Merlin's shoulder was pressed against Arthur's as they stood together, the lift carrying them up to Old Religion.
'Do you have the gun?'
'Yeah,' Merlin said while he tapped each fingertip against his thumb, over and over again systematically. The cold plastic dug into his tailbone where it sat hidden and prepared to leap into action.
'Fingers crossed,' Arthur muttered before he squeezed Merlin's left hand. The attempt at comfort was appreciated but didn't help. The closer they got to the floor the harder it was to breathe. Old Religion's magic was webbed through the air and Merlin kept thinking he'd become trapped in the silk strings.
Arthur's grip tightened around the gun when the lift stopped, their only barrier sliding away when the doors opened. Ahead, at the end of the long corridor, Morgana and Morgause waited. Silently stepping out Merlin and Arthur marched forward. Like his last visit, they passed several office doors until coming to the main work floor. The glass shards had been cleared and the broken window boarded up. Merlin could see the metal bars of scaffolding running along outside the right of the room. He wondered how long it would take Percy and Gwaine to get there. Wondered if Elyan had made it to the staircase yet.
Behind Morgana and Morgause the rest of Old Religion's members watched. Some were curious, others angry, and one or two elated. The desks were no where to be seen, the entire room having been cleared. It made Merlin's stomach twist into tighter knots.
'You've sentenced all your friends to death, Merlin,' Morgana taunted, her eyes even more striking with the dark make-up painted with abandon over her features. The red that used to mark her lips was gone, leaving her face drained and filled only with shadows and deathly paleness. The sight of his sister, her cruel words, made Arthur stiffen. How they all had arms by their sides, no one possessing any sort of weapon, probably set him on edge as well. Merlin bit the inside of his cheek. The webs were strumming with an inaudible rhythm all around him, magic pulsing through the floor and air.
'What's she talking about?'
'I never thought awakening your power would turn you into a heartless buffoon,' Morgause said, almost with regret. Her small mouth pulled back to show her teeth into a mockery of a grin. 'Arthur, is it? Young Emrys here gave us a helpful phone call. Planned this whole meeting in fact. Of course he gave the impression he'd be coming alone. No matter.'
'He did what?' Arthur asked, the confusion twisting his face.
'I's not what you think,' he assured him quietly.
Morgause's voice cut through the air. 'This is getting boring. Merlin, if you could step closer? I'd like to kill you now.'
'What? No!' Arthur said, snapping out of his confused daze. He grabbed Merlin by the sleeve and yanked him behind him. 'If you want to kill him you'll have to kill me first.'
'Arthur,' Merlin hissed with panic, but stopped himself from saying anything else. They'd shifted their attention away from him. Now was his chance. Keeping behind Arthur he pulled out the envelop and read out the spell as quietly as he could manage: 'Ábir hiera drýcræfta. Beclýse hit wiðinnan écnes, áwunende ungehrepod.'
Nothing happened. Arthur and Morgana were engaged in a heartfelt argument. Arthur had lost sight of why they were there, Morgana now lashing out at him, explaining how she'd enjoy watching him suffer. Merlin buried the present and concentrated on the spell, reading it out again. This time faster, desperately. He waited. Nothing. His face and hands began to heat up with the increased blood pressure when his heart started hammering away with panic. Arthur jerked back slightly and Merlin saw the gun soar through the air into Morgause's out held hand.
'Dear brother, you really think your weapons can harm us?' Morgana leered, sliding an arm around Morgause's shoulders. She turned to face her new companion and said: 'Go ahead.'
He could feel his blood push through each vein, charge into his arteries. Everything buzzed and a searing heat spilled into his blood, into the air he breathed. Merlin moved out from behind Arthur, dropping the scrunched up envelope, just as Morgause raised the gun and fired. Taking in a breath of cool air he moved in front of Arthur's body, shielding it with his own, as he fought against the strings of power that tried to hold him back.
He saw the look of wild delight on Morgause's face in the split second before the bullet broke into his rib cage and tore through him. He realised with horror that she'd enchanted it, the bullet sending out an electric current when it wedged itself inside him. Far away he could hear someone screaming his name but the rushing blood in his ears drowned out everything else.
The world's lights went out and when they flooded back he was on the ground, Arthur's face hovering over him. Everything else was a blur. He was vaguely aware of shouting, windows breaking. People were fighting. Arthur's hands were pushing down on his chest. When he tried to take a breath it released a painful shock through his body. It didn't matter. Hot blood was in his throat and left breathing a hopeless chore.
'Oh my god. Merlin, Merlin stay with me-'
Arthur's head snapped to the side with an ugly crack. Merlin saw the butt of the gun being pulled back and then thrown to the ground with a clatter. Morgause waved her hand upwards in the air and Arthur was pulled up with it. She swung it to the side and he flew out of Merlin's sight.
