2.10: What He Said to the Other

The driver who'd given Arthur a ride in his delivery truck – cab windows wide open to blow the cicala smoke around and make small-talk unlikely - made his first stop at a small grocery on the outskirts of Drysell. Arthur took the opportunity to chat up the overweight, middle-aged woman behind the register, her head wrapped in a scarf and her boredom clearly showing.

She was more than happy to wax eloquent about her town and everyone in it. Arthur paid attention and left with a pretty good idea of the geography of the place – and she never noticed that he hadn't actually purchased anything.

As he trudged the paths of Drysell from commercial to residential, he considered pressing his intended warning for the undercover bartender into a more serious recommendation to leave Essetir. That required a shift to his own contemplated exit strategy, to include a passenger of unknown skill or ability level. Able to maintain deep cover in a village didn't necessarily translate to foot speed over rough or hostile terrain, ability to navigate coastal waters, and so on – though he didn't expect her to have neglected physical training, even for this assignment.

The sun rose wan, hindered by thin cloud cover, and gradually he was joined by a few people, then a few more. Early joggers, dog walkers, folks headed in to work. No one took much notice of him, and he was reasonably certain no one was deliberately not taking much notice.

Then the paths flooded with children heading for school and a host of adults to various jobs, and he was invisible in the streaming chaos. Taking advantage of that, he circled his target address twice at a distance.

Blue house, walnut tree, attached shed, no fence. Not much of a lawn, close enough that neighbors would hear raised voices, much less gunshots… And unless the military had commandeered one of the neighboring houses to stake out this one – and the grocery clerk would probably have thrilled to tell him such rumors – it wasn't being watched.

Yet.

There wasn't much Arthur could see of the interior from his casual, distant circling, but he suspected – if she lived alone – she wasn't there.

The last child scampered past, tiny colorful rucksack half off one shoulder, lunch clutched by a handful of brown paper, grin missing a tooth.

Arthur loitered under the walnut tree, watching him – watching everything – and absently slipped the handgun from his own pack to the back of his belt, tugging his shirttail down over it and rezipping and shouldering the pack.

Just in case.

The back of the house could be entered by three bare concrete steps, a three-foot-square landing, and a worn, empty screened porch. The interior door was ajar, but he could see nothing save vague shadows against the glare of the big front window opposite. Maybe a couch under the window.

All was quiet. He reached for the screen door handle, giving another sharply-encompassing glance round adjacent backyards-porches-windows. The corners where a person might stand to observe unnoticed were empty; he was certain of it. The hinges of the screen door threatened to squeal, but he was slow and cautious, slipping through sideways, letting his ruck swing off one shoulder, following him. Then the door wanted to slam, but he was ready for that too.

Porch empty save for two small cardboard boxes that might have been empty, and a pair of muddy yard-boots leaning disconsolately against their own weight. Arthur lowered his ruck soundlessly to keep them company, and reached to the small of his back to curl his fingers around the grip of the gun.

Something – keen hearing, instinct, experience - told him that despite appearances, the house wasn't deserted…

Scout's house, no matter how long her deep cover. He had no desire to provoke her defense unduly, so he slipped to the doorway without lingering. Peripheral said No one; his sense of smell guessed eggs-and-bacon for breakfast, and not long ago from the fried-grease scent lingering in the air. But as the light shifted and the angle corrected with his movement, he saw there was a person prone on the couch.

Motionless, breathing deep, asleep. One arm tucked over his chest and the other cocked over the armrest behind his head. One sock propping up a bent leg, the other dangling off the corner of the cushion, limbs too long for the furniture.

The psychic Arthur had been pursuing almost exactly twenty-four hours.

Why was he here?

Never mind – there was no time. It might seem like a windfall, finding him here and making the rest of his plan unnecessary, but... the last time that had happened to him, he'd brought a traitor-enemy-scout back to Camelot with him.

Arthur loosened the handgun from behind his belt, letting its weight pull his arm down, and stepped across the room, prowling deliberately careful of squeaky floorboards. By the time momentum brought his hand and weapon smoothly forward, it was inches from the grimy-messy black hair.

Not a hitch in the peaceful breathing, even when Arthur thumbed the safety and let the pad of his forefinger caress the trigger.

Genuinely asleep, the bastard.

