you're the tall kingdom i surround - think i better follow you around.

[lo0o0ony_lauren]

I finally finished my help_haiti! On the one hand, it's slightly more than a week late, which makes me feel pretty lame; on the other hand, it's over four times as long as I promised it would be, which uh. I guess that's good? Still, I know it's not about the length so much as what you do with it (HUR HUR HUR), so - yeah. I really really hope you like this, fiercynn. ♥

(A point of vague personal irritation: Morgana & Gwen are not in this enough. One day I am going to write The Epic Adventures of Morgana and Gwen, but I just didn't have time on this one without it becoming some kind of freaking novella. Hmm.)

Title: The Tall Kingdom I Surround
Fandom: Merlin
Rating: G
Summary: A mysterious figure starts causing havoc in Camelot, but Merlin has his own secret identity to worry about.
A/N: The winning bidder wanted a Merlin/Arthur fic set between series one and two, which means it requires little but a basic knowledge of the show & contains no spoilers. Title from Brainy by The National. Thanks & love to strangeumbrella.


It was an unconscious reaction, beaten into him by months in Camelot and years, even before that, for as long as Merlin could remember, of just having to be careful. Merlin didn’t like eavesdropping, not really - or at least, he felt a vague sense of guilt if he did it too many times in a week - but this one really wasn’t his fault. He just reacted to the word. Anybody would have.

"Apparently it’s magic," said the woman, tugging slightly on the edge of her shawl, and Merlin’s head snapped up so quickly that he almost did himself an injury.

"Well, I don’t believe that for a second," her friend put in. "Nobody would dare."

"That’s just what I was told. What you believe is your own business."

"It is my business. That nice young lad who lives round the corner from me, he said..."

At this point, the two of them took a left and Merlin, making his way to the castle and needing to take a right, froze irritatedly in the middle of the square. He was hopelessly torn between following them to find out more - because he was so certain they’d said what he thought they’d said, that they were talking about magic - and making his way quietly to work. After a moment, though, actively pursuing somebody felt like a line between 'eavesdropping by chance' and 'creepy' that he just wasn’t prepared to cross, and he took a right.

He didn’t have to wait long to find out more.

By the time Merlin got to the castle, it was in a state of thinly veiled panic, and he was almost mown down by at least two separate guards, or possibly by the same one going back and forth; it was difficult to tell, sometimes. Truth be told, the entire situation gave him a feeling of unease deep in his bones, and it was with some hesitation that he tapped on the heavy wooden door to Arthur’s chambers.

"Enter," said Arthur’s voice, and Merlin unnecessarily replied, "It’s me," as if Arthur might be expecting somebody else at this time, before he went inside. Mind you, perhaps he was. It seemed like a morning where all kinds of things might be happening.

The room was, as ever, somewhere between 'elegant and impressive' and 'a little bit of a tip'. Even good breeding and years of training could only go some way to repressing the natural tendency of the young male to create an insane amount of mess, and Arthur’s living quarters were about as accurate a visual representation of this phenomena as was physically possible. Merlin picked up an overcoat, lying lifeless and forgotten on the floor, and hung it up on the back of the door. Gaius had once said to him, wasn’t it hilarious that Merlin’s job was to clear up after a fellow of about his own age when he was so utterly incapable of clearing up after himself? Merlin had agreed that it was, of course, hilarious.

"Wow," he said, moving into the room, "Things must be bad. You’re actually having a really good go at dressing yourself."

"Very funny, Merlin. Have you seen my boots?"

Merlin went over to the open wardrobe and crouched down, rooting through the pile of clothes abandoned on the floor between its door and its insides. He sighed. "There was an order here, you know. I had it all sorted out before you decided to muck it up. Here," he held up the boots, triumphantly, and stood up to take them over. "They were right in front of your face."

Arthur sat down on the bed, wrenched them from Merlin’s grip and pulled them on. In the silence, Merlin became suddenly aware of the sheer noise he could hear coming from the rest of the building - from the corridors outside, from the rooms around, from the courtyard below the window. People shouting and fussing and gossiping. He tugged lightly on the hair at the back of his scalp.

"Arthur," he murmured.

"Yes, what," snapped Arthur.

"I mean - Arthur." More insistently this time. Arthur looked up, and Merlin, soft-voiced with something like nervousness, continued, "What is going on?"

+

It turned out that the first sign had been a few days previously, when a boy had been sacked on the spot for improperly tying up the timber in a storage barn. Having always been thorough a thorough worker until then, his master was almost inclined to believe the boy when he insisted that he had, he definitely had, properly knotted that rope.

Nobody had been hurt, but somebody might have been. Unfortunately, that afternoon, the boy tasked with retying them all came up against the same problem when all he timber came tumbling down once more. Still, nobody was hurt - but this time, the replacement worker was quite insistent.

"I tied them, sir, just like you showed me." The master was puzzled. He tied them himself, only for them to come down again not half an hour later, crashing all over the dusty floor with a noise that shook the storage barn to its foundations. It sounded like a thunder storm indoors.

"This is the king’s timber," the master told the boy, and the boy said he knew as much, sir, but it seemed to him that something very funny was going on and, if he might be so bold, it also seemed to him that it very likely hadn’t been the first boy’s fault.

"Quite right," the master said, being a fair man. "Quite right." He rehired the first boy that same day, with many apologies; after that, the wood stayed where it was.

The next day, though, a water pump to the east of the storage barns sprung some kind of a leak and wouldn’t stop overflowing. Not only that, but after a while one of the people who lived in the surrounding area began insisting that the water tasted sweet, like it had been sugared, and then somebody else said that, no, it tasted like berries, and one old man even claimed it tasted like wine. The day after that, something very unusual had happened with a horse.

For some time, these strange occurrences were reported all over the kingdom and, while none of them had ever been really dangerous, they were growing in number and scale and beginning to be talked about as things that were united, rather than separate coincidences. Uther was said to be wary of the entire business, and then everything had become rather more serious the previous evening, when a fight in a tavern boiled over and carried on out into the street, only to be defused by one of the participants becoming quite unable to stop croaking like a frog. The other man had laughed so hard that he fell over.

"And?" asked Merlin.

"And somebody saw a masked man fleeing the scene," Arthur said. "Word’s spread all over the kingdom, people are becoming frantic. My father wants this man located, and quickly - he believes him to be a sorcerer."

+

The initial hysteria of spreading news had died down somewhat by lunchtime, once it became apparent that nothing particularly exciting was happening that day. Merlin ate with Gwen, outside, sat together on the grass near the training ground while Arthur shouted instructions a few foot away. She bit into an apple and watched Merlin watching Arthur and said, "Do you think he’s very worried about his father? The loss of face, I mean, it must be a bit embarrassing. You know what the King’s like about his pride."

