Hey, hey, lovely readers!
Thanks as always for the reviews for chapter 33. I love reading them.
This is the LAST chapter of this first installment. Can you believe it!? I'll post an Author's Note as another chapter about the sequel, so keep checking this story to find out more about that. I have the first chapter of the next story written, actually, so it'll go up as soon as I settle on a title.
Thanks for all your continued support during the writing of this story, you guys. Thank you so, so much for reading. It's been the most fun time writing this story! I hope you enjoy the sequel as much as you've enjoyed this first part.
Disclaimer, as always: nope, don't own Merlin, nope, Bradley doesn't know of me yet. But, hey, we do know he's doing well, which is great news. Everyone on Twitter yesterday was freaking out in a good way about this, including me. Apparently, he supported runners at the London Marathon a few days ago. This, of course, made me like him more than I already did. He's pretty wonderful, I think.
As is Arthur, as is Gwen, as is Merlin, of course. On with the final chapter-chapter 34! Enjoy, guys!
Arthur and Guinevere: A Love Which Brings Light
Chapter 34
Catherine enters the Royal Chambers only about twenty minutes after that last contraction, sees the way Gwen is, her hand on her hip, leaning against the post of the bed for support, sees the look on her face.
"You're in labor, aren't you?"
"Yes," Gwen answers. "I-I think so."
"For how long?" Gwen thinks about this; the contractions had been coming and going for quite some time.
"A couple hours, maybe? I'm not really sure." Fear flashes across the Queen's face and Catherine wants to cry.
She doesn't. Instead she says, "I-I'll fetch Arthur. And Gaius." She reaches forward, grabs Gwen's hand, squeezes it. "Everything will OK, Gwen."
Gwen nods tightly and Catherine dashes out of the room.
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The dread plummets like a lead weight. Arthur thinks he can hear the thud of it on the floor but then realizes he's imagining things. As he thought he'd imagined his mother. Or seen her or whatever. He knew it had been real! He knew it was too good to be only a vision!
"Why?"
"I didn't want you to kill Uther. I knew you'd never forgive yourself if you had and-
"No, I know all that," Arthur says, waving his hand. "I mean, why are you telling me this? Why now?"
"I don't want you to worry anymore than you have to. About that same thing happening to Gwen. When the baby comes, you know." Arthur nods, his jaw set. Merlin's knowing of his worries surprises him, though he tries not to show it. He nods again, if to convince himself or his servant he isn't sure.
"I'm going to worry anyway," the King says.
"I know," Merlin offers simply. "She's your love. You should worry. I just don't want you to worry about that. A life will only come into the world. Don't worry about another one disappearing because of it."
Arthur nods again. He's about to say thank you when footsteps rush up to him. It is Catherine. She is out of breath.
"It's Gwen," she manages. "It's time, Sire." A wavery smile lights the young woman's face and Arthur can't help but mimic her gesture, if only for a split second. He turns to look at Merlin, the coincidence of their conversation surprising him. Then, his mind goes into high gear and he turns and sprints down the long corridor, headed toward the Royal Chambers, Catherine following behind him.
"Merlin, tell Gaius!" Arthur yells and Merlin goes back the other way to do so.
Catherine stops off down the hall from the Royal Chambers, where the birthing room is. Everything has been set up in there for a good month or so. Catherine is prepared, and yet she feels scared. She always feels scared. Though she has done this many times before, it is something new and terrifying and exciting and beautiful, every time.
She looks around the empty room and smiles to herself.
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Arthur flies into the Royal Chambers. When he sees his wife, all of the sudden he slows, stops.
"Guinevere," he says, not knowing what else to say.
"I'm guessing Catherine told you?" He notices her voice is slightly shorter than usual, clipped with her trying to catch her breath.
"She did. Are you all right?"
"For now, yes, I'm-
And then she isn't. A contraction winds around her again, making Arthur be next to her in an instant. A small cry escapes from her mouth and she goes from gripping his arm to turning inward and burying her face in his chest to try and fight/ignore/get through it. Arthur runs a cool hand over the back of her head, making her feel better. When it's over she looks up, sort of smiles at him.
