"I did it for you, Arthur."
Arthur stared at the person who had been his best friend, his confidence, the person he could trust the most for years. Rain pounded into his face, flattened his hair to his forehead, and trickled down his neck into his shirt, but he didn't care. He could only stare at the person kneeling before him, blood coating his hands.
"I did it for you, Arthur," Merlin repeated, looking up from where he knelt on the ground.
Arthur couldn't think.
Instead of blue eyes, all he could see were golden orbs staring back at him.
Golden. Red. Gold and red. Camelot's colors.
He laughed.
"Arthur?" Merlin asked, his voice strained.
His best friend was a sorcerer.
All these years, and he never saw a thing. Or if he had, he had pushed the suspicion to the back of his mind because there was no possible way that stupid, idiodic, trustworthy Merlin was a sorcerer.
Still standing in the rain, Arthur laughed and laughed and laughed until his throat was raw and he wasn't sure if his cheeks were wet from the rain or tears.
After everything - after everything, after all of the quests and the promises and the declarations of loyalty - he was not sure if he could take this.
Not Merlin.
Anyone but Merlin.
Gwaine, Elyan, Lancelot, Percival, Leon - anyone but Merlin.
Why did it have to be Merlin?
"I did it for you," Merlin repeated softly, his gaze dropping to the ground.
The ground where water and blood were mingling together in a potent drink of death. So many corpses.
"I know," Arthur whispered. "I know. I know, I know, I know-"
"I did it for you," Merlin echoed himself. "Only for you. I-" He looked around.
He could not deny the carnage. He could not deny the bodies covered with Camelot's red. He could not deny the blood beneath his fingernails, the crazed look in his eye.
"I'm sorry." Tears leaked out of Merlin's eyes. "I tried to stop. I tried. I can't stop it, Arthur. You have to stop me. It - I've held it back for so long. I don't think I can do it any longer. Please. I would rather it be you. I didn't mean to."
"I know," Arthur said again.
Never had he felt more anguish. Not even for the death of his mother or his father or Morgana's betrayal.
"Please," Merlin begged, clenching his fists in front of himself.
"I know," Arthur repeated, kneeling next to his friend.
The words continuously echoed through the air even as he took the knife from his belt and rammed it into Merlin's heart.
A hint of a smile touched Merlin's face.
"Thank you," he whispered as Arthur lowered him to the ground. "Thank you."
The crazed look was beginning to fade. Arthur could see the blue again.
Merlin was Merlin.
Briefly, Merlin smiled.
As the rain began to halt and the clouds withdrew, Arthur stayed with the body of his friend.
When he looked up, the battlefield had been transformed. Flowers were growing out of everything - the bodies, the ground, the discarded swords and shields.
"I did it for you."