[Fic] Piecing Together the Cracks - for plumora
Title: Piecing Together the Cracks
Author: Anonymous
Recipient: plumora
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Gwen/Morgana, hints of Morgana/Morgause, Arthur/Merlin and Arthur/Gwen
Warnings: Implied infidelity, angst with a hopeful ending
Spoilers: All of Series One and Two
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Gwen tosses and tumbles night after night, clutching for someone who isn't there.
Author's Note: plumora, I used your prompt of 'leaving' and played up the angst quite a bit. I really hope you liked this. Thanks to the mods for their patience and for organizing and facilitating a fantastic fest! Thank you very much, also, to G for betaing. ♥
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction - none of this ever happened. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
The sky looks pissed
The wind talks back
My bones are shifting in my skin
And you, my love, are gone
~"The Chain" - Ingrid Michaelson
Gwen tosses and tumbles night after night, clutching for someone who isn't there.
Morgana's chambers remain untouched, in the vain hope that Uther's ward will someday return. Morgana's smell still clings to the sheets that Gwen can't bring herself to wash. Burrowed deep in the cocoon of blankets, Gwen surrenders the brave face she wears during the day. She stays strong out there, doesn't crumble, but here she comes when she feels the edges fraying; here, she is enveloped in Morgana's scent and her own, mingled.
She's now the one suffering nightmares, waking with tears stinging her eyes. She castigates herself as silly, tells herself there's no use in crying. But it's hard when the nightmares are not nightmares at all-but memories. There is no-one to wipe the tears from her damp cheeks, no-one to smooth back her hair and to murmur gently in her ear, Gwen, Gwen, it's me. It'll be okay, I promise.
When Arthur catches her sneaking out of Morgana's (old) chambers during the middle of the night once or twice, he merely stares at her with a tender expression that she struggles to return.
Arthur knows why she left, and Merlin, and maybe Gaius, too. But Gwen knows very little, indeed; and somehow, still, she knows everything. Gwen knows Morgana harboured a deep secret that everyone tried to protect her from, and it culminated in a catastrophe. But that matters little to Gwen now, who remembers her last weeks with Morgana as rife with terse exchanges and wary glances. The love and adoration fizzled, the hot wet kisses ceased. The exploration and greedy need to touch and feel, talk and listen, vanished.
Vanished.
Gwen's calm façade is splitting at the seams from bone-deep exhaustion. Her nerves are torn to tatters. The entire world is grey and full of sharp edges.
She clings to a thread of hope: that Morgana will recognise the small but significant travesty she's wrought in their world - that she'll come back to Gwen with fire and light in her eyes, hands clasping Gwen's, uttering rare, sincere apologies.
Yet the days linger, slow and long, and Morgana still doesn't come. Gwen's mourning shifts to anger - the kind that's love-fuelled, hot and reckless.
*
It happens all the time. In one moment, Gwen is starting to feel normal again, the next she remembers:
"My Lady, we-we can't. You are-"
"I know who I am," Morgana snapped and pushed Gwen into the table, pinning her wrists in place at her sides, gentle but firm. "And I know who you are." Gentler. Morgana's gaze steadfast and fierce upon Gwen's, her soft mouth moving close-too close-yes.
After a moment or so, she'll invariably snap out of it and refocus on fetching water or scrubbing the floors or whatever task she's meant to be doing.
The danger in performing menial work is not that Gwen minds it-it's that she's done it countless times before. Unknowingly, she can slip into the past and recall things as they were, not the way they are now, or even as they were when Morgana left. The mind is beguiling, prone to trickery and false hopes.
And that leads to:
Morgana standing by the window, staring intently at a small bit of parchment with an expression Gwen didn't care to categorise.
By then, every wall was already in place, but still Gwen couldn't completely ignore Morgana. Maybe there was something Gwen could do to help.
"You all right?" Gwen ventured.
"Yes," Morgana said, hasty. She seemed to have no scruples with lying further still, muttering some nonsense about standing in front of the window because of the cold.
There was a coldness there Gwen had never heard, a coldness that chilled her to the bone and does still.
But that's another danger altogether.
*
"Guinevere."
The wine sloshes into the carafe, red and deep. Gwen remembers the taste of wine, heady and sweet, on Morgana's tongue and can't help sinking in phantom memories of Morgana's hot, wet tongue in her mouth, flicking and teasing. That was Morgana, sweet and evil.
