Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.

What on earth was he going to tell Merlin's mother?

Odd that he should think about that just then. Surely there were more pressing issues deserving consideration at that moment. The world was just about upside down in every way imaginable. But for the life of him, Arthur could think of a single one. Merlin was lying on the stone of the corridor, motionless and magical, beaten and broken, struck down by his own hand. It seemed like only a few seconds ago that Merlin had been relentlessly working to murder Arthur, and now he was on the ground and looked so still and it had all happened so suddenly that Arthur found that he could not catch his breath. Merlin had been alive and upright with eyes burning with magical malevolence only moments ago, and now he might not be and there was none of it and Arthur couldn't breathe properly and what on earth was he going to tell Merlin's mother?

Arthur closed his eyes for a few moments, inhaling deeply as he tried to slow his heartbeat. This wasn't the time to think about Merlin's mother. This wasn't the time to think about what Merlin had done or why he had done it. This wasn't the time to think about anything that wasn't of immediate concern. Arthur just had to slow down and look around him and evaluate the situation before he could take any action. One thing at a time. The fact that the person who had been actively attacking him was now…incapacitated...did not mean that Arthur was at all safe. While almost certainly less powerful than Merlin had been, surely the remaining sorcerers who had not been flung over railings or melted their brains into tiny bits within their skulls were still more than capable of killing the king. Arthur just had to keep his head and, as his breath began to return to an even pace, he opened his eyes. One thing at a time…

There was Merlin, just as still and sunken on his back, head lolled to the side, as he had been when he had first fallen. Biting his lip, Arthur began to weave his way toward the fallen sorcerer. Merlin was less than twenty feet away, but it took Arthur more than a minute to reach him; between the scattered debris, Arthur's exhaustion, and an uncertainty in his equilibrium that made him suspect that perhaps his broken arm was not the most significant of his many injuries, he had to choose his footfalls carefully. Falling down wouldn't do anyone any favors. Besides, Merlin didn't exactly look to be going anywhere.

Still, sooner than he would have liked, he reached Merlin. Arthur ran a quick evaluation of his own body, not entirely certain that he'd be able to get back up if he sank into a crouch. There was a strange sort of disconnect between Arthur's body and his mind, and it wasn't until he moved his right arm a little bit more than he should have and the pain jolted up his shoulder that he came back to what senses remained of him. He was sore and scraped and bloody, but he could remain upright. Even his arm wasn't so bad, so long as he didn't make any foolishly dramatic gestures with it. Thus reassured that he was physically capable of it, Arthur took a very deep breath and bent stiffly to crouch over Merlin.

It was strange. Merlin looked different, and Arthur couldn't place why. It wasn't the dirt or the scratches or even the pallor that made him look suspiciously lacking in life. Arthur had seen him bloody and ill on plenty of occasions in the past. Hell, Arthur had made Merlin work bloody and ill on plenty of occasions in the past. Normally, Merlin bloody and ill wouldn't even have been too particularly alarming. His eyes were shut, but they'd shared enough campsites and Arthur had caught him napping enough times that Merlin with closed eyes was hardly an unfamiliar sight. His mouth was closed; that was something of a rarity, but even Merlin had been known to lapse into the occasional tactful or—more often—spiteful silence. Everything was more or less normal…why should he look so different now?

Then Arthur realized. He'd seen Merlin more or less in this position plenty of times before, but never had the young man been so still or so…close. Whenever Merlin had been out like this, there were more important things to do than just look at him. There was fighting to do and people to kill and backing up to allow Gaius to do some curing or finding something heavy to throw at Merlin to wake him from an unsanctioned nap. Now, there was nothing to do, nothing to fight or fix or fling. So Arthur just watched.

Merlin looked terribly young. Arthur supposed that it might have been because he didn't have one of his expressions of weariness or worry or frustration or exasperation, the looks that were so often on his face that the absence made him look almost like he had when Arthur had first met him, the foolish young man who'd only known life in a village boasting of a smaller population than the number of servants who'd waited upon Arthur. Merlin had been so stupid, Arthur thought. He just showed up and mouthed off to the prince and gotten himself into trouble. Why would he come to Camelot anyway? Magic was illegal. Had Merlin had such a death wish? If Arthur and Uther were not going to execute him for the sheer impudence that he insisted on displaying daily, he had to know the risks of practicing sorcery, no matter what lengths he might go to in order to do so in secret. Merlin had been so stupid…

Arthur sighed and tilted Merlin's chin toward the sky, carefully avoiding checking for signs of life. As reassuring as it would have been to find a pulse, an absence of one would have been more than Arthur could bear just then. He just hadn't liked the way in which Merlin's head was bent off to the side; it made him look as though his neck was broken, and Arthur didn't like seeing him that way.