Merlin turned to meet her eyes. "I don’t know. Perhaps. Arthur's obviously concerned about how these things look, but right now, I think he finds the - frenzy of it all, the fixation, a little distasteful. He hasn’t said as much, but he makes these comments sometimes that make me think... Well, who can say."

"He’s a very different man to his father," Gwen said cryptically, and then left it at that. She took another bite of the apple.

It was the first really pleasant day of the summer and the heat was surprisingly strong. Merlin sat quietly in the sunlight, listening to the sound of Gwen chewing, and thought that it was probably a very dangerous time to have magic, which was really saying something. He tried not to feel afraid.

+

The sun was setting beautifully over the rooftops and market stalls by the time Merlin began his walk home. Bizarrely, as the day progressed and things became calmer, there was more time and quiet space in Merlin's head to be filled with thoughts of witch-trials and ritual executions. He was so busy having a rather horrible time imagining the screams of the crowd that, for a few moments, he didn’t realise the shouting was happening outside his head.

He turned. As he did so, a man raced past him at top speed, his clothes billowing with the force of it, and when he looked at Merlin, as if to apologise, Merlin saw that a length of cloth covered his face, with holes cut out of it for him to see through, and obscured his features. Immediately, he seemed to hear an echo of Arthur’s voice mutter the words, in that scathing, almost amused tone, "a masked man fleeing the scene."

"Oh my god," Merlin blurted out.

When somebody shouted, "Hold him, will you! Stop him," Merlin realised that the man was being chased by a group of two or three people and then he just acted, without thinking, and before he knew it the pursuers were on the floor, grounded by a sudden, fierce outpouring of tomatoes from a nearby barrel.

He felt the heat of it in his fingertips, felt the way his irises changed, felt how it existed in every cell of him and felt, too, the part of him that was young and longed to cause mischief. He looked away from the villagers - groaning, stunned, unharmed - and saw that the man in the mask had clattered to a halt and was staring. He stood in the centre of the street, the dusk behind him making him a silhouette. In the silence of the late-afternoon, the two of them looked at each other; then Merlin moved towards the adjoining alley and walked briskly away. He didn’t look back.

+

By next morning, many of the people were demanding that something be done; the previous afternoon, several people had found fish living inside their buckets and containers of water, and a masked man had been chased from the scene of the appearance of a particularly large halibut. Several people had woken up that morning to find that their hair had changed colour during the night, although all of them looked rather fetching.

Nonetheless, there was a state of barely controlled mania growing in Camelot - nobody knew what or who would be next, or when, or why. Arthur and Merlin were dispatched to speak to anyone who had seen the man now coming to be known as The Wizard ("It’s pithy," said Arthur. "Sort of. I suppose."), particularly those who had actually been bewitched.

"This is a waste of time," Arthur muttered as they walked from the home of a green-haired lady to that of one of the men from the pub fight. "If we should be doing anything, it’s actually looking for the man himself."

"Your father probably just wants people calming down," said Merlin. "He wants them to know that you’re doing something."

"But that’s just the thing. If I wasn’t doing this, I actually could be doing something - as it is, it just looks like we are. Er, good morning--"

The lucky recipient of their visit was sat on the front step of his house, whittling, and greeted them with a slightly awed, "Your Highness."

"Right," said Arthur. "Yes. We’re here to talk to you about the recent - incident."

Merlin and Arthur nodded and made generally affirmative noises as the man expanded upon how The Wizard had probably saved their lives, how they had been friends since childhood, but drunk and aggressive on this one particular evening, and how they might have killed each other were it not for the masked man’s intervention. "I just remember the sound of my sister screaming at us," he shook his head. "And then - I couldn’t speak. She wasn’t half relieved. The fight was about her. We've been friends since we were kids, but when he said he was intending to marry my sister - well, I saw red..."

"And now?" Arthur asked, frowning.

He smiled. "Now they’re engaged."

As they meandered back to the castle, Merlin could feel the warmth of the sun on his back again and the familiar presence of Arthur by his side, and everything felt normal except that the world was changing around him.

"Magic’s always wrong, isn’t it?" Arthur muttered, mostly to himself. "But that man - he didn’t seem so sure."

Merlin was so aware of the importance of the moment, so desperate to say just exactly the right thing, that he found himself unable to speak. They walked the rest of the way in silence; just before they went their separate ways, Arthur said, "If this man is doing good, and I stop him, it isn’t - justifiable. Though, how can he be?"

And in a tone of forced cheerfulness, not knowing what else to say, Merlin replied, "Well, but you haven’t caught him yet."

+

When Merlin returned home that night to find a man, just a few years his senior, sitting on the doorstep, he was less surprised than perhaps he ought to have been, and it didn’t matter that he didn’t recognise the face. They looked at each other. After a few moments, he stood up and closed the space between them, holding out a hand for Merlin to shake.

"I'm--" he began, and Merlin immediately supplied, "The Wizard."

The man ducked his head to laugh. He was a little taller than Merlin, dark-haired, pleasant-looking. "I normally go by Harold," he said, looking slightly abashed. He had a slightly delicate way of speaking and holiding himself that Merlin hadn't been expecting.

Merlin glanced round to see if anybody was behind him (no-one, but still), said, "We can’t talk here," and then bundled Harold inside, inwardly grateful that Gaius was out seeing a favoured courtier with a fever, because he had a funny feeling that he wouldn’t have approved of Harold’s presence. They’d already had some manner of Conversation, in fact, that involved a lot of phrases like, "but do you promise it isn’t you," and "look me in the eye, Merlin" and then some apologies.

"Sit down," said Merlin, gesturing at the table. Harold did so and Merlin, not knowing what else to do with himself, slid into the chair opposite; they faced each other in silence for a few moments.

"So," Harold said, at length. "You probably saved my life. With your. Secret magical powers. That's probably a good starting point."

"Yes, I do that," Merlin mumbled, rubbing his eyes with a gravitas that suggested preternatural responsibility. "How did you find me?"

"I followed you. I doubled back, after I lost them, and found out where you lived, and then I - it’s not a very good way to make a first impression, is it?"

"Well, we can’t all be as good at first impressions as I am."

Harold laughed, and something in Merlin’s stomach leapt at the realisation that he was - here, being honest about magic with somebody his own age or thereabouts, somebody who understood what it was like. The thought was not even fully formed in his head, it was too terrifying, too elusive, he couldn’t help imagining that even putting it into words would make the whole situation disappear, but it was still there, nudging away at the edges of his consciousness. I am not alone.

"Forgive me," Harold said. "But I don’t even know your name. I didn’t want to draw attention to either of us by asking somebody, I’m sure you understand."

