A quite longer delay between updates than usual, I apologize: Hard-to-write part is hard to write.

For all of you still reading, thanks for keeping up with me and by so doing, encouraging me! I'm not sure how many have been here since the beginning, if at all, but I've gotten support all the way through (which is all a writer could ask for). The end is not very far off for "RIVULET," if I can just update faster than once a month, haha, so I guess I'm getting a bit sentimental. Don't mind me. On with the fic!

43.

By the time a Pendragon finally let's slip an answer among all the rest of their question-raising explanations, the truth always seems so obvious to Merlin, suddenly.

"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.

"Mordred got his sight from you, I assume," Merlin says, remembering not for the first time that eventful morning. How, in the split-second before Gwaine evaporated, Mordred had entered the room. Looked straight at him, at his father, before pointing and asking "Who?" for what would be the next hour or so. All the way up until the child heard Gwaine's name.

Morgana slams on the break, simultaneously shrieking "WHAT?" and giving Merlin whip lash. The car squeaks, swerving a little, though thankfully not straight into the green lake on their left, before it comes to a stop.

"OW, sorry, I figured you knew—"

"I do know! Of course I know—how do you know?" she grills, staring at Merlin in such a way it almost reminds him of those 'contests' they shared in the beginning. Only now her eyes betray not amusement, but panic.

"It doesn't matter now, just—Keep driving and keep looking!" Merlin answers, on the edge of panic himself at the sight of the lake's expanse. How on earth they are supposed to find Mordred along the shores by any means but mere luck, he cannot fathom.

Morgana nods too many times before finally relaxing on the brake, starting up down the road again. "I didn't love him," she says, biting her lip in a way that distracts Merlin from searching out the window.

"You don't have to—"

"I didn't love him, or even like him really," she goes on anyway, steering and glancing over at the lake as they drive along as if she's not speaking. "I knew him, thanks to my time working for Camelot Industries and pretending to be Uther's perfect daughter. He hated me after the truth came out, just how you've seen Lance and Perce hate me. That's the reality of it. We didn't even speak alone until I came back to my old room in secret, at the estate, to grab something and found he'd moved in there. Where you're staying now.

"We yelled at each other, the first time, but it was . . . fun," she shakes her head, brow pulled together, "it was just so fun trying to make him angry and seeing how it didn't affect him for a moment, I kept coming back, really just to taunt him. I wasn't much use to Morgause anymore, and everyone else hated me and I hated them. So . . . "

Morgana trails off, but Merlin can fill in the blanks pretty well himself when she continues, " . . . and, well, when I started showing, I told Morgause. Like the fool I was. And when she realized I was serious, I wouldn't abort the child, I thought her anger would just fade. My sister viewed it as a victory lost, that I slept with Gwaine but ended up carrying his child."

"So she . . . helped, kill, him," Merlin states, though it's nearly a question as he tries to wrap his head around all this.

Morgana nods solemnly. "From what I saw—STOP THE CAR!"

"You-you're the one driving!"

Morgana's eyes widen and she slams on the brake once again, though Merlin is too busy craning trying to see past her head to complain. Trying to see whatever has the woman ripping off her seatbelt and jumping out of the car. He follows, looking along either side of the lakeshore for a sign of one tiny child amidst the brush.

But she's running straight for the lake itself, and that's when Merlin spots what must have made Morgana stop. His heart doesn't sink, exactly—it more half-flips, a small fist punching his gut when Merlin recognizes the woman standing waist-deep in the lake ahead of them, looking completely dry.

Freya.

Merlin.

What are you doing here?

Morgana stops short of the water, though, looking down at something along the rocks. I'm not sure, Freya's voice answers, and then the image of her moves, flickers in and out of existence till she's right next to Morgana. Merlin runs to meet them both.

Then . . . maybe you can help. We're looking for Mordred, her son, Uther's spirit has led him near here—

Freya's presence suddenly flickers away, strange like a faulty projected image, until her presence entirely gone. "Damn it!" he shouts, sure this is Uther's doing. Somehow the spirit is sucking away any and all connection between the living and the dead, using it as fuel for his dark purposes here.

Merlin knows there was a time he could have identified exactly what this dead man was doing, a time he'd been taught about practically every possibility when it came to spirits, malignant or benevolent alike. Perhaps if he hadn't so deeply suppressed those memories of Nimueh and Cara, of Druids and Triple Goddesses . . .

