Notes: So I'm away next weekend. Someone remind me to post on Friday before I go?
X 11 X
Five months, almost to the day, from their wedding, Merlin finds himself trapped in crazy-land, more so than in his regular day-to-day life.
It's a Sunday, and everything seems fairly normal, in a dull, drizzly, late British summer sort of way. It's miserable out, enough so that when Morgana suggests they spend a lazy day at home, Merlin isn't all that keen on arguing (although, actually, that probably has more to do with Morgana's practical application of yoga than the weather), and once that decision is made neither of them is particularly inclined to go any further than the bathroom or the kitchen.
Merlin is on his way back to their room, carrying a tray with tea and toast for the both of them, and by the time he gets there, Morgana has put her book aside and looks like she's been waiting for him for hours rather than just the few minutes he's been out of the room.
"I've been thinking," she says, and it's only then that Merlin realises she had this all planned, wanted more than a day of alternately lazy and impressively athletic sex from him.
"I was thinking," she says, and every man alive knows nothing good ever follows those words.
X
"I was thinking," Morgana says, and she has been, thinking endlessly about this, thinking about her motives and their meaning, whether she's doing this to get back at Arthur, or because it's actually what she wants. Whether it's because she loves Merlin more than anything, or because she knows it isn't forever and when he's gone, she wants to know that there's someone she loves more than him, maybe even because it's just what married people do. She's thought about all of it, churned out the same internal arguments over and over, the most damaged of broken records, and the only conclusion she's drawn is that she wants to do this.
"I know it's not been all that long, but we've known each other forever, and I sort of feel like we're ready."
"For…?" Merlin asks.
"A baby."
X
Merlin's immediate thought is that he probably needs to get his hearing checked, because there's no way in hell Morgana actually just said what his ears are telling him she did.
"Run that by me again?" he asks, because it's probably a better response than either manic laughter or a mentally deficient whuh?
"Well," Morgana says, and Merlin thinks there's a breath of amusement to it, "Sometimes when a man and a woman love each other very much…"
"I'm not a moron, Morgana," Merlin answers, though he's probably laughing a little too much for his words to have any real impact (not that he'd want them to, because she's his wife and he loves her and, also, she can be pretty damn vicious when angered). "I know where babies come from. I just didn't think you'd ever want one."
Morgana frowns, and when she speaks she actually sounds confused. "Why would you think that?"
Merlin, deciding that at this point he's spent entirely too long standing there staring at her in confusion (also, he's cold, and nowhere near dressed enough to be hovering in the doorway doing nothing), puts the tray on the nightstand at his side of the bed, then pushes back the quilt and sits next to her. Really, the only result of this is that he's now on the same level as her as he stares in confusion, but it's an improvement of some sort, he's sure.
"Do you remember when we were...I don't know, fourteen or so?" he asks. "Uther was dating the scary woman with the kid, and he agreed that you and Arthur would babysit while they were out?"
"Nimueh," Morgana answers, like Scary Woman's name is really the point he was questioning her about. Then again, with her grasp of logic, it's probably meant as evidence that she does indeed remember who he's talking about, and it might be best not to go off on a tangent questioning her when he's actually trying to make a point.
"Right," Merlin agrees, and, after taking a second to work out how best to phrase things, decides the best thing to do is just say it all. "Remember how you and Arthur completely failed at keeping the brat under control? Your dad had been gone for about ten minutes before you called Mum to rescue you, and by the time we got there it was apocalypse territory."
"Do you perhaps think you're exaggerating a little, Merlin?" she asks, and actually has the gall to sound like she's being reasonable as she says it. "It wasn't that bad."
"There was a fire."
"Only a little one."
"We had to call the fire brigade."
She opens her mouth to argue more, and Merlin is fairly sure an inability to concede the point when you're wrong is firmly entrenched in the Pendragon DNA; nothing else could possibly explain why she won't let this go.
"No, Morgana," he says, before she can get started. "A fire is a fire. I really don't think it matters how big it was. And, anyway, that's not what I'm getting at. My point is, you hated every second of the kid being there."
"That isn't true," Morgana responds hotly, then wilts a little when Merlin quirks a please continue eyebrow at her. "He fell asleep after a while," she continues. "I didn't mind him half as much then."
"Maybe not," Merlin agrees, because he remembers the sigh of relief they all breathed when the kid was finally down for the count. "But I also remember what you said when his mother took him home."
"Like you stand by everything you said as a teenager."
Merlin has to let that one have some credence, because he can recall at least one distinctly uncomfortable conversation with his mother about his sexuality that he had to take back when Morgana appeared on the scene. At the same time, though, Morgana was pretty damn resolute about this, and Merlin needs to remind her of it. "You said that you were never, ever going to have kids, and that if you ever even considered it Arthur and I were to smack some sense back into you."
