Fic: Where Legends Lie - Part 7

[rebbeile]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7



Arthur was quiet as Merlin helped him into his chambers. It was dark in the room, and after he'd led the man over to the bed he walked over to the windows to let in the last of the afternoon sunlight.

When he turned back to Arthur, he found that the man was still standing beside the bed, staring at Merlin with an unreadable expression on his face. Merlin knew what it was about - he'd left without saying anything, he'd gone into the forest with no intention of returning, and even if Arthur had believed his story about going to meet Will it still didn't make sense why he wouldn't have told Arthur, and Merlin knew that Arthur would have noticed that.

He stepped towards the prince, meaning to explain, but the events were still all mixed up in his head and he was so, so tired. It felt as though half of his energy had flowed out of his body with his magic in the forest, and all he wanted to do was sleep - whether that be here or back in Ealdor, Merlin barely cared.

Arthur was still staring at him, as though he was waiting for Merlin to speak, but Merlin couldn't think of the words to describe all that had happened those past few hours, so he let his mouth close and instead simply looked back at the prince, waiting for him to ask why Merlin had left.

“You're a sorcerer,” Arthur said.

Merlin blinked. That hadn't - Arthur couldn't have said that, he couldn't have known.  Merlin must have misheard.

“I'm what?” he asked, even though he could see the truth in Arthur’s face. Arthur knew.

“You practice magic,” Arthur continued. “You are my manservant, but you are also a sorcerer, and you never thought to tell me?” His face was oddly blank now, as though he'd begun to pull his defences back up around himself. Merlin felt a wave of panic flooding tight through his chest. He'd never wanted Arthur to find out about this, not really. He'd imagined it, yes, but the truth - that he had been keeping himself from Arthur, that he'd been lying to Arthur - would never have gone as smoothly as all of those scenes Merlin had pictured.

He could still deny it. He didn't know how Arthur had discovered his magic, but he could try and persuade him that he was wrong, that he'd seen something different to what he thought, that he'd been unconscious and dreamed the whole thing. There were a hundred different ways that he could do it, and he had a whole world of lies stretched across his tongue. But in that moment, with Arthur's eyes on him, he let them all fall away. He didn't want to use them. Not now, when he'd finally found a way home and he'd saved Arthur and everything was looking like it was going to be almost alright again. Now was not a time for building up the stories he'd been living with all throughout his time at Camelot. It was time that he tore them down, and he'd just have to try and sort out the pieces left over once he did.

“Five people in the world know about my magic,” he said simply. “I told one of them, the others found out about it by accident.” Arthur stared at him, listening intently, and Merlin felt the words falling fast from his mouth, because they'd been locked inside his chest for years and he'd never had the chance to let them out until now.

“I didn't tell you at first because it's banned,” he continued, his gaze fixed on Arthur's face.  “You are the son of Uther Pendragon, Arthur, and I didn't know that you wouldn't drag me before your father and have me executed.” Merlin could see Arthur thinking back to their first days as servant and master and the look that passed over the man's face told him that he was right - that obeying Uther was all that Arthur had known. He would have turned Merlin over to the king without a second thought.

Merlin took a breath, trying to dull the edge of panic that had surfaced within his chest at that. “And then I didn't tell you because I didn't know how, Arthur,” he said. “I have been keeping it from you, but I haven't been using it against you.” He paused, wanting to show Arthur all of the times he'd saved the prince, all of the times he'd used magic and Camelot hadn't fallen, the city hadn't burned. He wanted to show Arthur that it could be used for good.

“Today, in the forest,” Arthur said. “Did you kill the sorcerer?” Merlin nodded. “And William? Is he a sorcerer too?”

Merlin almost laughed at that, because Will was the least magical person he'd ever met. “No,” he said. “Will is just Will.”

Arthur turned away from Merlin, walking across the stone floor towards the wall. Merlin watched as he reached it and turned back again, his eyebrows pulled together and his jaw set.

“Did the sorcerer hit me?” he asked after a moment, his voice quiet, and Merlin bit his lip, knowing that the answer was important. Arthur turned his eyes back up to Merlin's when Merlin didn't respond. “Did he hit me?” he repeated.

“Yes,” Merlin said. He knew what that response would mean to Arthur. It would mean that Arthur hadn't won this time, not in the way that counted, and that he would now question every other moment he thought he'd protected his kingdom, every other moment when Merlin was there, grinning at him, when Arthur regained consciousness after a battle.

“And you've done that before and kept it from me?” he asked. Merlin nodded, bunching his fingers into the hem of his tunic as he watched Arthur. The man was standing beside the bedpost again, almost slumping against it, and Merlin would have suggested that Arthur go to bed and talk about this in the morning if they'd been having any other conversation but this one.