Another thought struck him and he shifted past the arm of the couch, keeping the eye of the handgun trained on the psychic's skull, to peer out the sheer curtain, studying the far ends of the street and every bit of ground visible from his position. Still no Essetirian troops moving into position – but what could this possibly be, but a trap? The psychic here, Camelot's long-cover scout gone…

Keeping more than half his attention outside – a good section of the backyard also visible through open doorway and dingy porch- and kitchen-windows – Arthur deliberately let the nose of the handgun nuzzle through the black hair. Firmly to scalp and skull with the weight of the piece and Arthur's hand and arm behind it. He felt the jolt ripple through his own fingers, too.

The psychic twitched, waking with a start. He jerked away from the contact, twisting to see who or what, and – Arthur.

"Uh-uh," Arthur warned, and the psychic froze, cross-eyed to take in the threat of the handgun.

The moment stretched. Anything Arthur might say was superfluous, to a psychic. Anything the psychic might say was suspect.

Don't test me; I'll do it if I have to.

But the neighbors will hear, and then…

"Move slowly," Arthur told him. "Keep your hands where I can see them at all times. Sit up properly and put on your shoes."

Military surplus boots, there on the floor at the opposite corner of the couch, still tied as though they'd been kicked off belatedly. Smudged and with the treads stuffed with the dried mud and bits from a forest floor.

Arthur smirked to himself, knowing the psychic would have had a hike similar to his own, from wherever he'd come ashore. Served him right – and Arthur had done a better job, catching up-

Catching a stroke of luck, finding him here.

The bastard.

"How did you know I'd come here?" the psychic said confusedly, moving to obey as if he wasn't really paying attention to his surroundings. There was trepidation in his eyes but he was meeting Arthur's gaze – windows to the soul-

Arthur's plan involuntarily flickered across memory's eye – schematics from Alice, a hunting rifle, a sniper's shot.

The psychic flinched.

"Stop that," Arthur said furiously, retreating his own attention to the out-of-doors again.

Build the wall, high and thick and immediate. Ain't no one getting in, again.

"I'm not," the psychic mumbled. "I can't-"

Arthur wasn't listening, and the handgun never wavered, even with its weight contradicting his arm muscles.

"Boots on," he ordered.

No sign of Essetirian military; he couldn't see if Alice's house had its own comm-block for a spring-the-trap warning call… Unless the troop had its own psychic that could communicate with this one without that connection. They could remain completely hidden until then, too, and there would be nothing for Arthur to see til they were tipped and coming.

He'd have to take this one out, then hope to make good an escape on foot – if he could reach the forest outside of town first and relatively uninjured-

the thought made weariness and gravity drag on every inch of his body-

he could probably maintain his freedom and trajectory of escape.

"No one's coming," the psychic told him, sounding tired himself as he bent to retrieve his boots, but only held them balanced on thick soles atop his knee. "No one knows I'm here but Alice."

Arthur snorted derision even as he noted details – rumpled clothing, one sock inside out, long-sleeve t-shirt on backwards. "And you know very well there's no way I can believe anything you say."

The psychic lost a shade of color, but still held Arthur's eyes. Again. "I never lied to you. I just… didn't tell you everything."

I never lied to you… I want to be free. I know I need to get out, and I know I need help. True as truth, like shrapnel in Arthur's chest, twisting to find where he'd hidden his heart.

"That doesn't mean much," he said ruthlessly. "Not when you know exactly what to say to make people believe you. To make people trust you. And you know what they're thinking and that they're wrong about you, and then you keep your damn mouth shut."

The psychic didn't say anything, but his eyes glittered in a particular way and Arthur was done being manipulated.

"Boots. On."

The psychic focused on the laces, blinking rapidly.

Still no sign of troops. Arthur moved away from the front window – glanced out the back porch windows where nothing was happening, and checked the kitchen and the hall which led, he assumed, to bedrooms and bathroom. The doors were open, spilling light into an otherwise dim hallway, but Arthur's sense was pretty sure, Nobody else home.

He tried anyway, "Alice?"

"She's not here," the psychic said, dragging the sides of his boot open against loose laces. "She's gone to-" Abruptly he cut himself off, flicking an unreadable glance at Arthur.

"Gone where?" he said narrowly, then realized his mistake a split second before the psychic shot back his rejoinder.

