Disclaimer: Merlin's not mine.

Wow, you guys...thank you so much for reviewing, I don't think I've ever gotten that many for one chapter before.

I'm a little hesitant about this chapter-it was hard to write. I'm hoping everything will get a little easier once I stretch them out from the palace. Anyway, unbeta-ed as usual, and I promise to stop making this so slow and depressing...they've just got so much to wade through. Let me know if it feels like I'm laying it on too thick.

The Afterfall

Merlin needed something to do. The only thing he could think of to occupy himself, though, was to wander around the castle. He wasn't even sure what he was looking for, but it felt as though there was something specific, or someone, he needed to find.

"Gwen," he eventually called out, softly though, almost to himself. Gwen. He needed to find Gwen. They were interrupted before by the arrival of Gwaine on the horse, and she said she still wanted to know everything.

He didn't particularly want to continue the conversation but he had to find her.

Arthur was gone.

Merlin needed someone's royal orders to obey.

"My lady," he raised his voice a little this time as he turned the corner. Sometimes, when he looked at Gwen, he still couldn't believe she was the girl who'd trip over every word she spoke all those years ago—then he'd remember how she could raise her chin and darken her eyes with a stern stare even then. She always had a Queen in her. She was worthy of him. I wasn't.

His vision went black for a moment, but he kept walking until it cleared.

When he finally made it to Arthur's chambers, he was shocked he managed to get the door open without his hands shaking. The room was exactly as he left it, as though Gwen hadn't used it at all. Dust was beginning to settle on the wardrobe. Must clean that, Merlin thought absently, must clean that or he'll yell at me. The thought finally registered and he knew he had to get out of there.

"Gwen!" this time he shouted, almost sprinting out the door and down the next hallway. Where would she go?

"Merlin," the call stopped him in his tracks. He whirled around to see Gaius heading towards him.

It was the understanding look on the old man's face that broke him. The weight of purpose dropped from his shoulders and he felt too light to be standing without it. When Gaius held out his arms, Merlin fell into them without question and allowed himself to shiver like a broken wing.

"I told you I'd have your favorite supper waiting for you," Gaius said quietly.

Merlin's tears choked his laugh. "And do you?"

"It's ready when you ask for it."

He shut his eyes and his mouth tight, hoping it would help him stop shaking. "What do I do now?" he whispered.

"You accept it," Gaius said, putting his steady hands on Merlin's shoulders to make him meet his eyes, and pronouncing each word slowly. "Accept everything you receive these next few days, and maybe even these next few weeks. Not all of it will be pleasant, I assure you, but you need to."

Merlin tried to breathe out evenly. "They might hate me," he leaned against the wall and slid down to the floor, "They have the right to."

Gaius's jaw was stern and unforgiving. "Whether or not they have the right to is not up for determination."

"I didn't save him, Gaius," every muscle in Merlin's body clenched as those words left him. "Everything I kept from them, every decision I left them out of? It was all to protect Arthur. I failed. I failed and there's no way I can answer for all I've done now, not now that he's gone—" and suddenly, just as his volume was rising and voice breaking, Gaius grabbed Merlin's shoulder with such a strength that he stopped. The old man ripped Merlin from the ground and onto his feet.

"Don't you ever think you're nothing without him, boy," Gaius's voice was quiet, but it hit Merlin with the force of a roar. He couldn't remember the last time the old man called him "boy," and for a moment he was shocked out of words.

"I don't think I'm nothing without him," he finally stammered out. "I'm still someone—it's just someone I don't know."

Gwen woke up. She hadn't expected she'd sleep so well, let alone for three whole hours. It was pitch black in the room even though she knew it was still early enough to be light outside—when she first started using this chamber, she made sure it was draped with the thickest curtains money could buy. It was the room she slept in originally while she was taking care of Uther, and later whenever Arthur was gone off somewhere dangerous. In both situations, staying in Arthur's room felt wrong, and she required more assistance sleeping. Those curtains blocked out all sun, star, and moonlight—they worked wonders.

With dim reluctance, she lifted herself off the bed. She hadn't even bothered covering herself with the blankets. All she had done before losing consciousness, in fact, was to take off her shoes. Since her dress was long enough to hide her feet, the idea of putting those shoes back on didn't even enter her head.

Guinevere walked soundlessly out of the black room, trying not to squint as the sun from the hallway windows flooded her vision. She couldn't help but wonder if she was losing her mind because being barefoot made her feel oddly giddy. The strange desire to skip her entire way down the hall was gripping her strongly.

Without deciding to, she did.

It was as if the cold floor brought her feet to life, but Gwen couldn't stop skipping, and the rustle of her heavy gown only provided her with background music. Something escaped her mouth—was that a laugh? No, not quite a laugh, but something similar, some high breath of noise that did not belong to someone whose husband just died.

Maybe I am losing my mind, she thought. Her feet landed one last time on the floor, just as she heard voices around the next corner. She stopped, frowned, and gathered her skirts up off the floor with a fist.

The first thing Gwen heard clearly was "Gwaine," and she tiptoed nearer.

"How is he?" The voice was Gaius's.

"He looks healthy as the day I met him," Merlin, sounding wry and old. Gwen's jaw twitched.

