A/N: Thank you, as always, for all of your support! I've decided to do things a bit differently with this story and write it from both Morgana /and/ Merlin's perspectives. I hope you like it!
She knows she should turn around and leave, but she finds herself moving closer to the open door. She thinks that maybe, just maybe, if she looks in, she'll see someone other than Merlin and go on with her day. She doesn't know if she wants it not to be him but knows she's fooling herself.
The sound of his voice is etched into her soul, and she knows the Irish lilt of his accent can belong to no one else, but still she tries to persuade herself that it might be someone else. But then she peers in, and there's no mistaking the mop of messy, dark brown hair and the hunch of his shoulders as he writes on the board at the front of the room.
He's turned away from the door, and her breath catches as she allows herself a moment to stare. The sight of him wakes memories she's long since attempted to bury.
Every word he speaks reverberates through her, bringing back late nights in the coffee shop and midday jaunts to the library, and she can almost feel the spectral whisper of his breath in her ear as he smiles mid-sentence and laughs at his own joke.
She hasn't seen him in years. Not since the night she'd found out and hovered outside the coffee shop, terrified of telling him and even more terrified of his reaction. She'd turned around then and gone home, losing her chance to make things right. Regret had mixed with terror and she'd questioned herself until nature had taken its own course, punishing her for indecision and betrayal.
She stares now, and as the memories awake, she can't help but wish that everything had gone oh so differently.
"Sir?"
"Yes?" Merlin finishes writing on the board and turns around to focus on the student. He catches the sight of a figure with long black hair standing in the doorway and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, chiding himself all the while. It's been five years, and he knows he shouldn't start at every black haired woman and every flash of emerald.
He opens them and finds the doorway empty. The chalk in his hand snaps in his grip.
"Sir, are you alright?"
"Fine. Sorry," he says, pausing. "Can you repeat your question?"
"Could you tell us more about witches in the time period? And not just the warlocks?"
Merlin glances back towards the doorway and marches over to shut the door. He knows he has a long day ahead.
Morgana rushes down the corridor and back into the staircase. She'd gotten lost in her thoughts and he'd seen her. Or at least it had seemed like he had.
Hearing the door shut behind her, she sighs and sits on the bottom step and puts her head in her hands before pulling out her mobile.
Are you in your office?
She stares at the screen and sighs in relief when the three dots pop up and a reply from Gwen comes through almost instantly.
Yep! What's up?
What wasn't up? She types, I'll be there in five. and makes her way back down the stairs and towards the Gender Studies department.
"Good morning!" Gwen greets her cheerily, standing by the window to her office.
"How could you not tell me that you work with Merlin?!"
Gwen blanches, balancing Elizabeth on her hip. "You saw him?"
Morgana nods, eyes wide.
"Ah." Gwen pauses, frowning. "Though, what are you doing here?"
"Elaine sent me. She wants me to do research and keep an eye on someone."
"Anyone I know?"
"Dr Nimueh?"
"The one who's always on television? Isn't she away on sabbatical?"
Morgana narrows her eyes. "No? Why would Elaine send me here is she were away?"
Gwen shrugs but visibly struggles to keep a smirk to herself. "So you saw Merlin?"
Morgana nods, fidgeting with the sleeve of her jumper.
"Are you okay?"
Morgana shrugs, looking anywhere but at Gwen. "I've been better."
"Do you want to hold Lizzie?"
Morgana nods and holds her hands out for her niece. A pang shoots through her as she settles the baby onto her own hip and places a kiss to the top of her head. "Hi, darling." Lizzie chortles and she turns back to Gwen. "Thank you. What is she doing here, anyway?"
"Anytime. The nanny's sick. I'm going to take her to the uni daycare before my class."
Morgana nods, and says, "She's so calming."
Gwen hums. "You're wonderful with her."
"It's hard not to be."
Gwen smiles at her, and Morgana thanks a deity she's never believed in that her best friend had seen through her act and stuck by her when no one else had. Gwen has been the one constant in her life through the years, and Lizzie is quickly becoming her one joy.
"I didn't want to cause you pain," Gwen says, softly.
Morgana gives one short nod. "Do you see him often?" They never talk about him, and she doesn't know anything about what he's become.
"You know I'm friends with him."
"I know. And I know I said I didn't want to know anything, but..."
"Yes, I see him often."
Morgana looks back down and gives an exaggerated smile when she sees Lizzie looking up at her.
"How is he?" she finally asks.
"Morgana."
"Please. Humour me this once."
"He's doing well. Better. He finished his doctorate last spring."
"That's wonderful." She doesn't know if she's dizzy or overwhelmed and sits down in the chair in front of Gwen's desk, carefully placing Elizabeth in her lap. She hasn't let herself think of Merlin in ages, even if he still haunts her dreams, and facing a reality in which he is very much still present is difficult for her to deal with on such short notice. "What did he do it on?"
"The historical symbolism behind a lost legend. Something about a dragon?"
A pang rushes through her at that. "About Aithusa?"
"I'm not sure?"
"You'd remember if the dragon had the same name as my cat!"
Gwen simply glares at her.
"Okay, fine." She laughs, but she knows it sounds just as fake to Gwen as it does to her. Readjusting Lizzie's perfectly adjusted sock, she gives in to the other plaguing question and quietly adds, "Is he married?"
"Morgana..."
Her heart races as Gwen speaks, and she knows she's being silly. It's been five years, and of course he's moved on. "He is then. That's great."
