Chapter 8: Protector's Heart

"Merlin?" Arthur echoed blankly. "Why the hell would he be here at night?"

"Why would he run from me?" Gwaine added, running a hand through his hair distractedly.

"You said he went down hard." Arthur's heart rate began to pick up.

"I didn't see that it was him at first," Gwaine confessed. "That taser only has thirty-five thousand volts, just meant to knock you on your – well, the idiot tripped. Took a header down the stairs."

Oh, damn. "Where is he?" Arthur said, passing Gwaine to take the short hallway to the base of the third-floor staircase at a run.

Merlin's body was huddled on the floor, head and shoulders still on the stairs.

"Did you move him?" Arthur said, immediately feeling at his friend's neck for a pulse.

"You're not supposed to, when there might be a head or neck injury," Gwaine said. "First I thought to call for an ambulance, but –"

"There might be awkward questions to answer," Arthur said grimly. "Think we should call Gaius?"

"I did, just after I texted you. He thought Merlin was still in bed. He'll be here in maybe five minutes. You think…" Gwaine hesitated. "You think maybe – this was quite a knock upside the head, but maybe…"

Merlin moaned, shifting his legs. "Merlin, can you hear me?" Arthur said, moving to his side, while Gwaine hovered over them both. He couldn't quite contain the flame of hope that Gwaine had ignited with his idiotic theory. "Try not to move. Gaius is on the way – we need you not to move around til he can check you for injuries."

Merlin's blue eyes blinked open, focused on Arthur's face. "Drake?" he said thickly. "What are you doing here?" Drake. Not Arthur.

"Oh, damn," Gwaine breathed in disappointment.

Merlin's eyes turned to the dark-haired knight. "You shot me," he said in slurred accusation.

Gwaine corrected, "I shocked you."

"That hurt." Merlin tried to raise head and shoulders from the stairs.

"Lie still!" Arthur commanded, and Merlin obediently settled back into motionlessness.

Gwaine grinned at the former servant's instinctive reaction to his sovereign's order, and in relief that Merlin seemed to be all right. "Rung your bell, did it? You see little birds circling your head?" His grin widened. "Pheasants?" he said, his voice carrying an unusual intensity for the stupid joke it sounded like to Arthur.

Merlin chuckled, wincing. "Three pheasants," he agreed.

Gwaine's devilish grin was brilliant with joy, and Arthur wondered if there was something he'd just missed. The former knight reached to squeeze Arthur's shoulder, and nodded at him. "He'll be fine, sire," Gwaine predicted. "He's still in there somewhere. I'll go wait to let Gaius in – the key cards don't work after hours."

Arthur sat down on the steps next to his friend. Merlin closed his eyes again – the bruise on his face a faint sickly green on his pale skin. "What the hell, Merlin," he said tiredly, "are you doing here, at this time of night? And don't, for the love of –"

"For the love of Camelot?" Merlin suggested in a vague murmur. Arthur's heart caught in his throat. "Don't what, Drake?" Merlin continued, opening one eye to peer at him.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Don't tell me some cock-and-bull story about rats or termites or…"

"Your drone project," Merlin said, speaking more clearly than he had yet that night, "is compromised."

"What?" Arthur said, startled. He'd half expected some stupid story about retrieving work left behind that day, or maybe some embarrassed confession about an attempt to steal office supplies. He'd half expected to hear a lie.

"What are you going to do with me?" An unrelated question, yet obviously important to Merlin. He spoke not to bargain his information for a deal, but in a childishly vulnerable voice that said he knew he had broken laws and faced punishment.

"Your grandfather is on his way," Arthur reassured his friend. "He'll make sure you haven't broken your fool neck, or something."

"Oh, he's going to be pissed," Merlin sighed, closing his eyes again, and folding his hands over his stomach. "Are you sure you won't let me up? This floor isn't exactly soft."

"That'll be for the doctor to decide," Arthur said. "It's the same floor I'm sitting on – I know how hard it is, and I'm sorry. Just hold on." If Merlin could move his limbs and extremities, he should be fine, right?"

Merlin was quiet for a moment. "You really do care about me, don't you?"

