab flooring. Any attempt at suppressing his smile evaded him, and the beaming grin lit up the entire room, it didn't escape his father's notice. "Yes, that's correct."
"Well, would you care to tell me how?" There was a bite to his father's words that there shouldn't have been, one that brought a strength of callous that should have burnt Arthur's blood.
"It was Merlin's sword that struck the sorceress." He stated blandly, although the smile was stretching the sound, "Her beast died with her."
Merlin bowed his head and sighed - holding in the sort of laugh that said both 'It was nothing' and 'That's not quite how things happened' - he raised a hand defensively, scrunching his mouth to the side, and his feet shuffled quicker.
Arthur turned to look at him, just the sight of his silky soft ebony hair made the prospect of staying so far away from him highly unlikely. In front of the court... And his father? Well, that pretty much swung it. Silence would have to do. Seriously, the length of Arthur's grin was expanding beyond belief, showing off more of those crooked teeth.
Something stirred within Uther - something he hadn't ever had to think about before - Arthur looked happier thinking about his servant than he had ever looked thinking about his father.
Merlin glanced up, seeing for the first time the dark-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dark-hearted girl that had left Arthur for dead a few days before. Finding no ire or thirst for revenge that he had been preparing himself for - and that wasn't to say that there weren't words that needed to be said - if anything, he was feeling a little smug. The smugness searing away at the hurt that should have taken its place.
"Very well," Uther's voice cut through Merlin's thoughts and brought his eyes back to the King and court. "He will have to be rewarded."
Although his chest swelled at the thought of recognition from the King, he didn't much like the thought of the attention that may follow it.
"I don't think that will be necessary," Arthur interjected, still facing his servant, a rather suggestive smirk tugging his lips to the side, "I will make sure he knows his worth,"
Merlin grinned back, eyes momentarily flicking back to Gwen...
He saw something then that he thought he wouldn't have. Was it..? No... Pain?
Well, he hadn't expected to see her in pain. She was watching Arthur with such... Such sadness that it nearly had the capacity to make Merlin's chest ache. And she clasped her hands in front of her stomach tight enough to turn her tanned knuckles white. Her lips were curled into her mouth and she bit them tight to stop herself talking. Her shoulders were too taught... And then... And then Morgana was watching her in, what looked like, terrible vigilance.
Merlin spoke, his eyes still captured by her, his voice quiet against the screams he was sure he could hear from her head. Screams of agony... And regret. "I'm sorry, sire. I wish to be excused." He said, bowing as he made a move to leave the room, smiling an understated smile in Arthur's direction. But his eyes never focused enough to see the confused expression across that face - surely he'd want to stay for his own celebration.
It was Uther who voiced these opinions though, "You won't stay? We had planned a feast for yours and Arthur's return."
Merlin was quick to pick up on the 'yours and Arthur's', as if, all of a sudden they were anywhere near of the same importance. As if Uther actually saw him as a person. "No, I must leave, I wish to check up on the work I have missed out on," he looked up, feigning a smirk, "I would hate for too much dust to gather."
Uther smiled, and nearly laughed, as the servant backed from the room. "It is good to see your servant has his priorities in order,"
The court laughed with their King, everyone except Arthur, who was staring after the boy with scrutiny that would tear scores in flesh.
―
Merlin broke into a run, heading not for Gaius' chambers but for the courtyard. Where he could breathe the fresh air again, not the ruled, governed stench of the castle.
Emotions and moralities battled with hideous theories in his head, and none of them would let up until his mind ached with the weight of it all. There was Gwen, the one he'd so wanted to punish, to hate. And she had looked regretful, she had realised what she had done wrong, and she regretted it? So many things were warring with his resolution that he would always win, until it barely resembled resolution at all. It fired through his veins, powered by the energy that had filled Camelot before he left - energy for all the wrong reasons - making the distance he'd sworn he'd felt after they'd left, seem like fractions of air between his thumbs and forefinger.
He needed to have Arthur,
But without the sin of what Gwen had done,
Without the remorse she was showing,
Without the first problem... Without him being a man... Without him being a sorcerer... Without him being a servant,
Or maybe just without his love.
He sat, slumped against a cold stone wall, and let the chill ooze through his clothes and onto his already frozen skin. Frozen with some warped fear. Perhaps it had only been half an hour; perhaps it had been a few hours. Either way, he couldn't bring himself to care. Care for anything, he thought. But then he saw the girl patter out of the main doors and across the cobbles, heading for her home, he determined.