"Yes. No, obviously, that makes sense - it’s Merlin. I’m Merlin." Merlin cautiously held out his right hand for Harold to take.

"A pleasure to meet you," Harold said, considered him for a moment, and then held out his left instead. "Other one’s probably better."

"Why?" Merlin asked, taking it anyway.

"It’s nothing really, but my right arm got knocked about a little during my first dramatic sort of chase from the scene." He looked a little embarrassed. "I’m all right."

"Would you like me to take a look at it?"

"Will looking at it help much?"

Merlin rolled his eyes. "I’m apprenticed to a physician, in a manner of speaking."

"Perhaps later." He paused; Merlin could feel himself being considered. Then he said, "Merlin, for the rude and unchivalrous way I went about meeting you, I can only apologise - but I did learn, in the course of my, ah - well, spying, I suppose - that you appear to work at the castle. Am I correct?"

"You are. I’m Arthur’s manservant."

"I thought as much. My willingness to speak to another like myself - I’m sure you can understand -"

"Of course," Merlin agreed, with an intensity that surprised even himself.

"- but I’d hate it if my being here put you in any danger. Well - any more danger than you’re always in, I suppose."

Merlin seemed to hear himself say, rather than actively deciding upon the words, "You’re making them talk about people like us in a way that isn’t just dismissive, for the first time in a long time. You’re a hero. If I can do anything - anything at all..."

And that was how Merlin came to house a fugitive.

+

The arrangement was essentially satisfactory, in spite of all its difficulties and inconveniences; they said repeatedly that it was only to be short-term and, soon, they would find a more permanent solution. Harold had to stay in Merlin’s room for most of the first day, because Gaius could, under no circumstances, find out that Merlin was endangering himself so greatly. Merlin wasn’t sure who he was more afraid of being discovered by - the King’s Men, or Gaius. The punishment would be pretty terrible either way, and perhaps a little more lasting if it were the former, but the latter had so perfected the art form of the withering look. It was like torture.

Luckily, Merlin and Harold had an instant understanding that perhaps came a little from their shared outsiderness and a little from the one having saved the other’s life. Either way, Merlin couldn’t remember having enjoyed so easy and so uncomplicated a friendship since Will. The sensation that he was not constantly lying to Harold was dizzying and addictive.

Merlin managed to convince him to lie low for a few days, at least until it would be slightly safer to venture out - "there’s nothing to be gained by being foolish and getting caught" - and his arm had healed a little. However, Harold’s absence saw no sign of diminished interest in The Wizard, and people began claiming that any slightly bizarre occurrence had been caused by him. Masked men were sighted all over town. It was a kind of fever.

"Camelot's lost its head," Arthur sighed, as Merlin walked with him through the forest, in search of the hunting party they’d become separated from. "The problem is, magic or no magic, this person’s acts have been essentially harmless jokes or actively helpful - so now that they’re getting used to him, people think it’s all just a big game. It’s as if they don’t realise that when my father catches him, he’ll be killed."

One part of Merlin seemed to panic, instantly and miserably and as if he hadn’t always known that Harold ran the risk of a very public death, which he did, of course, and on some level Merlin was thinking about that all the time. The other part, however, couldn’t help the twinge of hopefulness that ran through him. He turned to look at Arthur, striding along in profile with his hair full of the sun, that furrow in his brow that was sometimes noble and sometimes infuriating and very often a mixture of the two.

"You don’t think he deserves to be killed?" Merlin asked, aiming for a neutral, disinterested sort of tone, and it came out sounding only slightly strangled.

Arthur faltered for a second, and met Merlin’s eyes quite by accident when he turned to look at him. Merlin glanced away and almost didn’t realise for a second that Arthur had stopped walking.

"I don’t," Arthur said, as if he was realising it for the first time. Perhaps he was. "He’s broken the rules and, yes, that’s wrong, and yes, he probably deserves prison or exile for that, but - no. In my heart, I do not feel that it would be justifiable to end his life for behaviour that...that hasn’t harmed anyone at all."

Arthur looked a little stunned. Merlin was trying not to react, but he wanted to reach out and touch him, and the impulse seemed strange to him, but there it was - he wanted to reach out and grab his arm or his shoulder or something and say, please, you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that. He wanted to say, you aren’t your father, and I’m not a killer, and Harold and I are good people. He wanted to tell Arthur everything.

"What I just said," Arthur muttered delicately. "It goes against everything I’ve ever been taught."

"I know," said Merlin. He could have kicked himself. 'I know' wasn’t going to cut it.

"Do you think I’m wrong?"

Merlin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; the fact that Arthur was asking for his opinion on something like this was so ironic, so insane, and there was something in Arthur’s face that was puzzling too. Some look of desperation that implied - a certain level of importance placed upon Merlin’s opinion. It only occurred to Merlin distantly, in some part of his brain that wasn’t warring loudly with all the other parts, but it surprised him anyway. He vaguely wondered just how blank and stupid his facial expression must be.

"No," he said. "No, I don't think you’re wrong--"

"Your Highness?"

The voice came from somewhere to their right, a few metres away, in roughly the direction they were headed. Merlin’s heart sank. Arthur didn’t break eye contact while he called back, "We’re here. We’re just coming."

Then he started walking, and Merlin knew with surety that the moment was lost.

+

That night, Merlin and Harold went out together to spread a little joy and have a little fun, and for a while Merlin was able to forget that they were in danger, that they were criminals, that he had failed to make Arthur understand them when he had the perfect opportunity to do so.

"Should I wear a mask as well?" Merlin asked.

"Let’s neither of us wear masks. Everyone will be looking for a masked man now, and besides, I only wore it because I thought it made me look mysterious..."

They followed a couple on their way back from a loud and boisterous dance in a tavern ("you seem to do a lot of stalking; is it big on stalking, this job?"), and at the moment he kissed her goodnight, Harold conjured a shower of rose petals to descend from the sky and fall around them. They laughed in disbelief; the girl caught a few petals in her hand that were crushed between them when he kissed her again. When Merlin and Harold snuck away, nobody followed them. Merlin wanted to try something with the dance itself and they made their way back towards it, wondering what it should be.

Looking through the window, Harold said, "You could fill the room with water or something."

"Why?"

"I don’t know. Just, might be interesting."

"What about something with birds?"

"Like what with birds?"

"I don’t know. Or," he added, "or I could pick the best dancer and make them float or something."

Harold shook his head. Offhand, he said, "Too hard. We’re too far away, you wouldn’t be able to."

Merlin narrowed his eyes. "Oh?"