"Just don't ask me to hold your hand and sing kum-bah-yah," Arthur joked. "But, yes, idiot – that's what friends are for."

"And then what?" Merlin asked quietly; Arthur didn't fully understand the question. "Are you going to have me arrested?"

"Probably not tonight," Arthur said, trying to keep the conversation light. "Tomorrow – we'll see." Merlin seemed remarkably calm about the idea – accepting, even. That seemed to be an innocent response, to Arthur. Unless Merlin had hit his head harder than anyone thought.

"Where is he?" They heard Gaius' voice, footsteps ascending the first-to-second-floor stairs.

"Just up here," Gwaine said. "I wouldn't have discharged the taser if I'd recognized him, but it was just bad luck that he tripped down the stairs."

Gaius was breathing hard from his hurry as he came into view, black medical bag in hand, and raised one eyebrow austerely at the sight of Merlin and Arthur apparently lounging on the stairs.

"Comfortable, Merlin?" he said sternly, as Arthur moved to allow him access to his grandson.

"Not so much." Merlin gave Gaius a fairly good imitation of his characteristically impudent grin. "Sorry to wake you."

"Clumsy as ever, aren't you?" They could all hear the loving concern beneath the old man's gruff words.

"It's my lot in life," Merlin sighed, a twinkle showing in his eyes.

"You must learn to be more careful, my boy," Gaius admonished. "What did you think you were doing here?"

"It's – complicated," Merlin said defensively, submitting to Gaius' gentle touch.

"How badly does it hurt?" Gaius said. "Can you move your neck?"

"It's not too bad," Merlin answered, turning his head though it made him wince.

"Can you still feel your fingers and toes?"

"All twenty," Merlin answered.

"Any numbness?" Gaius reached behind Merlin to feel along his back. "Does anything I'm doing cause a sharper pain?"

"No, sir."

"How long was he out?" The old man's question was directed to the other two young men.

"About – eighteen minutes," Gwaine estimated, checking his watch.

"Well, Arthur," Gaius concluded, pushing himself back to his feet, "I can't find anything more seriously wrong with him than general bruising and a mild concussion, but I'd like to take him to the hospital for x-rays, maybe a ct scan, just to be safe."

"Morphine?" Merlin suggested guilelessly, still lying motionless on the stairs.

"You should be so lucky," Gaius scolded him. "I brought a neck brace with me; I have half a mind to make you wear it just to teach you a lesson." He turned back to Arthur. "I'm going to assume, Arthur, that he's not under arrest, at least for tonight?"

Arthur sighed. His father would kill him. If he found out. "I'll come along to the ER," he said. "I want to hear the whole story before I make any decisions."

Gaius moved to allow Gwaine room to help Merlin to his feet, but Merlin's eyes stayed on Arthur's face. "You believe me," he said wonderingly. "My whole life, no one has believed me."

"We can talk later," Arthur said, as Gwaine steadied Merlin. He reached out a hand to his friend's shoulder, but Merlin twisted away, gently refusing his aid.

Arthur stooped instead to pick up Merlin's satchel from where it had landed partially beneath him. "I hope nothing's broken," he said, slinging the bag over his own shoulder.

"So do I," Gaius muttered meaningfully, shepherding his grandson slowly down the second-floor hallway.
"Tell me something, mate," Gwaine said, trailing along behind the pair, beside Arthur. "How'd you get in? Your key card shouldn't work, and you didn't trip the alarm."

"Oh, I told the security system to allow my key card access twenty-four-seven," Merlin said.

"Told?" Gwaine said.

"Hacked, he means," Gaius said, with a disapproval worthy of Thomas Drake himself. "Come on, easy does it, down the stairs."

Merlin leaned heavily on the handrail, hissing twice in pain during his journey downward. Arthur held his breath, hoping another stumble wouldn't take Merlin down another flight of stairs, and Gaius with him.

At the door, Gwaine keyed his own code to allow for their exit, and kept Arthur back by a hand on his elbow. "We're all on the security tapes tonight," he said. "No one will see them unless they specifically check… You let me know if I should 'accidentally' erase them?"

Arthur smirked. "Thanks, Gwaine."

