25.
Gwaine Pendragon | [ENTER]
Safari finds 110,089 hits, almost every single one concerning Camelot Industries and nothing concerning a man with such a name. Merlin scrolls down through the Camelot articles, sighs, and closes the search. Two different people by the name of Gwaine Pendragon appear to live in Albion, and neither of them seem to be real people, much less deceased people. Why didn't I think to ask for a last name before he disintegrated? Or a death date, even? Merlin considers searching the name Percival + Pendragon together, or Percival + Gwaine . . .
The door, behind him where he sits at the desk, opens.
"Who?"
Merlin looks up to see Mordred stand from his game of checkers—more like a diorama of the leaning tower of Babel, actually—and repeat again: "Who? Who? Who. WHO. WHO!"
"It's me, Mordred," Morgana laughs, entering the edge of Merlin's vision. He immediately sits up, slipping his phone in a back pocket.
Mordred stops jumping up and down after a bit, a frustrated frown on his face. Morgana winks at Merlin before sweeping her son up off the ground. "You sound like a very irritated owl," she tells him in a serious voice. Mordred scowls back.
"He's been asking 'Who?' ever since you left," Merlin says truthfully, shrugging and grinning when she meets his gaze. "I'm just getting over the fact that he's talking in front of me now."
"Just one syllable," Morgana rolls her eyes, setting the child back down with a huff. "And believe it or not, he doesn't say much else to me either. Which is pretty frustrating, because I know he understands our conversations most of the time." She looks down at her son, whose blue eyes flit from Merlin to Morgana and back. Something about the curve of his mouth makes Merlin wonder if the boy indeed knows of whom they're speaking.
"Just a stage probably," Merlin concedes, and Morgana sighs.
"That's what Gwen keeps telling me. And Gaius. And—everyone around here, practically." One side of her lips curve up. "It should probably be the other way around. Every single day since he was born I'm more and more convinced I wasn't ready to have him. I'm just lucky to have my friends, now."
A small silence ensues, broken a little by the sound of Mordred toppling his checkers tower.
"Did your friend Gwaine die before Mordred was born?"
Morgana stares taken aback, stunned, and Merlin hardly has time to regret such a blatant question before she moves forward and shoots back:
"Did you know him?"
Merlin's pulse skips a beat. Or just starts skipping—he's not positive, since his brain seems to have unreliably powered down right when he really could have used it. But Morgana's mouth is sliding into a smile, a smile that perplexes Merlin until she says, "Looks like you and I both have secrets we desperately want from the other."
Merlin cracks a grin at that, having nothing in him to deny it. "Then we're at a standstill."
She gives a lazy half-shrug, stepping closer. "Perhaps. Until one surmounts the other." Merlin raises an eyebrow at the innuendo, but Morgana doesn't break face. "And I have a feeling—"
"Who? WHO WHO WHO WHO!"
Morgana sighs, stepping away to see Mordred tugging at her leg. Merlin is glad for the distraction, a shameful part of him pretty sure the woman could squeeze any information she wanted out of him at this point. Torture could definitely have been her thing, in another life.
"I'm your mum, this is Merlin, and you're Mordred," Morgana says impatiently down at her son. Who gives her a tired, exasperated look Merlin swears no ordinary two and a half year old is able to muster.
"I should probably put that away," he mumbles meanwhile, moving away to look at the checkers scattered across most of the light carpet. Merlin grabs the box, bending to pick up the pieces whilst Morgana tries to silence the Who . . . WHO . . .whoooooing of her son.
"Thanks for watching him on short notice," she says over Mordred's inflective chant, and Merlin gives her a quick smiling nod "Gwen needed me . . . well. She needed me."
"No problem." Merlin stands up again, holding the box and moving over to the origin of the mess. "Just glad there was something here to entertain him." He holds up the checker box, adding, "Used to love this game myself."
She raises an eyebrow. "Checkers? Really?" Mordred seems to give up as she leans down to help, crossing over to the back corner of the room to pout.
