Fic: Cover Up The Damage [7/10]
Title: Cover Up The Damage
Author: elphie_uk
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: M
Characters/Pairings: Morgana/Arthur, Merlin and Morgause
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Summary: The public believe that Morgana le Fay has it all; she’s stunningly beautiful, envied by most women and fancied by most men, she’s going out with ‘Britain’s sexiest man’ and she’s a world-renowned classical pianist. But something has just blown her world apart.
Warnings: Pre-fic Incest (nothing graphic). Expletives. Modern AU.
A/N: Beta'd by thelovelylaura.
Thank you as ever themirrorofsin for reviewing! I would love to know whether anyone else on LJ is reading the fic! I'd really appreciate it if you dropped me a note, because as much as I love themirrorofsin 's reviews (and a really do), I am wondering if she's the only reader on here! Thanks! =D
7. Returning to Despondency
Gwen leaned back and sighed, Home at last. Of course she had loved Kenya and it had felt wonderful to be making a difference, but Gwen had always loved her home comforts. She was excited about seeing everyone too. It had been months since she had seen any of her friends, and other than Morgana she had rarely managed to speak to anyone in England who wasn't involved with the orphanage programme.
She hadn't told Morgana that she was coming back; she had been due to come back in a few weeks anyway to finish her degree in International Politics soon anyway.
Things had been going well enough at the orphanage in Kenya that she could sort a few things out before getting back into her studies.
She looked at her watch; She knew that Morgana was due to fly out to New York later that evening and she hoped to be able to have a glass of wine and a quick girly chat before Morgana carried on with her lavish professional life.
As the taxi drove her away from the airport, she looked through the window at the rolling green hills which, in a rather cliché way, really did represent home for her.
She was vaguely aware that the radio was on, but she wasn't really listening to it. Morgana had been keeping her 'in the loop' over the last few months with their weekly phone calls, and she knew it would take a while to get used to being surrounded by all of this information again.
It was when the name Morgana was mentioned that she sat up sharply, "Can you turn the radio up please?" she asked the driver.
"Breaking News: Morgana le Fay has been taken into hospital. Reports say that they saw her leaving her sister's house covered in blood before her sister drove her to Camelot General. Arthur Pendragon was spotted at the scene half an hour earlier."
"I need you to take me to Camelot General please. Now!" She felt her pulse racing a little as she grabbed her mobile phone out of her bag. It had rarely been used over the last few months. In fact it had been bought for emergencies, and this was decidedly an emergency. She found Arthur's number- no answer, Merlin's- engaged, Morgana's- switched off, "Shit!" she decided to call back Merlin, leaving him a message, "Merlin, it's Gwen, I'm back from Kenya. What's going on? I've just heard that Morgana's been taken into hospital, I'm heading down there now. Call me when you get this."
"You've not heard?" The driver looked over his shoulder at her, "About Morgana? I thought everybody would have heard by now."
"I'm sorry?" Gwen asked confusedly. She was used to the Pendragon's affairs being in the news before any of them had gotten the chance to tell her personally, but the way the driver had just spoken, it sounded like whatever was going on was very common knowledge. Wouldn't Morgana have rung her if something big had happened?
"Morgana and Arthur… they've split up. You're friends with them, yeah?" He had assumed this from the way that she had spoken on the phone, "That or a journalist."
"No, I'm a friend, I'm her best friend." She asked, 'They've split up?' she thought;It didn't quite seem possible, they were the most genuinely in love couple she had ever come across. A week ago when Morgana had last rung her, she had seemed so excited and happy about the future. In fact, Gwen had never heard Morgana as joyous as when she told her that she and Arthur were going to have a baby. She had been the first person that Morgana had told… maybe Arthur had reacted badly to the news? She couldn't see that happening, Morgana had told her that they had talked about marriage and children in the past, and he had seemed quite excited at the prospect, in fact he had been the one to bring it up, "Why wouldn't she have rung me?" she wondered out loud.
"Maybe it would be best if I let them tell you…" The driver considered, "I'm not sure whether it's the kind of thing you'd want to hear second hand."
