Hey guys! The chapters after this one should hopefully bring some angry knights and a guilty Arthur into the picture, so look forward to that! I'm ready to hear everybody's side.

For now, enjoy another Gwen and Gaius chapter, with a bit of another character thrown in.

~Ra1n

Previously...

Gaius took another breath. He might as well put everything out on the table.

"His fever…" he started, "is abnormal for the procedure, and that is not the only thing I am worried about."

Gwen mentally prepared herself as Gaius began to explain.

"His fever is abnormal for the procedure. It is the reason I can't estimate the amount of time. The amount of paste we needed before the wound began to bleed normally suggests a startlingly large amount of dust in his system, as does the fact that he was in so much obvious pain. But the shouting? That isn't consistent with iron dust at all."

"Then what was the shouting?"

Gaius's brows crinkled. "I believe it was a result of the fever." He shifted uncomfortably. "This is the part where I am honest."

Gwen waited patiently.

"The bruising... wherever he was being held, he was beaten," Gaius said quietly, "Probably from the day he was imprisoned until very recently."

Gwen nodded, urging him on. Gaius motioned towards the scarring around his wrists. "He was strapped down," Gaius continued, "If he was released, it was not often, and probably only for a few minutes at a time in order to change his position or to move him to a room with different instruments. That explains the atrophy, and-" He moved his hand in the direction of Merlin's groin, "I think you can guess."

Gwen nodded. He had been left strapped down for hours, forced to wet himself time and time again, unable to escape his own filth as his body betrayed him. She had figured out that much on her own, judging by the smell.

"The fever is probably caused by the shoddy job the guards did with the dust, which lead to an infection in his blood. That is what I am the most worried about, which is why we cleaned the wound before anything else."

Gwen nearly dropped the bandages she was holding. She was just completing the wrapping of the very wound, and she looked at it in an even more sinister light than before.

"His fever is very high, and although it should start going down, I think it was the combination of the pain from his wound and the fever that caused the shouting. It is very likely the things he said were things he has shouted before, and were triggered when his delirium met an action that reminded him of those times. In this case, his imprisonment."

She had already assumed as much, but had hoped for something else.

"I'm afraid that is all I can really tell you. I don't know what the words mean, nor who Merlin thought he was talking to, but you were not at fault for any of them, Guinevere."

Gwen didn't respond. She knew that. Didn't he know she knew that? It didn't make a difference whether she was the one Merlin thought he was talking to. The point was that he had been pushed to say such things in the first place.

Her mind was busy running through scenarios that would explain what Merlin had meant when he had yelled.

The phrases "I don't know anything," and "I didn't do anything," were easy. Everybody knew that Arthur had imprisoned (and killed, but evidently not) Merlin because he was suspected of knowing and carrying out Morgana and Morgause's plans. He was shouting his innocence at the people who were hurting him in an attempt to get them to stop, and in this case, it had been Gwen and Gaius.

"You said you stop," and "You said you would come back," on the other hand, weren't so easy, and Gwen didn't like where her mind was going.

"I think..I think all we can do now is let him rest." Gaius said, pulling Gwen from her thoughts, and she abruptly realized she had gotten to the end of the bandages, that Merlin's limbs and torso were now wrapped and covered securely, his broken fingers set.

"Oh…" she breathed.

"We must get him into an actual bed. This table can't be doing much good for his ribs or breathing."

Gwen glanced at the cot on the far side of the room, then at Merlin, unconscious, and spoke the very words Gaius had been wondering as well:

"How are we going to get him there?"

In the end, they decided the only safe way to move Merlin was to get outside help. The only problem was finding that help. Gaius didn't think he had the energy to deal with the heartbreak of Percival and Gwaine just yet, and Elyan was gone on a patrol for the next week, which left Leon.

"He's the head of defense," Gaius protested. "He probably already knows about Merlin."

Gwen wouldn't hear any of it. "Leon is Merlin's friend. He wouldn't have stood by and allowed these things to happen if he knew about them."

"In that case, he would be just as heartbroken as Sir Percival and Sir Gwaine, and we might as well call them all in."

Which was how it was decided that they would call all three, and give them the news all at once.

Neither of them brought up the fact that Arthur had been Merlin's friend, too. Before all of this.

Gwen left the physician chambers soon after to fetch the men. As she turned back one last time in the doorway, she caught a glimpse of Gaius dragging a stool over to Merlin's side and sitting down, grasping one of his hands.

She nearly ran into another guard as she left the room.

"Oh!" she stopped in the dark hall, the guard looking just as startled.

"Sorry," he said quietly, not meeting her eye. It was the same guard that had stopped her in the halls hours ago, when Arthur had run by with a strange bundle in his arms. A bundle Gwen now knew had been Merlin.

His eyes flitted towards the door.

"Can I help you with anything?" Gwen asked. The guard shook his head.

"No, no. I just...Is Merlin in there?"

A flag went up in Gwen's mind. "Why do you want to know? Merlin is dead." The words felt bitter on her own tongue, but she couldn't have a guard coming and dragging Merlin back to wherever it was he had come from.

The guard smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I know he isn't. I just needed to see him."

Gwen wasn't convinced. "He is not in there."

"Look, I'm not going to do anything. I just came to see if he was alright." The guard shifted. "...Is he? Is he alright?"

Gwen didn't answer the question. "Who are you?"

He shifted again. "Owain." He said, and then, "Can… can you do me a favor? Can you not tell him I came? I don't think he would appreciate my visit..."

Gwen gave him a long look, and for once he caught her eyes.

"...He's not okay, is he?"

Gwen didn't respond. It was enough.

"Oh… Oh God," he hissed, and he whirled to punch the wall behind him. "Dammit!" He clutched his bruised knuckles.

"I'm sorry. I'm...I'm so sorry. I need- I need to go," he stuttered. He twisted and sprinted down the hallway, his shoulders hunched.

"Wait-!" Gwen shouted, but he was already gone.

She debated going back inside to telling Gaius what had just happened. But then she remembered Merlin still lying on the table, and Gaius taking his hand, and she couldn't return without help.