"And that's it," she says flippantly. "That's what's been going on. You're pretty much caught up." He is amazed she is able to joke when he just witnessed her battle against such pain. But then again, it's Gwen. She is pretty amazing.
"We should go to the birthing room. Catherine is waiting for us."
"OK," Gwen says, even though in all actuality she looks as though she might cry. Arthur gently and carefully scoops her up into his arms, bridal style like always, and they head out of the Royal Chambers.
"Ready?" Arthur asks as they walk down the hall, nearing the room.
"Yeah," Gwen says, her voice thick with happy tears. "Let's go have a baby." He leans in and she leans in and they kiss, slow and sweet, the baby living and breathing between them under Gwen's skin. It is a beautiful thing. They are beautiful together. All three of them. When they break apart, she smiles a soft scared smile and he carries her the few feet to the birthing room before setting her upright on her feet again. She quickly goes behind a screen, changes into a clean white gown before getting settled in the bed, the cool clean sheets soothing her almost immediately. It is only a few minutes after this occurs that Gaius enters the room, Merlin in tow.
"Uncle Merlin's here!" Merlin says, throwing his arm up in a flourish.
Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, and Catherine all stare and blink at him blankly. No one says anything. After a moment, Gaius says gently, "Merlin, the birthing process takes hours. Many of them. Many, many hours. Days, even."
"Thanks for that," Gwen says drily. "Very comforting."
"You shan't worry, my darling," Arthur says. "I'll be with you the whole way." To Gwen his tone is gentle. He holds her hand. He turns to his servant, where his tone is not so gentle: "Merlin, can't you see you're agitating my wife? Just get out of here. Wait in the hall." For once, Merlin does what he's told, leaving Gaius in the room. He checks up on Gwen.
"Everything looks fine for now," Gaius assures her. "I have another patient to treat at the moment, but will be back as soon as I'm finished. If you should need me, have Merlin send for me, although it's highly unlikely. Catherine is very good."
Catherine smiles and nods to acknowledge the physician's compliment. Gaius touches Gwen's shoulder in fatherly affection on his way out of the room.
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Merlin goes up to Gaius the second he exits the birthing room.
"So?"
"They're ready," Gaius answers.
"It's happening, It's really happening, isn't it?"
"There's not anything to be worrying about, Merlin," Gaius says quietly. The concern must be evident on his face. Or maybe Gaius just knows him that well. That too. "Gwen is strong. I'll be right here should they need me, though I doubt they will. Catherine really is one of the finest midwives we could've picked. That's why Arthur selected her to be Gwen's maid, among other reasons." Merlin nods. "This is a great moment, Merlin," Gaius continues. "The next prince or princess of Camelot coming into the world as we speak."
"I'm here too," Merlin says finally, knowing he won't be able to relax until it's all over. "If something goes wrong, if the baby...if Gwen would ever need me..."
"They know, Merlin," Gaius answers. "They know."
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After Gaius leaves, Merlin paces all by himself in the corridor outside the birthing room. His footfalls sound loud out here, though not loud enough to cover up the sound of Gwen's pain. In a lull between contractions, Merlin knocks on the door of the birthing room.
"Are you sure you don't need any help in there?"
"No, Merlin!" Arthur yells back. "What makes you think there's anything you can do that I can't?"
"Uh, I have magic, remember?"
"That's irrelevant," Arthur snaps in reply. "You're not delivering a dragon baby, are you?"
"No, sire," Merlin answers tiredly. "But are you sure-?"
"I am!" The King yells back.
And he was. Well, sort of. Merlin couldn't see him, making him unable to know that Arthur really was freaking out. On the inside, at least. Arthur's fear ran deeper than Merlin's, or, maybe in a different way. Thoughts of his mother glared at him. He tried to shove away the thoughts of the dangers childbirth held. He was, although he'd be hard-pressed to admit it, slightly comforted by the fact that Merlin was there. He hoped Gwen wouldn't need saving, but if she did, if not able to do it himself, he would have no one other than his servant and best friend be the one to do it. All these fears he kept inside; he was her rock, Guinevere's strength. It was his hand she held. Even if he was scared, he knew showing himself to be wouldn't do anything but make Gwen more nervous.
