Please, be patient with me! English is not my first language, and I'm sorry for any mistake I made!

Feel free to point them out to me, or I won't be able to improve :) I'll appreciate any useful comments and suggestions very much!

A very special 'thank you!' to BertazSleepyHead, who was the first to read this! She's a marvellous artist, she really inspired me! I recommend going to see her works on twitter ( BertazHead)! You won't be disappointed! ;D

Obviously all characters belong to Nakaba Suzuki, etc...

*WARNING*

This story begins after the manga's end!

IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE MANGA DON'T READ THIS STORY! THERE ARE HUGE SPOILERS! X3

Also, it will be a little sad :'( but bear with me, you won't be disappointed, I promise! ;)


CHAPTER 1

"You left me, alone, in a grey world"

The strong sensation arrived suddenly, like a burning fire in the pit of his stomach, leaving him fighting to catch his breath.

After some time the sensation dimmed, and he could stop hugging himself in discomfort, in its place he could just perceive the presence outside of him, as if asking him to go and find it.

He was taken aback by this event, but had little doubts about its meaning, and centering himself again, he began moving towards his destination, he had one obligatory stop to make first, if he didn't inform her as soon as possible, she would never forgive him, and likely make him pay in some way, just the thought had him shiver in fear, and he sped up even more.


She was bored.

It was the umpteenth useless, and tedious, meeting that she had to be a part of with Arthur, as his mentor and his first counselor, as well as most powerful mage of Britain and head of his court mages, she knew she had to attend, but she just couldn't see the merit in these recent meetings that they were having with the other counselors.

Some of them were outright simple minded fools, and most of them were just narrow-minded, she couldn't stand them for too many hours in a row.

She sighed inside, trying to not let her irritation show, turning her eyes towards one of the large windows of the room, looking outside, she could see the sun beginning to set, her mood turning from irritated to bitterly sad in an instant.

She couldn't even see the color of the setting sun firing up the sky.

The sight had her remember the lack of colors in her life: at first she hadn't even be aware that there was something different, but then she noticed that colors were gradually leaving her sight, she could no more appreciate the beautiful tints of a flower field, or the subtle, different, gradients between one of her concoction or another, her world had become colorless, she could make out the subtle difference in all the various kinds of greys, blacks, and whites, but she couldn't see colors for the life of her.

She had tried every kind of remedy she deemed worth trying, without results, and she had adjusted to it by now, it has already been two years since the colors left her world.

...it has already been two years since he left her world too.

The usual pang to her heart when she thought about him was almost welcomed, like an old friend, one you didn't like much, but that had become part of your everyday life, that was a reliable and safe presence in your life, its existence almost comforting.

She was taken back from her thoughts by the announcement of the end of today's meeting, her relief for its ending dampened by her other thoughts.

Mechanically she stood up, responded to the various farewells, and then followed Arthur out of there.

As they were walking silently through the halls of the palace, the young king regarded his mentor with worried eyes, he knew her well enough, and had been spending most of his time with her in these past two years, to recognize the subtle changing in her mood, telling him when she was particularly sad, as it was in this case; and knowing her as he did, he was also aware of the cause behind her depressing moods.

"Merlin…"

"I'm fine"

Arthur flinched slightly, she didn't even let him finish his phrase, it was one of the bad ones.

They had arrived at the foot of her tower, the young king sighed.

"Merlin please, you can't go on like this, if you don't want to talk to me then talk to someone else, but talk about it, please!"

Arthur had tried to help her in any way possible to him, but she had always rebuffed all his attempts, stating that he had others, more important things, to concern himself about, that it would all go away, that she will get better, eventually. It had already been two years, and he could just see her getting worse, instead of improving.

"There's nothing to talk about"

Her tone was final, she didn't want to experience again all that happened, out loud, it was enough remembering it inside her head, and began ascending her tower.

"He wouldn't have wanted you to be so miserable, especially because of him!"

It was a low blow, he knew that, but she was worrying him more everyday.

She stopped at that, completely rigid, her hands closed into fists.

"Then he should have thought about that before sacrificing himself"

He almost missed her whispered, broken, reply; anyway she didn't let him speak another word, vanishing from there immediately. Arthur sighed, dejectedly, beginning to walk away from there.

He didn't really know how to help her, he wasn't enough, maybe it was time to ask for help from others, if she wasn't going to, then he would do it instead.


