41.
Four years ago the event of a woman falling in a spout of dizziness would have been a common phenomenon for him.
The worst and first time Cara had swayed and fallen unceremoniously to the ground, they were having lunch with Merlin's mother. Hunith fussed over her a good ten minutes after, suggesting calling up a doctor she knew almost as many times as a very pale Cara insisted, "I'm fine, I'm fine."
Of course, as their relationship lengthened and tightened, and Merlin's great secret was revealed, her dizzy spouts suddenly made perfect sense. Especially after yet another meeting with Cara's mother, Nimueh, lessons about the past, the real purposes of solstices, about Cathbhadh, when Cara slumped against him and remained incoherent for a good two minutes.
After weeks under the old woman's tutelage, Merlin felt something he'd never noticed before with Cara: flickers in his vision, almost like flashes of color, in her proximity.
"You understand now," Nimueh said in her old, weathered voice, as if sensing his shock, "that she is not very different from you, Merlin. My Cara has talents from me, her mother, as well."
Then the flashes bled together, forming an image. One of Nimueh, looking as she did now in her old age, except lying in a rather formal resting place. With pale, almost wax-like skin, still. In a coffin.
Cara's cries of "No! NO!" ripped him from the vision.
ooOOoo
Merlin is both entirely unsurprised and completely surprised after he's sprinted round the car, to pick Morgana up—when flickers of color flash in his vision, like sun behind his eyelids, the sensation making him gasp with its startling familiarity.
"Mor-Morgana?" he chokes, hardly able to process what this means as her eyelids flutter a little, though still remain shut. Meanwhile the flickers are increasing, blurring, turning into flashing images behind his own eyes—
A tiny dark-headed child sits by a familiar bed of lilies, humming a sweet, tiny sound as he touches the soft petals and a smiling Gwen hands him one for his own. She leaves soon after though, and the relatively bright day turns clouded, overcast and slowly, darker and darker . . .
A shadow passes over the tiny boy, tall and wide and heavy, and obscuring what little light is left. The boy notices and looks up, still clutching the lily flower. Then after a long, drawn-out moment his little folded legs stand and slowly, almost catatonically, he begins to walk. Away from the lawn, through a strangely-open side gate and into the woods, down a path eventually to a green lake—
Morgana's choked gasp pulls him away from the vision, but Merlin's mind is already racing. Already identifying Mordred as the boy and Uther as the shadow. "The flowers," Merlin remembers, shocked as he recalls. Morgana's pale face tightens as she tries to sit. "You've been trying to stop it—you, you were going to destroy the flowers."
". . . Can't, you know Arthur would be furious," Gwen is saying, arms spread-eagle as if that will protect the flowers better. Her eyes are wide with fear. "There's absolutely no good reason to—"
"I don't do anything without reason! Now get out of the way!" Morgana shoots back, holding the bucket up in warning.
She must have seen something similar to this before. It feels familiar to Merlin somehow, as well, as if from a dream. Especially the last image, of the green lake . . .
A small little body, floating on its back in a green lake, black hair rippling with the water.
Merlin flinches back from the image, scooting away from Morgana and putting his head in his hands. It's what Merlin thought was a scare tactic, on the spirit's part Friday morning, giving him visions of death and peril to frighten him away from continuing this job. But the most recent images have this sense to them—a current sense, like it's just about to happen. Like the shadow is just about to fall, any second now, miles away over Pendragon Estate. "He's going to kill him," Merlin says out loud, cringing at how true the words ring out loud. Morgana doesn't reply, and when Merlin finally braves a glance up at her she's simply staring at him.
". . . H-How do you—" she whispers, but Merlin makes a split-second decision. He pulls himself up from the concrete and practically pushes Morgana into the driver seat, determined now. This can't happen—this won't happen. He's around to the passenger seat in seconds, realizing Morgana is still looking at him in frightened confusion. "Merlin, I—"
"I swear I'll explain. Drive. Drive!"
42.
Morgana drives. Her hands shake on the wheel, but her turns are smooth and her foot is steady against the pedal. By the time she pulls onto the main road, Merlin remembers.
"Gwen! I need to—" he fishes out his phone, ignoring his own shaking fingers as he finds her contact and puts the phone to his ears. The other end rings and rings, shrilly over and over again, and Merlin is ready to scream by the time Gwen's chirpy voice mail comes up instead of her actual voice, asking him to ". . . leave your name and number, and I'll get back to you—!"
Merlin presses end with a vicious jab, swearing "shite" under his breath. Morgana is biting her lip, eyes on the road as she says, voice shaking, "Y-You think it's going to happen? Today, b-before we get back even?"
"It felt like it," he answers, shaking his head. "It felt like it was just about to happen. Maybe—do you know where that lake is? Did anything about it seem familiar?"
Morgana's spine stiffens; she swallows, saying in an unreadable voice, "So you did see it. You really saw everything; you know. I thought you . . . but . . . what are you, Merlin?"
"Honestly?" he asks, mouth twitching into a half-hearted smile. "I have no idea."
"You said you're a medium—"
"Well, erm, psychic medium technically. I can see the dead, and auras of the living based off their relationship with the dead. Sometimes, flashes of the past, and even more rarely flashes of the future. But . . . usually only the latter through another psychic, acting as medium." Like it did just now, with Morgana. Morgana is psychic. I really can't seem to have relationships with normal people. Merlin's memory flashes back to Cara, of her unnatural ability to see beyond her own eyes. And, when she was close enough, allowing him to share in the experience.
