When the knights of Camelot infiltrated the druid camp with violent intent, Merlin knew he had messed up.

He'd only wanted to help Morgana, not put the druids in harm's way. He certainly never intended to lead Arthur and his men straight to them. There were women there, children too, and with Uther's hunt first, ask questions never attitude when it came to magic, Merlin feared for what the knights were about to do.

But there was no time to try and help them. He needed to get Morgana out of there. If she wasn't in the camp, maybe Arthur would believe that she hadn't been kidnapped. Maybe he would go easier on them.

The branches scratched his skin as he ran through the forest, Morgana stumbling along behind him in the arms of the druid. Her cries of pain were echoing through the trees and Merlin knew that it wouldn't be long before one of the knights discovered them.

He needed to lure the men away.

Seeing a break in the path, he let the pair hobble on in front of him as he went the other way, eyes darting around for any sign of the knights. There were twigs breaking underfoot and sounds of shouting all around but it was so unclear how close anyone actually was to them.

In the end though, it didn't matter how close the knights were. Arrows can hit their target from a great distance when released from a crossbow.

Merlin felt his breath leave his lungs in an instant as something lodged itself in his side. He felt his stomach flip as his knees went out from under him, his back hitting the forest floor with a thud. He felt the leaves under his fingers as he scratched at the mud, trying to reach something, anything that could help.

Until finally, he felt nothing.

Arthur had spent what was left of the late morning updating his father on Morgana's rescue and the condition of the druid camp. It had been an early start and a long ride, but their suspicions had proven correct, leading them straight to Morgana and her kidnappers.

She had been quiet for most of the ride home and though Arthur had put it down to the excitement of the kidnapping and the pain in her leg, he had an inkling there was more to it. And well, he would hardly be a very good prince if he didn't check in on her.

Knocking on the physician's door, he didn't wait for a reply before entering. Gaius, who was standing at the table, gave a small nod as he closed the door. He looked deep in concentration, the contents of the vial he was holding sloshing as he swirled it gently.

Morgana was perched on the edge of the bed, long flowy dress pulled up to her knees to reveal the fresh bandage wrapped around her wounded leg. She looked better than when he'd dropped her off here earlier, less on edge. He liked to think it was because she was back in Camelot, but he had a feeling it was more Gaius' doing. She had been known to lean on him for reassurances in the past.

"Did Uther send you to escort me back to my chambers?" Morgana huffed, her long hair falling into her face where it had come free of its clasps. "You know I'm perfectly capable of going by myself."

"This morning's events might beg to differ." Arthur replied with a smirk, finding immense joy in Morgana's exasperated eye roll. "But no, I was just coming to check you were okay. How's the leg?"

If she was surprised by his sincerity, she didn't show it. Instead choosing to glare at him as she bluntly replied. "It's fine."

"It will be fine, as long as you rest it." Gaius interrupted quickly, moving over to the bed to hand her the vial. "Here you go, for the pain."

She looked at them both warily, reluctant to take the tincture but sipping it dutifully anyway. In all honesty, she'd been lucky. Lucky that she had not been in the presence of the druids long enough for them to hurt her more seriously, or worse. Morgana didn't have the same understanding of magic as he and Uther. She didn't want to believe how dangerous it could be, how deadly. Her predilection of seeing the good in people was admirable at the best of times, but it also allowed for situations like this to occur. She was too trusting and one day that might just be her downfall.

But not today. Arthur had brought her home and she was safe once more.

Gaius took the empty vial as it was handed back to him and gave Morgana permission to be on her way.

"Well, I best be off as well then." Arthur gave a nonchalant smile, but Morgana saw right through his words. She wobbled slightly as she stood, dress dropping down to brush the floor, but batted off Arthur's helping hand with far more force than was probably necessary.

"Arthur, I'm serious. I don't need your help. Don't you have anything else that needs doing?" She stared him down, the little crease between her eyebrows deepening as she did. It seemed the old Morgana had returned in its entirety. Arthur broke the eye contact first with a huff. If she didn't want his help, then so be it, it's not like he'd spent the morning trying to save her life or anything.