Now able to glimpse more than just a profile of Merlin's left side, Arthur found himself wishing that he'd just left Merlin alone and kept him in the previous position. Merlin looking young and innocent and stupid and broken-necked wasn't so bad, really. Looking at Merlin's whole face…there was no naivete there. The Merlin who had come from Ealdor was gone. This was the face of the man that Camelot had turned him into.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. At first, Arthur didn't even notice; what blood was on Merlin's face had all seemed to have come from his nose and, even when Arthur gently wiped Merlin's face as clean as was possible with a sleeve already stained with his own blood, Arthur didn't realize. It was only when Arthur noticed that a patch of skin around Merlin's mouth was surprisingly swollen that it occurred to him. Merlin had bitten his cheek and probably tongue when he had hit the rock. Arthur let go of Merlin's head at the unpleasant realization and, freed of the stabilization, Merlin's face lolled toward Arthur, displaying clearly in the pale moonlight that provided their only illumination the right side of Merlin's face.

Arthur sat down very hard on the stone.

There was a hand-shaped welt slowly rising on the right side of Merlin's face, the spot where he had placed his palm to strike himself down burnt red by whatever he had done. Merlin hadn't exactly had much in the way of facial hair, but whatever fuzz he'd had on his face—he'd apparently not taken any breaks in his frantic flight from the citadel to do any basic grooming—showed clearly enough the severity of the burn. All of the hairs that had been on his cheek when he'd placed his hand on his skin were burnt clear off, and a series of white blisters were already rising from his earlobe. As Arthur forced himself to look more closely, he saw that there were two distinct finger-shaped lengths, extending past his hairline above his ear, on which the hair was shorn, pink scalp showing through the balded lines. It was as though someone had branded the side of his face with a hand-shaped iron.

The first thing that Arthur thought was that it was only fair for Merlin to have a bit of mauling to his face; he'd already scraped away half of the skin on Arthur's.

The second thing that Arthur thought was that he was glad that he'd suffered no similar attack; even if Merlin's hair would ever grow back into those balded streaks, Arthur wouldn't have wanted to have to live with how silly it would have certainly looked with his crown.

The third thing that Arthur thought was that it was good that Merlin hadn't had a finger on an eye when he'd done what he'd done. Flesh might blister and hair might smoke; burnt eyes were hardly so recoverable.

And the fourth thing that Arthur thought was that Merlin was probably dead.

Arthur leant to his other side and was sick.

After a moment, he pushed himself back up, wiping his mouth with a sleeve that was—between the vomit and the blood of two utterly battered men—now thoroughly covered in filth. He also found himself wishing that he hadn't pushed himself up so…abruptly. His vision swam in front of him and he had to cover his mouth to keep from vomiting again.

"Why does Merlin always have to go for the head?" Arthur muttered, trying not to heave. Very slowly, he rose to his feet. Sitting was by far the more comfortable alternative, but he had the feeling that comfort would be a very bad idea just then. He was already exhausted, and if he was too comfortable, he might fall asleep, and if he felt asleep with his head feeling the way it was…well, he just might not wake back up. And if he was going to die this night, it was not going to be because he nodded off after a concussion, even a concussion so...concussing as this.

Besides, he realized with a jolt, he had to move, didn't he? He couldn't very well just stay there. The battle between Arthur and Merlin had made plenty of noise, and surely some of the other enchanted enemy sorcerers would think to chase down the source. Not that it had really been much of a "battle." He'd been too busy getting himself magically beaten half to death to do much battling. But it had been noisy. He and Merlin wouldn't be safe here. They needed to—

"Oh," Arthur said aloud, grimacing. He and Merlin needed to go somewhere safe. Both of them, and Merlin wasn't exactly at his most spry. Even if he was still alive, Merlin didn't look as though he was going to be up and running any time soon. Still, there had to be something that Arthur could do.

Maybe he should throw some water on Merlin's face…Arthur reached for his waterskin at his belt before he remembered that he didn't have a waterskin. He never carried a waterskin at his belt.

Maybe he should shout in Merlin's face until Merlin woke up. That was one of the ways that Arthur would wake Merlin up from a nap. But maybe that was a bad idea. He remembered that the whole reason why he wanted to leave because they'd made so much noise, Merlin with his blasting and Arthur being blasted…maybe the shouting would be as bad as the blasting. Alright, Arthur decided woozily. No shouting.

