Fic: Things That Can't Be
Title: Things That Can’t Be
Characters/Pairing: Gwen/Arthur, Gwen/Lancelot, Merlin.
Rating: G
Word Count: 574
Spoilers: Everything up to 204
Disclaimer: Don’t own it.
Summary: My own take on Gwen’s reaction to Lancelot leaving.
A/N: I hate writing short introspective character pieces because I’m awful at them. Yet here I am, having written one; Merlin what are you doing to me? Feedback would be loved, as always. Be kind.
“He said that some things can’t be.”
Yes, some things couldn’t. And they were standing across the camp staring at her with unbearable sympathy in their eyes and she had to turn her back. It was too much, it was far too much, and she swallowed tightly as the truth came rushing out and ruptured over her.
Lancelot and Gwen - they could have been. An easy freedom had flowed between them, if only for a few grasped moments. The freedom to hold and speak and share affection touching and appealing in a way she could never imagine. That she forced herself to stop imagining with him.
Her arms hung weakly at her sides and her body bucked. The cruelty of having two men promise their affections in lingering glances and touches only to be denied both whispered bitterly at her as she saw her story stretch ahead. Her eyes began to sting and the loss of a future that could have stretched into many happy sunsets slammed into her- a future that would have been so easy to grasp, as so little else was.
And still, agonizingly still. The bereavement that wasn’t really one at all. It settled on top of her, brewing heavily as rainclouds, crawled from below her anguish and sung in the rustling wave of the leaves and last crackling embers of the fire. It was what had driven every action, had coursed through every glance and what still now blistered beneath her very skin; the keener scouring loss of everything she could never have with him, the man she knew was still watching her, the man that could not be hers even if he wished it.
It returned stronger than ever in that moment as she stood bowed; worn down, tired of bending and bruising, tired of being left behind by those close to her. Lancelot the last and most cruel - “No” - leaving her here in this silent, unfriendly forest, eyes clenched and a sudden longing only for the simple comfort of her old dress and the hum of her father at work. She was a ridiculous figure now; Morgana’s tattered robes draped over her, her chest rising and falling without control and the worried sighs of Merlin hitting her back.
And despite it all she waited, unsteady and drained, to hear his voice.
“We have a long walk ahead of us.”
A shaky breath escaped her, and her head nodded; a serving girl’s acceptance. It was time to move on, time to wipe up her eyes and turn with her head held, ignoring a man whose simple words, no more than an instruction, should mean nothing to her.
It was time to go home.
Only just like her mistress’ robes, she was returning a little frayed.
...
She watched his figure sway, the manner in which his shoulders gently pitched up and down as he cantered ahead to meet the guards, the prince returning to Camelot.
Walking at her side Merlin cleared his throat and stared straight ahead.
“He lied you know.”
She blinked wearily; her fingers cracked, her eyes sore, her knees aching.
She knew.
She wished she didn’t.
...
“I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“I didn’t even know I could- feel this way, about someone.”
Gwen grasped at the fingers offered to her and let words like else and after and instead fall to the ground. They didn’t have anywhere else to go.
.