Squinting through the dirty window beside Harold - they were standing on some boxes and for all the world looked like just a couple of lads who couldn’t get dates - Merlin chose his favourite, a girl in yellow who swayed like the branches of trees and didn’t seem to notice anybody else, and he told her to float, and she did. People in the dance looked up and screamed and danced and he told her not to panic, and she didn’t, and somebody said, "Keep dancing," and they all kept dancing.

Harold laughed and clapped beside him, not quite believing, then grabbed Merlin’s arm - "Put her down. He looks like he wants to come looking - by the doorway..."

Merlin lowered her as gently as he could, but the arms of the other revellers were waiting to receive her and as soon as they held her in place, the two of them ran away, shrieking and laughing and feeling like princes.

"We can do anything we want," Harold said, "Do you realise?"

Merlin just laughed and laughed.

They were silent as they snuck back into Merlin’s bedroom and collapsed onto the tiny, rickety bed, breathing hard. The blood was thudding in Merlin’s ears and Harold leaned close to him, his hair falling into his eyes, and whispered, "I never realised - I knew you were talented, but Merlin, you’re brilliant. The best I’ve ever seen."

He touched Merlin’s face, then he touched Merlin’s jaw and the ball of his thumb stroked a line against Merlin’s cheekbone. For a second, Merlin was aware of everything, his own chest rising and falling hard, Harold’s breath on his face, the expressions of the couple underneath the rose petals and the funny thing their smiles had reminded him of, something he hadn’t been expecting. He stood up abruptly. Harold blinked at him in the darkness, surprised.

"Goodnight," Merlin said. "You take the bed tonight."

Minutes later, as they lay in the dark, looking at the same ceiling, he added, "You have to leave Camelot soon. You must know that. Uther is - incensed. He won’t stop until he finds you."

"Yes," said Harold’s voice. He sounded horribly weary. "Yes, Merlin, I know."

Merlin slept horribly.

+

Uther’s address to the court the next morning was as unpleasant as it was inevitable, and although Merlin’s heart sank to hear it, he remained unsurprised - magic was a risk to the kingdom that must be eliminated, what seemed harmless was likely an overture to an attempt to topple their way of life, and so on ad infinitum. He couldn’t decide whether watching the uncomfortable look on Arthur’s face shift awkwardly about made him feel better or worse.

Several people looked distinctly miserable, though; Morgana’s mouth had become a hard, thin line and behind her, Gwen kept her face lowered. She caught Merlin’s eye only once, and the expression there made him feel - not alone. Part of him believed that those fleeting moments of hope were worth all the danger of housing Harold and allowing him to operate. He couldn’t help it. He was addicted to the sensation of there being light at the end of the tunnel.

"Now that the height of his inexplicable popularity is beginning to wane," Uther continued, "People may be less inclined to hide him, or otherwise help him to escape the justice he deserves, and more inclined to remember that the penalty for doing so is death. There will be a door-to-door search tomorrow morning and word of it is not to leave this room. Thank you."

Merlin fell silently into step with Arthur as they filed out. By the time they’d reached the cloisters, Morgana was behind them, vibrating with visible anger. Arthur turned to face her.

"Before you say anything," he said, holding up a hand, "I know."

"But do you?" she asked, scowling. "The people are happy. Half these conjuring tricks have been romantic gestures, the other half have been pranks or wish fulfilment or... A manhunt will destroy their morale. They’ll hate it."

"They’ll hate it, and we’ll hate it, and then it will be over and everybody will forget about it," Arthur said. His voice sounded weary in a way that Merlin couldn’t help finding familiar; after a moment, he realised that the tone of it had reminded him of Harold.

It almost slipped out of him, for one dizzying split-second: looking at these faces, from Arthur’s set jaw to Morgana’s open hostility to Gwen’s awkward frown, hovering a little behind her Lady, Merlin knew that they were three of the people he trusted most in the world. The temptation to say to them, I know where he is and I know that we can save him - it was almost too much. Morgana’s shoulders sank and Arthur gave one of them an awkwardly boyish pat.

"It just isn’t fair," she said.

"It isn't," Gwen blurted out, and looked surprised at herself, and looked away.

To the untrained eye, Arthur’s smile was so thin and reluctant as to be barely noticeable; but to Merlin, who knew Arthur’s face perhaps better than any other, it was unmissable. He wondered if Arthur was thinking the same things he was, about trust and odds and fighting unwinnable battles, if not from a slightly different perspective.

"I know it isn’t," he said sadly. "If it makes you feel better, I’ll try very hard to do a terrible job tomorrow."

"Shouldn’t be too difficult," Merlin put in, which made Morgana snort and Arthur give him a Look, although all of them knew he didn’t mean it. Underneath it there was something grateful.

Merlin and Arthur walked down to the training field after saying goodbye to Morgana and Gwen, but Arthur didn’t immediately take out any equipment like Merlin had been expecting.

"You’re due for archery practice, aren’t you?" asked Merlin, and Arthur shrugged in a noncommittal way. They sat side-by-side on a grassy bank and looked out at the younger knights, beating each other black and blue even with all the padding on that they wouldn’t have when it came to the real thing, and Merlin thought, not for the first time, what a strange existence it was that Arthur had always had, and how oddly lonely.

"Sometimes you seem so keen to give your opinions," Arthur began, out of nowhere, "that I can barely shut you up. But there are other times - with some things..." He shook his head. "You just clam up. I don’t know. And it’s impossible to know what you really think."

Merlin frowned, taken aback, and resisted the urge to ask why it mattered what he thought for all of about ten seconds. "Why does it matter what I think?"

Arthur shrugged and squinted into the sun and said, "Don’t know. Just does."

If he was going to be so desperately unhelpful, Merlin wasn’t going to make sense alone, the realm of 'making sense' being rather a lonely place for a fellow, so he just sort of shrugged back, and that seemed to be enough for a little while. They sat in comfortable silence and Merlin could feel the heat of Arthur’s arm against its knee, where it rested slightly because of how close together they were sitting. He didn’t know why he’d notice something like that. He thought about the rose petal couple, tried to remember the thought he’d had that had seemed so important at the time.

Arthur stood up and stretched like a cat, clearly ready to begin, but turned back to Merlin for a second before he did and, not quite meeting his eyes, said, "You are all right, though, aren’t you? You just look tired lately."

He shuffled from foot to foot. "Yes," Merlin said, "I’m all right," and only realised after Arthur had nodded sagely and jogged away towards the targets that he hadn’t said thank you.

+

When Merlin got back to his room that afternoon, he found Harold sitting on the floor with his back to Merlin’s bed, hunched and thoughtful. He was spinning something in his hands, a repetitive, unconscious sort of motion.

"I’ve brought you some food," said Merlin, by way of a greeting, and Harold looked up at him like he hadn’t noticed before that Merlin was in the room. His face broke into a smile.

"Hello," he said.

