A Different Dream
Title: A Different Dream
Summary: To prove a point, Uther marries Morgana to Merlin near the beginning of season one, and changes destiny as a result.
A/N: I'm pretty proud of this one. For this kinkme_merlin prompt: As in that fairytale, where the irate king annoyed with his proud daughter rejecting even worthy suitors marries her to the first vagrant he sees, Uther angry at Morgana for insulting and terrorising all the nobles who came for her hand, declares she is to marry the first servant he sees outside his window in the morning. That person turns out to be one who was scurrying in late - Merlin.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
Morgana had thought that after the excitement of the previous night’s banquet, Uther might leave her alone for at least a few days while he rejoiced in the fact that his son had lived through another sorcerer’s attack. She needed the break, especially because she’d spent the night before dreaming, of herself holding a dark-haired young man’s chin in her cold fingers and telling him to kill Arthur, and it was the sort of dream that felt too true for her comfort. However, it was her bad luck that the banquet where a sorceress had disguised herself as Lady Helen and tried to kill Arthur was also a banquet where Morgana had deliberately ignored the latest suitor for her hand.
“I promised your father,” Uther bellowed the second she came in to breakfast, “that I would look after you if anything happened to him, and the match with Lord Lionel would see you set up for life!”
Morgana clenched her hands, struggling to keep hold of her temper. “You and my father both married for love! You would deny me the chance to do the same?”
“Your father and I were both lucky enough to love women who it made sense to marry,” said Uther, and even that much of a mention of Ygraine was a triumph when even Arthur couldn’t make his father speak of her. “You would come to love Lionel in time, Morgana. He is a good man.”
“He is five years your senior, my lord, and he beat his last wife when she couldn’t conceive! I could never love such a man.”
“You will marry the groom I choose for you when I choose him, Morgana, and that’s an end to it!” Uther pounded his gloved fist on the table. “Do you think I don’t see you flirting with my son’s men? I cannot have you sowing such unrest in my court, and your father would be ashamed. I must remove the danger.”
Morgana inhaled, ready to shout or wheedle until she got her way. He had dared mention her father in such a way when it was Uther’s fault he lay dead, and it was only the knowledge that Uther wouldn’t hesitate to lock her in her room to make her obey that stayed her first words. “My lord,” she said instead, in her most conciliatory tone, “surely you understand that I am too valuable to waste on Lord Lionel. He’s already securely your ally. Why use me as a temptation?”
“Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing, Morgana,” Uther spat. “You will obey me in this.”
“I would rather marry a servant than that old goat!”
Morgana knew when Uther’s lips thinned that she had just sealed her fate, but she didn’t know what that fate might be until he spoke again, voice dangerously quiet and level. “Very well then.” He pointed to the window. “That can be arranged. You will marry the first servant I see when I look out there.”
“Uther, don’t be ridic--”
“It’s that or Lord Lionel, Morgana, what is your choice?”
The king, she was confident, even if he was in a temper, would never allow her to marry a servant boy, and she could allow a few days of a farcical engagement while he made his point. “Fine. Pick me a servant, then.”
Uther smirked and strode to the window, staring out for a few minutes before his smile grew wider, predatory. “Perfect.” He raised his voice. “You, boy! Come up here!” Someone shouted back. “Now!” He drew back from the window to pin her with a cool glance. Morgana crossed her arms and smiled back, confident in the knowledge that he would never waste her on a peasant.
A few minutes later, someone pushed the door open after a tentative knock, and Morgana found herself staring at the boy who had saved Arthur’s life the night before, who was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and who had managed to lace his tunic askew. “Sire, is something the matter? It’s only that I’m already late to tend to Prince Arthur.”
Uther glided forward, and the boy’s mouth closed with a snap. “You have more important things to take care of.” The king clapped a hand on the servant’s shoulder and spun him to look at Morgana. “I am about to make you the happiest of men.”
“Sire, really, the position in your son’s household is quite enough--”
“You will marry the Lady Morgana. Tomorrow at sundown.”
The boy gave her a look that was equal parts terror and wondering if the king was mad, and she smiled back, hopefully reassuring him that this was simply a joke. And then he said the words that would change everything: “I--I--what?”
*
It wasn’t a joke.
Oh, was it ever not a joke.
Morgana found herself standing frozen in the king’s audience chamber while people swept in and out, all of them with a great amount to say on the subject of her sudden engagement.
Arthur: “Father, you can’t be serious! Merlin is an imbecile, and even Morgana doesn’t deserve that!” Then, quieter: “Morgana, can’t you just tell him you’ll marry Lord Lionel? The old goat will probably kick it before the wedding anyway.”
The steward: “A house? In the town? Surely a more appropriate dowry would be a title for her affianced groom?”
Gaius: “Sire, Merlin is a young man and new to Camelot. He has no place of his own, and certainly won’t be able to support the Lady Morgana in the style to which she is accustomed.”
Gwen, tugging at Morgana’s sleeve when some blessed maid had thought to fetch her in the midst of the madness: “He can’t mean--I mean, Merlin is lovely, really he is, but he’s certainly not a lord, is he? Not that you couldn’t love someone who isn’t a lord, but ... Merlin? And he’s sending you out of the palace without even me for company?”
Lord Lionel: “This is an insult, my liege! I understand if I’m not to marry the lady, but to marry her to a servant instead is unthinkable!”
And in between it all Uther smirked and assured people that this was Morgana’s choice and that she and her husband would be perfectly happy in the town, and Merlin punctuated everything periodically with: “Really--sire, I really--I don’t--this isn’t--”
Morgana let Gwen and a few seamstresses drag her off to have a new gown, probably her last for quite some time, stitched for her, and she and Gwen packed her bags with her plainest gowns and other such things. Gwen kept up a litany of shock and horror, which seemed to vary between fear that Morgana wouldn’t survive on her own in the city and amazement that the king would do such a thing. Morgana assured her a few times that it was temporary madness and that she was a better swordsman than even Arthur, so the city certainly didn’t scare her. Gwen did not look reassured. “I’ll make sure you’re all right until this blows over,” she said, and Morgana patted her hand and arranged her hairbrushes in a box.
Somehow, she’d expected it all to blow over before sundown the next night, but then there she was, with Merlin staring wide-eyed and Arthur halfway between horrified and amused and Uther serene as she and Merlin were handfast.
And then it was done, and she and Merlin were walking from the palace carrying her overstuffed packs to a hut the size of the one where Gwen and her father lived: her new home.
*
“I’m so sorry,” Merlin said the second they got the door closed behind them. “I thought he was finished rewarding me after he made me Arthur’s manservant ...”
Morgana dropped her bags and looked around the hut, which was cozy if not exactly what she was used to. The fire was lit, probably thanks to Gwen, and there was the smell of something delicious over it, probably thanks to Gaius, who had spent the past two days trying desperately to tell Uther that he was being unreasonable without being disrespectful. “Actually, I ought to apologize to you,” said Morgana as Merlin fluttered around the house as if he wasn’t quite certain of what to do. “You have been dragged into this ridiculous spectacle of Uther’s simply because he wishes to teach me a lesson. I imagine it will take a week or two before he declares the marriage invalid.”
“Oh. Oh, good,” said Merlin, sounding so clearly relieved that Morgana had to be offended. “It’s just that being Arthur’s manservant pays, but it doesn’t pay that well, so I can’t afford what you’re used to. I can barely afford this house, in fact, even if it is your dowry. But Gaius and Gwen have both said that they’ll try to get him to change his mind, and Arthur says even you don’t deserve to have me inflicted on you, so it should all be fine.” He smiled, a bit uncertainly. “I don’t expect anything from you. So you know. I know this isn’t your choice, no matter what the king says, and I imagine I’ll be beheaded if I actually dare ...”