“Is that why you ran?” Arthur asked, stepping closer to Merlin. Merlin blinked, feeling a jolt through his chest at how close Arthur had come to the truth.

“You're going to be a great king, Arthur,” he said quietly. “The sort of king that people remember for hundreds of years, and tell stories about. One day in the future people will be able to study your reign and watch television shows about you and dream of the time when King Arthur ruled over the land.” He smiled. “But I'm not supposed to be a part of that, Arthur. That destiny is yours, not mine. This world is yours, not mine.”

“Merlin, if I'd been following my destiny I'd probably be married to Princess Elena,” Arthur replied. “And if you had been following yours, I'd still be in that forest right now,” he grimaced, as though admitting that Merlin had actually saved him was something he hadn't wanted to do.

Merlin considered that. Arthur didn't know the whole story, but he had a point - the prince had come closer to death that day then he'd ever been before. Merlin was certain that without him there, shredding a hole through time for Will to step through, Arthur would have died in that forest, Camelot would have fallen and the legend would have faded out of existence before it had even begun.

“You would never have married Princess Elena,” he replied. “That wasn't ever going to be your destiny.” But perhaps he was right - that in pushing off the path he was supposed to be travelling, he'd found a new one. The legend might still come to pass, Merlin knew, but it was just as likely that he'd set things on a new course, one in which Merlin had a role to play.

Arthur was still looking over at him, his face falling into shadow as the sun curved lower in the sky.

“Did you study magic?” He asked suddenly, and Merlin realised that he'd forgotten for a second how this conversation had started, and that Arthur could still have him dragged before the king.

“I was born with it,” he said. Arthur nodded slowly. Merlin wondered if he understood what it was to be born with something you couldn't control, no matter how you might want to - something that was both a gift and a curse, and something that slid into your life like water and filled up all of the gaps until it was a part of everything that you did. He thought of how Arthur trained constantly, of how he was always with Uther, or with his knights, or with his people, and how he was so defined by his title that the people Merlin saw him talking to didn't see him, not really. They saw the crown he wore. He thought that Arthur might understand something of what it was like to have magic, if nothing else.

They were silent then, each staring at the other across the stone floor of Arthur's chambers. Merlin knew what he must look like - his face streaked with dirt, his clothes grass-stained, his hair curling dark around his ears and longer than he usually wore it, because he'd been avoiding getting it cut. Gaius was terrible with the scissors.

He looked over at Arthur, standing there with his red tunic battered and deepened to an earthy brown at the elbows. He had pale green smears across his knees and his boots were caked in crusted mud. There was little to distinguish between them - Arthur, in that moment, was just as likely to be a servant as he was a prince.

“How did you know?” he asked, and Arthur looked up at him.

“Your eyes in the forest,” he said. “They were glowing, Merlin, like the sun.”

Merlin frowned. Arthur must have seen him in those seconds before he drifted out of consciousness. Merlin's eyes, overflowing with gold as he sent his magic out into the world, were probably the last things Arthur saw.

“Why didn't you say anything before?” he asked, because Arthur had kept it quiet all the way from the forest to Camelot, and they'd spoken to Uther without Arthur mentioning anything of it. They'd talked to the king, and Arthur hadn't revealed Merlin's secret, even though it must have been burning harsh and bright through Arthur's mind when he saw his father.

“You saved my life,” Arthur said, shifting uncomfortably against the bedpost. “You deserved the chance to explain.”

Merlin stared at him, and in that moment he realised that Arthur wasn't the prince anymore - he was, but not in the way that Merlin saw him. Merlin could see everything of his childhood, storybook king in Arthur at that moment - his bravery, his fairness, his belief that even in the worst of people there could be some chance of redemption.

There was a tiny tugging in the centre of his heart as Merlin realised that and he felt a wash of pride surge through his chest, because Arthur had managed to find his way through all of Uther's teachings and his solid, unshakeable view of the world - the view that he'd tried to pass on to Arthur - and the prince had still emerged as the man Merlin had dreamt of; the man he hadn't thought was real.

He stepped closer to Arthur, his boots tapping loud against the stone floor, until he was close enough to see the beginnings of stubble lined over Arthur's jaw and the charcoal-coloured shadows streaked beneath his eyes.

“Arthur,” he said, and then knelt at the man's feet.

Arthur didn't move as Merlin sank down. Merlin knew that this wasn't to beg for his life, a slow drop of unwilling submission before some greater power. Merlin did not fear Arthur. He would not fear the prince even if Arthur chose to turn away from him in that moment. Arthur was almost all of Merlin's life; he'd seeped into every corner of Merlin's being, until Merlin could no more fear him than he could himself.

