Chapter Text
Now that he knows, Arthur is astonished at how blatantly obvious Merlin’s magic usage is. That being said, he hadn’t noticed for the past ten years. Er, or perhaps the next ten years? He’s a little confused as to how he should think about time.
But Merlin is right there, eyes glowing gold and hand stretched out, forcing the attacker away from them. He doesn’t even seem to care that Arthur can see him, staring wide-eyed. This didn’t happen last time.
Arthur is the Crown Prince of Camelot. Or he was. And will be soon. Or is already? Again, it’s hurting his head to think about this in order. Ignore that for a moment. Start at the beginning.
Arthur is dying. He knows that. It’s number one on his list of “Things Arthur Knows”. The dread building in his gut, the neverending anxiety, and the massive blood loss all give it away.
Number two on the list of things he knows: Someone is with him. Merlin. It’s Merlin. Okay, Merlin is with him. Everything will be fine. Merlin always makes things better (except for when he makes them worse, but even then Arthur admits that having Merlin by his side when things inevitably get worse makes them better). It’s happening again now. Merlin is taking him somewhere to make it better.
But it’s too late, Arthur can feel it. He doesn’t want to say anything at first, doesn’t want to ruin their last moments together, but it has to be brought up eventually. Arthur voices his concerns, his growing weariness, during a short rest. Merlin fights him at first, daring to order Arthur to shut up and continuing to drag his progressively lifeless body along. Arthur lets it go until he’s sure there aren’t any moments left to ruin.
“Stop,” he tries to use his most commanding voice. Merlin ignores him. Arthur just wants to have some time with his friend before…
They end up in a clearing. Arthur can see the sky as his eyes become blurry. Each breath is more ragged than the last, and he’s not sure how many he has left.
“Just hold me.” Arthur thinks and then hears himself saying out loud. Merlin is panting in his ear, struggling to hold him upright. Arthur regrets not pushing Merlin more in the training yards. He can barely carry his King. “Please. There’s something I want to say.”
“You’re not saying goodbye.”
“No.”
Arthur thinks of how this happened. Not the stabbing, nor the bloodshed, nor the betrayal. He thinks of Merlin. He thinks of how this nobody, this servant, came to be one of the most important people in his life ( the most important, he’s above them all, I wouldn’t be anything without you). Arthur used to be confused about how Merlin came to him. At first ordered to serve Arthur, forced into his proximity, and soon became the loyalest of all his men. Now he knows. Destiny. The universe knit their lives together, pulled each of their strings and merged them into one. There is no other place they could’ve ended up.
“Everything you’ve done, I know now. For me. For Camelot.” Arthur has to pause often and catch his breath. “You’ve been with me for…For ten years. Is that right? Ten years?”
“Just about.” Merlin is doing a poor job at hiding his tears.
Arthur laughs. Well, he tries to. Every part of him hurts as he forces the sound out of him. “I used to think it would be simple. My father would live, would rule, for long enough for me to learn how to be king. I would take over when he tired of it, and I would know everything.”
Merlin is silent for once.
“It was simple. Remember when it was simple?” A smile spreads across Arthur's face.
It’s Merlin's turn to laugh. “It’s never been simple with you, Arthur.”
“No, I guess not.” Arthur’s eyes are growing heavy now. He wants them to stay open, wants to keep looking at Merlin. (Please let me keep looking at him, he’s all I have, please). “But it could’ve been. I could’ve known you from the start.”
“I-I’m sorry-”
“Don’t.” Arthur can see the tears streaming down Merlin’s face now, feel them fall into his hair. He tries to hold Merlin’s hand, but can’t seem to move his arm. “I know why you couldn’t. Why you had to keep it secret. I just wish…Merlin. I need to say something I’ve never said to you before . ” His chest rattles as he breathes in. “I’m sorry, and thank you.”
As the blue sky above darkens, Merlin holds Arthur close and whispers pleas into his ear, asking him not to leave him. Arthur wishes it were his choice.
He slips away, the scene around him growing distant. Someone…someone is yelling. The wind picks up around him. Arthur knows his death approaches at last when he opens his eyes for one final time and swears he sees a dragon flying in closer and closer. Oddly, the mirage reminds Arthur of the days he ventured out on hunts. It would get windy then too, in early Spring, right after he met Merlin. Arthur tries to smile. He fails. He drifts away thinking of those simpler times.
Arthur wakes in the morning confused. To be fair, he is often confused when he awakes, but it’s usually because Merlin literally drags him out of bed, or throws a pillow at him, or even once decided to go looking for wormwood in the early hours of the day.
No, this time he’s confused because he isn’t sure how he got here. They were in a field, trying to get somewhere. A lake, he thinks. Yes, the Lake of Avalon. Merlin said they could get help there.
Sitting bolt upright in bed, he can feel a sharp pain in his back and stomach, the kind of pain that only comes with being stabbed. He’d been stabbed, and they needed help, and only the lake could help. But Arthur doesn’t remember making it to the lake.
The sun is just starting to peek through the windows of his bedroom, pushing past a curtain some servant carelessly forgot to close. Arthur turns to chastise the man standing next to him, and realizes he’s alone. No one else is in Arthurs chambers. Where’s Merlin? He’s usually stuck to Arthurs bedside whenever he’s been injured before, but he’s nowhere to be seen. And Gwen? She normally doesn’t rise before him.