Maybe he should kick Merlin, just kick him in the ribs until he woke up. Maybe not kick. Nudge, more like. Yes, nudging would be better. Maybe he should just nudge Merlin until Merlin woke up. But something about that felt like a bad plan. He didn't see what was wrong, not exactly, but something felt terribly off…maybe the nudging Merlin awake wasn't the best plan.

But honestly, what could he do? He couldn't very well carry Merlin, not with the shape that his arm was in. Even dragging him was out of the question; the debris from the various ways in which Arthur was getting himself beaten half to death littered the corridor. They were practically walled in by the remnants of Merlin's destruction. Besides, Arthur had the growing suspicion that if he didn't make his escape quickly, he wouldn't be able to manage it at all. Everything felt so heavy… and now his legs were wobbling. Why would his legs be wobbling? He didn't remember hurting his legs. Well, not comparatively. Still, he wasn't very stable, and that wouldn't do at all. Wanting very much not to do something stupid like fall over, Arthur clenched his fingers around the hilt of his sword—feeling clumsy and strange in his left hand—and bent to lean on the blade for support.

Arthur fell to his knees, empty stomach heaving again. He didn't have a sword, he remembered. He hadn't had a sword for ages. He'd lost it when he'd faced the skinny sorcerer, before Merlin had even shown up. He didn't have a sword…

For the first time since Merlin had collapsed, Arthur began to feel genuine fear for himself. He'd forgotten that he didn't have a sword…how could he have forgotten that he didn't have a sword? This wasn't right. He wasn't right. This wasn't right...

It didn't matter, Arthur thought suddenly. What mattered was that he and Merlin escape before more attackers showed up. That was the only way. He and Merlin needed to get away, find somewhere safe to hide out, so that Arthur could go ahead and collapse in peace and Merlin could go ahead and wake up and fix Arthur before he died. It would all be okay, if only Arthur could figure out how to do it.

He wanted to weep and he didn't know why. His eyelids were awfully heavy. But that wouldn't do at all. He couldn't have heavy eyelids because he couldn't close his eyes because if he closed his eyes he would fall asleep and he didn't remember why but he knew that that would be bad.

He discovered that he was standing up again. When had that happened? He'd been on his knees because he didn't have a sword and then…

He shook his head, ignoring the queasiness from the movement as he tried to perk himself up. He almost wished that an attacker would show up. He could use the spike in his heart rate.

Blinking rapidly, he stopped shaking his head and stared straight before him, and he looked at the person standing in front of him.

He saw Guinevere, but not as she was then. She was not garbed in silks and satins and velvets, tripping over the hems that were too long but required for a queen and hoping that no one noticed as she stumbled. There was no crown on her head, no jeweled garlands woven into her hair, no necklaces at her throat. There was no expression on her face that was so dignified and so regal that it was almost impossible to detect the discomfort that she had not yet managed to wholly banish. She was as she was before she had loved him, before he had loved her. She was innocent and endearing and free of the worries that came from years of hopelessly loving a man that she should not have even addressed without a preceding curtsy. She was why he had fallen in love with her and why he loved her still. And he knew what she wanted of him.

I'm sorry, Arthur said to his wife, with all of the love in his heart. But I can't just leave him here.

Then Guinevere melted away and turned into his father, a transition that Arthur would have normally found very disturbing had he not been otherwise preoccupied with trying to remain conscious. His father wasn't standing, but that wasn't unusual. He was the king; who was he supposed to stand for? Arthur was more powerful than almost anyone else in the whole kingdom, but he was always still second. So Uther remained sitting, because he was first. When had his throne appeared? It hadn't been there when Guinevere had stood before him. Yet Uther sat in his throne, slumped back, legs spread wide, arms comfortable, with such presence that even such relative casualness commanded a respect that Arthur had yet to fully achieve. Uther's crown was straight on his head, and he didn't blink at all. He didn't even have an expression, just a frown that was not so much of displeasure as of disappointment. Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and Uther's unblinking gaze followed him in silence. Uther sat there motionlessly, and Arthur was afraid.

I know, Arthur said to his father, with all of the respect that he possessed. But I can't just leave him here alone.

Then Arthur's father was gone and his throne along with him, replaced by Arthur's mother, beautiful and blonde and younger in death than Arthur was in life. What a strange thought; he was older now than his mother ever would be. That wasn't how it was supposed to work, was it? Mothers and fathers are meant to be older than their children, always. There wasn't supposed to be any other way. But she should have lived long enough to see her son walk, to hear him speak, to see him swing a sword, to don his crown and take his wife and father sons of his own…yet she was dead and he was alive and...and it was all because of magic that Arthur had never known a mother. Wasn't it?

