Note: Thanks to the reviewers! Okay, Freylin it is!

Chapter 2

The morning dawned to find a raven-haired man sleeping on the floor of his best friend's house, lying at the foot of her bed. Gwen was lying on the other side of the room, also on the floor. The injured girl had taken her mattress. The rain had started sometime after midnight, and hadn't relented once the sun greeted them from behind a thick layer of clouds.

Pitter-patter. Pitter-patter. The rain hammered against the roof rather noisily, but the small figure didn't notice. She was too busy tossing and turning in the humble bed.

"Merlin," she moaned.

Instantly Merlin was awake, and he hurriedly made his way towards her side.

"What is it? What do you need Freya?" he murmured, his focus solely on his lover.

He pushed a stray hair off her forehead, and caressed the side of her face. Then he held her hand until she calmed down. A sweat had broken across her brow, and she hadn't opened her eyes once. It was still early morning-she had plenty of time to wake up. But Merlin was starting to get suspicious of Gaius' tale which claimed that she had regained consciousness. So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he didn't notice the figure approaching him from behind.

Gwen had awoken to Merlin's loud footsteps, and looked over in time to witness him take the girl's hand. Last night when he arrived at her house he didn't explain himself, the girl, or how he knew that she was with Gwen. He simply asked if he could spend the night her home with his soulful, pleading eyes. Well, she could hardly say no when Merlin looked like that, so she acquiesced. Even if he hadn't given her that look, she couldn't refuse him. He was like her brother-as close to kin that she had in Camelot aside from Elyan and Arthur.

'And thinking of Arthur,' Gwen realized, 'He probably won't be happy to find out that Merlin was in my house last night.' She groaned, inwardly, before shoving away her own problems for the more pressing ones at hand.

She stood up and waited until Merlin and the mysterious woman-Freya-that's what she heard Merlin call her-had their brief moment of privacy. Once Gwen was sure she had waited a respectful amount of time, she approached Merlin and placed her hand gently on his shoulder.

He gave into the pressure, letting Gwen guide him to her table a little ways away. He gently let go of Freya's hand, bringing it tenderly to his lips before letting it drop back to her chest. As Merlin sat down at the table, he knew that Gwen would have a lot of questions he could not avoid. He braced himself for her onslaught, but instead received Gwen's arms around his body. It was a little awkward, due to the fact that he was sitting and she was standing, but the warmth and comfort which radiated from her body made him forget that. He leaned into her hug, his shoulders slumped forward, and they stayed that way for many moments. Eventually, Gwen let him go and pulled up a chair to talk with Merlin. They sat side by side in their seats, with the table to their side.

Gwen turned to face Merlin and started with a hesitant, "Merlin-"

However, before she could finish her thought Merlin cut her off.

"I know you must have a lot of questions," Merlin said quietly, "But I don't have all the answers."

"I know you may not want to talk about it Merlin, but I need to know," Gwen said gently, "I have a strange, unconscious girl, who I heard you call Freya, in my home, and I have no idea how to explain why that is! I don't even know anything about her other than her name and-"

"Look, I-I'll tell you our story," Merlin cut across Gwen's ramblings again, "But you must promise not to tell anyone else. Not even Arthur."

He gazed sternly at his best friend. He felt bad for putting her in this position, but he could not risk Arthur finding out about Freya. If he did, Arthur would learn not only about Freya, but about her true form, the sword forged in a dragon's breath hidden in the lake, and Merlin's secret night time activities which usually included magic. Suffice it to say, Arthur would be finding out more than Merlin's relationship. It would be what was probably one too many of Merlin's secrets.

Gwen, meanwhile, tittered for a moment before giving Merlin her solemn oath. Merlin was never secretive unless there was a very good reason for it, she reasoned, and there must be one to compel him to ask her to keep secrets from Arthur. So she nodded her silent agreement.

There was an awkward silence as Gwen watched Merlin collect his thoughts. It wasn't his body language so much as his eyes which betrayed his inner turmoil.

"Do you remember the bastet?" Merlin asked her suddenly, without warning.

"From about a year and a half ago? Yes," Gwen answered.

How could she not? All beasts were terrifying, but that one in particular stood out. It felt as if that monster was more than a monster from the way Arthur had described the battle to her later on. She had never told him her suspicions, instead letting them brew silently within herself. However, Gwen had not forgotten them, which was what made the particular beast noteworthy to her mind.

"It wasn't Freya's fault. You need to understand," Merlin cryptically said.

"What are you talking about Merlin?" Gwen asked. One moment he was asking about the bastet and the next he was talking about Freya.

"Freya was…attacked when she was younger. She defended herself from the man, but she didn't mean to kill him. She just wanted to get away. The mother of the man, however, was furious…she put a curse on Freya to kill forevermore. She…she was transformed into the bastet," Merlin haltingly said. The words sounded as if they were ripped from his soul. The way his voice embodied Freya's doom sounded as if it was he, and not her, that had been personally victimized.

Gwen put her hand to her mouth, her eyes growing as large as dinner plates.

"She couldn't control when she transformed," Merlin forged on in a hardened tone, "She couldn't stop herself from killing all of those people. We met as she was about to be put to death. I helped her escape from the cage and we…bonded…quickly. I wanted to protect her, and we wanted to run away together-to a field with a couple of cows, some wildflowers, and a lake. Somewhere where no one would recognize us, and everyone would be safe. But before we could escape together she ran off. Freya had told me that she didn't want to be the reason for why I gave up my life-my "good life" as she said-here. I had tried to convince her that my life was with her-it was her-and I thought I had. She had told me to go fetch us supplies. But when I came back, she…she was gone."