He watched her hobble over to the door, limp much less pronounced than when they had first arrived in Camelot, before turning his attention to the physician.

"Speaking of work— Gaius, where's my servant?" He tilted his head trying to peer into Merlin's room, as if the boy would magically appear upon hearing his name. "He's not still pining, is he?"

"Pining?"

He glanced over at Morgana's interruption but thought better about revealing Merlin's recent infatuation of her – as amusing as it would be to see her reaction.

"Uhh no Sire, I haven't seen him…but I'm sure he's…around." Gaius replied unconvincingly, mirroring Arthur's glance towards the open door of the bedroom.

"Around?"

"Are you an echo now, Morgana?" Arthur questioned, turning to face her. Her hand rested on the door handle, but she didn't look to be in any rush to open it.

"No it's just—" She hesitated, running her lip between her teeth. "He's not back yet?"

"Back?"

"Who's the echo now?" Morgana pursed her lips, her tone holding the kind of attitude towards him that was honed after years of living together. "He was at the druid camp."

"When?" Arthur bit back with a frown. This was the first he'd heard of this.

"Earlier. When you found me. He was there too, trying to help."

"I didn't see him." Arthur glanced at Gaius, but the old man looked just as confused. "And he didn't ride back with us."

"Do you think I'm lying?"

"No, it's just—" Arthur paused, unsure of how to finish his sentence. It was just what? Odd that Merlin had managed to follow them from Camelot but still get to Morgana before them? Yes. Weird that no-one else had seen him at any point? Definitely. Strange that he apparently hadn't been seen since? Without a doubt.

A searing pain in Merlin's side yanked him back into consciousness. He didn't remember passing out but in that moment he wanted nothing more than to return to that blissful darkness.

His fingers twitched against the ground, not quite having the energy to move and his lungs felt heavy in his chest, huffs of breath coming out quick and shallow as his heart pounded against his ribs.

Something was digging into his back, a tree root most likely or one of the broken twigs that littered the forest floor, and the tops of the trees swayed as they towered over him. He didn't know how much time had passed but the bright blue of the sky could still be made out between the leaves, so it was not nearing evening just yet. Thank goodness, he could already feel a chill clinging to his skin and a night in the forest would have been ten times worse.

The world was quiet around him. A slight breeze was rustling the leaves and the sounds of birds and other animals echoed in the distance, but no human life - neither knight nor druid - could be heard. He was alone.

He slowly crept his hand along his side, mind still drawing a blank as to what was causing the pain, but the second his fingers brushed against the object embedded above his hip, the memory of the arrow slammed back into him. He let out a choked off groan as his whole body suddenly went numb with shock. His side was on fire and now he knew exactly why.

Slowly this time, he repeated the movement, taking care not to knock the arrow as he probed the tender area around it. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before, digging deep under his skin, and the material was already starting to soak through with what he assumed was blood.

He couldn't stay there much longer.

Gaius would be furious with him if he knew what he was about to do, but he could hardly make the journey all the way back to Camelot with an arrow sticking out of him. Besides, it might be stopping him from bleeding out right now, but he wouldn't need the object to plug the wound once he'd healed himself.

He took a few steady breaths as he wrapped his fingers around the wood and before he could think twice about it, he yanked the arrow out, hard. His vision darkened for a second as a sharp gasp was pulled from him, a soundless scream getting lodged in his throat. His hand fell to the side as any energy he had left flooded out of him, the arrow rolling out of his loosened grip.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed there for, blinking away the shadows creeping across the world above him, but as the buzzing in his ears died down and awareness faded back in, he could feel how wet and sticky his tunic was against his skin.

He clamped his hand against his side, ignoring the blood starting to push its way through his fingers, and begged his magic to take over.

"Ic hæle þina þrowunga." He whispered from memory, feeling the tell-tale pull of energy from within as his magic got to work. He repeated it again and again, his eyes glowing a little less with each rendition of the spell, but as the blood continued to run down his arm and stain the earth beneath him, he started to wonder if taking the arrow out had been such a good idea after all.

