Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Chapter Eighteen
A knock at his door startled Arthur out his pacing, and he opened it to find Gwen standing outside, a tray of food in her hands.
"I heard Merlin is sick, so I volunteered to bring your dinner."
Arthur opened the door wider for her to enter. "Thank you. It's…good to see you." That was a bit of an understatement. The moment he saw her face, he realized she was exactly the person he needed to talk to.
But could he? Could he reveal Merlin's secret to another person without his permission? And Merlin couldn't exactly give his permission. His fever had risen again by the time they'd arrived in Camelot, and each time Arthur had stopped by to check on him, he'd been asleep. Gaius said he'd been dazed and groggy for the few minutes he'd been awake, although he believed that they were dealing only with a natural illness now, from which Merlin would make a full recovery.
"Are you all right?" Gwen asked, looking at him with concern as she set out the dishes.
"Of course," Arthur said, forcing a smile as he sat down. "Please, sit with me."
She took a seat next to him, and he nudged his plate between them, nodding to it. She picked a grape off of it, but she held it in her hand and stared at him instead of eating.
"What's wrong, Arthur?"
Arthur sighed. "I want to tell you, but it would mean revealing someone else's secret. And I don't think I can. Not in good conscience. Even though…I mean, I'm king. And it's not a just personal secret. It's something that affects the kingdom. Something that affects me in my role as king. But does that mean I have a right to repeat it? And yet, I wish I could have your counsel on it." He made a general noise of frustration that made Gwen raise her eyebrows and fail to hide a laugh.
"Can you tell me any of it without revealing the details or betraying trust?"
Arthur thought for a moment. "I discovered…" Which direction did he want to approach this from? He could tell her he had found who Emrys was, and he wasn't sure what to do with that information. Or he could say he'd discovered Merlin had a secret. But he couldn't bring up both Emrys and Merlin without giving it away.
"I discovered that Merlin has been keeping something from me," he said finally. Because the heart of the issue was Merlin, not Emrys. "Something big. And not just keeping it from me, but directly lying to me. For a long time."
Gwen furrowed her brow. "Merlin? Are you sure?"
"Very," Arthur said darkly.
She thought for a minute, and then her face relaxed, her eyes widening with understanding.
"Why don't you seem all that surprised?" Arthur asked suspiciously.
"It's just – well, now that I think about it, I have known Merlin to keep secrets now and then. Like when he hid the druid boy – he didn't tell you about that, did he?"
Arthur frowned. "I thought Morgana hid the druid boy?"
"She did, but Merlin was the one who saved him from the guards and brought him to Morgana's room in the first place. And there was the time he asked for my father's sword. I never did find out what that was all about. Or why he stole that statue of a dog from the courtyard. And there was the thing with Gaius and the goblin."
"What did Merlin have to do with that?" Arthur asked in confusion, and Gwen bit her lip.
"Merlin and I were the ones who cast it out of Gaius."
"With magic?" Arthur demanded, dumbfounded. Had Gwen known all along?
"No, of course not!" Gwen exclaimed in alarm. "No, we just had to kind of kill him. And revive him. But obviously Merlin had to break out of the dungeons to do that…so, yes, I guess I can see Merlin keeping some secrets. Did he have a good reason for keeping this one?"
Arthur smiled sourly. "I wish I could say no. But the truth is, I don't know how I would have responded if he'd told me. Probably not well."
"Did he do something bad?"
Arthur thought on that for a moment. "I guess that's the question I have to figure out."
Gwen reached out and placed her hand on his. "Arthur, whatever it is, one thing I'm sure of is that he had good intentions. He'd do anything for you."
Arthur sat back in his chair and sighed. "He would, wouldn't he?" He hesitated. "Guinevere?"
"Yes?"
Arthur struggled to articulate his next thoughts. "He has…suffered for it. The secret. Both for the secret itself, and for the keeping of it. And I think I might be at least partially to blame for that."
Gwen smiled softly at him. "Arthur, you can't blame yourself for something you didn't know. If Merlin kept it a secret, that was his choice," she reassured him, squeezing his hand.
"But I should have seen it. In hindsight…as much time as we spend together, as much as I thought I knew him. I should have seen it."
Gwen frowned. "Should I have figured it out?"
Arthur snorted in response. "I don't know, but I think I'm glad you didn't. I'd feel even worse if you'd figured it out and I didn't. But then again," he added ruefully, "maybe it would have helped him if you knew. I don't know." He rubbed his forehead, cursing the headache he felt returning.
