From the author's desk: Argh, late again! Sorry everyone!

To those of you who've been reading/reviewing faithfully, thank you so much. And those of you who are new to the story, I hope you like what you're reading.

Anyway, if anyone has been thinking, "I WANT MERLIN'S BACKGROUND ALREADY!" this is the chapter. It was, by far, the most difficult to write, because I was running with the concept of Merlin going to battle against his foes while also presenting his emotional upheaval because of the things that have happened to him in this life. But hopefully, if I did it right, you can see medieval!Merlin in presentday!Merlin as you read this. Quick warning though: you may want tissues-lots and lots of tissues.

Also, I know nothing of how the UK court system works, so I've taken creative liberties. Please excuse any mistakes!

Fun game this chapter: who do you think the boy, the defense lawyer, and the judge are? (That is, who are they "reincarnations" of?) Drop your answers into a review! I would love to hear your theories, and I will give the answer next week with the epilogue.

As always, much love to my fantastic betas, CaptainOzone and ExcaliburMaiden-they are seriously the best ever.

Enjoy, and see you all next Sunday for the final installment-The Epilogue!

Disclaimer: IDOM.

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Chapter 5

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He stares at the trickling water in wonder.

Freya stares up at him with a smile, eyes bright and determined.

Bobbing on a familiar lake, he sits and waits, fledgling hope in his heart.

The water breaks as her hand presents him a gleaming sword.

Even in death, Freya's love gives him the will to fight.

xxx

Merlin swallows thickly, his stomach twisting in nervous anxiety, as he tightly grasps the wooden railing of the witness box. His eyes flit nervously around the room, occasionally landing on Kanen and Jarl, sitting next to each other by their lawyers at the table designated for the defense.

He can feel the weight of their eyes on him, and to hide the tremble running through his body, he grips the banister until his knuckles are white.

"Merlin?"

Merlin's gaze snaps to the prosecutor, a kind giant of a man named Percy. Merlin has gone over his testimony with him multiple times, so mentally, he knows what to expect.

He'll ask some questions to establish who he is, what he's been doing for the last few years, how he knows the defendants, and what they did to him.

That's going to be the hardest part.

Merlin closes his eyes and takes a couple deep, calming breaths. He has to do this.

For the ones he left to suffer.

For the boy he saw with his father in the antechamber to the courtroom. He looked terrified and so small for his age, all dark hair and blue eyes and skinny frame.

So much like himself.

Merlin swallows audibly once more.

"Merlin?" Percy asks again.

The large man's controlled confidence washes over Merlin. He focuses on Percy, who stands near the banister of the witness box, while trying his best not to think of the eyes he can feel on him.

"Sorry. Hello," he answers.

"Hello, Merlin." Percy smiles at him encouragingly. "Merlin, can you tell us a little about yourself?"

Merlin licks his dry lips, and nods. "Sure. I'm a doctoral candidate in History. I'm working on my dissertation while I work under one of the professors as a teaching assistant."

"That's impressive. What is your dissertation about?"

Merlin can't help but smile. He loves talking about his work. "I'm researching the occult—things like religious rituals and mythical beasts—and its influence on the culture of pre-medieval and medieval England."

"That sounds very interesting. Seems like you've achieved a lot for someone your age."

Merlin grins bashfully, ducking his head. "Oh, I don't know about that. But I do love my work."

"I'm glad to hear it." Percy smiles at him again, and Merlin bites his lip because he knows which questions are coming next.

"Merlin, I want to take you back now to when you were much, much younger. Tell us a little about where you grew up."

Merlin takes a deep breath and looks out into the audience, catching Freya and Arthur's gazes. Arthur looks back at him, blue eyes steely and determined. Freya gives him a small smile and mouths "It's all right" while discreetly holding up a pair of crossed fingers.

"I grew up with my mum. My dad died before I was born, so I never knew him, though I've seen pictures and my mum says I'm like him. Um…we lived in one of the poorer parts of town, so it wasn't the safest place to grow up. Mum…mum worked really hard, but always made time to spend with me. She used to take me on her errands with her when I was really little."

"Merlin, can you tell us how you know the defendants?" Percy prompts him.