He felt pain. It was spreading from his chest, the focal point where the intense burning centred. It was getting harder to stay awake but he felt the magic batter his friends, heard their quickening breaths and struggling limbs when finally detained. Blinking away the haze in his eyes he looked up at the room's ceiling and listened as the crashes and yells died down. Letting his head fall to his right he saw Arthur on his knees. Saw Morgause jerk his head up by the hair to look at Merlin. Everyone else was held in their place either by arms of humans or of witchcraft.
'Go on then, Morgana. You said you wanted to kill him,' Morgause sneered. Merlin gazed at Arthur, his thoughts fuzzy and sluggish, body tired and aching. Morgana smiled sweetly and spread her hand out towards Merlin. Then her voice and fingers cut into him, dripping poison as they invaded his mind. They spun inside him like a hurricane and shredded him to pieces, his back arching up and an animalistic cry ripping out through the blood in his throat.
Arthur shouted his name, 'Merlin!'

The air stilled. Merlin's heart stopped. Every face fell into darkness and then a fragment of his life unstitched itself and seemed to glow in the darkness. It whispered the enchantment over and over again, getting louder each time until it was screaming. His ears bled with the noise and then it all stopped. It floated there, part of him, glowing in the shadows.
The darkness fractured and blew outwards. Silken threads were undone and sliced through, leaving only tatters behind. Merlin was on his feet and everyone in the room was staring, their faces stricken. The air whipped against him and his took in a shaking breath. His pain had fled, replaced by something else which pushed against his mind and body. Immense and ancient it took its own first gulp of air and laughed when Morgana tried to cast a spell.
'What's happening!?' she yelled, gazing down at her hands with terror.
'It needn't matter,' Morgause hissed. 'You can kill without magic.'
Merlin looked to her as Morgause locked her hands around Arthur's head, preparing to break his neck. He pulled out Arthur's gift and trained it on the cruel woman. His finger squeezed the trigger. Dark blood began to well in the perfectly round hole between her eyes and she fell back to the floor. Morgana screeched and ran to her side, collapsing over her, consumed by choking tears. Merlin felt the historic creature sigh deeply and he aimed the Glock at Morgana.
'You have a choice. Come with us peacefully, and live out your prison sentence without bother.'
'Or?' she spat out, glaring at him with hateful eyes.
'Or I kill you here and now,' he said calmly. No one uttered a word. No one moved. They were all transfixed. Even Arthur. Morgana looked back down to Morgause, running her hand over the limp blonde hair.
'Kill me,' she murmured, then called it out as a demand: 'Kill me!'
Merlin approached her and pressed the tip of the barrel against her temple.
'Merlin,' Arthur said. His voice was rough from the shouting and quiet with the shock. Merlin knelt down next to her and put his hand against her cheek. She flinched away but he let the warmth seep into her skin with orders to suppress her emotions. It cascaded down through her body and Merlin felt the sting of the jagged edges of her broken heart.
'She was my sister,' she croaked and finally looked up at him. They shared a stare of understanding, both baring to the other what they were. 'This world is filled with so much evil, Merlin. Someone needs to stand up against it. That's what we were doing.'
'I know. You ended up creating a new evil,' he said softly. He took out handcuffs and locked them around her delicate wrists, feeling pity but no hate. 'I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Charlotte Wright.' Merlin rose and faced the rest of the room. 'You no longer have your power. Don't resist your arrests. You say you want to stop monsters? Like Uther Pendragon? Why kill innocent bystanders!?'
No one said anything so he bent down and helped Morgana to her feet and passed her to Arthur. She was complacent but seemed lost. Lonely. It was a look which resonated within him. Merlin noticed how Arthur's eyes kept glancing to his chest and upon inspection he saw the wound. No more blood left it though, and he realised his magic had been keeping it at bay.
Funnelling the heat to his chest the colossal power still residing inside drew out the bullet, which dropped to the ground. It sewed his cells to their former functionality and pieced his broken bones back together. Finally he saw his pale skin heal over the gaping hole. That's when the power left him. As it did he heard the echoes of wars being fought, the singing metal of swords clashing with swords, of joys and pains he'd never known.
He blinked and felt tears. Intense weariness overcame him and Merlin stumbled away from everyone to one of the windows. It's glass was gone, having been destroyed with the webs of Old Religion's magic. He stared out over London, now cast in gloom by the clouded sky and light rainfall. Behind him the armed officers were arriving and helping with arrests. Gaius' demanded space around Morgause's body. Some questioned what had happened to all the windowpanes and Kilgharrah silenced them.
Arthur stepped up next to him. 'I watched you get shot. Watched you die. I was thrown against walls by . . . nothing. By air.'
'Do you believe in magic?' Merlin asked him quietly.
'I don't know what to believe,' he murmured.
