Past and Present Danger

A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter. I couldn't log into my fanfiction account for some reason, but it seems to be alright now. And advanced apologies to Bottled Sunshine for another chapter devoid of little Merlin and Arthur. Chapter thirteen, however, will be entirely about them. Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter and please review!

Chapter 12

Arthur had only been this close to Morgana a few times in the last few years and most of those times he had been too preoccupied by his imminent death to really pay much attention to her. Now though, he was painfully aware that there was nothing to distract him from her pale skin, from the way she held herself: proud and upright, just as she had done in the past, although no longer for the same reasons. He saw the way her hair twisted and curled down her shoulders and remembered when they had fought and argued and her hair had snapped round as she stormed away from him, or stormed towards him.

There had been so many times when he had mourned for the sister that he had known and yet never known. How had his father done it? How had he managed to go on pretending that she wasn't his own child? Why couldn't he have just told her from the start? He could have let her and Arthur grow up as the brother and sister that they really were, in full knowledge of that fact. Why couldn't he have just claimed her? Arthur knew that Morgana's descent into this shadow of her former self was due, in a large part, to the fact that she hadn't been claimed as the daughter she really was, even if she had always been treated as such. How Arthur wished it was different. He had meant what he said to Merlin earlier: he loved Morgana, even after everything. She was his sister and he was her brother and all he wanted to do was protect her from herself and take her back to the place she belonged as the person she had once been.

The illusion shattered as the next words hissed from her lips, no trace of her past gentleness or compassion in them.

'I will kill you where you stand.'

'No, Morgana,' Arthur said quietly. She took several soft steps to where her sword lent against the rock wall. She picked it up casually, slowly. There was no fear in her movements, no uncertainty. It made Arthur nervous; was she really as powerless as Merlin believed? But then why would she go for her sword if she had her magic? He glanced at Merlin, but he didn't seem worried; his eyes were scanning the room, evidently searching for the pendant. Arthur had almost forgotten about it. He decided to leave Merlin to the jewellery search and focus instead on making sure that Morgana didn't impale either of them while their magical wards were down.

'What's the matter little brother?' she asked, a smirk on her face as she lifted her weapon.

'Morgana, you don't have your magic and I was always a better sword fighter than you.'

She took several more slow and measured steps, pacing back and forth in front of them. He felt Merlin at his side, his focus back on Morgana again and Arthur realised what he had seen. As Morgana turned sideways to continue in her repetitive path, the smallest glint of gold was visible at the back of her neck, before the chain of the pendant disappeared underneath the material of her dress.

'Still as arrogant as ever I see,' she murmured. She had made no move to raise her sword into a defensive, or indeed an attack position and so Arthur kept his low as well. Something was unnerving him about her attitude, about how calm she was. There was no flicker of panic in her eyes and Arthur had always been able to see that in Morgana, even after she had turned away from them.

'Why are you here?' she asked. 'To arrest me? Be my guest; by the time we get back to Camelot my powers will have returned.'

'Are you sure about that, Morgana?' Merlin asked. 'Your traps are down throughout the whole of the Pass and you had no idea that we were here. Your magic isn't coming back anytime soon.'

'So you are here to me arrest me then?' she repeated, a smirk on her face.

Arthur didn't know how to answer. Morgana's power had always meant that arresting her was never an option. He had spoken to Merlin about it at length in the last year and a half, but the sorcerer had been doubtful as to whether he could hold her for any length of time, not with all the other magical duties that he now had to perform throughout Camelot. Merlin hadn't voiced it, but Arthur had known what his friend was thinking: if they were ever to bring Morgana to Camelot, Merlin could hold her for long enough to organise an execution, but past that they risked unleashing her on the Kingdom.

They had only spoken about it a few times because the end revelation was always the same: if they wanted to remove Morgana as a threat then she would have to be executed and it was something that Arthur just couldn't conceive doing. He couldn't ignore that she was his sister for long enough to make the kingly decision that he knew was necessary.

And Morgana knew it.

She smiled as she again received no response.

'No, I thought not, which only leaves me to wonder why you and your little friend would come all this way to see me.'

And suddenly Arthur realised the very stupid flaw in their plan. Morgana didn't know what had happened that night in the clearing; she didn't know that the young versions of himself and Merlin had stayed in this time, but if they weren't careful then she would realise it.