"You wouldn't dare."
That, Merlin thinks, rather goes without saying. "Obviously," he agrees; anyone even considering starting a physical fight (or any other kind of disagreement, if he's honest) with Morgana has his pity just as much as they have his hatred. "But this is a big decision, 'Gana. It's the rest of our lives, and more. It's someone else's life, and you might be ready, but I...I need to think about this."
Morgana stares at him blankly, like the possibility he might say no hadn't even occurred to her, and Merlin wishes it hadn't had to, that he could have just agreed and the whole thing would be fine. But a baby, a child, a human being that would be reliant upon the pair of them for everything, a whole existence that could be made and shaped and ruined by Merlin's decisions; in the future, maybe, in a few years, when their mortgage is paid off and he's earning a little more, when he's older and wiser and less likely to massively fuck up raising a child, when he's mastered keeping plants alive and maybe branched out into fish or even a puppy, if he's feeling brave. In the future, yes, but right now Merlin isn't ready.
"Right," his wife says, sliding from their bed and into a robe that serves better to tease than to conceal anything, and Merlin didn't refuse outright because this is the reaction he knew he would get, but that Morgana would be pissed off by him saying he needs to think about it never actually occurred to him. "I'm going for a shower."
"Morgana," Merlin starts, standing as well. "'Gana, you know I didn't-"
"Leave it, Merlin," she says, cutting across him as she grabs clothes from the wardrobe on her way to the door. "I'll see you later."
X
His first instinct is still to call Arthur, even though hi, Arthur, your sister wants to me to knock her up probably doesn't make for a brilliant conversation starter.
Of course, it wouldn't be that; the conversation would probably go more along the lines of hi, Arthur, your sister stormed out of the house because I refused to knock her up, any idea where she might have gone? which isn't really likely to go down a whole lot better.
It's not an option anyway, though, because Arthur still won't return his calls or reply to his text messages and refuses to show up anywhere he thinks Merlin might possibly be. Arthur isn't his friend anymore, and Merlin has to man the fuck up and accept that fact.
He has other friends, Gwen and Lancelot, Gwaine, Elyan, Leon, Freya and Elena and Percival. He has other friends, other people who mean something to him, not to mention his mum and Gaius, plus the odd, extended family they don't see all that often, but there's no one he can talk to as easily as he used to be able to talk to Arthur.
There's no one like Arthur, and Arthur doesn't even want to know him anymore.
X
"And then," Morgana says, reaching the end of her story and the part where Gwen ought to start making sympathetic noises, "He said he needed to think about it, like guys haven't been begging me to let them do it bare for years."
Gwen frowns at that, and Lancelot looks like he wants to be distinctly absent, but then Morgana never asked him to stick around for this; even so, he's Merlin's friend, and she should probably do something to make this a little less awkward for him. "Not recently, of course," she says, even though that should be pretty transparent, but it makes Lance look slightly less constipated. "Before Merlin, I mean, but still. What's wrong with him?"
"Erm," Gwen says, but not in the where do I begin? way that Arthur would. "I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with him, Morgana."
"You think it's me," Morgana realises, but then it's not like it's not blatantly obvious anyway. "You think there's something wrong with me."
"No!" says Gwen, at the same time as Lancelot says, "Not at all, Morgana."
"Honey," Gwen says, moving from her big comfy chair to sit on the sofa beside Morgana. "Can you get us a pot of tea and some biscuits, please? I think there's some of the cookies I made yesterday in the green tin."
Lancelot, ever the good man, obeys, and Morgana suspects he probably won't come back until Gwen gives him one of those telepathic couple signal things that she and Merlin have never managed to get down, maybe never will manage to.
"Morgana," Gwen says, taking Morgana's hand in her own. "Believe me when I say that there is nothing wrong with you. Nothing."
"There is, though," Morgana answers, and she's torn between trying to take her hand back so she can hide her face and clinging to the only person she's got to hold on to at the moment. "I knew," she confesses, and so far she's never said this to anyone other than Arthur; even then, she never said anything this specific. "I knew Arthur loved him, and I married him anyway. How is there nothing wrong with me?"
Gwen looks surprised, and just about as close to tears as Morgana feels. "Oh," she says, opening her arms, and Morgana falls into them like she no longer knows how to stay upright on her own, how to exist without someone to hold her together.
"He slept with him," she says, the words mangled by her sobs and her face pressing into Guinevere's neck. "Arthur slept with him, and Merlin doesn't even remember."
"Hush," Gwen says, rocking her like she's the child she spoke to Merlin about earlier, the child that would make Merlin hers and hers alone, the child she never wanted but now can no longer imagine a future without. "Hush," she says, holding her until her tears stop, although Morgana thinks they're probably dormant rather than gone.