"Guinevere." Her name is drawled, as if she's a daft child.
Gwen looks up from Morgana's empty chair and sees that the wine is overflowing all over the table and dripping into Arthur's lap.
Bugger, she thinks.
"Sire!" she says, arms flailing and snatches a bundle of napkins from the centre of the table, ignoring the titters of the knights around them. She knows by now to be on better guard at high-stake feasts. A delegation from one of the eastern lands is visiting, and the deliberations are on tenterhooks. Uther is not well-pleased at being asked to forego a share of disputed land out of the goodness of his heart.
Gwen manages to mop up most of the mess, but there is a drying stain on Arthur's deep blue trousers. Her cheeks are hot and she's still murmuring apologies, promising to send for Merlin to retrieve some fresh clothing.
"It's fine," Arthur says for the third time, a bit sharper, now. His hand encircles her wrist below the table, and she flushes more hotly and hopes no-one notices. Gwen is a maidservant. She doesn't want attention called to herself, but she seems to have a way of attracting powerful people that care little for respecting assumed boundaries.
"Are you okay?" Arthur asks, low.
"Of course, sire," Gwen says, in hopes of assuring him, and Merlin bustles in with Arthur's trousers in hand, a wicked expression on his face. Gwen and Merlin exchange private smiles.
Gwen moves to refill more wine, more attentively this time.
*
It's a rare moment when Gwen has nothing to do and a not-so-rare moment when Merlin should have been doing something else. They're watching Arthur train his knights.
Gwen has to push away images of Morgana, dressed in thin white, wielding a sword.
Merlin's shoulder is pressed warm to hers.
"You miss her," he says, and when she angles her chin to look at Merlin, he's looking back.
"I do." She's proud of managing it, even prouder for keeping her voice steady. She turns back to glance at Arthur yelling at one of the newer knights. "I served her for a long time."
"Yeah," Merlin says, even though he probably doesn't know for how long Gwen had been Morgana
's maidservant, and she presses closer, thankful he's holding his tongue on the other questions she knows are hoarded away.
"She-" Merlin seems to be mulling over what he should and shouldn't say. It's a rarity for him to think before speaking. Gwen meets his eyes again, and she's horrified by the pain she sees there. "I did something horrible to her."
"Merlin, I'm sure you didn't-"
He shakes his head. "We should have told her," he says, his eyes so very blue.
Gwen, who has never admitted it aloud because Morgana's safety was more important than actualization, admits it now. "We should have."
And Gwen can't help wondering if maybe-just maybe-about the coldness and the abandonment. If it was the private madness and fear of power, of magic, and not necessarily anything to do with Gwen at all.
Morgana has been lied to and tiptoed around, and Gwen has borne the brunt of it, too.
For Morgana, Gwen aches.
*
One day Gwen passes Gaius in the hallway, and he takes her gingerly by the hand.
"Are you ill?" he asks, studying her face.
"I don't believe so," Gwen says, feeling out the words on her tongue. She's not quite sure what Gaius means by 'ill.'
"You look-" Gaius squints into her face, as if expecting a fever to flare up any moment now. "Thinner." He frowns. "Tired, maybe."
"I'm fine." Gwen tries to laugh, and it echoes in the hallway - hollow.
*
Too many nights after Morgana has gone, Gwen is stirred from sleep by soft breasts pressed against her side and an arm circling around her middle.
This dream is more vivid than the others, she thinks, and presses back against the warmth, feeling something remarkably like rightness slotting back into place, the pieces coming together, as tight and snug as the body against her back.
Then Gwen wakes fully. Kisses are being mouthed to the back of her neck. Her hair is smoothed away from her forehead, with fingers that are far more tentative than she remembers.
It couldn't be. It's been too long, and it's foolhardy. She wills away the comfort, the warmth, the kisses - surely the figments of her imagination.
When the soft mouth pressed to the nape of her neck remains, the body still curved alongside hers, she panics and tries to pull away.
"Shh, it's me," the voice-her voice-whispers. The arms around Gwen tighten and pull her back.
"I know," Gwen snaps, voice muffled against the blankets over her head, but still blistering.
Morgana-is it really her?-sighs. "I know you must hate me," she says, and she sounds so broken that Gwen stops resisting.