I'm sorry, Arthur said to his mother, with all of the sadness that he'd ever felt. But I can't just leave him here alone to die.

Then his mother was gone and Arthur saw himself. He saw himself as he had been a decade before, lacking the cares that he held now, before he'd seen more in Guinevere than a serving girl, before Morgana had been anything other than his sister in all but blood, before he'd bothered to learn any of his menservants' names because of how swiftly he tired of and dismissed them…when he'd kept tallies of those he'd killed, remembering their numbers rather than their faces, when battle was little more than a tourney with real blades, when the final decisions never had to be his because he was only the prince…he saw himself standing tall, arm unbroken, skin unbloodied, face without any lines or crinkles, hair golden without one of the occasional greys and whites that Merlin claimed were there but that Arthur would deny until his dying breath because his hair was light already and no one would be able to tell and Merlin was probably lying anyway because he was annoyed at Arthur for managing to spill wine on his sheets. Arthur saw himself when he didn't bother wearing a dagger in his boot because it didn't occur to him that he'd ever lose his primary weapon, his armor was barely scratched, his mail not even needing mending yet, a shield at his feet because he never used it outside of tourneys, a sword in his hand that wasn't Excalibur…

I remember, he said to himself, with all of the bitterness that he hadn't known that he felt. But I can't just leave him here alone to die, to be dead. He wouldn't leave me.

Then he saw himself turn into Merlin and, if he hadn't been distantly aware that none of this was actually real and that his brain was probably dripping out of his ears, Arthur would have tried to look away. Guinevere, Uther, his mother…they'd all appeared at different stages in their lives, but they'd been as Arthur might have seen them. They had appeared as he would have wished them. But this false Merlin was just as the real one was, broken and bloody and pale, the only differences being that this Merlin was standing upright and his eyes were open. Somehow, the recognizable signs of life made the rest of his image all the more terrible. But the eyes were all Merlin, and Arthur focused on those and he saw in them what the others had been too busy loving him in their own ways to come out and say. Merlin was telling him to flee, telling him to hide, telling him that he was being stupid, calling him some name that Arthur didn't think was actually an existing word but recognized the tone well enough to understand that it was an insult. Merlin was telling Arthur to leave him behind and go away and be safe.

"Shut up, Merlin," Arthur told him.

Then Merlin's shade disappeared. He did not turn into anyone else, and Arthur wondered if the cessation was because his head injury was affecting him so much now that it would not even allow him the comfort of his hallucinations or if it was because he had run out of the most important people in his life with which he could have had imaginary conversations. Guinevere's image, Uther's memory, Ygraine's ghost…they were all gone.

But Merlin-the real Merlin-was still there.

Arthur suddenly found himself falling again and sitting down very hard on the cracked stone of the corridor, his knees buckling in on themselves. His head hurt dreadfully, and he thought that maybe his scraped face was bleeding again. It was odd, though. When had he decided to sit?

It didn't matter, really. Sitting was feeling pretty good. He had a distant inkling that sitting was supposed to be bad, but he didn't care. It was much better than standing. Comfortable for the first time in what felt like ages, Arthur leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

After what may have been a few seconds or a few minutes or a few hours, Arthur heard a scratching sound. It was muffled at first, as though Arthur was trying to listen to something with pillows pressed over his ears. As he began to rouse himself a bit, the sound became clearer. The scratching was strangely soft, like boot leather scraping along stone as someone tried to walk in a straight line. He smiled a very little bit as he realized what a specific assignation of the sound that he'd given. It was a sound that he associated with wanderings back to his chamber when particularly...inebriated...and trying not to seem it, but he doubted that these steps were those of a drunken king being herded along by a tutting and slightly amused manservant. Yet steps they were. Someone was moving. Someone else.

Still, when Arthur finally opened his eyes, the first thing that he looked at was Merlin. Deep down and even despite the fact that he'd never even properly looked Merlin over after seeing the mess that was the burned half of his face, Arthur knew that Merlin wasn't moving, and he certainly wouldn't be walking down the corridor toward Arthur. Arthur's brain may have felt like mush, but he had to believe that he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't tell near from far. Yet he looked at Merlin and hoped. Just in case.

It wasn't Merlin.

Too tired to do much caring anymore, Arthur was just about to shut his eyes again when it occurred to him that he probably ought to figure out just what that scraping sound had been. Just because it hadn't been a spontaneously reanimated Merlin didn't mean that it wasn't important. Shaking his head again and scowling at himself, Arthur looked around.