Retracing his steps back to the druid camp took Arthur more time than he had anticipated. Riding alone made him slightly more cautious and he had kept his horse from galloping to allow him to survey his surroundings along the way. But in all honesty, he hadn't expected to have to make the entire journey.

His plan had been to ride for an hour, discover his wayward servant wandering tiredly through the trees, berate him for not making his presence known at the raid and losing his horse in the process, all before dragging him back to Camelot.

Instead, he had made it all the way to the clearing without a single sighting. As much as Merlin was known to avoid his duties at times, the fact that he hadn't been seen by anyone but Morgana since last night was somewhat concerning.

Although now that he was at the camp, he was starting to think it was a huge waste of time. The leaves littering the ground crunched beneath his feet as he jumped down from his horse. It was eerie walking through it now, almost like he shouldn't be there at all. Everything was how they had left it, tents empty, belongings abandoned, no signs of any druids – or more importantly, his servant.

Spotting a bucket of water sitting beside a long-extinguished fire, he walked the animal over, allowing her to softly lap up the liquid as he looked around. There were marks on the ground heading in all directions where feet had dug into the dirt in their haste to escape, but it was impossible to tell if any of them were Merlin's. He followed a few of them, letting them lead him out of the camp and towards the trees.

Broken branches and trampled undergrowth revealed all signs of a struggle and as he looked around, it seemed like he had ended up in the very spot where they had rescued Morgana.

"Merlin! Are you out here?" He called into the silence, receiving only the flapping of wings in reply as a flock of birds frantically vacated the treetops. He ducked slightly under a branch as he held it out of his way, the material of his shirt catching as it pinged back into position. "Merlin!"

Just as he was about to turn back, something caught his eye. Something sticking out from behind a bush. And as he rounded the foliage his heart sank to the pit of his stomach. There, sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, face pale, far too much blood staining his shirt, was his servant

"Merlin?" He called, as he dropped to his knees next to him.

The arrow lying near Merlin's leg was easy to miss with the way it blended with the leaves, and if Arthur hadn't noticed the blood coating the tip, he would have paid it no mind entirely. But he had seen it and what was worse was the fact that he recognised it.

His usually steady fingers trembled as he picked it up to get a closer look. His chest tightened as he took in the tell-tale fletching that adorned all of Camelot's arrows, took in what it meant. One of his own men had shot Merlin and left him die.

There were tiny groves along the shaft from where it had been nocked hastily and the wood had splintered slightly from where it had been pulled out with force and suddenly Arthur's blood ran cold – had he wielded a crossbow this morning? Had he fired this deadly shot? The rescue had been such a blur he couldn't quite recall who held which weapons. Crossbows weren't his usual weapon of choice, but there was every chance he'd commandeered one from a fellow knight in the rush of the raid.

Merlin's hand lay loosely against his stomach, red coated fingers sitting lax atop the material having now lost their grip in unconsciousness. It felt cold against Arthur's palm as he moved it to rest against the ground, the movement doing nothing to rouse the boy.

He gently peeled back Merlin's sodden shirt, being mindful of where the edges stuck to the skin as the blood was beginning to dry. The moment the wound was revealed he drew in a sharp breath. The hole was small, maybe an inch wide, but the skin around it was already swollen and bruised, blood still leaking down Merlin's hip into the ground.

He'd had the unfortunate pleasure of witnessing arrow wounds before. They could be gruesome things, bolts carving holes straight through your body and out the other side. If you were lucky enough to have something inside you block the arrow's path early on, there was no telling what internal organs had been damaged, how slow your death was going to be. And even then, the arrow might need to be pushed out through the other side anyway just to free your body from the weapon.

This one looked bad, but he'd seen worse. He'd definitely seen worse. The pool of blood darkening the ground was worrisome but the trail staining his side had clearly slowed massively. Even the wound didn't appear as deep as he would have expected. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but either way, he needed to get Merlin back to Camelot. To someone who could help him.

"Merlin?" He implored, his voice sounding too loud against the empty forest . He clasped the shoulder closest to him and shook it gently, but the movement did little more than cause his servant's head to roll sickeningly against the ground. The sight of it made Arthur's stomach drop.

