AN:

So this is where I can start to have fun. I hope you enjoy! :)

DISCALIMER: I OWN NOTHING. If I did, Mergana would've been canon. Excuse me while I cry in a corner.

6 Hours

Six hours later, Morgana and I had made the drive out to Avalon. I had to be sure. I had to be absolutely certain that this was Arthur Pendragon, the Once and Future King, returned at last.

"What exactly are you expecting, Merlin? Hypothermia?" Morgana called to me from the shore, hands tucked into the pockets of the oversized 2012 London Olympics sweatshirt I had bought her when we went to the Opening Ceremony. I could barely see her in the moonlight. I stood chest-deep in the icy water - in the exact spot where I had cast off Arthur when he died - freezing off every gratuitous appendage on my body, not that any of them were gratuitous to begin with.

"Well, I don't know, Morgana! I'm assuming that since it's my destiny and since my entire life has been leading up to this night for over a millennium, maybe something will happen. I don't know!" I shouted back, irritated.

"What, like frostbite?" she retorted. I clenched my jaw.

The nagging at the back of my mind that I had mostly quashed in the past two years was telling me to make some snide remark about how I wouldn't be in the lake at all if it weren't for her actions so long ago. I knew better by now, though, and I was in no mood to quarrel with her tonight. Besides, I knew her well enough by now to know that the jabbing was just her way of expressing her worry without actually… expressing it. After a few more frustrating minutes I gave up and waded back to her side.

"Gracious, Merlin, you couldn't have at least taken your shirt off first? You're soaked through!" She pulled off her sweatshirt as we walked toward her red VW Beetle and handed it to me. "Here, put this on so your shirt at least can dry on the way to the hospital. And take your shoes off."

I unbuttoned my gray flannel, that apparently weighed fifteen pounds when wet, and shrugged it off, pulling the sweatshirt on in its place. I was suddenly grateful that I had purchased my size by mistake. I handed the soaked shirt Morgana who stood there in a tank top, jeans, and riding boots, shivering against the mountain air. It was colder at Avalon than it was in London.

"Heaters on, please," I said through chattering teeth when we were in the car. She nodded in agreement and fiddled with the dials until warm air blasted in our faces. Morgana's scent twisted around me, lifted off the sweatshirt by the Beetle's climate control. I inhaled the familiar, relaxing odor and attempted to control the spasms wracking my frozen body, while I removed my socks and shoes.

"You were right, that was a really stupid idea. The lake didn't feel any different than it usually does. I don't know what I was expecting." I shook my head, dejected.

"Well, you had to try. You know why you're still here, you wanted to make sure that this is finally it. I understand that." The set of her mouth as she pulled onto the main road betrayed the true intent of her words. Ever since her revelation about her past two years ago her memories had come back to her almost entirely. Only rarely did I mention something that she didn't recall. The only things she couldn't seem to remember were the finer points of the dark magic that came with her High Priestess-hood.

Now that Morgana remembered who she was, she wanted more than anything to know why she had been sent back. She didn't remember anything about her time in the Next World, so that gave her no clues. I hoped that Arthur's return would answer some of her questions, but I was terrified that seeing the Once and Future King again would tear open the rift between us that we had so successfully and conscientiously sealed. Her happiness meant so infinitely much more than my own, but I didn't know if I could stand to lose her any more, which was saying a great deal when you considered how much loss I had withstood over the years. She had become my anchor to reality in so many ways, reminding me that I wasn't really alone in this Brave New World.

"I get it, you know," I mumbled as we wound through the backroads, headlights illuminating the asphalt as rain began to fall quietly around us. The faintest light of the sun was beginning to show like a halo over the tops of the mountains.

"Get what?"

"How confused you are. I grew up never knowing what my powers were meant for, and then for years after I arrived in Camelot I assumed they were to save Arthur. It wasn't until after he died that I realized I was trying to save him in the wrong lifetime. Even so, I won't be sure until I see Arthur face to face." I reached over and took the hand she wasn't using to drive, stroking the back with my thumb reassuringly. "Morgana, you'll figure this out. I'll help you."

I knew immediately that I'd pulled a trigger. We both did it now and then. It wasn't something we could avoid, but it no longer gave me any satisfaction, and I didn't think she felt any in it, either.

"Help me? You mean like when I first found out about my magic and you poisoned me? Were you trying to help me then?" she spat, her eyes like green fire, snapping over to meet mine. I could feel enmity radiating off her like the heat from the Beetle's vents. Knowing a fight was inevitable when she got like this, I used my magic to jerk the car over to the side of the road and shut it off before she could make us crash. We jumped out and were shouting in each other's faces in an instant.