"Won't believe anything I say anyway, remember?"

Arthur snorted again. And whose fault is that. Never should have believed…

I want to choose my own destiny.

Dammit.

"Hurry up," he said roughly. Maybe the psychic had already turned her in. Maybe he'd read Arthur's intent to come here and staged a trap with himself as bait…

Bait that could get shot any moment? Without troops ready to rescue? What kind of idiot decided to bait a trap with anything that wasn't expendable?

Did they consider him expendable? Surely not.

But then why blow his cover with a confession that also gave away his contact? Unless it was just another step in… an extremely convoluted plan.

He didn't suppose he needed to warn Gaius not to believe Nimueh if she pretended to flip loyalties and give them credible intel. And there was no way that she as a prisoner had better access than this psychic as a free man.

As a trusted friend.

Arthur's head was throbbing, and he spared a thought to wonder if Alice had painkillers in her bathroom medicine cabinet.

"Ah… What are you planning to do?" the psychic said, watching him warily. Boots on his feet – left untied – hands gripping his kneecaps.

"Take you into custody," Arthur said bluntly, ignoring the idea that the psychic should have known, could have read him, didn't need to ask the question at all. "Back over the border, under arrest for espionage."

Except he couldn't go without warning Alice…

Except, if she'd already been taken, it was a moot point.

Leave a note? Keep waiting? If the psychic expected backup, he'd keep pretending Alice had just stepped out to…

The psychic shook his head slowly. Firmly. Lips pressed so hard together they were as white as the rest of his face. "I won't go."

Somehow the handgun had drooped down to his side; he raised it swiftly. "You don't have a choice."

But he did… The psychic tensed, shifting his hands to the edge of the couch cushions as if he'd leap up – his gaze acknowledging the gun again as if to say, You won't risk the neighbors hearing.

"Oh, I would," Arthur assured him, with a hard sort of cheerfulness-

flashing once to the memory of the boy in Urhavi, down and bloody and not moving-

because that was this one taken care of, never to tell everything he had found out, and all Arthur had to do then was run.

"But not without Alice," the psychic guessed, damn him. He tensed and leaned his weight forward over his feet.

"You've got her locked in some dungeon cell somewhere for electro-shock torture," Arthur challenged.

The psychic shook his head. "No one here knows about her. She should be back-"

Arthur shook his head. Because of course that was what he'd say.

"If you shoot me and leave," the psychic said mutinously, "she'll come home to a dead body in her living room and the constables and military asking questions and she's not a strong enough psychic to sense that from far enough away to avoid it." And yet, he didn't move further to rise to his feet.

Stalemate, was it? Wait like the psychic wanted and play right into their hands? Or gamble with Alice's fate? He supposed he'd rather risk himself, but-

Maybe he could make the psychic take him to Alice's location. He'd rather be on the move than caged in a small room with this traitor anyway.

"Tie your shoes," he ordered. "We're going." Not taking his eyes or the point of his gun off the psychic, he backed into the kitchen, switching focus as necessary to rummage through the handiest drawers.

The psychic yanked his bootlaces tight, stood when Arthur glanced down into the drawer, and made it to the kitchen doorway when Arthur found what he was looking for.

"What are you-"

A slim pointed blade with a red plastic handle, good for slicing apples, maybe. Arthur twisted, flipping it left-handed from his fingertips and it stuck with a muted thump in the frame of the doorway, inches from the psychic's shoulder.

He flinched, eyes wide and nostrils flaring, and that second was all Arthur needed to arm himself with a black-handled knife better suited to carving ham. Blade like a tall slender sail, wicked-sharp. Slice onions or peppers or whatever with that chef-swift rocking motion in seconds flat.

"Oh," Arthur told him, "I will. If you're going to resist arrest, I'm going to make sure you never report back in."

The psychic looked out the kitchen window, turned to check out the front as if looking for an avenue of escape. Arthur shoved the gun down the back of his belt careless of the denim tail, and transferred the knife to his right hand. It never seemed to cross the psychic's mind to grab the little red-handled knife, though in his place Arthur would have made at least an attempt at self-defense.

"I won't leave Essetir," the psychic said, his obstinacy taking on a note of desperation as he turned his attention back to Arthur. "Not without… getting what I came here for. I know you don't believe me but I'm not trying to report back in like a good little Essetirian soldier. I need help to leave and this time Alice is helping me."