He went bright red, and Morgana decided to rescue him from himself. “Of course, Merlin. Thank you.”
He beamed. “Anytime, my lady. It will be just like having Gwen around, I promise. Arthur says I’m useless as a manservant, but maybe I’ll be a better maidservant.”
Morgana smiled. “In that case, why don’t you help me out of this gown, and get some of that supper on a plate for me? I’ll train you to be such a good personal servant Arthur won’t know what’s happened.”
Merlin fumbled at her lacings, which was only to be expected as he was keeping his eyes averted, but he managed it eventually, and she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder as she went to put on one of the plain gowns that Gwen had found for her. He had a plate of dinner ready for her by the time she was finished, and they had a pleasant conversation about his first few meetings with Arthur (well, it didn’t seem pleasant for him, but she was too busy with her glee at someone actually standing up to Arthur to care much about that).
There was only one bed, but Merlin didn’t even look at it once, instead producing a blanket and pillow from seemingly nowhere and making himself a pallet in the front room, by the fire. Her bed certainly wasn’t comfortable, and the sheets were scratchy, but she could almost pretend that Merlin’s soft breaths from the next room were Gwen’s, and she was warm.
Perhaps the next few weeks wouldn’t be as much of a chore as she’d thought.
*
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Merlin panted as he tumbled through the door after dark one night a week later. “Gwen’s been teaching me how to put on Arthur’s armor properly, and I can’t seem to get it right, but that tournament starts tomorrow and I’ve got to be ready. Gaius sent dinner for us, though.”
Morgana stared without enthusiasm at the dried meat and the rough bread as Merlin produced them from his bag. Gaius sent their dinner more often than he didn’t, probably because Merlin was often too late with Arthur to feed her in a timely manner, but Gaius certainly wasn’t an expert cook. “I’ll have to thank him. And yes, Gwen said she’s been seeing you when she came for lunch.” When she brought lunch, because they rarely had food in the house. Morgana hated that it seemed everyone she passed in the market pitied her, and it made her uncomfortable that every time Gwen mentioned Merlin her face lit up--as Merlin’s did about Gwen, she was coming to realize.
Merlin produced a vial from a pocket with a flourish. “And he sent this for you.”
“Thank you, Merlin.” Morgana was grateful when he didn’t ask what it was.
The potion for nightmares had stopped working almost completely months ago, but she and Gwen were the only ones who knew it, so she took it anyway, only to wake gasping just before dawn the next morning to an image of Arthur fighting snakes as they--leaped from a man’s shield? Morgana told herself that not all of her dreams were true ones, but she went to the stands of the tournament that day with her head held high, even though there wasn’t a chair for her at Uther’s side, and sat next to Gwen as she saw the man who’d been fighting Arthur in her dream win his first match of the tournament.
Merlin, as the tournament went on, smiled less and staggered in at increasingly later hours, and Morgana wondered if he was a drunk, or if perhaps she’d torn him from some sweetheart he was still trying to see. The thought that he would be with anyone else while married to her didn’t sit well with Morgana until she realized that he was still beaming only when he said Gwen’s name and that Gwen would never betray her lady so. But then he didn’t come back to their house at all the night before the tournament final, and Morgana wondered again.
He was there at the final, looking tired and miserable, and he didn’t come to sit with her when she and then Gwen waved him over, instead choosing to hang off the edge of a building.
Morgana was looking at him when it happened: Arthur was fighting the knight Valiant, and Merlin lifted his hand and said something, his lips moving, and then the crowd was gasping as snakes slithered out of Valiant’s shield.
Arthur won, but Morgana was barely paying attention.
*
Weeks passed, and while Uther invited Morgana and Merlin to dine with he and Arthur several times (which discomfited Merlin and Arthur both extremely), he made no mention of ending the marriage, so Morgana continued living in the hut with Merlin. He showed no more signs of being a sorcerer, but Morgana kept her eye on him.
Plague came, and Gwen was imprisoned, but Arthur and Merlin somehow managed to rid the city of the taint that had poisoned it and Gwen was freed. No one made mention of who the sorcerer had actually been, and Morgana heard the word “Nimueh” whispered at the edge of her dreams.
Soon after, Gwen came for one of their regular lunches. She was settling in well at a new job, assisting the steward with ladies’ needs, and looked happier every time Morgana saw her. That day, though, she was pensive. “This has gone on long enough, my lady,” she said when Morgana pressed her as to what was wrong. “Please, just apologize to the king. He’ll put everything back the way it was.”
“Why?” asked Morgana, and the next words escaped against her will. “Want him for yourself?”
Gwen stared at her for a few seconds before blinking. “My lady, I ... Merlin is lovely, but he’s not exactly ... what? No, it’s just ... well, he’d never tell you, he’s too sweet for that, but between Arthur and you and sometimes chores for Gaius, he’s run quite ragged. I mean, when he’s got a break he’s back at Gaius’s putting something on the pot for your dinner, and he looks like he isn’t sleeping, and autumn’s coming but anyone can tell he can barely afford firewood now ...”
Morgana blinked. “Gwen, it’s fine. Surely Merlin would have told me if things were that bad.”
“Of course he wouldn’t, my lady. He doesn’t want you feeling guilty.” Gwen looked down at her plate. “It wasn’t my place to say all that, of course.”
Morgana patted her hand. “Perhaps, sometime when you’re free, you could teach me how to cook a few things?” Gwen’s gaze snapped back up, and she opened and closed her mouth a few times. “And perhaps I could take sewing in. I don’t relish the thought, but it’s certainly something I could do ...”
Three days later, Merlin walked in their door to find a plate of chicken for each of them on the table and a small collection of coins between them. “My lady, what’s all this?”
“Gwen taught me how to cook,” said Morgana, and hid her left palm, crossed with blisters from touching a hot pot, in her skirts. “And the coins are ... well, Lady Anne needed a dress mended for when Bayard and his court come for the visit next week.”
Merlin stared at her like he’d never seen her before. “My lady, you really didn’t need to do all this. I know the king hasn’t brought you back yet, but you mustn’t give up hope ...”
“Hush, Merlin, and eat your dinner.”
The chicken was so dry Morgana could barely stand to eat any of it, but Merlin polished off his whole plate.
*
A week later, Morgana was dozing over her sewing but nonetheless determined to stay awake until Merlin got home so she could hear everything about the banquet with Bayard. However, when the door opened it wasn’t Merlin creeping in--Arthur kicked the door open, and Gwen and Gaius were on his heels, and Merlin was thrown over his shoulder. “What happened?” she asked, but they pushed by her to the bed and put Merlin down on it, all three talking at once. “I asked what happened!” she said, louder.
“Morgana, hush, this isn’t the time,” said Arthur, sounding annoyed.
“My lady, just stand back and let us.” Gwen patted her shoulder and went back to the main room to haul in their bucket of water, one Morgana had brought from the town’s spring on her own.
Merlin was pale and sweating and frighteningly still on her bed, and Morgana broke through their conversation again. “He is my husband and I demand to know what’s happened to him!”
It was the first time she’d used the word “husband” as anything but a joke, and Arthur couldn’t know that, but her words caught his attention nonetheless. “Bayard tried to poison me, but he drank it so I wouldn’t.”
Morgana looked at Gaius and Gwen, inspecting a goblet and saying something about a flower, but the blood was rushing in her ears and Merlin was still limp on the bed. “If it’s your fault,” she hissed, “then fix it.”
