Author's Note: I struggled with this chapter a bit, but I like how it turned out. I hope you do too :)

Disclaimer: I still don't own Merlin. Shocking, I know.


Chapter Eleven

Senga sat in the healer's tent, worrying at a frayed hem on her sleeve. "It's harder, isn't it?" she asked. "Staying here?"

Gwen nodded slowly. "Yes, it is. I've done both. I've gone with them to fight and have had to stay behind, and this is much harder. This is something they can't do, with all their weapons and armor and willingness to die. This takes a kind of courage I'm not sure most men have, to be honest. When you're fighting, you can't think much, because if you stop to think you're dead. When you're here, all you can do is think. Until the wounded start coming in. And then it takes courage to keep going, because…"

"Because every face that comes in, every dead or dying man, could be him," Senga finished quietly. "And every one that comes increases the chances of it being him."

Gwen nodded again. Then she reached over to squeeze Senga's hand. "I'm glad you're here this time. It's nice to have company."

"I'll try not to take that as an insult, my lady," Gaius called from the other side of the tent where he was organizing bandages.

Gwen laughed a little. "I'm sorry, Gaius, I didn't mean it like that."

The physician came over with a stack of extra bandages for their side of the tent. "It will be nice to have a third set of hands," he said. "I'm sure you'll be invaluable help, Senga."

Senga glanced between them, praying her voice held steady. "I'm not sure about that. I've never treated anything more serious than a cut from a kitchen knife."

"You'll be fine," Gwen assured her.

"How do you know?"

"Because you'll have to be."

Oddly enough, Senga felt as though that was more reassuring than anything else Gwen could have said.


"Mordred!"

That voice was unmistakable even through the hoarseness and the rage clouding the scream.

Mordred did not want to look, but found himself turning around anyway, searching the mass of bodies, the hills, the cliffs until he saw her.

She stood alone up on a cliff. The stars lit her silhouette from behind while the fires of battle flickered across her face. For once, for perhaps the first time, the cold rage that had claimed her soul was truly visible.

"Morgana," he whispered.

She nodded as if she heard him, but she could not have. She raised a hand.

Mordred felt her magic slam into him, grab hold, and fling his body toward the cliff face. He could do nothing but brace for the impact. But instead of breaking him against stone, her magic lifted him. He sailed into the air, rising higher and higher, until the invisible grip released and he landed with a graceless thump at her feet.

Mordred sprang up as quickly as he could, reaching for his sword—only to grasp empty air. He had dropped it somewhere.

"Come now, Mordred," Morgana taunted. "It's not like you're defenseless." She flicked her fingers again and Mordred doubled over, gasping for breath. It felt as though she had driven a battering ram into his chest. "Or did Arthur make you swear not to use your magic?"

Wham! Another punch to the gut sent Mordred to his knees. He struggled upright.

"Your precious king hates you, Mordred."

Wham! White-hot pain burst across one side of his face, as if she had backhanded him with flaming coals. Mordred cried out in equal amounts pain and shock. He lifted a hand to his face, more than half expecting his skin to be blistered or even melted away—but it felt normal.

"He didn't kill you but he still can't accept you for who you truly are."

Wham! Another battering ram to the chest that forced all the air from his lungs. Black spots danced almost gleefully across his vision.

Morgana stepped closer, whispering in his ear as he gasped for breath and struggled desperately to stay conscious.

"You know I'm right. He will never accept you."

Mordred did something he had not done since he was young. He closed his eyes, reaching for that place in his soul where his magic lay dormant, and he called it all forth. He allowed it to course through his veins, as much as he could possibly draw out; it slithered in golden strands that twined through muscle and bone, shimmered under his skin, built until he thought his body would burst apart from the pure energy. Then he opened his eyes. And he screamed.

Morgana flew backward. She fell hard, striking her head on the ground with a sickening crack.

Mordred collapsed, barely conscious, mind and body alike teetering on the edge of exhaustion.

Impossibly, Morgana stood up.

"You are powerful, Mordred," she rasped, holding a hand to the side of her head. "But you never learned moderation." She knelt down beside him, staggering just a little bit, and pressed a hilt into his hand. "Let's see how much your king truly loves you."