"I should." Gwen sucks in a breath and says simply: "You left."
"I know," Morgana says, presses her forehead to the top of Gwen's back, hugging her closer. "I had to. So much has happened."
"Too much."
Morgana is silent for a long time. They are both nestled underneath a mountain of blankets, for it's frigid outside and Gwen is doing her best to disappear underneath them, to hide from the world. Within their ball of carefully folded limbs, they're warm and terribly unsafe.
"Perhaps," Morgana says. "I-I've had help. Someone to care for me."
There's something that Morgana is trying to say that she's not, and Gwen thinks of it no longer. She can't.
"That's-nice," Gwen chokes out, burying her face into the blanket. She should leave, now.
"I missed you." Morgana tilts her head up and puts her mouth to Gwen's ear. "I missed you so much. I had to come see you."
"You treated me horribly before you left."
"I know. I’m sorry, Gwen." Morgana presses closer, her mouth moving on Gwen's neck. "I'm so sorry." And for the first time: "I love you."
Gwen turns and pulls the blankets from over them. She must see the truth. The moonlight shines over Morgana's face, and she's even more…everything…than Gwen remembered.
"Say it again," Gwen commands.
"I love you," Morgana says, immediately. Her mouth is full and red. Tears shine in her eyes, or maybe it's just the light. Or magic. But it seems sincere.
"I love you, too. But I don't-"
"Shh," Morgana says again and presses her fingers to Gwen's mouth. "I'm here now."
And when she leans forward to press her mouth to Gwen's, Gwen can't help but to respond-twining her arms around Morgana's shoulders and dragging Morgana nearer. Their mouths open, tongues meet, moans catching in Gwen's throat. She's eager and slick already, her chest tight with emotion and with please don't leave me, and she lowers her mouth to the pale length of Morgana's neck and sucks. Maybe if Gwen leaves enough marks on her body Morgana will stay, will be Gwen's and Gwen's only, and Gwen says it against Morgana's skin, sucks it, licks it: "Stay."
"Yes," Morgana says, moans. "Yes."
Gwen believes her, and they stay pressed together and don't separate.
*
In the morning, Morgana is still there, arms wound around Gwen's naked back.
Gwen smiles.
Author: Anonymous
Recipient: plumora
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Gwen/Morgana, hints of Morgana/Morgause, Arthur/Merlin and Arthur/Gwen
Warnings: Implied infidelity, angst with a hopeful ending
Spoilers: All of Series One and Two
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,000
Summary: Gwen tosses and tumbles night after night, clutching for someone who isn't there.
Author's Note: plumora, I used your prompt of 'leaving' and played up the angst quite a bit. I really hope you liked this. Thanks to the mods for their patience and for organizing and facilitating a fantastic fest! Thank you very much, also, to G for betaing. ♥
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction - none of this ever happened. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. Please observe your local laws with regards to the age-limit and content of this work.
The sky looks pissed
The wind talks back
My bones are shifting in my skin
And you, my love, are gone
~"The Chain" - Ingrid Michaelson
Gwen tosses and tumbles night after night, clutching for someone who isn't there.
Morgana's chambers remain untouched, in the vain hope that Uther's ward will someday return. Morgana's smell still clings to the sheets that Gwen can't bring herself to wash. Burrowed deep in the cocoon of blankets, Gwen surrenders the brave face she wears during the day. She stays strong out there, doesn't crumble, but here she comes when she feels the edges fraying; here, she is enveloped in Morgana's scent and her own, mingled.
She's now the one suffering nightmares, waking with tears stinging her eyes. She castigates herself as silly, tells herself there's no use in crying. But it's hard when the nightmares are not nightmares at all-but memories. There is no-one to wipe the tears from her damp cheeks, no-one to smooth back her hair and to murmur gently in her ear, Gwen, Gwen, it's me. It'll be okay, I promise.
When Arthur catches her sneaking out of Morgana's (old) chambers during the middle of the night once or twice, he merely stares at her with a tender expression that she struggles to return.
Arthur knows why she left, and Merlin, and maybe Gaius, too. But Gwen knows very little, indeed; and somehow, still, she knows everything. Gwen knows Morgana harboured a deep secret that everyone tried to protect her from, and it culminated in a catastrophe. But that matters little to Gwen now, who remembers her last weeks with Morgana as rife with terse exchanges and wary glances. The love and adoration fizzled, the hot wet kisses ceased. The exploration and greedy need to touch and feel, talk and listen, vanished.