"Jarl ran the grocery. His shop was a block away from our flat. We went there every week," Merlin says. "Kanen was his business partner, though I didn't really understand that at the time—I just knew him as Jarl's friend. But he was around the shop a lot too. I always saw them when I went for the shopping with mum, and when she decided I was old enough, I began get some things on my own because the store was so close to where we lived and because we knew—thought—we thought we knew them well enough to keep me out of mischief."

Percy grins at him with a raised eyebrow. "Were you a troublemaker Merlin?"

Merlin shakes his head with a light chuckle. "A little bit, yeah, but no more than most kids. I had a habit of wandering off without warning her to look at something that caught my attention." He smiles a bit at the titters from the audience. "I also liked climbing up the fire escape when she played hide and seek with me. That always earned me a bit of a tongue-lashing, but I kept doing it because it was fun." That earns him a few all out laughs.

As the room comes back to order, Merlin's fingers tense around the banister again as he gets closer to talking about the crime in question.

"And how old were you when she decided that?" Percy asks him, his voice neutral.

"I'd just turned ten. She would leave the house key with old Mr. Kilgour next door for me to pick up after school, when I finished afternoon activities. By the time I would come home to get the key and the list, it was usually around half-four. I'd get the key from Mr. Kilgour, drop off my satchel in our flat, and grab the money and the list from the kitchen counter. I usually went around Wednesday or Thursday."

Merlin smiles at the thought of the old Scottish man next door with the heavy accent, who was always disgruntled at Merlin for interrupting his day but nice enough to give him and his mum a tin of biscuits at Christmas each year until they moved.

"Remember something nice?" Percy interrupts his thoughts, not unkindly.

Merlin shakes his head with a smaller smile. "Just remembering Mr. Kilgour. He didn't look after me in the afternoons or anything, but he always gave us biscuits at Christmastime each year. He had this picture of a pretty blond-haired girl in his flat that I think was his daughter, and I think he was fond of my mum because she reminded him of her."

Percy nods. "All right then. Merlin, can you tell us what happened in March the year you turned 10?"

Merlin swallows, his mouth dry as his nerves come back with a vengeance. He fights to control his breathing and focuses on Freya's face, his gaze boring into her own brown eyes. She bites her lip, showing her concern for him, before giving him a small smile and mouthing, "It's okay. You can do it."

"Jarlaskedmeforafavor," Merlin mumbles aloud.

"Could you repeat that please?" Percy asks him.

Merlin clears his throat. "Sorry. Jarl…asked me for a favor. Because he said I didn't have enough money to buy what was on my list."

"What did he ask you to do?"

Merlin shrugs and looks down at his hands, his fingers now toying with each other in his lap. "Just help him move some stuff around in his backroom. Said if I could help him he'd call it even."

Merlin glances up and sees Jarl staring at him with his wide-set eyes. He sneers at Merlin, and it's like Merlin can hear his voice in his head even though Jarl isn't saying anything aloud right now. You are good, aren't you?

Percy asks him something that he misses, and Merlin focuses on the sound to tear his gaze away from Jarl. "Sorry, can you repeat the question?"

"Was that the only time Jarl asked you for a favor?"

"No."

"When did he ask you again?"

Merlin swallows and stares out into the crowd, unable to settle his gaze on anything, before looking back at Percy. "It seemed like every other time I went in, I didn't have enough money. So Jarl would ask me for a favor."

"Could you give us an average?"

Merlin frowns in thought. "Something like two to three times a month."

Percy nods. "I see. What did he have you do for him?"

Merlin chews his lip for a moment before answering. "He'd…have me move boxes, mostly."

"Mostly?"

Merlin fights the urge to squirm in his seat. "There were a few…a few favors that aren't normal by any standard, but I didn't know better at the time."

Percy nods. "Okay, we'll come back to that. Was there anything else that he had you do?"

Merlin relaxes slightly. "A few times he asked me grab some bottled liquid solution for Kanen. Kanen had a darkroom in a small office back there, but I was never allowed inside. I didn't know it was a darkroom until I got older, though, and learned that the light is red in rooms like that."

"Did you notice anything else odd about the backroom?"