Merlin nods, looking down to pick up the rest of the pieces. After a minute he glances where the board lies, startling when he sees Morgana sitting cross-legged in front of it. "You play?" Merlin asks, brow furrowed as she takes the box from his pliant hands and begins setting the board.
"Mmhm."
Morgana wears a small smile as Merlin looks down at the board. She is setting up black on her side, red on his. "You game?"
So begins the opening of the first game of checkers Merlin has played in years.
He lies on his stomach, three moves in, when rusty knowledge creaks back in. "This is the Laird and Lady Opening, isn't it?" he wonders aloud, after they've each captured one of the other's men. Mordred seems to have gotten bored of sulking, sitting on either side of them and watching the game with interest.
"Indeed it is," Morgana smirks. "Not the greatest start."
Merlin shrugs. Depends on whether your opponent even knows what an opening is.
But as she seems to know, Merlin bluffs. "For you, perhaps."
"Let's make this interesting. You win, I answer three questions. I win, you answer as many as I want."
"That's hardly fair."
"It's not fair. It's interesting." She smiles coyly, smug and pleased when after a moment's hesitation, he nods.
Halfway through Morgana is narrowing her eyes, eyelashes tangling together while she squints at him intently. For a good minute, too, till finally breaking the inaction and moving one of her men 23 to 26.
He jumps his from 30 to 20 and flicks her man off the board.
Morgana raises her eyebrows, nonplussed as she jumps over his man 18 to 27. They both have four men out.
The game continues, Merlin just one move ahead each time and Morgana following each of his captures with one of her own. It's both intense and laid-back, and a little distracting. For once, Merlin can study the woman across him and have a slightly legitimate excuse. Which makes it much too easy to appreciate the slight wave of hair framing her face, or how her dark, form-fitting shirt dips a little low on her chest and clings to her waist, or the way her collarbones curve against the ridiculously perfect white of her skin. Not to mention the quite kissable curl of her lips.
Of course, her eyes watching him do quite unreasonable things to Merlin's concentration, the skin her eyes seem to rove turning prickly and bothered. Merlin successfully keeps his game face on—he hopes—when she captures two of his men in a row without retaliation, intent on a plan of his own. He can't really recall a battle of wits being this full of . . . tension. The good kind.
"Ugh, I should have seen," she groans to the ceiling when he captures two of her men at once, jumping his piece across the board in a double hump to its own crowning. He grins cheekily up at her after stacking the fourth king he's crowned, assured of her soon-to-be demise. A clutter of questions are already piling themselves high in his head, stepping on each other to sit at the top of the stack. What's Gwaine's last name? How is he related to the Pendragon family? How and when did he die?
Much more petty questions pull to the front, his curiosity begging them to be asked. Who's Mordred's father? Why do you live here? What are you winking at me for?
But the most important ones win: Why does Arthur hate Druids? What happened two weeks ago? Four months ago?
"EXTERMINATE. EXTEEEEERMINATE. EXTEEEEEEEERMINATE."
Merlin starts, feeling his phone vibrate in his back pocket with the sound of a Dalek. What is Will calling for? The sound makes Mordred immediately jump up from where he's been watching their game, eyes wide and feet kicking to stand excitedly. The board snags on the edge of his tennis shoe for a moment, flipping the board.
Pieces fly everywhere, one smacking Merlin on the cheek. Probably leaving a red mark.
"Who! Who!" He's excited this time, like he's just been promised some candy. Morgana gasps, staring down at the mess in shock.
Merlin just stares at the over-turned board , his cheek still stinging, as his phone cries out "EXTEEERMINATE EXTEEEEEERMINATE" and Mordred moves behind him to point at his butt, still yelling "WHO WHO!"
It's over. No chance now. Any faith I've ever had in fate or destiny has been destroyed.
Merlin sighs, doesn't notice Morgana until he rips his eyes away from the upturned game—so basically, his hopes and dreams—and the ringtone finally ends. Then he sees how she's shaking, curled up on her back. Rocking back and forth and laughing so hard there's little to no sound squeaking out.
Merlin can't help but start laughing too.
26.