Merlin smiled sadly and faced him. 'Want to watch the fireworks with me tonight?'
'Merlin!' Gwaine called. Arthur didn't get time to reply when Merlin left. He'd seen the look on Gwaine's face and by following him saw why he was so shaken. One of the office doors was ajar. Merlin could sense the faulty quiver of magic and when he walked inside he found the source. The man was curled up in the corner, cuffed to the radiator. His lip was split, gruesome bruises over his face and visible skin telling the story for him. Mordred. It looked like he'd spent months in a dungeon, not days in an office. Merlin didn't want to imagine what kind of witchcraft would lead to this sight, but he did any way.
He tentatively put his hand on the man's shoulder and shook it. Mordred stirred and stared blankly before looking up at Merlin. His face contorted into an expression of immeasurable sorrow.
'What did they-' Merlin stopped when he noticed the ink staining Mordred's throat. A completed spiral. 'Morgause told me you were dead.'
'I wish I were after . . .' Mordred started, looking down and away from Merlin. 'I'm scared it's still in me. The magic. Morgana, she-'
'I knew it wasn't you,' he said and stroked a curl from Mordred's forehead. He watched as the man's eyes brimmed with tears and several dropped down from his dark lashes when he closed his eyes. Merlin examined the handcuffs and with a twitch of a muscle they unlocked.
'How . . . I've been trying for days,' Mordred said, the tears now creeping out in shame.
'Why didn't you tell me you had magic?' he inquired. There was an unintended harshness to the question, but Merlin - despite his better self - couldn't stop seeing the monster he'd faced on Christmas morning.
'I could say the same thing to you,' Mordred said bitterly.
He kept finding new wounds wherever he looked. From old and new bruises, some a deep wine colours and others turning that horrible green, to cuts, then even what looked like burn marks. They'd ruined him physically and mentally. 'You need to go to a hospital.'
'Merlin,' Mordred pleaded, and Merlin brought himself to stare into those stormy eyes. To see past the tears. 'I need you to understand. That wasn't me. I could never . . . never, ever, do something so . . . so horrible to you. Never.'
Mordred's magic was brittle and it showed in his eyes. Or that's what Merlin hoped it was. The waves he'd seen before no longer moved. It was all eerily motionless. He couldn't feel the cold winds, nor taste the salt in the air. The storm had been stolen from him and Merlin didn't understand how that could be.
'Gwaine,' he said and turned away to the doorway.
'Ambulance is on its way. Merlin, he should be taken into custody,' Gwaine said.
'No.'
'Merlin-'
'He was psychologically manipulated by Morgana and Morgause. Enchanted. However it was done, what Mordred did was not his fault,' Merlin told him firmly, not entirely convinced but he couldn't push Mordred any further into whatever shadows now held him.
Gwaine watched him skeptically. 'How can you be sure?'
'Just trust me,' Merlin muttered and looked back to Mordred.
'Do you forgive me?' he whimpered.
'Yes,' Merlin bit out. Mordred needed him to say yes. So, he'd say it. The past could never be forgotten though. The lifeless oceans in his eyes conjured up Merlin's last ounces of pity. Of mercy. Somehow the knowledge that it hadn't been Mordred, at least not consciously, hadn't settle his feelings. It left him painfully conflicted though. 'I need to go now.'
'Arthur,' Mordred began.
Merlin paused halfway to the door. 'What about him?'
'He's a lucky man . . . to have you,' he finished.
Leaving Mordred to be watched over by armed officers he sought out Arthur. 'Can we go?'
'Yeah, everything's being dealt with. Including your whole . . . situation,' he said, gesturing to Merlin's entire body. Then he saw a flicker of an iciness in Arthur's eyes. 'So, Mordred's alive?'
'Yes, he is. Barely.'
'Are you okay?'
'I will be,' Merlin assured him.
'It'll be a few hours until the fireworks,' he remarked and Merlin beamed at him. 'Until then, you can rest. I have no idea about any of it, but you look terrible.'
'Thanks,' he scoffed, entwining his hand with Arthur's as they headed back to the lift. Some of the officers shot them questioning glances and Elyan looked positively mortified.
'Hey,' Arthur said, nudging Merlin to the side slightly before they entered the lift. 'We still did it.'
'Yeah. We did.'

The drive back to Arthur's flat was spent in comfortable silence. Merlin ran his finger around the edge of the hole in the kevlar where the bewitched bullet had killed him. He'd died that day. Now he was going to his . . . whatever Arthur was, he was going to his flat to change, to rest. Then they'd spend New Years Eve together. It left him smiling to himself.
When they arrived Merlin charged ahead of Arthur and the moment he got inside began stripping, going straight to the shower. When he was under the water it started the process of chasing away the day from him skin. Everything the Old Religion had done, everything he'd done with Arthur, with Mordred, it all crashed into him. The fear and the terror was over.
