Five Times Gwen Could Have Saved Morgana (and One Time She Did) - (Gwen/Morgana, Gwen/Arthur)
One
Never in her life had Gwen felt as nervous as she did the, standing in the middle of her mistress’ chambers. Her breath came in ragged gasps and her hands wringed in front of her of their own accord. Every day for a year she prayed to God to keep Morgana safe, prayed for her return, to see her again. Now that her prayers were coming true, she almost wished they weren’t.
Memories of the closeness she had developed with Arthur over the year - even before that - came unbidden to the front of her mind, feeding the guilt that bubbled dark and fierce under her skin. It would kill Morgana if she ever found out, but keeping quiet would be an even greater betrayal that Gwen would never be free from.
She contemplated just running, fleeing the room and putting off their reunion for as long as she could... but it was too late. There were footsteps in the hall and the door was opening.
“Ah, Gwen, would you be so kind as to make Morgana comfortable whilst I retrieve a bottle of her draught?” Gaius said cheerfully, appearing in the doorway with his arms on Morgana’s shoulders, guiding her into the room.
Gwen opened her mouth but nothing came out. There she was, after all that time, standing in the doorway looking... “Of course.”
Gaius smiled, nodding at Gwen. “Good. Well, I’ll leave you two to your reunion.”
And just like that, they were left alone.
What Gwen should have done - what she wanted desperately to do - was to run across the room and hug Morgana so tightly that neither of them could breathe. But guilt kept her rooted to the spot and the cold of Morgana’s long unoccupied chambers overwhelmed her, making her shiver.
Looking back on it, she couldn’t help but wonder if she could have stopped all that was to come right then and there. If she had greeted Morgana with even a quarter of the love, relief and desperation that Morgana had greeted her with when she had been kidnapped, she might have been able to melt her heart.
Instead, she saw Morgana’s eyes fill with hurt as she stood alone in the doorway, her heart breaking into a million pieces.
Without knowing it, Gwen had just condemned the entire kingdom.
Two
It should have been a wakeup call. Seeing her unconscious and bleeding after the siege should have jarred Gwen through the barrier that had risen between them. But it didn’t.
She stood by and watched as Gaius dabbed the blood from Morgana’s forehead, a job that should have been hers. A year ago, she would have sat on the bed and watched for every single breath until Morgana awoke, afraid that each one would be her last. Now though, now she just prayed that Gaius wouldn’t leave them alone.
If she had been there, eyes pinched with worry, hand twined with Morgana’s when she woke up, things might have gone differently. But when Morgana’s bright eyes opened, Gwen wasn’t even in the room.
Three
She got her wakeup call a month later when once again Morgana was injured, this time far more gravely. Seeing her gorgeous cream skin turn cold and grey sent shocks through Gwen’s body and the tears that she had been holding back since Morgana returned, spilled over with the force of a mighty river swelling and breaking its banks. How could she have let it happen? How could she have left Morgana without something she needed so badly that she would venture out in the night to find it? For a moment she entertained the thought that maybe Morgana had been coming to see her as she used to. There were nights when Morgana would appear at her door with a mischievous smile and a jug of wine she had lifted from the kitchens but those nights seemed a very long time ago, much longer than the year and a half it had been.
“What happened to us?” Gwen murmured, brushing a lock of hair back from Morgana’s pallid forehead. “When did it all go wrong?” She knew where it had gone wrong. It was her fault. If she and Arthur had never... That was what was driving them apart but she couldn’t stop it. Somewhere along the line, she had began to treat Arthur as if her were more important to her than Morgana was and that was the ultimate betrayal.
This time she vowed that she would not leave Morgana’s side, no matter what happened. She was determined that she would be at Morgana’s bedside, cheeks tear-stained, when Morgana awoke. Maybe she would let Gwen hug her and forget about the space that had opened up between them.
But then Merlin came and he was so sweet and concerned that she let him take over the vigil and, of course, it was then that Morgana woke up.