Merlin's knuckles are white as he laces his fingers in his lap. "There were cameras everywhere. And a—and a mattress. Th-that was usually behind a curtain, but a few times I found Jarl napping on it while Kanen took over the counter."

Merlin's stomach is clenching in nausea again, and his breathing is quickening.

"What about being back there, Merlin? Did you like helping them?"

Merlin closes his eyes, trying to block out the room and the trembling in his hands.

He needs to focus only on Percy's questions.

He has to get through this.

"Sometimes Jarl…Jarl would invade my personal space. I would be bending down to pick something up, and I would feel someone come up behind me. This close." Merlin uses his thumb and index finger to demonstrate the lack of distance. "And I'd look up and there he'd be. Sometimes I caught them looking at me...funny. I didn't get it at the time, didn't understand what the looks meant. I was still young. But I remember feeling uncomfortable because of the way they were looking at me. Like…like I was a…piece of meat. They looked…they looked hungry."

Merlin shudders as he forces himself to stop beating around the bush, to say outright what the looks were. "They looked at me with lust."

Percy nods again. "Okay. Merlin, let's go back to something you said before. You said you were sometimes asked to do favors that you didn't know better about not doing. Who asked you to perform those?"

"Both of them. Mostly Kanen."

"Can you tell us about some of them?"

Merlin wraps his arms around himself. "They asked me to try on clothes. Kanen told me that I was close to his nephew's size, and he wanted to see if the clothes he bought for him would fit."

"You can't deny the logic behind it," Percy says.

Merlin snorts derisively. "I agree. But most people would also point to a closet or closed-off private area of some sort and say, 'you can try it on back there.'"

"So are you saying that they didn't say that to you?"

Merlin shakes his head. "Yes. Um, I-I mean no. No. They didn't."

"You mentioned that there was an area with a curtain. Did they say that you could use that area?"

"No."

"Did they at least turn around? If there's no space, the decent thing to do would be to turn their back to give you a semblance of privacy."

Merlin feels his cheeks flushing at the memories, and he can see Kanen staring at him unrepentantly from the corner of his eye. "No. They didn't do that either. They…they said I knew them, that it was just them, so it was okay. And the cameras were there to make sure we stayed safe and that everything was fine."

"I just want to make this clear. You're saying that they asked you, as a ten-year-old child, to change clothes in their presence with no provision of a private space to do so. Correct?" Merlin can see that this still makes Percy upset, even though he's heard Merlin's testimony prior to today.

Merlin nods. "Yes."

"Can you tell us how many times they asked favors like this from you?"

Merlin hugs himself tighter and swallows the dryness in his mouth. "Three or four times, until my eleventh birthday—"

His breathing is coming short and quick now at the assault of the memories, and dammit, why is he reacting like this still?

After so many years, after getting clean and going through therapy and talking with professionals, why is he still unable to talk about all this without having some sort of a break down?

Because he can't do that here.

He can't fall apart on the stand like this.

Merlin remembers the little boy outside, his large blue eyes frightened as he held on to his father's hand like it was a lifeline.

He has to get through this for him.

He has to, but—but maybe—

"Can I get some water? Please?"

Merlin vaguely hears the judge call a thirty-minute recess to the hearing. Percy helps him come down from the stand, and he is ushered into the antechamber where the boy and his father are.

Merlin collapses on to a bench and is soon joined by Arthur sitting on one side of him, and Freya hugging him from the other.

Merlin clings to Freya for a few minutes, burying his face in her neck and trying to calm down the tremors wracking his whole body. He inhales the scent of her favorite perfume—lavender and chamomile—and feels himself start to relax as he registers Arthur's hand gently gripping his shoulder.

"Better?" Freya whispers when he's finally calm enough to let go of her and sit up. Merlin nods but doesn't say anything.

He closes his eyes, just taking in the sensations around him—Freya tightly holding his hand, Arthur gently bumping his shoulder, the feel of hard wood paneling against his back, and the sound of squeaking shoes on a very polished floor.

"I'm happy my mother isn't here to see this," he finally confesses with a sigh. "I couldn't put her through it, and I don't know if I could handle watching her reaction."