"Try Arthur," Morgana says, and Merlin doesn't understand what that means till she's grabbed the phone from his lap and thrust it into his hands. "He might be in a meeting, but."
Merlin nods, quicker to find his employer's number than Gwen's and crossing his fingers as he waits with the device against his ear.
It immediately goes to voice mail.
"SHITE!" Merlin shouts loud this time, banging his fist against the dashboard. Morgana jumps, swerving a little before glaring at him.
"Freaking out isn't going to help!" she reprimands, cross. "And no, don't try Leon's cell—if Arthur's busy in a meeting, Leon will be too."
"Why is that?"
She just shakes her head quickly. "Let's, let's just keep our heads about this. Freaking is out is why my original plan failed. At the time I wasn't thinking too rationally—but if I hadn't been acting so suspicious and given Gwen the impression that I was going to annihilate Ygraine's flowers, maybe I actually could have."
"How exactly was destroying lilies—?"
"I don't know, alright! In my head I was thinking only of Mordred; maybe, if the flowers were gone, he would never be out of anyone's sight long enough, or at least I could delay the inevitable for a while and find some way to save him . . ."
"But why Mordred out of all of us? What has he to do with anything?" Merlin looks at Morgana hard, searching for his answer. She seems to know more than she's willing to say—as usual.
Morgana sighs. "What do you know about me, Merlin? And no stupid compliments or personality traits—what do you know about me?"
He swallows, trying to speak past the dryness in his mouth. "You ran away at 16," he starts eventually, and by the way Morgana's face snaps to look at him she obviously didn't expect him to start with that. "You've told me Uther was a horrible person; I guess I can assume you were running from him. Later you came back apologetic, and eventually got a high-ranking job in Camelot Industries. Of course, where you were while you disappeared apparently gave you connections, since you betrayed your father's company and almost brought it under for them, later after that had Mordred I assume, and eventually ended up back at the estate, somehow."
He watches her face for a reaction, and she seems surprisingly calm."He was going to set me up with some friend of his, right before I left the first time," Morgana says, so quiet Merlin has to strain to hear. Her eyes are distant as she continues, "I was 16—with parent's consent, technically I could get married. Morgause found me, picked me up off the street and proved we were half-sisters. After that there wasn't any doubt who my true family was."
She looks over at Merlin, smiling sadly. "I say this because I want you to understand. I thought I was being saved, liberated from my oppressed existence—but turns out it was just picking between two different kinds of poison. After everything, ruining the lives of everyone around me and my triumph over Daddy's poor little company"—her voice drips with mirth—"I was of little use and therefore of little importance, to anyone. And then, Gwaine was killed. After that I knew."
Merlin's eyes threaten to jump out of his sockets. "Gw-Gwaine . . ?"
She blinks hard, looking pained. "Died of a drug overdose, like I said. Only, it was no accident."
"What?"
She exhales sharply. "What did Percival tell you?" Morgana raises her brow, urgent and completely changing the subject.
"No—Morgana, who killed Gwaine?"
"Did he tell you about Arthur's circle of supporters? The group he secretly banded while Uther lay wasting away, weak and useless, to save his father's precious Camelot?"
Merlin stares at her tight-lipped expression, realization dawning. "Do you mean . . . was Gwaine in on this, this circle thing?"
She nods, jaw clenched. "Yes. When Uther found out about it he interrogated them; Gwaine told me he laughed in front of his face, told him there wasn't a thing the man could do about it even if the rumor was true. Uther was . . . furious, to say the least. He went so far as to seek Morgause's aid in finding the culprits. My whole family, all working together at last," she chuckles darkly, shaking her head.
It fades away, though, as Morgana continues softly, "I'd already picked one of them off—Lancelot, who most certainly would never return. Next it was Elyan. He went into hiding, he realized what could happen even when Gwaine scoffed at the idea, but that didn't matter. Another 'accident' occurred, a random shooting apparently in London."
"I realized what would happen too late. I saw what would happen—saw Gwaine passing out before my very eyes, but I was hours, hours away," her voice hitches. "There was nothing I could do."
A bright tear trails down her cheek; Merlin watches silently while she hastily brushes it away. Up ahead the road is about to fork, and he sits up in alarm when she doesn't take the usual left, to Pendragon Estate. "Morgana—"
"I know where the lake is," she says, voice a bit hoarse but still firm. "It's a gamble, I know, to go there instead of the house—but this is our best bet."
Merlin nods; he watches as the landscape turns from urban life to rural paradise once more, soon entering the large patch of forest the estate sprawls into. As flashes of water, a thin strip of green behind the tree, appears, Merlin looks over at the woman beside him.
"I asked why Mordred, out of all of us, before," he starts. Morgana nods, and when she says nothing, he presses, "I asked what he had to do with anything, and your explanation . . . what does Gwaine have to do with this?"
He should have known, even before she answered.
"Gwaine is his father," Morgana answers simply, with the saddest of smiles.
A/N: Happy New Year's Eve, friends! One of my resolutions: to finish this fic :) An answer has arrived for poor Merlin! I keep getting responses on how further confused everyone is each time I update, but I hope this time I managed to illuminate, not continued to befuddle, hehe. Hope to hear your thoughts regardless!