That same shrapnel, invisible and sharp, twisted in his chest like broken glass. As if Arthur's help over the mountain from Ealdor - whole-hearted and one-hundred-ten-percent-effort - had somehow been insufficient.

And yet, part of him that was either persistently objective or really really not, told him that was the truth. Truer than true.

"What did you come here for?" Arthur asked, passing the sink to glimpse another couple-dozen degrees of the outdoors – kitchen window and front window past the psychic in the doorway.

The psychic scowled. "You won't believe me."

Yeah, but I think I'll know if you're lying. Arthur stalked forward; the psychic stumbled back a few steps; Arthur yanked the second knife from the kitchen doorframe as he passed it, a threat of pain, not death.

The psychic dragged in two quickened breaths, eyeing the blades and tensing like a wild thing cornered by the bulk of the couch, before meeting Arthur's eyes again. "My mother," he said. "My mother, okay? They have my mother, ever since I was taken in the Institute and they said they'd – they said if I didn't make it over the border and convince Camelot I was defecting, they'd… they'd hurt her."

Arthur's first reaction was to laugh. Are you kidding me? How much more obvious can you get? You must think I'm stupid to fall for-

Ygraine Pendragon made international headlines that day. Not just because of who her husband was – rich and influential and respected – but because she was an intelligent and compassionate and driven individual, tireless in philanthropy. Iconic, they said. Beautiful, of course. Car accident on the way to the hospital, already in labor. They cut her open on the scene in an attempt to save him, even as she died. Meatball C-section done by a daring emergency tech because they weren't going to be able to free her from the wreckage in time to save them both. Testimony of witnesses said she demanded, insisted. And Uther evidently informed in hospital hours later, because he'd been elsewhere and intended to meet his wife there in the maternity ward…

Arthur's second reaction was an overwhelming desire to lunge forward and bury the knife in the psychic's chest so he would see what it felt like because it hurt. It worked. That choice of excuse…

"You can kill me," the psychic blurted, holding out his hands in a contradictory plea for nonviolence. "I'll go with you, out to the woods somewhere quiet and no one will ever find me and I'll go. If you swear to me you'll stay to speak to Alice and do your very best to find my mother and bring her safely to Camelot."

Damn him to hell. Because, true as truth.

Arthur didn't want to consider the possibility, didn't want to contemplate the traitor as a possible victim, himself.

Would not consider the trust inherent in the proposal, Arthur's word was good enough for him to die content.

And was saved from wallowing in the agonizing moment of indecision by a flash of movement in his peripheral, the suggestion of a shadow moving across the backyard toward the house, and a figure at the back step that was very definitely not an Essetirian soldier.

Alice let the screen door bang behind her, shoulder bag swinging at her hip, and froze momentarily to see him. Comfortably-round lady of the correct age to have been deep-cover here in Essetir for the past fifteen years. Long thick braid, some gray, round cheeks and sharp eyes. Baggy cotton trousers, faded blue-green work blouse, thick-soled walking shoes.

"I'm a scout of Camelot," Arthur told her swiftly, before she moved into action herself. "Check Care-Green-Speaker-Haunt. Yeah?"

She blinked, and looked at him differently, beginning to move forward to join them in the living room. "Counter Provincial-Steep-Elite."

He sighed relief; at least now he knew for sure that the Essetirians hadn't planted a fake Alice to support a trap. "I've come to warn you your cover is blown," he told her. "I'm going to take him into custody, back to Camelot for trial. Get packed, we need to move fast."

Instead of responding, or hurrying down the hall to bedroom or bathroom, she only turned her head to look at Merlin, as if being psychic made them automatic allies against him. His instincts bristled even as logic tried to reassure him – she was here, she was fine, they didn't have her yet… They hadn't gotten to her, threatened or coerced her, else she'd have given a different recognition code.

"This is Arthur Pendragon," Merlin said to her, as if that explained everything. What had he told her? He added a sarcastic repetition of Arthur's own introduction, "Scout of Camelot."

She lifted her chin in an Ah! reaction, and looked back at Arthur like Gaius sometimes did – Explain that choice you just made… if you can.

"What are you planning to do with my kitchen knife?" she said to him.

"Bury it in his heart," Arthur said callously. "Provided he has one."