"Arthur – he must have a good reason for coming tonight," Gwaine said. "You trust him, don't you?"

He took a deep breath, considering. The hacking charges had been dropped – for lack of evidence? Because Merlin was careful, or innocent? He had been on the verge of telling Thomas Drake something, of confiding in Arthur that very day. "Even if he isn't our Merlin – yes, I trust him," he said. "I have to believe he hasn't changed that much."

Gwaine nodded as if confirming something to himself. "He was in your father's office," he told Arthur. "Don't know how he got past that lock, either." Arthur gave his former knight a look, and Gwaine chuckled. "Yeah, think I can make a pretty good guess, too. Let me know when you know if he's all right."

Arthur drove his Mustang behind Gaius and Merlin in the Prius to the nearest 24-hour emergency care center. Merlin scorned the offer of a wheelchair, and made his cautious way inside to the waiting room, slouching in the nearest seat to rest his head gingerly against the back of it. Arthur dropped down next to him as Gaius went to talk to the admitting nurse on duty. There were three other family groups waiting – a young couple with a sneezing, whining toddler, a nervous young woman with an ice pack clutched around one wrist, and a middle-aged man doubled over a blue vomit bag in the corner.

"So – what were you doing in my father's office?" Arthur said, conversationally, setting Merlin's satchel down between his feet. "How do you know the project's compromised? And in what way?"

"Your first day," Merlin said slowly, "I was fixing a firewall for a guy in Engineering. The next day, the server crashed in Marketing, and the pass-code on the disc for that presentation had been –" he hesitated, then said, "reset. Yesterday the military program went offline for twelve seconds."

"Your department is necessary because internal technical difficulties are a part of corporate life," Arthur pointed out mildly.

Merlin glared at him, but before he could speak, a male nurse called, "Caroban, Marvin," and Merlin was pushing himself painfully to his feet before Arthur registered the name's significance. He followed to the door of the triage room, as the male nurse got Merlin settled, fitted with a blood pressure cuff, clipped a monitor to Merlin's opposite index finger, and stuck a thermometer in a protective plastic sleeve into Merlin's mouth.

"So, you tripped and fell down the stairs at your townhouse, huh?" the nurse said in a tone of friendly commiseration. Arthur looked at Gaius, who raised one eyebrow as if challenging Arthur to protest a correction. "At least it was carpet and not concrete, right?" Merlin mumbled an affirmative around the instrument, and the nurse removed it.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how high is your level of pain right now?" The nurse prepared to take Merlin through his relevant medical history, so Arthur returned to the waiting area. After about five minutes, Gaius beckoned to Arthur to join them as they were shown to an examination room.

Merlin stretched himself out, groaning, on the sheet-covered bed. Gaius stepped on the pedal-control to lay it flat, and Merlin rolled to his stomach. Arthur took the doctor's rolling stool, leaving a more comfortable chair with armrests for the old man.

"You had a funny feeling these incidents were – unusual," Arthur said, and Merlin opened one eye to look at him. "Carol said you'd been glued to your computer this week, but she didn't know what you were working on. And tonight you broke into my father's office."

"I didn't break anything," Merlin objected, his voice muffled where his mouth was mashed into the sheet. "I know I sound like an idiot, but - I'm pretty sure someone out there gained access to the information on that project without authorization."

Arthur considered. He originally hadn't thought the contract for specialized drones anything noteworthy, other than to bring Gwaine and Percival back to Camelot. He honestly wasn't sure he could accurately judge the important of the project on the grand scale of things – but Merlin had apparently thought it important enough to break the law for. "What did you want in my father's office?" Arthur asked.

"I thought if I could find a complete set of detailed blueprints, I could figure out – well, I could figure out – more."

Gaius spoke from his armchair by the door. "Curiosity killed the cat, Merlin… and never did you much good, either." Knowing the old man as he did, Arthur heard an implied, why didn't you tell someone?

"I know, but I can't just ignore it – it won't go away!" Merlin exclaimed. He rolled over to see each of them more clearly, and a brief knock interrupted.

A short middle-aged woman in teal scrubs looked in. "I've come to take –" she double-checked her chart, "Martin, to Radiology."