She hardly cared that he’d gone galloping off to the Forest of Balor for a cure, even when Gwen told her in a hushed voice that Uther had expressly forbidden him to do so. She only cared about Gaius’s obvious worry and the way Merlin was mumbling in his feverish sleep. Gwen tried to nurse him, but Morgana sent her away on errands and made sure she was the one by Merlin’s bedside, soothing him with cool cloths and listening to him whisper in a language that she felt like she knew. She slept on his pallet, and wondered how he stood having the hard floor so close.
Gwen brought the flower in the end, after they’d heard that Arthur had returned to Camelot and promptly been thrown in the dungeons. Morgana forced out thanks for Gwen and made a great and loud point of dithering over Merlin while Gaius muttered a few words in that almost-familiar language before pouring the cure down Merlin’s throat.
He stopped breathing. After all that, he stopped breathing, and the bottom dropped out of Morgana’s stomach as Gwen buried her face in Gaius’s shoulder and Morgana clutched uselessly at Merlin’s hand and thought Live, damn you, live at him until he choked and looked up right into her eyes and smiled so bright she had to cover her eyes.
A few days later, Arthur came to visit, and after he and Merlin had had an extremely awkward discussion, he took Morgana aside. “Just apologize to father, please. He wants you back in the palace, but he wants you to see the error of your ways.” Morgana raised her chin and prepared to blast him with invective for daring to suggest she capitulate, but he shook his head. “You don’t understand, Morgana--I wasn’t thrown in the dungeons for trying to save a servant’s life. He didn’t want Merlin cured because he wants you a widow, if you won’t give in.”
Morgana felt suddenly numb as she automatically looked over her shoulder to the back room, where Gaius was fussing before leaving for the night and where Merlin was reluctantly getting back into bed. She’d made a point of not being alone with him so he couldn’t try to suggest sleeping on his pallet. “Merlin is not a pawn in one of his games, Arthur. And if his blood ends up on Uther’s hands because of this, may the gods forgive him. I certainly won’t.”
Late that night, after Arthur left and Gaius left and Merlin fell asleep on the bed, Morgana stood at the door to her bedroom--their bedroom--and thought how very easy it would be to become a widow, if she just whispered a few words in Uther’s ear about magic.
Merlin had to be protected.
*
“My lady, I couldn’t--” Merlin said a few weeks later. Despite her protests, he’d gone back to sleeping on his pallet, but she’d woken from a nightmare to find him shivering, because he’d given her all the best blankets.
Morgana put her hands on her hips and then let them fall when she realized she was already haranguing him like a fishwife and certainly didn’t need to look like one as well. “I trust you not to sully my virtue, Merlin, and the floor is far too hard for you to be sleeping on when you’ve been so recently ill. Besides, it’s cold. And didn’t I tell you to call me Morgana? You’re my husband.”
“Only because the king won’t let you back until you apologize. And when you do, I don’t want my head cut off.”
“I would far rather have you as a husband than a lord of Uther’s choosing. Now get into bed.” Merlin shook his head, mulish to the last. She should have expected it. “If you’re so worried about propriety, we can put an extra blanket between us.”
“My lady--Morgana--it’s enough that you’re cooking and taking in sewing, and don’t think I haven’t noticed all the blisters and the pinpricks, because I have, but Gwen told me not to mention them.”
“Is it that you’re in love with Gwen?” Morgana wanted to take the words back the second she said them, but Merlin’s poleaxed expression was enough to reassure her. “Never mind that, get into bed. It’s getting colder, and it will be warmer for us both this way.”
It took another several minutes of arguing before Merlin got into bed, and even then he insisted on sleeping on top of the blanket that covered her and using a different one for himself. Morgana rolled her eyes, and fell asleep with his reassuring warmth at her back.
Only to wake gasping, seeing Arthur sinking into the water while a woman smirked above him. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone, that she was in fact being held in arms too long and bony to be Gwen’s, and that someone was whispering into the sweat-damp curve of her neck. “Morgana, you’re all right, I’m here, you’re safe, it was just a dream ...”
“Arthur,” she gasped.
“No.” The voice was amused. “It’s Merlin, and Arthur will be torn between pleased and horrified that he’s the one you were expecting.”
Morgana turned to clutch Merlin’s shoulder, surprised that he could look so frail and feel so solid. “No, it’s Arthur. He’s in danger.”
“He’s perfectly safe, Morgana. You’re dreaming.” His cool hand smoothed her hair away from her face, and she managed to look at him. He was close, and concerned, and he felt like her only anchor to the world. “I’ve heard you wake up before, but I didn’t know it was this bad ...”
“My dreams--my dreams come true sometimes,” she blurted, and waited for him to recoil and disbelieve before she remembered the secret he carried. “Please, you must believe me. It’s some sort of magic, I’ve always had it, just like ... just like you.”
She felt him tense, and then flinch. “You’re mistaken.”
“Don’t lie to me now, Merlin. We’ve got to save Arthur. There’s a woman, and she’s going to drown him.”
Merlin listened. Morgana talked almost until dawn, about dreams she had that had come true and about her fears. She told him how long she’d known about his magic, and he just smiled wryly and shook his head. “Well, at least we have each other’s secrets, now. There’s no way either of us can betray the other.”
The day after the next, Morgana was walking to the market with her basket and stopping to talk to a few people who were starting to get used to not bowing to her every other word when she came across the stocks--and Merlin in them. There were a group of children gleefully pelting him with produce, and he looked filthy and miserable. Morgana went to him without a second thought, and he actually smiled when he saw her. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“I covered for Arthur. There’s a lady he wanted to spend the day with, and Uther figured out I was lying and stuck me in here for the afternoon.”
Morgana felt her face flush with temper and sat down at the base of the stocks, right in a pile of mush she didn’t wish to analyze. “He just wants to shame you, because I haven’t given you up yet. I’ll stay here. No one will dare throw anything if it might hit me. I have that much power, still.” Then she paused. “Wait, what lady?”
*
After the Sophia incident was over and Arthur was properly mocked for nearly eloping (Morgana wanted to mock him for falling victim to her sorcery, but Merlin had begged her not to), things settled into a pattern. It wasn’t a pattern she liked all that much, because she was still cut off from her home and her rightful position, but it had its benefits.
In the morning, Morgana did her sewing, and she got more orders in every day--some from women who wanted to gloat over the king’s ward fixing their hems, but a surprising amount because they knew better than she did how desperately close to the edge she and Merlin were most weeks. She would meet Gwen somewhere for lunch and catch up on gossip, and then do her marketing and perhaps some more sewing before going home and cooking supper for she and Merlin, which did manage to get better eventually.
When Merlin got home, they would talk about almost anything--magic and her dreams, at first, but then he told her about his mother and Ealdor and his best friend Will, and she told him about her father and growing up with Arthur. He told her about a man named Lancelot who had fallen hard for Gwen and wanted to be a knight, and about another named Edwin, who had almost killed Gaius, and then Uther. That had all happened before Sophia, he admitted, but he had thought Gwen would have told her about Lancelot and didn’t trust her with his magic to tell her about Edwin. Morgana told herself not to be offended, and hated that she would have known of both incidents within seconds if she had her own place back.
One day, he came back shaking, eyes red-rimmed. “There was a druid boy, today,” he explained. “I tried to save him from the guards, but there wasn’t anywhere to hide him, and they almost caught me.” Morgana reached out and grabbed his hand, and even though she wasn’t dreaming, she saw a few might-have-beens disappear like smoke.
They fell asleep together, always with a blanket between them, and Merlin never touched her except when she had a bad dream, and the mornings after those were always best because she had an excuse to wake up wound around him. Some of those mornings, he was already awake, a hand hovering over her hair like he wanted to stroke it. “Are they always this bad?” he asked when she saw a knight in black armor killing some of Arthur’s knights.