Merlin's breath hissed through his teeth, and Alice raised an immediate hand to calm him. "He didn't mean it."

"Didn't I," Arthur muttered, rotating the black hilt through his fingers.

"I thought it was the side of the neck." Merlin managed to keep voice and gaze steady.

Arthur studied him narrowly. Yes, that had been his first instinct when the psychic came through the door of the shed across the street from the bed-and-breakfast. Maybe he should have…

"That will be quite enough of that," Alice told them both. "I can tell the difference between intent and bravado, so here's my rule – how about we all tell the truth?"

Arthur scoffed.

She turned on him. "And put those away, please?"

Instead, he stepped closer, reversing his rip on both handles so the blades tucked snugly up his forearms. Easy enough to use if necessary, but far less threatening. Still, she was a scout, not somebody's middle-aged neighbor or a jaded tender at the local watering-hole.

"Are you all right?" he asked her softly, studying her eyes and expression, double-checking. "They didn't figure you out? Find you, and threaten you?"

For a second she reacted taken aback, then relaxed so far as to lay a hand on his wrist, leaning in. "You really have nothing to worry about," she said to him. "No one knows about him or me or you – no one's coming. It's just us three."

"And he doesn't have to lie to deceive you," Arthur reminded her gently.

Merlin hugged his arms over his chest, scowling.

"I've just been to city records," Alice told him, as if continuing a conversation they'd begun earlier that morning before parting. "There's a flat building downtown the military owns – guards on both egress points, sophisticated security measures. The people who live there are under constant surveillance, some allowed monitored movement outside the property, some not. Hunith is not. I've brought a copy of that building's blueprints, and a layout of the city block."

Hunith. Arthur resisted the idea, the truth, the fact. Would not look at the psychic and wonder if she might resemble him, would not think in terms of mother and son.

Alice shifted to enter the kitchen; he heard the stiff rustle of a significant amount of high-quality paper folded in her shoulder-bag.

He resisted. Oh, he resisted.

But there simply wasn't another explanation that made sense. Unless… they needed to get him and their psychic out of the house where it was too close quarters and the chance too high of him eliminating their non-expendable scout, who was clearly deceitful enough to fool another psychic. They had to ascertain the identity of their target, then maneuver him to a location where he could be taken easily with a minimum of risk…

Alice looked at him over her shoulder, and shook her head; she looked sad.

He didn't want to be pitied. "If no one knows he's here, no one will know if we take him back to Camelot. Then we can assess the situation and gather more intel to see if a rescue mission is warranted."

If the woman really was held any kind of prisoner. If she really was anyone's mother. He wasn't yet ready to examine the traitor's behavior under the definition of coercion.

"No," Merlin said stubbornly; they ignored him.

"I was very young when I discovered my gift," Alice told Arthur softly. "I have always known when the people around me were being honest. Hiding feelings, lying, pretending… I have a hard time imagining what it is like for a scout who doesn't have my advantage, who must decide when to trust and when to doubt, when proof is incomplete or contradictory."

Well, Arthur had his instincts. But it seemed like, when it came to Merlin, his instincts were crap.

"He asked me for help once," Arthur told her, pointing at Merlin – who flinched, though the slim-sail blade was still tucked snugly against denim sleeves. "I chose to trust him, and he used it against me-"

"Not against you," Merlin tried to protest.

"Against my friends, my team, my unit, my country," Arthur spat, glaring at him, feeling sudden rage shiver through him again. Alice gripped his other arm, and it helped. A little. "How am I supposed to trust you now? Or ever again?"

"That's pain talking," Alice said, and Merlin's eyes shifted to her with dawning comprehension.

"And logic," Arthur snapped. Guess he couldn't stone-wall her out, huh?

"I don't…" Alice shook her head. "I literally don't know how you choose to trust someone. But if not him, perhaps you can trust me? Perhaps you can trust that I've not been deceived, that what I know and believe from my gift, is true?"

Arthur studied her. "Did you ever see the recordings?" he said abruptly. "The button on your mark? Did you ever watch those?"

"I haven't the equipment," she said.

Merlin was a statue, pale limestone with coal-dark eyes.