Besides, Merlin was worrying enough for the both of them.
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Merlin is listening through the door again.
"Do we need Gaius?" He hears Arthur says quietly to Gwen out of concern at one point maybe an hour or two later.
"I'll get Gaius!" Merlin yells through the door. He hadn't heard Gwen say no.
"No, Merlin!" Arthur yells, having heard him overhear the conversation. He gets up from his chair.
"Don't leave!" Gwen begs, holding out the hand that he still held.
"I'll be but a moment, my darling," Arthur says, kissing her hand. His voice turns hard as he says, "I need to retrieve my servant." And then he runs out the room, down the corridor and grabs Merlin by the collar of his shirt, shakes him a little.
"You're losing it, man. Stop freaking out!"
Merlin raises an eye-brow at him, as if to say,I'm the one freaking out?
They both glance at one another, grow serious again.
"Merlin, I swear, if you ever get married and have children, I'll have to be the one standing by your wife because you'll be busy freaking out like you are now."
"I know, sire. Sorry, sire."
"I need to get back to Guinevere," Arthur says, serious now. He puts a hand on Merlin's shoulder in a manly type of friendly affection. Almost brotherly. "I'm glad you're here," he says, as they walk back down the corridor, nearing the birthing room."But this is it. No more distractions!"
And he shuts the door, blocking Merlin from everything, leaving him alone with only his anxieties.
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Merlin's listening at the door again, unable to quell his nervousness about how Gwen is doing. After only about 45 minutes, unable to stand it any longer, he opens up the door to the birthing room, pokes his head inside. Before he even opens his mouth, Arthur looks to him and says, "Merlin, you can't be in here. Go do something useful with yourself!"
And so, he does.
He runs down the corridor, wracking his brain for how to help Gwen. He thinks: giving birth must be tiring. Perhaps she was hungry? He could bring her cake! She loved cake! It was so logical. Why didn't he think of this before?
And so Merlin goes scampering off to the kitchen, to grab cake.
He races back to the birthing room, opens the door, thrusts his hand inside which contained a slice of cake.
"Does she need...cake?" He is out of breath, but exuberant, so sure this was what Gwen needed/wanted. He is disappointed to hear a rousing chorus of "No!" from Arthur, Gwen, and Catherine.
And so, he leaves, dejected.
It is at that moment that the knights approach him.
"I wonder if there was anything we could do to help Gwen?" Leon asks, like the first knight that he is.
"Don't bring her cake, that's for sure," Merlin says sourly. "Apparently, cake isn't helpful."
Gwaine, Percival, and the others look to see the slice of cake in his hand, the frosting now melting and sticking to his fingers. They decide not to ask.
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Things slow after that. The next several hours go by at an achingly sluggish pace.
The contractions become more intense in the next couple of hours, though, coming faster, closer together. That's what Catherine told them would happen, but here Gwen is all the same, surprised and startled and in plenty of pain because of it. She feels like an idiot. And here she thought she could do this. And the worst of it was, she knew that she could. She couldn't even cry out, "I can't" or some other nonsense, because she knew very well that she was capable, that it would happen. She could not stay in this state forever. The baby had to be born at some point; the pain would not last...certainly it couldn't last...right?
"Oh, my God, oh my God," she breathes when she is pain-free for a few seconds. She arches her back, the only way she can think of to try and run away from the pain. It doesn't work. The pain comes looking for her again only minutes later. Her eyes squeeze shut and tears leak out. She grips Arthur's hand so tightly her knuckles turn white. In the next moment when the pain has abandoned her, Gwen turns to Arthur and asks, "I'm not hurting you, am I? Holding your hand like this?"
