49.
Eventually breathing has to—regretfully—become a priority.
Their foreheads rest lightly against each other's while they catch their breath, Merlin idly wondering when his peripheral vision will stop spinning. Morgana really is sitting on him at this point, their moment of, uh . . . passion, dying for a moment to just her nudging him with her nose, fingers slowly running through his hair in a way that makes him boneless, one hand resting firmly against his embarrassingly fast-beating heart, the smirk on her face Merlin is just about to kiss off, him frighteningly accustomed to the signature Pendragon look, thanks of course to Arthur—
"Your brother," Merlin says out loud in slow horror, spine stiffening vertebrae by vertebrae as he realizes the bloody crater-sized hole he's just dug himself.
Morgana jumps off him with an exasperated huff.
"Honestly, Merlin!" She looks down at him glaring, hands on her hips. "That's what you come up with, after kissing me? 'Sorry' is enough of a turnoff from last time—but my brother trumps practically anything."
She actually looks upset this time, so Merlin hurries to explain: "Sorry, it's just, well, he's going to—throttle me for this." He gestures between the two of them by way of explanation, and Morgana raises a poised eyebrow.
"This?" she questions dubiously, looking almost confused.
Merlin's heart drops through the floor. Of course, what were you thinking, idiot? a voice, no longer Arthur's, jeers at him, scoffing. You think somehow you're different from Gwaine, from any of her other trysts?
He gulps quickly, getting to his feet in a rush and hastily waving his hand in dismissal. "Nothing. I didn't mean anything. He's just protective of you," Merlin shrugs, not able to make contact with her searching gaze as he relocates the forgotten Grimoire splayed on its spine near their feet. Back to the books, for him. Best not to get 'my head underwater'—in more ways than one, now.
Merlin is just about to pick it up, intently hoping Morgana will leave now and not now, nor ever try for another go with him, because he literally won't be able to resist—even despite the dawning realization that his strong, albeit suppressed, rapidly growing feelings for Morgana are most likely being met by mere fondness on her part. After all, anyone with eyes can see there's him and then there is . . . her.
And Merlin is tired of feeling like that about the women in his life. Freya, he wasn't enough to keep her alive. Mithian, he was always failing to be who she wanted him to be, and Cara . . . he let her mold him into whatever she wished. And she played him like a fine-tuned instrument.
He bends down, only to be stopped halfway by a firm hand against his shoulder. "Merlin," Morgana says, this time entreating, and he glances to see her eyes just as confused as before. Maybe he misplaced that confusion, a hopeful part of him quietly suggests.
"Merlin, since you came here I haven't been able to not notice you," she says, in a shaky, scared voice. Her eyes are wide, green and clear. "I tried. A few times, but then you'd crop up in my dreams again, no matter what I tried. I even resorted to using Gaius's remedies again, after years, thinking that'd make a difference. None of it worked. Meanwhile, you're everywhere when I'm awake and everywhere in my head, and I can't . . . " She stops, throat working, and Merlin watches, stunned into silence by such a confession. Disbelieving even, until she continues, "I can't seem to get you out. Or want to."
And her bearing is so nervous, waiting for his reaction with her bottom lip bitten underneath her teeth, that Merlin can't help but be infuriating.
"Sooo . . . I'm like a really annoying, yet really catchy song that won't stop playing in your head?" he suggests, a slow grin spreading across his face.
Morgana's uncertain expression wipes clean; she rolls her eyes, grabs his shirt and pulls him down to meet her lips.
This time it's a scrabbling fight for dominance, her grip on his shirt tight as a vice and his hands snaking around her waist in a relentless hold, mouths crushed together, Merlin leaning against her and Morgana grabbing at him so fiercely they'll probably topple onto the floor any second now.
Which might alert Gaius upstairs, which might make him come down, which might mean they have to stop doing this. Merlin will have none of that. With a rather vigorous amount of force he pushes her into the wall, narrowly avoiding the window, Morgana guhhing in protest when her head hits it rather forcefully, and something hanging just fell, crashing right next to them against the bookshelf, Merlin silently cursing at the high tenor of the sound that will surely attract attention, but then she groans in approval as his mouth moves to the long, pale expanse of her neck, his thoughts boiling down to touch, feel, need now, her hands moving from his shirt to his shoulders, then both to the nape of his neck, circling around it, squeezing—
It's with a strange, unnatural amount of force Morgana suddenly has Merlin dropping straight on his back, the breath whooshing out his lungs as he falls backward to the floor. A shocking cold feeling replaces it as he watches her above him, hands around his neck, squeezing still. He realizes practically too late she's choking him, that this light-headed, dizzying feeling isn't just from his head cracking against the floor but from the insistent grip she has around his throat.