"Now," she finishes, "From the beginning, Morgana, and then we'll work out some kind of plan."
X
In the absence of anything better to do, Merlin thinks.
He thinks about the likelihood of this being a terrible idea, the likelihood that he and Morgana are completely unfit to be parents. Morgana comes from money, has so much of it that Merlin's fairly sure it means nothing to her, and he wouldn't want his children to grow up like that, possessed of so much that it's all valueless. That's why he wouldn't let them get the sort of house Morgana grew up in (not that she's quite that rich, anyway), refused to even look at anything with more than three bedrooms, refused to let her use her inheritance when between the two of them they earn enough to keep up mortgage repayments.
Even so, their house is far grander than the one he lived in as a kid, and he can't imagine that Morgana won't spoil their child rotten, or that he'll really try all that hard to stop her when it comes down to it.
He loves her, though, and between the two of them he can guarantee that their child will be loved, will be the most precious, most important thing either of them has ever done.
He loves her, and if this is what Morgana wants, who is he to say no?
X
"I see," Guinevere says, when it's all out there, when she knows everything Morgana has tried so hard to keep hidden. "I think you know what you have to do, Morgana."
That's the worst of all of it, Morgana thinks. She knows it, has known it for a while, and still the idea terrifies her, destroys her, because even if Merlin loves her – and she knows he does, of course he does – he won't stay. He'll never stay, but that doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do anyway.
"I know," she agrees. "I need to go home. I need to tell him the truth."
X
Merlin is pacing when she gets home, pacing and pacing and pacing, and the madness Morgana is fairly sure is a permanent part of her brain wants her to look at the carpet behind him for the tracks he has to be leaving behind, the groove he has to be wearing there.
"Merlin," she gasps, wanting to throw herself at him, grab hold and never let go, the same way as she did with Gwen earlier, but that's not how it works. She can't be honest with him if he's holding her, because if he's holding her she'll never want him to let her go.
"Morgana," he answers, and he's apparently not got the memo about no contact because he's across the room in a heartbeat, pulling her into a hug so tight her feet lift off the ground. "I'm so glad you're back," he babbles, "You've been gone for hours, and you left your phone behind, and I didn't know where you'd gone, and...yeah, I'm glad you're back."
It's about then that Merlin remembers oxygen is a necessity, she assumes, since he both puts her down and drastically loosens his grasp, even if he doesn't actually let her go. "You're right," he says, and any other time she'd make a smart-arse obviously quip. Any time, other than this. "We're adults, and we're married, and it's not like money is a problem. We can afford to raise a child, and...I love you, Morgana. If you think we can do this, I'm all in."
Oh Merlin, she thinks, because she was so decided, so determined to make this right, to tell Merlin everything, all the ugly truths she's never wanted to say and Arthur is never going to say. She was going to tell him everything, and let him make his own decision, even if the decision he would make will only break her heart.
She was going to tell him, though.
"We can do this," she says, and if the thing clouding her voice is far more guilt than it is anything else, that's just another thing she's never going to let Merlin know.
X
Arthur is fairly sure it's been at least a month since he last spoke to his sister, since he saw her for anything other than the once-a-fortnight, deeply hostile, family dinners his father keeps throwing in an attempt to fix things between the pair of them; even if Uther doesn't know what the problem is, it's pretty damn obvious to all concerned that something fairly major is broken. It's longer since he spent time with Merlin, but then that's for the best. If Merlin and Morgana aren't going to separate – and Arthur is fairly sure they're not, ever – then Morgana is right, and Arthur shouldn't be anywhere close to him.
Still, it's very definitely weeks since he last spoke to Morgana, which is why it's such a surprise that she's here, in his office, looking just as fierce as she did at the end of her last visit, when she forbade him from ever going near Merlin again, as if he even needed the warning. Then again, he doesn't need to hear whatever she wants to say this time, but he reckons he probably won't get out of it.
"Morgana," he says, wary and yet curiously anticipatory; he feels like he's awaiting execution, or he would if those awaiting execution were strange enough to look forward to their fate as well as dread it.
"Arthur," she answers, and if Arthur had needed any proof of how much she despises him, it's there in her voice. It's there, and it hurts like he deserves. "I'm going to ask you a question, and I expect you to be very honest when you answer it."
He thinks about arguing, but if there's anything he owes her, it's honesty; there is only one real villain in this scenario, this mess between he and Morgana and Merlin, and it is not his sister. "You have my word," he agrees, because even if there is hatred between them now, so much hatred, it will only ever be one-sided.
He doesn't expect a smile of acknowledgement, which is why he isn't surprised when he doesn't get one. The question she asks, though, is entirely beyond the realm of what he might have considered likely, or even possible.
