1 Month

A month was all it took for Morgan to discover my powers and confess to me her own. We had spent nearly every day together since we had "met", so it was a wonder it didn't happen sooner, really. She had walked in on me one afternoon cooking a chicken dinner in her flat, which wasn't all that unusual. What was unusual was that it was cooking over a flame suspended in midair in the living room while I watched Sherlock reruns on her computer.

She handled the whole thing quite well, although I particularly enjoyed her cry of I knew it! when she saw the thing with the chicken. She said that she had had vague inclinations about her old life in Camelot, but nothing too definite, and she had believed them to be dreams or some forgotten childhood imaginings to distract from the sorrows of the orphanage she spent her first few years in. When I elaborated the details of her campaign for the throne she did not rescind her age-old angers, but instead decided that the whole issue was moot, considering the world had gone to the dogs and abandoned magic altogether. I could tell it didn't sit well with her, but she could hardly take on the universe when she had failed to conquer Camelot. Surely she knew that.

On the point of her magic she was most relieved. She had never had anyone to help her harness her powers, much less understand what they even were. She had lived her life in fear, the kind of fear that had driven her into the arms of the Druids so many lifetimes before. Except it was worse because this world didn't even acknowledge magic as a reality, the legality of it aside entirely. She was overjoyed to finally understand, to have answers.

After this she still went by Morgan in public, of course, and I still used Emrys, but to me she was Morgana and to her I was Merlin. She used my Druid name when she was angry, however, and I had to admit that it stung. We were trying to heal the wounds we had inflicted on each other in the past, and I knew that while Merlin was her friend she felt nothing but contempt for Emrys.

I moved into her flat three months after the incident in the pub by her demanding after I finally confessed that I had been sleeping in a cave in the Valley of the Fallen Kings for the past 800 years. Morgana insisted that I get a job, since we both knew Arthur likely wouldn't be happy that I had been living off the 'long-lost' troves of treasure from the vaults of Camelot, also hidden safely away in my cave. I worked part-time as a bartender alongside Ben, whom I had gradually managed to form a real friendship with once I had curbed my drinking habit. That was something else Morgana had insisted upon.

It took me a while to trust Morgana, to move past the damages she had caused. There was a rift between us: anger on my part over her role in Arthur's death and betrayal on her part over the fact that I had, well, killed her. I didn't believe she would ever forgive my offense and I knew I would never forgive hers. The hurt manifested itself in little ways such as bickering over shopping or which show to watch after dinner, little arguments that sometimes got very out of hand.

The fights got worse as Morgana's memories gradually came back to her the more we talked about the past. We reached an agreement after a particularly violent argument one night while we were hiking in the woods that tore open the ground at the force of our powers and only ended when Morgana showed me the scars where Excalibur ran through her which she had been born into her second life with. We agreed not to speak of the deepest wounds again. She agreed to stop calling me Emrys, the name that had caused her so much pain before. We both knew that staying together in discord was better than struggling through life alone and sacrificing this second chance we had been given for reasons yet unknown. To make our peace, I offered her a gift I know she would not forget.

After arranging her present, I found her sitting on the log where I left her. "Come on, it's ready!" I grinned eagerly, but she stood stiffly, angrily.

"I haven't the slightest idea what you could possibly do for me that could even begin to make amends, Merlin."

"Well, fortunately, I have."

I led her up the trail, off the trail, and into a large, grassy field. In the moonlight, the white dragon looked ghostly. It was the first time I had called upon Aithusa since our confrontation after the Battle at Camlann. She had refused to forgive me for murdering Morgana and I never saw her after that. 1000 years later, she was just as massive as Kilgharrah had been when we first met in the caves beneath the citadel. Her scales sparkled brilliantly white, and she showed only hints at the deformities that had crippled her as a juvenile. She looked powerful, magnificent, beautiful, regal, and above all, breathtaking.

At the sight of the dragon, Morgana screamed in disbelief and ran, weeping, to her. I had scarcely seen her so happy. The look on Aithusa's face was just as shocked and even more overjoyed. I knew that she had forgiven me, as I had righted my wrong against her, and I had a feeling Morgana would treat me more kindly after that.

Life together became easier after that. Aithusa remained in the area to be with Morgana, which was difficult considering how large she had become and how unused to civilization she was, having hidden in the Himalayas for the majority of the past millennium. Morgana and I came to terms with our past quarrels in some ways and had learned to work around them in others. With no further causes for turmoil than our messy pasts, gradually our lives settled into place. Morgana continued her education, studying piano and cello at the University of London. I began to act like a member of society again, which felt downright wrong after so many wearying years of reclusive hermitage. We traveled now and then on the dime of Camelot's vast, forgotten fortune, first to New York and then to New Zealand.

Life continued like that for almost two years with all the ups and downs that came with sharing a flat with your ex-arch enemy, a High Priestess who had forgotten how to harness the Old Religion. It felt like being in a holding pattern, waiting for something, although I scarcely noticed this as acutely as Morgana did. I had been waiting for generations. Morgana came along again and changed my whole world. She wasn't the change I had been anticipating those past thousand years, but with her, somehow I didn't feel like I was waiting any more. I did feel, however, that we were on the brink of something different, and we just had to be patient until something shoved us off the edge.

That shove came one night when I returned home from work on a warm August night. Morgana was sitting on the couch with her arms around her knees, watching the news. Her face was as white as a sheet.

"Morgana? What is it? What happened?" My stomach sank, knowing that the news was not to be underestimated. I had been there for every horrible event they had ever broadcast. I dropped my things and dashed to her side.

She shook her head, throat too dry to speak for a moment it seemed. "It's him," she choked out. "He's back. They found him, he's back."

I turned toward the screen. They were running a story about a man who had been found wandering on the side of a rural road dressed in full body armor and carrying a sword. He had been taken to a hospital, claiming to have woken on the shore of a lake with no memory, save his first name.

Arthur.

UPDATE 8/4/13

Due to the fact that the show never referred to Aithusa as a boy or girl and cast interviews on the subject were conflicting, leaving his/her gender up for debate, I made the call in this story to refer to the dragon as a male. However, after a discussion on the matter with Night girl98, I did some deeper digging. Epidose Transcripts on the Merlin Wiki all refer to Aithusa as "she." As these were probably fan-written transcripts, I am unsure how canonically valid this info is, but it was enough to make me change my decision. Aithusa will be a lady dragon from here on out in this story, and any future Merlin fics I may or may not write.

If you have noticed and are confused by the gender switch in this chapter from the previous version, this is why I did it.