Merlin grunted as he pushed himself upright and away from the bed – all three of them moved simultaneously to help, but he shrugged them all off with a quiet mutter, "I've got it."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Gaius asked, but Merlin shook his head as the nurse escorted him away down the white, antiseptic hallway.

"About the drones," Arthur said. "You said the laboratory was involved. I want to know what you know." He wished now he'd paid more attention in that meeting, and resolved to sit down with Percival the next day. Actually, he'd probably need to sit down with all of them the next day, if this project concerned the reason they were all back.

"The drones the Department of Defense wanted Camelot Technologies to manufacture and program were assassin drones," Gaius said. It was crazy-odd to Arthur to hear the old physician familiar with modern terms. "The technology allowing a drone to target a single person needed refining. Camelot Laboratories has also been able to add a feature tracking a target via their DNA. This allows for one-hundred-percent accuracy, the way a photo-trigger does not. The secondary capability of the drone allows for surveillance in situations when the safety of a human asset would be at considerable risk."

Arthur could see where the technology could be of use to the enemy – targeting the president, for instance. But a global emergency? He opened Merlin's satchel, which contained the battered laptop, a half-full and room-temperature bottle of water, snack bar wrappers, a smashed carton of cigarettes and a lighter with a white dragon twined round it. He opened the laptop, but was greeted with a password prompt, and closed it again. In the bottom of the satchel was a crumpled piece of notebook paper. Arthur removed it, and flattened it, recognizing it immediately.

So you're working for your father's company – Camelot?!

Summer internship. You?

Recruited out of high school here in DC. Went green to gold this spring. Set to liaison with Camelot for this project.

Who else?

Merlin's an intern in IT, and Gwen's a temp receptionist – you saw her, right? Gaius is head of Camelot's laboratory, across the street. And Leon is my father's driver and bodyguard.

Why?

?

"Why does he have this?" Arthur said.

"What is it, sire?" Gaius said.

Arthur didn't respond. His written conversation with Percival had remained in the boardroom atop the tablet of paper. For Merlin to have retrieved it, carried it with him… it made no sense. Merlin had avoided him, had said to his face that he didn't like him. He hadn't seemed to notice Percival's presence at the table at all that day in the meeting. He'd crumpled it, had never mentioned it…but he'd kept it in his possession

"Has Merlin said anything to you about remembering?" Arthur asked the old man.

Gaius shook his head. "I'm sorry, my lord," he said. "Merlin prefers our conversations to remain on the inconsequential. I have attempted to question him twice this week – his response is to ignore me completely, or to leave the room."

Arthur stuffed the wad of paper back into the satchel.

The tiny examining room was silent, and awkward. "Merlin has always had a knack for uncovering plots," Gaius finally said. "But I have to say, I'm quite encouraged that he confided in you."

"You mean, because he didn't before," Arthur said, smiling wryly, but the admission tasted bitter in his mouth.

Gaius took a deep breath, directing his gaze to the ceiling. "A servant-master relationship is not conducive to unsupported confidences," he observed. "If a servant goes to his master with no more than suspicion, the master can do little about it. Therefore, the servant works on his own, and in secret, until he has something substantive to present to his master for action."

"That's Merlin's MO, isn't it?" Arthur said. "To work on his own until he has proof?" Gaius merely lifted his eyebrows in response. Arthur shook his head, rubbing a hand over his face, feeling more tired than he had all night. "Because he was protecting me from the suspicion of betrayal until he could bring something definite for me to act on," Arthur said.

"It is nothing against either of you, or a flaw in your relationship," Gaius said. "I found myself in the same position many times with your father, and I'm sure you will find yourself in that position during the course of your employment. One simply does not bring unproven claims to one's superior."

Arthur remembered standing in his father's presence, admitting that his witness was unavailable to corroborate his claim. He remembered his father's accusation of lies stemming from cowardice. He remembered, with shame, taking his frustration, his fear of facing a cheater who wanted to kill him, out on Merlin. Damn, that fool boy had stood with him, even when he didn't deserve it. Stood with him until the end, when Arthur had turned the accusation of cowardice back on the one who least deserved it – then Merlin had stood alone on the top of a lightning-lit cliff to save the battle anyway.