If he couldn't wake Merlin, then he could at least stop the boy from bleeding out further. He briefly considered tearing strips from his own clothes, but he had a feeling he wouldn't appreciate the gesture during the ride home. He pushed himself up off his knees, glancing back at Merlin as he ran towards the camp. The loose opening of the tent nearest to him was billowing in the wind and he pushed it aside to poke his head through. There was all manner of objects neatly organised inside, but only one that he needed. He grabbed the thin blanket from the ground and made his way back to Merlin.

Tearing the blanket into usable strips was easy. Manoeuvring Merlin's body in order to wrap them around his torso was less so.

"There are much easier ways to get out of doing your chores, you know." Arthur huffed as he shuffled the material under Merlin's back, doing his best not to drag it through the leaves crushed beneath him. Dots of blood soaked through in seconds, but as long as it kept the rest of the blood inside of his body, Arthur was okay with that.

Tightening the cloth drew a ragged sound of misery from Merlin that Arthur never wanted to hear again, even if it was the first sliver of awareness that Merlin had shown since he'd found him. The boy's brows furrowed slightly, lips parting as he took a sharp inhale of breath.

"Merlin?" Arthur tried again and this time he was rewarded with a slow flutter of Merlin's eyelashes. Merlin's throat bobbed as he swallowed roughly, his frown turning into a grimace as his body once again registered the pain radiating through his side.

"Ow." He moaned softly as his blood covered fingers curled up beside him, almost like he wanted to move them but didn't quite have the energy to. He blinked sluggishly several times until his eyes were fully open but even then, he didn't look entirely alert. His gaze roamed over the treetops above him until rolling to the side to meet Arthur worried stare.

"Hi." Arthur smiled, surprised by the rush of relief that flooded his body. If he wasn't already kneeling, he'd be worried about falling over with how shaky he suddenly felt. It was quite a pitiful sight really, the somewhat vacant hint to Merlin's eyes, the pained flush of red creeping up his cheeks. But at least he was awake, that was enough for now.

If he thought bandaging Merlin was difficult, this next part was going to be impossible. He got to his feet and faced the druid camp, leaning back from where he stood to try and peer around the trees and find what he was looking for. He whistled twice, not liking the way the shrill notes reverberated through the silence but moments later he heard his horse bray in the distance, followed by slow, heavy hoofbeats across the ground.

As he knelt back down, he was alarmed to see Merlin's eyes sliding shut once more and though he wanted nothing more than to let him rest, they didn't have time for that right now. They needed to get moving.

"Come on, we have to go." He encouraged as he slid his arm under Merlin's shoulders and pushed him up to sitting.

"Stop, stop, stop." Merlin's plea tumbled from his lips so weak and jumbled that Arthur almost didn't understand what he was saying.

"Merlin, I know it hurts—"

"Please."

"I'm sorry." Arthur replied as he hefted Merlin higher, guilt burrowing deeper under his skin with every miserable groan that left Merlin's mouth. By the end, it felt like he was taking most of Merlin's weight, but at least his servant was upright.

Merlin's head bobbed as he tried to get his bearings, the change in elevation made the world spin and he grabbed feebly at Arthur's front to try and keep himself standing. Not that he would have fallen, the prince's grip was a vice around his waist as he struggled to his feet.

Beads of sweat instantly dotted Merlin's forehead as Arthur lead them over to the horse that had steadily made its way to them. She snorted softly as she approached, nudging Merlin slightly with her nose.

Even half out of his mind with blood loss, Merlin was still able to give Arthur a pained look that clearly conveyed the sentiment of go on then genius, what are we going to do now?

"What? Are you telling me you've never gotten on a horse before?" Arthur raised an eyebrow. Merlin wasn't wrong, he had no idea of how this next part was going to go but he kept that to himself. There was no point giving him a reason to give up before he'd even tried.

"Arthur…" Merlin huffed, stumbling as Arthur reached for the horses reins to steady her.