"It's his; I knew it, I knew I saw it," Morgana is babbling, he realizes, clutching a tiny, muddied white dragon toy. "He always keeps it in his pocket," she looks up at Merlin, green eyes shining with emotion, "but he dropped it, and didn't pick it back up. What kind of control does Uther have, that he can . . . ?" Her last words are pushed past gritted teeth, squashing the dragon toy in her hand as she stands.

"We need to keep looking, Morgana; this means he can't be far from here," Merlin says, reaching a hand to place on her shoulder. Morgana flinches away from it, shaking her head as her eyes leak moisture.

"He's nowhere to be seen. Which means it's too late, Merlin—it means we're too late."

Merlin opens his mouth to speak, to reassure, even as the hopelessness in Morgana's beautiful green eyes shakes his own faith—and jumps back when, directly in front of Morgana, up pops Freya. Her transparent eyes wide in horror.

MERLIN! The spirit, he's too busy to notice me, I saw him along those banks ahead!

Merlin's heart doesn't know whether to soar or to plummet. Just the spirit? No . . . no boy?

She shakes her head, concerned and confused at once.

No. No boy.

44.

"Come on!" Merlin whips through the brush toward the banks ahead, not waiting to see if Morgana is following, She will. There's either no time left to explain, or way too much time, though Merlin prays for the former even as he sprints across the soggy, uneven ground. Pleading silently that perhaps Freya has it wrong, that she just didn't spot the tiny child, though the trained Druid side of him knows that spirits more sense other presences, don't really use eyes technically. That Mordred is gone, gone, gone.

"Merlin!" Morgana calls behind him, sounding confused, but also much farther away than he would have guessed. Merlin can't stop for her now. He's almost there, where Freya has pointed, perhaps if he can just get there—

A horrid, hollow, freezing, bitter wind blows at Merlin the second he nears, sinking straight through his clothing and underneath his skin. The rushing air in his ears as he runs suddenly mutes; Merlin's breathing picks up as all he can hear is blood pounding dully in his ears.

The sky must have darkened. It must have. For when Merlin reaches those signature, jutting banks, all he can make out is a shadow. Close, between two trees.

You persist and persist, like a fly over rotten fruit. When will you learn to stop your meddling? It is futile, as you must realize now.

Merlin feels nauseous as a thick wave of smug satisfaction wafts over him, though still icy cold, all but confirming that they are too late. You're the rotten fruit, I assume? He jests weakly, meanwhile racking his brain for strategies here. The spirit is talking to him, willingly manifesting almost enough that Merlin can forcefully exorcise, he realizes. Or try, at the least.

He steps closer as Uther's spirit chuckles, a vibration that seems to make everything in Merlin's vision shiver slightly. Where is Mordred? He tries, though he can probably answer it himself. Where did you leave him?

I said I would recompense. I would not sit idly by. My time has come, and there is nothing you can do, silly little DRUID. Except die as well.

Merlin hardly has time to be shocked, that Uther somehow knows this now, before suddenly the shadow thickens—deepens, rather quickly into a murky figure, a black image of a hard, ruthless-looking man—and this is it, this is the moment Merlin should force the spirit from this world. Perform a quick, meaningful exorcism.

Except he can't speak. Or think, or breathe, hardly. As Uther slowly steps forward Merlin feels it like he's being repelled; with every step forward the malignant ghost takes, the medium has to take one backward. And everything besides his feet seem to have frozen, been bound down inside him hog-style and burned away until he's not sure he remembers how to speak.

The little part of him still able to process all this goes limp with horror, however, when dully his mind registers his feet hitting the water, feels himself slowly backing into the murky green lake until it hits past his knees.

Inwardly, he's screaming. Outwardly he's a stiff puppet, eyes unable to rip from the absolutely chilling gaze of the ghost of Uther Pendragon, who is staring back at him with such malice and hatred Merlin already feels like he's drowning.

It's when the water hits his neck that Merlin starts to really worry about the actual drowning bit.

NO! I command you to leave! Go, you're not wanted by anyone here! LEAVE! GO AWAY and DO NOT RETURN! He screams in his mind as the water hits his chin. The spirit, far away at the edge of the bank, curls a lip in amusement. His unspoken exorcising is useless.

Merlin's nose submerges, and it seems he's finally allowed the courtesy of closing his eyes.