No, Merlin knew that that moment, when his knees touched hard against the stone floor, was not submission. It was an apology, because Merlin had not trusted Arthur enough to let him make this decision, and there was love in it, too, because Arthur had found his way to this moment on his own. It was the respect that Merlin could now show Arthur, fully and without reserve, because no matter his decision now, he'd stepped out from behind his father and found a way of passing through the world - and of ruling over it - that was his and his alone.

They both remained unmoving for a moment, Merlin's dark head bowed before his golden prince, and Merlin wondered what they must look like - two men, dusty and stretched out at the seams, frozen within the castle like they’d forgotten how to move.

Arthur pushed himself upright from the bedpost, his face solemn, and Merlin felt his heart thud hard within his chest. But the prince merely reached out a hand and placed it gently on the top of Merlin's head, until Merlin could feel Arthur's fingers curled through his hair.

“Don't run from me again,” he said quietly. The words pulsed through Merlin, sending a wave of something that was a little like relief swarming through his chest. Arthur's words were somewhere between a request and an order, and they told Merlin that he shouldn't try to flee from the rule of Camelot, but also that he wouldn't have to. Arthur was his prince, and Arthur would keep him safe.

Merlin nodded, and Arthur bent down and pulled him upright, wrapping his arms around Merlin and holding on tight. It was the first time Arthur had done so and Merlin felt the prince warm around him, pressed between him and the world. He felt as though this was alright - that they'd passed through the hardest of moments and they'd emerged whole - not unscathed, but okay. There was nothing irreparable about them.

Merlin pushed his face into Arthur's shoulder, the scent of metal from Arthur's armour and earth from the forest and, laced through it all, the deep, familiar scent of Arthur strong around him, and he felt himself finally relax. He didn't need to hide himself from Arthur any longer, and up until that moment the knowledge that he was - that he was keeping some part of himself submerged deep below the surface where Arthur couldn't reach it - had been tearing him apart.

But now, they'd opened up each of those tiny corners of themselves and cast them out into the light, and Merlin knew that they were finally equal.

There was a tap at the door and Merlin sprang back out of Arthur's arms as Gaius appeared around the edge of the wood, closely followed by Will.

“You were injured, sire?” he asked, and Arthur blinked, as though he'd forgotten the world outside of the room still existed.

“He was hit by a spell,” Merlin explained. “Will revived him, though.” Arthur looked between Merlin and Will in surprise.

“Thank you,” he said, and Will gave a surly shrug.

“That's what I'm here for,” he said.

Gaius was by Arthur's side now, running his hands over the prince's arms, chest and head in a routine he must have perfected hundreds of times as Arthur grew, after the prince had fallen off horses or been attacked by bandits or been hurt in any of the hundred different ways he'd managed to since Merlin had arrived in Camelot. Being Arthur's physician, just like being his manservant, was a full-time job.

“Everything appears to be in order,” Gaius said after a few moments. Merlin frowned at Will, who had an expression on his face as though he was about to ask Gaius if he could check Arthur over as well.

“You were lucky though, sire,” Gaius added. “This young man tells me that it could have been much worse.” He paused, seeming to realise that he didn’t actually know what story Merlin had told the prince about his recovery.

“It’s okay, Gaius,” Merlin said. “Arthur knows.”

There was a moment of silence in which everyone stared at Merlin (well, everyone except Will, who was still scowling at Arthur), and then Gaius blinked and said ‘knows what, Merlin?’ in a disapproving sort of a voice at the same time as Arthur turned to Merlin and said ‘wait, so Gaius knew before I did?’

Merlin looked helplessly between the two of them.

“It isn’t my fault!” he said, and Arthur gave a disbelieving snort.

“It isn’t,” Merlin repeated. “Gaius found out when I saved his life, Arthur, and Gaius, I was only using magic in front of Arthur to save his life.”

“Modest, isn’t he?” Will said cheerfully, and then shut his mouth with a snap when both Gaius and Arthur turned to stare at him.

“If you know the spell now, Merlin, I suggest that you take this man home as soon as possible,” Gaius said. Will raised an eyebrow at him.

“A spell?” Arthur asked, puzzled. “Why would you need a spell to get to Ealdor?”

Merlin bit his lip. He’d forgotten that they hadn’t discussed this in the talk that they had earlier, and that Arthur still didn’t really know where it was that Merlin was from. He cleared his throat, looking over at Gaius, hoping that the old man could tell him what it was that he should say.

“It’s complicated, sire,” Gaius said. “Merlin is -“

“From the future,” Will finished. “We both are. Like Marty McFly, only better.” Merlin made a strangled sort of a noise and Will blinked at him.

“You’re Doc,” he added.

Merlin took two long strides across the room, seized him by the arm and dragged him over to the door. “Will,” he hissed. “This is serious.”