"Did you ask him when he first became aware of our surveillance?" Arthur said. If every moment of his time with Merlin had all been the act of a highly-skilled psychic scout, then he needed to go further back for genuine truth, and outside corroboration. "Or how they found out about it to initiate the plan to imbed him with us?"

Alice's eyes slid past him to lock onto Merlin, and there was uncertainty on her face – the clear answer, no she hadn't asked those questions.

"And you'll know if he lies," Arthur added.

"Why not answer," Alice said to Merlin. "He's still standing here with us, though he knows we can strip bare his soul. He hasn't even touched you."

The look on Merlin's face was almost unbearable. Fear of a different sort, old-deep pain and Arthur's instinct wanted to sympathize, to offer the sort of friendship that encouraged such confidence.

Damn frustrating instinct.

"I was… seventeen." Merlin swallowed dryly. "They found out because… I tried to talk to him. The man with the button. I tried to find out, who was watching, what they wanted, if they could… help. He didn't know, you see, so he didn't think about it, so I thought, if I asked then he would think about it, and I could find out." Alice inhaled, but didn't call him liar. "And if I knew, then maybe I could figure out a way to escape, if I had someone to go to, if I could find a way…"

That meant the little child on the recording, the boy – the youth who'd kicked and screamed and collapsed when they drugged him, didn't know he was being observed. And after?

"Bullshit," Arthur said suddenly. Otherwise those later recordings could have carried some hint, some plea – a glance, a sign, a blink.

"You people are so full of your suspicions," Merlin snapped. "I asked for help and you thought it was a trap-"

"Because it was," Arthur defended.

"And you thought about stabbing me rather than take the chance. How was I supposed to go about it, then? You tell me, what should I have done to be trusted by the enemies I wanted to beg to take me in?"

He was trembling, and translucent-pale, and Arthur abruptly wondered how much he'd eaten or slept in the past thirty hours or so. Purely as an academic exercise.

"I tried, and they found out. I lied to them about not being able to read who was on the other end of the surveillance-"

Which kept Alice untouched and unsuspected, here in this rundown little house and her job at a bar probably somewhat similar to th Sunrise…

"But this was their idea. I was too old for them to keep feeding me and housing me and clothing me and educating me without proving my usefulness, and they said my mother would ensure my loyalty because they weren't sure they could trust me otherwise, I was so resistant to the whole idea of the mission." He looked like he was going to throw up.

Alice said softly, "He's not lying."

Arthur shook his head. Maybe he could accept the facts of that story and maybe he suspected his sympathies had been found and touched deliberately, but… "You've had five months," he said, dropping his eyes to the floor and handling the knives like he was getting ready to put them away, because he was. "You've had five months to tell us. To come clean. We could have-"

"Locked me up til you could assess the situation and gather more intel. Decide if a rescue mission was warranted. Meanwhile my contact gets suspicious and that's what gets passed on-"

"Instead of what? all our secrets?" Arthur demanded, refusing the sympathy.

"And that's what gets my mother killed," Merlin finished stubbornly. "Excuse me for making her my first priority, over people I knew for a few months and still didn't – wouldn't – trust me."

Yeah. I did.

Arthur remembered the feeling of sinking into the armchair in Merlin's guest room at the Pendragon estate. The warmth of the vodka and the sleepy-late hour and the feeling of hesitation – Should I? say this? mention… possibilities? thoughts, musings… hopes? Opening his mouth to stutter an awkward proposal.

Hey. Wanna be… my friend?

Partner.

Because… y'know. People act like they wanna be friends? Cuz their parents told them, be nice to the Pendragon boy, his father is important. And rich. And then they all grew up and he didn't say it anymore, wanna be friends, because for a while, everyone did. And then he joined the military. And then he trained and worked hard, and no one bothered wasting time acting like they wanted to be friends, save for a very select few who were sincere.

I'm polite to everyone, it's good form, he'd told Merlin, two days ago on his own hillside. And it was humiliating now to think of what he'd added. But I only like a handful of people… and so happens, you're…

A traitor.

"You made a choice not to trust us," Arthur said to him without looking up from the blades. "That makes you our enemy."

Merlin inhaled, tensing, and Arthur could tell that from across the room.

Right back where they started. Feelings didn't change facts didn't change feelings.

"What about his mother?" Alice said to Arthur softly. "She doesn't deserve-"

"I'll surrender," Merlin said suddenly, his whole being igniting with a blaze of hope that made Arthur suspicious – then guilty – then suspicious again. "If you help me get her out of Essetir, I'll surrender to you and cooperate fully."

