The sound of Gwen's crying filled the blackness around them, a pitiful sound of desperation and despair. Merlin just knelt where he was, unable to comfort her, lost in his own misery and massaging his painful head in an attempt to drive away his awful headache. He was so focussed that when she grabbed him, her nails digging into his arms, he gasped in shock and surprise.

"Why did you show me that?" she demanded angrily, her face red and swollen from crying.

Merlin shook his head as vigorously as his headache allowed. "I didn't," he insisted.

"You took me there," she went on. "I keep going back there. Why?"

"I don't know!" he cried. "I'm not controlling this, I swear. Please, just go, Gwen. I told you, you shouldn't be here."

"Well tough!" she cried back. "I am here. And I think I've probably seen it now, the worst the future has to throw at me. What else have you got in here? What other terrible truths are there still waiting in the darkest reaches of your brain?"

His eyes brimmed with tears as he looked into her face. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

She squeezed his arms again, but her eyes had closed, and her anger had faded. This wasn't his fault. God knows it wasn't his fault. It was her future. It was her nightmare.

It was her fault.

She let him go, sinking back onto her heels, exhausted. Merlin just looked at her, sympathy in his face. "We can't change the future, Gwen," he said softly. "We can't change what must be."

"Really?" she said. "Well if that's the case, then why are you still here?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're part of Arthur's future; your magic, your friendship. Whatever else happens, I know that. And if you're here, then you can't be all those things to him. So why are you still here?"

He shook his head slightly.

"It's the battle," she insisted. "It has to be that battle.

"No," he whispered. "You're wrong."

"It's Arthur's death," she guessed. "You can't face it. You can't see it. All these other terrible things," she swallowed her tears. "All these other things you can see, and they hurt, but they don't hurt like that. Because he's part of you. He's part of what you are and what you do. That man, that man he killed, he said you knew that it would end like that. And yet you didn't stop it."

"I can't!" he yelled at her, shockingly loud. "Didn't you hear what I said? Don't you understand! I've got – all this power, Gwen. They say I'm the – most powerful warlock to ever be born. I have more magic than any of them – all the others put together, and I still can't stop it! So what's the point? What's the point of seeing all of this and not being able to prevent it? It's all for nothing. He still dies, no matter what I do. I've tried to change it. I've done a hundred things differently Gwen, but no matter what I do, I can't change anything. I go back to that place and Arthur still dies. He still dies. And I can't – see him die. I can't see it!"

As the tears fell once more, Gwen finally understood. Merlin had trapped himself here trying to change the future. All this time, he'd been using his clearly considerable skills to try and manipulate the images he was living through, change things for the better. And it was making no difference. The course was set.

And all fates are thus. We wish our futures happy because we cannot bear them to be any other way. If we knew with certainty that tragedy would strike, as strike it surely must, then it would break our hearts.

And what do you do, when you cannot change what must be? Do you fight it, crying scorn at the heavens and battering with useless fists against inevitability until it ends you? Or do you accept it? Do you find a way to live with the future, because although it is coming, although the bony fingers of time are tapping on your shoulder, they do not have you in their grasp just yet. And between where you stand and the future you fear, lie all those days in between.

"Yes," she said finally, trying to look into his eyes. "Yes," she said again. "You can."

Merlin looked up and met her gaze, and they both knew suddenly what had to happen.

There was a scream, and the sound of a horse neighing in fear. Metal crashed on metal, and everywhere was the stink of mud and blood and death.

Beside them, Arthur was fighting his opponent, steel on steel.

Gwen and Merlin were locked on each other's faces, and she could see Merlin's lips moving as he pleaded with her: "Don't make me look. Please don't make me look."

She nodded encouragingly, trying to smile slightly, though she knew no humour in their situation.

She heard the sound of Arthur's killing stroke, felt rather than saw the body of his opponent fall to the ground. Their words were a blur, a hazy noise on the wind.

Then Merlin turned and looked.

Arthur fell.

Instantly, the world tipped and crashed, and she felt as if she was falling through a void of never ending darkness, the wind rushing past her ears filled with the sounds of the screams of dead men and dead stories, legends out of time, and myths out of place.

She gasped. And opened her eyes as the last light of the setting sun shone briefly on her face before vanishing behind the distant mountains.

"Guinevere!" she was immediately gathered into Lancelot's strong embrace, mere seconds after her eyes had opened. He clutched at her desperately, while Gwen fought to hold onto her memories of the place she had just been. But, like a dream on waking, they were fading; all the images, the things she'd seen, passing away.

She pulled back from Lancelot, uncomfortable without knowing why, awkward suddenly. He looked at her confused. Then she caught sight of Gwaine walking up in front of them and standing at Merlin's feet.

"You couldn't save him, then," the knight said soberly, and sniffed.

Fear stabbing her, she turned quickly, flinching away from Lancelot's touch as all her concern turned to Merlin. Gwaine was right: the warlock hadn't so much as stirred beside them.

"No!" she insisted. "I thought… We solved it – it was alright." She looked desperately at her friend's still face, willing him not to be dead, knowing somehow that whatever her last act had been in that misty world, it should have been enough to end Merlin's imprisonment in his own mind. But maybe she had been too late. Maybe Gwaine was right.

Then she noticed a minute glimmer at the outer edge of his eyelids as a faint trickle of a tear leaked out and flowed down his cheek. Weakly, Merlin lifted his hand to wipe the tear away, but he seemed confused by the bandages that were still wrapped thickly around his palms and fingers. He cracked open his eyes to investigate why his hand felt so heavy and awkward, and as he turned it over curiously, he caught sight of his friends all looking down on him with concern. He dropped the hand onto his chest.

Gwen smiled at him, her relief evident, and he smiled back, blinking heavily, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open.

"Welcome back my friend!" Gwaine announced loudly and cheerfully, still standing at Merlin's feet. The warlock's eyes tracked round to the knight, and his smile broadened just a little. "How are you feeling?"

Merlin rolled his eyes, but slowly, as if he couldn't even find the energy for that. "Felt better," he whispered.

"Just rest," Gwen said, placing her palm on his cheek and wiping away his tears with her thumb, feeling a strong surge of déjà vu as she did so. She shook it off quickly. "There's nothing you need to do in the world, Merlin. There's nothing you need to do."

TBC