When he opens his eyes, he looks down to see Freya resting her head on his left shoulder. When he looks to his other side, Arthur is leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed.

He's about to make a comment about Arthur looking more emotionally drained than he does when he hears the squeaking shoes again. Looking in the direction of the sound, Merlin sees the boy staring at him.

He's stepped away from his father and Percy, who are most likely discussing the proceedings so far. He's hugging himself, his small hands tucked under opposite arms, and swimming in an ill-fitting but very comfortable looking jumper. His large eyes are ice blue in the dull daylight streaming through the window and filled with a mix of fear and longing and, oddly, hope.

Merlin wants to say something to the boy, wants to know his name, wants to tell him how sorry he is that he didn't fight before now.

Because the boy looking at him that way is his fault.

But he can't say anything to the boy right now, and he has to be careful of what he does say because he can't influence the boy's testimony.

"Merlin, are you ready? It's time to go back in," Percy says as he comes to stand on Arthur's other side, tearing Merlin's attention away from the boy and his musings.

Merlin stands up and digs his hands into the pockets of his slacks.

He'll never be ready for this, if he's being honest.

But this is his only chance to do this, to fight.

For what the boy lost.

For what he lost.

For what's right.

Merlin looks back at the boy once more and gives him a small smile.

I'll fight for you and me. You aren't alone.

The boy gives him a tiny smile back.

Merlin nods at Percy. "Yeah, let's go."

Just before Merlin and Percy split from Freya and Arthur, Freya grabs Merlin's arm. "Wait a sec."

When Merlin looks back toward her, Freya pulls him toward her by the lapel of his jacket.

"When you're up there," she whispers to him, her brown eyes locked on his, her hands fisted in his shirt, "and you're scared and struggling, remember this."

The kiss she presses to his lips is long, lingering, soft, and deep.

When they break apart, Freya rests her forehead against his.

"I'm right here with you. We all are."

Merlin nods and presses a tender kiss to her forehead.

"Thank you," he breathes.

"I love you," she says, eyes bright and determined.

"I love you too," Merlin confirms. He kisses her briefly once more before pulling away to head back into the courtroom behind Percy.

As he waits for the judge's return, he closes his eyes, ignoring the hum of whispering people and shuffling feet around him. Instead, he pictures Freya as she was when he met her what feels like a lifetime ago, and then again as she is now—a strong, confident, vibrant young woman.

She could have anyone in the world, and she's staying with him.

If Freya could go into the witness box and reveal the sordid details of what happened to her, so could he.

And Merlin knows he will because he's not just doing it for himself.

There is a scared little boy who suffered because he wasn't strong enough to fight before now.

He opens his eyes when he hears the judge declaring the court back in session.

"Will the witness please return to the stand?"

Glancing back at Freya and Arthur in the audience, Merlin turns back to the judge. "Yes, Your Honor."

Merlin smiles at Percy, who nods back with a small smile of his own, before taking his seat in the box again.

He's still nervous, but he's much better than where he was half an hour ago. He takes Freya's advice and thinks of the last few minutes they had before coming back into the courtroom.

I love you.

"Merlin, you mentioned that the defendants asked you for favors until your eleventh birthday. Can you tell us what happened that day?"

Merlin twiddles his thumbs in silence for a moment.

I love you.

He thinks of the boy sitting with his father in the other room, swallowed up by his jumper because the extra room in the garment makes him feel safe.

Merlin knows that feeling—to have no safety from the horrors of the world outside his doors.

Merlin took a more desperate approach to hide from it and almost killed himself in the process.

I love you.

Merlin looks out into the audience and finds Freya. She's holding Arthur's hand and is staring right back at him.

He thinks of the night she told him her story, in the peaceful quiet of his room after an evening spent together.

He's told this story before, several years ago in therapy sessions.

He's told her this story before, just a couple months ago, huddled on the bathroom floor in his flat.

But it's terrifying to tell it again when Jarl and Kanen are right there, and he can feel their eyes and can remember their hands and their words—

I love you.

"They gave me candy," he gasps out, his breath shuddering in his chest. "I said…I said 'No, thank you.' But Kanen insisted, said it's what he gave his nephew for his birthday every year. Jarl said it was something special that he didn't get to sell in his store.