They needed her to believe that they were here to arrest her.

'Put down your weapon, Morgana. You are hereby under arrest for high treason. You will be taken to Camelot to await your execution.'

'Fighting talk at last,' she replied, but there was a flicker of hesitancy in her words; she hadn't been expecting that. 'But surely you must know that I won't come with you,' she continued, the sneer was back in her voice.

'You don't have a choice, Morgana,' Merlin said. Whether he had realised their mistake, Arthur didn't know, but Merlin went along with the ruse. His tone had become flatter, more resigned. Arthur knew that tone well in his friend; he knew how much Merlin hated anything that was violent or aggressive. He had seen the desperate regret in Merlin's eyes whenever he had to bring harm to another person or creature; it went against his nature entirely. 'I can make you come with us.'

'I still have magic, Emrys.' Her words were strong, but she was backing away from them. There was nowhere for her to go, however. He and Merlin were blocking her only escape route and the walls of the alcove, although they opened out to the sky, were too high for her to climb.

'But not enough,' Merlin replied.

'I don't need much,' she said. Her face broke into a knowing smile and in that instant Arthur realised that somehow, although he didn't know how, they had walked into a trap. He took a step forward, wanting to stop whatever she was planning, but it was exactly what she wanted him to do. Quicker than Arthur could follow she raised her hand to the sky and screamed some unfamiliar words. He took another step.

'No, Arthur!' he heard Merlin shout.

Several large cracking sounds echoed above them and instinctively Arthur looked up. Their mistake was evident instantly. Thirty feet above them a ledge, loaded down with debris from higher up the walls of the pass, jutted out into the funnel of the alcove. A ledge that Morgana had, with the smallest infliction of magic, caused to crumble enough to collapse under the weight of the rocks and boulders that had accumulated there over the decades and had been slowly bearing down on the small outcrop of rock that had kept them safely in place.

Arthur realised all this in less than a second, but it still wasn't quick enough. The rocks were plummeting towards him and in an odd moment of calm clarity he realised that anything he did would not clear him from their path. No movement in any direction would shield him from them; he was perfectly placed to be crushed, as Morgana had known. He felt sad somehow as they got closer; she really had killed him in the end, and she didn't care.

He closed his eyes, not even bothering to use his arms as a shield; they wouldn't work, but then suddenly he heard Merlin's voice and felt something connect hard round his middle, flooring him instantly and painfully. The ground and air seemed to shudder for several seconds, shaking more strongly in quick, successive bouts and then everything stopped. There was no movement, no agonised crushing of his limbs. Had his death happened that quickly that he hadn't even felt it?

He opened his eyes from where he lay on his back and gave a small yell as he saw a rock half a metre from his face. He instinctively tried to raise his hand, only to find that it smashed hard into another rock above his stomach.

'Will you stop moving,' came a strained voice from beside him. 'It's hard enough to keep everything in place as it is.'

Arthur turned his head to see Merlin lying next to him also on his back, but his hands were held out in front of him, angled towards the sky, or what would be the sky if they could see it, as if he was balancing some invisible serving tray on both hands.

'What…?' he began, but he suddenly became aware the only reason that he could see Merlin was because there was one of the Sorcerer's strange flameless lights floating by their heads; apart from that there was nothing but rock all around them. Arthur couldn't see anything else; it was like they had been encased in a stone tomb. The hard walls of their prison were varying distances from their skin, sometimes as little as a few centimetres away, but there was no sign of any escape.

'Merlin, where are we?' Arthur asked, keeping the panic out of his voice, because he couldn't deny that he was panicking slightly.

'Exactly where we were a moment ago, but now we have rocks as a tent,' he muttered. The strain in his voice was obvious.

'What happened?'

'Morgana broke the ledge. I should have realised she could do that,' Merlin berated himself.

'So should I,' Arthur argued. Now was not the time for Merlin to start guilting himself over not protecting Arthur completely. He was quite sure that he'd be a bloodied pile of bones and skin right now if Merlin hadn't tackled him to the floor.

'I just reacted,' Merlin carried on. 'Knocked you over,' he sounded a little proud at that, 'and then kept the rocks up with magic.'

'So why are we still surrounded by them?' Arthur asked. 'Just put them down.'

'We're underneath them,' Merlin replied, as if Arthur was completely stupid.

'I know that you idiot. I mean move them to the side.'

