35.
For once, Arthur doesn't just walk off; leave Merlin with a dismissal or useless words of goodbye. He tugs Merlin by the arm quickly from the dark room, out of the sight of those surrounding, ominous messages—and speaks. "I don't know what you're talking about, Merlin. Are you accusing me of something?"
"I don't know, but someone is." Merlin scrutinizes him, the set of the man's jaw and his heavily-guarded expression. Their voices echo slightly in the hallway, which feels already much warmer. "Obviously they're not too happy. 'Recompense' is a fancy word for good old 'payback,' I'm pretty sure."
"Well as long as you're sure," Arthur replies mockingly, pretense of a smile on his face.
It wipes off quickly when Merlin grabs his arm, closes in the distance between their gazes. "Stop that. What do you think just happened? What do you think you saw just now? A magic trick?"
Arthur wrenches away from his grip. "I didn't see anything, Merlin. You knocked me to the ground."
Merlin groans in frustration. "And then I, what? Wedged a knife above our heads, simultaneously?"
"I never said that."
"Then this isn't some big joke to you," Merlin retorts. "You don't think I'm some clueless idiot you're entertaining, or just getting entertainment from. All these 'accidents'; they aren't really accidents. Is that right?"
Arthur's brow pulls together; he's looking at Merlin appraisingly, like he's never seen him before. "I never . . . I don't know what to think, Merlin. The only suppositions I've thought of shouldn't be—can't be, possible. After so many weeks, what everyone had been saying, I decided. I'd heard about you; I figured it was time for some real answers."
His eyes look so sincere Merlin has no choice but to accept it all as truth. "You'd heard of me?" he asks, and the man nods.
"Yes. I met your mother briefly, months ago, and she told me about you."
"My mother?" Merlin's eyes widen in disbelief, his mind incapable of imagining any sort of situation that a kindly local nurse from Ealdor would cross paths with the multi-millionaire CEO of Camelot Industries.
"Yes; she was visiting Gaius when I stopped by. I didn't think twice of it, till . . ." Arthur trails off, looking pale. He glances down at his hands, which Merlin realizes are wringing between them.
". . . Until . . . two weeks ago," Merlin supplies, fitting in this piece.
"Arthur stopped ignoring the rest of us, and then two weeks ago—" Gwen's voice stops, letting out a short breath. She smiles at Merlin apologetically. "Well, Arthur's the best one to ask about that. But afterwards he agreed to consider getting 'professional help,' as he put it. And now here you are."
Arthur looks up, gives him a wan smile. "Actually, three. It's been three, now."
"Right," Merlin nods, realizing how much of a gaping hole this missing piece leaves in the puzzle. "Three weeks since something happened, obviously something important, but also something you're not telling. Or at least, haven't yet."
Arthur's eyes travel up and down him, giving Merlin that distinctive dissected sensation only this employer has ever managed. "I don't think I trust you quite yet," he finally says.
It's actually quite ridiculous how low Merlin's heart sinks at such words. He puts on a smile instead, however, prodding, "And when you do?"
Arthur smirks back. "Then you won't know what to think," He says, and when Merlin rolls his eyes, adds, "I'm sure the suspense is intolerable."
"Don't worry. So are you, most of the time."
Arthur actually laughs at that, and unlike the same occurrence the first night of dinner a week ago, Merlin understands why everyone had been taken aback by it. For one, it's rather strange—a high, short sound the man throws his head back to exclaim, the unfortunate lovechild of a witch's cackle and a dog's bark—but much more significantly: this is only the second time so far in a week Merlin has heard it.
"I should be getting back down there," Arthur says, glancing down at his unadorned wrist. "I have no idea what time it is, right now."
"Another important meeting?" Merlin guesses, and Arthur smiles grimly.
"Something like that." He steps closer and surprises Merlin by putting a hand on his shoulder, face serious. "For your own sake, keep your head down these next few days. Everyone is questioning my sanity right now—"
"—A questionable thing, indeed—"
"—and the news that I've hired some loopy spirit-talker in the midst of everything else will look bad for both of us."
"So this loopy spirit-talker has to keep his purpose here secret from everyone, now?" Merlin raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms.
"Well, practically everyone you talk to here already knows anyway," Arthur half-shrugs. "Just no suspicious personnel, when you're out and about. Fishy-looking hipsters trying to chat you up and the like, that sort of thing. You'll manage." He motions back toward the stairs and starts to leave, probably expecting the other to follow.
Merlin doesn't move. "You coming, Merlin?" Arthur looks back at him, frowning slightly, and Merlin shakes his head.
"No. This is where I need to be, I think," he says, and after a look of scrutiny Arthur seems to accept it.
"Fine. I'll bring this down with me," he tucks the knife into his trousers and continues as he leaves, "just in case that bloody spirit gets any ideas again. You're welcome."
"You're welcome," Merlin calls after him.
"For what?" Arthur stops, looking at him over his shoulder.
Amazing. One second he's a down-to-earth individual, the next I'm working for an anal orifice again.
"For saving your life, you prat."
Arthur looks offended Merlin would even imagine such a thing.
36.
"Merlin, are you in this room still? I hope you can hear me—because I am not coming in."
Merlin's been staring at YOU HAVE FAILED and THIS PEACE CANNOT LAST and especially, I WILL RECOMPENSE, for an interminable amount of time. Sitting with his knees tucked under his chin against the wall of curtained windows, trying to see something he hadn't before.