"And I…I was eleven. I liked candy a lot, especially since mum didn't buy it all the time. I thought they'd taken a lot of trouble to get me something I couldn't usually buy. So I took it, and ate some in the shop—"

He bites his lip, before finishing. "I didn't know that it was drugged."

Merlin's vision is blurring with tears, and he blinks rapidly to disperse them, to keep his vision clear and to keep Freya in his sight.

"I…I felt really sleepy after eating the candy. I remember, it was a bag of fruit-flavored gummies, shaped like different pieces of fruit. I must have blacked out because when I woke up, I was in…I was in the b-backroom. I was…I was lying on…lying on the m-mattre-ess…I t-told them to s-s-stop, that i-it h-hurt—"

Percy nods. "Merlin, I want to show you a photograph. Is that okay?"

Merlin nods, taking the blessing in disguise to wipe his tears and recompose himself, still keeping his eyes on Freya. There are tears dripping down her cheeks, but her eyes are proud, and she's smiling slightly at him. He's only half paying attention to the piece of evidence Percy is describing for the court's benefit, only knowing that it's most likely a photo of himself on that horrible day.

I love you.

He clings to those words like a comfort blanket.

"Merlin," Percy says to him, bringing him back to the present, "can you please identify who is in this picture?"

He doesn't want to look.

He really, really doesn't.

But there is a little boy who needs him to do this, so that Kanen and Jarl can go away and finally, finally leave them alone.

Merlin points shakily to the boy in the photo, his body twisted at an odd angle and his face screwed up in pain.

"That's m-me," he says.

He then points to the man kneeling near the boy's head, a hand on the boy's chest. The hooked nose is clearly visible. "Jarl."

Merlin points finally to the man dwarfing most of the lower half of the boy's body with a view of his muscular back. "K-Kanen," he gasps and falls silent as Percy turns away from him to address the court.

"Let it be clear to the court that in this photograph the witness has identified himself as the victim and the defendants as the perpetrators," Percy declares, his voice echoing to the hollow corners of the courtroom. "This is but one of many of its kind, and I would like Your Honor's permission to submit the rest as evidence as well." The judge grants Percy's request, and Percy hands the judge a short stack of manila envelopes before he turns back to Merlin.

"Merlin, I only have a couple more questions for you. Did they ever assault you again?"

Merlin nods jerkily. "Y-Yes, three or four more times, u-until we moved. They…they told me not to tell my mother. They threatened to find a way to take me away from her, because she struggled to take care of me. She…she wasn't home a lot so she didn't really know anything was wrong. It wasn't her fault, though. She…she was trying to take care of me. She was working two or three jobs because of me. So…so I kept quiet."

He wipes at his eyes again. "I-I didn't w-want h-her to worry about m-me."

Percy nods. "Thank you, Merlin. No further questions."

The judge nods. "Cross-examination?"

"Thank you, Your Honor," the prosecuting lawyer says as he stands up. He's a weedy-looking man, with large brown eyes and scraggly hair and an odd mustache.

He reminds Merlin of a slick patch of oil and immediately sets Merlin on edge.

"So Merlin. Can I call you Merlin?" he says, sidling up to the stand.

Merlin wipes at his face again to rid of the last of his tears and narrows his eyes at the lawyer. "I'd prefer you didn't."

"All right, Mr Ambrose then. Is that acceptable, Mr Ambrose?"

Merlin wants to slap the sneering grin off his face, but he settles for glaring instead.

"You have questions for me, and I am exhausted at this point. So please get on with it."

"Straight to the point. I like that in people. Tell me, Mr Ambrose, is it true that you were a drug-user in your adolescence?"

Merlin feels his cheeks flush, but he doesn't take his eyes off the lawyer. "I have nothing to hide. Yes, I used drugs when I was a teenager."

"When did you start?"

"I was fourteen."

"Huh. Two years after your alleged assault? Why then?"

Merlin glares at the man in front of him, feeling anger heat his blood. "Because I was silenced by the manipulation of your clients, I was traumatized by what they did to me, and I had no one to turn to for help. After two years of self-hate and shame, the drugs were an outlet, a reprieve from my own head. But you know, we can take this a little further, if you'd like."