Mordred wanted to plunge the blade into her heart. But he simply did not have the energy anymore. A tear slipped across his face and dripped onto the cold rock. Forgive me, Senga.

And then Morgana whispered a spell into his ear, and he knew no more.


Arthur bent over the body of a Camelot soldier, checking for signs of life. He only barely heard the snick of boot against rock behind him. Reaching for his sword, he turned and saw…

"Mordred?" Arthur asked in confusion. "Where've you been? I thought you dead."

The young knight raised a blade. "Get away from him." His voice was level, but there was warning in it. A promise of death.

Arthur frowned. "Mordred, it's me. It's Arthur."

"Do you mock me?" Mordred shouted, suddenly infuriated. "King Arthur lies dead, right there, and you will not touch him!"

Starlight flashed on the cold edge of Mordred's blade as he thrust it forward.

Arthur, so tired he could barely walk, only just managed to avoid the blow. His muscles automatically returned the attack, his sword slicing across Mordred's side. The young knight fell to his knees with a hand pressed to his wound.

Arthur could not believe what he had just done.

"No, no, no," he whispered, taking Mordred's sword away from him. "No, Mordred, you can't die. Not by my hand. Senga will kill me. Gwen will kill me."

Mordred looked at him. His gaze was bleary, unfocused, but for a moment Arthur thought he saw sense return. But then his lip curled and he tried to shove Arthur away. "Get away from me," Mordred said, his voice already beginning to slur. "Just kill me and be done with it."

"Forgive me," Arthur murmured, and then slammed the hilt of his sword into Mordred's head. Not hard enough to kill. Just hard enough to put him to sleep.

Slinging Mordred's arm across his shoulders, Arthur struggled to his feet. But he was still exhausted from the battle and staggered under the extra weight, legs trembling. He realized he might not be able to make it to the healers in time.

"Arthur!"

Arthur swung around toward the familiar voice, not quiet believing his ears or his eyes as he watched a familiar figure run across the battlefield. "Merlin?" he questioned as his friend came closer. "What are you…how…I thought you'd left."

Merlin reached for Mordred, reached to pull him away from Arthur. "Leave him," he said harshly.

"No, I will not."

"He just tried to kill you, Arthur!"

Arthur took a step away from his friend. "He's been enchanted. Morgana did something to him."

"Or he's been waiting for his chance to strike ever since he arrived in Camelot!"

Arthur shook his head, not understanding where all the hatred shining in Merlin's eyes and voice was coming from. He realized he'd never seen Merlin hate anyone before. Merlin disliked plenty of people, sure, but hate like this was another monster entirely. "He didn't know me, Merlin. He looked straight at me and didn't recognize me. He saw someone else. He said I was already dead."

Merlin paused, his jaw clenching. "Fine," he bit off. "But we can't take him back to camp."

"Why not?" Arthur asked, the exhaustion making his thoughts fuzzy.

"Senga," Merlin said simply.

Arthur started to ask what she had to do with this and then oh. He thought about how he would feel if Gwen didn't recognize him. He imagined how she would feel if it were the other way around. And he knew Merlin was right. "Where can we go?"

"This way. We'll have to be careful. There's still Saxons crawling around everywhere." Merlin started to turn away but then stopped and bent to retrieve a sword from the ground. The sword Mordred had been carrying. Frowning slightly, Merlin strapped it to his belt.

As Merlin led him off, into the wilderness, Arthur didn't stop to think about where Merlin had come from, about how he knew where to go, about his amazing proficiency at sneaking around a battlefield, or about why he had seemed so fascinated by Mordred's sword. Arthur didn't even think about any of those things when they finally stopped moving and Merlin built a fire.

"You should get some rest," Merlin said. "I'll check Mordred's wound."

Too tired to even argue with Merlin for giving orders when he shouldn't, Arthur rested his head on a log and promptly fell asleep.


"You have to tell him."

"I know."

"Mordred won't survive with any treatment I can give him. You'll have to do something."

"Maybe he shouldn't survive."

"Arthur said Morgana enchanted him and that's why he tried to kill Arthur."

"Arthur could be wrong. Or I might not be able to break the enchantment."

"Merlin, look at me. Please at least tell me you're going to try."

Arthur struggled toward wakefulness, trying to decide if the arguing voices belonged to dreams or reality.