"What's truly bothering you, Arthur? The fact that Merlin lied to you, or the fact that Merlin was hurting and you didn't know?"
Arthur just shook his head and shrugged vaguely. Gwen looked at him for a moment, her eyes soft with sympathy. Then she stood and went to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him close. He rested his head against her stomach, closing his eyes. It was as intimate an embrace as they'd ever shared, and yet there was no desire in it. Just comfort.
"Merlin is as much a brother to you as a servant. Don't deny it," she scolded when Arthur scoffed. "I know he is. You'll work your way through whatever lies he told. And regardless of what the past held, I know he'll have you by his side going forward."
Gwen's tone left no room for doubt or argument.
Several days passed in a blur of sleep and potions and tonics and more sleep. Sometimes Merlin woke by himself and sometimes he woke to Gaius sitting with him. On a couple of rarer occasions, he awoke to Arthur sitting in the chair beside his bed, staring vacantly into space.
He pretended to stay asleep on those occasions.
On the fourth day after he returned to Camelot, he woke starving, the first real appetite he'd had since before they'd left for the temple. He also felt more awake and alert than he had in days, so he decided to venture out to the main chambers in search of some food.
Wrapping a blanket tightly around himself, he shuffled out the door, surprised by how quickly the fatigue caught up with him.
But not nearly as surprised as he was to see Arthur standing in front of the fireplace, feeding it one piece of paper at a time.
"Arthur?" The name popped out before he could stop it, and he immediately regretted it. He should have just slipped back into his bedroom in the hopes that he hadn't been seen. At some point they were going to have to discuss the whole Emrys situation, but Merlin felt no shame in putting it off as long as he was able. He had no idea where he currently stood with the king now that Arthur had had a few days to think things over, but it was better to wonder than it would be to face the inevitable slew of emotions he was destined to see when Arthur confronted him – probably some combination of anger, hurt, betrayal, and disappointment. Maybe some disgust thrown in for good measure.
But when Arthur turned around, he just raised his eyebrows at him, one side of his mouth quirking up. "Finally decided to get up, did you?"
"I got hungry," Merlin said with a shrug, taking a seat at the table before his weak legs could betray him.
"You look terrible," Arthur added amiably, but Merlin couldn't find room in all of his nervousness to be offended, or even pretend to be.
"What are you burning?" he asked, nodding at the papers in Arthur's hand.
"This?" Arthur gave the papers a bitter smile. "Just getting rid of something we don't need anymore." His eyes drifted over the top page, then he tossed that one in the fire as well.
"Are those…are those pages from a book?"
"Just a few of them. Cadwaladr's chapter on the definition of monsters."
Merlin felt all of the blood drain from his face. "Gaius is going to kill you."
"Gaius rather agreed with me, actually."
"Then Geoffrey is going to kill you."
Arthur skimmed the remaining pages and threw them all into the fire before coming to sit across from Merlin. "I am the king. Geoffrey will not challenge me. Besides, I didn't burn the whole book. I just improved it a bit. We know that section was inaccurate, so there's no point keeping it around."
Merlin stared at the fireplace, watching the flames catch the edges of the pages he'd read a hundred times, quickly turning them black before they dissolved into ash.
"Burning it doesn't change anything, Arthur. What's the point?"
"It changes the fact that it's in my library," Arthur said firmly. "And it keeps you from reading that nonsense again. I also took that book of prophecies, by the way. I'm not getting rid of it since it's not technically wrong – the book says the prophecies are false. But I'm keeping it far away from you for now, since your idiot brain apparently doesn't understand the definition of 'false.'"
Merlin stared at him in bafflement. He'd pictured a hundred different versions of his next conversation with Arthur. None of them looked anything like this.
"Why are you doing this?"
Arthur studied Merlin carefully as he spoke, and Merlin tried not to squirm under the weight of his gaze. "You're supposedly a creature of magic. And I admit, Merlin, I have no idea what that means. I won't pretend to understand what you are. But I do know who you are. I know your character, and I know you're my friend. As for the rest of it…well, we'll figure out together."
Merlin's breath caught. Was Arthur serious?
"Why?"
"Because that's how we tackle every problem, isn't it? Has been for years." He shrugged in an unconvincing attempt to look casual. "Why change now?"