"No, Guinevere, you're not," Arthur says in a low voice. He leans over, smoothes her hair back with a cool hand. Seeing this, Catherine comes over and wrestles her hair into a loose side braid.
"Thank you," Gwen says gratefully.
"If only I knew how to braid," Arthur remarks, making them all laugh.
"If only we could trade places," Gwen remarks, and then looks to Arthur with horror. "Oh, God, no. I take it back, I take it back. I'd never wish this kind of pain on anyone. Especially not you, Arthur."
"You are too good. you know that? How did you become so good?"
"It's all part of my charm," Gwen says, smiling. "Just as it is all part of your loveliness that you have yet to freak out and-
Her sentence is broken off. A contraction comes upon her so suddenly and so violently she can hardly breathe. Her skin starts to turn gray after several long long seconds and Arthur gets scared.
"Take some deep breaths for me," he says, a hand on her shoulders.
"Oh, God, I can't, I can't," she sputters, her breath tight, totally disregarding her own advice from earlier. When it is over, she collapses back onto the pillows. Arthur sweeps his cool hand across her forehead, the only thing he can think to do. "It's going to be bad, isn't it?" she asks Catherine. "It's going to get worse, isn't it?"
"Yes, Gwen," Catherine answers honestly, in a small voice.
And when the worse does come for her, Catherine is so very right. When the worse does come for her, all the pain and all the pressure burrowing low, deep inside herself, it is all so much worse than she ever dared to imagine.
Her screams ripple through the room, and throughout the castle.
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Merlin, Leon, Gwaine, and Percival pace together now, all in a line, in the corridor outside the Royal Chambers and birthing room. They are too preoccupied with thought to notice how in synch they've become. It would be laughable if not for Gwen's screaming in the background.
"I cannot bear this," Merlin says at one point, nearly covering his ears. He knows how thin this revelation sounds the second it is out of his mouth. If he is having trouble bearing witness to Gwen's agony, he has no idea what it is like to be Arthur, or better yet, Gwen herself.
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Speaking of Gwen, she is desperately uncomfortable. There is a lot of blood between her legs. She does not feel strong or good or anything else everyone claims she always is. At this point, she just feels weary. She has been at this for hours and is way sick of it.
Still, she pushes when told to push. The pain had taken her to a place she didn't even know she was capable of going, somewhere deep inside her mind. Arthur had had to call her back, coax her back to reality like she was a child herself, which seemed to her very ironic. She had to be called back to reality where she was indeed bound to bear a baby, a child. Her child. Their child.
And so it was happening.
The pressure grew to be stronger and stronger. The pain was so very real and so very much alive and buzzing through all her limbs. The baby crowned, then, suddenly, its head breaking through the seal of skin and bursting into the open air with as much life as anyone had ever had. Gwen was screaming and Catherine was screaming and Arthur was shouting and all of the sudden, there she was. A tiny red little thing. Covered in blood and crying, she was there. Finally there.
"It's a girl," Catherine announces. Tears trail down her cheeks. She wipes her forehead with the hem of her apron, a smile on her face.
"A girl," Arthur echoes, his voice not sounding like his own. "A daughter. A daughter, Guinevere."
"A daughter," Gwen echoes. Tears gush from her eyes. They sang an entirely new song without the pain threaded through them.
The baby is taken to be wiped off and cleaned up and checked on. Everything that goes on after that is irrelevant, even if it is painful. And yet through all that Gwen manages to smile, to be happier than she ever thought possible. Because when she first holds that tiny baby in her arms, the love there is so great she doesn't know if her heart can hold all of it.
"Hi, baby," Gwen says, noting with delight that the child's eyes have opened. They're a beautiful shade of deep brown. They close again shortly afterwards, but not before searching Gwen's face. "It's like she already knows who we are," Gwen breathes. The happiness she feels at that overwhelms her.
"You did good. You did so good," Arthur says before he stamps a kiss to Gwen's forehead. The incorrect grammar shows Gwen how overcome with emotion Arthur has become. And rightfully so. He leans down and kisses the baby's tiny head. Gwen does too.