Four
When Morgana announced that she was coming with them to save Gwen’s brother, Gwen wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss her right there, in front of Arthur because it meant she cared. Morgana cared enough to raise her chin and resolutely disobey the King and Arthur, risking her life. Morgana cared because he was Gwen’s brother, Gwen knew it. There was a chance, no matter how small, that she could get the old Morgana back; the Morgana who got herself thrown into the dungeons because of what the King had done to Gwen’s father; the Morgana who had fought a monster to prove Gwen’s innocence; the Morgana who had kissed her where they could have so easily have gotten caught the night before the battle at Merlin’s village; the Morgana who had taught her to read and write; the Morgana who could only sleep when Gwen was beside her; the Morgana who had promised over and over that she would die for Gwen.
But then Arthur asked Gwen to fetch extra supplies for their journey and the moment was broken. As she left the room, she caught sight of Morgana’s watery eyes watching her as if she had just professed her love for Arthur by obeying his request.
When the door closed behind her, Gwen shed a tear for another chance squandered.
Five
Morgana had magic, of that she was certain. Morgana had set her and Arthur up to get caught, she knew that as well. I hurt like a knife twisting in her gut. Morgana had betrayed her to death after everything they had been through. She planned to confront her, ask her outright what she thought she was doing and beg her to stop. Surely there was somewhere deep down where Morgana still felt something that wasn’t hate or jealousy.
“What are you thinking?” she planned to say - shout - to Morgana. “Just because you have magic doesn’t mean that you have to be the evil that the King believes it to be. Why are you doing this? Do you really feel nothing but hate for me? Do you not remember how we used to be, how good it was? I know you care about me and I’m not ready to believe that you would forsake that, forsake the entire kingdom, your family, all over the poison of a single year apart!”
But she didn’t say it, she never got the chance. Arthur was in trouble and she had to help him. It wasn’t like she was making a decision, she wasn’t choosing sides. Except, she had. She had chosen so many times not to stand with Morgana, chosen not to sit by her sickbed or hold her when she desperately needed it. Without realising it, she had chosen Arthur over and over again.
The end was coming, they could all feel it, and she already knew which side she had chosen. There was nothing she could do to change it now. Her heart had already made the decision for her, even though she knew it would break either way.
Six
Morgana and Morgause were gone, the King was back on the thrown, the people of Camelot were safe and Gwen had betrayed Morgana once again. She had lied and committed treason all so she could escape to aid Arthur. Everything she had done since that first time Arthur had kissed her in her house had been leading up to that moment when Morgana, as wrong as she was in what she was doing, had offered Gwen a chance to fix it all. If she had only chosen Morgana, truly chosen her and not lied, she could have tamed her and made her into a wonderful queen. She had always been able to calm Morgana from her stormy tempers, change her from cold and hard to warm and pliant with the barest of efforts. But she had not been thinking of Morgana or that she could save her, instead all she thought of was Arthur.
After it was over, Gwen spent a week of sleepless nights staring into the darkness, thinking of all the things Morgana had done for her over the years. She thought of how she had turned her back on her the one time that Morgana had needed her. She had been selfish, heartless even, over a crush on the prince, a love that could never be. It was on those nights that she cried for the love she had forsaken so easily when she should have fought for it. It was on those nights that she realised that she could never stop loving Morgana, not matter what she did.
“Your first love is special,” her father had once told her, recalling her mother, “never let it slip away. There is a reason it’s the first.”
What was Arthur, after all? A prince that half the kingdom was in love with. He may be growing wiser and kinder by the day but he was still the centre of his own world. Camelot would always come before her and that would never change. Morgana had sincerely entertained the idea of them running away together so many times, despite what that would mean her giving up. She was full of promises of a life away from Camelot, where they would be equals and there was nothing the King could do to stop them, promises that she meant.
That was why Gwen put on her cloak in the middle of the night and slipped from the city. She followed the winding path into the forest, walking quickly so she could reach her destination before dawn. After an hour or so, she came to a clearing lined on one side with silver birches that shone in the moonlight and a lake on the other that was as still as if it was frozen and as clear as if it was poured from the cups off the royal table. This was the place that she and Morgana had come to when they wanted to escape the watchful eyes off the castle.