"Were you safe?" she demands.
"I- what?"
Morgana stalks towards him, her shoes weapon enough to kill even if her expression isn't. "When you fucked my husband," she says, seeming to delight in his rapidly indrawn breath, the way he wants to protest that it wasn't that, not exactly, but just isn't brave enough to do it. "Were. You. Safe?"
X
Arthur looks at her like she's insane, and maybe she is, but this is still a question she needs to know the answer to, in light of the decision she and Merlin have made. It didn't occur to her to care when she first found out – she had wanted to pretend it never happened, or at least that she didn't know about it – but now, when for the first time in her life she's planning on having unprotected sex with a man (she might have been something of a slut as a teenager, but she was a long way from being stupid about it), this information is vital.
"I don't really see how that's any of your business," Arthur says, and for all that he's making an effort at sounding cool and unconcerned, he's a long way from succeeding at it.
"Well, Arthur," she says, and she shouldn't rejoice in his pain like this, not when Arthur would never do that to her, but she does. "Merlin and I are planning on starting a family, and you are going to tell me if I need to make him get tested first."
Arthur looks unutterably heartbroken, and for a moment Morgana actually regrets her words. She needs to know, yes, but there may have been a more tactful way for her to ask, a way that doesn't make her brother look like it's the end of the world as he knows it (and, Morgana has no doubt, he's a long way from feeling fine). It's only for a moment, and then he answers her.
"We were in the spare room," he says, and the cold fury in his voice is almost a match for hers. "I wasn't exactly running to my bedroom for a condom before..." He cuts himself off, then corrects. "No," he says, sounding repentant enough that she almost feels guilty. "No, we weren't safe."
Morgana stands up, smoothing her skirt down and flicking her hair back over her shoulder, trying to look like this is nothing, just words, not a real problem. Arthur isn't stupid enough to believe the lie – no one is stupid enough to believe that lie – but Morgana has her pride, and she has enough of it that she has to act out the ruse anyway.
"See you around, baby brother," she says, and can't resist one final drop of poison on her way out. "I'm sure Merlin will ask you to be godfather, and I'd wager you still can't say no to him. Best carry on avoiding his calls, if you don't want a very uncomfortable, very difficult life."
Arthur doesn't have a reply for that, but then venom has always been more her skill than her brother's.
"Wait," he says, as her hand is on the door, and Morgana knows that whatever he has her waiting for won't lead her to question her assumption; when Arthur speaks this time, all she will feel is remorse. "I went to a clinic the Monday after," he says quickly, to her back, since Morgana cannot bear to look at him.
"And?"
"And I might be a bastard, Morgana, but I'd've told you and Merlin if I had something. I'm clean."
Morgana keeps her sigh of relief silent, internal; any delay in her having to tell Merlin the whole truth is a welcome one, and this news is welcome even beyond that.
"He still misses you," she says, opening the door, because one good deed deserves another. One good deed deserves another, and he's still her brother; however hard she tries, she'll never truly hate him. "He'll always miss you, Arthur."
X
Arthur thought he was done with drinking, but then he thought he was done with feeling like this, too.
He's done with drinking alone, though, which is why he calls Gwaine as soon as Morgana is gone.
"I'm skipping the rest of the afternoon," he says, when Gwaine picks up. "Going to the pub, if you'd care to join me?"
"You know me, princess. If you're buying, I'll be there in half an hour."
X
"I'm ovulating," Morgana says to him over supper, like that's normal meal-time conversation. "You know what that means, right?"
Merlin smiles at her, because, even if the idea of fatherhood still terrifies him a little, their decision is made, and a little fear doesn't mean it's the wrong one.
X
Gwaine insists on eating while they drink, like that'll do anything to mitigate the blinding headache Arthur is hoping will really brighten his day tomorrow, and even if he talks almost non-stop the whole time they're there, it's only when they're starting their third shared plate of chips that he finally asks the question Arthur has been mentally preparing himself for.
"So, princess," he says, soaking a handful of chips in a disgusting amount of ketchup before shoving them in his mouth. "You gonna tell me what this is about?"
For a second, Arthur almost considers answering, then remembers why it is that it's Gwaine he's reliant on now, rather than any of his other friends. "I wasn't planning on it. I was kind of counting on you letting it go, actually."
"Or maybe I've let it go long enough, Arthur. Maybe it's time someone got this whole thing out into the open."
"I need another beer," Arthur says, because even if his complete reluctance to talk about the whole horrible mess with Merlin and Morgana is beyond Gwaine's comprehension, that won't be.
Gwaine taps his hands on the table in some peculiar rhythm, then stands up. "Right you are, princess. One more, and then we'll see about getting you home."