"You're a father," she hiccups in dizzyingly happy disbelief, holding his warm hand as he now holds the baby. More tears leak from Gwen's eyes, happy ones.
"And you're a mother," Arthur answers, unable to say anything else, and leans over to kiss her on the mouth. In that moment, kissing his wife, holding his daughter in his arms, he doesn't think he's ever felt so happy, or more complete.
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"Have you decided on a name yet?"
This is asked by Catherine, about ten minutes later. Arthur looks to the young woman, at her hopeful face; she has worked so hard, so hard for them today. He is grateful.
He thinks about her question. It is a simple one, but one with much possibility. What did a person name the most precious thing in their life? This new precious thing that had come into the world, completing their family. Only he called her Guinevere; everyone would call this child something. What would that something be? Arthur and Gwen turn to one another, all of the name choices swirling around in their heads, and say simultaneously with smiles, "Shayla."
"I love that," Catherine breathes. "It's so pretty."
"I love it too," Gwen says.
"I love you," Arthur says, turning to his wife.
"I love all of us, you and Shayla and me," Gwen says.
"As do I."
Arthur thinks to when Gwen was his only family; he told her this the night they were engaged for real the second time. And he realizes how it is true again now, only his family consists of not only Gwen but Shayla too. She already feels and is so much a part of him that it takes his breath away. He remembers back to when he told Gwen that taking care of her, and their child, and the children they will have, will be the greatest duty he would ever fulfill. And now, looking down at the small bundle of love in his arms, he does not feel scared or nervous or tired. He only feels joy. She is his daughter. Their daughter.
"Shayla," Arthur murmurs, and then says it again because he likes the sound of it. "Shayla."
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A short time later, the door to the birthing room finally opens. The knights perk up, come closer. Catherine flies into Percival's strong arms, employing a similar kind of twirly hug shared by Arthur and Gwen after the whole Lamia thing.
"It's a girl, a princess," she says, tiredly, gleefully, and Percival kisses her. The knights smile.
"And Gwen?" Leon asks, like Eleyan would have had he been here. "Is she-?"
"She is just fine. She did beautifully," Catherine assures them all. The relief in the faces of these men show Catherine how much they value Gwen; not only as their Queen, but, more importantly, as their good friend.
Merlin goes to the doorway of the birthing room, where Gaius has gone. Gaius sees him hovering at the door, looks to Arthur and Gwen, who nod. Gaius waves him in.
"Come in, Merlin," he says. "Come and meet the princess."
"Merlin," Gwen says warmly. "This is Shayla."
He looks in awe at the tiny bundle cradled in Gwen's arms. Swaddled in a blanket, Merlin is only able to see her face. Her skin is a bit olive-toned, smooth and soft. Her mouth is delicate, beautiful. Actually, all of her features are like that. She looks very much like Arthur in the face, in the chin, the nose-in a good way, of course. Her eyes remain closed for now, her hair dark and soft.
"Princess Shayla," Arthur says with emphasis as he is handed his daughter to pass to Merlin. He and Gwen had been trading off holding the baby every few minutes or so.
"I'm sorry, Princess," Gwen corrects, smiling. "Princess Shayla Pendragon."
"Be careful of her head," Arthur says, a father already, as he ever so gently settles Shalya into Merlin's arms. He watches Merlin very carefully.
"Hi, Shayla," Merlin says, looking down at this tiny perfect child. "I'm your Uncle Merlin. Your parents are the two best people I know. They will love you forever, you know that?" Shayla doesn't respond, making them all laugh quietly. "She knows, I'm telling you," Merlin says, smiling, making Arthur and Gwen smile too. Though babies are small things, though this one has hardly opened her eyes, hasn't even smiled yet, Merlin suddenly becomes overwhelmed with feeling. He is holding the Princess of Camelot! He is holding the future in his hands! "You, Shayla Pendragon, are the light of our world, do you know that?"
Indeed she was.
At that moment, everything became anew.