The hurt had begun slowly working its way back into Merlin's voice, and Gwen could tell that it hurt him just as much now to talk about the situation as it did then.

"In the end it didn't matter," Merlin continued, "In her bastet form she was mortally wounded, so our plans were put on hold-permanently."

A slight amount of bitterness had worked its way amongst the hurt which Merlin's voice conveyed. However it was a hollow sort of bitterness-taking on a more resigned feeling than one full of malice.

He fell silent, and it was clear to Gwen that he didn't want to speak about his relationship with Freya anymore. But she wouldn't let him stop-he hadn't explained everything yet.

"Merlin, who…who killed Freya?" Gwen tentatively asked. She knew that Merlin had carefully treaded around that particular subject matter, but it was her own belief that talking through your grief was equivalent to bleeding out a wound. Although both hurt initially, the end result was worth it for that was when healing could truly begin.

Merlin avoided her eyes and mumbled something indistinguishable.

"What was that?" Gwen asked gently.

He mumbled something which suspiciously sounded like "none of your business", or perhaps it was "it doesn't matter". Either way Gwen would have none of it.

"Merlin, you need to tell me. It sounds like you haven't told anyone about Freya for a long time, and it's time that you worked through your grief," Gwen patiently reasoned with him.

Merlin was silent for a few moments. His eyes still didn't look up at Gwen until finally, suddenly, they did. As they flashed up at Gwen for a fraction of a second he finally spoke the answer.

"It was Arthur," Merlin breathed before quickly looking back down at his clasped hands in his lap.

Gwen's mind reeled. 'No, it couldn't be!' she thought. Her beloved Arthur murder Merlin's true love? It was unthinkable. She was beginning to become highly agitated when she started remembering bits and pieces of what she had heard about the battle. The realization came slowly, but once it did, everything clicked at once. Arthur had slain Merlin's true love. It was the only fact which mattered, and she gasped rather loudly at her deduction.

As she was digesting the news, Merlin went on ahead, acting like he hadn't just said the name of his master, "I gave her a funeral at the Lake of Avalon. It was a simple, but noble thing-a Viking funeral. I think she would've liked it. But what I didn't know was that somehow a type of magic bound her spirit to the lake. She returned as the Lady of the Lake, and helped me save Camelot once…"

Merlin's eyes started to take on a faraway look, and fell silent. Gwen could tell that she was not privy to the matter in which Freya had helped him, so she didn't prod him further in that direction.

Instead, she asked two different, but equally pressing questions, "But if her spirit was bound to the lake, then how did she return? And why couldn't you be together?"

"I don't know," Merlin said, becoming mute once more.

Gwen could tell that his enigmatic response was referring to both of her queries. There was also a hint of finality to his tone which made her decide to stop questioning him for the day. It was partially his unspoken message behind his words, but it was also the fact that he had answered most of her larger questions. The rest of her smaller inquires could be filled in by her intuition. After all, you would have to be blind not to sense the tender affection which radiated from Merlin when he looked at Freya. She wondered how she didn't notice it yesterday, but remembered that he had only been with Arthur and herself for a few moments before whisking away his beloved.

It soon became clear, however, that Merlin wasn't as content with their talk as she was when he asked her, "Gwen, tell me how Freya really came to be here."

It wasn't a resentful tone, nor was it filled with pleasure. His voice was cool and collected, but it also had adopted a sort of shrewdness to it that Gwen rarely heard. Yet somehow it seemed to fit, and sound more natural coming from the young man instead of his normal oblivious tones.

"I take it you figured out she didn't actually wake up, then," Gwen commented quietly.

Merlin merely nodded.

"Gaius said he would tell you that because he didn't want you to worry. I told him that I didn't think you would be fooled, but come to think of it, I don't think that he did either. I…I think he wanted you to find out…the news…from me. I think he thought you would handle it better if I told you," Gwen mused. The last part of her speech came out hesitantly and cautiously as his eyebrows rose rapidly and worriedly.

"News? What news?" Merlin asked fearfully.

"Freya didn't wake up when Gaius tended to her. However, when normal injuries like this show up on his doorstep they do. So he needed to know how she was found. He knew that Arthur and I were the ones who discovered her from a passing knight. So he summoned me and I told him that Arthur and I were passing by a lake when we saw her passed out by a bush. The cuts immediately grabbed my attention, so we brought her back straight away," Gwen paused to draw breath before continuing on.

But when she did, it was a little more tentatively than before, "He said that it was fortunate that I had brought her back when I did…because…because the cuts are not normal inflictions. They were made using a powerful magic."

She let the words hang in the air between them for a moment before rushing to divulge the rest of the information Gaius gave her, as if telling it all in one breath would ease the blow, "That's why Freya won't wake up, according to Gaius. And he said that she probably won't-he doesn't know any cure for her marks except one. He thinks that the scars were inflicted by a powerful sorcerer. There might be a chance, but it would require going on a very long journey, with a slim chance of success. I didn't ask for the details, but insisted that I tend to her because I felt like it was all my fault…if I had gotten to her sooner….I'm so sorry Merlin."

Gwen's voice had faded at the end, and her face took on a sober expression as the rain pounded on harder than ever. The day was starting up, and soon they would have to be at the castle, going about their daily routines. Freya was still unconscious, and there was little motion coming from her part of the room now. But Merlin didn't pay attention to any of that. He knew what he was going to do. He had known from the moment Gwen had brought his sweet Freya to Camelot. The news about her injuries only sped up his steely resolve. He was going to take care of her no matter what the cost.

His eyes took on a determined, desperate glint which only lovers in times of trouble seem to wear. And his countenance had hardened into an emotionless mask of solid strength.

"Well then I guess I better get packing."