“I know,” Will said with a grin, but then sobered at the look on Merlin’s face. “He needed to know, Merlin,” he continued. “And your old man there wouldn’t have told him.”

Merlin looked back over his shoulder to where Arthur was gaping at them, looking half-disbelieving and half-surprised.

“I know, but - just wait outside the door, will you?” he said.

Will frowned. “Yes, my lord,” he said, and slumped against the wall opposite Arthur’s chambers.

Merlin shut the door firmly and turned back to see that Gaius had a hand on Arthur’s arm, and was talking to him in the low, reassuring tone he used when he was explaining magic to the king.

“It’s a simple magical abnormality,” he said. “They happen sometimes. Merlin will be back in his own time soon enough.”

Merlin stiffened at that, watching for Arthur’s reaction, but the prince simply flicked his gaze over to Merlin’s face for the briefest of moments before looking back at Gaius, his face impassive.

“We should wait until tomorrow though,” Merlin interrupted. “I think I need sleep before I can try the spell.” It was true enough, even if that wasn’t the real reason why he wanted to wait. He felt bone-tired and stretched out with the stress of the day, and he was sure that the spell would be beyond him if he attempted it now.

“Very well,” Gaius said. “The Will boy had better sleep in your room, Merlin, and perhaps you could use the pallet in here.” He turned to Arthur for approval. Arthur gave a sharp nod before walking around the table and sitting down on the windowsill in a motion that clearly said that they were dismissed.

At least he didn’t have me executed, Merlin thought. The worst of the day was over now, he was sure, and he had several hours to think over what Arthur had said before he would have to return to the man’s chambers that night.

Only when they reached the passageway outside Arthur’s chambers, Will was nowhere to be seen.



Merlin found him an hour later, sitting at one of the big, rough-hewn tables in the tavern. There was a man sitting opposite him with his back to Merlin, and Merlin walked closer, wondering which of the town’s not-exactly-friendly men Will could have managed to get himself mixed up with in such a short space of time.

“Merlin!” Will said, spotting him and waving a flagon in his direction. “I’ve found your knight friends!”

The man opposite Will swung around on his chair, and -

“Gwaine?” Merlin asked incredulously.

“Hello there, Merlin,” Gwaine said with a wave. “Come sit down. I’ve just been hearing all manner of stories about you from your lovely friend here.” He waved an arm at Will, narrowly missing hitting him in the face, and Merlin sighed.

“How the hell did you two meet?” he asked, sliding onto the bench beside Will.

“Met him in the passage,” Will said. “After you dumped me out.”

“You told Arthur that I was Doc from Back to the Future!”

Will blinked at him. “It was a compliment,” he said, frowning.

“How is that -“ Merlin shook his head. “Never mind. Will you come back up to the castle now?”

“Not likely,” Gwaine said, grinning at him. “He’s got his sights set on the barmaid.”

Merlin turned his eyes towards the bar, where a young, blonde-haired lady was filling a flagon for a group of men from the lower town. She looked just Will’s type -gorgeous and completely out of his league.

“Will,” he started, but Gwaine reached over and patted him comfortingly on the back.

“It’s alright, Merlin, I’ll look after him.”

Merlin highly doubted that, but he could see a - thankfully sober - Leon nodding at him from the table next to theirs, and so he figured that it was probably safe to leave them here for a while.

“Look after him?” he asked as he passed Leon’s table. Leon smiled up at him.

“I always do, Merlin,” he said, looking over at Gwaine with his smile still fixed in place, and Merlin nodded, understanding.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

The air was cooler when Merlin left the tavern, and the sun was curving low towards the horizon. He didn’t turn towards the castle straight away, though, instead walking down towards the edge of the town. He could hear the chatter of voices floating out from several of the houses that he wandered past, and he kicked at the beaten-down earth beneath his feet, trying not to think about the next day.

Instead, he tried to focus on the town around him, on the way it was slowly settling down for the night as he passed. All of the shop doors were shut up tight, the market stalls were folded away and Merlin could hear the soft animal noises that meant that the pigs and the chickens were safely tethered beneath their shelters. Camelot was peaceful at this time of night, with the roads almost empty and only a few guards standing on duty near the castle walls.

He would miss this, he realised. Not just Arthur and Gwen and the knights, not just the way he was able to do magic almost freely, but this - the town itself, with its earth-coloured houses and its animals and the way you were fenced in by the walls, safe within its borders from anything outside.

Merlin turned back as he reached the edge of the town, where the houses were further apart and smaller. He could see the castle from where he stood, looming over the rest of the buildings, its windows already glowing gold with candlelight. He loved that castle, the way it was always changing, how you could never quite tell what colour its stones were. It was his home now, and some small part of him would still see it as such, even after he’d gone back to Ealdor and his rented flat.