And then all at once Merlin is wheezing, pulling at her hands with all his strength and panicking when her thin wrists don't yield. Wondering distantly how in the world Morgana's slim arms can be this strong. How her eyes can look so dull and lifeless and vacant, and yet so bitter and harsh and burning with hatred, even as she suffocates him. And he's trying to cry out. To say her name and see some recognition in her eyes.
But it's hard to see anything at the point blurry spots start speckling his vision, when he hears the thundering command:
"STOP! LEAVE, YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE! AWAY WITH YOU, BE GONE, AND NEVER RETURN!"
The grip on his neck immediately disappears.
Merlin blinks hazily, a moment passing before his airway finally manages to recover from its retraction and a beautiful breath of air whistles in and out through his teeth. He gulps it down like a man dying of thirst would gulp water, panting and coughing at the feeling of fresh oxygen in his bloodstream again.
Then the last of the weight disappears from on top of him, and Merlin looks to see Morgana backing away from him, eyes wide and again alive with recognition and horror as she stares at her hands, holding them out like she's never seen them before. "G-Gaius," she stutters, eyes still trained down, but Merlin glances around to see the man aforementioned, looking pale and flustered where he's entered the scene.
"Are you all right?" he asks in a slow voice, glancing from Morgana to Merlin in question. Morgana says nothing; Merlin makes to sit up, wincing but nodding.
His eyes immediately train to what he and Morgana knocked down, the two pieces lying broken on the floor. First, the relic talisman Merlin noticed upon first entering Gaius's strange abode; the horse shoe's embedded stones in disrepair, onyx dislodged and sapphire cracked. The talisman is no longer pointing up, mounted above the sole window, protecting the house . . . from evil spirits.
So, the second after it'd been destroyed, an evil spirit came.
The image of the second stings into his memory like a slap to the face; an object Merlin has taken account of both times he's entered the old man's house, but never truly recognized. The cracked horn lies on the ground carelessly, and Merlin easily remembers when it was in perfect condition. Mounted on Cara's wall.
The whole puzzle, the entire case of Pendragon Estate solves itself, just like that—the final piece all along a token buried deep in Merlin's past.
50.
"Good Ghandi," he gasps, reaching for the smooth ivory with slow, shaking fingers. Meanwhile, a host of suppressed memories burst like a broken dam into the forefront of his mind.
The first being what happened straight after Cara said, "We are ready for you, Mother," and Merlin's soul felt like it'd been literally set on fire. He remembers little more than a surreal intensity of agonizing pain at first—not of the body, but of the mind. Like his consciousness was being ripped from his brain.
Like something was replacing him.
Everything he could feel or see then had a pulsing, reddish smudginess to it, and Merlin thought perhaps his body was moving, but he wasn't the one moving, and if his stomach's reflexes were still connected to his brain he'd probably be hurling right about then. Then, which was right when he could tell he had indeed sat up, and heard his own voice say, "Daughter."
Merlin gasps from the memory, barely holding back a retch from just revisiting it in his mind. What are you doing here! This is a no-visits-allowed facility! that corner of his brain screams at him, reminding Merlin why he's kept this suppressed for so many years.
But it's time to face it.
"He possessed you," he states quietly, into the otherwise silent room. Then looks up at Morgana's face, to mark her reaction.
She looks about to heave as well.
"He possessed you, took over your mind, and tried to kill me."
"Merlin, spirits cannot . . . " Gaius trails off, eyebrow raised to maximum height, stepping closer and staring at him as if he's spoken Mandarin. "There's no possible way."
"There is." Merlin remembers.
He remembers fighting with every ounce of his being, wherever it was caged in the back corner of the brain that once was his, fighting against her as she fit herself snugly into every part of him. Waves of smugness radiating to reach even him, stranded as he was somewhere, watching distantly through eyes that looked where she wanted them—at Cara's searching, hesitant face.
He remembers little, as his strength slowly faded. Mostly, voices:
"It is done, Cara. It is me."
"Mother? Is it . . . is it truly you?"
"You have done well, child. You've made me proud." A laugh—his laugh, though it sounded so strange—and then, "Merlin, has made me proud. So quickly he surrenders now."
"He's, he's still there?" Cara's voice was more than hesitant—it was worried. Maybe even frightened.
"Somewhere, yes. He is of no importance now. Come, there is one last thing to do."
By then Merlin could hardly hold onto anything but a rivulet—a tiny bridge not between the living and the dead, but between individual souls, a phenomenon Nimueh had discovered herself and taught Merlin how to track.
Which saved his life, in the end.
"Merlin, how could he even know how to do such a thing," Gaius pulls him back out of his memories, frowning deeply.
Merlin picks up the cracked horn; lays it on one of his palms. "Where did you get this?" he asks, already having a good guess of the answer.