There was the ire he's been searching for. Overwhelming and choking and furious, colliding with any rational thought and obliterating it. He was on his feet before he'd given the order, sprinting after her, his power absorbing the noise - the accelerating clack, which should have echoed with the darkness of a death knoll. His head was filled with only one thing. Hate. Hate for how he needed to hate her, hate for how she never seemed to put a foot wrong, or if she did, always showed that she knew it, showed that she felt guilt. Where was immorality when he needed it? Where was her insensitivity when he needed it? He hated her for all her goodness... Because he felt it... Threatened... Because he felt it threatened his heart's collapse. He wanted to feel the pain as revenge bit at her throat, and he wanted to see the fire enrage her eyes, because the fire was now enraging his own. He wanted her evil... Or at least unrepentant. Anything but the sweetness she always maintained. He wanted her to fall. He wanted those flames to have licked her up when they'd, days before, had the chance. Not the life she walked with now, not the unbearable ease with which she breathed.
His feet caught against one another, and his eyes became clearer. He thought he had no control over the speed and anguish with which he ran, but his body stopped when he remembered something. When he remembered the Mortaeus flower. When he remembered her relief, the kiss, when she had realised he was alive... And here he was, wishing her dead...
Now the disgust radiated back upon himself. It tortured his eyes and stuck pins in his chest, how could he be so stupid? The tears weren't fought back as they fell. Fell for himself. Fell for his own selfishness. Not as his feet picked up the pace of a slow walk, still following the girl that disappeared behind a wooden door, into her own sanctuary. A sanctuary that Merlin found himself jealous of, again. He had none. She hadn't seen him, or had chosen not to, as her eyes scanned his direction when she closed the door.
He continued to stride forwards, waiting for the handle to find his hand, wiping the sticky salt tracks that stung down his face with a sweaty palm. Ran fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, suppressed the concept of murder, and opened the door. Seeing her back as she leant over one of her tables, laying down a basket. "Gwen?"
She spun around, but she didn't smile when she saw him. Her eyes were red. She had been crying. Instead, she chose to make as little eye contact as possible and briskly walked over to the pail of water on the other table, hastily dipping in a cloth. "Can I help?" Her voice broke ever-so-quietly as she spoke; each crack was building that frustration in Merlin's chest. Frustration that urged him to let her know. Let her know she would never have Arthur, no matter how sorry she was... But could he do it?
"How are you?"
She didn't answer,
"Gwen, I need to talk to you. And please, don't try to reply because there are things that need to be said. That I need to say,"
Still no reply as she went about her work,
"I saw what you did... And I can see that... That it's killing you."
Her head snapped around, letting Merlin see the fresh fall of tears that glistening on her cheeks,
"I can't just forgive you!" He protested to the silence, "You were willing to leave him for dead! He would be dead if it wasn't for..!" He thought about it, deciding whether or not he could trust her, taking into account how angry she would be after today, how temperamental and eager for vengeance.
"Don't you think I know that?!" She yelled back, but Merlin's reply was quiet, like the rain next to a waterfall.
"Yes. But you're missing the point,"
"Then what is the point?! Because, at the moment all I can see is you coming to make me feel worse than hell for something I know I did! And I know it was wrong! It's not as if it's up to you anyway, Merlin!"
"It is up to me, because Arthur doesn't know!"
She stared at him in silence, before her incomprehension got the better of her, "What?" She asked, in a meek voice that merely whistled through the thickening air,
"He doesn't know, Gwen. I haven't told him."
Her eyes were wide, her lips hung open with feminine softness and every plane of her face seemed void of coarseness. Time hung loose between them for longer than the minutes that passed, rolling and fluttering as if it had years to spare. Letting the truth sink in, she blinked, her lips twitching as if trying to form the perfect shape for words, then, "Are you going to tell him?"
Breathing in, he bit back his reply, "Like you said - it's not up to me."
"But you must hate me for it,"
"Yes." The truth came so easily when he felt it this strong, when he had the opposing emotion to back it up. "And that's not going to change, regardless of how Arthur would react." He paused, "Every..." Inhaling deeply he tried to steady his wavering control; he just needed to keep calm... Or, as calm as humanly possible whilst resisting the urge to smash someone head in. "Every time I think about it... I just... I can't understand... I don't know what I would have done if he'd died. And I hate you as if he had. As if you'd killed him."
She stared, brows furrowed, piercing eyes glaring as if the truth depended on it - and, in some respects, it did.
"No one can ever understand." He murmured, near-silence being the only way to stop himself screaming. Rage bubbling and turning in his stomach, if he could just take off the burn. "And I need you to know that. No one can ever understand how I love him."
She gasped, the revelation spinning her head - she'd never thought of that. "You... You love him,"
"Yes, and I shouldn't feel shame. But I do... If his father found out about us he'd have my head."