It made his breath hitch a little inside his chest to think that he’d be returning to a Camelot that didn’t have the castle there. He pushed that thought away, wrapping his arms tightly around himself and heading back along the darkening road towards home.



When he arrived back at the castle, he went to check on Will and found him sitting in the passage near Gaius’ chambers, his head tilted back against the stone wall behind him and his eyes fixed on the sky outside the window. Merlin sunk down next to him, nudging an elbow against the man’s side.

“Miss me?” he asked after a moment, and Will flashed him a grin.

“Nope,” he said. Merlin scowled. “Oh come on, Merlin, you’ve only been gone a month or so. I was a little annoyed you weren’t replying to my texts, but -“ he looked around at the stone corridor, “-there probably isn’t all that much reception here, so I’ll forgive you this time.”

Merlin blinked at him. “A month?” he repeated, his voice rough with surprise. “Will, I’ve been here for years.”

Will stared at him. “You can’t have,” he said. “You only left Ealdor a month ago.”

Merlin bit his lip, thinking. “It must have been my magic,” he said slowly. “I think it recognises your time.” Merlin knew the feel of that year, so close to the spot at which he left it, better than any other. Perhaps that was the only other time he’d ever be able to reach.

“Well, you don’t look any older,” Will said, narrowing his eyes at him. “Except for all that grey hair, Merlin. You really should do something about that.” Merlin laughed. He’d tried being old, and Will was closer to the truth than he knew.

“How’s mum?” he asked suddenly. Will smiled.

“Still cooking me dinner whenever I come around to see if she’s heard from you,” he said. “She isn’t too worried, though - seems to think you’re off finding yourself, or finding your true path, or finding your husband, and that’s why you haven’t been in touch.” Will eyed him. “She’s not too far wrong with that, either.”

“I haven’t found anything of the sort,” Merlin said, but he smiled anyway, leaning back against the wall and watching the sun arc slowly down towards the horizon through the window opposite them.

“How did you do it?” he added after a moment. “With Arthur, in the forest. How did you fix him?” he knew that Will wasn’t a proper doctor yet, that he had years of training to go, and that he shouldn’t have been able to save Arthur like he did.

Will blinked. “He was fixed, Merlin,” he said. “I don’t know what your magic did to him, but as soon as I started CPR he came back.” His voice was quiet, and Merlin wondered what it must have been like for Will, to try to save Arthur when he was in a strange forest with Merlin unconscious beside him and the body of a magician cooling on the other side of the clearing. Will had been brave, he realised, more so than Merlin could ever have been.

“Thank you, Will,” he said softly, and Will wrapped an arm around Merlin’s shoulder, his skin warm against Merlin’s back. They stayed like that until the passageway filled with shadow, and the dinner bell for the servants rang loud in some lower part of the castle.

“See you tomorrow, yeah?” Merlin said, stretching out his stiff limbs and standing upright. Will nodded, clambering to his feet and heading through the narrow doorway into Gaius’ chambers with an apprehensive expression on his face.  Merlin had seen Will giving Gaius odd looks and he knew that the idea of spending the night in the room next to his was something Will wasn’t too pleased with.

“His eyebrows, Merlin,” he’d complained earlier. “They’re alive.”

But Merlin had simply fixed him with a steady gaze and told him that it was that or Arthur’s bed. Will had paused for a surprisingly long moment before deciding that yes, he could survive one night near Gaius.



Arthur was in his usual seat on the windowsill when Merlin walked in carrying a plate of food from the kitchens.

“How’s Will?” he asked, turning his eyes to Merlin with an odd expression on his face.

“He’s fine,” Merlin said. “He’s scared of Gaius, though.” He put the plate down on the table and then paused, uncertain whether Arthur wanted him to stay.

“So you’re leaving,” Arthur said casually, turning his head to look back out the window.  Merlin stepped closer and looked over Arthur’s shoulder, out over the dark town. He could recognise the buildings now - the small, rounded roof of Gwen’s house, the pointed, grey-shingled roof of the butcher’s. They felt familiar to him now.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. Arthur turned suddenly away from the window and pulled Merlin to him, his lips warm against Merlin’s own.

Merlin kissed him back hard, tongue tangling with Arthur’s, until he could taste the prince on his lips. He didn’t want to let Arthur go; he wanted to hold him so tightly and for so long that they both forgot what it was to live with themselves alone. He wanted to stand so close beside him that other people forgot that there had been a time when Arthur hadn’t had Merlin there.

Arthur curled his arms tightly around Merlin’s waist and pulled him over to the bed with an intensity that Merlin recognised, because it matched the way that Merlin was feeling. Arthur handled Merlin roughly, biting at his neck and then soothing over the spot with his tongue. He was pushing hard against Merlin, as though he was trying to pin him to this time, as though he was trying to drown out the world, so that all that mattered was Arthur, so that Merlin realised that he could learn to live without everything else but his prince.