They're cleaning up the mess, Morgana wiping tears from her eyes, just a bit later. Mordred is meanwhile pouting under the bed, seeming to have realized there isn't actually any Doctor Who to be watched.
"That's his favorite spot to sulk," Morgana says, eying her son below them.
"Yeah? Used to be mine, too," Merlin admits. She gives him an amused glance, moving over to the table.
"You two seem to have a lot in common." She makes a pointed look at the phone that is now in Merlin's hand.
"Mind if I check for any messages?" Merlin asks, and when she shrugs he unlocks the screen, looking for any alerts. No voicemail, one missed call from Will. It makes sense—he probably wants to reaffirm plans for The Rising Sun tonight, find out if Merlin's actually gotten a date or not.
A date. Would he dare consider . . . ?
Merlin glances up at Morgana, doing mental math on exactly how brave he's feeling today and deduce how intimidating she's looking presently. Which most of the time, is pretty up there.
But with her hips leaning slightly against the side of the desk, an arm casually on the surface behind her, watching him with soft, curious green eyes . . . he concludes a lot less than usual.
But before Merlin can finish the math and make a decision she speaks. "I'd say it's not fair we went through all that time and effort, playing for a game we'll never finish," she almost pouts. "Especially as you were so close to winning."
Merlin narrows his eyes. "I thought you didn't like fair. I thought you liked 'interesting.'"
"Very true." Her fingers tap the surface of the desk, eyes looking at him hard. "So, here's my compromise—we both get one each."
"One each?" Merlin scoffs. "You had no chance of winning."
"We'll never know for sure."
"Well let's weigh in the chances instead. You get one, I get two."
She looks almost impressed. "Fine."
"Fine."
Morgana raises an eyebrow. "You first."
Shite. Merlin's formerly well-formulated questions immediately jumble. And the witch, the look she's giving him—like she's been messing with his brain on purpose.
"Ummmmmm," he says intelligently. Trying to rack out that very long, very broad list he most definitely should have written down. "Uther." He blinks, not positive where it came from but quite positive it wasn't a question from his original list. "I want to know who exactly he is."
"Our father," Morgana says bluntly, not meeting his eyes. "He died this past January. Lived with a heart disease, the old stressor that he was, for a good six years. Then after a bad episode about two years ago he started worsening and not recovering; by the end he had had three strokes and two heart attacks. The second one killed him."
Her voice is inflected, almost harsh in its clinical tone. Merlin watches as her eyes slowly travel back up, meeting his, looking almost . . . afraid. "Good to know," Merlin answers, "but not my question: Who is he?"
She taps on the desk again for a moment, jaw working. Her neck dips, like she's swallowed something sour.
"A horrible person."
It's more a whisper than anything.
"What do you mean?"
Morgana crosses her arms defensively, jaw locked as the next words slide through her teeth. "Uther deserved everything he got. He pretended to care for us, to love Arthur and me, want the best for us." She gives a mock laugh. "But Uther took away any of our choices—molded Arthur into the dominate, no-questions-asked, sleezy businessman he's conditioned to be."
Then her voice rises, venom leaking into her next words. "Tried to turn me into someone's trophy wife, some prize for his highest bidder. And those are just his acts as our father," she shakes her head. "I'll probably never know the true extent of the suffering he's spread across Albion; I don't want to know. I barely escaped this prison of a house with my soul intact—and even then he tried to track me down, brainwash me still. Be glad you never had to meet him, Merlin."
A cold pit is settling in Merlin's stomach, cold and biting.
"Not quite true," he says, expectant as her brow pulls together and her eyes widen.
"What are you talking about?"
"Ask your question," Merlin demands instead, and when she doesn't, he moves forward. Grips the edge of the desk on either side of her, steeling himself for the promise he's about to break. "I know what it is. Ask it."
She stares up at him, lips pressed together. A part of him curiously incapable of solemnity recalls Gwaine's comment on the desk: nicely placed.
"Why are you here."