"Gaius," he said. "I don't know if I want Merlin to remember." The old physician's eyebrow rose in surprise. "He is going to remember my faults, my failures, my – disloyalty to him. I don't – I don't deserve him, Gaius."

"You were not given to each other because you deserved each other, Arthur," Gaius said. "You were given to each other because you need each other. Perhaps it will not be long…"

"Two sides of one coin," Arthur remembered.

"Coin, what coin? Do I get a raise, then?" Merlin said, shuffling through the door.

The teal-scrubbed nurse was right behind him. "We've got some Percocet for you," she said, handing Merlin a tiny plastic cup containing the pills, and filling a larger one with water from the sink in the room. "The doctor will be in shortly to let you know the results of the x-ray and scan."

Merlin swallowed both the pills at once, and lowered himself to a prone sprawl on the bed once again.

"Merlin, can you prove that someone was –" viewing? stealing? hacking? – "messing about with the project?" Arthur questioned.

"I've been trying," Merlin sighed. "Maybe with time, and better equipment…" He opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling, then struggled up to his elbows to gaze at Arthur in mild bewilderment. "You really do believe me, don't you? You're not going to have me arrested, or…"

"Thrown in a dungeon on suspicion?" Arthur laughed softly, but his throat hurt. It wasn't a good joke, even if Merlin didn't remember.

"I don't understand why," his friend continued. "I'm nothing to you – I'm no one. After tonight – I wouldn't be surprised if you never trusted me again."

"I owe you," Arthur said. For so much… "You didn't have to notice those glitches, you didn't have to go out on a limb to find things out yourself. You could have told Carol or Steve, then washed your hands of it. But you didn't." Because you care, Arthur realized, whether the sorcerer knew it or not, he did care. "This has been a long time coming," he told Merlin, over the lack of true comprehension in his friend's blue eyes. "I –"

"Hello," said a male voice from the door, as a balding man wearing bifocal glasses pushed in, studying the file in his hand. "You're Martin?" He patted Merlin's shin absently. "And you're Dr. Sagesse?" He shook Gaius' hand. "Well, good news and good news. Nothing broken, no cracked vertebrae, no brain trauma either." Arthur stood to allow the doctor the use of the rolling stool. "Do you remember falling?" the doctor asked Merlin, beginning to test Merlin's vision and reflexes.

"I remember - starting to fall," Merlin hedged, glancing at Arthur, then his grandfather.

The doctor then rattled off a string of questions: "In addition to your headache, did you experience any dizziness, confusion, nausea?

"I was maybe a little dizzy," Merlin said.

"How about a lack of balance or coordination?" Arthur snorted, and both doctors gave him stern looks.

Merlin wasn't bothered, though. "No more than usual," he said innocently.

"What about blurry vision? Any slurring of speech? Feelings of anxiety or irritability?"

Merlin's smile at Arthur was diabolical, but he said, "No, sir."

The ER physician turned to Gaius. "I agree with your diagnosis of a mild concussion, doctor – wake him every two hours tonight. You'll know what else to watch for, I trust? We'll send you home with a week's worth of Percocet, and another week's worth of Motrin. All right? Anything else? Then the nurse will be in momentarily with your discharge paperwork." He stood and backed out the door, fitting the file folder into a basket on the outer wall.

Arthur tossed the satchel onto the bed between Merlin's shins, taking out his phone, intending to text Gwaine. "Take the morning off – get some sleep. But I want you in Camelot by one o'clock – we're taking this to my father."

"Are you sure?" It was Gaius who spoke. Merlin stared at Arthur with a mixture of fascination and apprehension.

"I'm sure that this should be the first step," Arthur said. "If there's a threat, my father still deserves to be the first to know."

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, nor a scientist. Any issues with my drone plot are involuntary, of course, so if corrections are in order, please let me know… though I guess the idea doesn't have to be possible, only probable…

Any NCIS:LA fans may notice some similarities – this idea hatched in my brain before a recent episode, but I have borrowed from it to boost believability. I also should admit to some Dark Angel imagery, which I remembered as I was hashing out my details…

And, as always, none of us owns Merlin – although, if you do, please let me know, and we'll work something out…