Vanished.
Gwen's calm façade is splitting at the seams from bone-deep exhaustion. Her nerves are torn to tatters. The entire world is grey and full of sharp edges.
She clings to a thread of hope: that Morgana will recognise the small but significant travesty she's wrought in their world - that she'll come back to Gwen with fire and light in her eyes, hands clasping Gwen's, uttering rare, sincere apologies.
Yet the days linger, slow and long, and Morgana still doesn't come. Gwen's mourning shifts to anger - the kind that's love-fuelled, hot and reckless.
*
It happens all the time. In one moment, Gwen is starting to feel normal again, the next she remembers:
"My Lady, we-we can't. You are-"
"I know who I am," Morgana snapped and pushed Gwen into the table, pinning her wrists in place at her sides, gentle but firm. "And I know who you are." Gentler. Morgana's gaze steadfast and fierce upon Gwen's, her soft mouth moving close-too close-yes.
After a moment or so, she'll invariably snap out of it and refocus on fetching water or scrubbing the floors or whatever task she's meant to be doing.
The danger in performing menial work is not that Gwen minds it-it's that she's done it countless times before. Unknowingly, she can slip into the past and recall things as they were, not the way they are now, or even as they were when Morgana left. The mind is beguiling, prone to trickery and false hopes.
And that leads to:
Morgana standing by the window, staring intently at a small bit of parchment with an expression Gwen didn't care to categorise.
By then, every wall was already in place, but still Gwen couldn't completely ignore Morgana. Maybe there was something Gwen could do to help.
"You all right?" Gwen ventured.
"Yes," Morgana said, hasty. She seemed to have no scruples with lying further still, muttering some nonsense about standing in front of the window because of the cold.
There was a coldness there Gwen had never heard, a coldness that chilled her to the bone and does still.
But that's another danger altogether.
*
"Guinevere."
The wine sloshes into the carafe, red and deep. Gwen remembers the taste of wine, heady and sweet, on Morgana's tongue and can't help sinking in phantom memories of Morgana's hot, wet tongue in her mouth, flicking and teasing. That was Morgana, sweet and evil.
"Guinevere." Her name is drawled, as if she's a daft child.
Gwen looks up from Morgana's empty chair and sees that the wine is overflowing all over the table and dripping into Arthur's lap.
Bugger, she thinks.
"Sire!" she says, arms flailing and snatches a bundle of napkins from the centre of the table, ignoring the titters of the knights around them. She knows by now to be on better guard at high-stake feasts. A delegation from one of the eastern lands is visiting, and the deliberations are on tenterhooks. Uther is not well-pleased at being asked to forego a share of disputed land out of the goodness of his heart.
Gwen manages to mop up most of the mess, but there is a drying stain on Arthur's deep blue trousers. Her cheeks are hot and she's still murmuring apologies, promising to send for Merlin to retrieve some fresh clothing.
"It's fine," Arthur says for the third time, a bit sharper, now. His hand encircles her wrist below the table, and she flushes more hotly and hopes no-one notices. Gwen is a maidservant. She doesn't want attention called to herself, but she seems to have a way of attracting powerful people that care little for respecting assumed boundaries.
"Are you okay?" Arthur asks, low.
"Of course, sire," Gwen says, in hopes of assuring him, and Merlin bustles in with Arthur's trousers in hand, a wicked expression on his face. Gwen and Merlin exchange private smiles.
Gwen moves to refill more wine, more attentively this time.
*
It's a rare moment when Gwen has nothing to do and a not-so-rare moment when Merlin should have been doing something else. They're watching Arthur train his knights.
Gwen has to push away images of Morgana, dressed in thin white, wielding a sword.
Merlin's shoulder is pressed warm to hers.
"You miss her," he says, and when she angles her chin to look at Merlin, he's looking back.
"I do." She's proud of managing it, even prouder for keeping her voice steady. She turns back to glance at Arthur yelling at one of the newer knights. "I served her for a long time."
"Yeah," Merlin says, even though he probably doesn't know for how long Gwen had been Morgana
's maidservant, and she presses closer, thankful he's holding his tongue on the other questions she knows are hoarded away.