“I know that you can hear me and probably see me, Morgana,” Gwen said clearly in the still night. “I’m alone. I want to see you.”
A branch snapped behind her and Gwen whirled around to see Morgana dressed in deep blue, hand resting on the tree she had once kissed Gwen against. “Why could you possibly want to see me?” the sorceress asked, bitter. “Isn’t Arthur’s bed cold with you playing in the woods?”
“Shut up,” Gwen said sharply. “I’m not here to talk about him.”
Morgana raised an eyebrow at that. “No? Then why are you here? Haven’t you had enough of playing Brutus?” Her accent was intentionally heavy. She knew it sent shivers down Gwen’s spine
“And you are Caesar in this analogy?” Gwen asked. “Really, you think that reflects well on you? It does fit though.”
“If you’re just here to trade insults...” Morgana began, turning to leave.
“No! Wait!” Gwen pleaded, stepping forward. “I want to talk.”
Morgana sighed and turned back to the clearing. “Talk about what?”
“About us. About what went wrong,” Gwen said softly. Morgana’s sigh had tugged at her heartstrings, just as it always had.
“I’ll give you a clue, shall I? It was around the time you started sleeping with my brother,” Morgana bit, growing angrier by the second.
“I haven’t slept with him,” Gwen said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? Even a prince’s child born out of marriage is a bastard.”
“What am I then? What is a king’s daughter born out of wedlock?” Morgana countered, her ire flaring. “It’s so very Christian to reject someone as unworthy, as a sinner, from the moment they are born, just because of who they are or what their parents did. Don’t tell me actually agree with all of that stupidity?”
“I don’t reject it as you do,” Gwen admitted.
“And what about you? What do you think Uther’s God thinks of you if he truly does see and know everything?” Morgana demanded. “Or does that not count?”
“Of course it counts,” Gwen said, exasperated.
“Then surely you are as condemned as I am,” Morgana said, stepping from the tree line into the light of the clearing. “In fact, if I remember rightly, you were the one who led me astray. I was barely sixteen and you had already had your eighteenth birthday.”
“Because you were such an innocent sixteen year old,” Gwen said sarcastically, though her body had gone cold. It was true, Morgana was young and it had been her who had instigated the first kiss.
Making a noise of annoyance, Morgana strode towards Gwen, only stopping when she was inches away. “Poor little Gwen. I gave you everything but that wasn’t enough. Why settle for the King’s ward when you can have the crown prince.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Gwen promised.
“Then what was it like? What exactly made it okay for you to abandon me like a worn out toy?” Morgana retorted. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and she blinked furiously to banish them back inside.
“It wasn’t okay,” Gwen confessed. “It wasn’t okay and all of this is my fault. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? That’s the truth.”
“Then why did you do it?” Morgana screamed, her lip trembling and the tears she had fought to contain flooding down her cheeks.
“I don’t know!” Gwen shouted, wiping away her own tears roughly with the back of her hand. “I made a mistake.”
Morgana looked at her, anger and confusion mixing to make her look almost vulnerable. “Why are you here Gwen? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I’m a fool. Because I love you despite everything you did - I still love you. I can’t stop thinking about you and how much you must have been hurting to... To do all you did. I want to make it right, Morgana. I’m here because I choose you. After everything, I choose you!” Gwen pleaded, arms hanging limp at her side.
“You’d never leave Camelot,” Morgana dismissed. “You’d never leave your prince.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Gwen pledged. “I’m turning my back on all of it because I want you, I love you.”
Morgana scoffed. “You think that you can change me, that you can make me into the woman I was before I met Morgause?”
“No,” Gwen said resolutely. “I know I can.”
“It’d be treason.”
“It already is,” Gwen sighed and with that she grasped Morgana by her shoulders and kissed her like the world was burning around them.
She could save Morgana, she could. And more than that, she wanted to.