And Merlin let him. He let Arthur push him back onto the bed and run his lips over Merlin’s chest, flicking a tongue over Merlin’s nipple until Merlin arched into it, gasping. He let Arthur curve himself over Merlin, like he wanted to sink beneath Merlin’s skin, fingers slicked down and working Merlin open in fast strokes, ones that left Merlin breathless and moaning against Arthur’s mouth.

Arthur slid into Merlin then, seating himself hilt-deep with his blonde hair damp with sweat and his burning gaze fixed steady on Merlin’s face. It was only then that he finally stilled, holding himself in place, so that Merlin could feel Arthur pressed wide and deep within him, the sensation almost too much to bear.

“Stay, Merlin,” Arthur said softly, and Merlin nodded, babbled yes, he would, of course he would, Arthur, move, and even if it was a promise that Arthur didn’t expect him to keep, drawn out from him while he was tipping on the edge of release, it was still one that Merlin knew they both needed to hear.

And Merlin knew that he would remember this, even if all of his other memories faded away. He would remember this, because it was a moment that was not tied to one time or to another, but to Merlin, so that he would always have the memory of Arthur pressed vivid and warm into his mind, no matter which time he chose to stay in.

He wanted to remember all of Arthur, though - the way the man looked in the mornings, when his hair was messy and his cheeks were flushed pink with sleep; the way he looked when he was on patrol, when he got that tiny frown of concentration on his face as he watched for any signs of disturbance; the way he was now, curled around Merlin with his lips against Merlin’s neck, even though he’d said that he ‘didn’t cuddle, Merlin,’ and that Merlin would be thrown out of bed if he ever suggested that was what it was.

I love you, Arthur Pendragon, Merlin wanted to say, but he didn’t quite know how to. He didn’t yet know whether he should.



He made his decision sometime after midnight, when Arthur was stretched out and loose with sleep in the sheets beside him and the night had peaked, drifting quickly on towards the dawn.

Merlin thought of the way Ealdor had looked in the forest, grey and foreign. He thought of leaving Camelot, of letting Arthur stumble onwards without Merlin by his side, making whatever destiny he could of the pieces of the legend that remained after Merlin had gone. It was a sharp-edged thought, one that lodged hard in his chest and made his throat ache with how utterly alone they both would be.

He didn’t think he could return to a world that didn’t have Arthur in it, or find a job that didn’t involve walking through the passageways of the castle each day. He hadn’t forgotten how to live in Ealdor, but he’d forgotten how to live with it, how to accept that life as the only one that he would get.

He didn't know much about this world. It was as complicated as the one in which he was born; there were rules that he still didn't understand and there was still not much of a place for a big-eared, sharp-elbowed man with his veins full to bursting with magic to fit. He didn't know how he could possibly go forward from this moment, when this world was still so foreign to him.

But love - love, he knew. He had heard it echoed in every story he’d ever read, and he could see it in the hearts of everyone he met. It was buried deeper than anyone had dared to look in some people, while in others it was covered up by pain and by need and by bitterness, but it was what he knew and what he knew how to find. He could show Arthur love, because it was all he’d ever known. He hadn’t been any good at stopping his mother from crying on those days when the world seemed to have spun on without them, and he’d never been any good at living in a world where everyone was hemmed in by buses and cars and everything was so relentlessly fast, but he could do love like no one else in this land, because he had spent his life waiting for it.

And perhaps that would be all he would do. There were people who faded into the fabric of life, even as they were living it. There were people whose most exciting moment had been meeting the cousin of Brad Pitt in the queue at a shopping centre, and there were people whose love didn’t define anything - people whose love wasn’t different to anyone else’s, who didn’t have a million dollar wedding, or die for each other, or change the world. Merlin could do that sort of love. He could do the sort of love that meant holding onto Arthur’s hand when the prince sat by the window overlooking the courtyard, the love that meant poking Arthur in the side when the man got too prattish, and the love that meant holding Arthur tight to him while the prince fell apart, because there were days when he couldn’t be brave. Merlin could do the love that meant being there, every second of every day, so that Arthur would see him and know that in that moment, when he'd been tipping on the edge of two worlds, he'd seen Arthur's face and he’d chosen to stay.

And perhaps it wouldn’t be the sort of love he’d always imagined, with a wedding and nights spent tangled up in each other and days where they stayed in bed with the sunlight drifting warm over the sheets. Perhaps he’d have to step aside one day so that Gwen could fit in beside them, but Merlin didn’t think that mattered all that much. He could do that, if Arthur needed it from him. Arthur was the only thing tying him to this world any more.