Morgana thought of the months before she married Merlin, when she’d seen herself lonely and twisted and turned against Arthur and Uther. “They were worse before I met you.”
Some nights, they ate at the palace with Uther, and at least once a week, the king found an excuse to throw Merlin in the stocks. Merlin’s mother came to them for help and Uther refused, leaving Morgana and Gwen and Arthur to follow him to Ealdor, and Morgana to have a very awkward discussions with Hunith (“Merlin never told me he’d got married. And ... so you’re the king’s ward, are you?”) and then Merlin (“Well, it’s not like I thought you were going to stay married to me for more than a week, and then things were a little busy, so of course I didn’t tell my mother about you”) before everything was taken over by the bandits and the battle.
It wasn’t until they returned home and Morgana coaxed Merlin into talking about what had happened to Will that she came to a conclusion: she wanted to stay married to Merlin, but she also wanted her place in the palace back, especially because she was growing more and more sure that Uther would make her a widow otherwise.
She needed a plan.
*
Morgana invited Arthur and Gwen for dinner without telling Merlin, and Merlin arrived home that night and opened the door saying “I really don’t see why you’re following me home, sire.”
“I invited him for dinner,” said Morgana, and gestured her guests in while Merlin stood to one side, dumbfounded. “We all need to have a talk.”
Merlin spluttered, which predictably made Arthur grin, which not-so-predictably made Gwen blush and start stammering. Morgana looked between her foster brother and her former maidservant, but neither of them was looking back so she couldn’t confirm anything. “My lady, you cooked,” said Gwen a second later. “It smells good!”
Morgana pretended not to be offended at the surprise in her tone and got everyone sitting and eating the stew she’d made before she told them what they were all there for. “It’s obvious Uther is not going to relent,” she said at last.
“If you’d just apologize,” Arthur started, sounding exasperated, “then this ridiculous charade would be over.”
This would be the difficult part, and for the first time Morgana realized that she should have had a private talk with Merlin first, and that perhaps he wouldn’t want the same things she wanted. “The thing is, I would prefer to remain Merlin’s wife.” That, she knew, was the first time anyone had referred to her as Merlin’s wife, though she’d called him her husband many a time.
Gwen choked on her stew, Merlin dropped his spoon and stared at her, and Arthur snorted. “You’re joking.”
“Actually, I’m not. I’d like to have my old place back, and I will have it back, but I want to stay married to Merlin. So I’ve decided that we have very few options, and that one of them is to somehow make my marriage to Merlin politically viable.”
Gwen was still coughing, and didn’t manage to speak until Arthur pounded her on the back a few times. “My lady, are you quite--I mean, not that Merlin isn’t lovely, but--”
“There is no way that marriage to Merlin would every be politically advantageous,” Arthur declared. Gwen flinched, and then Arthur flinched, and it was then that Morgana realized that Merlin hadn’t even managed to twitch since she’d made her announcement.
“We’ll find a way to make him a lord, or find him something heroic to do so Uther will bestow land on him.”
“That’s enough,” said Merlin, finally speaking up, and she’d never heard him sound that icy. “That’s not funny, my lady, and I won’t be some joke lord just because you want to show the king he was wrong.” He pushed out his chair, stood, and headed towards the door, stopping only to grab the jacket he’d shucked while she served them. “I’m sleeping at Gaius’s tonight, don’t wait up.”
“Merlin,” she called uselessly, but he was already out the door. Gwen and Arthur were just staring at her, and she rounded on them. “Both of you think of solutions. I’m going to find him.”
“Perhaps you’d best let him cool off,” Gwen started, but Morgana had already twirled her cloak on over her shoulders and gone out into the night after her errant husband.
*
He hadn’t gone to Gaius’s rooms, she discovered minutes later, and Gaius seemed worried about both of them. She brushed that off, and paused a moment, trusting her instincts to lead her to Merlin.
Her steps led her past some lazing guards and past the dungeons to a staircase that led below the castle, and then there was a voice echoing off the stones and in her mind and Merlin shouting back at it. “No, she is not!” Merlin was yelling when she got close enough to hear individual words.
“Then why are you here asking me about her, young warlock? If you don’t think she’ll betray you, what gives you such misgivings?”
“I’m asking if I’m meant to stay married to her,” said Merlin, a little quieter. “I’m asking if she’s just using me to get back at Uther.”
“You’ll believe she’ll use you for that, but not that she’ll be Arthur’s doom?” Morgana bit her knuckles to hold in a cry that would echo its way down to them.
“Not everything is destiny! She says she hasn’t had a dream like that since she married me, and I don’t think she’s lying.”
“Then why are you here, young warlock?”
“Is there a way we could stay married?”
“Your affairs make no difference to me.” Merlin let out a frustrated noise, one she’d only heard him use when he came home after one of Arthur’s particularly infuriating days. “If you trust so little in destiny, find the path yourself.”
A second later, before Morgana could begin to prepare herself or figure out what to say, Merlin was heading full-tilt around the corner carrying a torch, only to freeze when he saw her. There was a long moment of silence before Merlin jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a dragon under the castle, did you know? A bit mad, says I’m the other side of Arthur’s coin, and he seems to have something against you, but I don’t really believe him.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Morgana blurted, and Merlin winced. “Earlier, I wasn’t. I should have spoken to you first, asked if you wanted to go to the trouble, but I do want to stay married to you, but I also want to be back in the palace, and we need to do ... something, if all of that’s to work.”
“Why would you want to stay married to me?” Merlin asked, and held out his free arm to her as he walked forward. She grabbed his arm like he was a courtier and let him lead her up out of the dragon’s cave. “I’m a peasant, and I’m clumsy, and I’m a traitor to the crown, and--”
He doused the torch as they got to the door, and Morgana turned him towards her and kissed him full on the mouth. He let out a strangled noise of surprise, but she kept kissing him until he relaxed, and only then did she let him go. “And you wake me up when I’m having nightmares and keep them from coming true, and you show me a different side of Camelot, and I love you.”
“You--you--”
“I love you,” she repeated. “Now let’s go back to Gwen and Arthur and make sure that I can keep you, so Uther doesn’t take matters into his own hands and make me a widow before my time.”
“O-okay.”
“Excellent.” Morgana kissed him again, because after all that time, she could. “Now,” she began as they walked back towards their house, “you don’t know who your father is, correct?”
*
Gwen and Arthur were sitting at opposite ends of the hut when they got back, and both of them were brilliantly pink, but Morgana chose to defer asking too many questions, because both of them refrained from commenting on how close she stood to Merlin and the huge grins that suffused his face every time he looked at her.
She sent them away early and took Merlin to bed, pulling him under their blankets and kissing him until they were both breathless and sated and Merlin was holding her warm in the circle of his arms. And she dreamed.
Merlin in a rich tunic, holding her goblet to her lips with an impish smile as he sat next to her at a banquet. Uther’s pained expression as Merlin knelt before him swearing fealty. A quiet estate on the edge of a lake where she could swim. Arthur clasping Merlin’s shoulder like a brother and laughing with him. Holding Merlin’s hand while Arthur was crowned, and watching him make a shower of gold sparks in the air for all the court to see without fear of execution. Running her hands over her own swelling stomach while Gwen and Arthur clasped hands and smiled like there was no one else in the world. And yes, battles upon battles for the fate of Albion ahead of them, but Merlin always by her side, stronger than he seemed, and the four of them always there for each other.
Merlin was speaking when she woke. “You were dreaming, Morgana. What’s wrong now? It’ll be all right, I promise.”
Morgana smiled and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. “It already is.”
