Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.

Chapter Twenty Seven

The courtyard was unusually peaceful and still when Merlin led the horses out. The sun hadn't quite risen, and although he could hear the stirrings of the day beginning, both in the castle and out, Camelot had not yet truly sprung to life.

"Everything ready?" Arthur asked as he came down the front steps, and Merlin nodded in confirmation.

"I packed enough food for a week," he said. "Any more than that and you'll have to catch something for us to eat. Are you sure you know where we're going?"

"We received reports of a druid camp in the woods near the Great Seas of Meredor not four days ago. It seems worth a try, at least." Merlin watched him uneasily as Arthur swung into the saddle. "What is it, Merlin? Speak your mind."

Merlin hesitated. Selfishly, he didn't want to say what he was about to say. But he knew he had to.

"You don't have to come with me, Arthur. I can find the Great Seas of Meredor by myself." He tried to say the words as though he meant them. As though doing this alone would be perfectly fine. And perhaps he succeeded a bit too well, because Arthur frowned in response.

"Do you not want me to come with you?"

"Of course I do." They were two sides of a coin, after all. Whatever Merlin found out would be important for Arthur as well. And if Merlin learned something difficult…well, it would be easier to deal with that with Arthur by his side. "But I know the king of Camelot visiting the druids…that won't be an easy thing. And I'd understand if you weren't quite ready to take that step yet. So if I need to do this alone, I can."

Arthur studied him for a moment. A visit to the druids had been his suggestion, and he'd done his best to seem fine with the idea. But Merlin knew Arthur too well not to notice the nervousness – fear, even – hiding in his smile every time they'd discussed it.

"Firstly," Arthur said after a moment, "I doubt I'll ever truly feel ready for this. If I stayed behind, it would be out of cowardice, not wisdom or prudence. And secondly…" He smiled briefly at something behind Merlin. "Even if I weren't going, you still wouldn't be alone."

Merlin looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Didn't think you were going without me, did you?" Lancelot asked cheerfully as he rode up, and Merlin couldn't hold back a grin.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Yes, he could go alone if he needed to. Most of his life was proof of that. But in the course of a few seconds, he'd gone from considering doing the journey by himself to realizing he'd have two friends with him. And it was amazing how much lighter the burden felt with that knowledge.

Loneliness had been such a normal part of his life for so long. It was all he had ever known. And sometimes – like right now – he was taken aback by the absence of it.

"All right," he said, turning back to Arthur. "If you're sure you want to come."

"I don't know if 'want' is the right word," Arthur said dryly as he nudged his horse into motion. "But I'm sure."

As they rode out, the peacefulness of the morning gave way to an awkward quietness. Normally they either went out with a larger group, the knights joking easily with each other and carrying the conversation, or Merlin and Arthur went out together. The three of them…that was a new dynamic, and Merlin felt unpleasantly in the middle, riding with the man who had always known his secrets and the man who had only more recently found out.

"So," Arthur said finally, "Lancelot. Tell me an embarrassing story about when my manservant did something stupid with his magic."

"Really, Arthur?" Merlin interjected. "You couldn't ask for a story about when I did something brave and heroic?"

"No, I definitely want a story where you made an idiot out of yourself. You do it so well, after all."

Lancelot chuckled and found a compromise, choosing a story from the year before in which Merlin did indeed make a fool of himself, but also saved Arthur's life. Gwen had grown concerned about how much time Merlin was – according to Arthur – apparently spending in the tavern, and she'd decided he needed to stay away from ale and wine for a while. The more Merlin insisted that he did not have a problem, the more determined Gwen had become to help him. Unfortunately, this had happened at approximately the same time Odin had sent another assassin into Camelot, and Merlin needed to find the man and deal with him. The end result was Merlin sneaking around the castle trying to stalk the assassin, while at the same time avoiding Gwen, who was in turn trying to stalk him.

Merlin pulled back a pace or two so he could watch Arthur's face as he listened. Arthur laughed as Lancelot described Merlin trying to make excuses, including when Gwen found him in the cellars with the barrels of wine (which the assassin had been trying to poison), and when she found Merlin stumbling through the halls (because he'd tripped while pursuing the assassin and hit his head), and he cringed as Lancelot described the assassin's attempt to kill two of his guards, only to be thwarted at the last minute by Merlin with some help from Lancelot himself. But those weren't the parts Merlin was concerned about.

Lancelot's voice grew softer and more solemn as he described the eventual confrontation between Merlin and the assassin. Merlin had found the man on the roof of the castle, a crossbow aimed at Arthur as he walked through the courtyard. He'd acted on instinct, using his magic to fling the crossbow out of the assassin's hands. The man had turned on Merlin with a knife, and Merlin had used his magic to throw him backwards. The assassin's foot had caught as he landed, and he'd tumbled off the roof to his death below. Merlin had intended for him to land on the roof, not to fall, but it didn't change the fact that he was responsible for the man's death.

The laughter faded from Arthur's face, but Merlin didn't see the judgment he feared. Just sober thoughtfulness.

"I remember that. We thought he just tripped and fell. We joked about how someone that clumsy maybe should have chosen a different line of work." He shook his head. "I do wonder, Merlin, how many things I've dismissed as luck over the years that were actually your doing."