Merlin is on a roll and is very happily letting the slimy lawyer have it because damn him for trying to poke holes in his character and his testimony by bringing this up.

"The drugs made me feel good again. Do you know what that's like? To be so hurt that you don't just hate who hurt you, but you hate yourself for not being able to fight back, for not saying anything? It's enough to make you keep going back, craving for the oblivion the drugs give you. My hurt and need for peace was enough to make me take so much one day that I nearly died and that I wished I had died when I woke up."

The lawyer hasn't managed to say anything since Merlin began ranting, and while he's been talking, Merlin has been digging in his pocket. As he finishes his tirade, Merlin pulls out a round medallion and holds it up for the defense attorney and all of the court to see.

"It took an immense amount of strength and love on my mother's part to accept what happened to me and what I'd been reduced to, and it took even more for her to decide to send me to live with a relative instead. My great-uncle didn't have to take me in, but he did, and he got me the help I needed to get my life back. Because of that support, and later, the support and love I got from the friends I made in college," Merlin pauses to meet Arthur's eyes in the audience, who proudly raises his chin in acknowledgment, "I have been able to build my life into something wonderful and something that I cherish." Merlin meets Freya's eyes briefly with a small smile before turning back to the lawyer in front of him and waving the medallion in his face again.

"I've been clean for nine years, I've worked hard to stay that way, and I'll be damned if I let you use my weakness to discredit me."

Merlin falls silent, but he continues to glare at the oily defense attorney in front of him. He can't help but feel a little vindicated at the cowed expression on the man's face.

He finally sighs with a frown and mutters, "No further questions."

The judge nods and turns to Merlin. "Thank you, Mr Ambrose. You may step down."

Merlin smiles gratefully at the judge and exits the box and the courtroom, his back erect and shoulders stiff and straight. He holds it together until he's outside, and by the time Freya and Arthur reach him, he's sitting slumped on a bench, his face buried in his hands.

A part of him wants to go back, to talk to the boy and tell him everything will be all right now, but most of him just wants to go home. So he doesn't argue when Freya gently coaxes him to leave the courthouse, and he doesn't protest when she brings him to his room at home and tucks him into bed and climbs in next to him.

Instead he wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her neck and inhales her scent until he falls asleep.

The days between the day of his testimony and the day of the verdict feel like waking dreams, not altogether real because he feels so turned off to everything.

He feels withdrawn and emotional and numb all at once, his memories of the multiple assaults he suffered now linked to those awful pictures of himself.

Part of him wishes he could find the photographs and burn them. Part of him prays he'll never see the pictures again.

He spends the next few days at home, not saying much of anything, with no desire to go anywhere, to see anyone, to do anything. His research and the books he's using for his dissertation sit forlornly in stacks on his desk, and his easel sits untouched and empty of a canvas. Gwen and Morgana spend a lot of time trying to get him to eat more, but he's not hungry. Arthur tries to distract him, but Merlin just isn't in the mood.

Meanwhile, Freya just lets him be. She gives him a kiss in the morning before she leaves for her day and a kiss in the evening when she comes back. If she's staying home, she sits with him, reading a book or watching telly, her fingers laced through his.

Merlin is thankful for the space she gives him.

Merlin surmises that his lack of sleep is also one of the main reasons he's so out of it, but he can't help being kept awake by the fear that somehow, in spite of his testimony, in spite of the boy testifying as well and in spite of the physical evidence that Percy has been able to admit into court, the verdict will come back favoring Kanen and Jarl. And when he sleeps, he finds himself dreaming of the past, or various futures which all feature Kanen and Jarl going free.

He wonders what they will do if they're not sentenced. Will they go after his mother in retribution? Will they hurt the boy again, or his father?

Will they come after him?

He's going on day five of his seeming half-lucidity when his mother calls him.

At first, Merlin debates not taking the phone.

He quickly nixes the idea as absurd and answers.

"Hi, Mum," he mumbles into the receiver.

"Hi, sweetheart. I'm surprised I haven't heard from you already," she says, and Merlin is glad she can't see his guilty expression over the phone.