Summary: To prove a point, Uther marries Morgana to Merlin near the beginning of season one, and changes destiny as a result.
A/N: I'm pretty proud of this one. For this kinkme_merlin prompt: As in that fairytale, where the irate king annoyed with his proud daughter rejecting even worthy suitors marries her to the first vagrant he sees, Uther angry at Morgana for insulting and terrorising all the nobles who came for her hand, declares she is to marry the first servant he sees outside his window in the morning. That person turns out to be one who was scurrying in late - Merlin.
Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.
Morgana had thought that after the excitement of the previous night’s banquet, Uther might leave her alone for at least a few days while he rejoiced in the fact that his son had lived through another sorcerer’s attack. She needed the break, especially because she’d spent the night before dreaming, of herself holding a dark-haired young man’s chin in her cold fingers and telling him to kill Arthur, and it was the sort of dream that felt too true for her comfort. However, it was her bad luck that the banquet where a sorceress had disguised herself as Lady Helen and tried to kill Arthur was also a banquet where Morgana had deliberately ignored the latest suitor for her hand.
“I promised your father,” Uther bellowed the second she came in to breakfast, “that I would look after you if anything happened to him, and the match with Lord Lionel would see you set up for life!”
Morgana clenched her hands, struggling to keep hold of her temper. “You and my father both married for love! You would deny me the chance to do the same?”
“Your father and I were both lucky enough to love women who it made sense to marry,” said Uther, and even that much of a mention of Ygraine was a triumph when even Arthur couldn’t make his father speak of her. “You would come to love Lionel in time, Morgana. He is a good man.”
“He is five years your senior, my lord, and he beat his last wife when she couldn’t conceive! I could never love such a man.”
“You will marry the groom I choose for you when I choose him, Morgana, and that’s an end to it!” Uther pounded his gloved fist on the table. “Do you think I don’t see you flirting with my son’s men? I cannot have you sowing such unrest in my court, and your father would be ashamed. I must remove the danger.”
Morgana inhaled, ready to shout or wheedle until she got her way. He had dared mention her father in such a way when it was Uther’s fault he lay dead, and it was only the knowledge that Uther wouldn’t hesitate to lock her in her room to make her obey that stayed her first words. “My lord,” she said instead, in her most conciliatory tone, “surely you understand that I am too valuable to waste on Lord Lionel. He’s already securely your ally. Why use me as a temptation?”
“Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing, Morgana,” Uther spat. “You will obey me in this.”
“I would rather marry a servant than that old goat!”
Morgana knew when Uther’s lips thinned that she had just sealed her fate, but she didn’t know what that fate might be until he spoke again, voice dangerously quiet and level. “Very well then.” He pointed to the window. “That can be arranged. You will marry the first servant I see when I look out there.”
“Uther, don’t be ridic--”
“It’s that or Lord Lionel, Morgana, what is your choice?”
The king, she was confident, even if he was in a temper, would never allow her to marry a servant boy, and she could allow a few days of a farcical engagement while he made his point. “Fine. Pick me a servant, then.”
Uther smirked and strode to the window, staring out for a few minutes before his smile grew wider, predatory. “Perfect.” He raised his voice. “You, boy! Come up here!” Someone shouted back. “Now!” He drew back from the window to pin her with a cool glance. Morgana crossed her arms and smiled back, confident in the knowledge that he would never waste her on a peasant.
A few minutes later, someone pushed the door open after a tentative knock, and Morgana found herself staring at the boy who had saved Arthur’s life the night before, who was still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and who had managed to lace his tunic askew. “Sire, is something the matter? It’s only that I’m already late to tend to Prince Arthur.”
Uther glided forward, and the boy’s mouth closed with a snap. “You have more important things to take care of.” The king clapped a hand on the servant’s shoulder and spun him to look at Morgana. “I am about to make you the happiest of men.”
“Sire, really, the position in your son’s household is quite enough--”
“You will marry the Lady Morgana. Tomorrow at sundown.”
The boy gave her a look that was equal parts terror and wondering if the king was mad, and she smiled back, hopefully reassuring him that this was simply a joke. And then he said the words that would change everything: “I--I--what?”
*
It wasn’t a joke.
Oh, was it ever not a joke.
Morgana found herself standing frozen in the king’s audience chamber while people swept in and out, all of them with a great amount to say on the subject of her sudden engagement.
Arthur: “Father, you can’t be serious! Merlin is an imbecile, and even Morgana doesn’t deserve that!” Then, quieter: “Morgana, can’t you just tell him you’ll marry Lord Lionel? The old goat will probably kick it before the wedding anyway.”
The steward: “A house? In the town? Surely a more appropriate dowry would be a title for her affianced groom?”
Gaius: “Sire, Merlin is a young man and new to Camelot. He has no place of his own, and certainly won’t be able to support the Lady Morgana in the style to which she is accustomed.”
Gwen, tugging at Morgana’s sleeve when some blessed maid had thought to fetch her in the midst of the madness: “He can’t mean--I mean, Merlin is lovely, really he is, but he’s certainly not a lord, is he? Not that you couldn’t love someone who isn’t a lord, but ... Merlin? And he’s sending you out of the palace without even me for company?”
Lord Lionel: “This is an insult, my liege! I understand if I’m not to marry the lady, but to marry her to a servant instead is unthinkable!”
And in between it all Uther smirked and assured people that this was Morgana’s choice and that she and her husband would be perfectly happy in the town, and Merlin punctuated everything periodically with: “Really--sire, I really--I don’t--this isn’t--”
Morgana let Gwen and a few seamstresses drag her off to have a new gown, probably her last for quite some time, stitched for her, and she and Gwen packed her bags with her plainest gowns and other such things. Gwen kept up a litany of shock and horror, which seemed to vary between fear that Morgana wouldn’t survive on her own in the city and amazement that the king would do such a thing. Morgana assured her a few times that it was temporary madness and that she was a better swordsman than even Arthur, so the city certainly didn’t scare her. Gwen did not look reassured. “I’ll make sure you’re all right until this blows over,” she said, and Morgana patted her hand and arranged her hairbrushes in a box.
Somehow, she’d expected it all to blow over before sundown the next night, but then there she was, with Merlin staring wide-eyed and Arthur halfway between horrified and amused and Uther serene as she and Merlin were handfast.
And then it was done, and she and Merlin were walking from the palace carrying her overstuffed packs to a hut the size of the one where Gwen and her father lived: her new home.
*
“I’m so sorry,” Merlin said the second they got the door closed behind them. “I thought he was finished rewarding me after he made me Arthur’s manservant ...”
Morgana dropped her bags and looked around the hut, which was cozy if not exactly what she was used to. The fire was lit, probably thanks to Gwen, and there was the smell of something delicious over it, probably thanks to Gaius, who had spent the past two days trying desperately to tell Uther that he was being unreasonable without being disrespectful. “Actually, I ought to apologize to you,” said Morgana as Merlin fluttered around the house as if he wasn’t quite certain of what to do. “You have been dragged into this ridiculous spectacle of Uther’s simply because he wishes to teach me a lesson. I imagine it will take a week or two before he declares the marriage invalid.”
“Oh. Oh, good,” said Merlin, sounding so clearly relieved that Morgana had to be offended. “It’s just that being Arthur’s manservant pays, but it doesn’t pay that well, so I can’t afford what you’re used to. I can barely afford this house, in fact, even if it is your dowry. But Gaius and Gwen have both said that they’ll try to get him to change his mind, and Arthur says even you don’t deserve to have me inflicted on you, so it should all be fine.” He smiled, a bit uncertainly. “I don’t expect anything from you. So you know. I know this isn’t your choice, no matter what the king says, and I imagine I’ll be beheaded if I actually dare ...”