Standing up is not as difficult as he thought it would be. He walks around his chambers, trying to find what exactly is odd about it. He can’t quite figure it out. But his body feels different too, fully rested for the first time in a while, energetic in a way he hasn’t felt for a few years. And his knee doesn’t hurt. That had been a recent development, a pulled muscle while training a few months back. It left him with a slight limp when it got cold outside, but otherwise didn’t interfere with his fighting.
But it’s gone now.
Finding his chambers truly empty, Arthur resigns himself to dressing without a servant. As he’s changing into his day clothes, a young servant girl enters his room. She dips her head when she sees him step out from behind the room divider, and makes her way to the table where she sets down a tray of food.
“Your breakfast, Sire.” She says, and starts to leave.
“Wait,” Arthur says, and she pauses, looking at him with wide eyes. “Where’s Merlin?”
“Merlin?”
“Yes, my servant. Merlin.”
She hesitates for a second, looking confused. “I’m sorry, Sire, I don’t know a Merlin.”
“What do you mean…it’s Mer lin. Are you new here?”
“No, Sire.” She shakes her head. “I’ve been working in the castle for over a year now.”
What is going on, Arthur thinks. He shakes his head, trying to clear it. “Well how about Gwen? Is she around?”
“I suspect she’s in the Lady Morgana's chambers.”
Arthur can feel his expression soften. Of course. She still goes in there often, missing her former friend. She had taken the betrayal very personally, and now her death…
“If you see her, could you let her know I wish to speak with her?”
“Of course.” She dips her head again and exits quickly.
Arthur sits at the table and starts in on his food. The eggs aren’t cooked the way he likes them, but that’s to be understood if Merlin wasn’t the one to fetch the plate. There’s also less sausage than usual. He hopes the kitchen would know his tastes better, but maybe there was a missed delivery. He makes a mental note to check on how their supplies are doing.
As he sits at the table, Arthur realizes one of the changes in his room that made it look so different. It’s the wrong chair. An older one, he thinks, as an uneven leg wobbles the chair beneath him. He got all new furniture maybe five years ago, just after he became king. Why had this chair been replaced with a seemingly worse one, when the whole set was still perfectly fine.
He’s wiggling the chair back and forth when there’s a knock at the door. It opens a second later and Gwen enters. Except-
“What are you wearing?” Arthur crinkles his nose in confusion before he can stop himself.
Gwen’s face darkens a few shades as she blushes in embarrassment. She looks down at her pale yellow chemise and matching overdress, and takes a breath before answering. “My clothes, Sire. I understand that it’s not as nice as what you have, but I do like this dress-”
“That’s not what I meant.” Arthur interrupts her. “I just meant, I don’t think I’ve seen you wear that in…a while.”
Gwen clears her throat and changes the subject. “Elaine said you wanted to speak to me.”
“Who?” Arthur tilts his head before remembering the servant girl. “Ah, yes, I did.”
He wants to see his wife, his queen, the woman he loved and trusted to lead by his side. But this isn’t the Guinevere he knows, who he just saw. She looks younger than he remembers, not to mention the dress. She hasn’t worn that dress since they married, since she took the seat beside him. This isn’t his wife, and he doesn’t know what happened to her.
Gwen looks at him expectantly, waiting for whatever he was going to say.
“Forgive me, I seem to have forgotten what it was I needed you for.” Arthur smiles bashfully. A look of confusion passes over her face, but she quickly returns to a neutral expression.
“If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to My Lady.” She curtsies, but waits for Arthur to dismiss her.
“Your Lady?”
Now she shows her emotions, eyebrows knitting together. “Morgana.”
Morgana. She betrayed him, Merlin, Gwen. Everyone. Morgana, who turned against Camelot because of what his- their father did. Morgana, who he saw Merlin kill, saw the life leave her already pale face. Arthur can feel his chest growing tight, his mouth open but no words come out. And she’s here. Morgana is here, and Gwen is serving her.
Gwen is staring again, watching him. He has to pull himself together. Arthur let's air flood back into him and shakes his head. “Of course, Morgana. You may get back to her.”
Gwen curtsies again and leaves.
As Arthur sits there, thinking over what Gwen revealed, he notices more differences in the room. His old wardrobe is beside an old room divider. The large gouge Merlin put in the floor when he dragged Arthur's sword one time is gone. The blankets and hangings on his bed are slightly worn, not the brand new ones he received just months earlier. And on his desk sits a blown glass eagle in flight, the one he received as a child. He dropped it a few years back and a wing shattered. It is now whole.
The chambers look just as they did before Arthur became king, before Uther died and left for him a mourning kingdom, before Morgana was turned by magic and left them behind. Gwen isn’t his wife yet, they aren’t even courting. None of his friends have died. And Merlin isn’t here.
His memories, years of ruling and knighthood and Merlin. Are they false? Merlin doesn’t exist, at least not in Camelot. Perhaps everything was an elaborate dream, originating from a head injury or bad piece of meat.
They can’t be. Something, somewhere deep in his gut, tells him it happened. Arthur settles on speaking to Gaius, and sets off down the corridor.