'Well I'm working on that, but if I move one, I have to try and compensate for the way the others will move and I don't want them to crash through my shield.' He shifted slightly where he lay and closed his eyes. 'Give me a few minutes.'

Arthur did so, deciding that he also wasn't keen on the rocks getting through Merlin's shield and smashing the two of them into a pulp. But the moment of silence gave him an unwanted chance to reflect. Morgana would be long gone by now. She would have pushed herself back against the wall of the alcove and then walked straight over the top of the rock fall. Arthur was in no doubt that she knew these passages as if she had a map imprinted in her head. They'd never find her again. Desolation crashed down on him. Getting the pendant had been their last chance, their last hope. Arthur could almost imagine his memories floating out of his head, and disintegrating into nothing, like mist which was burnt away by the sun on a cold morning.

What could they do now? Perhaps Kilgharrah could help them track her down, but by the time Merlin called him, she could have gone somewhere completely different. Arthur tried not to sink down into the desolation that was slowly beginning to surround him, but it was hard to fight it when failure to put the past right now seemed like an inevitability.

Around him he became aware of chinks of light appearing as rocks and debris were cleared away by Merlin's intense focus. Soon they were both lying down with boulders scattered around them and the sun once again shinning on their faces. Slowly Arthur sat up, looking around. Morgana was, as predicted, long gone. What few possessions had been against the wall of the alcove were no longer there; all that remained was the old mattress. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

'Are you alright?' Merlin asked. He had climbed to his feet and offered Arthur hand. 'The rocks didn't catch you did they?'

'No,' he replied, talking the offered hand and allowing Merlin to pull him up. 'Thank you, Merlin.'

'You're welcome.'

Arthur looked round the alcove again as if hoping that somehow he had missed Morgana and that she was standing there, waiting to give them the pendant and beg Arthur's forgiveness, but nothing had changed. Except, that was, for the expression on Merlin's face, which had been one of concern, but was now most definitely one of merriment. He was grinning that annoying grin that everyone else found so endearing.

'What could possible be making you smile, Merlin. She got away.'

He shrugged. 'We're no worse off than we were before. At least she hasn't got very powerful magic at the moment.'

'She nearly killed us with a rockslide.'

'I can deal with that,' Merlin argued. 'Believe me Arthur; we have a lot to be thankful for.'

'It never fails to amaze me that somebody as powerful as you can be so stupid,' Arthur growled, feeling his irritation rise as he stooped to pick up his sword which had fallen from his hand when Merlin pushed him to the ground. He was pleased to see that it hadn't been battered by the rocks. Perhaps Merlin had protected it as well. 'Morgana's gone and we still don't have…' he tailed off as he straightened up and faced Merlin again to see his friend picking something up off the ground where he had been lying and holding it up in the light.

The golden pendant hung from his hands, sparkling in the sun that was filtering down through the dust that was beginning to settle. The jewel was small, more like a diamond than anything else and was exactly as young Merlin had described it.

'How…?' Arthur began, but stopped when he saw the grin light up Merlin's face once more. He rolled his eyes. 'How could she drop that?'

'She didn't drop it. As I ran to push you over I snapped it from her neck with magic and called it over to myself. I don't think she even noticed in amongst all the commotion.' He finished with another grin and this time Arthur didn't begrudge him it. He smiled back and walked over to his friend, clapping on the back.

'Merlin…'

'I know: you don't know what you'd do without me,' he filled in. Arthur scowled.

'Actually I was going to say: you're not…'

'…as stupid as I look?' Merlin finished. 'Yeah, I know.'

Arthur fixed him with a glare. That was exactly what he had been going to say. They really had been around each other far too long.

'Home then?' Merlin asked.

'Home,' Arthur agreed. 'You've got a lot of work to do my friend.' They headed back out of the alcove and began following the arrows back to the entrance of the Pass.

'Trust me, now that we have this it'll be a hundred times easier,' Merlin assured him.

'Good because-' but he never finished his sentence. At that moment a small figure careened around the corner ahead of them and hit Arthur with enough force to make the King stumble backwards. He regained his senses quickly and reached out to steady the small person that had knocked into him. His eyes widened and he couldn't find words to express his surprise at what he saw. In front of him, terror etched into every feature of his face, was Prince Arthur; he was pale and shaking, with tears running down his face.

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