Merlin lets out a breath, lets the air whistle out through his teeth to prepare himself. A strand of her dark hair flutters from it, they're so close. Close enough to touch, to press into the boundary of space between them. For a second, Morgana's expression changes—eyes wide, open, mouth set in the smallest and softest of smiles—and the air changes with it. Like it would be welcomed, to wrap his arms around her for whatever reason.
Merlin steps back. A small part of him is still wary even as he throws caution to the wind, dives in blindly and rashly. Wary for whatever reason Arthur had to caution against these next words:
"I'm a psychic medium. Arthur hired me because I speak with the dead—and the dead is haunting this estate."
Morgana does the last thing he expects: she nods. Nods appreciatively, almost like he's told a pretty good story. All he can see is the top of her head, the straight middle part and tiny flyaways, as she looks down and says, "Your turn again."
Had she already figured it out?
Merlin blinks a few times, unsure of what reaction would be better than such an accepting one. Or what would be stranger. Disbelief, Distrust, Disgust—bring it on. Merlin's seen it all. But he has no initial blast recovery for this.
So he settles for a hopefully less volatile question. "When did Gwaine die?"
She looks up. "About two and a half years ago."
"Who?"
Merlin whips his head around, having completely forgotten Mordred peeking at them from under the bed. "Gwaine, honey," Morgana answers the boy.
Mordred's face splits into probably the widest grin a small face like that could accommodate around such chub.
It is apparently the right answer.
"It was from a drug overdose," Morgana adds with her attention back on Merlin, watching his face for a reaction. Merlin nods, fitting this piece in easily. Makes sad sense. He nods again, feeling a little nauseated by the nonchalance in Morgana's voice. Could nothing surprise her? The not-so-secret-lovers theory seemed to at least.
"Is he a relative? A cousin or something?"
"No." She looks almost offended.
"Oh. Sorry, I just assumed he had to be related, to be in the Pendragon cemetery," Merlin shrugs.
Morgana sighs. "Arthur was pretty devastated about it—I think it comforted him, gave him closure, to bury Gwaine here. The man's family hadn't a penny to do so, anyway."
A sultry silence settles in, Morgana just looking at him. "Mordred needs lunch," she says finally, brushing past Merlin quite deliberately to retrieve her son from the bed. He's surprised to feel a hand on his shoulder a moment later, Morgana turning him to face her. She leans up, using her hand on his shoulder for leverage, and before Merlin can say a word Morgana's lips have brushed against his cheekbone, whispered in his ear a moment later, "You still have a red spot there from earlier," and smirked at him before closing the door behind her and Mordred.
Merlin's heart is thumping unevenly, neck prickling. He walks into the bathroom, turning on the sink to splash some water on his face. Of course, the black guck that immediately gushes out complicates such an endeavor. He ends up sighing, sliding down against the bathroom wall to sit. His head feels like it was just split open. You told her the truth. Did it not meet up to your expectations, Merlin? He could almost hear it in Arthur's jeering voice.
When the air stills for a moment, a presence fluttering into existence behind the door, Merlin is almost expecting it. He stretches to reach the doorknob, open the door for the small woman waiting there and looking down at him with sparkling brown eyes. Merlin immediately stands.
"It's my fault again, isn't it?"
Freya smiles warmly up at him. "Partially. You can't help but think of me whenever you're considering someone else, and I can't help but take advantage of the invitation." Merlin lets out an amused breath, smiling ruefully back. For a split second he's worried, shocked that it's come to this already. With Cara back in his uni years, Freya appeared a few months into their relationship. Not a few days.
"Well it's good to see you," Merlin admits, smile genuine now.
She raises a slightly transparent hand to his cheek, and even as Merlin shudders from the gentle shock of cold, he leans into it.
A/N: *peeks from behind computer chair* ... Did you like?
Apologies to anyone who loooves checkers and saw some inaccuracies—I play, but Merlin and Morgana would probably cream me. Just sayin'. And thanks to everyone who keeps reading this story! I feel really supported and loved, which is perhaps why this chapter spewed out so fast (Despite college classes starting up again—GROOAAN). Hopefully the speed didn't affect the quality. You tell me! ;)