"I’ve brought you some food," Merlin repeated, holding out some bread and cheese, then added a, "Hello."

Harold took it and thanked him gratefully, but looked disinterested, in spite of the fact that he likely hadn’t eaten all day. He was staring into the middle distance again. Merlin was beginning to consider ‘concern’ as an option for the immediate future, when Harold interrupted his own apparently deeply enveloping train of thought to say, "I know what we need to do."

Pausing for only a moment, before moving across the room to sit opposite him on the floor, Merlin tried not to worry too hard about what, exactly, that might be. When he was cross-legged and attentive, he gave a little, only slightly impatient nod, and Harold - who had a liking for a proper audience - began.

"My aim in coming to Camelot, apart from having a little fun, was to create debate and discussion around something that had hitherto been - well, rather a closed book." Merlin nodded. "But you must agree that we have to do more. Merlin, you’re more powerful than any sorcerer I’ve ever met, it positively emanates from you, and more than that...you’re perfectly placed." He gave Merlin a significant look. Merlin blinked.

"I’m sorry," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Perfectly placed?"

"Yes," Harold cried, caught somewhere between exasperation and excitement. "To - well. To get to Arthur. You could help reach him, nobody would suspect - we can take him by force and demand a ransom, a review of the law, and if it doesn’t happen--"

"No," Merlin blurted out, through the white noise of his own shock. "There’s absolutely no way that’s going to happen."

"I know that you’re reluctant to cause any real trouble; you are a good man, Merlin. But think, think of what this could achieve for our cause!"

"You’ve done so much for our cause, as you called it, these last few weeks, without hurting anyone at all. I thought that was the point."

"But nothing’s changed. The people are coming around to our way of thinking, yes, but my days in Camelot must surely be numbered and there’s no changing Uther’s mind. The man’s a monster."

"I know he is," Merlin said, able to hear the desperation in his own voice. "But his son isn’t."

Harold looked surprised, but only for a few moments. His wide-eyed expression slid away to be replaced by something calm and neutral, and as he leaned forwards to hold on to Merlin’s wrist, everything about his posture speaking a kind of calm understanding, Merlin couldn’t help thinking, oh, you’re good.

"Listen," Harold started.

"No. Sorry, but no. Arthur’s a good man and he isn’t like his father, he has a depth of understanding that, I mean... There’s - possibilities - and the heartbreaking thing is that it's you, you've made him start to see things differently. I can’t undo that by hurting him, by threatening his life--"

"One life, Merlin," Harold interrupted, with an intensity that bordered on frightening. "One life, for the lives of hundreds of people like us."

"Uther won’t respond to threats."

"I think you’re wrong."

"This isn’t the right way."

"It’s the only way we have."

"It isn’t," Merlin snapped, pulling his arm away and standing up. "One day, Arthur will be a good king and under his reign, the world we know will change. I know you don’t want to wait that long. Well, tough. There’s nothing we can do. At sun-up tomorrow, Uther will be searching all the houses in this town, and he knows who lives here, and you don’t, and he’ll find you. I’ll help you get out of Camelot tonight." He stalked over to the doorway and stood with one hand on the handle, staring resolutely at the floor. "I have to go back to work for a little while. I’m sorry."

"You’d turn away from your own kind to protect him, and he doesn’t even know who you are," said Harold, coldly. "He’ll never appreciate you. He’ll never know what you do for him. Don’t you think you deserve more?"

Merlin ducked out of the door while Harold was quiet, waiting for him to speak, and didn’t look back. He didn’t want to listen anymore, didn’t want to give Harold another chance to try and convince him, suddenly, to go against everything he’d ever believed to be right. He hated the world as he careered down the stairs and across to the front door, the weight of disappointment in his chest so heavy and all-consuming that he almost ran into Gaius without realising he was there, and let out a slight, involuntary shriek upon noticing him.

He managed to turn it into a high-pitched, "Hello," and wondered if he’d gotten away with it.

Gaius raised an eyebrow. "Why are you home? I thought you had to stay late this evening, to prepare Arthur for the banquet?"

"It’s more of a mini-banquet really," Merlin rambled, "A few distant family members visiting and I - did, I do, I’m - I’m going back now. I just came home for the. Thing. That I forgot."

They looked at each other for a few moments.

Out of nowhere, Gaius heaved an impossibly heavy sigh, loud and sudden in the silence, and then said, "Please, do me the service of not treating me like a complete idiot. You idiot."

Merlin blinked.

"Are you hiding a fugitive in your bedroom, Merlin?" asked Gaius, raising his eyebrows as if to drum home exactly what a Stupid Thing this was to do. Merlin felt shocked and relieved all at once, in that odd way that, somehow, being caught out lying is okay because it means one no longer has to lie; he opened his mouth to explain, but Gaius cut him off with a raised palm.

"We’re not discussing it now," he said. "Or how you could possibly think I wouldn’t know. We’ll talk about it tonight - after you get him out."

"Yes," Merlin stammered. "I’m going to. Tonight. I promise." A pause. "I’m sorry."

"Please," said Gaius darkly. "Don’t."

Reluctantly, Merlin didn’t; with a nod and a look of contrition, he left.

+

All in all, Merlin was in a dark and despondent mood by the time he reached Arthur’s quarters, and didn’t really want to see or speak to any living human ever again. Arthur, perhaps fretting about the coming morning, turned out to be antsy and vaguely argumentative himself, which made for a deeply unpleasant twenty minutes of nitpicking and sniping until Merlin got so angry that his hands were shaking and he accidentally dropped a goblet on Arthur’s best rug.

"For pity’s sake, Merlin," Arthur snapped. "Isn’t there anything you can do right?"

"You have no idea what I do for you," Merlin bit back, before he could stop himself. Awfully, he didn’t regret it even once the words were out; he was too angry, too bitter, too confused. Harold was right. Saying goodbye to him meant saying goodbye to probably the only person who’d ever really understood him, for this man - this rude, arrogant, bloody-minded pig of a man. Sometimes, he hated doing the right thing.

Arthur looked vaguely surprised, but Merlin turned on his heel before either of them could say anything worse and made for the exit.

"Don’t you dare walk out of here with duties still to perform," Arthur half-shouted, but there was an uncertainty in his voice that made it feel unthreatening and unimportant. Merlin had no problem ignoring him.

"Enjoy your stupid feast," said Merlin, "I’m done for today," and slammed the door petulantly on his way out, which didn’t make him feel any better, but hopefully made Arthur feel a little worse.