"I will try, Gaius."

Arthur blinked his eyes open to see Merlin and Gaius standing together on the other side of the fire pit. They both turned toward him, matching expressions of surprise on their faces. Arthur would have laughed if he was slightly more awake. "What are you going to try?" he asked groggily.

The two men shared a glance.

"I need," Merlin said slowly, hesitating slightly after every word, "to try to heal Mordred with magic."

Arthur did laugh at that. "Very funny, Merlin. You're not a sorcerer."


"You're a sorcerer," Arthur said, his voice flat.

Merlin winced. "I'm sorry I lied to you. I didn't have a choice. Uther would have executed me when I first showed up in Camelot if I hadn't."

"And after he died? What about then? Why couldn't you trust me then?"

"Because…" Merlin took a deep breath, tried to remain calm, and did something he was good at: he told Arthur a truth he didn't want to hear. "You weren't ready to trust a sorcerer."

Arthur turned away, his hands balling into impossibly tight fists the way they did when he wanted to hit something but knew he shouldn't.

"We need to stick together, Arthur," Merlin said. "Mordred doesn't stand a chance if we split up now."

A long moment of silence stretched between the two men.

"You were my friend," Arthur whispered, only just loud enough for Merlin to hear. Merlin winced; he had said were. "For…what, twelve years now? Twelve years, Merlin! Did you ever even consider—" Arthur broke off abruptly, still stubbornly not looking at him, and his shoulders heaved with a deep sigh. "It's easier for me to believe it's been twelve years than it is for me to believe you've been lying all that time." He faced Merlin once again, but his eyes were guarded, suspicious, shuttered. "For Mordred's sake, I'll work with you. And under the newly revised laws, I have no grounds to exile you from Camelot. But I think it's going to be a very long time before I can trust you again, Merlin."

Then Arthur walked away.

Merlin watched him go. He had tried to brace himself for Arthur's anger, had tried to prepare himself for rejection, but it obviously hadn't worked. He felt as though his heart was shriveling within his chest. Following Arthur back to the fire, he told himself that it would pass, that they'd been through worse together.

A traitorous voice whispered at the back of his head, worse? What had been worse than this?

Merlin didn't know.


"Where will you go?" Gaius asked softly.

Merlin barely even glanced his way. "To Avalon. The Saxons are scared of that lake, for good reason. And if I can't reverse whatever spell Morgana placed on Mordred, the Sidhe might be able to."

"They'll ask a price," Gaius pointed out, hating to play devil's advocate but knowing someone had to. "Arthur won't know how to talk to them."

"Then it's a good thing I do."

Gaius frowned. He had found over the years that a silent frown spoke more to Merlin than any amount of words.

As always, Merlin's defenses crumbled just a little bit. "I'll look after him, Gaius. Both of them. I'll make sure Arthur doesn't pay too high a price for Mordred's sanity. Take this with you," he said, showing Gaius a sword wrapped in a blanket before strapping it to the saddle. "Keep it hidden and lock it in the vault when you get to Camelot. Morgana forged it in dragon's breath. It's too dangerous to have two of these around at once."

Gaius pulled him into a hug. "Be sure to look after yourself, as well, my boy. Arthur will come around eventually."

"Boy?" Merlin repeated, feigning outrage. "I'm thirty years old, Gaius."

"You'll always be my boy, no matter how old you get, Merlin," Gaius said quietly, and then pulled away. Merlin looked to be on the verge of tears. "Get that pack secured," Gaius instructed, suddenly having to fight tears himself. "I'll go speak to Arthur."

Arthur was hovering over Mordred as if guarding him. Gaius hoped the intention wasn't to guard him from Merlin.

"Sire," Gaius greeted carefully.

Arthur nodded to him. "Gaius. You knew, didn't you? All along. You knew Merlin was—" he cut himself off abruptly. "Is a sorcerer."

"Yes, sire. I knew."

"Why did you never tell anyone?"

"Because I love him like he's my own son," Gaius said, that simple truth coming much more easily than most truths.

For a moment, a brief half-second in time, Gaius would swear Arthur looked jealous. But it vanished so quickly that Gaius thought he must have imagined it.