Merlin sighed aloud once she was in the safety of her lab, she knew that Arthur only meant well, and she felt guilty, she didn't want to worry him, adding her problems to his already full schedule, but she hadn't the strength even to pretend to smile anymore.

She wasn't a naive person, she knew she had become bitter and surly, and knew very well the cause of her swinging moods, or, well, of her constantly bad mood, and knowing the cause she was sure that there wasn't anything that she, or everyone else, could do, if not waiting for the feelings to pass.

...who was she kidding?

Maybe she WAS naive, afterall.

How could she hope to have it all go away if she was constantly thinking about it, if she wasn't able to distract herself for too long even with her experiments... if she had discovered her feelings only when it was too late...

The lack of colors in her vision had begun right after he had left them...left her...

Every bright color reminded her of him, everywhere she looked she could see something of him: the blues were his gentle and determined bright eyes, the yellows reminded her of his powers, the greens were his clothes when he was working at the Boar's Hat, in the reds she could see his bushing cheeks when he was embarrassed, and so on.

Sometimes she had had a hard time to even look at Arthur, his hair's color too similar to his.

So, gradually, maybe unconsciously, she had ridden her world of every color, lessening the reminders, and now she was living in a grey world of her own creation, if one could define this 'living'.

She snorted, thinking about all that she had done, all that she had endured, all that she had lost, so that she could carry out her plan to change the world into something she considered preferable, so that she could have a chance to rid herself of the emptiness inside her, and, instead, she had only added to that, some world she had created for herself..!

She had been a total fool! Now she had to live with this constant, heavy, regret: knowing he had died with his love never being reciprocated, that he had died before she had stopped being led by fear and could give him a chance, that he had died before she could really experience and appreciate his love for her.

Feeling the tears beginning to fall, she took down the cloth around the lower part of her face, letting her regrets water the burnt marks, that were the only physical reminder of him.

At first she had found the idea of covering those marks absolutely ridiculous! They were on her face to be displayed, they were a precious token, a reminder of his existence.

She had found out, soon enough, that very few could appreciate their actual value.

She had become quickly fed up with everyone staring constantly at her, whispering behind her back, or asking impudently how she had received those marks, and why hadn't she healed those ugly things that had ruined her face.

They couldn't understand, and she was in no mood to lose time or breath with those kinds of people, so she had just covered them up, with a purple kerchief that she took down only in the safety of her rooms, protecting them, protecting the memory of him, protecting her feelings.

She was tired, so tired.

Suddenly the marks began to burn up, as if his fire was imprinting itself on her face for the first time again. The sensation left her breathless, moaning aloud in pain, and on instinct she grasped her lower face between her hands, falling to her knees.

After a few seconds, that lasted longer than she could fathom, the pain subsided, leaving behind a subtle, pulsing, sensation, and she could feel the marks warmer than before, but not uncomfortably so.

She took some minutes to regain her breaths, sitting sideways on the ground, her hands leaving her face, resting them on the floor, leaning heavily on them; she was shivering, but couldn't understand which was the cause of it.

Her thoughts were in turmoil, logical and illogical theories sprouting in her mind at an incredible speed, to try finding a possible reason for such an event, it had been a first, it had never happened before, so why now of all times? What had changed? Has something happened? And if that was the case, what could have brought out a reaction like this?

For the first time she was almost scared to know the answer, she feared her hopes being irrevocably crushed.

She lost the sense of time, not knowing how many minutes, or even hours, had passed from the event, when suddenly she heard a loud and insistent knock, making her come back to the present time.

She frowned, whoever was there, knocking on her door like that, didn't know what very wrong decision they had made to come searching for her today.

Very irritated, she lifted herself up from the floor, she was still shaking slightly, and turned towards her door, but before she could even take a step she realized that the loud noise wasn't coming from there. Confused, and even more irritated, she turned around her lab, trying to pinpoint the source of the knocks, being completely taken aback when she noticed someone outside the window of her tower, that was positioned dozens of meters from the ground below.

Hurriedly she approached it, her heart in her throat, and opening it she was met with a face that she hadn't seen in almost two years, and frankly, she hadn't thought she would be seeing ever again.

"We need to talk"


This chapter is short, I know! "^^

The second one will be a little longer, but not overly so, I think.

I want to write just a little "what if", and I don't plan to make this very long :)

I hope you'll enjoy it anyway! ;D