+

Merlin went for a very long walk. He liked walking; once he’d discovered, in his teenage years, that the repercussions of losing his temper could be far greater for him than for other boys his age, he had gotten into the habit of doing so whenever he got cross. There was something familiar, something rhythmic and calming about it, and Camelot was a beautiful place to wander. He meandered through the edges of the forest and even considered going up by the lake, but it was already getting dark, and that was the main objective, really. If he didn’t go home until it was already late enough, he and Harold wouldn’t have to wait together for night to fall, awkward, sad, quieter than usual.

Merlin was tired and numb enough from the constant barrage of thoughts that, by the time he’d reached his bedroom and found it empty, the contents of Harold’s note surprised him in a place that seemed distant and difficult to reach.

M.,
So sorry; you’ll probably never understand, but this is so important. At least this way you aren't to blame.
Hope you can forgive me one day.
Regards,
H.

He dropped it, spun on his heel and ran.

+

A quick scan of the banquet hall revealed the tail-end of what looked to have been a fairly mediocre feast, and no Arthur. Merlin grabbed a serving girl by the wrist, panting and wild-eyed, and gasped out, "Where’s the Prince?"

She shook her head, alarmed. "Don’t know," she said and then, coming to her senses, yanked her arm away. "I haven’t seen him. What is it?"

"Nothing," said Merlin. He ducked out of the door and made for Arthur’s quarters, taking the stairs two at a time and stumbling in a startlingly ungainly manner as he did so. He could feel one of his shins bruising, but continued along the corridor at a fast-paced limp, only slowing as he approached the room itself and realised that he could hear voices on the other side of the door.

He pressed his ear to the wood, but it was too thick, too well-made - only the best for royalty - and he knew there was nothing for it but to burst in. He took a step backwards: in three.

Two

One.

Merlin gave the door a hard shove with his shoulder and it swung open disconcertingly easily, throwing him off balance, which presumably meant that somebody had forgotten to lock it. Having stumbled into the room, he immediately closed the door with the weight of his body, leaning back against it, and surveyed the scene. A stunned-looking Arthur was sitting on the bed, a dagger held inches from his neck by a slightly less stunned-looking Harold. A bubble of panic and hysteria rose in Merlin’s stomach and suddenly all he could imagine saying was, so, you two’ve been introduced then.

"Merlin," said Arthur, blinking. Then, somewhat unncessecarily, "I seem to be having some difficulties."

"Shut up," Harold bit out. The top buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing a collar bone, and he held the knife with a curious mixture of uncertainty and gritty determination. "Just, stop talking. Merlin - are you here to help or are you here to try and stop me?"

"Why would he want to help," Arthur said, voice so flat and confused that it wasn’t even a question, he just looked puzzled. No time to deal with that now.

"What do you think?" Merlin asked, nudging sarcasm. He tried to think of the kind of thing Arthur might do in this situation, like counting the number of steps between here and the knife or the distance of the dagger from the unfortunate hostage’s face, but none of that seemed terribly helpful. Arthur, for all his faults, was dreadfully useful in situations like these; Merlin was beginning to come round to his way of thinking, re. 'Merlin you are useless at everything.' What he wouldn’t give for it to be a normal evening, with Arthur telling him exactly that. He was shaking.

"Look," Harold began.

"Was this your plan?" Merlin asked. "Did you even have a plan? I know you’re desperate, Harold, but - we can still just leave. Leave with me, now. You don’t have to do anything stupid, it won’t achieve anything, you’ve done so much good..."

"I have to," Harold said. Taking a step forwards, Merlin could see the tears standing out in his eyes; he blinked furiously. "I don’t care what happens to me."

It was funny to see somebody who’d always struck Merlin as so much more together and composed, so much calmer and more confident than himself, in a state of such uncertainty and despair. Well, not funny. Just horrid.

"I think you thought this was a good idea when you left the house," Merlin said delicately. "And I think you realised pretty quickly that it wasn’t. That it wouldn’t achieve anything. And now you’re frightened and you don’t know what to do."

"How do you two know each other?" Arthur asked. He was beginning to look nervous; Merlin realised he’d been doing that sort of heroic, feigning-a-lack-of-concern thing that was so popular with people like him. He felt an oddly protective urge come over him - not only a sense of 'not wanting a good man to be harmed', but an acute and desperate emotion that involved his friend, about whom Merlin cared, not being afraid or in danger. It didn’t help.

Ignoring him, Harold said, "It was like coming out of a dream. I told him I had a message from his manservant, or about his manservant, I can’t remember, and then when we got away from the feast I pulled out the knife and I - but then I looked at him and I realised it was--" He rubbed fiercely, almost angrily at his face with the hand not holding the knife. "They killed my sister."

"Who did?" asked Arthur.

"Nobodies," said Harold. A kind of dull disbelief stood out in his voice. "Just people. Not the King’s guard or even your father, but ordinary people who were - scared of him, and his rules, and scared of her simply because Uther had told them they should be." He was visibly crying now. "It isn’t fair."

Merlin, who felt like there wasn’t room in his head for any more feelings just at that moment, stored a lot of thoughts away to deal with later and said, "I know. I’m sorry. It isn’t fair."

"You’re supposed to understand. You’re supposed to be on my side," he spat, tugging at his hair - a nervous habit that Merlin recognised immediately. Then, in a flash, Harold had grabbed Arthur’s shirt with his spare hand and was pressing the point of the dagger against the skin of his neck, hard enough for him to feel it, but not quite hard enough to draw blood.

"No," Merlin shrieked, and held out a hand.

Arthur had a caged sort of look in his eyes and was holding tightly on to the arm gripping his shirt, jaw clenched. "If you’re going to think of something, Merlin," he muttered, through gritted teeth, "Do it soon."

"Do you want those to be your last words, Prince Arthur?" Harold asked. Distantly, Merlin noticed that he was shaking, too.

Arthur met Merlin’s eyes and there was something in them, something familiar that Merlin couldn’t place and didn’t understand - he wondered if Arthur was trying to tell him something, something that could help, but it seemed unlikely. Merlin was beginning to realise that there was only really one option still available to him.

Still looking at Merlin with that complex expression, Arthur said, "No."

"Please, Harold, please don’t do this," Merlin said. "I think you want to be stopped. But you know what it means if I stop you."

"Uther’s caused so many deaths," Harold said. "Why shouldn’t I hurt somebody that means something to him?"

"Because you aren’t a killer. You aren’t. You blamed the people, but you tried to change them anyway, you gave them something wonderful - you were doing so well--"

"Not enough." He drew back the knife hand, suddenly, violently, either to strike or to make Merlin believe that he would strike. The distinction hardly mattered, because Merlin had only a split second to react and, of course, he chose as he had always known he would choose, one day, in such a situation. He chose to save Arthur’s life, no matter the consequences.