"It was given to me, to study it for any significance, if I so wished. Arthur had no use for it," Gaius says warily, and Merlin's breath cuts through his teeth in a loud hiss. Even though it's only a confirmation now, not a shock like it would have been even ten minutes ago.
Arthur. Standing amidst all of it, face wavering. Like there could be two outcomes. Merlin sees them both; he sees Arthur crumble to his knees, defeated. But he also watches a different Arthur—standing resolutely, at the gates of the estate. Smiling.
Smiling. Merlin realizes now it was never Arthur, truly, in that vision smiling. One was only of him physically surrendered, defeated; the other was of the same—just a different kind. A surrender of the mind. It was Uther, there, smiling through his son's eyes.
". . . he, he's going to try and possess Arthur, now," Merlin realizes aloud with dawning horror, staring down at the horn. "He's just been building up to it. Biding his time, slowly gaining strength, like Gwaine said."
"Why would he—?" Morgana shakes her head, taken aback at Gwaine's name and still looking sick. Gaius places a consoling hand on Merlin's shoulder.
"Merlin, there isn't any possible way, you know this, you—"
"I thought I knew, yes," Merlin wrenches away from his grip, staring at them both hard. They have to understand. "Un . . . until it happened to me."
And he barely escaped it.
Merlin remembers, he'll never forget no matter how hard he tries, that sinking feeling, that leeching grab on his very soul as it dragged him toward the abyss, toward the black hole like a vacuum. Meanwhile his hands were holding the horn, his voice still speaking, and Cara looked so frightened then, so pale like she might have another of her fainting episodes right then and there.
"With the Horn of Cathbhadh gone there will be no return," his voice said, so dead and cold, "and everything will be possible. Do you realize what you've helped me bring about, Cara dear? A way to immortality. To always live on, in the body of another. And Merlin, with his great talents far above you or I, will make me an excellent vessel for a long, long time. Now, here. It is simple enough to be rid of."
His hands let go of it, let it fall to the ground. Then his foot was lifted, right above the small horn, positioned just right to smash the delicate instrument.
"You never fully asked, but here's the truth anyway: why I denounced the Druids, turned back on that part of my life, am now ashamed to remember all I was a part of." Merlin takes a breath through his nose, looking at Morgana. Her face is back from pale green to bone white, jaw clenched as she nods for him to continue. "Nimueh and her daughter Cara used this horn," he looked down at it, "so that when Nimueh passed on she could live on . . . through me."
"The . . . Horn of Cathbhadh?" Gaius stutters, eyes widening in recognition. "But, it couldn't have worked, the law states, you'd have to be—"
"—Related by blood or law of the Druid," Merlin nods, resigned to sharing just one more piece of the mess. "I was coerced into a hand-fasting, with Cara. I didn't realize what it truly meant, at the time, I just . . ." he sighs, then gives a grim smile to Morgana, admitting, "By Pagan Law, I'm technically married."
He actually feels an acute, physical relief, when all she responds with is rolling her eyes.
"And you believe, Arthur, called Uther with this horn," Gaius says dubiously, disbelieving. He nods, though the old man's next immediate question is one still weighing on Merlin's mind. "Why?"
His mind flashes back to Cara, tears streaming freely down her cheeks as her mother, in Merlin's body, made to smash the horn under foot. Merlin screaming against the bars of his cage, reaching uselessly for any kind of control, any kind of connection.
But then he remembered he still had one left.
They weren't always there. Sometimes rivulets streamed around him, so many connections he could hardly take half of them in. Sometimes souls . . . they were so interconnected it was as if fate, destiny, had bound them together. But Merlin and Nimueh had only one rivulet, and as Merlin tracked and reached and found the tendril, what he felt would forever turn him from the way of the Druids.
The connection between them was the ambition for power.
It was enough—just barely. Enough for Merlin to leak that tiny bit into her faculties, into his old ones, and soften the blow as his foot came crashing down on the Horn of Cathbhadh.
It only cracked.
For a moment, his eyes were his own; they looked at Cara, wide-eyed. His mouth was his own, his voice managing to whisper, "Please."
And even as Nimueh's control came flooding back in the next second, red hot with rage, and Merlin was slammed back into his corner, the vacuum sucking at him harder than ever. Even when he was one moment away from the void: he couldn't hate Cara.
He could see in her increasingly terrified eyes—she'd just wanted to see her mother again.
Merlin almost felt peace, he remembers, right before Cara's eyes suddenly hardened in determination. Right before Nimueh could bring his foot down one last time on the horn, she knelt and grabbed it in a flash, choking out, "I'm sorry, Mother." Right before bringing it to her lips and blowing out a clear, hollow sound.
Merlin understands. Like her, Arthur had just wanted to see his father again.