cw & tw: drug addiction, angst, trauma

Roxy had needed rest after the surgery – he had insisted; if he had not, he'd probably find her already looking through security camera footage by now – but she had insisted telling him of the attack anyway, so he had a rough idea of how it had transpired, and still, it didn't make sense to him why anyone would put such an effort into such a plan for … what, exactly?

Perhaps things had been meant to go differently, perhaps someone had been meant to die and that death had been avoided simply by coincidence – or it was all a game and they were pieces being arranged and placed as necessary.

Merlin abandoned these considerations with a shake of his head. Right now, there was no time for them, he could worry about it later until his head felt like splitting. The thought had cornered him in a moment where he was alone and not busy with another task yet; the bitter taste hadn't left his mouth since this morning.

The good news was that, while being out of active service for a couple of weeks, Roxy would be fine. The wound simply needed time to heal. He had tried reassuring her, but he hadn't found the right words; being so close to agents was new, and the loss for words that overcame him whenever he tried to be encouraging or comforting made him wonder if he was truly doing enough. After all, he usually didn't have any problems with words, out of all things.

Even the silence which normally comforted him was strange now, so very unusual, despite it being the most familiar about the headquarters.

He slowed down his steps when Doctor Clark approached him.

"Merlin," she greeted him with a tilt of her head when they came to a halt in the hallway. He returned the gesture. "I wanted to speak to you."

"For which reason?" he questioned, frowning. He could imagine a number of them, all of unpleasant nature.

"There are several, actually," she said without answering his question, a small seize forming between her brows, gaze kept on him. "I don't mean to intrude in matters that don't concern me, but if you care about that woman, I ask you to talk with her."

"About what?" He didn't know why he asked. The answer was obvious enough; he still remembered the first time she had approached him about Darja.

"I'm quite sure she is going to kill herself soon," Clark told him, studying his reaction. "I did tell you that she might overdose on morphine, yes? I'm going to say it again: if you can't convince her to stop immediately, she will die." She paused briefly, giving the tight feeling in his chest just enough room to scratch at his ribs.

"How bad is it?" The thought of loosing someone had never been easy on him; he had sworn to never let it happen again and yet, he had lost Harry, thousands of miles away, hands bound.

"Frankly, I'm not sure what narcotics to use during an operation," she replied. "Most are based of morphine after all and her tolerance is high enough that ordinary doses barely show any effect." Another pause. "The current level in her blood numbs the sensation of pain entirely, which is why she ended up with that cut without noticing. We had to stitch it. Her knuckles were swollen to the point where she should have been incapable of moving her hands at all."

Merlin nodded; it was another thing he had neglected in his carelessness, assuming it hadn't been so bad because she had seemed fine, even though she had been far from fine the entire time.

"I see," he said eventually, his mouth dry.

"I do hope you're successful," Clark told him.

"As do I," he answered, turning towards the door he had been heading towards to.

"Merlin," the doctor called after him, making him stop. "I should remind you that I'm not letting you off easy this time. You need to get checked up yourself."

"I wasn't hurt," he answered.

Clark's expression softened. "I'm aware," she said. "It's not for me."

Her words needed a moment to sink in, he needed a moment to understand what she was telling him – it was another strange feeling in his chest, another one he couldn't name.

He swallowed.

"One more thing," Clark said, her expression having turned serious again. "She doesn't seem to be eating regularly."

"I suppose," he replied, trying to remember an occasion where he had seen her eating, only to realize that he couldn't come up with one.

"When is the last time you have eaten?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes. When he failed to answer her, she shook her head with a sigh.

"I'm aware of the importance of your duty, Merlin, and I am thankful that it's you who deals with all of that responsibility, but please also take care of yourself," she went on in a softer tone of voice. "Don't run yourself into the ground. We'd be truly helpless without you."

"My apologies," he replied, but the words seemed dull from his mouth. "I'll try to do better."

Doctor Clark nodded before she continued her path; the echo of her steps had something final.

Gradually, he drew in a deep breath, then knocking on the door to his left, waiting for a reply he didn't get. He went on to carefully press down the handle, ultimately entering.

Darja seemed to have fallen asleep.

Merlin hovered at the threshold for a second before quietly closing the door behind him, crossing the room to sit down on the chair next to the bed.

She didn't look good. The bruises had turned black and while the cuts had been taken care off, they were still bright red. The blood was gone from her clothes – it had been the worst of it all, seeing her covered in blood and not knowing whether it was her own –, her skin seemed paler. He found himself looking for a blue-ish colour on her lips, relieved he didn't see any.