Merlin felt the rush of heat, right to his fingertips, and the spark in his eyes; the woosh of air as Harold catapulted backwards and was pinned against the wall, as if shoved and held there by an invisible hand; the tinkling of the knife against the hard stone floor. For those few blissful moments, Merlin’s magic had no consequences: it just existed, and did what it existed to do, and he was nothing else but magic. He had no emotions. He was alone with the fact of his power’s existence and time had slowed down to a glorious caramel chugging-by of microseconds.

Then he came back to himself, and everything was ruined.

Arthur was looking at him with a mixture of shock and revulsion, something primal and horrified visible in his eyes, and Harold was gasping for air, winded by the force of the impact and unable to move. Merlin stayed still, rooted to the spot in the centre of the room, with what he imagined was a fairly useless expression of dull shock on his face.

All of them were silent for a time.

When somebody spoke, it was Arthur. "For how long," he murmured, so weakly that Merlin almost doubted he’d spoken at all. He looked at him; Arthur was staring resolutely Elsewhere.

"For ever," Merlin said, because there was nothing left to him now but the truth. "For as long as I can remember."

"Merlin’s ashamed of what he is," Harold said, head tipped back against the wall, eyes closed.

"Never," Merlin spat. "I just wanted a life, as well."

"You get one or the other in Camelot, Merlin, not both: magic or a life."

"I’ve only ever used it to help you," Merlin cried, turning back to Arthur with desperate purpose. "I know you think magic’s evil, but I can’t help it, I - it’s just something I was born with, and - do you remember when we met, the singer and the chandelier...? That was magic. And I’ve used it to save you so many times since then and never been able to tell you."

"So you lied," said Arthur.

"I - what?"

"As long as we’ve known each other, all you’ve done is lie to me."

Merlin wanted to explain, he wanted to protest, but somehow the most he could manage was a choked, "I’m sorry." Arthur, standing up, met his eyes for the first time in what felt like forever, and there was something terrifying there. "I’m so sorry," Merlin carried on. "I didn’t know what else to do."

"I suppose that explains how you and 'The Wizard' got so well-acquainted," Arthur replied, with a kind of scathing bitterness in his voice that sounded wrong, un-Arthur-like. He barked a mirthless laugh and looked around at Harold. "The really stupid thing is, part of me was curious to meet you all this time."

"My reputation precedes me," Harold said bleakly.

Arthur continued, voice flat and emotionless, "I’d like to believe that this is somehow your fault - that it was you who corrupted my servant - my friend. But that isn’t true, is it?"

Harold looked past him to meet Merlin’s eyes when he spoke. "Merlin," he said sadly, "Is all of his own making."

For a moment, Merlin thought that Arthur was going to hit him, or hit Merlin, or pick up the knife; all manner of angry and desperate things seemed possible. The threat of sudden violence lingered in the air, and he and Harold both flinched when Arthur turned suddenly and walked towards the door. He stopped just before it, not looking at them, to say, "I’m going to leave now, and I don’t intend to send any guards. But if you aren’t both gone by the time I get back here, I shall kill you myself. Get out."

He slammed the door with a force that rattled the ornaments on the mantel. Merlin, who had heard the way his voice broke on the word 'kill', so utterly outside of his control, felt like he didn’t mind awfully much anymore what happened to either of them. He felt like they’d deserve it.

+

Arthur was as good as his word; their exit from the castle was swift and unimpeded, and they made for the city walls together in silence. Now that the panic and the adrenalin was fading, Merlin felt numb, dully accepting of the fact that his life as he knew it had been taken from him. He could feel the shadow of the executioner’s axe on the back of his neck, but all he could think about, really think about, was the look of sheer disappointment he’d seen in Arthur’s eyes.

Of course. After all this time, magic as a concept had been a shock, it was still instinctively repulsive to him - but what had really hurt him was the fact that Merlin had lied. To a man like Arthur, for whom honour was not merely a vague concept but a concrete, unavoidable tenet by which he existed, this was the real betrayal. Merlin should have known.

He and Harold reached the limits of Camelot, the point at which it faded into trees and shrubbery and silence until you came to the next village. Merlin paused. Harold turned to look at him.

"I’m not coming," Merlin said.

Harold smiled sadly, with half his mouth, and stared at his own boots. "I had a feeling you might say that." He paused. "Merlin, I’m--"

"I know you’re sorry. You were desperate."

"But I should have listened to you. Everything you said, it was true - once I had him, I realised I had no idea what to do with him, I didn’t want to, to kill anybody, not really, and he - well. You were right about him, too. He isn’t his father."

Merlin blinked furiously, so angry and bitter and helpless that the part of him that was still a boy wanted to cry, and the part of him that was a man was angrier still for his own weakness. He had no right.

"I’m sorry about your sister," he murmured.

Harold touched his arm and then his cheek with a gloved hand. Merlin looked at him.

"You have to come with me, Merlin," he said, serious now. "I’m so sorry, and I know I’m the last person you want to... But if you stay here, you’ll die."

Merlin stood still, slightly gut-punched by both deeply felt instincts: to recoil from the man who had done him a terrible wrong, and to cling on to the person who had most understood him as long as he’d lived. He wondered when the townsfolk would grow tired of stories of The Wizard.

"I can’t. I really can’t. If Arthur tells somebody what I am - and I wouldn’t blame him at all - but if he tells somebody, and then I’ve disappeared, they’ll go straight for Gaius. He took me in. He’s like a father to me. I can't." He trailed off. Harold nodded sagely and then leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Merlin’s cheek. Merlin didn’t have it in him to be surprised by much of anything anymore. He stayed still and said nothing.

Harold pulled away a little, and looked Merlin in the eye, face full of contrition. "You are a better man than I could ever hope to be," he said, and Merlin knew all at once that he meant it, and also that it was true. He felt so stupid, looking at Harold and thinking how he’d revered him, how brave and clever he’d once thought him, how daring. It seemed a lifetime ago.

"Goodbye," said Merlin.

"Goodbye, Merlin," said Harold.

Merlin sort of hated himself for it, but he stood and watched the retreating silhouette of his once-friend until there was not a bit of movement to be seen amongst the trees.

+

He awoke the next morning to the sound of somebody pounding on the door, and panicked; he had no real memory of falling asleep. He knew he’d intended to wake Gaius and explain, and vaguely recalled sitting on his bed to catch his breath for a moment, and the next thing he knew he was - waking up, and it was daylight, and presumably somebody had arrived to burn him at the stake.

Merlin leapt to his feet, adrenalised by panic, in time to hear the sound of the front door opening and Gaius speaking to somebody. Unthinking, he walked out of his room and had reached the table by the time his knees buckled with terror and he had to sit in one of the chairs.

"Sorry," the guard said, seeing Merlin’s bed-ruffled hair as he made his way into the house. "Just a routine check. We’re going round everywhere."