"STOOOOOOOOOPPPPP!"

His ears are half-filled with water, but Merlin hears it nonetheless, what sounds strangely like a child's cry. Suddenly his whole body jolts in the water, spasming as he abruptly regains control of it again and his foot slips on something. Merlin chokes in a lungful of lake water in surprise, flailing and coughing back to the surface, and managing a few meters closer to the banks before an equally-wet body flings itself at him.

"Merlin! Merlin, Merlin, oh God, have you, are you—" Morgana splutters, half-clinging to him and half-inspecting him like an anxious mother.

He blinks the water out of his eyes, looking down at her worried, yet surprisingly not stricken, face. "I'm sorry," he croaks, not wanting to remind her yet not bearing the thought of ignoring it. His voice sounds as bad as his throat feels, as his heart aches. "I'm so sorry, Morgana. Mordred, I tried to—"

He cuts off in complete and utter confusion when she smiles wide, teary-eyed. "Come on, let's get you out of the water," she says, practically dragging him by the shirt with something he'd have called enthusiasm, if it wasn't for the fact that—

"Mewin?" He hears before he sees, but then Merlin's eyes spot him. Mordred is a bit off the banks they stumble onto, the child completely dry and grinning wide enough to dimple his cheeks beyond recognition. Uther is nowhere to be found.

Merlin blanches. "Mewin!" The little boy waves now, waddling toward them with the same grin and clutching a tiny, white dragon toy in one hand.

"He's alive, he's alright," Merlin says out loud, just to taste the words on his tongue. "He's alive," he repeats down to Morgana, who's still clutching at his drenched shirt with a look of pure happiness on her face as she smiles up at him—and Merlin realizes he's started clutching her as well at some point, one hand interlaced with hers and the other pressed between her shoulder blades, pulling her closer against him.

Completely overwhelmed by joy, he spur-of-the-moment leans down and kisses the smile right off her face, both their lips wet and hers soft and smooth and . . . basically everything Merlin's imagined since studying the pair instead of that checkers' board.

After a moment she presses back, hand tightening where it grips his shirt, and he pulls away in shock.

Because he just kissed Morgana Pendragon.

"Sorry," Merlin says quickly, eyes wide as she blinks up at him. Her dazed expression gives way to a formidably vexed one, however, and Merlin wonders if he's done worse than he thinks.

He's about to spout a hundred different apologies when without warning Morgana slaps his chest—which stings hard in his wet state—and shakes her head, saying, "Sorry? You kiss a girl and then you tell her sorry?"

"Mummy," a whine interrupts them, Mordred pulling on her pant leg and raising both chubby arms imploringly. Morgana's face morphs back to relief, then, letting go of Merlin and hoisting the boy up against her hip quite easily, kissing both his cheeks.

"You scared Mummy, no running away," she scolds him, though there's absolutely no heart in it. Mordred just smiles at her, then turns to look at Merlin, putting a small, warm palm on his chest. Merlin looks down at the child's hand amusedly, though his smile quickly dies on his face.

The wet state of his gray shirt has made it see-through, and now Morgana is staring as well at the black ink of his second tattoo, bleeding through just above Mordred's hand.

"You have—" Morgana starts, frowning at it, but she never finishes. Out of nowhere something starts blaring, " . . . My songs kno-ow what you did in the da-a-a-ark! So light 'em up, up, up—" until Morgana jumps to hand Merlin Mordred and fish her phone from her back pocket.

"ARTHUR! Merlin tried to call you. No, you listen, WAIT, we just—" She cuts off angrily and listens to the distressed voice on the other end, her face getting steadily paler with every second by whatever's being said. "Oh, oh no, Arthur, I'm so—" She says, eyes wide and completely unaware of the questioning looks Merlin's giving her. "Yes. We're coming, we'll be there."

When the thirty-second call ends Morgana looks close to tears all over again.

"We have to go back to the hospital," she finally says in a choked voice, staring at the phone with a hand over her mouth. "It's Gwen."

A/N: A couple fun facts!

1. I'm ahead, so review and I'll send you a sneak peek of the coming chapter!

2. In the midst of researching exorcism for this fic, the lighter to our stove started clicking uncontrollably and WOULD NOT STOP till my dad messed with it over and over again... I was wanting to cook a delicious pot of ramen noodles but that didn't happen. Needless to say I was a bit freaked, hehe.