I want to defect.

Yeah, right.

Alice repeated, in a murmur that said she was trying not to provoke Arthur's temper, "He's not lying…"

Arthur shook his head again, and headed into the kitchen to put the knives back in their drawers, banging it shut hard enough to make the contents shift.

"Let me see those blueprints," he said to Alice, bending over the drop-leaf kitchen table to lift the ends and slide the lever underneath to hold first one, then the other in place. "He's got zero experience with this and I wouldn't sit here waiting while you did it on your own, no matter how capable of a scout you are."

"Oh…" Alice was quick enough to realize what he meant, reaching into her shoulder-bag to retrieve the papers. "Certainly – of course."

Arthur was aware that Merlin hovered in the doorway even as Alice joined him at the table to spread out the folded blueprints, but he ignored the psychic.

Go on, and walk out the door. Call your troops, spring the trap. Just like when he'd decided to comply with the psychic's request in Ealdor – play along and be ready for the possible betrayal…

Right up until he wasn't ready anymore, and then he was betrayed.

Damn you, Merlin.

That was the pain talking.

…..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*….. …..*…..

Merlin leaned against the doorway into the kitchen, feeling his pulse calm somewhat and his stomach settle along with the situation. His fingers found and worried the small gash where Arthur had thrown the little red knife as he watched Arthur lean over the blueprints and carry on an abortive murmured conversation with Alice.

"And the rear is-"

Her finger shifted. "But that's not the only-"

"Yeah. And this is the electric, and where's the-"

"Right here, in gray."

"So they don't have-

"No."

"Makes it harder."

"Yeah." Alice looked up at the other scout as if waiting for or relying on him to figure something out.

Arthur scrubbed a hand over his hair, stiffly disheveled from chasing Merlin, then rubbed it down his face, too.

Now that Merlin wasn't preoccupied with armed and angry, he was beginning to notice other things. Alice had stuffed him with bacon and eggs and he'd turned down the offer of a shower in favor of a nap while she was gone, but Arthur… He'd quit monitoring Arthur psychically when the scout fell asleep, but evidently it hadn't been for long. His clothes were just as grubby as Merlin's own.

Once he straightened, wincing as his hand explored the back of his hip – a week? or so? since the explosion in Aravia.

But he caught Merlin watching, and his expression and bearing blanked so abruptly if Merlin wasn't psychic, he'd doubt what he'd seen. White stone, smooth and seamless, as far as the eye could see, higher than seemed possible and whether that fire within was extinguished or raging out of control could not be told.

Dammit. His fault. Even if there were reasons, and good ones, this was his fault. He'd me the scout's overtures halfway again and again with grateful eagerness, encouraged and allowed and enjoyed the connection, offering everything he could back to the other.

I didn't mean to hurt you. It hurt me too, and I knew it would…

Alice looked up from the blueprint, glanced between him and Arthur. "What do you think, Merlin?"

She offered him a look at the paperwork with a gesture, but the first step into the room he took had Arthur retreating to the corner formed by two adjacent walls of cabinets.

Alice grimaced at him but added, "Have coffee, Arthur. At least – and you're welcome to anything you can find in the refrigerator."

"I packed supplies," Arthur said shortly – then looked aside at the coffee pot, still plugged in, and the little rack of clean mugs hanging from hooks. He reached to pour himself a cup, continuing, "I'm fine. Thanks for this."

"You're not fine," she retorted tartly. "And you know I know it. You're very proud, aren't you?"

He affected to ignore that, and Merlin drifted to the table. He believed he could help his mother though he had no clear idea how – just as when he'd left the Pendragon guest suite – but it seemed to work all right for him to make up his plan as he went along.

It did give him a greater appreciation for Arthur's skill, to do the same without any psychic benefit, though he was trained, after all. A moment ago, he had zero practical idea if the scout's arrival meant violence and ruin and failure – and now it seemed Arthur was once again going to shift his own plans to achieve his goal, abandoning one tactic to adopt another. And try to save someone else in the process. Commit himself to the risks – to himself, to his mission – to give someone else a second chance…

This was why it hurt – because he genuinely admired Arthur for most of the traits he'd observed, and the others weren't totally off-putting; the charm and cheek made up for the arrogance and assertiveness. Because he still wanted to be Arthur's friend.