Thank you to everyone who reads and comments.
Never in her life had Gwen felt as nervous as she did the, standing in the middle of her mistress’ chambers. Her breath came in ragged gasps and her hands wringed in front of her of their own accord. Every day for a year she prayed to God to keep Morgana safe, prayed for her return, to see her again. Now that her prayers were coming true, she almost wished they weren’t.
Memories of the closeness she had developed with Arthur over the year - even before that - came unbidden to the front of her mind, feeding the guilt that bubbled dark and fierce under her skin. It would kill Morgana if she ever found out, but keeping quiet would be an even greater betrayal that Gwen would never be free from.
She contemplated just running, fleeing the room and putting off their reunion for as long as she could... but it was too late. There were footsteps in the hall and the door was opening.
“Ah, Gwen, would you be so kind as to make Morgana comfortable whilst I retrieve a bottle of her draught?” Gaius said cheerfully, appearing in the doorway with his arms on Morgana’s shoulders, guiding her into the room.
Gwen opened her mouth but nothing came out. There she was, after all that time, standing in the doorway looking... “Of course.”
Gaius smiled, nodding at Gwen. “Good. Well, I’ll leave you two to your reunion.”
And just like that, they were left alone.
What Gwen should have done - what she wanted desperately to do - was to run across the room and hug Morgana so tightly that neither of them could breathe. But guilt kept her rooted to the spot and the cold of Morgana’s long unoccupied chambers overwhelmed her, making her shiver.
Looking back on it, she couldn’t help but wonder if she could have stopped all that was to come right then and there. If she had greeted Morgana with even a quarter of the love, relief and desperation that Morgana had greeted her with when she had been kidnapped, she might have been able to melt her heart.
Instead, she saw Morgana’s eyes fill with hurt as she stood alone in the doorway, her heart breaking into a million pieces.
Without knowing it, Gwen had just condemned the entire kingdom.
Two
It should have been a wakeup call. Seeing her unconscious and bleeding after the siege should have jarred Gwen through the barrier that had risen between them. But it didn’t.
She stood by and watched as Gaius dabbed the blood from Morgana’s forehead, a job that should have been hers. A year ago, she would have sat on the bed and watched for every single breath until Morgana awoke, afraid that each one would be her last. Now though, now she just prayed that Gaius wouldn’t leave them alone.
If she had been there, eyes pinched with worry, hand twined with Morgana’s when she woke up, things might have gone differently. But when Morgana’s bright eyes opened, Gwen wasn’t even in the room.
Three
She got her wakeup call a month later when once again Morgana was injured, this time far more gravely. Seeing her gorgeous cream skin turn cold and grey sent shocks through Gwen’s body and the tears that she had been holding back since Morgana returned, spilled over with the force of a mighty river swelling and breaking its banks. How could she have let it happen? How could she have left Morgana without something she needed so badly that she would venture out in the night to find it? For a moment she entertained the thought that maybe Morgana had been coming to see her as she used to. There were nights when Morgana would appear at her door with a mischievous smile and a jug of wine she had lifted from the kitchens but those nights seemed a very long time ago, much longer than the year and a half it had been.
“What happened to us?” Gwen murmured, brushing a lock of hair back from Morgana’s pallid forehead. “When did it all go wrong?” She knew where it had gone wrong. It was her fault. If she and Arthur had never... That was what was driving them apart but she couldn’t stop it. Somewhere along the line, she had began to treat Arthur as if her were more important to her than Morgana was and that was the ultimate betrayal.
This time she vowed that she would not leave Morgana’s side, no matter what happened. She was determined that she would be at Morgana’s bedside, cheeks tear-stained, when Morgana awoke. Maybe she would let Gwen hug her and forget about the space that had opened up between them.
But then Merlin came and he was so sweet and concerned that she let him take over the vigil and, of course, it was then that Morgana woke up.