"Does Arthur know?"
"Yes."
"How does he feel?"
Merlin smiled, remembering words exchanged over the past few days that had changed his heart forever,
"Oh," was all Gwen could manage, feeling only a twang in her chest. No crippling pain that she would have thought natural.
"I just wanted to make it clear, Guinevere, that you will never have him. You can spend your life chasing after Lancelot, because no one is going to stop you." He turned back to the door. A memory flourishing in his anger fuelled mind that managed to wash him in some sort of lavender flavoured liquid. One that gave him a bitter serenity. "Oh, and I meant to tell you. It was after Arthur told me he didn't love you that we... that we kissed," he hid a smirk, "...for the second time."
Gwen's face twisted in disgust. She didn't want to hear these things. "You didn't need to say that."
But Merlin was already mid-way through slamming the door.
―
Arthur was exactly where Merlin knew he would be. Staring out of his chamber window, ignoring the distant cheers and laughter from the banquet hall that seeped through the door as Merlin entered. But as the wood fit back into place in the stone arch, the room was consumed once again by a grey stony silence. He watched the back of the blonde's head, his own guilt rippling through his body, from weak knees to heavy mind. Guilt over this morning, guilt over shouting at Gwen. Guilt over his last comment, although he didn't think she deserved his penitence.
"Arthur." He said. Looking down at his hands, Arthur's stance was all too knowing. But then, the gaze that found him was so swimming in affection, admiration and concern that the anxiety flooded the air around him, anywhere but inside his own body.
"Where have you been?" Arthur question was genuine, his tone fluctuating as if he was holding back the tears,
"Unpacking, and then I checked the horses," it wasn't a complete lie; he'd just missed out the run-in the Gwen.
"It took you a whole day to do that?" Arthur smirked, but his eyes remained drizzled with trepidation. "But then, this is you, Merlin,"
The servant nodded, smiling with his lips pressed firmly together. His breathing scattering as Arthur begun to walk towards him.
"Something strange happened, something I really didn't expect to," Arthur reached for a trembling hand from by Merlin's side and held it tight in his. Staring with incredible intensity, seizing Merlin's gaze for his own.
Merlin frowned,
"Guinevere came to see me,"
His servant visibly shook, his legs nearly caving under his body at the mention of her name and his eyes closed.
"She told me what she did, Merlin," He paused, watching for that sure recognition in Merlin's eyes. But he'd already seen it, the recognition had come at the mention of her name, "why did you never tell me?"
"How could I?" He stared with the same intensity that Arthur was staring at him, praying that he wouldn't have to go through this with him. He didn't want to fall back into the pattern of argument, false contentment, then argument. "I didn't know the extent of how you felt about her."
"I told you, I don't love her." No fluctuation in his face or voice, but a fluctuation in the pressure on Merlin's hands. Increasing the comfort, increasing Merlin's awareness of the soft skin on his.
"I know." Was all he had time to say, as Arthur's gentle fingers caught his breath and chapped lips covered his own. There was always a time for talking, and that time never got much said. So now, it made sense to talk as little as possible. Arthur's brain clicked out of function mode, and Merlin's was soon to follow. Letting everything fall into symmetry - that way, they could completely rely on someone else to counter each one of their doubts.
After a slip with Gwen.
After a slip with Freya.
Essentially, after before,
There would always be a pair of hands that hovered over where they lay, ready to pull them back to their feet. With every time that Merlin would swear against his pain, and every time that Arthur would bitter because of the many distrusts. It would always leave cool or hot or salted lips to bring them back to the only reality they would ever be able to relax into. The reality that came with knowing it is the only thing that can never be real.
If the King should catch one kiss, their heads would leave their shoulders. And they knew this. As far as they were concerned, they could hide. Watching, with amusement, King Uther's ignorance and oblivion until, when that inevitable day would come...
Then, they guessed, the only option - would be to drop everything and run.
―
When words no longer pepper kisses that touch against your skin,
And emotions bitter, cursed and feared are all that you let in,
Turn to warmth and shadows light to uncover what you need,
And there'll be someone with my voice acting as your lead.
When her guilty, breaking sound makes your legs turn weak,
And the thought of her surrender to your death, leaves your conscience meek.
Your gasps for life won't go unheard as fire eats your bones,
I'm asking you to let my hands be the ones that guide you home.
Yeah, okay, so the little poem thing I wrote was a bit cheesy... but cheese never hurt anyone.
Thanks again to everyone who's reviewed; it's been so lovely to receive so much support. And any criticism is greatly appreciated, if not to be applied to this ending, but to future ones. Like 'Hunting For Witches'.
Expect a re-written one in maybe a few months