Merlin shrugged uncomfortably. "That one was partly luck. He'd gotten away from me – it was only by chance that I checked the roof in time." He shuddered at the memory. That one had been too close. Just a few more seconds…

"I suppose I should say thank you," Arthur said wryly. "Yet again. Tell me – do I have to thank you for every time you saved my life? Or can I just issue a general thank you for all of them?"

"One for each individual time," Merlin answered immediately. "If I can put in the effort to save your royal ass, you can put in the effort to say two words in reply."

Arthur snorted, and next to him, Merlin heard Lancelot snicker under his breath before launching into the next story.

That night, Merlin had trouble falling asleep. He normally slept well on quests and patrols; he was no stranger to sleeping on the ground, and the sounds of nature ordinarily soothed him. But that night, he tossed and turned.

"It doesn't matter how many times you roll over, the ground doesn't get any softer," he heard Arthur say from where he was keeping watch.

"The ground isn't the problem," he grumbled, looking over at Arthur, who was poking mindlessly at the fire with a stick. "I'm just restless." Catching sight of the look on the king's face, he sat up. "Something on your mind?"

Arthur blinked in surprise. "Me? No. I'm just thinking."

"Careful. You don't want to pull something."

Arthur scooped a pinecone off the ground, not even bothering to look at Merlin as he threw it halfheartedly at him. Merlin batted it away and waited for a minute, then shrugged and started to lie back down.

"It's weird," Arthur admitted suddenly. "Thinking about you and Lancelot running around all these years, having adventures by yourselves that the rest of us never knew about. That I never knew about. Especially since those adventures seemed to typically involve me."

Merlin laughed to himself. "I never thought of them as adventures. That makes them sound a lot more fun than they were. They were usually stressful and, to be perfectly honest, a little bit scary."

"Why didn't you tell me about Odin's assassin?"

"I don't remember," he admitted, trying to think back. Why hadn't he told Arthur about that one? "He didn't have magic…I had to keep those things a secret because typically I'm the only one who can stop them. If I told anyone about it, then I ended up with people getting in my way, even if they were trying to help. But that one…" he trailed off, struggling to recall. "Oh! I couldn't tell you because I found out about it when I sneaked out of the castle to speak with Kilgharrah. I couldn't really explain why I was in the forest in the middle of the night to overhear their conversation, and I didn't have any proof. It would have drawn attention to me, and you probably wouldn't have believed me anyway."

Arthur frowned. "I would have believed you," he protested. Merlin just stared at him skeptically in response until he sighed and poked the fire with the stick again. "I should have believed you," he amended. "I guess I never took you as seriously as I should have. I thought that at least in certain areas, you just didn't have the experience to know what you were talking about. That you were too paranoid or too quick to jump to conclusions." He shook his head, then asked, "Why was I so easy to fool?" The question was tentative, and Merlin realized with bemusement that it was a sincere one.

"You weren't easy to fool, Arthur. I was terrified every single day that you were going to figure it out. But truthfully…" Merlin cringed at the words, but forced himself to say them. "I think I was able to fool you because you trusted me."

Arthur nodded, and to Merlin's relief, he looked pensive instead of angry. "I'm sorry you weren't able to trust me in return."

"That was as much about me as you, Arthur. Trusting people just…isn't something I do. Not about magic. Never has been."

"Nor should it have been. My laws would have seen you dead had you trusted the wrong person."

"Uther's laws," Merlin corrected him, but Arthur shook his head.

"I'd love to lay the responsibility for all of this at my father's feet, but they became my laws the day he died. I've failed to make Camelot a safe place for all of its people."

Merlin read the self-reproach in his friend's face and pushed himself up to a full sitting position. "You didn't know enough about magic to know the laws were wrong. And now that you do know, you're doing something about it. No one can expect more from you than that."

Arthur nodded, but the look in his eyes said he was unconvinced.

"Come on, Arthur. I've stayed by your side for years while magic is illegal, and I did that because I knew – I know – you're a good king. Even as someone with magic, I could always see that you're worth serving and protecting." Merlin watched him for a moment, then sighed. "We're not talking about me anymore, are we?"

Arthur gave him a half-smile, and after a long pause, he answered. "I've persecuted the druids. I have personally led more than one raid on their camps. I couldn't tell you how many I've killed myself, to say nothing of the ones killed on my command. And they've always been peaceful, never acted against Camelot. And now…now I'm going to ride into their camp with only you and Lancelot for protection, and ask for their help. I believe they'll want to help you, but…"

"You're nervous," Merlin finished for him.

Arthur shook his head. "Not nervous," he said quietly.

And then Merlin realized, and his heart broke a little bit.

"You're ashamed?"

Arthur stared into the fire. "I can't undo what I've done. All those lives unjustly taken…how do I face them?"

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Merlin wishing he knew what to say to make his friend feel better. "I think you can be honest," he said finally. "You can apologize. And honestly, Arthur, maybe while we're there, you'll even have a chance to talk about how you want the future to be different."

"Do you think they'll listen?"

Merlin shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

Arthur nodded and gave him a forced smile. "I'm glad you'll be there with me."

Merlin smiled genuinely in return. "I always am."

AN: I posted a new one-shot called Open Eyes. It's Merlin-and-Arthur-centric (more Arthur than Merlin), but otherwise it's very different from my other Merlin fics. A little darker and more mature, although nothing extreme. If you're interested, please check it out!