Four
When Morgana announced that she was coming with them to save Gwen’s brother, Gwen wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss her right there, in front of Arthur because it meant she cared. Morgana cared enough to raise her chin and resolutely disobey the King and Arthur, risking her life. Morgana cared because he was Gwen’s brother, Gwen knew it. There was a chance, no matter how small, that she could get the old Morgana back; the Morgana who got herself thrown into the dungeons because of what the King had done to Gwen’s father; the Morgana who had fought a monster to prove Gwen’s innocence; the Morgana who had kissed her where they could have so easily have gotten caught the night before the battle at Merlin’s village; the Morgana who had taught her to read and write; the Morgana who could only sleep when Gwen was beside her; the Morgana who had promised over and over that she would die for Gwen.
But then Arthur asked Gwen to fetch extra supplies for their journey and the moment was broken. As she left the room, she caught sight of Morgana’s watery eyes watching her as if she had just professed her love for Arthur by obeying his request.
When the door closed behind her, Gwen shed a tear for another chance squandered.
Five
Morgana had magic, of that she was certain. Morgana had set her and Arthur up to get caught, she knew that as well. I hurt like a knife twisting in her gut. Morgana had betrayed her to death after everything they had been through. She planned to confront her, ask her outright what she thought she was doing and beg her to stop. Surely there was somewhere deep down where Morgana still felt something that wasn’t hate or jealousy.
“What are you thinking?” she planned to say - shout - to Morgana. “Just because you have magic doesn’t mean that you have to be the evil that the King believes it to be. Why are you doing this? Do you really feel nothing but hate for me? Do you not remember how we used to be, how good it was? I know you care about me and I’m not ready to believe that you would forsake that, forsake the entire kingdom, your family, all over the poison of a single year apart!”
But she didn’t say it, she never got the chance. Arthur was in trouble and she had to help him. It wasn’t like she was making a decision, she wasn’t choosing sides. Except, she had. She had chosen so many times not to stand with Morgana, chosen not to sit by her sickbed or hold her when she desperately needed it. Without realising it, she had chosen Arthur over and over again.
The end was coming, they could all feel it, and she already knew which side she had chosen. There was nothing she could do to change it now. Her heart had already made the decision for her, even though she knew it would break either way.
Six
Morgana and Morgause were gone, the King was back on the thrown, the people of Camelot were safe and Gwen had betrayed Morgana once again. She had lied and committed treason all so she could escape to aid Arthur. Everything she had done since that first time Arthur had kissed her in her house had been leading up to that moment when Morgana, as wrong as she was in what she was doing, had offered Gwen a chance to fix it all. If she had only chosen Morgana, truly chosen her and not lied, she could have tamed her and made her into a wonderful queen. She had always been able to calm Morgana from her stormy tempers, change her from cold and hard to warm and pliant with the barest of efforts. But she had not been thinking of Morgana or that she could save her, instead all she thought of was Arthur.
After it was over, Gwen spent a week of sleepless nights staring into the darkness, thinking of all the things Morgana had done for her over the years. She thought of how she had turned her back on her the one time that Morgana had needed her. She had been selfish, heartless even, over a crush on the prince, a love that could never be. It was on those nights that she cried for the love she had forsaken so easily when she should have fought for it. It was on those nights that she realised that she could never stop loving Morgana, not matter what she did.
“Your first love is special,” her father had once told her, recalling her mother, “never let it slip away. There is a reason it’s the first.”
What was Arthur, after all? A prince that half the kingdom was in love with. He may be growing wiser and kinder by the day but he was still the centre of his own world. Camelot would always come before her and that would never change. Morgana had sincerely entertained the idea of them running away together so many times, despite what that would mean her giving up. She was full of promises of a life away from Camelot, where they would be equals and there was nothing the King could do to stop them, promises that she meant.
That was why Gwen put on her cloak in the middle of the night and slipped from the city. She followed the winding path into the forest, walking quickly so she could reach her destination before dawn. After an hour or so, she came to a clearing lined on one side with silver birches that shone in the moonlight and a lake on the other that was as still as if it was frozen and as clear as if it was poured from the cups off the royal table. This was the place that she and Morgana had come to when they wanted to escape the watchful eyes off the castle.