Get them both onto the horse took far longer than Arthur would have liked. The simple act of lifting his foot onto the stirrup almost had Merlin passing out from the pain it caused and by the time he was seated on the animal's back he was panting hard, chest resting against its mane as whatever energy he had left fled in an instant.

Arthur cursed himself for not bringing another horse. He'd briefly considered it as he'd taken his own animal from the stables but part of him just assumed Merlin would still have the one he'd ridden on. The other part rather enjoyed the idea of making his servant walk all the way back whilst Arthur sat merrily on the horse beside him.

But now, with no other option and no time to be chivalrous and be the one to do the walking, he positioned himself behind Merlin and grabbed the reins, leading the horse home. He kept the pace steady, wary of both going too slow and dragging out the journey and riding too fast and making Merlin's injury worse.

They were halfway through the trek when Merlin almost tipped straight off the horse. The sun was starting to dip beneath the tree-tops and the cool breeze was causing Merlin to shiver violently. He had been alternating between resting his full weight against Arthur's chest or leaning flat against the horse's neck, swapping every few minutes sometimes if one position started to strain his side more than he could handle.

The pair had ridden in relative quiet up until that point, which was wholly unsurprising Arthur surmised. He was too focused on getting Merlin back to mindlessly ramble and Merlin's concentration was spoken for by far more pressing matters. But still, he should have noticed when even Merlin's gasps of discomfort fell silent. One second his servant was leaning forward, his body rocking slightly with the movement of the horse's neck, and the next he was halfway down to the floor. It was only Arthur's quick hands that kept him from falling completely, though he did have to squeeze his legs tight against the horse's back just to keep them both seated. He was just thankful that she didn't take it as a sign to run because that would have ended badly.

"Woah— are you okay?" He asked, pulling Merlin back against his chest. Merlin's head tipped back, almost resting on his shoulder as he tried to catch his breath.

"Sorry." Merlin murmured as he squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard.

Arthur watched from the corner of his eye as Merlin's hand travelled up to press against his side with a wince. He had obviously stopped putting pressure on it at one point, not that Arthur had noticed. He should have noticed, should have been paying more attention whilst they were riding. He should have been paying more attention this morning too.

"No, I'm sorry." He spoke up as the hand not holding the reins gripped Merlin tighter lest he fall off again. "I should have checked the camp better this morning before we returned to Camelot, I should have known something was wrong."

Merlin shook his head feebly in disagreement. "Not your fault."

Arthur begged to differ — as he often did with Merlin — but he was happy to let it go just this once. They could disagree to their heart's content once Merlin was able to string a full sentence together without needing to take a break halfway through.

They fell back into the uneasy silence as they continued the journey. The few times Arthur tried to speed up left Merlin gripping his side tighter with a grimace. He wouldn't say anything of course, instead choosing to suffer silently if it meant they could return home quicker, but Arthur could tell when he was pushing it too hard. So each time it got too much, they would slow down again — never stopping, just slowing enough to make it more manageable.

The second that Camelot was finally in his sights, the unsettling feeling in his stomach lessened its grip ever so slightly. They were almost there and just in time too. Merlin had been holding less and less of his own weight the closer they had gotten and his eyes had been closed for too long now.

"Hey, what did I say about staying awake?" Arthur loosened the reins so that he could nudge Merlin gently, a lump forming in his throat as it took Merlin a little too long to let his eyes flutter open.

"I am awake." Merlin whispered, a small smile forming as he took in his surroundings. Not long to go now.

"Well, I hope your nap was worth it. Once Gaius' fixes you up I've got some armour that needs cleaning. Not to mention dinner will be ready soon and I can hardly go and collect it from the kitchens myself, can I?"

Merlin's responding chuckle may have been weak but Arthur took joy from it all the same. He looked worse than he had earlier, skin having lost all colour aside from the greyish tint resting around his eyes, but the fact that he could still take a joke was a good sign.

It had been a long day for both of them and he was more than ready for it to be over. He'd find a way to make it up to Merlin for leaving him injured in a clearing miles from home, but for now, as long as Merlin held on for a little while longer, he'd settle for getting him to Gaius and getting him better. Just a little while longer and everything would be okay.