Merlin blinked.

"They’re here looking for that 'Wizard' character," Gaius said, giving Merlin a very significant look. "They’re welcome to, aren’t they?"

"What," said Merlin, flatly uncomprehending.

"I said," looking exasperated, "They’re welcome to look round, aren’t they?"

"Oh. Yes."

Merlin sat in silence, staring at the stained wood of the table at which he had sat hundreds of times before, where he’d eaten meals, where he’d learned more about magic than most people would ever know. The fact that the guards were here meant that Arthur had told nobody and was leading the search for Harold regardless of the fact that he knew he was gone. Merlin wasn’t sure if this made him feel better or worse.

"That’ll be all, thanks," said the man, vaguely familiar, as they ducked out of the door. Gaius closed it behind them and turned around, wearing a look of relief and irritation mixed together.

What Merlin really needed was some sort of a plan.

+

"I know that no amount of apologies will ever really, uh," Merlin floundered. "Will ever really - no, that’s terrible." He covered his face with his hands.

Having been sacked yesterday, his being in Arthur’s room was now pretty much just breaking and entering. He'd gone there at speed, looking rather a mess and with little to no plan, and had been fairly relieved to find, whn he arrived, that Arthur himself was nowhere to be seen, presumably still out conducting the dummy search. So he'd sat down on the bed to think of something suitably impressive, and time had passed. No ideas had presented themselves.

Merlin was toying with the possibility of concealing himself somewhere and sort of jumping out - immediately dismissed for being meritless and a bit insane - when the door swung open. His heart hurled itself with abandon against his own ribcage and he dug his fingers into his knees, the panic that rose in his throat making him want to run away or do something ridiculous. Arthur stood in the doorway, looking tired and miserable, and then very surprised. He controlled himself with the speed of somebody who has spent their life in the public eye and his expression hardened quickly.

"Get out," he said, flatly.

"I’m sorry," Merlin blurted.

"Get out."

"Please," he said, standing up. Arthur came into the room, shut the door behind him and glared at him from in front of it.

"You have ten seconds before I throw you out myself," he said. And then, with heartbreaking sincerity, "Tell me it was a trick. A joke. Tell me it wasn’t true."

Merlin moved towards him. "I can’t," he stammered. "I mean, it was. I am - I really am--"

"I know what you are," Arthur muttered, emotionlessly. "Get out," he said again, but he didn’t move or make any overture to removing Merlin by force.

Not knowing what else to do, Merlin decided that now might be a good point in his life to begin telling the truth at speed. "I wanted to tell you," he said. "Lots of times."

Arthur said nothing.

"All the time," he continued, taking another step towards him. "Well, not all the time, but - but so often. I didn’t have any choice. I didn’t choose to be like this, it... But I thought that if you knew, you wouldn’t, I mean, you wouldn’t see me anymore, you’d just look at me and see this thing that you thought was bad - but it isn’t always bad, it depends on the person." He ran a hand through his hair and wished he was a more impressive speaker. Arthur was looking at him like something cornered. Merlin added, "I’ve got so much explaining to do."

For a few moments, neither of them spoke - a relief to Merlin, who’d been expecting a swift denial that he would be able or allowed to explain - and Merlin didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t know what Arthur wanted from him, with that familiar, unreadable expression on his face that always made Merlin feel desperate, the one he saw sometimes that made him want to blurt out absolutely everything and deal with the consequences later.

A powerful memory struck him, quite suddenly, of the night he and Harold had caused mischief; the thrum of magic in his veins and the laughter of strangers in his ears. Merlin remembered the couple, the young lovers in the street who Harold, wherever he was now, had showered with rose petals that drifted down around them like snow - the familiar, important something in their eyes when they looked at each other and how it had made him feel. Merlin realised, now, why it had struck him so intensely. It had reminded him of the look he saw in Arthur’s eyes sometimes, the quicksilver something that occasionally greeted him when their eyes met, indefinable, always just outside his understanding. He felt like the slowest - like the stupidest -

Merlin realised, dully, that he’d walked the foot or so to stand in front of Arthur, who had shut his eyes as if he was frightened and was pressed so hard into the door that no part of them was touching, even though Merlin was standing quite close. Merlin wanted to say, it’s okay, it’s all going to be fine, but he wasn’t sure if he could speak. He steeled himself.

"You led the search anyway," he said, at length. "You could have had me killed, you could have done anything. I don’t think the magic matters to you at all, really. I think you were just - I think I just--"

Arthur opened his eyes, some mixture of hurt and exasperated and desperate, and he said, "For crying out loud, Merlin, do something."

Merlin kissed him. In many ways, he couldn’t be held responsible, because it was a 'something' after all.

It was a bit breathy and nervous and awkward. It was like fireworks. It was like answers. Merlin considered a grand gesture, perhaps some birds or just a giant sign unveiling from the ceiling that said ‘hello there Merlin is an idiot’, but he thought perhaps it would be better to save the magic for another day. One hurdle at a time. Besides, Arthur tugged on Merlin’s shirt and made a sort of keening noise that said, quite adequately, 'Merlin you are an idiot', so possibly he had it covered for now all by himself.

+

They sat side-by-side on the steps down to the courtyard, watching the bustle of Arthur’s distant relatives or family friends or something - Merlin had never quite worked out who these people were - being loaded onto horses and sent on their way. Merlin felt aware of every inch of Arthur’s body in a way that was almost comically ridiculous and exaggerated. He could feel the warmth of his skin through his clothes. They sat in a comfortable state of mostly quiet.

"They’ll all forget about him in time," said Arthur mildly. "A month or two from now, nobody will be looking. Nobody will even really remember."

"People are fickle," Merlin said. "But for a while, they loved him. A conjuror. Scarcely even seems possible." He stopped himself just short of saying, 'When you’re king...' - there’d be a time for that and it wasn’t now. He didn’t deserve that conversation just yet. Instead, he added, "Are we okay?"

Arthur didn’t meet his gaze, still looking out at the people, but when he said, "Yes," and then, "Sort of," his tone of voice said, Not just yet. Merlin wasn’t surprised. He knew, really; he knew that so many things had changed and it was insane and terrifying a million times over. He knew that they needed to have so many conversations. They had to get to know each other again, essentially, in more ways than one, and it would take time.

But under that look of 'not fixed', Merlin could see, when Arthur turned towards him, that Something in his eyes, still very much present, and at once, Merlin knew two things. Firstly, that Arthur’s expression meant, 'but one day it will be', and secondly that he was right. Merlin knew that it was true, that the thought that had struck him in Arthur’s chambers, 'everything will be okay,' was a true one, no matter how difficult the present was. For the first time in a long time, he had hope.

.