"Does he know how he survived?" that was Gaius's clinically bewildered voice. Gwen knew it well.

There was a silence for a moment, but then Merlin spoke in a harsh whisper. "Freya saved him."

Gwen frowned, wondering if she heard correctly. "Freya?" Gaius asked, sounding shocked.

"No, she's appeared to me before, Gaius. You remember? The water from the lake of Avalon lead me to her, and she lead me to the sword," Merlin seemed urgent now.

"And she saved Gwaine?" Tone: Incredulous. Gwen was having a difficult time understanding the words themselves, so diagnosing the more subtle components of conversation was the only method of comprehension left to her.

"I need to find her, Gaius," Tone: Urgent. "Well, not find her, I know where she is, but I have to see her. If she knew enough to save Gwaine, something's wrong and she'll know what it is."

"Merlin," a pause, "—that's where you laid Arthur to rest."

That hollowness Gwen was starting to recognize gripped her, so she made herself focus on the conversation instead. There was a longer pause before Merlin answered "Yes."

"Are you sure you want to go back there?" Where? Go back where, Merlin?

"I'll go to the opposite side. The shore where I set Freya from in the first place, her and Lancelot…that might be a little easier to face." Shore. So a sea? Or a lake. Gwen had to strain her ears to catch the argumentative sigh that came from Gaius, but Merlin interrupted it. "I have to talk to her, Gaius, I have to figure out what she meant and why she saved him."

And why she didn't save Arthur.

Merlin didn't say that, but Gwen heard it in his voice anyway, the one doubt that hung above all the others on the air.

"Gwaine's good luck was indeed strange," and here, Gaius hesitated, as Guinevere hadn't heard him do since he defended Merlin before Camlann, "—have you wondered whether Morgana might not have anything to do with his survival?"

The hollowness inside Gwen was replaced by a sharp jolt at Morgana's name, followed quickly by confusion, confusion that Merlin apparently shared. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing," Gaius said after the tiniest of pauses.

"Are you…talking about your time with Gwaine and Elyan in her cell?"

"Yes, well. She favored Gwaine, but it was probably no more than that."

"Freya will know," Merlin sounded different now, as if his voice were somehow darkened with age and smoke. Gwen almost didn't recognize it. "Apparently she's spoken to him before."

"How on earth—?"

"I've got to go, Gaius." There were his footsteps already, thankfully headed away from Guinevere's hiding place.

"Merlin!" That sharp reprimand Gwen had heard more times than she could count echoed through the hall, and the footsteps stopped. "Be back in time for your favorite supper."

One more pause, and then those footsteps began again.

Gwen bit her lip, trying to stop the splintered memories from stabbing at her. She stood still and waited until after Gaius began the trek back to his quarters—thankfully, he didn't turn toward her hiding place—before she took a shortcut through a different set of halls.

Although the door to Merlin's room was closed, Guinevere could hear voices coming through. For a moment, it was tempting to lean an ear in—people censored themselves far more around a queen than they had around a maidservant—but she felt as though she'd eavesdropped enough for one day. Instead, she knocked.

The door opened to reveal a smiling Percival. "Majesty," he bowed his head. Guinevere tried not to blame him for allowing his smile to falter at the sight of the widowed queen.

Leon, too, looked serious, as he stood to greet her and bowed from the waist. Only Gwaine, sitting on the bed, kept grinning as he held out his arms. "It's good to see you, my lady," he sounded so sincere, tired, and warm, Guinevere didn't hesitate running to embrace him.

"I'm glad you're back," she whispered, shocked by how much she meant it, shocked to feel tears on her own cheeks.

Gwaine's strong arms tightened their grasp around her. "I'm so sorry, Gwen," his voice shook.

Gwen inhaled all the air her lungs could hold. Reluctantly, she pulled away from Gwaine and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "We all are." The warmth of his arms left her and she felt cold, but in a quickened, alive sort of way, as her eyes roamed to meet every other set in the room. "Each of us has more than enough to apologize for, and more than enough blame to accept. I do, I have, and now I am done." Don't think of Arthur. Don't break, don't think of Arthur.

Gwaine's jaw was set, determined and proud. Percival looked entranced, though worry flickered through his face. Leon, Guinevere noted, still held still, his eyes full of conflicted ferocity. When he spoke to her in the hall only a few hours ago, seeing that expression exhausted her. Now, Gwen only felt her back straighten under his stare.

"I would appreciate it," she continued, more quietly this time, "…if all of you could do the same."

It was Leon she said this to, and it was Leon who bowed his head in response. "Yes, your majesty."

Gwen couldn't make out his tone, but it would have to do for now. She opened her mouth to speak next to Gwaine, to ask him how on earth he survived, when she glanced out the window and stopped. Her jaw hung open and she felt her own eyes widen until they no longer could—it was as if her ears were suddenly deaf to all the eruption of noise. She barely registered Gwaine's shout of disbelief as he turned his head and she didn't remember sprinting in front of Percival and Leon, who were crying out for guards and had just drawn their swords.

She tilted her head to one side at the thing, clawing pitifully at the glass out the window. "Aithusa?"

I hope this is staying interesting for you guys. Review and tell me what you think :)