"Go away," she muttered. Her eyelids fluttered before she opened her eyes, sitting up only to glare at him. It didn't hold even half the edge it usually did.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he replied, his tone soft and quiet. How would things be if she died? Thinking about it made words choke him.

"You look more horrible than I feel," she answered, her voice having adopted to the quiet as she arched her eyebrows.

"Doctor Clark told me that you might die," he said after a moment of feeling like suffocating. "And I don't want you to die."

She didn't argue with him, like she already knew, like she had known he would say it, and yet, she appeared speechless, for the very first time ever since he had met her.

"I don't want to die go insane either," she said but her eyes went right through him.

"Why that?" he questioned and studied her. Merlin already knew. He already knew why and if it was half as bad as he dreaded it to be, he couldn't even begin to blame her, but, at the very same time, it didn't change the fact that she was on the brink of death, only another syringe away from it.

"It's because of my scar," she said, clenching her hands into fists. Her knuckles – bruised, all shades of violet and blue and yellow – started bleeding again. "There is no other way I can deal with it. And I've tried." The desperation sat deep in her chest, colouring her words.

"Could you try again?" he asked and caught her gaze, the hesitation surprising him; he had surprised himself by asking in the first.

"I could," she answered hoarsely. "But I don't know if I can make it." She paused. "Merlin, I know how bad it is, but I can't even begin to explain to you why it's a bad idea. There are worse things than dying."

"Perhaps," he said, freezing up. He didn't know what else to reply: she had always known that this might be her death, she had always known that she might die young – and it still was an option to her.

"But," he went on, carefully. "You don't want to die, do you?"

"No," she replied, fingers curling deeper into her palms. "But …" She swallowed when her voice gave in.

"Is it possible that the pain you experience is more of an emotional nature than a physical one?"

"Maybe," she answered and lifted her shoulders. "I just know it hurts."

"You know you wouldn't have to go through all of it alone, right?" he questioned. "If you need any kind of professional help, Kingsman has it."

"It's scary," she muttered, looking at him. "I've already been through the process once. They couldn't do anything." Her breath hitched in her throat. "And, you know, I have the habit of becoming a bit too attached to people. You ask me now to put my trust in you and your people, much more trust than I can give, when I have to go back to a business where it means nothing."

He had become so used to her that he had forgotten that she wasn't an agent – it wouldn't end well her if she went back. Surely, she was strong, both mentally and physically, yet there was only so much a human being could take and she seemed to have long reached her limits.

"I'm sorry," he said, tongue heavy with so many words he couldn't speak.

"It's not your fault," she told him. "I'm appreciating the thought, but … I'm not one of your agents."

"You could be," he told her, the pain of reality being different splitting him in two and crushing her, another unspoken possibility hanging between them.

"I'm a hitman," she answered with a shaky breath, a tremble in her chest, a few quick blinks of her eyes. "And you don't get to leave that behind." She swallowed. "When you try, you usually don't live long after. That's not a danger I'd want to put you into."

His chest ached, the realization etching itself into his brain, he couldn't breathe. She had always been so afraid to care and yet, she did. "Sometimes, I wish we had met under different circumstances."

"Sometimes, I do too," she admitted. "And sometimes, I wish I wasn't that honest."

"It's appreciated," he replied, the corners of his mouth moving upwards for half an inch. One could barely call it a smile.

"You're really one of a kind," she muttered with a shake of her head.

"Thank you."

She snorted, but it did little to cover up her laugh, a genuine one. He liked the sound of it.

"You should get some rest," he said into the silence.

"You should, too," she said, looking at him with a serious expression.

"I'll try," he said, the smile giving him away.

"If I got no chance of backing out of this, neither do you," she retorted, barely even trying to hide the smirk.

In his defence: he had tried getting enough sleep, somewhere between one duty and another, an hour or two before he grew restless again. Only months of doing the same thing over and over again made it easier to push past that tiredness and ignoring it.

He felt guilty, to a degree, for not doing enough, for not trying harder. Kingsman currently depended on him to function at all. It wasn't entirely true, if he had wanted to, he could have organized for the next Arthur to be chosen months ago, but since he dreaded the changes that would come with that – too many old men stuck in their ways –, he always delayed the matter further.

Merlin slowed down his steps and knocked on the door leading to Darja's room.

This time, she didn't reply either, so he carefully pushed the door open.

She seemed as if she might be sleeping, so he considered leaving her alone, but something made him hesitate. He looked closer, noticing the sweat on her skin and the twitching of her fingers and, perhaps, that was even more a reason to leave her alone since he'd be most likely intruding in a moment where she didn't want to be seen, and yet, the worry stung beneath his skin like a knife.