He shed the last tears and closed his eyes against the water, concentrating on how it felt running down his back, legs, gushing over his head and face. Emerging from the bathroom he felt new. Refreshed. He had magic and he saw beyond the simple matter of the world and he'd get to explore that.
'Merlin!' Arthur hailed him from the bedroom. Towel secured around his waist, Merlin walked in to see Arthur grinning like a fool.
'What?' he asked skeptically.
'Look,' Arthur said, pointing at his wardrobe. Merlin plodded past him and opened one of the doors. He saw several of Arthur's suits and a few shirts, jackets, things he'd discovered days before upon his first investigation. Then he saw what had changed. All of Arthur's things had been shoved to the right and on the left hung very familiar articles of clothing. The navy shirt he adored, then the grey coat he hadn't worn in months, and at least ten more things he'd last seen at his own flat.
'My things,' was all he managed to say.
'Don't worry if you're not okay with it, but I figured since you've basically been living here for a week already . . . Why not?' Arthur babbled. 'I haven't brought everything over, so if you'd rather-'
'No, no,' Merlin said, still staring with awe at the wardrobe's contents. 'I'm okay with it. I am very, very, ridiculously okay with it.'
'Really?' Arthur asked, surprised and a little bit unconvinced.
'Really,' Merlin confirmed, pulling out some things to put on. 'But if you think I'm going to keep on doing the chores . . . I mean before I was just being polite, but if I'm moving in you're going to need to pick up your weight.'
'Less than a minute and already you're speaking nonsense,' Arthur said with a sigh and turned Merlin around putting his hand to his head. 'The heat didn't get to you did it?'
'It didn't,' Merlin muttered, clutching the ball of clothes in front of him.
'I'll leave you to get changed. I've ordered some Egyptian take away and it should be here in twenty minutes,' Arthur said. He turned to leave but instead pulled Merlin forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. 'Don't die again, okay?'
'I won't,' he murmured. Arthur brushed the side of his face and left. Merlin's skin tingled where he'd been touched and soaked in the content atmosphere which bloomed around him. Getting dressed he joined Arthur on the sofa, watching pointless TV and spending cherished time in his arms.

They rose in one of the London Eye's compartments. Gwen had showed up with Doctor Lance du Lac, who'd apparently been keeping her company for the past week whenever his work would allow it. The two were now sat on the centre bench, staring out of the glass concave walls. Percy and Gwaine were reminiscing about past cases they'd battled together and asking Merlin if he could turn the other into a dog, or a leprechaun as Percy had asked of him. Elyan had brought his long-term girlfriend who seemed to like Merlin and was left exceedingly confused about the questions they kept badgering him with.
Everyone was taking the new information about Merlin's powers in different ways. Jokingly, or seriously, or unfazed. Arthur, although it didn't seem so at first, fell into the final category. He had his hand interlaced with Merlin's, standing at the barrier and overlooking the Thames, and all the major landmarks.
They could see everyone who'd camped out for days, waiting to see the show for miles around. Merlin hoped hard enough and to his delight the weather had cleared up, either by luck or by him. The countdown to midnight started and Arthur faced Merlin with a grin plastered on his face.
'Three! Two!' Gwaine and Percy chanted. When it hit one there was a bang and lights whizzed up into the air, exploding and bursting out into every colour imaginable. Big Ben chimed into the blinding light of fireworks. Merlin pressed his lips against Arthur's and even with closed eyes saw the bright flashes. Lingering a moment longer together they finally parted and took in the impressive spectacle. Golden sparks erupted in the night sky, putting the stars to shame, and rained down around them. It was a beautiful onslaught joined by the cheering of thousands below.
'Happy New Year, Merlin,' Arthur said, resting his forehead against Merlin's.
'Happy New Year,' he murmured in return.

Alarms rang throughout the hospital halls and staff rushed around frantically, trying to calm confused patients while themselves left in the dark. The lights had gone out and everything was bathed in shadow.
'What's going on!?' a doctor barked dashing into the room. She came to an immediate stop, hands going limp at her sides. 'My god . . .'
The wall had been barged through, a large exit to London's night now present where there had once been glass and cement. Monitors and drips were left as mangled metal and steel, fluid spilling across the floor. The bed was on its side, sheets soaking up as much of the liquids as they could manage. Her breath hitched in her throat at the dark stains thrown against the remaining walls, ceiling, floor. Everything had been splattered with it. With blood. Three bodies laid on the ground, twisted and warped in ways that shouldn't be possible. Shouldn't be imaginable. The patient wasn't one of them.
'Someone call the police. Now,' she stifled out to the silent spectators behind her.

*You could call this 'Part One' and I will continue, but I can't do so immediately - don't worry as I love writing this and I already have plans for it so bear with ^_^*