There are the small things—like that a person would have to drag a big ladder along the walls to write some of those sprawled letters, or that this bedroom was bigger than any others Merlin has seen and rather personalized, with furniture and the like, to be vacant. Merlin always has to rule out first the possibility that the place/thing of interest is a hoax, a scare tactic of the manmade kind instead of the otherworldly. But considering a knife just bulls-eyed above my head a short while ago, chances of that seem pretty slim.
Merlin raises his head from his knees at the muffled voice that's just spoken, sounding frightened and nervous even through the doorway.
"Yeah," he tries to say, but his unused voice comes out quiet and scratchy. "Yeah, I'm in here."
Gwen's voice filters through again: "Oh good, great, I just um . . . we're going out for dinner, everyone. And we'd love it if you came. That is, Arthur, Morgana, Mordred, Leon and I. If you'd like."
Merlin blinks; is it dinner time already? He might have been sitting here for a couple hours, enough to miss lunch, but the light from the windows—flooding into the room ever since Merlin went back in and pulled all the curtains back—is still high and bright. There is the time it takes driving to any destination from here to take into account, but even then . . .
"Merlin? Are you—Could you come out of there?"
"Oh! Sure, sorry," he jumps up, crosses to the door in a half-dozen long strides and opens it. Gwen is waiting behind it, smiling up at him rather warily and keeping her eyes fixed away from the room behind him. When he steps forward she starts a little, but immediately steps back to let him out.
The second Merlin closes the door, the woman's shoulders seem to visibly relax. "Isn't it a bit early, though, for an evening meal?" he asks, and she laughs nervously.
"Technically yes," she says, but says nothing else till they're on their way down the stairs. Then the woman let out a gust of breath. "I've never been so nervous in my own house," she shakes her head, crossing her arms. "I don't know how you managed three hours up there without going crazy."
"Has it been three hours?" Merlin muses, glancing above them. "I knew it's been awhile, but you'd think I'd get somewhere after three hours."
"Get somewhere?" Gwen raises both eyebrows, and he shrugs.
"Yes. This is what I do, after all," he says, "try to connect with those who have passed on. Communicate, receive messages. Most of the time, they're already at peace."
"This peace cannot last," Gwen murmurs, then blushes under Merlin's surprised look. "I didn't see. Arthur told me, is all, after he saw it. Would you—do you know, I mean? What that could mean?" She looks in both parts eager and scared for his answer. Merlin remembers the rush of feeling, after having touched that message:
Waiting, waiting, always waiting, in the dark dark corners tucked away, hearing their voices, so content and unaware, while not so far away you're brewing, building, growing growing stronger, freer, not too long now . . .
"I think he meant exactly that," Merlin says. "Your household has had a few little frights, now and then, in the past few months. But it's going to get worse, if Uther has his way."
Gwen freezes on a step, gripping the banister and staring at Merlin. Neither of them speak, Merlin reviewing his words and rather quickly realizing. "Oh." He's thoughtlessly used the name, the one Gaius truly meant to warn him of. "I mean to say—"
"You mean to say you think its Uther Pendragon, Arthur's father?" She's staring at him, assessing him with her eyes.
He decides to go with the truth. "Gaius told me." When Gwen slumps down to sit on the step, like the strength's been taken out of her legs, Merlin rushes to explain, "And there's really not a lot of evidence yet, nothing for sure. I don't know, honestly."
She buries her face in her hands, and Merlin is at a loss. As I often am, with women.
"I'm sorry, I didn't—"
"Don't apologize!" Gwen raises her head, looks at him with red eyes and a fierce expression. "Please don't. Right now, I'm just glad . . . maybe I'm not just going crazy." She stares down at her hands, continuing in a much quieter voice, "I don't want it to be true, Merlin. That's what Arthur doesn't understand. I don't want it to be Uther—God, it'd be so much easier if it wasn't—but we can't keep lying to ourselves."
"You think it might be him as well?" Merlin says, and she laughs shakily.
"Not just might be." Gwen stands, waving away Merlin's outstretched hand to help. She looks up, to the floor they've come from, then back at Merlin. Dark eyes wide with a distant horror. "I saw him. You asked me before, and I was too frightened. But I know it was his face that I saw in the reflection, behind me, just for a second."
"I overheard you tell Arthur," he deadpans. "I heard what you said: that you saw his face. 'Truly did,' as you put it." This woman knows more, he's positive, than what she's letting on.
Gwen's face turns frightened. "Please Merlin, let's talk about something else."
He remembers the conversation, remembers her avoiding any of his questions. "You were frightened to tell me the truth?"
"He hates me, Merlin. You wouldn't understand," she shakes her head, "and he didn't while he was alive. But I'm sure he hates me now. I can feel it. And Arthur—Arthur made me promise not to speak more on it, that the spirit terrorizing me and others here has even the possibility of being his father. He didn't want you, when you arrived, to be influenced by what some of us suspect."
"He doesn't want it to be true," Merlin says, and she nods in affirmation. "So I had to be kept in the dark."
"Yes." She starts down the stairs again, Merlin following. "I just don't understand . . . why. What's the point in any of it? If it really is Uther, what does he think he'll gain from all this?"
"Slamming doors, overturning tables, flying knives?" He jests, and when she nods, Merlin says, "I guess it's a warning. Maybe to Arthur."
"That what?"
"That Uther is here, come back from the grave. And he will recompense."