And now Gwen was even more desperate to know what was going on than she had been before. She knew how much people liked to gossip, and if this person was reluctant to tell her what she imagined to be fairly big gossip for her own sake, she decided that it was probably best to listen to him and wait, "Okay."
And then there was the question of why she was in hospital; it can't have been too serious if Morgause had driven her in rather than ringing an ambulance. What if it was the baby? "Please, just get me there quickly."
They arrived outside the hospital to find two television crews and a mass of reporters and paparazzi blocking the door. After paying the driver she pushed through the small crowd until she reached the entrance. The security guard recognised her from the summer that she had spent volunteering there whilst still in college. He let her through and directed her up to the private ward.
Half running down the corridors, Gwen stopped a passing nurse, "Excuse me, I'm looking for Morgana le Fay?"
"Yes, she's-" the nurse turned to point to the room that she was in, "Oh, she's there."
Gwen gasped as she saw Morgana coming towards them, looking like hell and probably feeling much worse, "Morgana?"
She stopped and looked up, "Gwen?" the sight and sound of her friend was certainly a sweet one amongst all of this pain, "Oh Gwen!" she collapsed in her arms in a flurry of tears.
Gwen slowly lowered her to the floor where she placed her arms around her, "Morgana, what's going on?" she hadn't imagined encountering this.
Morgana clamped her arms around her friend's waist, "It's all gone wrong Gwen!" she said, her voice getting higher amongst the sobs, "It's all fallen apart!" she looked up into her eyes.
Gwen had never seen eyes quite like it; Morgana had always had lonely eyes, but since she had gotten together with Arthur, her eyes had sometimes sparkled so brightly, looking almost unnaturally silver. Her eyes had betrayed her when she had tried to keep her relationship with Arthur a secret; both Gwen and Merlin knew that something was really going right in Morgana's life from that look in her eyes.
But that look was now gone. In it's place was pain and fear… her eyes looked almost dead. They sucked you in and made you feel like nothing in the world would ever be right again.
Morgause and some doctors came out into the corridor, "Gwen…"
"What's all of this about? What's happened?" Gwen asked as Morgana buried her head into her chest, not wanting to look at her sister.
Morgause didn't answer her. She knelt beside her sister and placed her hand on her back, "Morgana… please tell me what I can do?"
Morgana became rigid again, returning to despondency. The sobs disappeared and she was gone. It wasn't just the Morgana that they all knew who had just disappeared, the Morgana that Gwen had only spoken to six days previously, but any trace of a human being was just gone; she was like a shell of a girl, coma-like and catatonic.
"I'm going to take you back you your room now, okay?" Morgause didn't expect an answer. She slowly picked her up and made the short journey back to her hospital bed. She lay her down and pulled the sheets over her before kissing her forehead. It was almost like she was putting a sleeping child to bed. She sat in a chair by her bed and stroked her hair, lulling her off to sleep. Gwen stood by the door in the same position that Morgause had stood in only a few minutes previously. They watched her body slowly turn limp as she left all of her grievances for a few short hours.
After Morgana had sunken off to sleep, Gwen took a few steps towards the bed, "What- What is going on?" she asked, the distress very evident in her voice.
Morgause looked up at her, "I think you should probably sit down."
Gwen fetched the chair that was stood in the corner of the room and placed it on the opposite side of Morgana's bed. She reached over and picked up her hand which lay covered in tiny wounds, "So…"
"Where to start?" She looked down at Morgana. She looked so peaceful, but there were signs of the damage than had been done to her littered all over her ivory skin. She took a deep breath, and began to tell Gwen everything that had happened over the last few days. She struggle to put it all into words and found it impossible to get through it all without crying, but eventually she got to what was presently the end of her story.
Gwen spent the whole time open-mouthed in shock; it was almost incomprehensible, how somebody could do something like that, how this dream-like relationship could be so disgusting and how it could be shattered in seconds. Everything was shattered. She couldn't think of the words, there were no words in a situation like this, "How…? How does she pick herself up from this?"
"That's pretty much all that's been running through my mind for the last three days. The thing is, I'm not sure whether she can."