“I know that you can hear me and probably see me, Morgana,” Gwen said clearly in the still night. “I’m alone. I want to see you.”
A branch snapped behind her and Gwen whirled around to see Morgana dressed in deep blue, hand resting on the tree she had once kissed Gwen against. “Why could you possibly want to see me?” the sorceress asked, bitter. “Isn’t Arthur’s bed cold with you playing in the woods?”
“Shut up,” Gwen said sharply. “I’m not here to talk about him.”
Morgana raised an eyebrow at that. “No? Then why are you here? Haven’t you had enough of playing Brutus?” Her accent was intentionally heavy. She knew it sent shivers down Gwen’s spine
“And you are Caesar in this analogy?” Gwen asked. “Really, you think that reflects well on you? It does fit though.”
“If you’re just here to trade insults...” Morgana began, turning to leave.
“No! Wait!” Gwen pleaded, stepping forward. “I want to talk.”
Morgana sighed and turned back to the clearing. “Talk about what?”
“About us. About what went wrong,” Gwen said softly. Morgana’s sigh had tugged at her heartstrings, just as it always had.
“I’ll give you a clue, shall I? It was around the time you started sleeping with my brother,” Morgana bit, growing angrier by the second.
“I haven’t slept with him,” Gwen said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? Even a prince’s child born out of marriage is a bastard.”
“What am I then? What is a king’s daughter born out of wedlock?” Morgana countered, her ire flaring. “It’s so very Christian to reject someone as unworthy, as a sinner, from the moment they are born, just because of who they are or what their parents did. Don’t tell me actually agree with all of that stupidity?”
“I don’t reject it as you do,” Gwen admitted.
“And what about you? What do you think Uther’s God thinks of you if he truly does see and know everything?” Morgana demanded. “Or does that not count?”
“Of course it counts,” Gwen said, exasperated.
“Then surely you are as condemned as I am,” Morgana said, stepping from the tree line into the light of the clearing. “In fact, if I remember rightly, you were the one who led me astray. I was barely sixteen and you had already had your eighteenth birthday.”
“Because you were such an innocent sixteen year old,” Gwen said sarcastically, though her body had gone cold. It was true, Morgana was young and it had been her who had instigated the first kiss.
Making a noise of annoyance, Morgana strode towards Gwen, only stopping when she was inches away. “Poor little Gwen. I gave you everything but that wasn’t enough. Why settle for the King’s ward when you can have the crown prince.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Gwen promised.
“Then what was it like? What exactly made it okay for you to abandon me like a worn out toy?” Morgana retorted. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and she blinked furiously to banish them back inside.
“It wasn’t okay,” Gwen confessed. “It wasn’t okay and all of this is my fault. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? That’s the truth.”
“Then why did you do it?” Morgana screamed, her lip trembling and the tears she had fought to contain flooding down her cheeks.
“I don’t know!” Gwen shouted, wiping away her own tears roughly with the back of her hand. “I made a mistake.”
Morgana looked at her, anger and confusion mixing to make her look almost vulnerable. “Why are you here Gwen? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because I’m a fool. Because I love you despite everything you did - I still love you. I can’t stop thinking about you and how much you must have been hurting to... To do all you did. I want to make it right, Morgana. I’m here because I choose you. After everything, I choose you!” Gwen pleaded, arms hanging limp at her side.
“You’d never leave Camelot,” Morgana dismissed. “You’d never leave your prince.”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Gwen pledged. “I’m turning my back on all of it because I want you, I love you.”
Morgana scoffed. “You think that you can change me, that you can make me into the woman I was before I met Morgause?”
“No,” Gwen said resolutely. “I know I can.”
“It’d be treason.”
“It already is,” Gwen sighed and with that she grasped Morgana by her shoulders and kissed her like the world was burning around them.
She could save Morgana, she could. And more than that, she wanted to.
Thank you to everyone who reads and comments.