Merlin tucked his arm around Arthur’s waist with the weight of his decision curled warm within his chest, and he drifted into sleep as the night paled into silver in the sky above.



When they awoke the next morning, Arthur, Merlin, Gaius and Will climbed the long, curving stairs towards the battlements of the castle. The sky was streaked with apricot when they emerged onto the roof and the clouds were hanging low and fat above the rising sun. It was as good a time as any to say goodbye to a world, and Merlin knew which one he'd be farewelling.

“Go on then,” Will said, poking a finger into Merlin's shoulder. “Do your stuff.” He waggled his fingers wildly in the air and Merlin frowned at him.

“That isn't how I do it,” he said. Will raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Well, not anymore. I stopped that when I was ten, Will, you know that.” Will had teased him about it often enough.

He looked around to where Arthur was waiting, watching him steadily. It was strange to think that he could do magic where Arthur could see, that he could send his power sliding out of his fingers while Arthur's eyes were upon him. Will cleared his throat and Merlin blinked, trying to focus. He stepped forward and closed his eyes, sending a tendril of thought pushing down into the deeper parts of his mind, seeking out his magic. He tapped against it and the shell of it broke, letting it pulse fast and free through his body, as though it knew what he needed it for. The spell came easily to mind - not words, as such, but a way of twisting his power until it slid sharp against time and carved it open.

He heard Arthur make a low sound beside him, something which might have been a gasp slipping from his lips, and then Merlin could feel two worlds stretching out beneath the edges of his magic rather than one. All he had to do was hold it now, and he did so with one corner of his mind as he turned to Will.

“You can go through,” he said. Will stepped up to the gap and peered cautiously through.

“Main Street?” he said with a grimace. “You've got the whole of Ealdor to choose from and that's where you're dropping me off?”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “At least it's the right century,” he said, nodding at the cars parked on the side of the road. Arthur moved closer, looking curious.

“You'd better go,” Merlin added, eyeing Arthur warily. He couldn't exactly order the prince to stay back, and he didn't want Arthur seeing the whole of a time he was never meant to experience.

Will looked at him. “You're not going to come, then?” he asked. It wasn't a question, not really, because Will had probably known that Merlin wasn't coming back, as soon as he’d seen him kneeling beside the prince. But he asked anyway, because Merlin had never chosen to stay this far away from Will before. Not willingly.

Merlin knew that this was the point where their paths diverged, where they shifted from being together into something a little more stretched out, because Will was returning to somewhere that Merlin couldn't bring himself to go. He shook his head, his chest suddenly filled with a dull, aching sadness, because he had always expected an ending and a farewell, but he'd never thought that it would be this one.

Will stepped forward and threw his arms roughly around Merlin's shoulders, pulling him close for a few warm moments before letting him go.

“You look after him,” he growled at Arthur, and for once Arthur didn't snap back at him, but instead simply nodded.

“You'll come visit, though,” he said, and Merlin said yes, of course, even though he wasn't sure that he was brave enough to try. He didn't know that he could feel his way back through the centuries to this spot from the other side of the gap. He knew what his own time felt like, but he wasn't sure that he could recognise this one, and he didn't want to pass through the gap without Arthur and then spend the rest of his life searching for the way back.

“Or you could come here,” he added, and Will made a face in Arthur's direction, as if to say not likely. “And Will?” he said, staring at the man. “Tell my mum where I am, and that - that I love her, okay?” Will nodded, his gaze warm on Merlin’s face.

They stood there looking at each other and Merlin couldn't think of any other reason not to let Will go now, except that he didn't want the man to pass through that gap and he didn't want to have to seal it shut behind him.

But then Will ran a hand roughly over his face and stepped forward towards the gap, turning at the last second to smile back at Merlin.

“See you around,” he said, and then he walked through, the gold light swirling fast around the edges of his body until Merlin couldn't tell where Will ended and where Merlin's magic began.

Merlin stood still for a long moment, watching the tiny piece of Will's world shimmering in front of him, and then he took a deep breath and let it crack free of his magic and tumble in on itself until all he could see was the stone of the roof and he couldn't feel the gap anymore. He felt Arthur's hand come down on his shoulder, a solid, comforting pressure that lessened the thudding ache in his chest.

Merlin turned away, wiping his eyes, and they walked away from the gap together, following Gaius towards the stairs. They both turned just before they left the roof to look at the end of the sunrise, shifting brilliant and gold over the sky. Merlin reached out a hand and curled his fingers between Arthur's, and they stood and watched the sun touch against the edges of the Pendragon kingdom. It would be Arthur's one day, Merlin knew, and he'd be right here beside Arthur for every step of the way.