"How could he have lied to me for so long?" the king asked quietly. His shoulders slumped a little, his head dipped, his hands hung loose at his sides; he looked nothing like a king. In that moment, he was just another man who had discovered a wholly different side in someone he thought he knew.

"Necessity, sire," Gaius said simply. "Some say he is the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth. He had to keep himself alive in order to keep you alive over the years. I know it's not my place, sire, but let me say this: I am proud of Merlin, and I have never regretted helping him keep his secret. And I know it's a lot to ask, but perhaps you could try to understand why he did it."

Arthur glanced at him in surprise, and Gaius offered him a small bow, the habit too ingrained to ignore now. Then Merlin brought him his horse, and Gaius left, praying to the beat of hooves that the two men would find a way to still be friends.


"Why do you hate him?" Arthur asked quietly.

Merlin started to shrug, pass it off as a joke—abandoning the persona of an idiot wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. He glanced at Mordred, who lay bound and gagged next to Arthur. The young knight was convinced that both Arthur and Merlin were Saxons who had kidnapped him, and that the 'real' Arthur and Merlin were dead. Merlin took a deep breath and tried to get his thoughts in order. "He was destined to kill you."

"According to who?"

"According to all the seers and soothsayers and dragons in the world," Merlin said casually. "Every last one of them said Mordred was the Druid boy destined to kill King Arthur."

Arthur looked as if he wanted to ask about the dragons but decided against it. "How long have you known that?"

"Ever since he first showed up in Camelot."

"Since I made him a knight?"

"No, since the first time. When he was still a boy and we saved him."

Arthur sent him an odd look. "You helped save him thinking he would someday kill me?"

"It was a simpler time. I couldn't let a boy die for 'ifs' and 'somedays' then."

"But you would now?" The question was accusatory.

Anger stirred in Merlin's blood. Anger at the accusation, at Arthur for assuming the worst, at himself. Finally meeting Arthur's gaze, Merlin allowed some of that anger to flavor his voice. "I've done things I'm not proud of, Arthur. Like telling you magic would never have a place in Camelot. Like refusing to help Morgana when she didn't even know I could help her. I'm responsible for how she turned out. I'm responsible for all the destruction she's caused." Vaguely, Merlin could feel tears welling in his eyes. He'd never spoken of this to anyone. Not even Gaius. "I've had to turn my back on others who needed help. I've had to lie and manipulate and deceive. Everything I've done, I've done for you and the kingdom, and only very rarely did I do something I actually thought was the right thing to do. But if I had to, I would do it all again. Just to keep you safe."

Appearing faintly stunned, Arthur looked back down at the fire and subsided into silence.

Merlin blinked and the tears finally fell.


Arthur wasn't sure what to believe anymore. It took nearly three days to reach Avalon. In those three days, he had watched as Merlin healed Mordred's wound almost completely, as Merlin hid their tracks from Saxons and created smoke in the distance, as Merlin reached out with an invisible hand and yanked a Saxon from his horse, as Merlin systematically destroyed almost everything Arthur had come to know about the man. He watched and he understood that Merlin had done it all before. And he knew why. He knew Merlin had done it all for him. But he was still grappling with accepting it all, accepting this new Merlin that really wasn't new at all.

This Merlin was far from an idiot. This Merlin wasn't clumsy—well, not as clumsy. This Merlin never flinched away from anything. This Merlin had been there all along and Arthur had never noticed.

How did I never notice?

"Careful," Merlin's voice broke into Arthur's attention. "You might break something if you keep thinking so hard."

Arthur automatically reached to smack him upside the head, but Merlin ducked his hand easily. That was new as well. "You're still my servant, Merlin, so watch your tone or you'll be polishing old armor for a week."

They both paused as they realized what Arthur had just said.

"Still?" Merlin asked quietly.

Despite everything? was what Arthur heard in his tone.

Arthur hesitated a moment, but realized he didn't have to think about his answer. It would take some time before he adjusted to this new Merlin. But he didn't want to lose his friend. So he nodded and clapped a hand on Merlin's shoulder. "Still."


Yeah, this chapter fought me a bit. It didn't turn out like I thought it would, but it feels better this way. Trust me when I say the first draft was horrible. Next up: more Kilgharrah and knights and you get to see Senga's temper :)

All right, I'll stop babbling now. Please review!