He went bright red, and Morgana decided to rescue him from himself. “Of course, Merlin. Thank you.”
He beamed. “Anytime, my lady. It will be just like having Gwen around, I promise. Arthur says I’m useless as a manservant, but maybe I’ll be a better maidservant.”
Morgana smiled. “In that case, why don’t you help me out of this gown, and get some of that supper on a plate for me? I’ll train you to be such a good personal servant Arthur won’t know what’s happened.”
Merlin fumbled at her lacings, which was only to be expected as he was keeping his eyes averted, but he managed it eventually, and she gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder as she went to put on one of the plain gowns that Gwen had found for her. He had a plate of dinner ready for her by the time she was finished, and they had a pleasant conversation about his first few meetings with Arthur (well, it didn’t seem pleasant for him, but she was too busy with her glee at someone actually standing up to Arthur to care much about that).
There was only one bed, but Merlin didn’t even look at it once, instead producing a blanket and pillow from seemingly nowhere and making himself a pallet in the front room, by the fire. Her bed certainly wasn’t comfortable, and the sheets were scratchy, but she could almost pretend that Merlin’s soft breaths from the next room were Gwen’s, and she was warm.
Perhaps the next few weeks wouldn’t be as much of a chore as she’d thought.
*
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Merlin panted as he tumbled through the door after dark one night a week later. “Gwen’s been teaching me how to put on Arthur’s armor properly, and I can’t seem to get it right, but that tournament starts tomorrow and I’ve got to be ready. Gaius sent dinner for us, though.”
Morgana stared without enthusiasm at the dried meat and the rough bread as Merlin produced them from his bag. Gaius sent their dinner more often than he didn’t, probably because Merlin was often too late with Arthur to feed her in a timely manner, but Gaius certainly wasn’t an expert cook. “I’ll have to thank him. And yes, Gwen said she’s been seeing you when she came for lunch.” When she brought lunch, because they rarely had food in the house. Morgana hated that it seemed everyone she passed in the market pitied her, and it made her uncomfortable that every time Gwen mentioned Merlin her face lit up--as Merlin’s did about Gwen, she was coming to realize.
Merlin produced a vial from a pocket with a flourish. “And he sent this for you.”
“Thank you, Merlin.” Morgana was grateful when he didn’t ask what it was.
The potion for nightmares had stopped working almost completely months ago, but she and Gwen were the only ones who knew it, so she took it anyway, only to wake gasping just before dawn the next morning to an image of Arthur fighting snakes as they--leaped from a man’s shield? Morgana told herself that not all of her dreams were true ones, but she went to the stands of the tournament that day with her head held high, even though there wasn’t a chair for her at Uther’s side, and sat next to Gwen as she saw the man who’d been fighting Arthur in her dream win his first match of the tournament.
Merlin, as the tournament went on, smiled less and staggered in at increasingly later hours, and Morgana wondered if he was a drunk, or if perhaps she’d torn him from some sweetheart he was still trying to see. The thought that he would be with anyone else while married to her didn’t sit well with Morgana until she realized that he was still beaming only when he said Gwen’s name and that Gwen would never betray her lady so. But then he didn’t come back to their house at all the night before the tournament final, and Morgana wondered again.
He was there at the final, looking tired and miserable, and he didn’t come to sit with her when she and then Gwen waved him over, instead choosing to hang off the edge of a building.
Morgana was looking at him when it happened: Arthur was fighting the knight Valiant, and Merlin lifted his hand and said something, his lips moving, and then the crowd was gasping as snakes slithered out of Valiant’s shield.
Arthur won, but Morgana was barely paying attention.
*
Weeks passed, and while Uther invited Morgana and Merlin to dine with he and Arthur several times (which discomfited Merlin and Arthur both extremely), he made no mention of ending the marriage, so Morgana continued living in the hut with Merlin. He showed no more signs of being a sorcerer, but Morgana kept her eye on him.
Plague came, and Gwen was imprisoned, but Arthur and Merlin somehow managed to rid the city of the taint that had poisoned it and Gwen was freed. No one made mention of who the sorcerer had actually been, and Morgana heard the word “Nimueh” whispered at the edge of her dreams.
Soon after, Gwen came for one of their regular lunches. She was settling in well at a new job, assisting the steward with ladies’ needs, and looked happier every time Morgana saw her. That day, though, she was pensive. “This has gone on long enough, my lady,” she said when Morgana pressed her as to what was wrong. “Please, just apologize to the king. He’ll put everything back the way it was.”
“Why?” asked Morgana, and the next words escaped against her will. “Want him for yourself?”
Gwen stared at her for a few seconds before blinking. “My lady, I ... Merlin is lovely, but he’s not exactly ... what? No, it’s just ... well, he’d never tell you, he’s too sweet for that, but between Arthur and you and sometimes chores for Gaius, he’s run quite ragged. I mean, when he’s got a break he’s back at Gaius’s putting something on the pot for your dinner, and he looks like he isn’t sleeping, and autumn’s coming but anyone can tell he can barely afford firewood now ...”
Morgana blinked. “Gwen, it’s fine. Surely Merlin would have told me if things were that bad.”
“Of course he wouldn’t, my lady. He doesn’t want you feeling guilty.” Gwen looked down at her plate. “It wasn’t my place to say all that, of course.”
Morgana patted her hand. “Perhaps, sometime when you’re free, you could teach me how to cook a few things?” Gwen’s gaze snapped back up, and she opened and closed her mouth a few times. “And perhaps I could take sewing in. I don’t relish the thought, but it’s certainly something I could do ...”
Three days later, Merlin walked in their door to find a plate of chicken for each of them on the table and a small collection of coins between them. “My lady, what’s all this?”
“Gwen taught me how to cook,” said Morgana, and hid her left palm, crossed with blisters from touching a hot pot, in her skirts. “And the coins are ... well, Lady Anne needed a dress mended for when Bayard and his court come for the visit next week.”
Merlin stared at her like he’d never seen her before. “My lady, you really didn’t need to do all this. I know the king hasn’t brought you back yet, but you mustn’t give up hope ...”
“Hush, Merlin, and eat your dinner.”
The chicken was so dry Morgana could barely stand to eat any of it, but Merlin polished off his whole plate.
*
A week later, Morgana was dozing over her sewing but nonetheless determined to stay awake until Merlin got home so she could hear everything about the banquet with Bayard. However, when the door opened it wasn’t Merlin creeping in--Arthur kicked the door open, and Gwen and Gaius were on his heels, and Merlin was thrown over his shoulder. “What happened?” she asked, but they pushed by her to the bed and put Merlin down on it, all three talking at once. “I asked what happened!” she said, louder.
“Morgana, hush, this isn’t the time,” said Arthur, sounding annoyed.
“My lady, just stand back and let us.” Gwen patted her shoulder and went back to the main room to haul in their bucket of water, one Morgana had brought from the town’s spring on her own.
Merlin was pale and sweating and frighteningly still on her bed, and Morgana broke through their conversation again. “He is my husband and I demand to know what’s happened to him!”
It was the first time she’d used the word “husband” as anything but a joke, and Arthur couldn’t know that, but her words caught his attention nonetheless. “Bayard tried to poison me, but he drank it so I wouldn’t.”
Morgana looked at Gaius and Gwen, inspecting a goblet and saying something about a flower, but the blood was rushing in her ears and Merlin was still limp on the bed. “If it’s your fault,” she hissed, “then fix it.”