"I had no choice then, Morgana!"

"Of course you had a choice! Nobody was holding a sword to your head making you betray me!"

"You know I had to do it, and you know perfectly well why!"

I'd pulled another trigger. "Oh, because you just had to save your little Prince? Look where that got you! If you'd been on my side, none of this would have happened! We would have ruled Albion together! We would've been able to be who we are, and we'd have given that same liberty to all our kind. We could have grown old and died, and maybe we would've stayed dead! Maybe the world wouldn't have forgotten our rule the way they have so easily mythicized your Once and Future King." She sneered Arthur's title.

I didn't say anything for a moment, because I knew she was right. It was something I had thought about more than once over the years. If my destiny hadn't been tied so inexplicably to Arthur's maybe I would have joined Morgana. The two of us against the world… We'd have been a force for the ages. There were more than one means to the same end. Arthur's was the right one, though, and I really didn't have a choice when it came down to it. I couldn't have gone with Morgana if I'd wanted to. She knew that, and she could see it in my face in that moment just as clearly as I felt it, because I knew I probably would have wanted to. The anger in her eyes melted away as she watched the regret seep into mine. She looked away, down at the ground.

"Morgana, you know how much I would change if I could. If anyone knows, you do. And you know that I can't change our futures any more than I change the past, so all I want is to understand. You're scared of something, I know you are, because I know you. Please let me help you. I know I didn't in the past, but, Morgana, I will live another thousand years trying to make it up to you if that's what it takes. Let me start right now." I took both her hands in one of mine and used the other to raise her chin so that her eyes met mine. "Let me help you."

A tear rolled down her cheek, hitting my hand. It was warmer than the raindrops pelting my skin, and the guilt made it feel like a burn. After the longest moment of silence she spoke. "I am scared, Merlin. I don't want to be alone, not again. I've spent my whole life alone, and most of my last one as well. I didn't think there was another way for me, but I see now that I was wrong." She leaned her face into my hand, and I pulled her into my arms.

"You don't have to worry about that Morgana," I murmured into her hair. "I'll never let you go, never again."

She sobbed into my sweatshirt. "You said it yourself, you don't have a choice."

It struck me then like a blunt sword over my heart. Her real fear was that I was going to abandon her for Arthur. That we were going to repeat our old mistakes. That we were going to lose each other again, and that we didn't even get to choose otherwise. Or worse, that we wouldn't want to choose otherwise.

She was worried that Arthur was going to tear us apart.

"I was wrong. We do have a choice, and while I have a duty to help Arthur that I cannot renege upon, I am choosing you in all the ways I can. Morgana, I swear by the Triple Goddess that you will never be alone again. As long as I walk in this world, you will have me."

Morgana stepped back and wiped her eyes, the tears replaced by raindrops. "I trust you, Merlin."

I cupped her face again. "And I trust you, Morgana."

The words didn't feel like enough, and I knew there was a whole lot more that I was trying to say but didn't understand enough to put to words. In that moment, however, those words did feel right.

She smiled that beautiful, bright smile that made everything in me melt, the one that she saved just for Aithusa and me. "Let's go break your king out of the mental ward then, shall we?" There was still a hint of sadness in her tone, but I knew she had faith in my promise, and sometimes that was all it took for her to pick herself up and move forward: a little faith.

I stepped to the side to open her car door for her. "We shall, My Lady."

"No, the man who was picked up along the road last night. We're here to claim him." I drummed my fingers on the counter impatiently. The receptionist was being difficult, playing stupid, suffering from hearing loss… One of those or all of the above, I didn't know.

I cast Morgana a disparaging glance and she winked at me. She coughed, muttering what I recognized to be a spell underneath it. Suddenly, everything went haywire. Lights flashed, alarms blared, and the doors to every ward flew open. All the employees leaped every which way, trying to control to chaos. My favorite sorceress slipped her hand into mine and pulled me down a series of hallways that had previously been locked and restricted. Luckilly, the security guards were all busy identifying Morgana's system malfunction.

Five doosr. Six. Seven. Finally, we found a room marked 'John Doe.' We entered.

Arthur Pendragon, Once and Future King of Camelot, in all his glory sat in a wheelchair and a hospital gown, staring out the window with his infamous thinking scowl. Morgana gasped, and he turned to face us.

There was a moment of confusion, then recognition lit up his face and he smiled a smile the width of Albion itself.

"Merlin," he laughed. "Where the hell have you been?"