"She-" Merlin seems to be mulling over what he should and shouldn't say. It's a rarity for him to think before speaking. Gwen meets his eyes again, and she's horrified by the pain she sees there. "I did something horrible to her."
"Merlin, I'm sure you didn't-"
He shakes his head. "We should have told her," he says, his eyes so very blue.
Gwen, who has never admitted it aloud because Morgana's safety was more important than actualization, admits it now. "We should have."
And Gwen can't help wondering if maybe-just maybe-about the coldness and the abandonment. If it was the private madness and fear of power, of magic, and not necessarily anything to do with Gwen at all.
Morgana has been lied to and tiptoed around, and Gwen has borne the brunt of it, too.
For Morgana, Gwen aches.
*
One day Gwen passes Gaius in the hallway, and he takes her gingerly by the hand.
"Are you ill?" he asks, studying her face.
"I don't believe so," Gwen says, feeling out the words on her tongue. She's not quite sure what Gaius means by 'ill.'
"You look-" Gaius squints into her face, as if expecting a fever to flare up any moment now. "Thinner." He frowns. "Tired, maybe."
"I'm fine." Gwen tries to laugh, and it echoes in the hallway - hollow.
*
Too many nights after Morgana has gone, Gwen is stirred from sleep by soft breasts pressed against her side and an arm circling around her middle.
This dream is more vivid than the others, she thinks, and presses back against the warmth, feeling something remarkably like rightness slotting back into place, the pieces coming together, as tight and snug as the body against her back.
Then Gwen wakes fully. Kisses are being mouthed to the back of her neck. Her hair is smoothed away from her forehead, with fingers that are far more tentative than she remembers.
It couldn't be. It's been too long, and it's foolhardy. She wills away the comfort, the warmth, the kisses - surely the figments of her imagination.
When the soft mouth pressed to the nape of her neck remains, the body still curved alongside hers, she panics and tries to pull away.
"Shh, it's me," the voice-her voice-whispers. The arms around Gwen tighten and pull her back.
"I know," Gwen snaps, voice muffled against the blankets over her head, but still blistering.
Morgana-is it really her?-sighs. "I know you must hate me," she says, and she sounds so broken that Gwen stops resisting.
"I should." Gwen sucks in a breath and says simply: "You left."
"I know," Morgana says, presses her forehead to the top of Gwen's back, hugging her closer. "I had to. So much has happened."
"Too much."
Morgana is silent for a long time. They are both nestled underneath a mountain of blankets, for it's frigid outside and Gwen is doing her best to disappear underneath them, to hide from the world. Within their ball of carefully folded limbs, they're warm and terribly unsafe.
"Perhaps," Morgana says. "I-I've had help. Someone to care for me."
There's something that Morgana is trying to say that she's not, and Gwen thinks of it no longer. She can't.
"That's-nice," Gwen chokes out, burying her face into the blanket. She should leave, now.
"I missed you." Morgana tilts her head up and puts her mouth to Gwen's ear. "I missed you so much. I had to come see you."
"You treated me horribly before you left."
"I know. I’m sorry, Gwen." Morgana presses closer, her mouth moving on Gwen's neck. "I'm so sorry." And for the first time: "I love you."
Gwen turns and pulls the blankets from over them. She must see the truth. The moonlight shines over Morgana's face, and she's even more…everything…than Gwen remembered.
"Say it again," Gwen commands.
"I love you," Morgana says, immediately. Her mouth is full and red. Tears shine in her eyes, or maybe it's just the light. Or magic. But it seems sincere.
"I love you, too. But I don't-"
"Shh," Morgana says again and presses her fingers to Gwen's mouth. "I'm here now."
And when she leans forward to press her mouth to Gwen's, Gwen can't help but to respond-twining her arms around Morgana's shoulders and dragging Morgana nearer. Their mouths open, tongues meet, moans catching in Gwen's throat. She's eager and slick already, her chest tight with emotion and with please don't leave me, and she lowers her mouth to the pale length of Morgana's neck and sucks. Maybe if Gwen leaves enough marks on her body Morgana will stay, will be Gwen's and Gwen's only, and Gwen says it against Morgana's skin, sucks it, licks it: "Stay."
"Yes," Morgana says, moans. "Yes."
Gwen believes her, and they stay pressed together and don't separate.
*
In the morning, Morgana is still there, arms wound around Gwen's naked back.
Gwen smiles.