Gwen shakes her head. "He's not married. He isn't even seeing anyone, as far as I know." She pauses. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine! Or I will be very soon. It was just a shock is all."
Gwen looks from her to Lizzie and then nods. "Shall we go get coffee? I have to give a lecture in an hour, but I have time until then."
Merlin bursts into Gwen's office after his tutorial fifty minutes later. He knows she needs to leave soon, and he wants to get five minutes in with her before she does, if only to reassure himself that he isn't going mad.
"I'm going mad."
"What have we said about knocking?"
Merlin winces. He never remembers, no matter how many times he's told. "That I'm going mad?"
"You're not going mad."
"I thought I saw Morgana."
Gwen sighs, leaning back in her chair, and Merlin thinks she looks a tiny bit peeved. "That's because you did see Morgana."
"How?"
"She's on campus."
"And you didn't think to tell me?"
"She didn't tell me. I just found out an hour ago!"
"Still! You could have messaged me."
"She saw you before I found out!" Gwen sighs again and gets up, reaching for her bag. "I have to go to B107. Walk with me?"
Merlin nods and asks, "Where is she now?"
"She took Lizzie to day-care."
Merlin swallows and follows Gwen out of her office. She'd been here then, minutes before him, and the thought of running into her so soon makes him feel ill.
"What is she doing here?"
"Merlin, you know our agreement."
"Don't you think this calls for an exception? She's in my workplace! She was hovering outside the door to my classroom."
"She wasn't hovering."
"But she was there!"
"By mistake!"
Merlin doesn't know why disappointment shoots through him, but there's no denying that it does. "So she doesn't want to see me."
"Merlin."
"Can you please just tell me what she's doing here so I can be prepared?"
"She's here for work, and that's all I'm going to say."
"Fine. For how long?"
"The week. At least?"
Merlin nods. That he could deal with. Or he could hope to fall ill and spend the week at home. Or get called to a last minute conference in Paris. Or need to go see a friend's doctoral defence. In Ireland.
"I'm sorry, Merlin. I know it isn't easy."
"Thanks, Gwen. It'll be fine."
The night he'd spent drinking and divulging secrets that he didn't even realize he still had after breaking up with Freya is barely months in the past, and he knows he isn't fooling Gwen.
She gives him a sceptical look and nods. "If you say so."
Merlin shrugs. "What's the likelihood that I'm going to run into her again, anyway?"
High. The likelihood was a high one. He sees her out on the quad after leaving Gwen in her lecture room. She's pushing Lizzie along in her pram, visibly talking to her and stopping to check on her every few feet.
Merlin feels like he's been trampled by a horse. It's different now that he knows that it's her, that he isn't simply seeing things in masochistic delusions. The long, dark hair is hers, and the sad smile on her face as she points at an unusually large bird that's landed in front of the pram, much to Lizzie's amusement, is hers, and Merlin knows that he's lied to Gwen.
He isn't going to be fine if he has to see her in his workplace every day for a week. He doesn't even think he's going to make it back up the steps of the quad before she sees him.
Morgana parks Lizzie's pram beside a bench and sits, pulling the almost-toddler out onto her lap. She should be in day-care, and she has every intention of taking her there, but she wants to take her for a walk first.
She hasn't been able to spend much time with her niece lately, and what she'd told Gwen was true. Spending time with Lizzie calms her down, and she's desperately in need of calm.
She doesn't know why she's agreed to Elaine's plan, why she's sitting in the middle of the quad, battling her nerves when she could be at home, composed and far away from her past, from the very real ghost of Merlin.
Seeing him again has woken all the memories she's repressed over the past few years, and bouncing Lizzie in her lap does nothing to distract her, even as her chortling giggles try to break through her thoughts.
"Your Aunt Morgana's screwed, isn't she?"
Lizzie giggles, and Morgana sighs.
They sit there quietly for a while, watching the birds and the fluttering leaves until Morgana's phone buzzes with a reminder from Elaine to go to Dr Nimueh's lunchtime lecture on the Druids.
And don't forget to have fun! ;)
Morgana smiles at the screen, despite herself. For all her annoyance with Elaine for sending her to the university, she knows her mentor has nothing but the best intentions. She tosses her phone back into her bag and stands to put Elaine back in the pram.
"Let's go shall we, darling?"
The lecture starts out by being fun. She's missed sitting in auditoriums and taking notes on truly interesting topics, and she sits near the front, to the side, and loses herself in Nimueh's talk on Druid history. The time period and people aren't so very far off from her old area of research, and she finds herself wishing she'd never left it behind. She makes a note to herself to email Caelia and see if she can see her the next day, and sits back to absorb the rest of the talk.
But then halfway through, the back door squeaks open, and she turns to find Merlin apologetically sneaking into the room. He quietly makes his way through the rows and sits with a group of history professors she recognizes from her time.
She turns back to the podium at the front of the room and freezes as blood rushes to her cheeks. She decides to ignore his presence and pretend that nothing has changed in the room, but she finds her eyes wandering to the side every few minutes until she realizes she's staring and fixates on the notebook in front of her.
There's no denying that he has an effect on her even after all of these years, even though he's halfway across the auditorium. He'd burrowed his way into her heart years ago and for all the pain she's caused, for all the things she's suffered, she's never managed to expunge the memory of his love.
Her eyes flick back to him against her will, and this time, she finds him staring back at her.