She hardly cared that he’d gone galloping off to the Forest of Balor for a cure, even when Gwen told her in a hushed voice that Uther had expressly forbidden him to do so. She only cared about Gaius’s obvious worry and the way Merlin was mumbling in his feverish sleep. Gwen tried to nurse him, but Morgana sent her away on errands and made sure she was the one by Merlin’s bedside, soothing him with cool cloths and listening to him whisper in a language that she felt like she knew. She slept on his pallet, and wondered how he stood having the hard floor so close.
Gwen brought the flower in the end, after they’d heard that Arthur had returned to Camelot and promptly been thrown in the dungeons. Morgana forced out thanks for Gwen and made a great and loud point of dithering over Merlin while Gaius muttered a few words in that almost-familiar language before pouring the cure down Merlin’s throat.
He stopped breathing. After all that, he stopped breathing, and the bottom dropped out of Morgana’s stomach as Gwen buried her face in Gaius’s shoulder and Morgana clutched uselessly at Merlin’s hand and thought Live, damn you, live at him until he choked and looked up right into her eyes and smiled so bright she had to cover her eyes.
A few days later, Arthur came to visit, and after he and Merlin had had an extremely awkward discussion, he took Morgana aside. “Just apologize to father, please. He wants you back in the palace, but he wants you to see the error of your ways.” Morgana raised her chin and prepared to blast him with invective for daring to suggest she capitulate, but he shook his head. “You don’t understand, Morgana--I wasn’t thrown in the dungeons for trying to save a servant’s life. He didn’t want Merlin cured because he wants you a widow, if you won’t give in.”
Morgana felt suddenly numb as she automatically looked over her shoulder to the back room, where Gaius was fussing before leaving for the night and where Merlin was reluctantly getting back into bed. She’d made a point of not being alone with him so he couldn’t try to suggest sleeping on his pallet. “Merlin is not a pawn in one of his games, Arthur. And if his blood ends up on Uther’s hands because of this, may the gods forgive him. I certainly won’t.”
Late that night, after Arthur left and Gaius left and Merlin fell asleep on the bed, Morgana stood at the door to her bedroom--their bedroom--and thought how very easy it would be to become a widow, if she just whispered a few words in Uther’s ear about magic.
Merlin had to be protected.
*
“My lady, I couldn’t--” Merlin said a few weeks later. Despite her protests, he’d gone back to sleeping on his pallet, but she’d woken from a nightmare to find him shivering, because he’d given her all the best blankets.
Morgana put her hands on her hips and then let them fall when she realized she was already haranguing him like a fishwife and certainly didn’t need to look like one as well. “I trust you not to sully my virtue, Merlin, and the floor is far too hard for you to be sleeping on when you’ve been so recently ill. Besides, it’s cold. And didn’t I tell you to call me Morgana? You’re my husband.”
“Only because the king won’t let you back until you apologize. And when you do, I don’t want my head cut off.”
“I would far rather have you as a husband than a lord of Uther’s choosing. Now get into bed.” Merlin shook his head, mulish to the last. She should have expected it. “If you’re so worried about propriety, we can put an extra blanket between us.”
“My lady--Morgana--it’s enough that you’re cooking and taking in sewing, and don’t think I haven’t noticed all the blisters and the pinpricks, because I have, but Gwen told me not to mention them.”
“Is it that you’re in love with Gwen?” Morgana wanted to take the words back the second she said them, but Merlin’s poleaxed expression was enough to reassure her. “Never mind that, get into bed. It’s getting colder, and it will be warmer for us both this way.”
It took another several minutes of arguing before Merlin got into bed, and even then he insisted on sleeping on top of the blanket that covered her and using a different one for himself. Morgana rolled her eyes, and fell asleep with his reassuring warmth at her back.
Only to wake gasping, seeing Arthur sinking into the water while a woman smirked above him. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t alone, that she was in fact being held in arms too long and bony to be Gwen’s, and that someone was whispering into the sweat-damp curve of her neck. “Morgana, you’re all right, I’m here, you’re safe, it was just a dream ...”
“Arthur,” she gasped.
“No.” The voice was amused. “It’s Merlin, and Arthur will be torn between pleased and horrified that he’s the one you were expecting.”
Morgana turned to clutch Merlin’s shoulder, surprised that he could look so frail and feel so solid. “No, it’s Arthur. He’s in danger.”
“He’s perfectly safe, Morgana. You’re dreaming.” His cool hand smoothed her hair away from her face, and she managed to look at him. He was close, and concerned, and he felt like her only anchor to the world. “I’ve heard you wake up before, but I didn’t know it was this bad ...”
“My dreams--my dreams come true sometimes,” she blurted, and waited for him to recoil and disbelieve before she remembered the secret he carried. “Please, you must believe me. It’s some sort of magic, I’ve always had it, just like ... just like you.”
She felt him tense, and then flinch. “You’re mistaken.”
“Don’t lie to me now, Merlin. We’ve got to save Arthur. There’s a woman, and she’s going to drown him.”
Merlin listened. Morgana talked almost until dawn, about dreams she had that had come true and about her fears. She told him how long she’d known about his magic, and he just smiled wryly and shook his head. “Well, at least we have each other’s secrets, now. There’s no way either of us can betray the other.”
The day after the next, Morgana was walking to the market with her basket and stopping to talk to a few people who were starting to get used to not bowing to her every other word when she came across the stocks--and Merlin in them. There were a group of children gleefully pelting him with produce, and he looked filthy and miserable. Morgana went to him without a second thought, and he actually smiled when he saw her. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“I covered for Arthur. There’s a lady he wanted to spend the day with, and Uther figured out I was lying and stuck me in here for the afternoon.”
Morgana felt her face flush with temper and sat down at the base of the stocks, right in a pile of mush she didn’t wish to analyze. “He just wants to shame you, because I haven’t given you up yet. I’ll stay here. No one will dare throw anything if it might hit me. I have that much power, still.” Then she paused. “Wait, what lady?”
*
After the Sophia incident was over and Arthur was properly mocked for nearly eloping (Morgana wanted to mock him for falling victim to her sorcery, but Merlin had begged her not to), things settled into a pattern. It wasn’t a pattern she liked all that much, because she was still cut off from her home and her rightful position, but it had its benefits.
In the morning, Morgana did her sewing, and she got more orders in every day--some from women who wanted to gloat over the king’s ward fixing their hems, but a surprising amount because they knew better than she did how desperately close to the edge she and Merlin were most weeks. She would meet Gwen somewhere for lunch and catch up on gossip, and then do her marketing and perhaps some more sewing before going home and cooking supper for she and Merlin, which did manage to get better eventually.
When Merlin got home, they would talk about almost anything--magic and her dreams, at first, but then he told her about his mother and Ealdor and his best friend Will, and she told him about her father and growing up with Arthur. He told her about a man named Lancelot who had fallen hard for Gwen and wanted to be a knight, and about another named Edwin, who had almost killed Gaius, and then Uther. That had all happened before Sophia, he admitted, but he had thought Gwen would have told her about Lancelot and didn’t trust her with his magic to tell her about Edwin. Morgana told herself not to be offended, and hated that she would have known of both incidents within seconds if she had her own place back.
One day, he came back shaking, eyes red-rimmed. “There was a druid boy, today,” he explained. “I tried to save him from the guards, but there wasn’t anywhere to hide him, and they almost caught me.” Morgana reached out and grabbed his hand, and even though she wasn’t dreaming, she saw a few might-have-beens disappear like smoke.
They fell asleep together, always with a blanket between them, and Merlin never touched her except when she had a bad dream, and the mornings after those were always best because she had an excuse to wake up wound around him. Some of those mornings, he was already awake, a hand hovering over her hair like he wanted to stroke it. “Are they always this bad?” he asked when she saw a knight in black armor killing some of Arthur’s knights.