He knew that in some stories there was a limit, that you had to choose between the world in which you lived and the world in which you belonged, but this was not those stories. This was Merlin’s story, and his story was different. He didn’t know how it would end, yet, and he didn’t know whether he’d be Arthur’s sorcerer or his consort or his servant or his king. He didn’t know what would happen. But, Merlin supposed as he pressed his fingers against Arthur's, no one ever knew how their own story would end.



Epilogue

He had the idea several years into Arthur’s reign, when Merlin still hadn’t quite gotten accustomed to seeing Arthur as an actual king rather than a prince. The man hadn’t changed all that much - his ego had gotten larger to match his bigger crown, and there were times when he was quiet and Merlin could see that he was thinking of his father, who’d succumbed to illness and passed out of the world five years after Merlin had decided to stay. But for the most part his Arthur was the same Arthur that he’d been manservant to years ago, albeit with a little more facial hair, because he’d somehow managed to get it into his head that a bearded king was a good king.

It had been a warm summer afternoon when the thought had first occurred to Merlin, and it had taken him a week of consideration before he’d decided what to do. He waited until Arthur was out with Gwaine and Leon, surveying the lower town, and then walked through the castle towards the library, his robes flapping around his feet.

He frowned at them as he walked, pausing to tug them up so that he wouldn’t trip over the hem. They’d been Arthur’s present to Merlin after he’d been appointed as court sorcerer, though Merlin had a feeling that Arthur got more satisfaction out of them than Merlin did.

“I can’t wear that, Arthur, it’s a dress,” he’d said when Arthur first showed them to him.

“It isn’t a dress, you idiot. They’re the traditional robes of the court sorcerer.”

“Arthur, magic has been banned in Camelot for twenty years. You invented the title of court sorcerer last night. There is no way that they’re traditional.”

Arthur had pouted at him then, and Merlin had given up in the end, partly because he was still a bit thrilled by the fact that he was going to be able to do magic as a job, and partly because Arthur had quickly stopped pouting and had instead started mouthing along his neck in a very distracting way.

“All right,” he’d said eventually, and Arthur had grinned and immediately produced a matching pointed, dark blue hat that Merlin most definitely would not wear, no matter how pretty Arthur said it made him look.

The library stretched cool and dark around him as he walked into it. Geoffrey was where Merlin had expected he'd be, sitting hunched over his desk with a candle guttering low beside him.

“Sire,” he said when he saw Merlin, and Merlin almost jumped at the title, because that hadn't sunk in yet, either, even though Geoffrey had married them several years earlier. It had been a tiny, secret sort of a wedding, one where there was no one to watch but the knights and the forest stretched boundless and green around them. Gwen had been there, too, her hand on Lancelot’s arm and a peaceful smile on her face. Gwaine had been pressed far too close to Leon, who was trying to look as though he didn’t notice at all, when Merlin knew that all he really wanted to do was push Gwaine back against the nearest tree and kiss him soundly. Elyan and Percival had been standing at the edge of the clearing, grinning around at everyone, with wide, cheerful faces and nodding up at the sky, where Kilgharrah was circling on his aged wings. It was love that Merlin had seen there, beneath those summery branches  - a happy, unfettered sort of love, one that came of knowing that you were finally everything that you had ever wanted to be, and that you were with the people you had always wanted to be with.

Merlin looked down at Geoffrey, his eyes running over the man's pale, lined skin. He'd been down here since before Merlin came to Camelot, guarding the books all that time. He had seen King Uther rise and fall, and he would see King Arthur's reign as well, or at least the years of it that passed while he still walked upon the earth. Merlin knew that this man, who knew more about words than anyone Merlin had met, would find the right ones for this.

“There's a story I'd like you to write,” Merlin said, “And it's very important that you write it as I say.”

He wouldn’t tell Arthur about the legend, he decided later, because it wasn’t something that Arthur needed to know. Arthur would make each of his decisions as king because he felt them to be the right ones, not because he knew that they were the ones that he had to make.

And besides, even Merlin didn’t know which choices were the right ones now. Perhaps there were no right decisions anymore, only those that would bring about change, and those which would not. The story he’d told Geoffrey was just one possibility, one that would be kept hidden away until long after they’d all passed on.

And perhaps that was the only version of Arthur’s reign that would survive. If it was, then in years from now, there would be TV shows about King Arthur, and books and films, just the same as those Merlin watched growing up. But - like the ones Merlin knew - they’d tell the story of Arthur and his queen, of Arthur and his people, and of Arthur and his brave, loyal knights, because the story of Arthur and Merlin was one that didn’t need to be told to the world.  That story was theirs alone.

Sometimes, Merlin knew, there were stories within stories. Sometimes there are parts of a world that don’t make it into the history books or into the legends. Sometimes those tales aren’t important, but sometimes - just sometimes - they’re the most important parts of all.

End