Silently, he stepped inside, getting closer. She did, indeed, seem to be worse than she had been yesterday: her skin was paler and the shadows beneath her eyes darker, but that wasn't everything.

"Darja," he called, trying to wake her up, hesitant to touch her shoulder – she didn't like people touching her.

A long moment passed before she slowly blinked, opening her eyes one at a time, then bolting upright. Her breathing was heavy, she trembled, hands digging into the blanket, eyes wandering around the room in panic until they settled on him.

"My apologies," he said quietly, settling on the chair. Standing made him uneasy, made him realize there were too many limbs that needed to be organized. "I shouldn't have intruded."

She shook her head after another second, the movement stiff and unnatural; the helplessness sat in his throat.

"Are you … all right?"

She glared at him. "No," she answered, her voice hoarse. "You knew that."

Another apology was already at the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it since it didn't seem right, it wouldn't make up for it – it were just words and the longer he thought about them, the more they lost their meaning.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" he asked eventually.

"You know what I want to say, right?" she replied with a sigh, running a hand through her hair, knuckles all shades of violet and red.

"Then you also know what I'd replied," he answered, watching her; he had to think of seeing her die by her own hands. It made him sick.

"Then we're going to have the same conversation again," she remarked, tired and worn out and … he understood her. That was why he couldn't give in.

"Why do you think it would turn out so badly for you?", he asked then, his voice soft and quiet, nearly giving away when he met her gaze. "Why do you think it's worse than dying?"

She looked at him, expressionless, hands clenching into fists. "I'd be re-living the same moment over and over," she said. "An endless loop. There's no escaping it. I'm sure I'd eventually loose my mind over it."

It left him speechless; he couldn't say why, maybe because her words were coloured with a pained emotion so deeply rooted in her he forgot to breathe. And he remembered his theory too, the one making him nauseous even still, the pictures etched into his brain. Merlin didn't want to be right about something that had traumatized her so badly.

"I do want to help you," he said then, meaning every letter of it and yet, all of them seemed useless from his lips. Just empty phrases.

"I know," she said. "And I wish I knew a way you could, but I don't. I don't want to argue, it's just …"

He nodded. No need to finish that sentence.

The silence stretched between them into a long moment, heavy on his shoulders, heavy on his tongue, words he couldn't speak circling around his head, no more than a vague feeling.

"Maybe," she said then, trailing off, and he looked at her, waiting for her to continue. She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair again.

"I don't know," she muttered. "I don't know what to do."

"Neither do I," he told her, his voice raw. "I'm not trying to persuade you. It is your decision, after all." But he still didn't want her to die; he had already said it once, so there was no use repeating it if he didn't want to defy his own words. He wasn't trying to persuade her, to make her feel guilty, to pressure her into something that could destroy her, even if it wasn't his intention.

"Thanks," she replied. "Still – what do I do? Stick to the old ways and pretend nothing has changed? Or do something else?" She caught his gaze, and he thought, deep down, she had already decided. The brown of her eyes seemed dull in the artificial light, but they weren't lacking anything.

"I can't tell you," he mused.

They were silent for a moment.

"No matter what I'll do, nothing will be right."

"Why does it have to be?"

"Because that's the way it should be, isn't it?" she questioned, so trouble he wanted to reach out and calm her, but she probably didn't want that. "I should only be making decisions that feel right and that I won't regret, but this time around, I'll either die or I'll have to leave behind everything. Neither of those options feels right."

"Darja," he said softly, the pieces that didn't make sense slowly fitting together in his head. "We're only talking about withdrawal. I'm not asking anything else."

"I know," she replied, quick and angry, not at him nor the circumstances but at herself. "But I can't go back and pretend nothing has changed if I stop. I've been taking morphine for years now. It has become so intervened with the rest of my life that I can't just step away from it and keep doing what I do."

"You think you won't be the same person without it," he concluded, gradually coming to understand the weight of it all: she was addicted. Addiction changed people. He still remembered her anger, the change of moods, the arrogance and the pretence – and now he looked at her and he saw who she really was.

"I know I won't," she replied. "I know that, deep down, I can't keep being a hitman 'till I've got enough money to never worry again. And if I stop hiding and pretending, like I'd do if I admit that morphine is doing more harm to me than help, I'd also have to admit that this is a dead end for me. I can't just go back. I'm not made for it."

"Do you want to?" he asked. "Go back, that is."

"It's all I know," she answered and lifted her shoulders. "I still owe a debt I can never repay. I mean, I'm a grown woman. I can do whatever I want to, but I've told you before: it's nothing you can just leave behind like any other job."