"I…I know. I meant to call sooner," he says, hoping she'll buy it.

"Mm-hmm. I'm sure you did," she responds, and he knows that she knows he is lying through his teeth.

There is a pause between them, Merlin toying with a frayed corner of his blanket, before Hunith asks him softly, "How are you?"

He sighs shakily. He can't lie to her. "I'm…I dunno, mum." Merlin settles himself back into his favorite corner of the couch, drawing his knees to his chest under the blanket, before continuing, "I'm feeling really messed up."

And Merlin starts to talk. He tells his mother how he can't sleep and how worried he is about the verdict. He tells her about testifying and the emotional rollercoaster it was and how after it was over he just wanted to crawl into bed and hide and never come back out and how he bounces between feeling numb and wanting to cry and wanting to throw a fit and feeling relieved that his part is over and being scared that they won't win.

"Oh, my darling. I'm so proud of you for what you've done," she says finally after he's done talking. "You haven't just helped yourself, but there is a little boy out there who's got a better chance at justice thanks to you." Merlin's mother pauses, and he hears the shaky breaths and telltale sniff that indicate that she's been crying before she continues speaking again. "Merlin, I can't promise that everything will be all right, but whatever happens, I'm sure something good will come of it. But I think…I think it's time to finally put this behind you."

Merlin runs a trembling hand through his hair, swallowing hard. He knows what she's suggesting.

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do," she says, "and neither will your friends or Freya it seems. But sweetheart, you're not sleeping. It sounds like Gwen and Morgana are force-feeding you because you're not eating enough. And if I know you, you haven't left the flat in days. You had a life before this, Merlin, one you worked hard to rebuild. Why aren't you out there living it?"

His mother's words give him pause.

She's absolutely right, of course. Why is he living like this? Does he really have that little faith in the boy, in Percy and the evidence and the court? In himself?

No, their hard work to bring Kanen and Jarl to justice won't go unpunished. The court can't be that cruel.

Fate can't be that cruel.

"Merlin? Are you still there?" his mother's voice brings him back to the present conversation.

"Y-Yeah, Mum, I'm still here. Just thinking about what you said," he quickly says, straightening up into a sitting position on the couch just as he hears a knock on the door. Standing, he begins to make his way over to answer it, the phone still pressed to his ear.

"And? What are you going to do?" his mother asks as he unlocks the door and swings it open to find Freya standing on the other side, examining something on her phone. When she looks up, she gives him a surprised but pleased grin, her brown eyes glowing.

"Merlin?" his mum's voice sounds in his ear, but he's still staring at Freya. A slow smile starts to spread across his face, and he feels warmth spread through him as he looks at her.

"I'm going to live my life again. And I'm going to make it better than it's ever been before now," he tells his mother distractedly, still taking Freya in, who is now giving him a raised eyebrow for keeping her standing in the hallway. His mother says something that sounds approving over the phone as he steps aside to let Freya enter, and as soon as she's through the door, he wraps his free arm around her and pulls her close to him.

"Mum, I have to go. I'll talk to you later," he says hastily, after which he promptly hangs up on his mother and turns his full attention to Freya.

"Back in your head again?" she asks him, and smiles brightly.

"Sort of," he says. "Not completely, but give me some time to get there?"

Freya wraps her arms more snugly around the back of his neck, and reaches on tiptoes to kiss him tenderly. The warmth of her kiss spreads through Merlin, finally consciously registering Freya for the first time in days, and he kisses her deeply back.

When they part, Merlin rests his forehead against hers.

"Got your answer?" she asks, voice gentle.

"Mm-hmm." He kisses her again—a light peck this time.

Freya rests her head against his chest, her ear over his heart, while he closes his eyes and rests his chin on top of her head.

"I love you," he murmurs, wrapping his arms more securely around Freya and relishing in the feel of her in his arms.

"I love you too," she says back, and fists her hand in the back of his shirt.

And Merlin knows in that moment that as long as he has Freya, his friends and family, and the life he's built for himself, he'll be all right.

When he hears from Percy three days later, informing him that Kanen and Jarl were sentenced to life imprisonment, he can't help crying tears of relief.

His ordeal is over.

Merlin can finally put it all behind him.