Morgana thought of the months before she married Merlin, when she’d seen herself lonely and twisted and turned against Arthur and Uther. “They were worse before I met you.”
Some nights, they ate at the palace with Uther, and at least once a week, the king found an excuse to throw Merlin in the stocks. Merlin’s mother came to them for help and Uther refused, leaving Morgana and Gwen and Arthur to follow him to Ealdor, and Morgana to have a very awkward discussions with Hunith (“Merlin never told me he’d got married. And ... so you’re the king’s ward, are you?”) and then Merlin (“Well, it’s not like I thought you were going to stay married to me for more than a week, and then things were a little busy, so of course I didn’t tell my mother about you”) before everything was taken over by the bandits and the battle.
It wasn’t until they returned home and Morgana coaxed Merlin into talking about what had happened to Will that she came to a conclusion: she wanted to stay married to Merlin, but she also wanted her place in the palace back, especially because she was growing more and more sure that Uther would make her a widow otherwise.
She needed a plan.
*
Morgana invited Arthur and Gwen for dinner without telling Merlin, and Merlin arrived home that night and opened the door saying “I really don’t see why you’re following me home, sire.”
“I invited him for dinner,” said Morgana, and gestured her guests in while Merlin stood to one side, dumbfounded. “We all need to have a talk.”
Merlin spluttered, which predictably made Arthur grin, which not-so-predictably made Gwen blush and start stammering. Morgana looked between her foster brother and her former maidservant, but neither of them was looking back so she couldn’t confirm anything. “My lady, you cooked,” said Gwen a second later. “It smells good!”
Morgana pretended not to be offended at the surprise in her tone and got everyone sitting and eating the stew she’d made before she told them what they were all there for. “It’s obvious Uther is not going to relent,” she said at last.
“If you’d just apologize,” Arthur started, sounding exasperated, “then this ridiculous charade would be over.”
This would be the difficult part, and for the first time Morgana realized that she should have had a private talk with Merlin first, and that perhaps he wouldn’t want the same things she wanted. “The thing is, I would prefer to remain Merlin’s wife.” That, she knew, was the first time anyone had referred to her as Merlin’s wife, though she’d called him her husband many a time.
Gwen choked on her stew, Merlin dropped his spoon and stared at her, and Arthur snorted. “You’re joking.”
“Actually, I’m not. I’d like to have my old place back, and I will have it back, but I want to stay married to Merlin. So I’ve decided that we have very few options, and that one of them is to somehow make my marriage to Merlin politically viable.”
Gwen was still coughing, and didn’t manage to speak until Arthur pounded her on the back a few times. “My lady, are you quite--I mean, not that Merlin isn’t lovely, but--”
“There is no way that marriage to Merlin would every be politically advantageous,” Arthur declared. Gwen flinched, and then Arthur flinched, and it was then that Morgana realized that Merlin hadn’t even managed to twitch since she’d made her announcement.
“We’ll find a way to make him a lord, or find him something heroic to do so Uther will bestow land on him.”
“That’s enough,” said Merlin, finally speaking up, and she’d never heard him sound that icy. “That’s not funny, my lady, and I won’t be some joke lord just because you want to show the king he was wrong.” He pushed out his chair, stood, and headed towards the door, stopping only to grab the jacket he’d shucked while she served them. “I’m sleeping at Gaius’s tonight, don’t wait up.”
“Merlin,” she called uselessly, but he was already out the door. Gwen and Arthur were just staring at her, and she rounded on them. “Both of you think of solutions. I’m going to find him.”
“Perhaps you’d best let him cool off,” Gwen started, but Morgana had already twirled her cloak on over her shoulders and gone out into the night after her errant husband.
*
He hadn’t gone to Gaius’s rooms, she discovered minutes later, and Gaius seemed worried about both of them. She brushed that off, and paused a moment, trusting her instincts to lead her to Merlin.
Her steps led her past some lazing guards and past the dungeons to a staircase that led below the castle, and then there was a voice echoing off the stones and in her mind and Merlin shouting back at it. “No, she is not!” Merlin was yelling when she got close enough to hear individual words.
“Then why are you here asking me about her, young warlock? If you don’t think she’ll betray you, what gives you such misgivings?”
“I’m asking if I’m meant to stay married to her,” said Merlin, a little quieter. “I’m asking if she’s just using me to get back at Uther.”
“You’ll believe she’ll use you for that, but not that she’ll be Arthur’s doom?” Morgana bit her knuckles to hold in a cry that would echo its way down to them.
“Not everything is destiny! She says she hasn’t had a dream like that since she married me, and I don’t think she’s lying.”
“Then why are you here, young warlock?”
“Is there a way we could stay married?”
“Your affairs make no difference to me.” Merlin let out a frustrated noise, one she’d only heard him use when he came home after one of Arthur’s particularly infuriating days. “If you trust so little in destiny, find the path yourself.”
A second later, before Morgana could begin to prepare herself or figure out what to say, Merlin was heading full-tilt around the corner carrying a torch, only to freeze when he saw her. There was a long moment of silence before Merlin jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a dragon under the castle, did you know? A bit mad, says I’m the other side of Arthur’s coin, and he seems to have something against you, but I don’t really believe him.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Morgana blurted, and Merlin winced. “Earlier, I wasn’t. I should have spoken to you first, asked if you wanted to go to the trouble, but I do want to stay married to you, but I also want to be back in the palace, and we need to do ... something, if all of that’s to work.”
“Why would you want to stay married to me?” Merlin asked, and held out his free arm to her as he walked forward. She grabbed his arm like he was a courtier and let him lead her up out of the dragon’s cave. “I’m a peasant, and I’m clumsy, and I’m a traitor to the crown, and--”
He doused the torch as they got to the door, and Morgana turned him towards her and kissed him full on the mouth. He let out a strangled noise of surprise, but she kept kissing him until he relaxed, and only then did she let him go. “And you wake me up when I’m having nightmares and keep them from coming true, and you show me a different side of Camelot, and I love you.”
“You--you--”
“I love you,” she repeated. “Now let’s go back to Gwen and Arthur and make sure that I can keep you, so Uther doesn’t take matters into his own hands and make me a widow before my time.”
“O-okay.”
“Excellent.” Morgana kissed him again, because after all that time, she could. “Now,” she began as they walked back towards their house, “you don’t know who your father is, correct?”
*
Gwen and Arthur were sitting at opposite ends of the hut when they got back, and both of them were brilliantly pink, but Morgana chose to defer asking too many questions, because both of them refrained from commenting on how close she stood to Merlin and the huge grins that suffused his face every time he looked at her.
She sent them away early and took Merlin to bed, pulling him under their blankets and kissing him until they were both breathless and sated and Merlin was holding her warm in the circle of his arms. And she dreamed.
Merlin in a rich tunic, holding her goblet to her lips with an impish smile as he sat next to her at a banquet. Uther’s pained expression as Merlin knelt before him swearing fealty. A quiet estate on the edge of a lake where she could swim. Arthur clasping Merlin’s shoulder like a brother and laughing with him. Holding Merlin’s hand while Arthur was crowned, and watching him make a shower of gold sparks in the air for all the court to see without fear of execution. Running her hands over her own swelling stomach while Gwen and Arthur clasped hands and smiled like there was no one else in the world. And yes, battles upon battles for the fate of Albion ahead of them, but Merlin always by her side, stronger than he seemed, and the four of them always there for each other.
Merlin was speaking when she woke. “You were dreaming, Morgana. What’s wrong now? It’ll be all right, I promise.”
Morgana smiled and buried her face in her husband’s shoulder. “It already is.”