And because he was willing to do this for Merlin's mother even though the irony of the situation was clearly painful, Merlin was going to submit entirely to Arthur's command for as long as Arthur himself accepted that.

The faint straight lines, crossing and connecting and obscuring each other, wavered in his vision and he made an effort to focus and actually read the blueprint instead of staring blindly.

"What do you think?" Alice said to him again.

The weight of Arthur's critical gaze was distracting, just like the Man in the interrogation room, day after day after… No. No, though - it really wasn't at all like that.

"It's free-standing," he recognized.

"It'd have to be, for the purpose they're using it for," Arthur disparaged immediately.

"Streets on two sides," Merlin continued, trying not to be embarrassed. Brushing his fingers over the thick paper, he tried to reach past – copy of original, drawn by, architect at his table, contractor with his crew, builder with his materials…

When he'd connected to his mother, over the years, he'd only focused on her in her rooms, not the layout or structure of the place. Too many connections and too vague.

"You've never seen it," he said to Alice. Because he wouldn't read her deliberately, without her permission.

"No, sorry," she said, and it sounded like she meant it.

"Yard at the back?" he continued uncertainly, trying again to read paper and ink, alone.

"Empty lot," Arthur said neutrally, lifting his cup to sip at the hot black coffee.

"This building next?" Merlin said. There were only edges shown, which didn't indicate proximity or height, that he could tell.

"Alley between them. Eight, ten feet." Arthur didn't move from the corner and he couldn't possibly see from there; he'd memorized that, then – and Merlin wasn't really surprised. "Same number of stories, but the ceilings on that neighbor building are two feet higher – each one, so the roof ends up being nearly ten feet higher. And it's a government building, too – means an alarm system, night-guards and so on."

Merlin could not tell if Arthur had already seen a weakness to exploit, so he opened his mouth to begin suggesting options as he recognized them.

"A pair of guards at front and back door at all times, checking ID, right? But there's got to be windows on the ground floor, around the corners where they can't see…"

"If there's anyone in that room-"

"I could tell which rooms were empty," Merlin argued.

"We can't just smash in, we don't have glass-cutters, and ten to one there are alarms to keep the inmates from opening a window and hopping out, no matter what floor they're on."

"Inmates," Alice repeated, her tone indicating disapproval for Arthur's choice of terms.

But he wasn't really wrong. If Merlin's mother had left the premises in the last twelve years, he wasn't aware of it.

"Can we go up from below?" he said, trying to pick out foundation-lines from the entire-skeleton blueprint.

"Nope." Arthur sucked more energetically at his cup, rejuvenated by the caffeine or encouraged by marginal cooling, or both.

"What about down from above?" Merlin tried next. "Jump the alley from the taller building? Then maybe use the air vents?" A moment after he said it, he remembered that it had been a key piece of the plot climax in the second Lawrence Leclair move, the sequel to the book Arthur had loaned him.

Arthur snorted. "In real life, heating and cooling systems have fans and filters and so on, they aren't just wide-open tunnels of supportive galvanized steel covered by flimsy grates."

"Could you make some kind of smoke bomb to pop down it, and when someone pulls the fire alarm and everyone has to rush outside, maybe we could-"

"They'd have planned for that," Arthur said, sounding regretful. "Probably they have everyone going out the back – there are fire escapes on that side of the building, too, that the back door guards – and gather in the yard to be counted and monitored, during an alarm."

Alice made a noise of rueful agreement. "That's how I'd do it…"

"So, then…" Merlin was out of ideas. He looked at Alice, who frowned into midair like she was trying and failing, also.

"It's meant to keep certain people in, and certain people out," Arthur stated conclusively, "They've succeeded with that for years, I would assume?"

Alice nodded, and Merlin realized she would have heard if someone had escaped. Probably even if they'd tried, only, and failed.

"They're not amateurs," Arthur said.

Merlin recognized the particular look of stubbornness – evaluation; grudging respect; determination to conquer - in the squint of his eyes, with a little pang of loss. And at the same time, a little pang of hope, because Arthur Pendragon, Scout of Camelot, was a force to be reckoned with, after all.

"I need to have a look for myself," Arthur told them.