"I see," he said, all of it shaping up into a bigger picture. It wasn't a pretty one, it wasn't a good one; he understood her reasoning and yet …

"It seems," he said after a moment, not sure how to use words any longer. He didn't want to add to her pain. "That this investigation will continue for a while."

She studied him with an arched eyebrow. "You're suggesting that I ignore the consequences of my decision until I have to face them? You?" He would have expected a mocking tone, but she sounded more shocked than anything else.

"I have no other advice left to offer," he told her, the words dragging their edges along his throat until it ached. He didn't think there was any use discussing it; he didn't need to convince her. She was already convinced.

She simply looked at him, blinking, a sinking feeling settling in his stomach. A small smile tucked at the corners of her mouth, clearly amused. What was so amusing about it?

"I know," she answered eventually, the smile not quite vanishing from her face. It was soft and genuine nature made him wonder; the expression in her eyes had turned gentle, realer.

He stayed silent, waiting, his breath hitching in his chest.

Darja sighed once more, covering her face with her hands; he opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't know what to say – it was the worst part about it all, sitting right next to someone and not being able to do anything since everything seemed wrong, very word and every action.

"It sucks," she muttered, digging her palms into her eye sockets.

Carefully, he reached out, his fingers barely brushing against her wrists – he'd pull away the second she tensed, the second he noticed discomfort –, before he pulled her hands from her face, withdrawing immediately after.

"Don't hurt yourself," he said, his voice trembling in his chest. "It doesn't do any good."

She clenched her hands into fists, breathing in and out, before she looked at him again, a new-found determination about her. The strength he had never doubted she possessed had returned. And, much to his surprise, he discovered that it made him happy.

"Alright," she said.

"All right?"

"Well, it's not alright, but I'll do it anyway," she said.

"And by that you're referring to going through with the withdrawal?" he questioned, not sure how to react; he had nearly expected she wouldn't do it.

"Yes." She swallowed. "You don't have to tell me how bad it's going to be. I know."

He nodded, noticing her hesitation and motioning her to go on.

"I have some conditions though," she told him. "Please just leave when I ask you to."

"Naturally," he answered without missing a beat.

Darja nodded, silence settling between them for a brief moment in which it became apparent that each of them still had something else to say, they had barely only scratched at the surface of the sea filled with unspoken things.

Merlin tasted them in his tongue, sorting them and putting them into order, forming sentences out of them, about to speak them.

The buzz of her phone on the night stand stopped him. Groaning, she reached for it, eyes narrowing as she unlocked it, holding it closer to her face than she probably should.

Wordlessly, she handed him the device, his stomach twisting when he briefly met her gaze. Something was wrong.

Pushing up his glasses, he lowered his eyes to the screen.

It was a simple text message, sent by a number she hadn't saved to her contacts.

Finish it, Nimue.

It didn't quite send a chill running down his spine, for he had seen worse things than that, and yet, he was uneasy, wondering just how much their opponent had planned, just how deep they were caught up in a trap set for them.

"I don't think I want to know what it means," she said flatly.

"No," he answered with a shake of his head as he returned the pone to her. "I don't think you do." The implication wasn't sitting well with him, not only because it didn't fit at all – they didn't exactly hate each other, perhaps they had passed onto the point where they trusted each other, but there was nothing else to it. Thinking about anything beyond that made him nauseous.

"You alright?" she asked after a moment, carefully, fists unclenched and her fingers hovering in the hair between them before she lowered her hand.

"I'm not sure," he admitted before he was even aware of what the words meant. "As far as the implication goes, they seem to have intended another role for you than the killer."

"Well, good thing I'm not listening to what people tell me to do," she replied with a smile baring too many teeth, and he stifled a laugh. Not because it was funny, but because it was so much her.

"Yes," he replied, attempting to hide his amusement, but he met it in her eyes again.

The silence between them stretched once more, a moment where they just looked at each other, before he released a breath and blew them away.

"I can have the number traced, if you want," he offered.

Darja hummed in response. "Just don't look through my phone."

"I wasn't intending to," he said and she arched an eyebrow at him; guilt and shame washed over him. "I promise."

"I was just messing with you," she said and ran a hand through her hair. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll be back," he said eventually as he rose.

"Hopefully," she muttered.

the good news is that we're halfway in! literally. there are only another 21 chapters left and i like how this one also marks the beginning of a lot of things - i'm just really happy to have made it this far and i'm pumped for all the things that are to come! (also: lots of love to everyone still reading and keeping up. i love you.)