And Arthur saw.

He didn't like what he saw, though, so he shut his eyes, counted to five, then opened them to look again.

He saw.

So he shut his eyes, counted to ten, then opened them to look again.

"Ah," said Arthur, breathing heavily. He wondered how he was making the most noise; there were so many more of them, and he hadn't heard them, not really. He'd only heard the one, and that was only because that one was injured enough to drag a foot. How had they even all gotten there? He was surrounded, and they were just staring at him. How had he let this happen? And why hadn't they just gone ahead and killed him?

There were a dozen of them, at least. Maybe more. The sorcerers had made a sort of half circle around him and Merlin, trapping the pair between them and the wall. Arthur's only escape route was now blocked by a wall of enemies, none of whom seemed to be quite as beaten up as Arthur was. Their eyes all still glowed golden, none of them flickering like Merlin's had before he'd taken himself out of the fight. Their faces were blank and, although they all seemed to be constantly swaying and shifting their weight for some reason that was beyond Arthur, they remained shoulder to shoulder. There would be no breaking through the ranks. It was terribly eerie, and that the silence was broken only by Arthur's breathing and the scraping footfalls of the arriving sorcerer just made everything worse.

Arthur sat there stupidly, waiting for one of them to do something rather than just stare sightlessly down at the heap of incapacitated men that was Arthur and Merlin. They didn't even do anything when the new arrival made his to their grouping, just shifted as he shouldered his way forward to the front to stand just before Arthur.

Arthur almost laughed when he saw who it was, stopping himself because he was fairly certain that he'd just vomit again. Yet it was so ridiculous and so unexpected that Arthur supposed that he should have expected it and so fitting that Arthur knew that it wasn't another hallucination. He didn't have his wits about him nearly enough to have come up with something at all sensible.

It was the skinny sorcerer, the man that Merlin had flung over the balcony, breaking the railing with the impact and sending him down to the stone courtyard below. It was the skinny sorcerer, the first who had found Arthur and would have killed him if another malevolent sorcerer had not wanted to kill him even more. It was that damn skinny sorcerer, who should have been dead and—from the look of his legs and crook of his neck—would be dead once the sun rose and the spell broke. It was so ridiculous and so horrifying that Arthur remembered why magic was so dangerous and could be so...wrong. An unexpected wave of pity washed over him. This man should have been dead. He should have been allowed to be dead. This prolonged life for the sole purpose of inflicting death was just cruel. He couldn't even die of his own volition.

His legs were broken and his spine bent, but his eyes glowed gold. Beneath the pity, Arthur wished that the skinny man had not made his way to the front of the pack of sorcerers. They were all almost certainly capable of killing him, but the skinny sorcerer had reason to hold Arthur to something of a grudge, he supposed. At least the legs explained the sound.

It probably didn't matter if there was any grudge anyway, he thought to himself. Even if the skinny sorcerer—of any of the others, for that matter—intended to torture or torment before killing him, he knew damn well that he wouldn't last very long. Another bump to the head would probably finish him, he thought, almost smiling. This was not a very promising situation for the king.

"If there was ever a time for you to surprise me," Arthur told Merlin's body. "This would probably be a good time to do it."

He gave Merlin an encouraging punch on the shoulder for good measure.

Merlin didn't answer.

Arthur wasn't surprised.

So, with the last of his energy, Arthur climbed to his feet, clutching a bit of loose rock that was the closest thing to a weapon that he could manage. He looked at each of the sorcerers in turn, face after face after face. Some of them he knew, mostly peasants from the lower village, although he thought that he recognized a girl from the castle kitchens. More he did not recognize, clearly wanderers beckoned to the citadel against their wills. And yet they all looked the same, glowing eyes and absent expressions. That was good. Easier.

Arthur clenched his fingers tightly around the rock, as tightly as he had clung to his phantom sword, and planted his feet as solidly as he could, hoping that if his knees gave out that he'd fall backward to lean upon the wall rather than forward onto his face. Fighting one final urge to be sick, he raised his chin level with those of the people set on killing him for no reason other than that they had magic and someone was using it against them. Arthur wiped blood off of his forehead with his sleeve.

"All right," said Arthur, addressing the assembled sorcerers. His voice rang in his ears, and he tossed the rock up and down in his left hand. He wasn't tired anymore. "Let's have it, then."

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Okay, I gave myself a headache on this one, but it's written, so it's getting posted. I'm not a fan of this one, but hopefully some others will be able to read it without needing some Tylenol afterward. :)

Thank you for reading, and please review!