AN: This is something I started ages ago but never actually finished, so forgive me if it seems a little choppy in places. I probably should go over it, but seven hours of theatre studies has turned by brain to mush so it would probably go wrong anyway.

Sorry about the eons it has taken me to update - life has been pretty busy, and I've had so much bloody coursework. I never ever ever want to see another copy of Pride and Prejudice again tbh (although Collins ftw in my opinion ;]) Hahaaa!

Anyway, hope you enjoy and reviews are lovely :)

Uther remembers.

Arthur thinks he doesn't but he does. All the little things, the little details that helped shape his son are engrained within Uther's mind, in every crevice, round every corner; hidden but not forgotten. No, they could never be forgotten.

He remembers them now, every hope and dream his son has ever shared with him. He knows they are few, but he cherishes them all the same. They make him more human somehow, remind him that beneath the layers of skin and flesh, somewhere within the confines of his ribcage, there is a heart that beats.

For Uther, Arthur is the air he has to breathe to stay alive.

Uther knows he has been a poor father. Not intentionally mean nor cruel, but sometimes negligent and harsh. He hadn't wanted to spoil his son, but now perhaps, he thinks he has gone in the other direction – Arthur has been unhappy, and no amount of regretting can change that.

But Uther has been miserable too.

How hard it is to stare at his son every day with the knowledge that he is staring at Igraine's murderer. How difficult Uther finds it to look into those blue eyes and not think that they are the very same eyes he has lost. How wretched he feels knowing that he blames his son for something he had no chance of escaping. Uther was the executioner after all. The blow might have been dealt by another, but it was his greed, his selfishness, that had been the cause.

He hates himself for it.

Looking at his son now, Uther can see why Arthur might hate him too. They have very little in common – Arthur is Igraine through and through, right from the blonde hair to the slight pout of his lips, and his character is like hers too. Uther has always been to rash, too quick to anger and too proud to admit his mistakes. Arthur has her gentleness, that tenacious willingness to do whatever is right no matter what the consequences. He is brave like his mother, and as strong.

Uther has always been weak. Uther has always been a coward.

Perhaps that's why he punished Arthur so greatly. Every failure, every fault, he has made a spectacle of. At the time, he thought he was going his best to keep Arthur grounded, but he realises now that subconsciously, he had wanted to humiliate his son. He'd wanted Arthur to hate him as he hated himself, because somehow that made everything so much simpler. Easier.

Punishment has always been easier than love.

Or perhaps love is a punishment? It certainly seems like it. Everything Uther has loves has been lost to him – yes, Arthur still breathes, but there is nothing between them, not even respect. His son views him as a tyrant, a failure, and he shall never know how much Uther loves him because the king is too frightened to tell him. In Uther's mind, admitting it aloud makes the prospect of losing Arthur seem even more possible.

He couldn't bear that.

There have been three times when Uther has now thought Arthur lost. The first was when he was no older than ten, and had nearly drowned in the river. Uther had always been encouraging him to show off and outdo everyone else; certainly he'd never thought that Arthur would be so stupid as to try and launch himself from the top of the waterfall to the pool below with checking the depth of the awaiting water. It was only the quick thinking of his knights that had saved him. The second and the third are all the more recent – the strange incident with the questing beast, and that odd recovery Arthur made only the other day, seemingly returning from death. He was just knocked out, Arthur told him later, but Uther knows different. A practised liar, he is adept at working out when someone else is too. There was no rise and fall of the chest, no beat of the heart inside its fleshy prison. He had looked at the pale body and felt only anguish that he had failed once more at keeping his son alive.

Perhaps he is doomed to fail him.

How will history remember him, he wonders? As a noble king or a merciless tyrant? He's studied the wrong doings of his forefathers, the catastrophes of his sires, and yet every step seems to take him closer to them. He knows it is time to stop walking, and yet he is breaking into a run.

The King of Camelot is barrelling towards his own destruction.

It does not frighten him anymore, he realises, the thought that he might die. It seems now almost a welcome option, because what is he clinging onto? Everything he values has up and gone; Arthur is grown and his friends – those he calls his friends – are dead and rotting. He has learnt the hard way that power, something that sustained him so often through his youth, means nothing. It weakens over time until finally, it is not there anymore.

Like wine, the aftertaste is sour.

Arthur is staring at him, the sapphire eyes narrowed to slits. Uther realises he is waiting for a reply, but without knowing what he said, Uther cannot offer him one. Days have passed when he would have just waved his son away or shouted or even sneered, but they are not now. They shall never be again.

Uther will not let them.

Since when has his son been so tall? Stood before him, Uther feels like a shrivelled dwarf desperately seeking to bathe in someone else's glory. As Arthur grows more radiant, Uther seems to dwindle. It is the way it must be, and yet Uther resents it. If time allowed, he could make amends, set the record straight, apologise…

He knows he is lying to himself. Self-preservation comes easily to him and he struggles to toss it aside. He deserves to feel guilt after what he has done. He could reach out a hand now, clap Arthur on the shoulder and tell him how proud he is of him, of how he loves him more than life itself. He could apologise for everything that he has done, beg Arthur's forgiveness and hope that it is granted – it will be, he knows, because Arthur is merciful.

He could, but he won't.

It's pride that stops him. He remembers trying to bury it with Morgana, but he could not. Like with Arthur, he knows that it's his fault she ran eventually. For all his preaching about magic being evil, he never believed that he could be just as bad. The magic had driven her from her mind, but it was him that had forced her from the castle. If magic belonged to the devil, well then so did he. What other reason did he have for his actions?

Nothing can excuse him for what he has crushed.

It is those dreams he weeps for, the ones he has single-handedly taken and destroyed. His son, once so young and innocent, had to grow up quickly – too quickly – and Uther knows it is all his doing. He is the thief, the destroyer.

Arthur thinks he has forgotten, but Uther will always remember.